Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1888-02-11
NOT A QUESTION OF CONSCIENCE.

NOT a QUESTION OF CONSCIENCE.
MIR. George Ticknor Curtis replies at
great length in the Washington Post to
Senator Dawes article in the Forum on
the admission of Utah. He makes but
a weak assault when he challenges the
Senator as occupying prejudging position,
by declaring in advance against the Nor
mon Constitution. But Mr. Dawes is not
sitting in judicial attitude As a Sen
ator, he is at liberty to make up his mind
upon any question of proposed legislation
in advance of its presentation. This is
not only the right, but very often the duty
of legislator. Indeed few are sent to
legislative halls by the people until their
views on leading topics of public concern
are made known. Mr.. Curtis assails the
demand that the people of Utah shall sim
cerely abandon polygamy, as a condition
precedent to admission of the Territory, as
intolerant and dangerous. He says:
But it is the religious belief of the MormonF,
ay, their belief, that must be changed before
civil privilege can be accorded to them. Here
is what the Senator meant as the sting They
must renounce their religious belief that plural
marriage is or can be in the sight of God limo
cent and holy. This is the very danger to which
the Congress of the United States is exposed
the danger OF requiring the remuneration OF q
religious belief as the price of a civil privilege
1t Is plausible and specious requirement, but
II cannot be made without entering the domain
and involving the rights of concience. Are we
never to learn anything from the lessons of
history? The civil disabilities under which the
Roman Catholics were so long held in England
might be warning to us. For at least two
centuries they were as good subjects as the
crown OF England ever had in vain were they
good suhlects-in vain did they fight in the
army and navy and carry the honor OF the Brit
lsh nag into every part of the world. They pro-
fessed an obnoxious and hated religion and
therefore they were not allowed to sit in Parlia-
ment or mold any civil Office and whoever
made proselyte to the Church of Rome from
the church of England or any Protestant sect
was guilty of high treason. 1t was not until
the Catholic claims" were extOrted from a
Tory Minister and reluctant Sovereign that
me CathOlc disabilities were removed, and
TINS was done within the present century. Here
III the United States an ingenious man might
easily make an argument to show that the peo-
pie who accept every article of the Roman faith
cannot be good citizens. There are persons who
THINK SO. But fancy that if it We're proposed
TO base legislation or public action of any kind
on that assumption, we should hear thunder all
around the political horizon that might perhaps
be loud enough to deter the preparation of
such folly.
This argument is not even ingenious
The parallel Mr. Curtis attempts is i'll
drawn; the Mormons are not asked to re-
nounce belief but a practice Neither
Senator Dawes nor any one else has de-
manded that they shall abandon a consci-
entious belief. They can believe what
they please, but it is insisted that they
shall not practice that which is offensive
to and dramatically opposed to our social
system. There are those who believe in
human sacrifice, but we punish them as
murderers. There are those whose religi-
Gus belief pits them against matrimony
and commits them to promiscuity in the
relation of the sexes, but the law none
the less bears heavily upon the followers.
But, says Mr.. Curtis, when the Nor
mons by civil act make polygamy an
offense it is of no consequence whether
they are consistent or inconsistent in so
doing, with their religious belief. That
may be admitted, but we have a right to
fathom the alleged sincerity of the civil
act, and if we find, as we do, that it is so
underlaid with deceit as to be easily rem
dered ineffective as a means to put stop
to a social practice obnoxious to our civil
izatiOn, we are justified in refusing to ac-
cept the act as sufficient guarantee. The
civil disabilities under which English
were intolerantly placed, find no
parallel in the case of the Utah Mormons.
for there is visited upon them no punish
ment for the entertainment of belief
Rev DR.. Philip Schaf, in his recent ex-
haustive paper for the American Histori- |
cal Association, puts the whole question in !
4 nutshell when he declares that civil |
liberty requires for its support religious
liberty, and cannot prosper without it. |
And this latter "is freedom in religion, |
not freedom from religion; as true civil |
liberty is freedom in law, not freedom
from law" And he ADDS that the rela-
tionship between Church and State in the |
United States secures full liberty of relig- |
ious thought, speech and action within the
limits of public peace and order, and makes
persecution impossible. Now, as polyga- |
nous Mormonism in practice is abnormal |
and irreconcilable with the genius of Amer
lean institutions, and as it identifies poll
ties and religion, it is clear that no admis- |
sion Of the Territory can be permitted |
until the practice referred to is utterly |
abandoned without endangering the Amer
lean principal. As DIR. Schaf puts it :
" The General Government cannot attack |
the religion of the Mormons, as a religion,
but it can forbid polygamy as a social in
stitution inconsistent with our western
All that Senator Dawes con-
tends for, and which Mr.. Curtis, who is |
making such a struggle for the admission
Of the Territory, refuses to agree to, is
guarantees in the organic law that prac-
tiCe Cohuehucu ny lie Ia" sIldI hot pe
recognized under the guise of a form of
worship, nor be so lightly prohib-
tied that the prohibition can be easily
avoided. In short, the Utah question is
not one of conscience at all, but of social
policy.
EDUCATING AMERICANS,
I'll. " VII o., ~ 4 J.t: :.