☞ The Seventh-day Baptist General Conference held its Forty-second
Anniversary at Shiloh, N. J., on the 9th, 10th, 11th, and 13th days
of September, 1846. During the session a resolution was passed
expressing the settled conviction of the Conference, "that all
legislation designed to enforce the religious observance of any day
for a Sabbath, thereby determining by civil law that such day shall
not be used for labor or judicial purposes, is unconstitutional, and
hostile to religious freedom." A Committee was appointed to prepare
an Address to the people of the United States in accordance with the
opinion thus expressed. The following is the Address reported by the
Committee, approved by the Conference, and referred to the American
Sabbath Tract Society for publication.
FELLOW-CITIZENS:--
We fully agree with you in the popular sentiment of our nation, that
liberty is sweet--to men of noble minds, much more precious than
estates, or treasures of silver and gold--dearer than our reputation
and honor among the despots of the world. Was it not this sentiment,
firmly-rooted in the minds of the Fathers of our National
Independence, which led them to stake their "lives, their fortunes,
and their sacred honor," rather than be the serfs of a British King
and his aristocratic Lords? Applauding their spirit, we know that you
will agree with us in the sentiment, that the preservation of that
liberty which they achieved and perpetuated in our ever-glorious
Constitution, is the highest civil duty which we owe to ourselves, to
our posterity, and to our nation. All but coercionists will agree with
us, that the preservation of our religious liberty is a sacred duty,
which we owe alike to the cause of truth and our political happiness.
Give us your candid attention, then, while we present a brief
statement of the wrongs we are suffering in these United States,
despite the principles of the National Declaration of Independence,
and the guarantees of our National Constitution.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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