Court Opinion

ID: 9737793
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 19:34:35.288789+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:23:59.882140
License: Public Domain

SIMONETT, Justice
(concurring).
I join the court’s opinion. Because this is the first occasion where our court has considered its liberty of conscience clause in any detail, aside from the plurality opinion in State v. French, 460 N.W.2d 2 (Minn.1990), I should like to add an observation or two.
Article I, Section 16 of our constitution appears to have originated from quite similar clauses in the early constitutions of states along the eastern seaboard, such as New York’s Constitution of 1777.1 This is not surprising. The people here in 1857 were relatively few and mostly came from elsewhere.2 Part of the Minnesota Territory was included in the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 which had been drafted by the Continental Congress, and which ordained that “[n]o person demeaning himself in a peaceable and orderly manner shall ever be molested on account of his mode of worship, or religious sentiments in the said territories.” 3
Section 16 reads in part:
The right of every man to worship God according to the dictates of his own con*400science shall never be infringed * * * nor shall any control or interference with the rights of conscience be permitted * * *.
Arguably, Section 16 protects only expressions of belief and opinion and is no more than a free speech clause. There is no mention in the foregoing clause of religious practices or the free exercise of religion. Section 16 speaks, however, of the right “to worship God” according to the dictates of one’s conscience; and the words “to worship,” if read within their historical context, surely must mean the practice of one’s religion. See M. McConnell, The Origins and Historical Understanding of Free Exercise of Religion, 103 Harv.L.Rev. 1409, 1459 (1990).4 In other words, our state constitution protects a person’s right to the free exercise of religion according to the dictates of his or her conscience, and that right is not to be infringed upon by the state.
After stating that no preference is to be given by law to any religious establishment or mode of worship, Section 16 goes on,
[B]ut the liberty of conscience hereby secured shall not be so construed as to excuse acts of licentiousness or justify practices inconsistent with the peace or safety of the state * * *.
This “peace or safety” provision also appears in various formulations in some of the older state constitutions,5 even though the framers of the federal constitution did not use it. The provision is significant. It indicates clearly that a valid secular law which is neutral towards religion in its general application is, nevertheless, not necessarily exempt from the liberty of conscience clause. Thus, rather than a grant of individual freedom, I would read our liberty of conscience clause as an enumeration of a primordial right and a limitation on the power of the state; there was no need to grant affirmatively in the constitution what the people already understood that they had. Accord State v. District Board of School Dist. No. 8, 76 Wis. 177, 210-11, 44 N.W. 967, 978 (1890) (Cassoday, J., concurring).
As the court’s opinion states, our “peace and safety” clause invites the traditional First Amendment balancing test to reconcile public safety on the highways with Amish religious practices. (Maj. op. at 397.) It seems to me, too, that Section 16’s emphasis on “the dictates of [one’s] own conscience” is consistent with a “sincerely held religious belief,” as the United States Supreme Court has employed that phrase in construing the First Amendment; indeed, if anything, the Section 16 language is more emphatic.
There is much to be said in construing Section 16 in harmony with the nation’s First Amendment whenever that is possible and appropriate.6 Our decision today, it seems to me, says no more than that a secular law of general application is not exempt, as it is under the First Amendment when no other constitutional rights are involved, from examination under our liberty of conscience clause.

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[T]he free exercise and enjoyment of religious profession and worship, without discrimination or preference, shall forever hereafter be allowed, within this State, to all mankind: Provided, That the liberty of conscience, hereby granted, shall not be so construed as to excuse acts of licentiousness, or justify practices inconsistent with the peace or safety of this State.
N.Y. Const. of 1777, art. XXXVIII.

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But in each State the people who make the constitution have lately come from other States, where they have lived under and worked constitutions which are to their eyes the natural and almost necessary model for their new State to follow; and in the absence of an inventive spirit among the citizens, it was the obvious course for the newer States to copy the organization of the older States, especially as these agreed with certain familiar features of the Federal Constitution.
J. Bryce, The American Commonwealth, Vol. I, p. 403 (1891). In this book the author devotes considerable space to an examination of state constitutions.
Writing in 1891, James Bryce, a visitor to the United States, observed, "There is not a country in the world where Frederick the Great’s principle, that everyone should be allowed to go to heaven in his own way, is so fully applied." Id., Vol. II, p. 680.

.Northwest Ordinance of 1787, art. I.

. The fact that the "peace or safety” clause at the end of Section 16 refers to "practices” reinforces the interpretation of our liberty of conscience clause to apply to religious practices.

. See, for example, footnote 1, supra. See also M. McConnell, The Origins and Historical Understanding of Free Exercise of Religion, 103 Harv.L.Rev. 1409, 1462 (1990). Interestingly, the "peace or safety” clause does not appear in the constitution of our sister state, Wisconsin.

.Notwithstanding the dissimilarities of conditions in the various states, James Bryce noted various forces working towards uniformity, namely, the artificiality of state boundaries, the constant movement of the population, the influence of railroad communications, and the same political parties in each state. J. Bryce, ibid., Vol. II, pp. 402-04. These factors, joined by others, have, in the past 100 years, continued even more strongly to shape the national character of Americans.