That we recognize in the great truth of man's moral nature the essential safeguard of life, the source of nobleness in effort, of power in action, and of fortitude in affliction. That to further the recognition of these truths in word and deed is a sacred duty which we owe both to ourselves and to our fellow-men, and whereby we shall best secure common happiness, prosperity and peace. That to insure the moral elevation of the masses in particular, with all the great benefits which that includes, we hold to be a lofty aim and one well calculated to afford true satisfaction to all who behold in the work of progress the fitting accomplishment of human destiny. That it is earnestly desirable to transmit to the incoming generation the best convictions of the present unimpaired, to acquaint them in such manner as befits their years and understanding with the principles, aspiration, and consolations of the modern view of life, and thus to train them in the enjoyment of the inestimable benefits of liberty from their youth upward. That for all these purposes the necessity of united action is self-evident, in which alone lies the pledge of extended usefulness, permanency, and strength. We, therefore, in view of these convictions, and in response to the solemn obligations which they impose, do hereby consolidate ourselves in an association to be known by the style and title of the Society of Ethical Culture. And we direct that the main channels of its influences shall be: 1. A system of weekly lectures on the Sunday, in which the principles of ethics shall be developed, propagated, and advanced among adults. 2. A school wherein a course of moral instruction shall be supplied for the young, the same to be erected and enlarged as time and circumstances may favor. And with implicit confidence in the simplicity and the greatness of our cause, we do hereby invoke the coöperation of all who think and feel with us to our support, sincerely trusting that the new union which we now found may become an instrument of lasting good in the commu nity in which we live, and may at all times faithfully serve the best and truest interests of mankind. The Demands of Liberalism. AS USED BY THE LIBERAL LEAGUES OF THE UNITED STATES. 1. We demand that churches and other ecclesiastical property shall no longer be exempt from just taxation. 2. We demand that the employment of chaplains in Congress, in State Legislatures, in the navy and militia, and in prisons, asylums, and all other institutions supported by public money, shall be discontinued. 3. We demand that all public appropriations for educational and charitable institutions of a sectarian character shall cease. 4. We demand that all religious services now sustained by the government shall be abolished; and especially that the use of the Bible in the public schools, whether ostensibly as a text-book or avowedly as a book of religious worship, shall be prohibited. 5. We demand that the appointment, by the President of the United States or by the Governors of the various States, of all religious festivals and fasts shall wholly cease. 6. We demand that the judicial oath in the courts and in all other departments of the government shall be abolished, and that simple affirmation under the pains and penalties of perjury shall be established in its stead. 7. We demand that all laws directly or indirectly enforcing the observance of Sunday as the Sabbath shall be repealed. 8. We demand that all laws looking to the enforcement of "Christian" morality shali be abrogated, and that all laws shall be conformed to the requirements of natural morality, equal rights, and impartial liberty. 9. We demand that not only in the Constitutions of the United States and of the several States, but also in the practical administration of the same, no privilege or ad vantage shall be conceded to Christianity or any other special religion; that our entire political system shall be founded and administered on a purely secular basis; and that whatever changes shall prove necessary to this end shall be consistently, unflinchingly, and promptly made. THE THIRTEEN PRINCIPLES. PLATFORM OF THE NATIONAL LIBERAL LEAGUE. 1. The Constitution of the United States is built on the principle that the State can be, and ought to be, totally independent of the Church; in other words, that the natural reason and conscience of mankind are a sufficient guarantee of a happy, well-ordered, and virtuous civil community, and that free popular government must prove a failure if the Church is suffered to control legislation. 2. The religious rights and liberties of all citizens without exception, under the Constitution, are absolutely equal. 3. These equal religious rights and liberties include the right of every citizen to enjoy, on the one hand, the unrestricted exercise of his own religious opinions, so long as they lead him to no infringement of the equal rights of others; and not to be compelled, on the other hand, by taxation or otherwise, to support any religious opinions which are not his own. 4. These equal religious rights and liberties do not depend in the slightest degree upon conformity to the opinions of the majority, but are possessed to their fullest extent by those who differ from the majority fundamentally and totally. 5. Christians possess under the Constitution no religious rights or liberties which are not equally shared by Jews, Buddhists, Confucians, Spiritualists, Materialists, Rationalists, Freethinkers, Skeptics, Infidels, Atheists, Pantheists, and all other classes of citizens who disbelieve in the Christian religion. 6. Public or national morality requires all laws and acts of the government to be in strict accordance with this ab solute equality of all citizens with respect to religious rights and liberties. 7. Any infringement by the government of this absolute equality of religious rights and liberties is an act of national immorality, a national crime committed against that natural "justice" which, as the Constitution declares, the government was founded to "establish." 8. Those who labor to make the laws protect more faithfully the equal religious rights and liberties of all the citizens are not the "enemies of morality," but moral reformers in the true sense of the word, and act in the evident interest of public righteousness and peace. 9. Those who labor to gain or to retain for one class of religious believers any legal privilege, advantage, or immunity which is not equally enjoyed by the community at large are really "enemies of morality," unite Church and State in proportion to their success, and, no matter how ignorantly or innocently, are doing their utmost to destroy the Constitution and undermine this free government. 10. Impartial protection of all citizens in their equal religious rights and liberties, by encouraging the free movement of mind, promotes the establishment of the truth re specting religion; while violation of these rights, by checking the free movement of mind, postpones the triumph of truth over error, and of right over wrong. 11. No religion can be true whose continued existence depends on continued State aid. If the Church has the truth, it does not need the unjust favoritism of the State; if it has not the truth, the iniquity of such favoritism is magnified tenfold. 12. No religion can be favorable to morality whose continued existence depends on continued injustice. If the Church teaches good morals, of which justice is a fundamental law, it will gain in public respect by practicing the morals it teaches, and voluntarily offering to forego its unjust legal advantages; if it does not teach good morals, then the claim to these unjust advantages on the score of its good moral influence becomes as wicked as it is weak. 13. Whether true or false, whether a fountain of good moral influences or of bad, no particular religion and no particular church has the least claim in justice upon the State for any favor, any privilege, any immunity. The Constitution is no respecter of persons and no respecter of churches; its sole office is to establish civil society on the principles of right reason and impartial justice; and any State aid rendered to the Church, being a compulsion of the whole people to support the Church, wrongs every citizens who protests against such compulsion, violates impartial justice, sets at naught the first principles of morality, and subverts the Constitution by undermining the fundamental idea on which it is built. CLEAR THE WAY. Men of thought! be up and strring Sow the seed, withdraw the curtain, Men of action, aid and cheer them There's a fount about to stream, Men of thought and men of action, Once the welcome light has broken, What the unimagined glories What the evil that shall perish Aid the dawning, tongue and pen; Aid it, paper, aid it typo, Aid it, for the bour is ripe; And our earnest must not slaken Men of thought and men of action, Lo! a cloud's about to vanish And a brazen wrong to crumble Lo! the Right's about to conquer. With the Right shall many more With the giant Wrong shall fall Many others great and small, That for ages long have held us For their prey. Men of thought and men of action, Clear the way! Charles Mackay. |