IV. But the religious liberty which our fathers thus sought to secure
and to transmit to their posterity was not a licentious libertinism.
They knew the value of religious principles and good morals to the
individual and to the state, and they did not leave it an open
matter, under plea of free conscience, for men to conduct themselves
as they please with regard to virtue and religion.
To be disrespectful toward divine worship, to interfere with its free
exercise as honest men are moved to render it, or to set at naught the
moral code of honorable behavior in human society, is never the
dictate of honest conviction of duty, and, in the nature of things,
cannot be. It is not conscience, but the overriding of conscience;
nay, rebellion against the whole code of conscience, against the
foundations of all government, against the very existence of civil
society. Liberty to blaspheme Almighty God, to profane his name and
ordinances, to destroy his worship, and to set common morality at
naught, is not religious liberty, but disorderly wickedness, a cloak
of maliciousness, the licensing of the devil as an angel of light. It
belongs to mere brute liberty, which must be restrained and brought
under bonds in order to render true liberty possible. Wild and lawless
freedom must come under the restraints and limits of defined order,
peace, and essential morality, or somebody's freedom must suffer, and
social happiness is out of the question. And it is one of the inherent
aims and offices of government to enforce this very constraint,
without which it totally fails of its end and forfeits its right to
be. Where people are otherwise law-abiding, orderly, submissive to the
requisites for the being and well-being of a state, and abstain from
encroachments upon the liberties of others, they are not to be
molested, forced, or compelled in spiritual matters contrary to their
honest convictions; but public blasphemy, open profanity, disorderly
interference with divine worship and reverence, and the hindrance of
what tends to the preservation of good morals, it pertains to the
existence and office of a state to restrain and punish. Severity upon
such disorders is not tyrannical abridgment of the rights of
conscience, for no proper citizen's conscience can ever prompt or
constrain him to any such things. And everything which tends to weaken
and destroy regard for the eternal Power on which all things depend,
to relax the sense of accountability to the divine judgment, and to
trample on the laws of eternal morality, is the worst enemy of the
state, which it cannot allow without peril to its own existence.
On the other hand, the state is bound for the same reasons to protect
and defend religion in general and the cultivation of the religious
sentiments, in so far, at least, as the laws of virtue and order are
not transgressed in the name of religion. It may not interfere to
decide between different religious societies or churches, as they may
be equally conscientious and honest in their diversities; but where
the tendency is to good and reverence, and the training of the
community to right and orderly life, it belongs to the office and
being of the state not only to tolerate, but to protect them all
alike. In the fatherly care of its subjects, the people consenting,
the state may also recommend and provide support for some particular
and approved order of faith and worship, just as it provides for
public education. And though the civil power may not rightfully
punish, fine, imprison, and oppress orderly and honest citizens for
conscientious non-conformity to any one specific system of belief and
worship, it may, and must, provide for and protect what tends to its
rightful conservation, and also condemn, punish, and restrain
whatsoever tends to unseat it and undermine its existence and peace.
These are fundamental requirements in all sound political economy.