Sunday Legislation

A PALPABLE SUBTERFUGE

Yet even this invention and fiat of new and foreign ground for Sunday legislation, is not allowed to exclude the original and native religious ground of it. This invention, in fact, is only the stalking-horse by which Sunday legislation as religious can be brought in and made to stand as “constitutional” under constitutional provisions that absolutely prohibit it. For no sooner has it in each instance been made “constitutional” as “purely a civil rule” than it is immediately given stapling as religious by the declaration that “the fact that the legislation is founded in religion” and is “the peculiar feature of Christianity,” “is nothing against it, but rather is strongly in its favor.” Thus under Constitutions prohibiting religious legislation, by sheer sleight of judicial legerdemain the feat is accomplished of making constitutional legislation that is wholly religious and ecclesiastical. SLOC 23.1