Footnote

Pertinent to the above, on pages 966-969 Volume 2 of A Treatise on the Constitutional Limitations, by Thomas M. Cooley, L.L.D., 4th edition, as published in Boston in 1927, we read:

“Those things which are not lawful under any of the American constitutions may be stated thus:-

“1. Any law respecting an establishment of religion. . . .

“2. Compulsory support, by taxation or otherwise, of religious instruction. . . .

“3. Compulsory attendance upon religious worship. Whoever is not led by choice or a sense of duty to attend upon the ordinances of religion is not to be compelled to do so by the State. It is the province of the State to enforce, so far as it may be found practicable, the obligations and duties which the citizen may be under or may owe to his fellow-citizens or to society; but those which spring from the relations between himself and his Maker are to be enforced by the admonitions of the conscience, and not by the penalties of human laws. Indeed, as all real worship must essentially and necessarily consist in the free-will offering of adoration and gratitude by the creature to the Creator, human laws are obviously inadequate to incite or compel those external and voluntary emotions which shall induce it, and human penalties at most could only enforce the observance of idle ceremonies, which, when unwillingly performed, are alike valueless to the participants and devoid of all the elements of true worship.

“4. Restraints upon the free exercise of religion according to the dictates of the conscience. No external authority is to place itself between the finite being and the Infinite when the former is seeking to render the homage that is due, and in a mode which commends itself to his conscience and judgment as being suitable for him to render, and acceptable to its object. . . .

“5. Restraints upon the expression of religious belief. An earnest believer usually regards it as his duty to propagate his opinions, and to bring others to his views. To deprive him of this right is to take from him the power to perform what he considers a most sacred obligation.”