*W E B S T E R, S S P E E C H .
DEFENCE
pIF THE
CHRISTIAN RELIGION,
AND OF THE
RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION OF THE YOUNG.
DELIVERED IN THE
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES,
FEBRUARY 10, 1844.
IN THE CASE OF STEPHEN GIRARD’S WILL
BY
HON. DANIEL WEBSTER.
•w"wºv-º - - *-
THIS EDITION HAS BEEN SUBMITTED TO THE REVISAL OF MR. WEBSTER, AND
IS ISSUED WITH HIS CONSENT ON THE APPLICATION OF FRIENDS.
NEW YORK :
PUBLISHED BY MARK H. NEWMAN,
No. 199 Broadway,
1844,
Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1844, by
MARK H. NEWMAN,
in the Clerk's office of the District Court for the Southern. District of New York,
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S. w. BENEDICT & CO.; PRINT.,
I 28 Fu 1 to n Street.
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C O R. R. E. SP O N D EN C E ,
WASHINGTON, February 13, 1844.
SIR : Enclosed is a copy of certain proceedings of a meeting held in refers
ence to your argument in the Supreme Courtin the case arising out of the late
Mr. Girard’s will. In communicating to you the request contained in the
second resolution, we take leave to express our earnest hope that you may
find it convenient to comply with that request.
We are, sir, with high consideration, yours, very respectfully,
P. R. FENDALL, Y
HORACE STRINGFELLOW,
º N. DANFORTH,
. R. GURLEY, -r i - -
WILLIAM RUGGLES, Commitleg.
JOEL S. BACON,
THOMAS SEWALL,
WILLIAM B. EDWARDS, )
Hon. DANIEL WEBSTER.
§ -&
At a meeting of a number of citizens, belonging to different religious denom-
inations, of Washington and its vicinity, convened to consider the expediency
of procuring the publication of so much of Mr. Webster's argument before the
Supreme Court of the United States, in the case of François F. Vidal et al.,
appellants, vs. the Mayor, &c., of Philadelphia, and Stephen Girard’s execu-
tors, as relates to that part of Mr. Girard’s will which excludes ministers of
religion from any station or duty in the college directed by the testator to be
founded, and denies to them the right of visiting said college—the object of the
meeting having been stated by Professor Sewall in a few appropriate remarks,
the Hon. Henry L. Ellsworth was elected chairman, and the Rev. Isaac 8,
Tinsley, secretary.
4 CORRESPONDENCE.
Whereupon it was, on motion, unanimously resolved—
1st. That in the opinion of this meeting, the powerful and eloquent argu-
ment of Mr. Webster, on the before-mentioned clause of Mr. Girard’s will,
demonstrates the vital importance of Christianity to the success of our free
institutions, and its necessity as the basis of all useful moral education; and
that the general diffusion of that argument among the people of the United
States is a matter of deep public interest.
2d. That a committee of eight persons, of the Several Christian denomina-
tions represented in this meeting, be appointed to wait on Mr. Webster, and,
in the name and on behalf of this meeting, to request him to prepare for the
press the portion referred to, of his argument in the Girard case; and, should
he consent to do so, to cause it to be speedily published and extensively dis-
Seminated.
The following gentlemen were appointed the committee under the second
resolution : Philip R. Fendall, Esq., Rev. Horace Stringfellow, Rev. Joshua
N. Danforth, Rev. R. Randolph Gurley, Professor William Ruggles, Rev.
President J. S. Bacon, Doctor Thomas Sewall, Rev. William B. Edwards.
The meeting then adjourned.
H. L. ELLSWORTH, Chairman.
ISAAC S. TINSLEY, Secretary. -
WASHINGTON, February 13, 1844.
GENTLEMEN: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your commu-
nication. Gentlemen connected with the public press have, I believe, reported
my speech in the case arising under Mr. Girard’s will. I will look over the
report of that part of it to which you refer, so far as to see that it is free from
material errors, but I have not leisure so to revise it as to give it the form of a
careful or regular composition.
I am, gentlemen, with very true regard, your obedient servant,
DANIEL WEBSTER,
To Messrs. P. R. FENDALL.
HoRACE STRINGFELLOw.
Joshu A N. DANFORTH.
R. R. GURLEy.
WILLIAM RUGGLEs.
THOMAS SEwALL.
WILLIAM B. EDwARDs,
Socrates. If, then, you wish public measures to be right and noble, virtue
must be given by you to the citizens.
Alcibiades. How could any one deny that?
Socrates. Virtue, therefore, is that which is to be first possessed; both by
you and by every other person who would have direction and care; not only
for himself and things dear to himself, but for the State and things dear to the
State.
Alcibiades. You speak truly. * * ,
Socrates. To act justly and wisely (both you and the State), YoU MUST
ACT ACCORDING To THE wilt, of God.
Alcibiades. It is so. [Plato, in Alcibiades.
“Sic igitur hoc a principio persuasum civibus, dominos esse ominium refumi
ac moderatores, Deos.”—Cicero de Legibus.
“We shall never be such fools as to call in an enemy to the substance of
âny system, to supply its defects; or to perfect its construction.”
“If our religious tenets should ever want a fürther elucidation; we shall not
call on Atheism to explain them. We shall not light up our temple from that
inhallowed fire.” -
“We know, and it is our pride to know; that man is; by his constitution, a
religious animal.”—Burke,
SPEECH.
MAy IT PLEASE your HoNors:
IT is not necessary for me to narrate, in detail, the
numerous provisions in Mr. GIRARD's will. This has
already been repeatedly done by other counsel, and
I shall content myself with stating and considering
those parts only which are immediately involved in
the decision of this cause. The will is drawn with
apparent care and method, and is regularly divided
into clauses. The first nineteen clauses contain
various devises and legacies to relatives, other
private individuals, and to public bodies.
By the 20th clause the whole residue of his estate,
real and personal, is devised and bequeathed to the
“mayor, aldermen, and citizens of Philadelphia,”
in trust for the several uses to be after mentioned
and declared.
The 21st clause contains the devise or bequest to
the college, in these words:
“And so far as regards the residue of my personal estate in trust, as to two
millions of dollars, part thereof, to apply and expend so much of that sum as
8 websTER’s SPEECH
may be necessary in erecting, as soon as practicably may be, in the centre of
my square of ground, between High and Chestnut streets, and Eleventh and
Twelfth streets, in the city of Philadelphia (which square of ground I here-
by devote for the purpose hereinafter stated, and for no other, for ever), a per-
manent college, with suitable out-buildings, sufficiently spacious for the resi-
dence and accommodation of at least three hundred scholars, and the requisite
teachers and other persons necessary in such an institution as I direct to be
established, and in supplying the said college and out-buildings with decent
and suitable furniture, as well as books, and all things needful to carry into effect
my general design.”
The testator then proceeds to direct that the
college shall be constructed of the most durable
materials, avoiding needless ornament, and attending
chiefly to the strength, convenience, and neatness of
the whole; and gives directions, very much in de-
tail, respecting the form of the building, and the size
and fashion of the rooms. The whole square, he
directs, shall be enclosed with a solid wall, at least
fourteen inches thick and ten feet high, capped with
marble, and guarded with irons on the top, so as to
prevent persons from getting over; and there are to
be two places of entrance into the square, with two
gates at each, one opening inward and the other out.
ward; those opening inward to be of iron, and those
opening outward to be of wood work lined with sheet
iron.
The testator then proceeds to state his directions
respecting the institution, laying down his plan and
objects in several articles. The third article is in
these words:
“3. As many poor white male orphans, between the ages of six and ten
years, as the said income shall be adequate to maintain, shall be introduced
into the college as Soon as possible; and from time to time, as there may be
vacancies, or as increased ability from income may warrant, others shall be
introduced.”
ON GIRARD's wiLL. 9
The fifth direction is as follows:
“5. No orphan should be admitted until the guardians, or directors of the
poor, or a proper guardian or other competent authority, shall have given by
indenture, relinquishment, or otherwise, adequate power to the mayor, alder-
men, and citizens of Philadelphia, or to directors or others by them appointed,
to enforce, in relation to each orphan, every proper restraint, and to prevent
relations or others from interfering with or withdrawing such orphan from the
institution.”
By the sixth article, or direction, preference is to
be given, first, to orphans born in Philadelphia;
second, to those born in other parts of Pennsylvania;
third, to those born in the city of New York; and
lastly, to those born in the city of New Orleans.
By the seventh, it is declared that the orphans
shall be lodged, fed, and clothed in the college; that
they shall be instructed in the various branches of
sound education, comprehending reading, writing,
grammar, arithmetic, geography, navigation, Survey-
ing, practical mathematics, astronomy, natural,
chemical, and experimental philosophy; and the
French and Spanish languages, and such other
learning and science as the capacities of the scholars
may merit or want. The Greek and Latin langua-
ges are not forbidden, but are not recommended.
By the ninth article it is declared, that the boys
shall remain in the college till they arrive at between
fourteen and eighteen years of age, when they shall
be bound out by the city government to suitable oc-
cupations, such as agriculture, navigation, mechani-
cal trades, &c. - -
The testator then proceeds to say that he neces-
sarily leaves many details to the city government;
and then adds, “there are, however, some restrictions
© i
fº
10 webstER's SPEECH
which I consider it my duty to prescribe, and to be,
amongst others, conditions on which my bequest for
said college is made, and to be enjoyed.”
The second of these restrictions is in the follow-
ing words:
“Secondly. I enjoin and require that no ecclesiastic, missionary, or min-
fister, of any sect whatever, shall ever hold or exercise any station or duty what-
ever in the said college: nor shall any such person ever be admitted for any
purpose, or as a visiter, within the premises appropriated to the purposes of
the said college.
“In making this restriction, I do not mean to cast any reflection upon any
Sector person whatsoever; but, as there is such a diversity of opinion amongst
them, I desire to keep the tender minds of the orphans, who are to derive ad-
vantage from this bequest, free from the excitement which clashing doctrines
and sectarian controversy are so apt to produce; my desire is, that all the in-
structors and teachers in the college shall take pains to instil into the minds
of the scholars the purest principles of morality, so that on their entrance into
active life they may, from inclination and habits, evince benevolence towards
their fellow-creatures, and a love of truth, sobriety, and industry, adopting at
the same time such religious tenets as their matured reason may enable them
to prefer.”
The testator having, after the date of his will,
bought a house in Penn township, with forty-five
acres of land, he made a codicil, by which he directed
the college to be built on this estate, instead of the
square mentioned in the will, and the whole estab-
lishment to be made thereon, just as if he had in his
will devoted the estate to that purpose.
The city government has accordingly been advis-
ed that the whole forty-five acres must be enclosed
with the same high wall, as was provided in the will
for the square in the city. -
I have now stated, I believe, all the provisions
of the will which are material to the discussion of
that part of the case which respects the character of
the institution. •
ON GIRARD's will. 11
The first question is, whether this devise can be
sustained, otherwise than as a charity, and by that
special aid and assistance by which courts of equity
support gifts to charitable uses. •
If the devise be a good limitation at law, if it re-
Quire no exercise of the favor which is bestowed on
privileged testaments, then there is already an end
to the question. But I take it that this point is con-
ceded. The devise is void, according to the general
rules of law, on account of the uncertainty in the
description of those who are intended to receive its
benefits.
“Poor white male orphan children” is so loose a
description, that no one can bring himself within
the terms of the bequest, so as to say that it was
made in his favor. No individual can acquire any
right, or interest; nobody therefore can come forward
as a party, in a court of law, to claim participation
in the gift.
The bequest must stand, then, if it stand at all, on
the peculiar rules which equitable jurisprudence ap-
plies to charities. This is clear.
I proceed, therefore, to submit, and most consci-
entiously to argue, a question, certainly one of the
highest which this court has been called upon to
consider, and one of the highest, and most impor-
tant, in my opinion, ever likely to come before it.
That question is, whether, in the eye of equitable juris-
prudence, this devise be a charity at all. I deny that it
is so. I maintain, that neither by judicial decisions,
nor by correct reasoning on general principles, can
this devise or bequest be regarded as a charity. This
\
12 wFBSTER’s SPEECH
part of the argument is not affected by the particular
judicial system of Pennsylvania, or the question of
the power of her courts to uphold and administer
charitable gifts. The question which I now propose
respects the inherent, essential, and manifest char-
acter of the devise itself. In this respect, I wish to
express myself clearly, and to be correctly and dis-
tinctly understood. What I have said, I shall stand
by, and endeavor to maintain, viz. that in the view
of a court of equity, this devise is no charity at all.
It is no charity, because the plan of education pro-
posed by Mr. Girard is derogatory to the Christian
religion; tends to weaken men's reverence for that
religion, and their conviction of its authority and im-
portance; and therefore, in its general character,
tends to mischievous, and not to useful ends.
The proposed school is to be founded on plain and
clear principles, and for plain and clear objects, of
infidelity. This cannot well be doubted; and a gift
or devise for such objects is not a charity, and as
such entitled to the well known favor with which
charities are received and upheld by the Courts of
Christian countries.
In the next place, the object of this bequest is
against the public policy of the State of Pennsylvania,
in which State Christianity is declared to be the law
of the land. For that reason, therefore, as well as
the other, the devise ought not to be allowed to take
effect. . -
These are the two propositions which it is my pur-
pose to maintain, on this part of the case.
This scheme of instruction begins by attempting to
ON GIRARD's WILL. 13
attach reproach and odium to the whole clergy of the
country. It places a brand, a stigma, on every indi-
vidual member of the profession, without an excep-
tion. No minister of the gospel, of any denomina-
tion, is to be allowed to come within the grounds
belonging to this school, on any occasion, or for any
purpose whatever. They are all rigorously excluded,
as if their mere presence might cause pestilence.
We have heard it said that Mr. Girard, by this will,
distributed his charity without distinction of sect or
party. However that may be, sir, he certainly has
dealt out opprobrium to the whole profession of the
clergy, without regard to sect or party.
By this will, no minister of the gospel of any sect
or denomination whatever, can be authorised or al-
lowed to hold any office within the college; and not
only that, but no minister or clergyman of any sect
can, for any purpose whatever, enter within the walls
that are to surround this college. If a clergyman
has a sick nephew, or a sick grandson, he cannot,
upon any pretext, be allowed to visit him within the
walls of the college. The provision of the will is
express and decisive. Still less may a clergyman
enter to offer consolation to the sick, or to unite in
prayer with the dying.
Now, I will not arraign Mr. Girard or his motives
for this. I will not inquire into Mr. Girard's opinions
upon religion. But Ifeel bound to say (the occasion
demands that I should say) that this is the most
opprobrious, the most insulting, and unmerited
stigma that ever was cast, or attempted to be cast,
upon the preachers of Christianity, from north to
14 weBSTER’s SPEECH
south, from east to west, the length and breadth of
the land, in the history of the country. When have
they deserved it? Where have they deserved it?
How have they deserved it? They are not to be
allowed even the ordinary rights of hospitality! Not
even to be permitted to put their foot over the thres-
hold of this college' -
Sir, I take it upon myself to say, that in no coun-
try in the world, upon either continent, can there be
found a body of ministers of the gospel who perform
so much service to man, in such a full spirit of self.
denial, under so little encouragement from Govern-
ment of any kind, and under circumstances, always
much straitened and often distressed, as the minis-
ters of the gospel in the United States, of all denom-
inations ! -
They form no part of any established order of reli-
gion; they constitute no hierarchy; they enjoy no
peculiar privileges—in some of the States they are
even shut out from all participation in the political
rights and privileges enjoyed by their fellow-citizens;
they enjoy no tithes—no public provision of any
kind. And except here and there, in large cities,
where a wealthy individual occasionally makes a
donation for the support of public worship, what
have they to depend upon? They have to depend
entirely on the voluntary contributions of those who
hear them. -
And this body of clergymen has shown, to the
honor of their own country, and to the astonishment
of the hierarchies of the old world, that it is practi-
cable in free governments to raise and sustain a body
ON GIRARD's WILL. 15
of clergymen—which for devotedness to their sacred
calling, for purity of life and character, for learning,
intelligence, piety, and that wisdom which cometh
from above, is inferior to none, and superior to most
others, by voluntary contributions alone.
I hope that our learned men have done something
for the honor of our literature abroad. I hope that
the courts of justice and members of the bar of this
country have done something to elevate the char-
acter of the profession of the law—I hope that the
discussions above (in Congress) have done some-
thing to meliorate the condition of the human race,
to secure and extend the great charter of human
rights, and to strengthen and advance the great prin-
ciples of human liberty. But I contend that no
literary efforts, no adjudications, no constitutional
discussions, nothing that has been done or said in
favor of the great interests of universal man, has
done this country more credit at home and abroad,
than the establishment of our body of clergymen,
their support by voluntary contributions, and the
general excellence of their character, their piety, and
learning. - -
That great truth has been thus proclaimed and
proved (a truth which I believe will in time to come
shake all the hierarchies of Europe), that the voluntary
support of such a ministry, under free institutions, is
a practicable idea.
And yet every one of these is by this devise denied
the privileges which are at the same time open to
the vilest of our race—every one is shut out from this,
I had almost said, sanctum—but I will not profane
that word by such a use of it.
16 weBSTER’s SPEECH
Did the man ever live that had a respect for the
Christian religion, and yet had no regard for any one
of its ministers? Did that system of instruction ever
exist, which denounced the whole body of Christian
teachers, and yet called itself a system of Christi-
anity ? s
The learned counsel on the other side see the weak
points of this case. They are not blind. They
have, with the aid of their great learning, industry,
and research, gone back to the time of Constantine
—have gone through the history of the Roman Em-
perors—the dark ages and the intervening period—
down to the settlement of these colonies; they have
explored every nook and corner of religious and
Christian history, to find out the various meanings
and uses of Christian charity; and yet, with all their
skill and all their research, they have not been able
to discover anything which has ever been regarded
as a Christian charity, which sets such an opprobrium
upon the forehead of all its ministers. If, with all
their endeavors, they can find any one thing which
has been so regarded, they may have their college, and
make the most of it.
The thing does not exist—it never had a being—
history does not record it—common sense revolts
at it.
It certainly is not necessary for me to make an
ecclesiastical argument in support of this proposition.
The thing is so plain that it must instantly commend
itself to your Honors.
It has been said that Mr. Girard was charitable.
I am not now going to controvert this, I hope he
ON GIRARD's will. 17
was. I hope he has found his reward. It has also
been asked, “cannot Mr. Girard be allowed to have
his own will—to devise his property according to his
own desire?” Certainly he can, in any legal devise,
and the law will sustain him therein. But it is not
for him to overturn the law of the land. The law
cannot be altered to please Mr. Girard. He found
that out, I believe, in two or three instances in his
lifetime. - -
Nor can the law be altered on account of the mag-
nitude and munificence of the bounty. What is the
value of that bounty, however great or munificent,
which touches the very foundations of human society
—which touches the very foundations of Christian
charity—which touches the very foundations of pub-
lic law, and the Constitution, and the whole welfare
of the State 2 -
And now, let me ask, what is, in contemplation
of law, “a charity ?” The word has various signi-
fications. In the larger and broader sense, it means
the kindly exercise of the social affections—all the
good feelings which man entertains towards man.
Charity is love. This is that charity of which St.
Paul speaks—that charity which covereth the sins
of men—“that suffereth all things, hopeth all things.”
In a more popular sense, charity is alms-giving or
active benevolence.
But the question for your Honors to decide here
is, what is a charity, or a charitable use, in contem-
plation of law. To answer this inquiry, we are
generally referred to the objects enumerated in the
43d of Elizabeth. The objects enumerated in that
3
18 WBBSTER’s SPEECH
statute, and others analogous to them, are charities in
the sense of equitable jurisprudence.
There is no doubt a school of learning is a charity.
It is one of those mentioned in the statutes. Such
a school of learning as was contemplated by the
statutes of Elizabeth is a charity; and all such have
borne that name and character to this day.
I mean to confine myself to that description of
charity—the statute charity; and to apply that des-
cription to this case alone. -
The devise before us proposes to establish, as its
main object, a school of learning—a college. There
are provisions, of course, for lodging, clothing, and
feeding the pupils—but all this is subsidiary. The
great object is the instruction of the young; although
it proposes to give the children better food and clothes
and lodging, and proposes that the system of educa-
tion shall be somewhat better than that which is
usually provided for the poor and destitute in our
public institutions generally.
The main object, then, is to establish a school of
learning for children, beginning with them at a very
tender age, and retaining them (viz. from 6 years
to 18) till they are on the verge of manhood, when
they will have expended more than one-third part of
the average duration of human life. For if the
college takes them at six, and keeps them till they
are eighteen, a period of twelve years will be passed,
which is much more than a third part of the average
of human existence. These children, then, are to be
taken almost before they learn their alphabet, and be
discharged about the time that men enter on the
ON GIRARD's will. 19
active business of life. At six, many do not know
their alphabet. John Wesley did not know a letter
till after he was six years old, and his mother then
took him on her lap, and taught him his alphabet at
a single lesson. And there are many parents who
think that any attempt to instil the rudiments of
education into the mind of a child earlier than that
age, is little better than labor thrown away.
The great object, then, which Mr. Girard seemed
to have in view, was to take these orphans at this
very tender age, and to keep them within his walls
until they were entering manhood. And this object,
I pray your Honors steadily to bear in mind.
Inever, in the whole course of my life, listened to
anything with more sincere delight than to the re-
marks of my learned friend who opened this cause,
on the nature and character of true charity. I agree
with every word he said on that subject. I almost
envy him his power of expressing so happily what
his mind conceived so clearly and correctly. He is
right when he speaks of it as an emanation of the
Christian religion. He is right when he says that it
has its origin in the Word of God. He is right when
he says that it was unknown through all the globe
till the first dawn of Christianity. He is right, pre-
eminently right, in all this, as he was pre-eminently
happy in his power of clothing his thoughts and feel-
ings in appropriate forms of speech.
And I maintain, that in any institution for the in-
struction of youth, where the authority of God is dis-
owned, and the duties of Christianity derided and
despised, and its ministers shut out from all partici-
20 weBSTER’s SPEECH
pation in its proceedings, there can no more be
charity, true charity, found to exist, than evil can
spring out of the Bible, error out of truth, or hatred
and animosity come forth from the bosom of perfect
love. -
/ No, sir! No, sir! If charity denies its birth and
ſ parentage—if it turns infidel to the great doctrines of
the Christian religion—if it turns unbeliever—it is no
longer charity There is no longer charity, either in
a Christian sense, or in the sense of jurisprudence;
for it separates itself from the fountain of its own
\ creation.
There is nothing in the history of the Christian
religion; there is nothing in the history of human
laws, either before or after the Conquest; there can
be found no such thing as a school of instruction in
a Christian land, from which the Christian religion
has been, of intent and purpose, rigorously and
opprobriously excluded, and yet such school regard-
ed as a charitable trust, or foundation. This is the first
instance on record. I do not say that there may not
be charity schools, in which religious instruction is
not provided. I need not go that length, although I
take that to be the rule of the English law. But
what I do say, and repeat, is, that a school for the
instruction of the young, which sedulously and re-
proachfully excludes Christian knowledge, is no
charity, either on principle or authority, and is not,
therefore, entitled to the character of a charity in a
court of equity. I have considered this proposition,
and am ready to sland by it.
I will not say there may not be a charity for in-
ON GIRARD's WLLL. 21
struction in which there is no positive provision for
the Christian religion. But I do say, and do insist,
that there is no such thing in the history of religion,
no such thing in the history of human law, as cha-
rity—a school of instruction of children from which
the Christian religion and Christian teachers are ex-
cluded as unsafe and unworthy intruders. Such a
scheme is deprived of that which enters into the
very essence of human benevolence, when that be-
nevolence contemplates the instruction, that is to say,
religious knowledge, connected with human know-
ledge; it is this which causes it to be regarded as a
charity; and by reason of which it is entitled to the
special favor of the courts of law.
This is the vital question which must be decided
by this Court. It is vital to the understanding of
what the law is—itis vital to the validity of this devise.
If this be true, if there can be no charity in that
plan of education which opposes Christianity, then
that goes far to decide this case.
I take it that this Court, in looking at this subject,
will see the important bearing of this point upon it.
The learned counsel said that the State of Penn-
sylvania was not an infidel State. It is true that she
is not an infidel State. She has a Christian origin—
a Christian code of laws—a system of legislation
founded on nothing else, in many of its important
bearings upon human society, than the belief of the
people of Pennsylvania—their firm and sincere be-
lief, in the divine authority and great importance of
the truths of the Christian religion. And she should
the more carefully seek to preserve them pure.
22 websTER’s SPEECH
Now let us look at the condition and prospects of
these tender children, who are to be submitted to this
experiment of instruction without Christianity. In
the first place they are orphans—have no parents to
guide or instruct them in the way in which they
should go—no father, no religious mother, to lead
them to the pure fount of Christianity—they are or-
phans /
If they were only poor, there might be somebody
bound by the ties of human affection to look after
their spiritual welfare; to see that they imbibed no
erroneous opinions on the subject of religion; that
they ran into no excessive improprieties of belief as
well as conduct; the child would have its father or
mother to teach it to lisp the name of its Creator in
prayer, or hymn his praise.
But in this experimental school of instruction, if
the orphans have any friends or connexions able to
look after their welfare, it shuts them out. It is made
the duty of the governors of the institution, on taking
the child, so to make out the indentures of appren-
ticeship as to keep it from any after interference in
its welfare on the part of guardians or relatives; to
keep these from withdrawing it from the school, or
interfering with its instruction whilst it is in the school,
in any manner whatever. 'º
The school or college is to be surrounded by high
walls; there are to be two gates in these walls, and
no more ; they are to be of iron within and iron bound
or covered without; thus answering more to the de-
Scription of a castle than a school-house. The chil-
dren are then to be thus guarded for twelve years in
ON GIRARD's will. 23
this, I do not mean to say a prison, nor do I mean
to say that this is exactly close confinement; but it
is much more, much closer confinement than Ordina-
rily is met with under the rules of any institution at
present, and has a resemblance to the monastic in-
stitutions of past ages, rather than to any school for
instruction at this period.
All is to be within one great inclosure; all that is
done for the bodily or mental welfare of the child is
to be done within this inclosure. It has been said
that the children could attend public worship else-
where. Where is the proof of this? There is no
such provision in the devise; there is nothing said
about it in any part of Mr. Girard's will; and I shall
show presently, that any such thing would be just as
adverse to Mr. Girard’s whole scheme, as it would
be that the doctrines of Christianity should be
preached within the walls of the college. -
These children, then, are taken before they know
the alphabet. They are kept till the period of early
manhood, and then sent out into the world to enter
upon its business and affairs. By this time, the cha-
racter will have been stamped. For if there is any
truth in the Bible, if there is any truth in those ora-
cles which soar above all human authority, or if any-
thing be established as a general fact, by the experi-
ence dif mankind, in this first third of human life
the character is formed. And what sort of a character
is likely to be made by this process, this experimental
system of instruction?
I have read the two provisions of Mr. Girard's will
in relation to this feature of his school. The first
24 websTER’s SPEECH
excludes the Christian religion and all its ministers
from his walls. The second explains the whole
principles upon which he purposes to conduct his
school. It was to try an experiment in education,
never before known to the Christian world. It had
been recommended often enough among those who
did not belong to the Christian world. But it was
never known to exist, never adopted by any body
even professing a connection with Christianity.
And I cannot do better, in order to show the ten-
dency and object of this institution, than to read from
a paper by Bishop White, which has been referred to
by the other side.*
Now, in order to a right understanding of what
was Mr. Girard’s real intention, and original design,
we have only to read carefully the words of the
clause I have referred to. He enjoins that no minis-
ters of religion, of any sects, shall be allowed to en-
ter his college, on any pretence whatever. Now, it
is obvious, that by sects, he means Christian sects.
Any of the followers of Voltaire or D'Alembert may
have admission into this school whenever they please,
because they are not usually spoken of as “sects.”
The doors are to be opened to the opposers and re-
vilers of Christianity, in every form and shape, and
shut to its supporters. While the voice of the up-
holders of Christianity is never to be heard within
the walls, the voices of those who impugn Chris-
tianity may be raised high and loud, till they shake
the marble roof of the building. -
It is no less derogatory thus to exclude the one,
* Wide Appendix, No. 1.
ON GIRARD’s WILL. 25
and to admit the other, than it would be to make a
positive provision and all the necessary arrangements
for lectures and lessons and teachers, for all the details
of the doctrines of infidelity. It is equally deroga-
tory, it is the same in principle, thus to shut the door
to one party, and open the door to the other.
We must reason as to the probable results of such
a system according to the natural consequences.
They say on the other side, that Infidel teachers will
not be admitted in this school. How do they know
that? What is the inevitable tendency of such an
education as is here prescribed ? What is likely to
occur? The Court cannot suppose that the trustees
will act in opposition to the directions of the will.
If they accept the trust, they must fulfil it, and carry
out the details of Mr. Girard’s plan. -
Now, what is likely to be the effect of this system
on the minds of these children, thus left solely to its
pernicious influence, with no one to care for their
spiritual welfare in this world or the next? They
are to be left entirely to the tender mercies of those
who will try upon them this experiment of moral
philosophy or philosophical morality. Morality,
without sentiment. Benevolence towards man,
without a sense of responsibility towards God. The
duties of this life performed, without any reference to
the life which is to come. This is Mr. Girard's theory
of useful education.
Half these poor children may die before the term
of their education expires. Still, those who survive
must be brought up imbued fully with the inevitable
tendencies of the system.
4
26 weBSTER’s SPEECH
It has been said that there may be lay preachers
among them. Lay preachers! This is ridiculous
enough in a country of Christianity and religion.
[Here some one handed Mr. Webster a note.] A
friend informs me that in four of the principal reli-
gious sects in this country, the Episcopalians, Pres-
byterians, Methodists, and Baptists, they allow no lay
preachers; and these four constitute a large majority
of the religious and Christian portion of the people
of the United States. And, besides, lay preaching
was just as adverse to Mr. Girard’s original object
and whole plan, as professional preaching; provided,
it should be Christianity, which should be preached.
It is plain, as plain as language can be made, that
he did notintend to allow the minds of these children
to be troubled about religion of any kind, whilst they
were within the college. And why? He himself
assigns the reason. Because of the difficulty and
trouble, he says, that might arise from the multitude
of sects and creeds, and teachers, and the various
clashing doctrines and tenets advanced by the differ.
ent preachers of Christianity. Therefore, his desire
as to these orphans is, that their minds should be
kept free from all bias of any kind in favor of any
description of Christian creed, till they arrived at
manhood, and should have left his walls.
Now, are not laymen equally sectarian in their
views as clergymen? And would it not be just as
easy to prevent sectarian doctrines from being
preached by a clergyman as being taught by a lay-
man? It is idle, therefore, to speak of lay preach-
Ing.
ON GIRARD's will. 27
Mr. SERGEANT here rose, and said that they on their
side had not uttered one word about lay preaching.
It was lay teaching they spoke of .."
Mr. WEBSTER. Well, I would just as soon take it
that way as the other—teaching, as preaching. Is
not the teaching of laymen as sectarian as the preach-
ing of clergymen? What is the difference between
unlettered laymen and lettered clergymen in this
respect? Every one knows that laymen are as vio-
lent controversialists as clergymen, and the less in-
formed the more violent. So this, while it is a little
more ridiculous, is equally obnoxious. [Here there
was quite a burst of laughter in the Court.] Ac-
cording to my experience, a layman is just as likely
to launch out into sectarian views, and to advance
clashing doctrines and violent bigoted prejudices,
and even more so, than professional preachers. And
the introduction, therefore, of these controversies by
laymen, would not be a very edifying mode of teach-
ing, nor would it be a very edifying example. As
in other cases, so in this, the greatest degree of can-
dor is usually found accompanying the greatest de-
gree of knowledge. Nothing is more apt to be posi-
tive, and dogmatical, than ignorance.
But there is no provision in any feature of Mr.
Girard's will for the introduction of any lay teaching
on religious matters whatever. The children are to
get their religion when they leave his school, and
they are to have nothing to do with religion before
they do leave it. They are then to choose their reli-
gious opinions, and not before.
Mr. BINNEY. “Choose their tenets,” is the expres-
SIOIT.
28 weBSTER’s SPEECH
Mr. WEBSTER. Tenets are opinions, I believe.
The mass of one's religious tenets makes up one's
religion.
Now, it is evident that Mr. Girard meant to found
a school of morals without any reference to or con-
nection with religion. But, after all, there is nothing
original in this plan of his. It has its origin in a
deistical source, but not from the highest school of
infidelity. Not from Bolingbroke, or Shaftesbury, or
Gibbon; not even from Voltaire or D'Alembert. It
is from two persons, who were probably known to
Mr. Girard in the early part of his life—it is from
iMr. Thomas Paine and Mr. Volney. Mr. Thomas
Paine, in his Age of Reason, says: “Let us devise
means to establish schools of instruction, that we
may banish the ignorance that the ancient regime of
kings and priests have spread among the people.
Let us propagate morality, unfettered by supersti-
tion.” -
Mr. BINNEy. What do you get that from ?
|Mr. WEBSTER. The same place that Mr. Girard
got this provision of his will from—Paine's Age of
Reason. The same phraseology in effect is here.
Paine disguised his real meaning, it is true. He said:
“Let us devise means to establish schools to propa-
gate morality, unfettered by superstition.” Mr. Girard,
who had no disguise about him, uses plain language
to express the same meaning. In Mr. Girard’s view,
religion is just that thing which Mr. Paine calls super-
stition. Let us establish schools of morality, said he,
unfettered by religions tenets. Let us give these
children a system of pure morals before they adopt
ON GIRARD's WILL. 29
any religion. The ancient regime of which Paine
spoke as obnoxious, was that of kings and priests.
That was the popular way he had of making any-
thing obnoxious which he wished to destroy. Now,
if he had merely wished to get rid of the dogmas
which he says were established by kings and priests
—if he had no desire to abolish the Christian religion
itself—he could have thus expressed himself: “Let
us rid ourselves of the errors of kings and priests, and
plant morality on the plain text of the Christian reli-
gion, with the simplest forms of religious worship.”
I do not intend to leave this part of the cause,
however, without a still more distinct statement of the
objections to this scheme of instruction. This is due, I
think, to the subject and to the occasion; and I trust
I shall not be considered presumptuous, or as trench-
ing upon the duties which properly belong to an-
other profession. But I deem it due to the cause of
Christianity to take up the notions of this scheme of
Mr. Girard, and show how mistaken is the idea of
calling it a charity. In the first place, then, I say,
this scheme is derogatory to Christianity, because it
rejects Christianity from the education of youth, by
rejecting its teachers—by rejecting the ordinary agen-
cies of instilling the Christian religion into the mindsy
of the young. I do not say that in order to make
this a charity there should be a positive provision for
the teaching of Christianity, although I take that to
be the rule in an English court of Equity. But I
need not, in this case, claim the whole benefit of that
rule. But I say it is derogatory, because there is a
positive rejection of Christianity—because it rejects
:
ſ
!
|
30 wFBSTER’s SPEECH
sº
the ordinary means and agencies of Christianity.
He who rejects the ordinary means of accomplishing
an end, means to defeat that end itself, or else he has
no meaning. And it will not be supposed, I trust,
that I am intruding on ground belonging to another
profession, if I enlarge a little on that proposition.
He who rejects the ordinary means of accomplishing
an end, intends to defeat the end itself. And I say
that this is true, although the means originally be
means of human appointment, and not attaching to
or resting on any higher authority.
For example, if the New Testament had contained
a set of principles of morality and religion, without
reference to the means by which those principles
were to be established, and yet, if in the course of
time a system of means had sprung up, become
identified with the history of the world, become
general, sanctioned by continued use and custom,
then he who rejects those means would design to
reject, and would reject, that morality and religion
themselves.
This is strictly true, where the end rested on Divine
authority, and human agency devised and used the
means. But if the means themselves be of Divine
authority also, then the rejection of them is direct
rejection of that authority.
Now, I suppose there is nothing in the New Tes-
tament more clearly established by the Author of
Christianity than the appointment of a Christian
ministry. The world was to be evangelized, was to
be brought out of darkness into light, by the influ-
ences of the Christian religion, spread and propa-
ON GIRARD's will. 31
gated by the instrumentality of man. A Christian
ministry was therefore appointed by the Author of
the Christian religion himself, and it stands on the
same authority as any other part of his religion.
When the lost sheep of the house of Israel were to
be brought to the knowledge of Christianity, the dis-
ciples were commanded to go forth into all the cities,
and to preach “that the kingdom of Heaven is at
hand.” It was added, that whosoever should not re-
ceive them, nor hear their words, it should be more
tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah, than for them.
And after his resurrection, in the appointment of the
great mission to the whole human race, the Author
of Christianity commanded his disciples that they
should “go into all the world, and preach the gospel
to every creature.” This was one of his last com-
mands; and one of his last promises was the assur-
ance, “Lo, I am with you alway, even to the end
of the world!” I say, therefore, there is nothing set
forth more authentically in the New Testament than
the appointment of a Christian ministry; and he who
does not believe this, does not and cannot believe
the rest. It is true that Christian ministers, in this
age of the world, are selected, in different ways
and different modes, by different sects and denomi-
nations. But there are still, ministers of all sects and
denominations. Why should we shut our eyes to the
whole history of Christianity? Is it not the
preaching of ministers of the gospel that has
evangelized the more civilized part of the world?
Why do we at this day enjoy the lights and benefits
of Christianity ourselves? Do we not owe it to the
32 WEBSTER’s SPEECH
instrumentality of the Christian ministry? The minis-
ters of Christianity, departing from Asia Minor, travers-
ing Asia, Africa, through Europeto Iceland, Greenland,
and the poles of the earth, suffering all things, enduring
all things, hoping all things, raising men everywhere
from the ignorance of idolworship to the knowledge of
the true God, and everywhere bringing life and immor-
tality to light, through the gospel, have only been
acting in obedience to the Divine instruction; they
were commanded to go forth, and they have gone
forth, and they still go forth. They have sought,
and they still seek, to be able to preach the gospel
to every creature under the whole Heaven. And
where was Christianity ever received, where were its
truths ever poured into the human heart, where did
its waters, springing up into everlasting life, ever burst
forth, exceptin the track of a Christian ministry 2 Did
we ever hear of an instance, does history record an
instance, of any part of the globe Christianized by
lay preachers or “lay teachers?” And descending
from kingdoms and empires to cities and countries,
to parishes and villages, do we not all know that
wherever Christianity has been carried, and wherever
it has been taught, by human agency, that agency
was the agency of ministers of the gospel? It is all
idle, and a mockery, to pretend that any man has
respect for the Christian religion who yet derides,
reproaches, and stigmatizes all its ministers and
teachers. It is all idle, it is a mockery, and an in-
sult to common sense, to maintain that a school for
the instruction of youth, from which Christian in-
struction by Christian teachers, is sedulously and
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ON GIRARD's will. 33
rigorously shut out, is not deistical and infidel, both
in its purpose and its tendency. I insist, therefore,
that this plan of education is, in this respect, deroga-
tory to Christianity, in opposition to it, and calculat-
ed either to subvert or to supersede it.
In the next place, this scheme of education is de-
rogatory to Christianity, because it proceeds upon
the presumption that the Christian religion is not the
only true foundation, or any necessary foundation,
of morals. The ground taken is, that religion is not
necessary to morality; that benevolence may be
insured by habit, and that all the virtues may flour-
ish and be safely left to the chance of flourishing,
without touching the waters of the living spring of
religious responsibility. With him who thinks thus,
what can be the value of the Christian revelation ?
So the Christian world has not thought; for with
that Christian world, throughout its broadest extent,
it has been, and is, held as a fundamental truth, that
religion is the only solid basis of morals, and that
moral instruction, not resting on this basis, is only a
building upon sand. And at what age of the Christian
era have those who professed to teach the Christian
religion, or to believe in its authority and importance,
notinsisted on the absolute necessity of inculcating its
principles and its precepts into the minds of the young?
In what age, by what sect, where, when, by whom has
religious truth been excluded from the education of
youth 2 Nowhere; never. Everywhere, and at all
times, it has been, and it is, regarded as essential. It
is of the essence, the vitality, of useful instruction.
From all this, Mr. Girard dissents. His plan denies
5
34 weBSTER’s SPEECH
the necessity and the propriety of religious instruction
as a part of the education of youth. He dissents, not
only from all the sentiments of Christian mankind,
from all common conviction, and from the results of
all experience, but he dissents, also, from still higher
authority—the Word of God itself. My learned friend
has referred, with propriety, to one of the commands
of the Decalogue; but there is another, a first com-
mandment, and that is a precept of religion, and it
is in subordination to this, that the moral precepts of
the Decalogue are proclaimed. This first great com-
mandment teaches man that there is one, only one,
great first cause—one, and only one, proper object
of human worship. This is the great, the ever fresh,
the overflowing fountain of all revealed truth. With-
out it, human life is a desert, of no known termina-
tion on any side, but shut in on all sides by a dark
and impenetrable horizon. Without the light of this
truth, man knows nothing of his origin, and nothing
of his end. And when the Decalogue was delivered
to the Jews, with this great announcement and com-
mand at its head, what said the inspired lawgiver?
that it should be kept from children? that it
should be reserved as a communication fit only for
mature age? Far, far otherwise. “And these words,
which I command thee this day, shall be in thy heart.
And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy child-
ren, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thy
house, and when thou walkest by the way, when
thou liest down, and when thou risest up.”
There is an authority still more imposing and aw-
ful. When little children were brought into the pre-
ON GIRARD's will. 35
sence of the Son of God, his disciples proposed to
send them away; but he said, “Suffer little children
to come unto me”—unto me, he did not send them
first for lessons in morals to the schools of the Pha-
risees or to the unbelieving Sadducees, nor to read the
precepts and lessons phylacteried on the garments of
the Jewish priesthood; he said nothing of dif:
ferent creeds or clashing doctrines; but he opened at
once to the youthful mind the everlasting fountain
of living waters, the only source of immortal truths;
“Suffer little children to come unto me.” And that
injunction is of perpetual obligation. It addresses
itself to-day with the same earnestness and the same
authority which attended its first utterance to the
Christian world. It is of force everywhere, and at
all times. It extends to the ends of the earth, it will
reach to the end of time, always and everywhere
sounding in the ears of men, with an emphasis
which no repetition can weaken, and with an au-
thority which nothing can supersede—“Suffer little
children to come unto me.”
And not only my heart, and my judgment, my be-
lief, and my conscience, instruct me that this great pre-
cept should be obeyed, but the idea is so sacred, the
solemn thoughts connected with it so crowd upon
me, it is so utterly at variance with this system of phi-
losophical morality which we have heard advocated,
that I stand and speak here in fear of being influ-
enced by my feelings to exceed the proper line of
my professional duty. Go thy way at this time, is
the language of philosophical morality, and I will
send for thee at a more convenient season. This is
36 weBSTER’s SPEECH
the language of Mr. Girard, in his will. In this there
is neither religion nor reason.
The earliest and the most urgent intellectual want
of human nature is, the knowledge of its origin, its
duty, and its destiny. “Whence am I, what am I,
and what is before me?” This is the cry of the hu-
man soul, so soon as it raises its contemplation above
visible material things.
When an intellectual being finds himself on this
earth, as soon as the faculties of reason operate, one
of the first inquiries of his mind is, “Shall Ibe here
always.” “Shall I be here for ever ?” And reason-
ing from what he sees daily occurring to others, he
learns to a certainty that his state of being must one
day be changed. I do not mean to deny, that it may
be true that he is created with this consciousness;
but whether it be consciousness, or the result of his
reasoning faculties, man soon learns that he must
die. And of all sentient beings, he alone, so far as
we can judge, attains to this knowledge. His Maker
has made him capable of learning this. Before he
knows his origin and destiny, he knows that he is to
die. Then comes that most urgent and solemn de-
mand for light that ever proceeded, or can proceed,
from the profound and anxious broodings of the hu-
man soul. It is stated, with wonderful force and
beauty, in that incomparable composition, the book
of Job—“For there is hope of a tree, if it be cut down,
that it will sprout again, and that the tender branch there-
of will not cease; that through the scent of water, it will
bud and bring forth boughs like a plant. But if a man
die, shall he live again * And that question nothing
ON GIRARD's will. 37
but God, and the religion of God, can solve. Reli-
gion does solve it, and teaches every man that he is
to live again, and that the duties of his life
have reference to the life which is to come. And
hence, since the introduction of Christianity, it has
been the duty, as it has been the effort, of the
great and the good, to sanctify human know-
ledge, to bring it to the fount, and to baptize learning
into Christianity; to gather up all its productions, its
earliest and its latest, its blossoms and its fruits, and
lay them all upon the altar of religion and virtue.
Another important point involved in this question
is, what becomes of the Christian Sabbath, in a
school thus established 2 I do not mean to say that
this stands exactly on the same authority as the
Christian religion, but I mean to say that the observ-
ance of the Sabbath is a part of Christianity in all its
forms. All Christians admit the observance of the
Sabbath. All admit that there is a Lord's day, al-
though there may be a difference in the belief as to
which is the right day to be observed. Now, I say
that in this institution, under Mr. Girard’s scheme,
the ordinary observance of the Sabbath could not
take place, because the ordinary means of observing
it are excluded. I know that I shall be told here,
also, that lay teachers would come in again; and I
say again, in reply, that where the ordinary means of
attaining an end are excluded, the intention is to ex-
clude the end itself. There can be no Sabbath in
this college—there can be no religious observance of
the Lord's day; for there are no means for attaining
that end. It will be said that the children would be
38 weBSTER’s SPEECH
2^s . . .
}; f ::::
tº permitted to go out. There is nothing seen of this
permission in Mr. Girard's will. And I say again,
i that it would be just as much opposed to Mr. Girard's
whole scheme to allow these children to go out and
attend places of public worship on the Sabbath day,
as it would be to have ministers of religion to preach
to them within the walls; because if they go out to
hear preaching, they will hear just as much about
religious controversies, and clashing doctrines, and
more, than if appointed preachers officiated in the
college. His object, as he states, was to keep their
minds free from all religious doctrines and sects—
and he would just as much defeat his ends by send-
ing them out as by having religious instruction with-
in. Where, then, are these little children to go?
Where can they go to learn the truth—to reverence
the Sabbath? They are far from their friends—they
have no one to accompany them to any place of
worship—no one to show them the right from the
wrong course; their minds must be kept clear from
all bias on the subject, and they are just as far from
the ordinary observance of the Sabbath as though
there was no Sabbath day at all. And where there
is no observance of the Christian Sabbath, there will
of course be no public worship of God. r
In connection with this subject, I will observe, that
there has been recently held a large convention of
clergymen and laymen in Columbus, Ohio, to bring
the minds of the Christian public to the importance
of a more particular observance of the Christian
Sabbath; and I will read, as a part of my argument,
an extract from their address, which bears with pe-
culiar force upon this case.
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ON GIRARD's will. 39
“It is alike obvious that the Sabbath exerts its salutary power by making
the population acquainted with the being, perfections, and laws of God; with
our relations to Him as his creatures, and our obligations to Him as rational,
accountable subjects, and with our character as sinners, for whom His mercy
has provided a Saviour; under whose government we live to be restrained
from sin and reconciled to God, and fitted by his word and spirit for the
inheritance above.
“It is by the reiterated instruction and impression which the Sabbath
imparts to the population of a nation, by the moral principle which it forms—
by the conscience which it maintains—by the habits of method, cleanliness,
and industry, it creates—by the rest and renovated vigor it bestows on ex-
hausted animal nature—by the lengthened life and higher health it affords—
by the holiness it inspires, and cheering hopes of Heaven, and the protection
and favor of God, which its observance insures—that the Sabbath is rendered
the moral conservator of nations.
“The omnipresent influence the Sabbath exerts, however, by no secret
charm or compendious action, upon masses of unthinking minds; but by
arresting the stream of worldly thoughts, interests, and affections—stopping
the din of business—unlading the mind of its cares and responsibilities, and
the body of its burdens, while God speaks to men, and they attend, and hear,
and fear, and learn to do His will. --
“You might as well put out the sun, and think to enlighten the world with
tapers—destroy the attraction of gravity, and think to wield the universe by
human powers—as to extinguish the moral illumination of the Sabbath, and
break this glorious mainspring of the moral government of God.”
And I would ask, would any Christian man con-
sider it desirable for his orphan children, after his
death, to find refuge within this asylum, under all
the circumstances and character, and the character-
istics, which belong to it? Are there, or will there
be, any Christian parents who would desire that their
children should be placed in this school, to be for
twelve years exposed to the pernicious influences
which must be brought to bear on their minds? I
very much doubt if there is any Christian father who
hears me this day, and I am quite sure that there is
no Christian mother, who, if called upon to lie down
on the bed of death, although sure to leave their
40 websTER’s SPEECH
children as poor as children can be left, who would
not rather trust them, nevertheless, to the Christian
charity of the world, however uncertain it has been
said to be, than to place them where their physical
wants and comforts would be abundantly attended
to, but away from the solaces and consolations, the
graces and the grace of the Christian religion. They
would rather trust them to the mercy and kindness
of that spirit, which, when it has nothing else left,
gives a cup of cold water in the name of a disciple—
to that spirit which has its origin in the fountain of
all good, and of which we have on record an exam-
ple the most beautiful, the most touching, the most
intensely affecting, that the world’s history contains—
I mean the offering of the poor widow, who threw
her two mites into the treasury. “And he looked
up, and saw the rich men casting their gifts into the
treasury; and he saw, also, a certain poor widow
casting in thither two mites; and he said, of a truth,
I say unto you that this poor widow hath cast in
more than they all; for all these have, of their abun-
dance, cast in unto the offerings of God: but she of
her penury hath cast in all the living that she had.”
What more tender, more solemnly affecting, more
profoundly pathetic, than this charity, this offering to
God of a farthing! We know nothing of her name,
her family, or her tribe. We only know that she was
a poor woman, and a widow, of whom there is no-
thing left upon record but this sublimely simple story,
that when the rich came to cast their proud offerings
into the treasury, this poor woman came also, and
cast in her two mites' which made a farthing ! And
ON GIRARD's WILL. 41
that example, thus made the subject of Divine com-
mendation, has been read, and told, and gone abroad
everywhere, and sunk deep into a hundred millions of
hearts, since the commencement of the Christian
era—and that example has done more good than
could be accomplished by a thousand marble palaces
—because it was charity mingled with true benevo-
lence—given in the fear, the love, the service, and
honor of God—because it was charity—as all true
charity is—that had its origin in the law of God!—
because it was a gift to the honor of God! Cases
have come before the courts, of bequests, in last
wills, made or given to God, without any more spe-
cific direction ; and these bequests have been regard-
ed as creating charitable uses. But can that be truly
called a charity, which flies in the face of all the laws
of God, and all the usages of Christian man 2 I ar-
raign no man for mixing up a love of distinction and
notoriety with his charities. I blame not Mr. Girard
because he desired to raise a splendid marble palace
in the neighborhood of a beautiful city, that should
endure for ages, and transmit his name and fame to
posterity. But his school of learning is not to be
valued, because it has not the chastening influences
of true religion—because it has no fragrance of the
spirit of Christianity. It is not a charity, for it has
not that which gives to a charity for education its
chief value. It will, therefore, soothe the heart of no
Christian parent, dying in poverty and distress, that
those who owe to him their being may be led, and
fed, and clothed, by Mr. Girard's bounty, at the ex-
pense of being excluded from all the means of reli-
6
42 websTER’s SPEECH
gious instruction afforded to other children, and shut
up through the most interesting period of their lives,
in a seminary without religion, and with moral sen-
timents as cold as its own marble walls.
I now come to the consideration of the second
part of this clause in the will—that is to say, the rea-
sons assigned by Mr. Girard for making these re-
strictions with regard to the ministers of religion:
and I say that these are much more derogatory to
Christianity than the main provision itself, excluding
them. He says that there is such a multitude of sects
and such diversity of opinion, that he will exclude
all religion and all its ministers, in order to keep the
minds of the children free from clashing controver-
sies. Now, does not this tend to subvert all beliefin
the utility of teaching the Christian religion to youth
at all? Certainly, it is a broad and bold denial of
such utility. To say that the evil resulting to youth
from the differences of sects and creeds overbalances
all the benefits which the best education can give
them, what is this but to say that the branches of the
tree of religious knowledge are so twisted, and
twined, and commingled, and all run so much into
and over each other, that there is therefore no reme-
dy but to lay the axe to the root of the tree itself? It
means that—and nothing more than that—and no-
thing less! Now, if there can be anything more de-
rogatory to the Christian religion than this, I should
like to know what it is. In all this we see the at-
tack upon religion itself, made on its ministers, its
institutions, and its diversities. And that is the ob-
jection urged by all the lower and more vulgar
ON GIRARD's WILL. 43
schools of infidelity throughout the world. In all
these schools, called schools of Rationalism in Ger-
many, Socialism in England, and by various other
names in various other countries which they
infest, this is the universal cant. The first step
of all these philosophical moralists, and regene-
rators of the human race, is to attack the agency
through which religion and Christianity are adminis-
tered to man. But in this there is nothing new or
original. We find the same mode of attack and
remark in Paine's “Age of Reason.” At page 336,
he says: “The Bramin, the follower of Zoroaster,
the Jew, the Mahometan, the Church of Rome, the
Greek Church, the Protestant Church, split into se-
veral hundred contradictory sectaries, preaching, in
some instances, damnation against each other, all
cry out, “Our holy religion.’”
And we find the same in “Volney's Ruins of Em-
pires.” Mr. Volney arrays in a sort of semicircle the
different and conflicting religions of the world.
“And first,” says he, “surrounded by a group, in va-
rious fantastic dress, that confused mixture of violet,
red, white, black, and speckled garments, with heads
shaved, with tonsures, or with short hairs, with red
hats, square bonnets, pointed mitres, or long beards,
is the standard of the Roman Pontiff. On his right,
you see the Greek Pontiff, and on the left are the
standards of two recent chiefs (Luther and Cal-
vin), who, shaking off a yoke that had become tyran-
nical, had raised altar against altar in their reform,
and wrested half of Europe from the pope. Behind
these are the subaltern seats, subdivided from the
f
44 WEBSTER’s SPEECH
principal divisions. The Nestorians, Eutycheans,
Jacobites, Iconoclasts, Anabaptists, Presbyterians,
Wickliffites, Oriandrians, Manicheans, Pretists, Ad-
amites, the Contemplatives, the Quakers, the Weep-
ers, and a hundred others, all of distinct parties, per-
secuting when strong, tolerant when weak, hating
each other in the name of the God of peace, forming
such an exclusive heaven in a religion of universal
charity, damning each other to pains without end in
a future state, and realizing in this world the imagi-
nary hell of the other.”
Can it be doubted for an instant that sentiments
like these are derogatory to the Christian religion ?
And yet on grounds and reasons exactly these—not
like these—but eacactly THESE—Mr. Girard founds his
excuse for excluding Christianity and its ministers
from his school. He is a tame copyist, and has only
raised marble walls to perpetuate and disseminate
the principles of Paine and Volney. It has been
said that Mr. Girard was in a difficulty—that he was
judge and disposer of his own property. We have
nothing to do with his difficulties. It has been said
that he must have done as he did do, because there
could be no agreement otherwise—agreement 2
among whom ? about what? He was at liberty to
do what he pleased with his own. He had to con-
sult no one as to what he should do in the matter.
And if he had wished to establish such a charity as
might obtain the especial favor of the courts of law,
he had only to frame it on principles not hostile to
the religion of the country. t
But the learned gentleman went even farther than
ON GIRARD's wiLL. 45
this, and to an extent that I regretted; he said that
there was as much dispute about the Bible as about
anything else in the world. No, thank God, that is
not the case !
BINNEy. The disputes about the meaning of words
and passages! you will admit that?
WEBSTER. Well, there is a dispute about the
translation of certain words; but if this be true, there
is just as much dispute about it out of Mr. Girard’s
institution as there would be in it. And if this plan
is to be advocated and sustained, why does not every
man keep his children from attending all places of
public worship until they are over eighteen years of
age 2 He says that a prudent parent keeps his child
from the influence of sectarian doctrines—by which
I suppose him to mean those tenets that are opposed
to his own. Well, I do not know but what that plan.
is as likely to make bigots as it is likely to make any-
thing else. I grant that the mind of youth should
be kept pliant, and free from all undue and erroneous
influences—that it should have as much play as is
consistent with prudence ; but put it where it can
obtain the elementary principles of religious truth,
at any rate—those broad and general precepts and
principles which are admitted by all Christians.
But here in this scheme of Mr. Girard, all sects and
all creeds are denounced. And would not a prudent
father rather send his child where he could get in-
struction under any form of the Christian religion than
where he could get none at all? There are many
instances of institutions, professing one leading creed,
educating youths of different sects. The Baptist
46 WEBSTER’s SPEECH
College in Rhode Island receives and educates youths
of all religious sects and all beliefs. The colleges all
over New England differ in certain minor points of
belief, and yet that is held as no ground for exclud-
ing the youth with other forms of belief, and other
religious views and sentiments. So with the Metho-
dists, and other denominations.
But this objection to the multitude and differences
of sects is but the old story—the old infidel argu-
ment. It is notorious that there are certain great
religious truths which are admitted and believed by
all Christians. All believe in the existence of a Goiº.
All believe in the immortality of the soul. All be- . 9 |
se: |
y
#
A- º º
}.A.
(*-ºvº
tº e tº * º "Tº o º - TJ
lieve in the responsibility, in another world, for our tº &
2.É.
conduct in this. All believe in the divine authority sº º, sº
of the New Testament. Dr. Paley says that a single 3: º .
word from the New Testament shuts up the mouth of *
human questioning, and excludes all human reason-
ing. And cannot all these great truths be taught to
children without their minds being perplexed with
clashing doctrines and sectarian controversies? Most
certainly they can.
And, to compare secular with religious matters,
what would become of the organization of society,
what would become of man as a social being, in con-
nection with the social system, if we applied this
mode of reasoning to him in his social relations?
We have a constitutional Government, about the
powers, and limitations, and uses of which there is a
vast amount of differences of belief. Your Honors
have a body of laws, now before you, in relation to
which differences of opinion, almost innumerable,
ON GIRARD's will. 47
are daily spread before the courts; in all these we
see clashing doctrines and opinions advanced daily,
to as great an extent as in the religious world.
And apply the reasoning advanced by Mr. Girard
to human institutions, and you will tear them all up
by the root; as you would inevitably tear all Divine
institutions up by the root, if such reasoning is to
prevail. At the meeting of the first Congress there
was a doubt in the minds of many about the pro-
priety of opening the session with prayer; and the
reason assigned was, as here, the great diversity of
opinion and religious belief. Until at last Mr. Samuel
Adams, with his grey hairs hanging about his shoul-
ders, and with an impressive venerableness now sel-
dom to be met with (I suppose, owing to the differ-
ence of habits), rose in that assembly, and with the
air of a perfect Puritan, said it did not become men,
professing to be Christian men, who had come to-
gether for solemn deliberation in the hour of their
extremity, to say that there was so wide a difference
in their religious belief, that they could not, as one
man, bow the knee in prayer to the Almighty, whose
advice and assistance they hoped to obtain. And In-
dependent as he was, and an enemy to all prelacy
as he was known to be, he moved that the Rev. Mr.
Dushe, of the Episcopal Church, should address the
Throne of Grace in prayer. And John Adams, in
his letter to his wife, says that he never saw a more
moving spectacle. Mr. Dushe read the Episcopal
service of the Church of England, and then, as if
moved by the occasion, he broke out into extem-
poraneous prayer. And those men who were then
48 weBSTER’s SPEECH
about to resort to force to obtain their rights, were
moved to tears; and floods of tears, he says, ran
down the cheeks of the pacific Quakers who formed
part of that most interesting assembly. And depend
upon it, that where there is a spirit of Christianity,
there is a spirit which rises above form, above cere-
monies, independent of sect or creed, and the contro-
versies of clashing doctrines.
The consolations of religion cannot ever be ad-
ministered to any of these sick and dying children in
this college. But it is said that a poor dying child can
be carried out beyond the walls of the school. He can
be carried out to a hostelry, or hovel, and there
receive those rites of the Christian religion which
cannot be performed within those walls, even in his
dying hour ! Is not all this shocking? What a
stricture is it upon this whole scheme ! What an
utter condemnation " A dying youth cannot receive
religious solace within his seminary of learning !
But, it is asked, what could Mr. Girard have done 2
He could have done as has been done in Lombardy
by the Emperor of Austria—as my learned friend has
informed us—where, on a large scale, the principle
is established of teaching the elementary principles
of the Christian religion, of enforcing human duties
by Divine obligations, and carefully abstaining in all
cases from interfering with sects or the inculcation
of sectarian doctrines. How have they done in the
schools of New England? There the great elements
of Christian truth are taught in every school, as far
as I am acquainted with them. The Scriptures are
ON GIRARD's will. 49
read, their authority taught and enforced, their evi-
dences explained, and prayers usually attended.
The truth is, that those who really value Christian-
ity, and believe in its importance, not only to the
spiritual welfare of man, but to the safety and pros-
perity of human society, rejoice that in its revelations
and its teachings there is so much which mounts
above controversy, and stands on universal acknow-
ledgment. While many things about it are disputed,
or are dark, they still plainly see its foundation, and
its main pillars; and they behold in it a sacred
structure rising up to the heavens. They wish its
general principles, and all its great truths, to be spread
over the whole earth. But those who do not value
Christianity, nor believe in its importance to society
or individuals, cavil about sects and schisms, and
ring monotonous changes upon the shallow and so
often refuted objections founded on alleged variety
of discordant creeds and clashing doctrines.
I shall close this part of my argument by reading
extracts from an English writer, one of the most pro-
found thinkers of the age—a friend of reformation
in the government and laws—John Foster, the friend
and associate of Robert Hall. Looking forward to
the abolition of the present dynasties of the old
world and desirous to see how the order and welfare
of society is to be preserved, in the absence of pre-
sent conservative principles, he says:
“ Undoubtedly the zealous friends of popular education account knowledge
valuable absolutely, as being the apprehension of things as they are ; a pre-
vention of delusions; and so far a fitness for right volitions.
“But they consider religion (besides being itself the primary and infinitely
7
50 websTER’s SPEECH
the most important part of knowledge) as a principle indispensable for secru-
ing the full benefit of all the rest. It is desired, and endeavored, that the under-
standings of these opening minds may be taken possession of by just and solemn
ideas of their relation to the Eternal Almighty Being; that they may be taught
to apprehend it as an awful reality; that they are perpetually under His
inspection; and, as a certainty, that they must at length appear before Him in
judgment, and find in another life the consequences of what they are in spirit
and conduct here. It is to be impressed on them, that His will is the supreme
law, that His declarations are the most momentous truths known on earth;
and His favor and condemnation the greatest good and evil. Under an
ascendency of this Divine wisdom it is that their discipline in any other know-
ledge is designed to be conducted; so that nothing in the mode of their instruc-
tion may have a tendency contrary to it, and everything be taught in a man-
ner recognizing the relation with it, as far as shall consist with a natural un-
forced way of keeping this relation in view. Thus it is sought to be secured,
that as the pupil’s mind grows stronger, and multiplies its resources, and he
therefore has necessarily more power and means for what is wrong, they may
be luminously presented to him, as if celestial eyes visibly beamed upon him,
the most solemn ideas that can enforce what is right.
“Such is the discipline meditated for preparing the subordinate classes to
pursue their individual welfare, and act their part as members of the commu-
nity.
“All this is to be taught, in many instances, directly, in others by reference
for conformation from the Holy Scriptures, from which authority will also be
impressed, all the while, the principles of religion. And religion, while its
grand concern is with the state of the soul towards God and eternal interests,
yet takes every principle and rule of morals under its peremptory sanction;
making the primary obligation and responsibility be towards God, of every-
thing that is a duty, with respect to men.
“So that, with the subjects of this education, the source of propriety shall
be conscience—the consideration of how they ought to be regulated in their
conduct as a part of the community, shall be the recollection that their Master
in heaven dictates the laws of that conduct, and will judicially hold them
amenable for every part of it.
“And is it not a discipline thus addressed to the purpose of fixing religious
principles in ascendency as far as that difficult object is within the power of
discipline, and of infusing a salutary tincture of them into whatever else is
taught, the right way to bring up citizens faithful to all that deserves fidelity
in the Social compact. -
“Lay hold on the myriads of juvenile spirits before they have time to grow
up, through ignorance, into a reckless hostility to social order; train them to
sense and good morals; inculcate the principles of religion, simply and
ON GIRARD's will. 51
solemnly, as religion—as a thing directly of divine dictation, and not as if its
authority were chiefly in virtue of human institutions; let the higher orders,
generally, make it evident to the multitude that they are desirous to raise them
in value, and promote their happiness, and then, whatever the demands of the
people as a body, thus improving in understanding and sense of justice, shall
come to be, and whatever modification their preponderance may ultimately
enforce on the great social arrangements, it will be infallibly certain that there
never can be a love of disorder, an insolent anarchy, a prevailing spirit of
revenge and devastation. Such a conduct of the ascendant ranks would, in
this nation at least, secure that, as long as the world lasts, there never would
be any formidable commotion or violent sudden changes. All those modifica-
tions of the national economy to which an improving people would aspire, and
would deserve to obtain, would be gradually accomplished, in a manner by
which no party would be wronged, and all would be the happier.”
I not only read this for the excellence of its senti-
ments and their application to the subject, but be-
cause they are the results of the profound medita-
tions of a man who is dealing with popular igno-
rance. Desirous of, and expecting, a great change
in the social system of the Old World, he is anxious
to discover that conservative principle, by which
society can be kept together when crowns and mitres
shall have no more influence. And he says that the
only conservative principle must be and is, RELIGION |
The authority of God! His Revealed Will! and
the influence of the teaching of the ministers of
Christianity'
Mr. Webster then stated that he would, on Mon-
day, bring forward certain references and legal points
bearing on this view of the case.
The Court then adjourned.
5
2
wFBSTER’s SPEECH
S E C O N D D A Y.
The seven Judges all took their seats precisely at
11 o'clock, and the Court was opened; but it was a
quarter past 11 before Mr. Webster arrived.
Mr. BINNEy observed to the Court that he had
omitted to notice, in his argument, that, in regard to
the Statutes of Uniformity and Toleration in Eng-
land, whilst the Jewish Talmuds for the propa-
gation of Judaism alone were not sustained by
those statutes, yet the Jewish Talmuds for the main-
tenance of the poor were sustained thereby. And
the decisions show that, where a gift had for its ob-
ject the maintenance and education of poor Jewish
children, the statutes sustained the devise. In proof
of this, he quoted—
First Ambler, by Blunt, p. 228, case of De Costa, &c.
Also, the case of Jacobs & Gomperte, in the notes.
Also, in the notes, 2d Swanston, p. 487, same case
of De Costa, &c. -
Also, 7th Vesey, p. 423, case of Mo Catto vs. Lu-
cardo.
Also, Sheppard, p. 107.
And Boyle, p. 43.
Another case was that of a bequest given to an
object abroad, and, in the decision, the Master of the
Rolls considered that religious instruction was not a
necessary part of education. See, also, the case of
the Attorney General vs. the Dean and Canons of
Christ Church—Jacobs, p. 485.
ON GIRARD's WILL. 53
Mr. BINNEy then quoted from Noah Webster the
definition of the word “tenets,” to show that Mr.
Webster did not give the right definition when he
said that tenets meant religion.
Mr. WEBSTER then rose and said: The arguments
of my learned friend, in relation to the Jewish laws
as tolerated by the Statutes, go to maintain my very
proposition, may it please your Honors. That is,
that no school for the instruction of youth in any
system which is any way derogatory to the Christian
religion, or for the teaching of doctrines that are in
any way contrary to the Christian religion, is or ever
was regarded as a charity by the courts. It is true
that the statutes of Toleration regarded a devise for
the maintenance of poor Jewish children, to give
them food and raiment and lodging, as a charity.
But a devise for the teaching of the Jewish religion
to poor children, that should come into the court of
chancery, would not be regarded as a charity, or
entitled to any peculiar privileges from the court.
When I stated to your Honors, in the course of
my argument on Saturday, that all denominations
of Christians had some mode or provision for the
appointment of teachers of Christianity amongst
them, I meant to have said something about the
Quakers; and, although we know that the teachers
among them come into their office in a somewhat
peculiar manner, yet there are preachers and teachers
of Christianity provided in that peculiar body, not-
withstanding its objection to the mode of appointing
teachers and preachers by other Christian sects; and
the place or character of a Quaker preacher is an
54 WEBSTER’s SPEECH
office and appointment as well known as is that of
a preacher among any other denomination of Chris-
tians. - -
I have heretofore argued to show that the Chris-
tian religion—its general principles—must ever be
regarded among us as the foundation of civil soci-
ety. And I have thus far confined my remarks to
the tendency and effect of the scheme of Mr. Girard
(if carried out) upon the Christian religion. But I
will go farther, and say that this school, this scheme
or system, in its tendencies and effects, is opposed to
all religions, of every kind. I will not now enter
into a controversy with my learned friend about the
definition of the word “tenets” being opinions or
dogmas, or whatever you please. Religious tenets,
I take it, and I suppose it will be generally conceded,
mean religious opinions; and a youth that has ar-
rived at the age of eighteen, who has no religious
tenets, why then it is very plain that he has no reli-
gion. I do not care whether you call them dogmas,
tenets, or opinions. If the youth does not entertain
dogmas, tenets, or opinions, or opinions, tenets, or
dogmas, on religious subjects, then he has no reli-
gion at all. And it is idle to pretend that he has.
And this strikes at a broader principle than when you
merely look at this school in its effect upon Chris-
tianity alone. Now, we will suppose the case of a
youth of eighteen, who has just left this school, and
has gone through an education of philosophical mo-
rality, precisely in accordance with the views and ex-
press wishes of the donor. He comes then into the
world to choose his religious tenets. The very next
ON GIRARD's will. 55
day, perhaps, after leaving school, he comes into a
court of law to give testimony as a witness. Sir, I
protest, that by such a system he would be disfran-
chised. He is asked, “What is your religion ?” His
reply is, “Oh, I have not yet chosen any ; I am going
to look round, and see which suits me best.” He is
asked, “Are you a Christian?” He replies, “That
involves religious tenets, and as yet I have not been
allowed to entertain any.” Again, “Do you believe
in a future state of rewards and punishments?” And
he answers, “That involves sectarian controversies,
which have carefully been kept from me.” “Do you
believe in the existence of a God?” He answers,
that there are clashing doctrines involved in these
things, which he has been taught to have nothing to
do with ; that the belief in the existence of a God,
being one of the first questions in religion, he is
shortly about to think of that proposition. Why,
sir, it is vain to talk about the destructive tendency
of such a system—to argue upon it is to insult the un-
derstanding of every man; it is mere, sheer, ribald, low,
vulgar Deism and Infidelity! [Here the effect was al-
most electric, and some one broke out with applause,
which was stopped.] It opposes all that is in Heaven,
and all on earth, that is worth being on earth. It
destroys the connecting link between the creature
and the Creator; it opposes that great system of
universal benevolence and goodness that binds man
to his Maker. No religion till he is eighteen / What
would be the condition of all your families—of all
our children—if religious fathers and religious mo-
thers were to teach their sons and daughters no
56 weBSTER’s SPEECH
religious tenets till they were eighteen 2 What
would become of their morals, their excellence,
their purity of heart and life, their hope for time and
eternity | What would become of all those thousand
ties of sweetness, benevolence, love, and Christian
feeling, that now render our young men and young
maidens like comely plants growing up by a stream-
let's side—the graces and the grace of opening man-
hood—of blossoming womanhood & What would
become of all that now renders the social circle
lovely and beloved? What would become of society
itself? How could it exist? And is that to be con-
sidered a charity which strikes at the root of all this;
which subverts all the excellence and the charms of
social life; which tends to destroy the very founda-
tion frame-work of society, both in its practices and
in its opinions? that subverts the whole decency, the
whole morality, as well as the whole Christianity and
government of society? No, sir; no, sir!
And here let me turn to the consideration of the
question, “What is an oath’ I do not mean in
the variety of definitions that may be given to it, as
it existed and was practised in the time of the
Romans, &c., but an oath as it exists at present in
our courts of law; as it is founded on a degree of
consciousness that there is a Power above us that
will reward our virtues or punish our vices. We all
know that the doctrine of the English law is, that
there must be in every person who enters court as a
witness, be he Christian or Hindoo, there must be a
firm conviction on his mind that falsehood or per-
jury will be punished, either in this world or in the
ON GIRARD's WILL. 57
next, or he cannot be admitted as a witness. If he
has not this belief, he is disfranchised. In proof of
this, I refer your Honors to the great case of Or-
michund against Barker, in Lord Chief Justice
Wills's report. There this doctrine is clearly laid
down. But in no case, a man that has no belief in
future rewards and punishments, for virtues or vices,
is allowed to be a witness, nor ought he to be. We
hold life, liberty, and property, in this country, upon
a system of oaths—oaths founded on a religious
belief of some sort. And that system which would
strike away the great substratum, destroy the safe
possession of life, liberty, and property, destroy all the
institutions of civil society, cannot and will not be
considered as entitled to the protection of a court of
equity. It has been said, on the other side, that there
was no teaching against religion or Christianity in
this system. I deny it. The whole testament is one
bold proclamation against Christianity and religion
of every creed. The children are to be brought up
in the principles declared in that testament. They
are to learn to be suspicious of Christianity and
religion; to keep clear of it, that the youthful heart
may not become susceptible of the influence of Chris-
tianity or religion in the slightest degree. They are
to be told and taught that religion is not a matter for
the heart or conscience, but for the decision of the
cool judgment of mature years; that at that period
when the whole Christian world deem it most de-
sirable to instil into the tender and comparatively
pure mind and heart of the child, ere the cares and
corruptions of the world have reached and seared it,
.8°-
58 WEBSTER’s SPEECH
the chastening influences of Christianity—at that
period, the child in this college is to be carefully ex-
cluded therefrom, and to be told that its influence
is pernicious and dangerous in the extreme. Why,
the whole system is a constant preaching against
Christianity and against religion : and I insist that
there is no charity, and can be no charity, in that
system of instruction from which Christianity is ex-
cluded. I perfectly agree with what my learned
friend says in regard to the monasteries of the old
world, as seats of learning, to which we are all in-
debted at the present day. Much of our literature—
almost all of our early histories, and a vast amount
of literary treasure, was preserved therein, and
emanated therefrom. But we all know that, although
these were emphatically receptacles for learning of
the highest order, yet they were always connected
with Christianity, and were always conducted as
schools of religious learning.
Going back as far as the statutes of Henry IV., as
early as 1402 (2d Pickering, p. 433), in the act res-
specting charities, we find that one hundred years
before the Reformation, in Catholic times, in the
establishment of every charitable institution, there
was to be proper provision for religious instruction.
Again, after the time of the Reformation, when those
monastic institutions were abolished, in the 1st
Edward VI., ch. 14, we find certain chantries abolish-
ed, and their funds appropriated to the instruction of
youth, such as the grammar-schools of that reign,
which Iord Eldon says extended all over the king-
dom; and in all these we find provisions for religious
ON GIRARD's will. 59
instruction, the dispensation of the same being by a
teacher or preacher. In 20 Swanston, p. 529, the
case of the Bedford Charity, Lord Eldon gives a long
opinion, in the course of which he says, that in these
schools, care is taken to educate youth in the Chris-
tian religion, and in all of them the New Testament
is taught, both in Latin and Greek. Here, then, we
find that the great and leading provision, both before
and after the Reformation, was to connect the know-
ledge of Christianity with human letters. And it will
be always found, that a school for instruction of youth,
to possess the privileges of a charity, must be pro-
vided with religious instruction.
For the decision, that the essentials of Christianity
are part of the common law of the land, I refer your
Honors to 1st Vernon, p. 293, where Lord Hale, who
cannot be suspected of any bigotry on this subject,
says that, to decry religion, and call it a cheat, tends
to destroy all religion; and he also declares Chris-
tianity to be part of the common law of the land.
So Mr. Dane, in his Abridgment, ch. 219, recognizes
the same principle. In 20 Strange, p. 834, case of
the King against Wilson, the judges would not suffer it
to be debated that writing against religion generally
was an offence at common law. They laid stress
upon the word “generally,” because there might arise
differences of opinion between religious writers on
points of doctrines, and so forth. So in Taylor's case,
3d Merivale, p. 405, by the High Court of Chancery,
these doctrines were recognized and maintained.
Also, 2d Burn's Ecclesiastical Law, p. 95, Evans
against the Chamberlain of London; and in 20 Rus-
60 weBSTER’s SPEECH
sel, p. 501, the Attorney General against the Earl of
Mansfield.
There is a case of recent date, which, if the Eng-
lish law is to prevail, would seem conclusive as to
the character of this devise. It is the case of the At-
torney General vs. Cullum, 1st vol. of Young and Coll-
yer's Reports, p. 411. The case was heard and de-
cided in 1842, by Sir Knight Bruce, Vice Chancellor.
The reporter's abstract, or summary, of the decision
is this: “Courts of Equity, in this country, will not
sanction any system of education in which religion is not
tncluded.”
The charity in question in that case, was esta-
blished in the reign of Edward IV., for the benefit of
the community and poor inhabitants of the town of
Bury St. Edmunds. The objects of the charity were
various: for relief of prisoners, educating and in-
structing poor people, for food and raiment for the
aged and impotent, &c. There were uses, also, now
deemed superstitious, such as praying for the souls
of the dead. In this, and in other respects, the
charity required revision, to suit it to the habits and
requirements of modern times; and a scheme was
accordingly set forth for such revision by the master,
under the direction of the court. By this scheme,
there were to be schools, and these schools were to
be closed on Sundays, although the Scriptures were
to be read daily on other days. This was objected
to, and it was insisted, on the other hand, that the
masters and mistresses of the schools should be mem-
bers of the Church of England; that they should,
on every Lord's day, give instruction in the doctrines
ON GIRARD's will. 61
of the Church to those children whose parents might
so desire ; but that all the scholars should be required
to attend public worship every Lord's day in the
parish church, or other place of worship, according to
their respective creeds.
The Vice Chancellor said, that the term “educa-
tion” was properly understood, by all the parties, to
comprehend religious instruction; that the objection
to the scheme proposed by the master was not that
it did not provide for religious instruction according
to the doctrine of the Church of England, but that
it did not provide for religious instruction at all. In
the course of the hearing, the Vice Chancellor said,
that any scheme of education, without religion, would
be worse than a mockery. The parties afterwards
agreed, that the masters and mistresses should be
members of the Church of England; that every
school day the master should give religious instruc-
tion during one hour, to all the scholars—such religious
instruction to be confined to the reading and eaglanation
of the Scriptures; that on every Lord's day he should
give instruction in the liturgy, catechism, and articles
of the Church of England, and that the scholars
should attend church every Lord's day, unless they
were children of persons not in communion with the
Church of England.
In giving the sanction of the court to this arrange-
ment, the Vice Chancellor said, that he wished to
have it distinctly understood that the ground on which
he had proceeded was not a preference of one form
of religion to another, but the necessity, if the mat-
ter was left to him judicially, to adopt the course of
62 websTER’s SPEECH
requiring the teachers to be members of the Church
of England.
This case clearly shows, that, at the present day,
a school founded by charity, for the instruction of
children, cannot be sanctioned by the courts as a
charity, unless the scheme of education includes
religious instruction. It shows, too, that this general
requisition of the law is independent of the church
establishment, and that it is not religion in any par-
ticular form, but religion—religious and Christian in-
struction in some form—which is holden to be indis-
pensable.
It cannot be doubted how a charity for the instruc-
tion of children would fare in an English Court, the
scheme of which should carefully and sedulously
exclude all religious or Christian instruction, and pro-
fess to establish morals on principles no higher than
those of enlightened Paganism.
Enough, then, your Honors, has been said on this
point; and I am willing that inquiry should be
prosecuted to any extent of research to controvert
this position—that a school of education for the young,
which rejects the Christian religion, cannot be sus-
tained as a charity, so as to entitle it to come before
the courts of equity for the privileges which they
have power to confer on charitable bequests.
Mr. WEBSTER then replied to the remarks of Mr.
BINNEy, in relation to the Liverpool Blue Coat School,
and read from the report of Mr. Bache on education
in Europe, Mr. Bache having been sent abroad by
the city of Philadelphia, to investigate this whole
matter of education.
Mr. WEBSTER. If Mr. Girard had established such
ON GIRARD's WILL. 63
a school as that, it would have been free from all
those objections that have been raised against it.
This Liverpool Blue Coat School, though partially too
much of a religious party character, is strictly a
church establishment. It is a school established on
a peculiar foundation—that of the Madras system of
Dr. Bell. It is a monitorial school; those who are
advanced in learning are to teach the others in reli-
gion, as well as secular knowledge. It is strictly
a religious school, and the only objection is, that it is
too much confined, in its instruction, to a particular
Sect.
Mr. BINNEY observed that there was no provision
made for clergymen.
Mr. WEBSTER. That is true, because the scheme
of the school is monitorial, in which the more ad-
vanced scholars instruct the others. But religious in-
struction is amply and particularly provided for.
|Mr. WEBSTER then referred to Shelford, p. 105,
and onward, under the head “Jews,” in the fourth
paragraph, where, he stated, that the whole matter,
and all the cases, as regarded the condition and posi-
tion of the Jews, as respected various charities, were
given in full.
He then referred to the Smithsonian legacy which
had been mentioned, and which he said was no
charity at all, nor anything like a charity. It was a
gift to Congress, to be disposed of as Congress saw
fit, for scientific purposes. --
He then replied in a few words to the argument
of Mr. BINNEy, in relation to the University of Vir-
ginia; and said that, although there was no provision
64 wFBSTER’s SPEECH
for religious instruction in that University, yet he
supposed it would not be contended for a mo-
ment that the University of Virginia was a charity,
or that it came before the courts claiming of the law
of that State protection as such. It stood on its
charter. -
Mr. WEBSTER. I repeat again, before closing this
part of my argument, the proposition—important as
I believe it to be—for your Honor's consideration, that
the proposed school, in its just character, objects and
tendencies, is derogatory to Christianity and religion!
And if it be so, then I maintain that it cannot be
considered a charity, and as such entitled to the just
protection and support of a court of equity. I con-
sider this the great question for the consideration of
this Court. I may be excused for pressing it on the
attention of your Honors. It is one which, in its de-
cision, is to influence the happiness, the temporal
and the eternal welfare, of one hundred millions of
human beings, alive and to be born, in this land!
Its decision will give a hue to the apparent character
of our institutions; it will be a comment on their
spirit to the whole Christian world ! I again press
the question to your Honors—“Is a clear, plain, posi-
tive system for the instruction of children, founded on
clear, plain objects of infidelity, a charity in the eye of
the law, and as such entitled to the privileges awarded to
charities in a court of equity ?” And with this, I leave
this part of the case.
on GIRARD's will. 65
T H H R D D A Y .
I shall now, may it please your Honors, proceed
to inquire whether there is, in the State of Pennsyl-
vania, any settled public policy to which this school,
as planned by Mr. Girard in his will, is in opposi-
tion; for it follows, that if there be any settled pub-
lic policy in the laws of Pennsylvania on this sub-
ject, then any school, or scheme, or system, which
tends to subvert this public policy, cannot be entitled
to the protection of a court of equity. It will not
be denied that there is a general public policy in that
as in all States, drawn from its history and its laws.
And it will not be denied, that any scheme or school
of education which directly opposes this is not to be
favored by the courts. Pennsylvania is a free and
independent State. She has a popular government,
a system of trial by jury, of free suffrage, of vote by
ballot, of alienability of property. All these form
part of the general public policy of Pennsylvania.
Any man who shall go into that State can speak and
write as much as he pleases against a popular form
of government, freedom of suffrage, trial by jury, and
against any or all of these that I have named; he
may decry civil liberty, and assert the divine right
of kings, and still he does nothing criminal; but if,
to give success to such efforts, special power from a
court of justice is required, it will not be given.
There is not one of these features of the general
public policy of Pennsylvania, but what a school
might be established, and preachers and teachers
9
66 WBBSTER’s SPEECH
employed to teach against. That might in a certain
sense be considered a school of education, but it
would not be a charity. And if Mr. Girard, in his
lifetime, had founded schools, and employed teachers
to preach and teach in favor of infidelity, or against
popular government, free suffrage, trial by jury, or
the alienability of property, there was nothing to stop
him, or prevent him from so doing. But where any
one or all of these come to be provided for a school
or system as a charity, and come before the courts
for favor, then in neither one, nor all, nor any, can
they be favored, because they are opposed to the
general public policy and public law of the State.
These great principles have always been recog-
nized; and these are no more parts and parcels of the
public law of Pennsylvania than is the Christian
religion. We have in the charter of Pennsylvania,
as prepared by its great founder, William Penn—we
have in his “great law,” as it was called, the declara-
tion—that the preservation of Christianity is one of
the great and leading ends of government. This is
declared in the charter of the State. Then the laws
of Pennsylvania—the statutes against blasphemy,
the violation of the Lord's day, and others to the
same effect, proceed on this great, broad principle,
that the preservation of Christianity is one of the
great ends of government. This is the general pub-
lic policy of Pennsylvania. On this head we have
the case of Updegraffe against the Commonwealth,
11th Sargent and Rawle, page 394; in which a de-
cision in accordance with this whole doctrine was
given by the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania. The
ON GIRARD's will. 67
solemn opinion pronounced by that tribunal begins
by a general declaration that Christianity is and has
always been part of the common law of Pennsyl-
vania.” -
I have said, your Honors, that our system of oaths
in all our courts, by which we hold liberty and pro-
perty, and all our rights, are founded on or rest on
Christianity and a religious belief. So does the affir-
mation of Quakers—that rests on religious scruples
drawn from the same source, the same feeling of
religious responsibility.
The courts of Pennsylvania have themselves de-
cided that a charitable bequest, which counteracts
the public policy of the State, cannot be sustained.
This was so ruled in the often cited case of the
|Methodist Church against Remington. There, the
devise was to the Methodist Church generally, ex-
tending through the States and into Canada, and the
trust was declared void on this account alone, viz.
that it was inconsistent with the public policy of the
State—inconsistent with the general spirit of the
laws of Pennsylvania. But is there any comparison
to be made between that ground on which a devise
to a church is declared void—viz. as inconsistent
with the public policy of the State—and the case of
a devise which undermines and opposes the whole
Christian religion, and derides all its ministers? The
one tending to destroy all religion, and the other
being merely against the spirit of the legislation and
laws of the State, and the general public policy of
Government, in a very subordinate matter. Can it
* Wide Appendix, No. 2.
68 WEBSTER’s SPEECH
be shown that this devise of a piece of ground to
the Methodist Church can be properly set aside, and
declared void on general grounds, and not be shown
that such a devise as that of Mr. Girard which tends
to overturn as well as oppose the public policy and
laws of Pennsylvania, can also be set aside 2
Sir, there are many other American cases which I
could cite to the Court in support of this point of the
case. I will now only refer to 8 Johnson, page 291.
It is the same in Pennsylvania as elsewhere—the
general principles and public policy are sometimes
established by constitutional provisions—sometimes
by legislative enactments—sometimes by judicial
decisions, and sometimes by general consent. But
how, or when it may be established, there is nothing
that we look for with more certainty than this general
principle, that Christianity is part of the law of the
land. This was the case among the Puritans of
England, the Episcopalians of the Southern States,
the Pennsylvania Quakers, the Baptists, the mass of
the followers of Whitefield and Wesley, and the Pres-
byterians—all—all brought and all adopted this great
truth—and all have sustained it. And where there
is any religious sentiment amongst men at all, this
sentiment incorporates itself with the law. Every-
thing declares it ! The massive Cathedral of the
Catholic ; the Episcopalian Church, with its lofty
spire pointing heavenward; the plain temple of the
Quaker; the log church of the hardy pioneer of the
wilderness; the mementos and memorials around and
about us—the grave yards—their tombstones and epi-
taphs—their silent vaults—their mouldering contents
ON GIRARD's will. 69
—all attest it. The dead prove it as well as the living /
The generation that is gone before speak to it, and
pronounce it from the tomb | We feel it ! All, all,
proclaim that Christianity—general, tolerant Chris-
tianity—Christianity independent of sects and parties
—that Christianity to which the sword and the fagot
are unknown—general, tolerant Christianity, is the
law of the land
TMr. WEBSTER, having gone over the other points in
the case, which were of a more technical character,
in conclusion, said:
I take leave of this cause ! [Great sensation | I look
for no good whatever from the establishment of this
school—this college—this scheme—this experiment
of an education in “practical morality,” unblessed
with the influences of religion' It sometimes hap-
pens to man to attain for good, by accident, that
which he could not achieve by long-continued exer-
cise of industry and ability. And it is said, even of the
skilful and the man of genius, that, by accident, he
will sometimes “snatch a grace beyond the reach of
art.”
And I believe that men sometimes do mischief, not
only beyond their intent, but beyond the ordinary
scope of their talents and ability. In my opinion, if
Mr. Girard had given years to the study of a mode by
which he could dispose of his vast fortune so that no
good could arise to the general cause of charity—no
good to the general cause of learning—no good to
human society—and which should be most produc-
tive of protracted struggles, troubles, and difficul-
ties, in the popular councils of a great city, he could
70 weBSTER’s SPEECH
not so effectually have attained that result as he has
by this devise now before the Court. It is not the
result of good fortunes, but of bad fortunes, which
have over-ridden and cast down whatever of good
might have been accomplished by a different dispo-
sition. I believe that this plan—this scheme—was
unblessed in all its purposes, and in all its original
plans ! Unwise in all its frame and theory, while it
lives, it will lead an annoyed and troubled life, and
leave an unblessed memory when it dies! If I could
persuade myself that this Court would come to such
a decision as, in my opinion, the public good and the
law require, and if I could believe that any humble
efforts of my own had contributed in the least to lead
to such a result, I should deem it the crowning mercy
of my professional life. .
[Mr. WEBSTER spoke this day for an hour and a half,
and for seven hours and a half on the two preceding
days. Immediately after he concluded, all the ladies
rose and left the Court in a body, and it was ten
minutes before order could be restored.]
A PP E N DIX. No. 1.
Extract from the writings of Bishop White.
THE will goes to the extent of the abandonment of religion, as prescribing
the rules of human conduct. If a collection of youth may have their atten-
tion exclusively directed to other motives, no reason can be given why they
may not be surrendered to the same through life. If the instructors are for-
bidden to call the attention of their pupils to the Author of all wonders which
open on their senses; and to a state succeeding that which, as they must soon
discover, will be ended by the grave—and certainly silence on these and on
the like subjects is exacted by the terms of the bequest; and if the prescribed
rule of life be sufficient until the age of fourteen or fifteen, or even eighteen,
long before which there will be felt the struggles between inclination and the
sense of duty; the sufficiency of the same rule for the remainder of life is an
obvious consequence. *
The error of Mr. Girard's restrictions is evident in the principle on which it
is founded—the diversity of sentiment on subjects of religion. Let the princi-
ple be tested in application to the relations of domestic life. No wise head of
a family withholds instruction from his children on the reciprocal duties of
parent and child, and of the parties to a marriage contract. Yet how many
shades of difference of opinion are there as to the proper extent of parental
power, and to that of the correspondent obedience of the child? Šimilar
diversities prevail as to the other relations. Is Sage instruction to be delayed
on these accounts 2
The like remark may be made on the subject of civil rulers, and of the al-
legiance due from the citizen or subject. What a wide field is open by the
claims of power in the hands of a single psrson, or in those of a few, or in an
aristocracy, or in a popular assembly, or in some one of the many mixed forms
which have been either adopted or imagined According to the reasoning of
the will, all determination should be deferred to the ages of fourteen or
fifteen, or perhaps eighteen; yet, in disregard of such laxity, every good
citizen instils into the minds of his offspring sentiments which sustain the
rights of those who govern, and exact obedience within the limits of the laws.
The present writer has a very limited acquaintance with the gentlemen who
compose the respectable bodies of our city councils. He supposes of the
most, and thinks it probable of all of them, that they confess the claims of
religion, by denominating themselves as belonging, each of them, to one or to
another of the religious societies within the bounds of the city. He therefore,
with great respect, submits to their understandings how far they can, with
clear consciences, undertake the government of a seminary which discharges
its pupils from all regard to religious obligation, and from all subjection to re-
ligious discipline. They cannot but be aware of the contrariety of so ungodly
a regimen to those Holy Scriptures which they make the foundation of their
several creeds. In the Old Testament they read—“bring up a child in the way
in which he should go.” They cannot be ignorant of what the Jewish lawgiver
says concerning the laws of God—“thou shalt diligently teach them to thy
children, and thou shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thy house, and
when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou
72 APPENDIY.
risest up.” And, if moral cultivation be a part of the plan of any literary
institution, it cannot be beyond the reach of the caution—“the fear of the
Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” The calls of the New Testament are in
unison with those of the Old—“ye parents, bring up your children in the
nurture and admonition of the Lord;” “children, obey your parents in the
Lord;” and, “I write unto you, little children, because you have known the
Father.” Very different are these and the like provisions from the delay of
even the mention of such sanctions of duty to young men under the ages of
fourteen or fifteen, or towards eighteen; whatever need there may be seen of
them in the increasing strength of their passions and of their appetites.
Let there be attention to the operation of the bequest in its occasional vio-
lation of the tenderest feelings of the parental breast. We will suppose four
religious men—an Episcopalian, a Presbyterian, a Baptist, and a Methodist—
in circumstances barely competent to the subsistence of their families. Let
them perceive themselves departing this life, without provision for the sup-
port and education of their children; and no other guardianship over them to
be relied on, beside that of certain functionaries of the city, wisely provided
for the object. These guardians may judge the binding of them to reputable
tradesmen to have less prospect of advantage than the entering of them into
the contemplated receptacle of orphans. According to the character of the sup-
posed dying men, notwithstanding the diversities of their opinions on various
points, they would be the same in the design, had their lives been spared, of
giving a religious education to their children; whose deaths they would deem
a less calamity than their being thrown on a world of temptation at the age
of fourteen, or of fifteen, or of eighteen, without the knowledge of God or of
a future state, or of those Scriptures which, in the parental estimate, are ne-
cessary to their being made “wise unto salvation.” . A great proportion of
the children of the poor are disposed of under a guardianship created by the
laws. This will probably be the principal source of supply to a seminary
in which the sound of the voice of religion is never to reach the ears of the
juvenile inmates.
It would be unjust to the memory of Mr. Girard not to notice his remarking
it as a privilege of his orphans, on their arrival at the age for the leaving of
the seminary, to adopt such tenets as their matured reason may enable them to
prefer. It is not to the purpose to inquire how far this privilege, which his
protegées will derive from the laws of the land, may be supposed to add to
or enforce the moral education which they may have brought with them
from the seminary. Whatever may have been, or may not have been,
the wishes of the testator to this point; and whatever effect our favora-
ble construing of his views may have on our estimate of his own character,
it is all foreign to the present argument, which tends to the two positions, that
it is irreligious and unchristian to accept of the public responsibility of an in-
stitution, to the pupils of which there shall be denied all instruction in re-
ligion; and that if other motives are sufficient for their government until their
arrival atthe ages of fourteen and fifteen and eighteen, no reason can be given
why they may not be sufficient through the remainder of life.
Perhaps there may seem an interference of the argument with a prejudice
not uncommon, that the minds of the secluded orphans would be sensible of
impressions made on them by nature of the being of God, and of their respon-
sibility to his tribunal. This is the exploded doctrine of innate ideas. If
there be any not yet reached by what has been written on the subject by John
Locke, they may be referred to the observations lately made on those born
deaf and dumb ; who know nothing of the primary truths of religion, until
taught through the medium of the expedients brought into operation for that
APPENDIX. 73
unfortunate class of the human family. Whether the design of Mr. Girard
can be strictly executed, may be considered as a problem. Should this be the
case, his Orphans will leave the seat of their juvenile residence as void of
any trace of a knowledge of the Deity, as some who might be shown to him
in an institution which in his will he has properly distinguished by a munifi-
cent donation. -
It is required that for admission the Orphan shall be between six and ten
years of age. Doubtless, within those terms, there are sometimes salutary
impressions on infant minds. Where this has been the case, it is not proba-
ble that a single trace of them will remain through years, in a sphere so un-
favorable to their cultivation.
It may be anticipated as very unlikely, that for the intended seminary there
will be obtained, even if it should be thought desirable, instructors who are
believers in the Christian religion, and who have its interests at heart. Were
this possible, it is easy to perceive the painful circumstances in which such
instructors must sometimes find themselves. Let an instructor be supposed
taking a walk with one of the pupils, on some fine morning during the re-
newal of the herbage of the year. Let there arise in the mind of the former
some such passage as the address to the Deity, in Adam’s Morning Hymn, in
Milton—“These are thy wondrous works, Parent of good Almighty,” &c.
The instructor, warmed by the theme and the surrounding scene, might be
tempted to break out in such an act of adoration. But it would be unfaithful-
ness to his trust, and he must keep it a Secret from his pupil that he believes
in the existence of such a being. The supposition might be diversified by a
great variety of cases, sufficient to show that, under the provisions of the
will, there will be an interdict of Christian instructors, whether designed or
not, as well as Christian teaching, within the walls. -
That there will be the supply of teachers of a very different description,
may be counted on ; and modern times have multiplied those pests of society
who, under the profession of schoolmasters, lose no opportunities of infusing
their poison of infidelity into unsuspicious minds. Such instructors have no
authority, under the will, to go beyond the lessons of mere morality; so as
to teach any doctrine of absolute irreligion, from the highest point of Atheism
to the most specious of all the expedients for the misrepresentation of any of
the contents of Holy Scripture. But no one, acquainted with human nature,
will believe that such instructors, in teaching, will find reluctance to the
guarding of their pupils against the religious truths which will be addressed
to them on their entrance into social life, resolving what they will hear into
popular fable and superstition, which it is now high time to lay aside.
From the tenor of the argument, there will have been anticipated the
opinion of what should be expected from city councils. It is, that there
should be a respectful but determined rejection of the trust intended to be in-
stituted by the will of Stephen Girard, Esq., for the maintaining and the edu-
cating of orphans. -
It is a great sacrifice, but it cannot be too great, when the acceptance of it
would be an acknowledgment that religion, even in its simplest forms, is un-
necessary to the binding of men to their various duties. As yet, no such
theory has shown its face in the proceedings of any of the constituted au-
thorities of the United States. If the breaking of this unholy ground should
be a corporate act of our city councils, there will be apprehended from it the
most disastrous consequences, by
- A CITIZEN OF PHILADELPHIA.
10
74 APPENDIX,
No. 2.
Extract from the judgment of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, in the
case of Updegraffe vs. the Commonwealth. -
Christianity, general Christianity, is, and always has been, a part of the
common law of Pennsylvania; Christianity, without the spiritual artillery of
European countries; for this Christianity was one of the considerations of the
royal charter, and the very basis of its great founder, William Penn; not
Christianity founded on any particular religious tenets; not Christianity with
an established church, and tithes, and spiritual courts; but Christianity with
liberty of conscience to all men. William Penn and Lord Baltimore were the
first legislators who passed laws in favor of liberty of conscience; for before
that period the principle of liberty of conscience appeared in the laws of no
people, the axiom of no government, the institutes of no society, and scarcely
in the temper of any man. Even the reformers were as furious against con-
tumacious errors as they were loud in asserting the liberty of conscience.
And to the wilds of America, peopled by a stock cut off by persecution from
a Christian Society, does Christianity owe true freedom of religious opinion
and religious worship.
From the time of Bracton, Christianity has been received as a part of the
common law of England. I will not go back to remote periods, but state a
series of prominent decisions, in which the doctrine is to be found.
In the case of the King vs. Woolaston—2 Stra., 844; Fitzg., 64; Ray-
mond, 162—the defendant had been convicted of publishing five libels, ridi-
culing the miracles of Jesus Christ, his life and conversation, and was moved
in arrest of judgment that this offence was not punishable in the temporal
courts; but the court said they would not suffer it to be debated “whether to
write against Christianity generally was not an offence of temporal cogni-
zance.” It was further contended that it was merely to show that those mi-
racles were not to be taken in a literal but allegorical sense, and therefore,
the book could not be aimed at Christianity in general, but merely attacking
one proof of the Divine mission. But the court said the main design of the
book, though professing to establish Christianity upon a true bottom, con-
siders the narrations of Scripture as explanative and prophetical, yet that
these professions could not be credited, and the rule is, allegatio contra fac-
tum non est admittendum. In that case the court laid great stress on the term
general, and did notintend to include disputes between learned men on particular
and controverted points; and Lord Chief Justice Raymond, Fitzg., 66, said:
“I would have it taken notice of, that we do not meddle with the difference
of opinion, and that we interfere only where the root of Christianity is
struck at.”
In the justly admired speech of Lord Mansfield, in a case which made much
noise at the time—Evens vs. Chamberlain, of London, Furneaux’s Letters to
Sir W. Blackstone, Appx. to Black. Com., and 2 Burn’s Eccles. Law, p. 95
—conscience, he observed, is not controllable by human laws, nor amenable to
human tribunals; persecution, or attempts to force conscience, will never pro-
duce conviction, and were only calculated to make hypocrites or martyrs.
There never was a single instance, from the Saxon times down to our own, in
APPENDIX. 75
which a man was punished for erroneous opinions. For Atheism, blasphemy,
and reviling the Christian religion, there have been instances of prosecution
at the common law, but bare non-conformity is no sin by the common law, and
all pains and penalties for non-conformity to the established rites and modes
are repealed by the acts of toleration, and dissenters exempted from ecclesias-
tical censures. What bloodshed and confusion have been occasioned, from
the reign of Henry IV., when the first penal statutes were enacted, down to the
Revolution, by laws made to force conscienceſ . There is certainly nothing
more unreasonable, nor inconsistent with the rights of human nature, more
contrary to the spirit and precepts of the Christian religion, more iniqui-
tous and unjust, more impolitic, than persecution against natural religion,
revealed religion, and sound policy. The great and wise, and learned judge,
observes: “The true principles of natural religion are part of the common
law; the essential principles of revealed religion are part of the common law;
so that a person vilifying, subverting, or ridiculing them, may be prosecuted
at common law; but temporal punishments ought not to be inflicted for mere
opinions.” Long before this, much suffering, and a mind of strong and liberal
cast, had taught this sound doctrine and this Christian precept to William
Penn. The charter of Charles II. recites, that “Whereas our trusty and be-
loved William Penn, out of a commendable desire to enlarge our English em-
pire, as also to reduce the savages, by gentle and just measures, to the love of
civil society and the Christian religion, hath humbly besought our leave to
translate a colony,” &c. The first legislative act in the colony was the recog-
nition of the Christian religion, and establishment of liberty of conscience.
Before this, in 1646, Lord Baltimore passed a law in Maryland in favor of
religious freedom; and it is a memorable fact, that of the first legislators who
established religious freedom, one was a Roman Catholic and the other a
Friend. It is called the great law of the body of laws in the province of Penn-
sylvania, passed at an assembly at Chester, the 7th of the 12th month, Decem-
ber. After the following preamble and declaration, viz. “Whereas the glory
of Almighty God, and the good of mankind, is the reason and the end of
government, and therefore governmentin itself is a venerable Ordinance of God,
and forasmuch as it is principally desired and intended by the proprietary and
Governor and the freemen of the province of Pennsylvania and territories
thereunto belonging, to make and establish such laws as shall best preserve
true Christian and civil liberty, in opposition to all unchristian, licentious, and
unjust practices, whereby God may have his due, Caesar his due, and the peo-
ple their due, from tyranny and oppression on the one side, and insolency and
licentiousness on the other, so that the best and firmest foundation may be
laid for the present and future happiness both of the Governor and people of
this province and territories aforesaid, and their posterity”—[Then follow
enactments against profanity, blasphemy, and violation of the Lord's day.]
Amidst the concurrent testimony of political and philosophical writers among
the Pagans, in the most absolute state of democratic freedom, the Sentiments
of Plutarch on this subject are too remarkable to be omitted. After reciting that
the first and greatest care of the legislators of Rome, Athens, Lacedæmon, and
Greece in general, was, by instituting Solemn supplications and forms of oaths,
to inspire them with a sense of the favor or displeasure of Heaven, that learn-
ed historian declares, that we have met with towns unfortified, illiterate, and
without the conveniences of habitations, but a people wholly without religion
no traveller hath yet seen; and a city might as well be erected in the air as a
State be made to unite where no Divine worship is attended. Religion he
terms the cement of civil union, and the essential support of legislation. No


76 APPENDIX.
free government now exists in the world, unless where Christianity is ac,
knowledged, and is the religion of the country. So far from Christianity, as
the counsel contends, being part of the machinery necessary to despotism, the
reverse is the fact Christianity is part of the common law of this State. It is not
proclaimed by the commanding voice of any human superior, but expressed in
the calm and mild accents of customary law. Its foundations are broad and
strong and deep; they are laid in the authority, the interest, the affections of
the people. Waiving all questions of hereafter, it is the purest system of
morality, the firmest auxiliary, and Only stable support of all human laws. It
is impossible to administer the laws without taking the religion which the
defendant in error has scoffed at, that Scripture which he has reviled, as
their basis; to lay aside these is at least to weaken the confidence in human
veracity, so essential to the purposes of Society, and without which no
question of property could be decided, and no criminal brought to justice;
an oath in the common form, on a discredited book, would be a most idle cere-
mony,