The Short Constitution Part 22

I have intentionally repeated, sometimes over and over, rules and reasons, because we must have them in our minds so that they will never be forgotten.

Now as above explained, the citizens of each State are guaranteed the right to go to another State, and exercise in that other State the same rights as the citizens of that State. This is in the spirit of America which gives us all equal opportunity. A citizen of Ma.s.sachusetts going to the State of Minnesota has the same rights in Minnesota as the citizens of Minnesota have. Minnesota could not discriminate against him because he was a citizen of another State. Of course he could not exercise rights which the citizens of Minnesota were not ent.i.tled to, but all rights of the citizens of Minnesota are guaranteed to him while he is in that State.

Now as to the provision which forever bars any religious test as the qualification for any office or place of public trust under the United States. We have already given serious consideration to the great fundamental human privilege which the Const.i.tution guards, the right to wors.h.i.+p G.o.d according to the dictates of one's conscience. We have already found that regardless of church or creed each person stands before the law equal in our country. The older you grow, the more fully you realize what religion means to a great many people in this world, the more fully you will appreciate the blessing which came to humanity in these provisions of the Const.i.tution. There are some of us who do not belong to any church organization, and yet we are intensely interested, because there was a time when every person was compelled by law to belong to a church organization, to the state church, the state religion. I have already explained that we find solemn statutes enacted by the British Parliament, as an ill.u.s.tration, which provided for a death penalty for those who did not believe in the religion of the state.

There is no religious test which can be made a qualification for any office under the United States; nor for any office for any State in the Union. There should be no individual discrimination in voting for public officials because of the religion or church to which a candidate for office may belong. These are sacred, individual rights. Men must be judged by their conduct, by their character, by their ability, by their capacity to serve the people and their country, not by the religion which one may profess.

We must cultivate the spirit of charity toward our neighbors, charity which means love, which enables us to maintain a proper spirit of toleration for those who differ from us in matters of belief.

ELEMENTARY QUESTIONS

1. Does a citizen have the same rights in California that he does in New York?

2. Why is religious belief never made a qualification for office?

3. What is impeachment?

4. Are judges representatives of the people? Why?

5. Can the State of Nebraska enact a law imposing a tax upon merchandise s.h.i.+pped into Nebraska from any other State?

ADVANCED QUESTIONS

A. What is impeachment?

B. Describe the manner of trial before trial by jury. Compare the justice of the ordeal end wager of battle with the jury system.

C. Show how these provisions make for democracy.

D. Why is the spirit of charity necessary in a democracy?

E. Write a paper on the following:

The Ordeal

Wager of Battle

How Englishmen Won the Right to Trial by Jury

XXIII. WRONGS UNDER KING GEORGE

The Story Of The Colonists In The Declaration Of Independence

When we first read over the numerous guaranties of the Const.i.tution protecting the American people in their rights, we sometimes wonder why certain provisions were inserted in the Const.i.tution. Being born here in America, never having been compelled to submit to the abuse of arbitrary power, and always having lived under the Const.i.tution, and always being guarded by its provisions against the abuse of power, we can hardly understand why it was necessary to make so many provisions against things which we can hardly imagine ever happened in human government.

Whenever you have a chance, read somethings of the governments of the world under kings or other absolute rulers. In fact, we cannot understand the blessings of our government until we know something of what our ancestors were compelled to submit to under the governments of the different countries of the world a few centuries ago.

While we have in mind the guaranties of our Const.i.tution, it is well for us to have clearly in mind some of the definite things which the framers of the Const.i.tution had before them, some of the wrongs which the human race had endured at the hands of government which the framers of the Const.i.tution were determined the people of America would never have to endure. You can hardly imagine what little regard or consideration was given to human rights in those old days now almost forgotten. I am not going to undertake to discuss the problems of government in different countries the world.(93) The purpose which I have in mind can be fully served by a consideration of the government in this country under the king of Great Britain during the years preceding the Revolutionary War. You understand, of course, that even at that time a great advance had been made in recognizing certain rights of the people. In fact, I think it is generally recognized that England before the American Revolution had attained nearer to a fairly just government than any other country in the world up to that time. There had been many periods during its history when the people had a.s.serted themselves and had forced the recognition of certain rights by the government-by the king, and yet it was still a government by a king. It was a government under a king to which the colonies owed allegiance. It was government under a king against which the colonies finally revolted. It was government under a king which brought.

about the Revolution. It was resistance to government under a king which inspired the heroes who won the liberty of the new world. It was the brutality of a government under a king which inspired the framers of the Const.i.tution so carefully to guard against the abuses which the world had known before liberty had been established on American soil. I will not undertake to recite for you the things which the people were compelled to endure under this government of a king. I will let the people of the colonies tell their story. You remember that in 1776, after the beginning of the Revolutionary War, the people of the Colonies adopted the Declaration of Independence which recites in detail the abuses and wrongs they had endured under a government by a king. It is one of the most dramatic recitals in history. Let these colonies tell their own story. I am not going to read the entire Declaration of Independence; I am simply going to read the recital therein of the wrongs which came to the people, the men, women, and children, the human beings, who up to that time were compelled to live here in America under the government of a king.

The history of the present king of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his a.s.sent to laws the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his governors to pa.s.s laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his a.s.sent should be obtained, and, when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pa.s.s other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature-a right inestimable to them, and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the repository of their public records for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly for opposing, with manly firmness, his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused, for a long time after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise; the state remaining, in the mean time, exposed to all dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states; for that purpose obstructing the laws of naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pa.s.s others to encourage their migration hither and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands.

He has obstructed the administration of justice by refusing his a.s.sent to laws for establis.h.i.+ng judiciary powers.

He has made judges dependent on his will alone for the tenure of their offices and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a mult.i.tude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to hara.s.s our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies, without the consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the military independent of, and superior to, the civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our const.i.tution and unacknowledged by our laws, giving his a.s.sent to their acts of pretended legislation-

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us;

For protecting them, by a mock trial, from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states;

For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world;

For imposing taxes upon us without our consent;

For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury;

For transporting us beyond seas, to be tried for pretended offenses;

For abolis.h.i.+ng the free system of English laws in a neighboring province; establis.h.i.+ng therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries, so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these colonies;