The American Sentinel 5
July 31, 1890
“What Is Treason?” The American Sentinel 5, 30, pp. 233, 234.
WHEN it is said that the State has no right to interfere with the private school, or to dictate what shall or shall not be taught there, certain persons who make a boast of their Americanism and wear it for a badge, exclaim, and by the exclamation betray their ignorance of American principles, “Suppose the private school should teach treason!” It would be well, and it is strictly in order, for such persons to learn that there is no such thing in this country as teaching treason. Treason cannot be taught here. American principles know no such thing as the teaching of treason. AMS July 31, 1890, page 233.1
The United States Constitution says:— AMS July 31, 1890, page 233.2
Treason against the United States shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. AMS July 31, 1890, page 233.3
No person shall be convicted of treason unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court. AMS July 31, 1890, page 233.4
This same provision is in the Constitution of all the States. The words “adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort” plainly mean adhering to those who are levying war, or who are engaged in it. As treason therefore consists “only in levying war,” or adhering to those who are doing so, it is plain that treason cannot be taught; it can only be acted, and that in the waging of actual war. AMS July 31, 1890, page 233.5
This is confirmed by other points, one of which is the declaration that Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech or of the press. So far as the Government is concerned, freedom of speech and the press is absolute. The theory of this Government is that thinking, discussion, and teaching, shall be absolutely free, that there shall be no restriction upon ideas, even though an idea should gain the assent of a majority of the people to the extent of changing the form of government itself. This is the doctrine of the Declaration of Independence, which says:— AMS July 31, 1890, page 233.6
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to secure their safety and happiness. AMS July 31, 1890, page 233.7
From this it is plain that if the idea of a monarchical instead of a republican form of government were conceived by a single man to be the better form of government, he has the right freely to publish and to speak, and to teach that idea; and if by such means he can cause that idea to grow until it absorbs the majority of the people, they might actually change the form of government without committing treason. Governments deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, it is one of the rights of the people to establish such form of government as suits them best; and if a sufficiently large majority of people could be gained to change the form of government by ballot or by any other peaceable means, there would be in it no treason. Upon American principles, ideas are free, and it is expected that whatever idea prevails, that is the idea that the people want to see prevail. AMS July 31, 1890, page 233.8
In all this there is no shadow of a suggestion or an admission that the teaching in the private schools would be treason even if treason could be taught. It is simply to can the attention of our boastful “Americans” to the fact that when they exclaim against the danger of somebody’s “teaching treason” in this country, they are testifying against themselves that they have not yet gotten rid of the principles of despotism in government; and that if they intend to be Americans indeed, they need to know what American principles are, and to speak accordingly. A. T. J. AMS July 31, 1890, page 233.9
“Is It Blindness?” The American Sentinel 5, 30, p. 234.
THE Presbyterian Synod of New York sent up to the General Assembly as an overture, its views on the subject of religion and public education, upon which the Committee on Bills and Overtures made the following report, which was unanimously adopted:— AMS July 31, 1890, page 234.1
A paper reciting the recent decision of the Supreme Court of the State of Wisconsin, affirming the Bible to be a sectarian book, and its use in the public schools to be unconstitutional, and asking for a deliverance of the General Assembly, having been received, your committee recommends that this Assembly reaffirm the action of the Assembly of 1870. [See Digest, pages 278-80.] This action declares an unalterable devotion to the public school system as an agency next to the Church of God in laying a foundation of intelligence, virtue, and freedom in the United States. Regarding the Bible as the Magna Charta of our best moral and religious influences, we would consider its expulsion from our public schools as a deplorable and suicidal act, and do hereby urge upon our members to co-operate with Christian people in maintaining the place of this Book of God as an educating force among the youth of our land. The committee, therefore, moves the adoption of the following resolutions by the Assembly. AMS July 31, 1890, page 234.2
WHEREAS, A recent decision of the Supreme Court of one of our States has affirmed the Bible to be a sectarian book and its use in the public schools to be unconstitutional; and AMS July 31, 1890, page 234.3
WHEREAS, We see in this decision no mere local matter, such as affects simply the people of that State, but the culmination of an effort being made with relentless pertinacity by a foreign hierarchy to overthrow the system of public schools throughout the land; therefore AMS July 31, 1890, page 234.4
Resolved, That we affirm the importance of our public schools to the welfare of our people; that with intellectual cultivation must go moral training, or the schools may prove a curse rather than a blessing; but this moral training must be based on religion, otherwise its sanction will not be strong enough to grasp the conscience of the people, or its utterances obligatory enough to shape their character; that as the Bible is the source of the highest moral teaching, we regard its exclusion from our public schools as a menace to national welfare, and we urge the members of our church to so arouse public thought on this subject, from the pulpit, the press, and ecclesiastical assemblages, that this Book shall be restored to its true place in our system of education. AMS July 31, 1890, page 234.5
As the same General Assembly indorsed the movement for the revision of the Confession of their faith, it will be in order now for them to revise that part of the Confession which denies the right of the State to have anything to do with administering the word of God. Yet it is probable that in ... of doing so they will keep it there just as it is, and still go on boasting loudly of the Presbyterian doctrines, of the separation between Church and State, of religious liberty, and the rights of conscience. AMS July 31, 1890, page 234.6
Consistency, although it may be in the wrong, is better than the absurd self-contradiction, in which the Presbyterian General Assembly, and the New York Conference of Methodist Episcopal Churches have involved themselves on this question. If they would argue at once for a union of Church and State they might be considered honest, at least, even though they were wrong; but when in one sentence they declare strongly for an absolute separation of Church and State, and then in the very next sentence declare just as strongly for the teaching of the Christian religion by the State, it is hard to understand how they can be honest, without charging them with being ignorant, whether they be right or wrong. A. T.J. AMS July 31, 1890, page 234.7