any denomination, or of any religions per-
suasion, society or sect, while he continues
to serve as such; and no person holding any
civil office of profit, or profit and trust, un-
der this State, shall be eligible to the office
of senator or delegate."
Mr. DANIEL. I move to amend this section
by striking out these words :
"No minister or preacher of the gospel of
any denomination, or of any religious per-
suasion, society or sect, while he continues
to serve as such; and."
That merely admits the preachers.
Mr. RIDGELY. That is just what I am op-
posed to.
Mr. DANIEL. I will state some of the rea-
sons which induce me to offer this amend-
ment. In the first place, I think this prohi-
bition ought to be erased from our Constitu-
tion, because it creates an improper, unjust,
and unreasonable distinction against minis-
ters of the gospel in this State, for which I
can conceive no good reason. I think we
might just as well say that a minister shall
not vote, or that a minister shall not write
anything in allusion to politics, as to say
that a minister shall not for a few weeks sit
in the Legislature of the State and lake part
in the enactment of laws. It is creating a
distinction against them as a class, putting a
ban upon them that is unjust and invidious.
I know that reasons will be urged against
this amendment. It will be said that minis-
ters should not interfere in politics, because
that will interfere with their religions voca-
tion. Now, I say that no man, and no set
of men have a right to come between a min-
ister's conscience and his God upon this mat-
ter. It is for him, and him alone, to judge
whether taking a seat in the Legislature, any
more than voting at an election, will inter-
fere with the proper discharge of his duties
as a religions teacher. That is a matter for
him to decide, as he must decide a thousand
other questions that arise in his every day
life, whether be shall or shall not do a par-
ticular thing, because it may or may not
injure his ministerial influence and his re-
ligious character. There is no more reason
for our interfering in the one case than in
the other.
Again, I am opposed to this restriction
because I believe that a great proportion of
our legislation is not political in its charac-
ter. The Legislature is called upon to deter-
mine very few questions of a political char-
acter. They are called upon to consider
questions affecting morals, affecting the good
of the community: in which a minister
without doing any injury to any class may
more properly act than very many classes
that are sent to the Legislature, for be will
act for the good of the people he may repre-
sent, and the good of the State. There is
the temperance question, the question of
public schools, and other questions of mor- |
als, in reference to which a minister, desiring
the good of the community in which he lives,
would feel more interest, and perhaps be more
likely to judge properly and rightly, than
two-thirds or three-fourths of the men who
are sent to the Legislature, and who do not
feel any such responsibility to the community,
either religious or otherwise,
I say, therefore, it is not right that we as
a Convention, or any class of men who as a
body are perhaps not to be compared in point
of conscience to ministers, should set up our
consciences as a rule to determine all such
questions fur ministers of the gospel. It is
simply saying to them that they are not fit
to determine for themselves what would in-
jure their religious character and standing
in the community, and that we are better
qualified to determine that matter for them,
We say, therefore, that while we will allow
the veriest drunkard, the most wicked and
profligate men in the country to come here to
the Legislature if the people choose to elect
them, yet we are so tender about this matter
of conscience, and fear that the ministers will
not have that matter so much at heart as we
have, we will interfere and come in between
their consciences and their God, in a manner
which we do not consider necessary in re-
gard to anybody else.
I can conceive a reason why this provision
was originally put in the Constitution, it
may have originated in times gone by, from
some fear of too close a union between Church
and State; an old idea derived from affairs
in England in former times. But there can
be no fear or apprehension upon this point at
this day.
And, in addition to what I have said, one
of the most conclusive arguments to my
mind against this provision is the fact that
upon a careful examination of all the Con-
stitutions of the States of this Union, as well
as of the United States, I find no such prohi-
bition in any of the Constitutions of tire free
States, or in the Constitution of the United
States. But I do find that the same prohibi-
tion is in the Constitution of every slave State,
except the State of Arkansas. I cannot, of
course, tell exactly what reasons operated in
all those Southern States for putting this
prohibition in their Constitutions, while it
has never been deemed necessary or proper
to put it in the Constitution of any tree
State. And not only has it not been deemed
proper to put it in the Constitution of the
United States, but in both Houses of Con-
gress ministers of the gospel have served with
great acceptability. Has Congress received
any detriment from it? Has the Church re-
ceived any detriment? Have the free States
received any detriment because ministers of
the gospel have been admitted to an equal
participation in their legislatures?
South Carolina, the mother of the rebellion,
gives as her reason for this prohibition that— |
