ernment that was ever founded
in this world. Recollect that. The first secular government; the first
government that said every church has exactly the same rights, and no
more; every religion has the same rights, and no more. In other words,
our fathers were the first men who had the sense, had the genius, to
know that no church should be allowed to have a sword; that it should be
allowed only to exert its moral influence.

You might as well have a government united by force with Art, or with
Poetry, or with Oratory, as with Religion. Religion should have the
influence upon mankind that its goodness, that its morality, its
justice, its charity, its reason, and its argument give it, and no more.
Religion should have the effect upon mankind that it necessarily has,
and no more. The religion that has to be supported by law is without
value, not only, but a fraud and curse. The religious argument that has
to be supported by a musket, is hardly worth making. A prayer that must
have a cannon behind it, better never be uttered. Forgiveness ought not
to go in partnership with shot and shell. Love need not carry knives and
revolvers.

So, our fathers said: "We will form a secular government, and under the
flag with which we are going to enrich the air, we will allow every man
to worship God as he thinks best." They said: "Religion is an individual
thing between each man and his Creator, and he can worship as he pleases
and as he desires." And why did they do this? The history of the world
warned them that the liberty of man was not safe in the clutch and grasp
of any church. They had read of and seen the thumb-screws, the racks and
the dungeons of the inquisition. They knew all about the hypocrisy of
the olden time. They knew that the church had stood side by side with
the throne; that the high priests were hypocrites, and that the kings
were robbers. They also knew that if they gave to any church power, it
would corrupt the best church in the world. And so they said that power
must not reside in a church nor in a sect, but power must be wherever
humanity is,--in the great body of the people. And the officers and
servants of the people must be responsible to them. And so I say again,
as I said in the commencement, this is the wisest, the profoundest, the
bravest political document that ever was written and signed by man.

They turned, as I tell you, everything squarely about. They derived
all their authority from the people. T