Such measures are but the initiatory
steps which ultimately lead to _restrictions of religious freedom_,
and to commit the government to measures which are as foreign to
its powers and purposes as would be its action if it should
undertake to determine a disputed question of theology."
The _Weekly Alta Californian_ of San Francisco, March 12, 1870, said:--
"The parties who have been recently holding a convention for the
somewhat novel purpose of procuring an amendment to the
Constitution of the United States recognizing the Deity, do not
fairly state the case when they assert that it is the right of a
Christian people to govern themselves in a Christian manner. If we
are not governing ourselves in a Christian manner, how shall the
doings of our government be designated? The fact is, that the
movement is one to bring about in this country that union of church
and State which all other nations are trying to dissolve."
The N.Y. _Independent_, Feb., 1870, spoke of the movement as having the
same chance of success that a union of church and State would have.
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