Minor et al. v. Board of Education of Cincinnati et al. I leave the case with the Court. The questions with which we are dealing have exercised in an unwonted degree the public mind, as they have touched feelings and principles which every good citizen holds most dear and sacred. Whatever may be the result, I have only to say for my clients, my colleagues and myself, that we have placed the case before a tribunal appointed and competent to judge of the law, and to decide what are the legal and constitutional rights of the parties, and by the decision we expect, cheerfully, and as good citizens, to abide. ERRATUM.-On page 158, ninth and tenth line from the top of the page, for "Whatever makes men good citizens makes them good Christians," read, "Whatever makes men good Christians makes them good citizens." Minor et al. v. Board of Education of Cincinnati et al. Argument of Stanley Matthews, For the Board of Education. MAY IT PLEASE YOUR HONORS-It would cost me a very painful physical effort to appear to-day in any case; it has cost me a very difficult and painful mental effort to appear in this. It is easy to swim with the tide, to go with the current, to follow in the wake of the multitude. To do things that are popular is not hard. But to stand by a man's individual moral convictions, in opposition not to enemies, but to friends, tries a man. If your Honors please, it tries me. Except, the loss of dear children, this is the most painful experience of my life-to be told that I am an enemy of religion, that I am an opponent of the Bible, that I have lost in this community my Christian character, and that my children and my grandchildren will reproach my memory for this day's work. For all that, and more, has not been whispered merely through the crowds, but has been told me to my face. If your Honors please, I would be silent to-day, if I dared, but I have no choice. Believing, as I do, that an appeal is being made to this Court to wrest the law to an illegal end, as a lover of my profession, I am under a professional obligation to withstand it. Believing, as I do, that doctrines the most dangerous and mischievous to the value and safety of our glorious system of public schools are being preached and promulgated, doctrines that are equally as dangerous and mischievous to civil order and the safety and peace of the State, as a citizen, I feel under still higher obligations to oppose them. Believing, as I do, that this suit and the principles on which it is maintained, and can only be maintained, cause a book, that I believe to be of no human origin-to contain the very words of God Minor et al. v. Board of Education of Cincinnati et al. -to be made the subject legitimately of public criticism in a court of justice, and only next spring to be bandied about as a foot-ball between political parties, and a religion which it is the greatest honor and pride of my life to be able to-day to stand in public and confess, to be made the watchword of contending factions in the State; believing that both that book and that religion are thus discredited, as a lover of the one, and as a disciple of the other, my responsibility to God and my conscience will not allow me to do anything else than to speak. And now, then, If your Honors please, this very discussion which now for two or three days has been prolonged in this house, the arguments which have been made, the topics which have been discussed, the themes which have been broached-and all in my judgment entirely relevant and germane to the question-I say the very nature of this discussion prima facie establishes that these gentlemen have no business to be in Court. Why, if your Honors please, whatever the characters, individually of the three distinguished gentlemen whom I see before me, sitting as the administrators of the law, may be, though they may be deeply versed in all spiritual knowledge and profound in theology, yet your Honors do not sit there as doctors of divinity, but as doctors of the laws. to find instead of Coke and Blackstone, and Kent, and other writers upon the science and system and rules of jurisprudence being cited and quoted to your Honors as decisive of the various views of counsel upon the mooted questions of law, what do we have? The question whether or not the Bible is a book of Divine authority; the question whether the version of King James is a true translation; the views which the Protestant evangelical denominations hold in regard to its infallible authority as the only rule of faith and practice; the opinions of the Council of Trent, and other general councils and pontiffs of the Roman Catholic Church, as to how far it contains the revealed will of God, and whence it derives its authority and title to be so regarded, and all these questions---questions of exegesis, questions of interpretation, questions of church authority, questions of inspiration-what have they to do here, and who here is competent to decide them? The very fact that this litigation necessarily draws in question opinions of this character, demonstrates, in my judgment as a lawyer, that the case has been Minor et al. v. Board of Education of Cincinnati et al. wrongly conceived. And this, is not all. I have already alluded to the ulterior results; they are not dimly and vaguely shadowed forth. These questions, the question of supremacy in politics between the contending churches and rival sects is the legitimate fruit of a controversy based on these grounds. And now I say, that unless all my ideas of religion are utterly perverted, unless all my opinions concerning politics, possible politics under our institutions, are wrong at the base, this state of things is wrong. It ought not to be. Legitimately it can not be. For, if the equitable, benign and impartial principles we have all been taught to understand as lying at the foundations of our civil policy in the State of Ohio mean anything, they mean that there is no room in the controversies of political parties for differences of religious belief. Now, it is of vital importance to the proper determination of this case that we should come back to the question-the previous question that we should understand it; that we should understand it precisely, not vaguely; that we should understand it exactly, marking its boundaries and its differences from all other questions, so that we may see precisely where we are, and what we have to decide. It appears, if your Honors please, that the School Board, as it is called, the Board of Education of the common schools of this city, on a certain occasion, at a regular meeting, passed two resolutions, which I will read: "Resolved, That religious instruction and the reading of religious books, including the Holy Bible, are prohibited in the common schools of Cincinnati, it being the true object and intent of this rule to allow the children of parents of all sects and opinions, in matters of faith and worship, to enjoy alike the benefit of the common school fund. "Resolved, That so much of the regulations on the course of study and text books in the Intermediate and District Schools (page 213, Annual Report) as reads as follows: The opening exercises in every department shall commence by reading a portion of the Bible by or under the direction of the teacher, and appropriate singing by the pupils,' be repealed." Minor et al. v. Board of Education of Cincinnati et al. It is admitted, that prior to the passage of these resolutions, there never has been in the common schools of Cincinnati any other than that conveyed by the formal instruction in religion reading of the Bible and the singing connected with it at the opening exercises. Mr. King. We admit no such thing. Mr. Matthews. Then it must be admitted, if that is not correct, that there is to be, and to continue to be, notwithstanding these resolutions, the same amount, the same kind, the same degree of religious instruction in the schools as there was before. For, if your Mr. King. Provided the resolution is enjoined, yes. Mr. Matthews. No sir, if they are enforced. Honors please, the only possible difference between the conduct of the schools under these resolutions, and under the existing resolutions prior to the passage of these, is simply in dispensing with the formal reading of the Bible, and singing at the opening exercises of the schools. It is not pointed out in the pleadings or in the evidence-it can not be, for it does not exist, that there ever was, and I repeat what I said before, any formal instruction in religion in the common schools of Cincinnati other than that which was repealed by this second resolution. If there was, what was it? Let us know. Mr. King. It is in the evidence, judge. Mr. Matthews. Well, what is it? Do you mean McGuffey's Readers? Mr. King. Yes sir. [Laughter.] Mr. Matthews. Well, now, is it possible? [Renewed laughter.] In the first place I deny that the reading of lessons in McGuffey's series of Readers is formal instruction in religion. In the second place, I say if it is, it will continue in spite of anything in these resolutions. Mr. King. Then you give up the case, as I understand it. Is it fair, if your Honors please, is it candid, is it squarely meeting the issue, to say that the extracts, contained in the text books in the schools, introduced for the purpose of improving the elocution, or the spelling, or the rhetoric, or the logic, or the arithmetic, or the geography of the pupils, is formal instruction in religion? |