Mr. CHANDLER said, that was fanaticism, not
religion.
Mr. JENIFER. It was religious fanaticism,
and the same spirit which seeks to justify a vio-
lation of the Constitution of the United States,
by superior law of conscience.
If any religious sect had a right to complain it
was the Quakers and other friends, conscientiously
scrupulous of bearing arms. They pay a tax for
carrying on war against their conscience.
In the section of the bill now under considera-
tion, and which the reverend gentleman has
moved to strike out, judges, clerks and all other
civil officers, are placed upon the same footing
with clergymen. It is not deemed consistent
with a proper discharge of their respective du-
ties that they should hold seats in the legislature.
There is no exclusion for conscience sake. It is
because the positions they have assumed, of their
own free will, render the discharge of legislative
duties incompatible.
Mr. CHANDLER called attention to what had
taken place in the State of Rhode Island, refer-
ring to the character and conduct of Roger Wil-
liams, who was the first minister and Governor of
the State, and who was the first to proclaim the
doctrine of an unfettered conscience and of the
right to worship as they might think right. Re-
ligion and fanaticism are as opposite to each other
as night is to day. He presumed the gentle-
man bad reference to the abolitionists, who have
taken leave of religion and morality, and of com-
mon sense also. They had shaken hands with
common sense. If the church were made up of
such persons as these, he would he willing to
quit it. He regarded the abolitionists as the
greatest curse of our country.
Mr. CHAMBERS desired, in few words, to assign
the reasons, or some of them, which would in-
fluence his vote, and he believed many others.
He did not exactly accord with the gentleman
from Charles, ( Mr. Jenifer,) in big apprehensions
of religious, despotism. He did not, how-
ever, mean to interpose between the contend-
ing parties on the subject of persecution, &c.
The gentleman before him, (Mr. Chandler,) bad
made the most of his use. He had asked " if
they were excluded from seats in the legislature,
he and his clerical brethren) because they were
murderers or drunkards, of were they hated because
they preached the Gospel ? " Why, does
the gentleman forget that we judges are in the
same category ? Does he, or can he, for a mo-
ment suppose that because a man is a judge,
therefore is considered a murderer or drunkard,
or becomes hateful ? Certainly he cannot. The
reason is obvious, the one station is supposed to
be inconsistent with the other. He regretted to
find the gentleman disdain to keep company with
the judges.
Mr. CHANDLER, (in his seat,) said he certainly
did not.
Mr. CHAMBERS. They were all in the same
sentence, each equally excluded and for similar
reasons. The contemplation of the Constitution
was, that their peculiar avocation was not calcu-
lated to qualify them to fill the office of a legisla-
tor as well as others. The people had a right to |
select, as their agents in different departments,
those best qualified to fill the various stations as-
signed to them. An astronomer would not go to
a ploughman to assist him in calculating an
eclipse or the distance to a star—nor would a
farmer apply to an astronomer to plough his field
or seed his grain. "Everyman to his trade,"
was an old rule and a good one. He supposed
it quite obvious, that the appropriate duties of a
clergyman were altogether unlike those of a po-
litician, and that it is proper to encourage the
usefulness of each, at all events not to do any-
thing calculated to destroy their usefulness. He
then described what he regarded as the appro-
priate duties of a minister of the Gospel of peace
and salvation. He professes to have a mission
from his Divine master—a mission of love and
charity. His great duty is to contend against
the lusts of the world—he renounces its pomps
and vanities—he seeks honor of God, not of men,
and lays up his treasure in Heaven, not on earth.
His high and holy office is with the souls of men,
not with their political favors; he is sacrificed to
the world and its honors and its emoluments, and
they are sacrificed to him. His whole object
and aim is to lead sinners to the fountain of eter-
nal life. Would you arrest such a man in his
holy calling and place him in a legislative hall,
where every man is a political antagonist to one
portion, and a political partizan to the rest—
amongst men whose leading motive is to acquire
worldly distinguishment and preferment, and to
acquire them at the expense of the political de-
struction of contending parties—amongst those
.whose passions and prejudices are continually
kept alive by the anticipation of earthly honors
and emoluments, and whetted by continual oppo-
sition and frequent defeat ? Political assemblies,
composed of party men—and such are generally
those which occupy our legislative halls—present
the least possible aid in the cultivation of the car-
dinal Christian graces of love and charity to our
fellow man, to say nothing of their influence on
the " first and great commandment." Why then
take the messenger of " peace on earth and good
will to man," to place him where his labors
would be confined, not to conversions from sin to
holiness, but from one political doctrine to anoth-
er ? Ministers who rightly appreciated their
condition and their duties, never would make
these temporal honors and profits an object of
pursuit.
Mr. CHANDLER here said, the gentleman from
Kent and himself agreed on that point. He also
thought that ministers should not come to the le-
gislature, but should pursue the work to which
they are called. But he desired that it should be
left to the people at the ballot box, to say if they
would elect ministers, and to the ministers, if
elected, to act according to the dictates of their
own consciences. What he was opposed to, was,
the insertion of a disqualification in the organic
law as a principle.
Mr. CHAMBERS resumed. The gentleman then
admits, that the removal of the disqualification
would not introduce into the legislature those
ministers who have a just and conscientious ap-
preciation of their religious duties and obliga- |
