and thanksgiving days throughout the State. And if the Legisla ture had a right to appoint any person to an ecclesiastical office, or any minister of religion to any civil office in the Legislature, they could follow their own precedent, and create ecclesiastical offices, and appoint persons to fill them, out of the Legislature; and with as good authority as that by which they have actually appointed priests to civil offices, both in and out of the legislative department of the government.

It is no sufficient apology for the official employment of priests by the Legislature, that the clergy of all sects in the city of Albany, "without discrimination or preference," are appointed to the office of legislative chaplains. The words "without discrimination or preference," are used in the provision of the constitution, which interdicts legislative interference with the religious concerns of their constituents, and guarantees the freedom of religious opinion, "without discrimination or preference to all mankind within this State," and affords no justification for the appointment of priests to civil or ecclesiastical office, "without discrimination or preference." Having no constitutional authority to appoint any, they can have no right to appoint all or any portion of the clergy to any office: nor in fact are chaplains appointed "without discrimination or preference."

It is true, that on the face of the resolutions by which the clergy in Albany are called to officiate in the Legislature, no discrimination appears to be made among the various sects. But can any person who knows the true meaning of those resolutions believe, that were there a Shaker society in Albany, they would be considered as included in those resolutions, or their ministering elder be permitted to perform any of his religious duties in the Legislature? Can it be imagined that the Legislature meant, under any circumstances, to give a call to Shaker chaplains, and to join in the devotions of that humble sect, whose faith and trust in God is such, they have no fear that he will do them any wrong, and therefore never pray to have him do as he or they think right; but with hearts inspired with gratitude and joy, they hymn his praise in music's moving strains, and perform with measured step, as pious David did, a solemn "dance before the Lord."

But the proof that a discrimination is made, and intended to be made, by which all the clergy in Albany have not been permitted to officiate even in prayer, at the instance of the Legislature, does not rest alone on hypothetical data. The committee are credibly [A. No. 298.]

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informed and think, as the circumstance was noticed in the public prints, it may still be in the recollection of some of the members of this House, that some three or four years since, a respectable, regular, orthodox clergyman, who has the pastoral charge of a coloured flock in this city, knowing that the resolutions by which chaplains were appointed to make legislative prayers, made no discrimination which excluded him from participating with his professional brethren, in offering praise and supplication to an almighty and just God, who is "no respecter of persons," nor the colour of "the outward man," he claimed his equal right to pray and to be paid. The dilemma thus produced was the subject of negotiation, which resulted in a compromise, by which the sable pastor was paid from the public purse, not for saying prayers for the Legislature, as other chaplains did, but for not saying them and thus obtained "the penny without the pater noster." Whether it is true, as is said, that a similar arrangement is yearly made, your committee have not been able fully to ascertain, but believe the fact is so.

Your committee will close this part of the subject under discussion, with an item of testimony before noticed, and which is so clear and unequivocal, that he "who runs may read and understand" that the power to appoint chaplains to the Legislature is expressly interdicted by the constitution; the enacting clause of the fourth section of the seventh article of which, is in the words following: "no minister of the gospel, or priest of any denomination whatsoever, shall at any time hereafter, under any pretence or description whatever, be eligible to or capable of holding any civil or military office or place within the State."

The office of chaplain to the Legislature, is a civil or an ecclesiastical office. Prayer is not a civil, but religious duty. To appoint priests or others to do religious service, is to appoint them to ecclesiastical office. Were the office of chaplain a civil office, the appointment of a priest to perform the duties connected with it, would be, as has been already proved, a palpable violation of the above recited provision of the constitution: and there being no ecclesiastical authority vested in the Legislature, they are as totally destitute of legitimate power to create an ecclesiastical office, or to appoint priests to perform any religious duty or service whatever, as if the official employment of chaplains for such purpose, by the Legislature were in express terms prohibited by the constitution.

After showing that the Legislature possess no legitimate power to associate religious devotion with legislative business proceedings, nor to appoint others to do so; it would seem to be superfluous to prove that it follows, as a necessary consequence, that they have no better warrant to take money from the public treasury to pay officers who they have no right to appoint; or for services which they have no better authority officially to require. Yet your committee trust it will not be deemed obtrusive if they offer a few observations on the subject of the pay of chaplains with the money of the people.

It is well said, in several of the memorials on this subject, that "the laborer is worthy of his hire;" and that when priests or other persons are hired to do religious duty, or to render any other service, they ought, in justice, to be paid, if they require it: but justice also requires that they should be paid by those at whose instance, and for whose benefit their services may be rendered, and not from the public purse, nor from the pockets of individuals who neither require nor approve public prayers, nor any hired religious devotion. No person of mature understanding, who is acquainted with the principles of our government and the provisions of the constitution will contend that the Legislature have a right to enact a law, expressly for the purpose of levying a direct tax on the people to pay the wages of priests appointed to say prayers, or to perform any other kind of religious service for the Legislature. Equally cartain is it, that they have no better right to take money which has been paid by the people for legitimate objects, and apply it to purposes for which the Legislature have no constitutional right to impose a tax.

Again: your committee will repeat, if the Legislature have a right to grant the public money to such officers, for religious services performed for the Legislature within the doors of the halls of legislation; they have equally as good (assumed) authority to grant like pay for like services performed out of the pale of the legislative chambers. And as the will and pleasure of the Legislature are the only basis of all the measures and proceedings, against which your committee are reasoning, the same authority, with the same propriety, might with equal justice grant per diem pay for religious services performed under legislative auspices any where in the State; and by the exercise of power which would be as righteously assumed in all cases as in the appointment of a single chaplain,

might honor all the clergy in the State with the office and by recognizing the principle assumed in the case of the coloured pastor, and following that precedent, might appropriate the public taxes to the payment of all priests, whom they might choose to honor with the office of legislative chaplains, and so put them all, "without discrimination or preference," under per diem pay at the public expense, whether they actually officiated in the Legislature or not. Thus one united legislative and ecclesiastical encroachment would be followed by another, until their influence in the political councils of the State would, if suffered to prevail, endanger or destroy the civil and religious liberties of the people.

Your committee would be willing here to close their remarks, were they not aware that there is an evil spirit abroad, seeking to infuse its baleful influence among the people, to obtain a dominant power in the civil government, through which to manage all the political concerns of the nation, and thus to establish ecclesiastical dominion on the ruins of our free republican institutions, and the civil and religious liberties of our country.

To stifle thought, to suppress the exercise of human reason, and to prevent the use of argument, the name of God and of religion have often been profanely used to excite hostility and denunciation against ali who oppose clerical domination, or any measures tending to a union of church and state, or who dare evince moral courage sufficient to exercise the rights of conscience, and maintain the freedom of opinion and the right of free discussion.

In opposition to the view which your committee have taken of the subject of the present report, it may again, as with like intent it often has been said, "that the United States are a nation of christians; that christianity is the law of the land, and that all are infidels who disbelieve this doctrine or oppose it."

Were it true that christianity, as such, is the law of the land, because a majority of the people are professing christians, it would be indispensable that every citizen should know what christianity is ; because all ought to know the law, who are required to obey it. It would become essential then to ascertain which particular creed, of the seventy different christian sects, is to be respected as the law of the land, and by which the other sixty-nine would be held as illegal." If a majority can arbitrarily violate the provisions of the constitution by which the rights of the minority were intended to be secured, on

the same principle then, Methodism, which is as much entitled to the name of christianity as the creed of any other sect, and the prɔfessors of which possess as much intelligence, integrity, and sincere religious faith as any other, and are far more numerous than any other christian sect in this country, would be justly deemed "the law of the land ;" and the creed and worship of the minor christian sects would be adjudged illegal. And when we consider that all may be wrong, and only one can be right, it might become highly important, in order to know what kind of christianity is "the law of the land," to ascertain whether the religious faith of St. Paul or St. Peter, Martin Luther or John Calvin, would be considered as the law of the State; and which two or three of these would be denounced as illegal. Equally requisite would it be, in order to know "the law of the land," to understand whether modern or primitive christianity is such.

To settle all these questions or any of them, would require the united effort of church and state. A religious inquisition would thence be indispensable; and all the horrid scenes of the darker ages, when ecclesiastical power reigned triumphant, would be again reacted. Our "happy land" would be as other nations have been, the bloody arena of religious strife, and church and state contention. The advocates of the miscalled christian law, would discuss itз merits and its claims "sword in hand;" and fire and faggct, the rack and the wheel, would be used to prove the truth, enforce conviction, and to make converts to the faith sustained by the prevailing influence of such irresistible means of "adding to the church such as would be saved" from the power and tender mercies of the holy office, and the purifying flames of a religious auto da fe!

But to many honest and sincere professors of christianity, it ought to be a source of felicitation, that "the kingdom of Christ is not of this world;" and that the precepts and doctrines of Jesus are not "the law of the land :" for were they so, "prayers in public places" would be by law interdicted and suppressed; and men would be obliged, "when they pray, to go into their closets and shut the doors and pray in secret." And those who profess to be sent by God, to 'go throughout all the earth and teach the gospel to every creature, without money and without price," would not be allowed by law to take pay for preaching or for prayers: nor would the people be taxed to pay hire for the performance of any religious duty. And were the precepts and doctrines of Jesus and his apostles, to be regarded as "the law of the land," none would be obliged, as by statute law