[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
. The plaintiff was participating in an illegal work whichled to the injury he sustained, the court held, and the law will not aid him torecover damages for the consequences of his own illegal act. 52As occurred in McGrath, the frequent result of dies non juridicus was thatthe injured party, or the one tricked into purchasing defective merchandise, L EGAL C HRISTIANITY A PPLIED 189was barred from recovering, thus rewarding the negligent or deceitful partici-pant.Even when the deceit or wrong was acknowledged, and hence the sinneridentified, antebellum courts clung to the formalism of the rule and its reli-gious purpose; the wronged party s breach of the Sabbath outweighed otherconsiderations.In the Maine promissory note case previously mentioned, thecourt held for the defendant even though he had admitted to obtaining theplaintiff s horse without paying for it.The concept of dies non juridicus renderedotherwise legal acts void ab initio, thus relieving courts from further consider-ing the equities.As the Mississippi Supreme Court declared in 1866, contractsperformed on Sunday are not only positively prohibited by the law of the land,but they are generally admitted, in Christian communities, to be in violation ofthe law of God. As a result, [c]ontracts made on Sunday are void because theyare made on that day, which is prohibited.It is the timing of the act done, thatvitiates it. 53Both of these legal theories helped to reinforce a religious perspectivetoward Sunday laws well into midcentury.High courts in Arkansas (1850),Pennsylvania (1853), Missouri (1854), New York (1861), Minnesota (1862), andMississippi (1866) reaffirmed the religious basis for Sabbath laws.54 Mostjudges simply cited the seminal decisions of Wolf, Pearce, or Benjamin; otherschose to elaborate on the religious purpose for the laws.The PennsylvaniaSupreme Court wrote in 1853 that Sabbath rest was enjoined by the preceptand example of the Author of our existence, and government, founding itselfupon Divine appointment, has made it a civil institution. Six years later, aPennsylvania Commonwealth Court declared that Sunday was clothed withpeculiar sanctity and noted that the ancient, colonial, provincial, and StateLegislature, and the Constitution itself, are all based upon Christianity as a partof the common law, and distinctly recognize Sunday. Thus, the court con-cluded, [u]pon its peaceful observance Christianity in a great measure dependsfor its support.Destroy this day and a revolution of the most astounding char-acter is produced. 55Among those courts that embraced the religious purpose of Sabbath laws,few were as candid as the Missouri Supreme Court.In 1854, the court consid-ered an appeal by a defendant convicted of operating an alehouse on Sunday.The defendant contended that the laws prohibiting the sale of intoxicating liq-uors were dictated by religious motives and thus inconsistent with the rightsof religious conscience.Accepting the defendant s characterization of the law sorigins as accurate, the court nevertheless upheld his conviction, declaring thatthe Sunday law, like the state constitution, revealed that the Christian religionwas the religion of its framers who had long lived under, and experienced thenecessity of laws to secure the observance of Sunday as a day of rest. Sunday 190 L EGAL DISESTABLISHMENTlaws necessarily enforced religious conformity, and rightly so: experience hadshown that the mild voice of Christianity was unable to secure the due observ-ance of Sunday as a day of rest. It was therefore appropriate that the armof the civil power was interposed to ensure religious compliance.For theMissouri court, the religious purpose for the law was not in doubt.As the courtasked rhetorically in closing, [c]onvert Sunday into a worldly day by law, andwhat becomes of Christianity? 56As these decisions indicate, by the fifth decade of the nineteenth century,the maxim that Christianity was part of the law was well established.Themaxim had been embraced and applied by the high courts in New York, SouthCarolina, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts, among others, and by several ofthe leading jurists of the day.Although language expressly affirming the maximappeared in only a small number of the church-state cases during the antebel-lum period, those cases were more than sufficient to give the maxim an auraof authority.And in several instances, the legal weight given to the maximdetermined the outcome of a case.All of the blasphemy prosecutions and mostSabbath cases involving constructive breaches could not have occurred withoutjudicial adherence to the maxim.Whether stated or implied, it provided a com-pelling rationale for the regulation of behavior according to a Christian stand-ard.The maxim also imposed a significant limitation on understandings ofchurch-state separation and the ultimate effects of disestablishment.By rein-forcing the law s relationship to Christianity, the maxim served as a majorimpediment to further disestablishment in America.Justice Story and the MaximThis consideration of the origins and impact of the maxim would be incom-plete without giving special attention to the contribution of Joseph Story.Storywas the most influential spokesman for Christianity s incorporation into thelaw, Chancellor Kent notwithstanding.For more than three decades, Storyadvanced the maxim in his speeches, writings, and court opinions.In threedocuments in particular his American Jurist article, his Commentaries on theConstitution, and his Girard will opinion Story elaborated on the concept atlength, and it was through these writings that he had the greatest impact onpopular perceptions of the law s dependence upon Christianity.Story s own religious beliefs and general attitude toward church-stateissues help to explain his understanding of the maxim and his overall concep-tion of the relationship of religion to republican government.Story was nottheologically orthodox, having converted to Unitarianism as a student while L EGAL C HRISTIANITY A PPLIED 191attending Harvard College.However, Story s Unitarianism was not the theo-logically abstract or socially indulgent system that characterized the denomina-tion later in the century.The Unitarianism with which Story aligned himselfwas part of the conservative, intellectual establishment that dominated NewEngland and defended its remaining establishments to the bitter end.Empha-sizing personal morality and rationalism over emotion or experimentalism,Unitarians like Story advocated public virtue and social order as the keystonesof republican society.Having achieved dominance in Massachusetts, the Uni-tarian establishment fought to continue the financial support of religion andthe regulation of public morality through law.As already discussed, Storyserved as a delegate to the 1820 Massachusetts Constitutional Convention andsought to preserve the state s establishment through moderate reforms.57One biographer has written that Story held a warm, personal theology thatstood in stark contrast to his conservative political outlook [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
zanotowane.pl doc.pisz.pl pdf.pisz.pl przylepto3.keep.pl
. The plaintiff was participating in an illegal work whichled to the injury he sustained, the court held, and the law will not aid him torecover damages for the consequences of his own illegal act. 52As occurred in McGrath, the frequent result of dies non juridicus was thatthe injured party, or the one tricked into purchasing defective merchandise, L EGAL C HRISTIANITY A PPLIED 189was barred from recovering, thus rewarding the negligent or deceitful partici-pant.Even when the deceit or wrong was acknowledged, and hence the sinneridentified, antebellum courts clung to the formalism of the rule and its reli-gious purpose; the wronged party s breach of the Sabbath outweighed otherconsiderations.In the Maine promissory note case previously mentioned, thecourt held for the defendant even though he had admitted to obtaining theplaintiff s horse without paying for it.The concept of dies non juridicus renderedotherwise legal acts void ab initio, thus relieving courts from further consider-ing the equities.As the Mississippi Supreme Court declared in 1866, contractsperformed on Sunday are not only positively prohibited by the law of the land,but they are generally admitted, in Christian communities, to be in violation ofthe law of God. As a result, [c]ontracts made on Sunday are void because theyare made on that day, which is prohibited.It is the timing of the act done, thatvitiates it. 53Both of these legal theories helped to reinforce a religious perspectivetoward Sunday laws well into midcentury.High courts in Arkansas (1850),Pennsylvania (1853), Missouri (1854), New York (1861), Minnesota (1862), andMississippi (1866) reaffirmed the religious basis for Sabbath laws.54 Mostjudges simply cited the seminal decisions of Wolf, Pearce, or Benjamin; otherschose to elaborate on the religious purpose for the laws.The PennsylvaniaSupreme Court wrote in 1853 that Sabbath rest was enjoined by the preceptand example of the Author of our existence, and government, founding itselfupon Divine appointment, has made it a civil institution. Six years later, aPennsylvania Commonwealth Court declared that Sunday was clothed withpeculiar sanctity and noted that the ancient, colonial, provincial, and StateLegislature, and the Constitution itself, are all based upon Christianity as a partof the common law, and distinctly recognize Sunday. Thus, the court con-cluded, [u]pon its peaceful observance Christianity in a great measure dependsfor its support.Destroy this day and a revolution of the most astounding char-acter is produced. 55Among those courts that embraced the religious purpose of Sabbath laws,few were as candid as the Missouri Supreme Court.In 1854, the court consid-ered an appeal by a defendant convicted of operating an alehouse on Sunday.The defendant contended that the laws prohibiting the sale of intoxicating liq-uors were dictated by religious motives and thus inconsistent with the rightsof religious conscience.Accepting the defendant s characterization of the law sorigins as accurate, the court nevertheless upheld his conviction, declaring thatthe Sunday law, like the state constitution, revealed that the Christian religionwas the religion of its framers who had long lived under, and experienced thenecessity of laws to secure the observance of Sunday as a day of rest. Sunday 190 L EGAL DISESTABLISHMENTlaws necessarily enforced religious conformity, and rightly so: experience hadshown that the mild voice of Christianity was unable to secure the due observ-ance of Sunday as a day of rest. It was therefore appropriate that the armof the civil power was interposed to ensure religious compliance.For theMissouri court, the religious purpose for the law was not in doubt.As the courtasked rhetorically in closing, [c]onvert Sunday into a worldly day by law, andwhat becomes of Christianity? 56As these decisions indicate, by the fifth decade of the nineteenth century,the maxim that Christianity was part of the law was well established.Themaxim had been embraced and applied by the high courts in New York, SouthCarolina, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts, among others, and by several ofthe leading jurists of the day.Although language expressly affirming the maximappeared in only a small number of the church-state cases during the antebel-lum period, those cases were more than sufficient to give the maxim an auraof authority.And in several instances, the legal weight given to the maximdetermined the outcome of a case.All of the blasphemy prosecutions and mostSabbath cases involving constructive breaches could not have occurred withoutjudicial adherence to the maxim.Whether stated or implied, it provided a com-pelling rationale for the regulation of behavior according to a Christian stand-ard.The maxim also imposed a significant limitation on understandings ofchurch-state separation and the ultimate effects of disestablishment.By rein-forcing the law s relationship to Christianity, the maxim served as a majorimpediment to further disestablishment in America.Justice Story and the MaximThis consideration of the origins and impact of the maxim would be incom-plete without giving special attention to the contribution of Joseph Story.Storywas the most influential spokesman for Christianity s incorporation into thelaw, Chancellor Kent notwithstanding.For more than three decades, Storyadvanced the maxim in his speeches, writings, and court opinions.In threedocuments in particular his American Jurist article, his Commentaries on theConstitution, and his Girard will opinion Story elaborated on the concept atlength, and it was through these writings that he had the greatest impact onpopular perceptions of the law s dependence upon Christianity.Story s own religious beliefs and general attitude toward church-stateissues help to explain his understanding of the maxim and his overall concep-tion of the relationship of religion to republican government.Story was nottheologically orthodox, having converted to Unitarianism as a student while L EGAL C HRISTIANITY A PPLIED 191attending Harvard College.However, Story s Unitarianism was not the theo-logically abstract or socially indulgent system that characterized the denomina-tion later in the century.The Unitarianism with which Story aligned himselfwas part of the conservative, intellectual establishment that dominated NewEngland and defended its remaining establishments to the bitter end.Empha-sizing personal morality and rationalism over emotion or experimentalism,Unitarians like Story advocated public virtue and social order as the keystonesof republican society.Having achieved dominance in Massachusetts, the Uni-tarian establishment fought to continue the financial support of religion andthe regulation of public morality through law.As already discussed, Storyserved as a delegate to the 1820 Massachusetts Constitutional Convention andsought to preserve the state s establishment through moderate reforms.57One biographer has written that Story held a warm, personal theology thatstood in stark contrast to his conservative political outlook [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]