The Secular Constitution of the United States, Our Nation's Death-Warrant

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Excerpt from The Secular Constitution of the United States, Our Nation's Death-Warrant: Address by Rev. J. M. Foster in the National Reform Convention, Park St. Church, Boston, Oct. 24, 1911President of the United States (as embodied in the Constitution) could as well be taken by a pagan or a Mohammedan, as by the chief magis trate of a Christian people, it excludes the name of the Supreme Being. Indeed, it is negatively atheis tie, for no God is appealed to at all. In framing many of our public formulas, greater care seems to have been taken to adapt them to the prejudice. Of the infidel few, than to the consciences of the Christian millions. In these things the minority. In our country, has hitherto managed to govern the majority. In every oath the name of God should, in obedience to the Divine command, be interposed, and we look upon the designed omis sion of it as an attempt to exclude from civil af fairs Him who is the governor among the nations (psalms Now, if the enemies of the God of truth are minded to carry this question to the supreme court, there is no constitutional authority for requiring witnesses or officials to appeal to God in taking oath. To abolish the oath from our courts and from the initiation of officials would atrophy and strangle our nation's life. Take the Sabbath. In 1810 Congress passed a law requiring the U. S. Mail to be carried on Sabbath. In 1828, there were 456 petitions from 21 different states sent to Washington against that law. But the Postmaster General ignored them. Because the U. S. Constitution makes no provision for the Sabbath. It is true it says: The President shall have IO days to sign a bill, Sundays excepted But that is no legal basis for Sabbath-keeping. It does no. Keep the President from traveling on Sabbath. I.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.