Get your own Free Home PageThis is not called a Protestant country because religion, in the Protestant sense, is established by law, or has and protection given to it which is not equally extended to all other forms of religion-Roman Catholic, Jewish, Mohammedan, Brahminical, Greek, or Chinese. No such preference could it conferred by law under our system nf government; for would so essentially and flagrantly violate its fundamental principles that it would be instantaneously destroyed. By these principles, upon which the whole superstructure has been reared, every citizen - no matter whether native-born or naturalized-is fully and equally protected in the personal and individual right to maintain private or public whatsoever religious faith, and to practice whatsoever form of religious worship, his own conscience shall approve, no matter what degree of absurdity it may involve. No reasonable man should desire a higher degree, of religious liberty than this. It gives to our form of government a distinguishing characteristic, found nowhere else in so eminent a degree, until the people of the United States entered upon the experiment of self government. It stamps our institutions with their Protestant character, and distinguishes them in a conspicuous degree, from such as have existed in those countries known as Roman Catholic, where no such experiment has been tried.
No intelligent reader needs to be told that the religious controversies of Europe gave rise to the term "Protestant." In its original application to those controversies it had a distinct religious meaning -as at the Diet of Spires, in 1529. But as they were of long continuance - through and subsequent to the great Reformation of the sixteenth century - and Protestants were compelled to concert some measures of escape from the oppression and persecutions which arose out of the union of Church and State, and the consequent claim of the "divine right" of kings to govern the world, it acquired, in the course of time, a different and more comprehensive signification. Protestant Christianity was understood to involve the right to protest against the corruptions and exactions of the Roman Catholic Church, to withdraw from communion with it, and to worship God in other forms than those prescribed by its discipline. It encountered, therefore, from that Church and its ecclesiastical authorities - then almost supreme over the Christian world - such opposition as it found itself without power to resist, unless it could find shelter, shmewhere, under the protection of law. This was obtained, to some extent, after severe and protracted struggles, under the laws of Great Britain, Germany, and Holland; and yet, even in those comparatively free countires, thought had many difficulties and impediments to overcome before it could acquire perfect freedom. Its only formidable adversary, during all its struggles, was the papacy, which was ever ready to plunge the pontifical sword to the heart of its victims.
The original emigrants to the United States brought with them from Europe the principles of Protestantism, mingled somewhat with the less liberalizing principles of Romanism; and, although for a while the effects of the habits of thought they had thus acquired were exhibited in the practice of religious intolerance, they united, in the end, in the creation of a government entirely freed from this taint. They gave up their intolerance in order to secure the perfect triumph of Protestantism, in its most comprehensive sense; and when our National and State governments were organized with the principle of toleration at their foundation, our civil institutions, became also, necessarily, Protestant in form; because they contain the amplest guarantees for both religious and civil freedom.
The idea conveyed by the common expression "the Protestant religion" is generally misunderstood. Religion signifies a "system of faith and worship;" true or false according to the stand-point from which it is considered. To us the Christian religion is true, while those of the Hindoos Chinese, and Turks are false. Nevertheless, the systems of faith and worship which prevail among the Hindoos, Chinese, and Turks are only so many forms of religion. Protestantism is not a religion in the is sense, for it recognizes no system of faith and worship to the exclusion of others. It is only another form of Christianity, distinct from those which existed in the world before its origin. It is altogether proper, when speaking of the Church of England, to say the "Protestant Episcopal Church," because, at its organization, after the Reformation, it assumed an attitude of open antagonism to the Church of Rome by protesting against is errors. But neither that nor any of the other churches which have originated since the Refomation can justly demand to be known as "the Protestant Church." There are a number of Protestant churches, each representing its own form of Protestantism. Taken as a whole, they "may be regarded as different developments of one and the same Protestant principle."(9) Therefore Protestantism, in so far as it has a religious aspect, represents all these churches; that is, Protestant Christianity is liberal and comprehensive enough to embrace them all. It goes even further than this, and recognizes the Roman Catholic Church as a Christian Church, and its religion as only a different form of Christianity from itself.
But Protestantism does not alone include Christianity and religion in these senses; it has other aspects. In its proper signification it embraces "the whole offspring of the Reformation;"(10) that is, all the principles, civil as well as religious, to which the Reformation gave birth. These principles have been at work, upon both individuals and governments, ever since the Reformation, and such has been their influence, that "the countries of the Reformation are the theatre of the greatest work of God which has taken place since the days of the apostles."(11) The leading cause of the Reformation was "a sudden effort made by the human mind to achieve its liberty, a great insurrection of human intelligence."(12) It had to contend, therefore, against every thing which put restraint upon liberty, whether found in Church or State; so that Protestantism, in taking its distinctive form, became the principle out of which all the existing gnarantees of regligious and civil freedom sprung. It saved religion by separating it from the corruptions of the papacy, and thus providing for the world a purer and better form of Christianity; it saved society by breaking the sceptres of kings and popes; and elevating the people to the point of asserting and maintaining their natural right to liberty. Conseqnently Protestantism, by diffusing new thonghts, ideas, and principles, has so influenced individuals, societies, and governments, that now, in the nineteenth century, its results are seen in all the civil and religious institutions existing among Christian peoples. Wherever there are freedom of thought, freedom of speech, and freedom of the press, they are exclusively of Protestant origin and growth. These involve no religious sentiments, but are mere civil rights. Yet they are rights which are included in Protestantism; because if it were destoyed, they would be also. And thus the term "Protestantism" has a twofold signification, embracing whatsoever has grown out of the Reformation, in both Church and State. So it is regarded by the most distinguished authors who have endeavored to point out the philosophy of the Reformation. Even the Roman Catholic Archbishop Spalding, who presided over the Baltimore Council, has entitled his greatest work "The History of the Protestant Reformation" and has devoted it to the discussion of the influence of Protestantism on socicty, on civil liberty, on literature, and on civilization, as well as on doctrinal belief, morals, and religious worship. He who does not comprehend Protestantism in all these aspects fails to comprehend its real meaning, and will have poor conceptions of the differences between it and Romanism. If there were but a single difference-consisting merely in matters of religious faith-the field of controversy between them would be greatly narrowed, and would be occupied alone by the theologians. But they are, in fact, two opposing systems, as stated by the Baltimore Council; and this opposition is no less in government than religion.
In the formation of their National and State constitutions the Ameriean people designed to embody the means of preserving to themselves and their posterity all those fruits of the Reformation which are represented by Protestantism: They intendod to give fuller development to its principles, and surer guarantees for their preservation, than they had before received. Hence, when we speak of this as a Protestant country; of our institutions as Protestant, and of onr selves as a Protestant people, we should be understood as conveying the idea that in the affairs of both Church and, State we have chosen to abandon the old papal system, and to establiah one more in harmony with the genius of our people, because it gives the best guarantee ever yet afforded to a the world for perpetuating those great principles of the Reformation, by means of which the minds of men became free, and the shackles of civil tyranny were stricken from their limbs. Whether mankind have lost or gained, or whether the world has moved backward or forward, under the influence of the institutions we have thus formed, are questions which, with us, need no discussion. We, at all events, cherish the belief, and teach it to our children, that under no other form of civil institutions found in the world are mankind so well protected in every just and proper right, or made so capable of advancing their own happiness and prosperity, as they are under ours. We confidently, and somewhat proudly, assert for our Protestant principles by government a superiority over those of the monarchical form; and congratulate ourselves that mankind are gradually coming to the realization of the idea that only by means of them can civil and~ religious liberty be fully secured and preserved.
Are we right or wrong in cherishing these opinions? in supposing that freedom is preferable to bondage? in maintaining that a government of the people is better than that of an emperor or a king, or a pope, or an ecclesiastical hierarchy? and that no privileged classes are born in to the world ready "booted and spurred" to govern and debase mankind by divine right?"
Other governments, besides ours, have been founded on the popular will-on the right of the people, as the source of civil power, to prescribe their own form of institutions. Before the Christian era, the Romans and the Spartans recognized the efficacy of the doctrine that "the safety of the people is the supreme law;" but they were unable to secure its establishment, as a distinctive and permanent feature of their governments, because they failed to cultivate that sense of personality out of which grow the virtue and intelligence necessary for the support of popular institutions. Unfortunate, however, as their failure was for the world, the avowal of the principle gave rise to influences which were never entirely destroyed. The idea of government upon which they unsuccessfully experimented struggled along through suceeeding centuries-even through the Middle Ages-awaiting a favorable opportunity for ultimate and complete development. It has always had many able and zealous defenders in the countries considered the most enlightened; but they have been kept, down by the governing classes, and employed the conbined authority of State and Church to intimidate and subdue them. This combined influence was, for a long time, sufficient to hush almost every murmur of complaint against misgovernment; except among the few who dared to defy it, at the hazard of their lives. Now and then one of these intrepid spirits appeared, and flung his censures into the very teeth of royalty; and if he paid for his boldness by the forfeit of his life, other's of like courage arose to take his place; and thus the line of patriotic succession was kept unbroken. They were few in number, but enough of them to keep; the fires of liberty aflame, so that they might flash in the eyes of royalty. The world would, centuries ago, have been turned over entirely to cruel and exacting task-masters, and sunk into utter political darkness, but for the bravery of these defenders of popular freedom. Comprehending the true philosophy of government, they maintained that every man in a free state ought to be concerned in his own government, and that the legislative power should reside in the whole body of the people,(13) to be exercised by representatives responsible to them; and that, in order to support and preserve this theory of government, each individual should be allowed to speak his own thoughts, employ his own reason, and consult his own conscience in reference to all matters concerning his duty to God. The great difficulty which so long lay in the way of impressing these sentiments and principles upon the governments of Europe, grew out of the compact and unbroken union of State and Church-a union which found its only means of preservation in the denial and in the violent and forcible suppression of every kind of popular and political freedom. The antagonism between these opposing principles was too irreconcilable for compromise, and the stronger party prevailed over the weaker, the kings and popes over the people. But the framers of our institutions escaped this antagonism only by the occupancy of a new and remote continent, and, therefore, were perfectly free, without any immediate fear of it, to make the principle so happily expressed by Montesquieu the basis of their political action and organization. In the Declaration of Independence they asserted it, bp declaring that, in order to secure "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," it was necessary that governments should derive "their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever an form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute a new govarnment, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness."
This act of independence is esteemed to be one of the great events in history, and has commanded the admiration of a very large portion of the civilized world. It did not create a government, but asserted the right of the people, as distinct from that of kings and princes-whether of State or Church, or of high or low degree-to establish and maintain one of such form and structure as, in their opinion, was most conducive to their own "safety and happiness." Those who assail this great principle-whether they be native-born or adopted citizens-deny the wisdom and impeach the integrity of the founders of the Republic. They aim their blows at the central column upon which our rational edifice has rested for nearly a century, in the face of opposition from all the allies of monarchy. Has the time come when this edifice shall be permitted to fall, or these blows be continued with impunity? They know but little of the temper of our people who suppose that they may not be pressed too far upon a question of such vital importance. Within its proper sphere they have assigned to each department of their government its own appropriate functions in making, interpreting, and executing the laws. Above and beyond, and higher than all these, they have retained the sovereign power in their own hands. They will allow their reason to be appealed to in favor of new laws, and the change or abrogation of old ones, without any exhibition of intolerance on account of differences of opinion. They live, and their intelligence and patriotism are increased, in the atmosphere of free discussion. But when the effort is seriously made to snatch this sovereign power from them; to dwarf them into inferiorty before a foreign potentate; to exact from them obedience to laws enacted without their consent; to erect an ecclesiastical tribunal in the midst of them, answerable only to laws of the Roman curia; and to surrender up the inestimable privilege of self-government; then toleration ceases to be a virtue and becomes a crime. If the people of the United States, in the progress of their history, have demonstrated any thing, it is that such institutions as require the least degree of force and coercion are best adapted to improve and elevate mankind. And they who pretend that the proper supremacy of law is inconsistent with such institutions are either ignorant or insincere, and unworthy, in either case, of being intrusted with their managment. No political institutions can be safely given over to the care of those whose principles and sentiments are in antagonism to them. Monarchism can not mingle with the principles of a free republic. Liberty and slavery can not exist together. The people can not govern in their own right, where ecclesiasticism governs in the name of "divine right."
The science of government involves, necessarily, the proper administration of law, as well as the making of law; for so long as mankind remain under the dominion of selfishness and egotiem, law, in some form of restraint, must continue to exist. Christianity and civilization, with all they have done for the world, and all their discoveries, improvements; and elevating infuences, have not yet raised man so high, or made him so near the angels that he can be safely left to the full dominion of his passions. Consequently, governments have no more important problem to solve than that involved in deciding how far to apply the restraints of law and in what manner to apply them,consistently with a proper degree of individual and political liberty. The supporters of those governments where the sovereignty of the people is denied, and where nothing but force is relied on to secure the administration of law, make a great and radical take. They seem incapable of realizing the fact that law can only constitute a just and proper rule of action when it is made responsive to a pre-existing public sentiment; in other words, when it is adapted to the condition of the society to be governed by it. In the absence of this, all laws must remain inoperative and ineffectual, unless force is invoked to compel their execution. When the fundamental laws of a country-that is, those embodied in its civil and political institutions-are thus framed; there must, necessarily, be an entire absence of popuiar liberty. Thus, in a monarchy where the principle of popular representation does not exist, and the people are not consulted about the laws, obedience to them is enforced by some superior power, and fear alone restrains resistance. But in a republic like ours where virtue and intelligence are stimulated by the structure of both government and society, the fundamental laws are not only executed, but preserved, without force, because they have their foundation in the consent of the people. Therefore, under monarchical absolutism, the citizen feels but little sense of personality; while in the freedom of a republic he feels it in so high a degree as to develope his manhood, and cause him to realize the individlial interest he has in continuing the institutions which secure to him both defense and protection.
All mankind derive from nature the right to be free, and whatever restraints are put upon this right by law are only such as the interest and necessities of society require: Those who share in society consent, in return for its protection, to lie governed by such laws. Hence, popular liberty does not proceed from law, is not the result of it. Wherever it is found in written statutes; it,is there because the people have risen up to the point of asserting it against the antagonism of monarchy; of snatching it from the hands of those who deny it to them, and would retain the means of withholding it, by defeating all its civil guarantees. It is the expression of their political faith, the avowal of their determination to exist as a society or a nation freed from all the restraints of arbitrary power. Hence, it is truthfully said that "liberty does not dwell in the palaces of kings." It is equally true that it exists in the heart and conscience of every free man. In this sense, it is a personal and inalienable right which each man must assert for himself. In a broader sense, it belongs to a whole community; and each individual of a community is under the same obligation to assert and maintain it for those who share it with him, as for himself. It thus becomes a political right, requiring combined action to continue its existence. When, as the result of this combined action, political institutions are formed, to provide for its preservation, as in the United States, they, necessarily, exclude all idea of force, and rest upon the "consent of the governed." Sometimes-as in the granting of Magna Charta and other charters by the English crown-governments profess to have conferred liberty. But, viewed properly, this is an absurdity; for to assert that a government has the right to confer or withhold it as it pleases, is to deny its existence under the law of nature. All these are familiar truisms; but it is because they are true, and their truth is recognized in every heart, that they give birth to the "firm and resolute spirit with which the liberal mind is always prepared to resist indignities, and to refer its safety to itself:"
Where the form of government is an absolute monarchy, laws proceed from the sole and independent will of the ruler, whether he be called emperor, king, or pope, and rely wholly on force for their execution. But where the form is replublican, or democratic, as with us, no such force is required, because the obedience of the citizen springs from his own consent. Between these two opposing systems of government, our Revolutionary fathers were obliged to make a selection. That, in choosing the latter they acted wisely and well, every man who is worthy of free citizenship will maintain. Their example has already shorn monarchy of much of its strength, and it is not the time now when absolutism is trembling in the presence of popular representation, to abate our veneration for their memory, or our affection for their work.
Some of the leading nations exist in an intermediate state between these two forms. They have united the representative with the monarchical principle, but only so far as to make some unavoidable concessions to the popular sentiment of liberty, and not far enough to recognize its just and proper measure of influence upon society, or entirely to dispense with the presence of force. These governments have advanced somewhat from a condition of absolutism; some of them less readily and rapidly than others, accordingly as fear of the people has been weaker or stronger in the minds of their despotic rulers.
To trace out and observe the influences produced upon the world by these opposing systems of government, and to understand the nature and extent of their results, furnishes to the thoughtful mind a true conception of the philosophy of history. In the pursuit of such an inquiry, however, the friends of free popular government must not concede to the advocates of absolutism that the times in which we live are suited for additional experiments in the art of governing, in order to decide which form of political institutions is most conducive to human happiness. These experiments have been already and sufficiently made, and all of them combine to prove - what this philosophy of history teaches - that the freer and more popular the government, the happier and more prosperous are the people. In such governments where civil institutions are established for themselves by an intelligent and virtuous people, force is never required to secure the execution of the fundamental laws. Where there is a power superior to the people to prescribe the law, so much force is always necessary that liberty can not exist in its presence.
The people of the United States have nothing to fear or to lose by the closest scrutiny of their institutions, especially in the light of the lessons of history and past experiments in government. The unbiased judgment of the civilized world, in the absence of the fear of coercive authority, will agree with them in the opinion, that the form of government which gives the greatest elevation to society is that in which all the fundamental laws reflect an intelligent popular will. Therefore, we may well regard such a form as central among the governments of the earth, as the sun is the centre of the planetary system. We may extend the figure one step further, without the exhibition of an undue degree of national vanity; for if the light which it sends out over the nations were obscured, it would inevitably lead to the complete triumph of imperialism, as all nature would be darkened if the light of the sun were extinguished.
Accordingly as we are the advocates of absolutism or of popular government, we will condemn or approve the theory of American government. The absolutist insists that each step in the departure of nations from the monarchical form is receding that far from the true point of natioual elevation; that it is an abandonment of legitimate authority; that it is passion, vertigo, delirium, madness, the excess of unlicensed and destructive revolution-a blind exercise of the mere physical power to do wrong, in violation of the divine law. With him, the fewer who direct the destiny of a nation and control its government, the better, because, by keeping the multitude in subjection, they hold them to the steady line of duty. Unlimited dominion on the part of the ruler, and passive obedience on the part of the people, are, with all the supporters of absolutism, the ne plus ultra of government. Of those who reason thus, there are two classes-the masters and the slaves. The latter are so disciplined into subjugation by the former, that they seem incapable of comprehending the nature and extent of their degradation, and suppose themselves to be relieved from the galling of their chains, or to be compensated for its endurance, by the belief that their servitude is the highest and noblest exhibition of fidelity and duty. The former maintain their superiority with an entire disregard of the humiliation they create, and cling to their ideas of human and national advancement, in the face of the present condition of the world, as if they regarded ambition the highest motive of the mind, and its gratification the greatest of all human achievements. Socrates, probably, had both these classes in his mind when he said "That every master should pray he may not meet with such a slave; and every such person, being unfit for liberty, should implore that he may meet with a merciful master." If all the world were divided into these two classes monarchy, secure of its place upon the papal and other thrones, would have an easy time of it, for there then would be only the oppressor and the oppressed- "the oppressor who demands, and the oppressed who dare not resist."
Fortunately for us and the world the framers of our institutions belonged to neither of these classes. By their training in the school of Protestantism the were endowed with the courage to defy both the authority and machinations of those who claimed the "divine right" to govern. Their careful study of the history of nations enabled them to comprehend fully the necessities of their condition. They had realized how abject mankind had become in those countries where Church and State were united, and, with this experience to guide them, signalized their efforts to frame a new government by dissolving this union, as an unnatural and corrupting one. Ecclesiastical tyranny and intolerance were finally expelled, and Protestantism reached a degree of development for which it had been struggling for more than two hundred years.
Thomas Jefferson took an early opportunity to congratulate the people of the United States upon their "having banished from our land that religious intolerance under which mankind so long bled and suffered," and, under the sanction of his official position, declared that among the great principles which "guided our steps through an age of revolution and reformation" were those which inculcated "the diffusion of information, and arraignment of all abuses at the bar of public reason, freedom of religion, freedom of the press." And he addressed to us this admonition:
"The wisdom of our sages, and the blood of our heroes, have been devoted to their attainment: they should be the creed of our political faith, the text of civic instruction, the touch-stone by which to try the services of those we trust; and should we wander from them in moments of error and alarm let us hasten to retrace our steps, and to regain the road which alone leads to peace, liberty, and safety."
James Madison, when officially declaring the purposes for which our government was formed, enumerated among them the duty "to avoid the slightest interference with the rights of conscience, or the functions of religion, so wisely exempted from civil jurisdiction; to preserve, in their full energy, the other salutary provisions in behalf of private and personal rights, and of the freedom of the press.
These sentiments were not alone expressed by these great statesmen. Words of like import were uttered by many of their compatriots. They were but the echo of those existing in the minds of the people, and were embodied in our national Constitution, in these words: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or prohibiting thc freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
Upon such foundations as this, the superstructure of our government now rests. So long as these principles shall be preserved, the Government will stand: whenever they shall be abandoned, it will fall. They must, therefore, be guarded with the same ceaseless care as that with which we guard or lives. For we have no more right to lose by neglect, than we have to strike down with the sword of rebellion, the civil and religious institutions of a free people.
(10)Ibid., p.2.
(11)Ibid., p.5.
(12)Guizot, "History of Civilization," vol. i., p.257.
(13)Montesquieu's "Spirit of Laws," vol. i., p.154.
Get your own Free Home Page