constitution, but that constitution died with the Confederacy in 1865. The name of God did not make it more pious and justifiable.*

Our chief objection to such an amendment, besides its impracticability, is that it rests on a false assumption, and casts an unjust reflection upon the original document, as if it were hostile to religion. But it is neither hostile nor friendly to any religion; it is simply silent on the subject, as lying beyond the jurisdiction of the general government. The absence of the names of God and Christ, in a purely political and legal document, no more proves denial or irreverence than the absence of those names in a mathematical treatise, or the statutes of a bank or railroad corporation. The title "Holiness" does not make the Pope of Rome any holier than he is, and it makes the contradiction only more glaring in such characters as Alexander VI. The book of Esther and the Songs of Solomon are undoubtedly productions of devout worshipers of Jehovah; and yet the name of God does not occur once in them.

We may go further and say that the Constitution not only contains nothing which is irreligious or unchristian, but is Christian in substance, though not in form. It is pervaded by the spirit of justice and humanity, which are Christian. The First Amendment could not have originated in any pagan or Mohammedan country, but presupposes Christian civilization. and culture. Christianity alone has taught men to respect the sacredness of the human personality as made in the image of God and redeemed by Christ, and to protect its rights and privileges, including the freedom of worship, against the encroachments of the temporal power and the absolutism of the state.

The Constitution, moreover, in recognizing and requiring an official oath from the President and all legislative, executive, and judicial officers, both of the United States and of the several states, recognizes the Supreme Being, to whom the oath is a solemn appeal. In exempting Sunday from the working days of the President for signing a bill of Congress, the Constitution honors the claims of the weekly day of rest and the habits of a Sunday-keeping nation; and in the subscription " Anno Domini" it assents to that chronology which implies that Jesus Christ is the turning-point of history and the beginning of a new order of society. And, finally, the

*The Confederate Constitution follows the Federal Constitution very closely, but provides for the theory of State Rights and for the protection of the institution of slavery, which caused the civil war. The preamble reads as follows (with the characteristic words underscored): “We, the people of the Confederate States, each State acting in its sovereign and independent character, in order to form a permanent federal government, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, invoking the favor and guidance of Almighty God, ordain and establish this Constitutton of the Confederate States of America."

framers of the Constitution were, without exception, believers in God and in future rewards and punishments, from the presiding officer, who was a communicant member of the Episcopal Church, down to the least orthodox, as Franklin and John Adams, who were affected by the spirit of English deism and French infidelity, but retained a certain reverence for the religion of their Puritan ancestors, and recognized the hand of God in leading them safely through the war of independence. Franklin proposed the employment of a chaplain in the Convention, who should invoke the wisdom and blessing of God upon the responsible work of framing laws for a new nation.

The history of our general government sustains our interpretation. The only example of an apparent hostility to Christianity is the treaty with Tripoli, November 4, 1796, in which it is said—perhaps unguardedly and unnecessarily that the government of the United States is "not founded on the Christian religion," and has no enmity against the religion of a Mohammedan nation.* But this treaty was signed by Washington, who could not mean thereby to slight the religion he himself professed. It simply means that the United States is founded, like all civil governments, in the law of nature, and not hostile to any religion. Man, as Aristotle says, is by nature a political animal.† Civil government belongs to the kingdom of the Father, not of the Son. Paul recognized the Roman Empire under Nero as founded by God, and that empire persecuted the Christian religion for nearly three hundred years. The modern German Empire and the French Republic arose, like the United States, from purely political motives, but are not on that account irreligious or anti-Christian.

It is easy to make a plausible logical argument in favor of the proposition that the state cannot be neutral, that no-religion is irreligion, and that non-Christian is anti-Christian. But facts disprove the logic. The world is full of happy and unhappy inconsistencies. Christ says, indeed, "Who is not for me is against me," but he says also, with the same right, "Who is not against me is for me." It is the latter, and not the former truth which applies to the American state, as is manifest from its history down to the present time.

Our Constitution, as all free government, is based upon popular sov

* "As the government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Mussulmans; and as the United States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mohammedan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries. See Index to Foreign Treaties, United States Statutes at large, vol. viii.

†ἄνθρωπος φύσει πολιτικὸν ζώον.

ereignty. This is a fact which no one can deny. But this fact by no means excludes the higher fact that all government and power on earth are of divine origin, dependent on God's will and responsible to him (Rom. xiii. 1). God can manifest his will through the voice of the people fully as well as through the election of princes or nobles, or through the accident of birth. In the ancient church even bishops (like Cyprian, Ambrose, Augustin) and popes (like Gregory the Great) were chosen by the people, and the vox populi was accepted as the vox Dei. When these come in conflict, we must obey God rather than man (Acts, iv. 29). All power, parental, civil, and ecclesiastical, is liable to abuse in the hands of sinful men, and if government commands us to act against conscience and right, disobedience, and, if necessary, revolution, becomes a necessity and a duty.

Phily, Schaff

VOL. XVIII.-No. 4.-21

KENTUCKY, TENNESSEE, OHIO

THEIR ADMISSION INTO THE UNION

It is remarkable that in various encyclopedias and histories, as well as in almanacs and other collections of government statistics, serious discrepancies should be found as to three of the first four states admitted into the Union. In the case of Kentucky and Tennessee the discrepancy concerns the governmental condition previous to their admission; in the case of Ohio it concerns the time of admission. Kentucky, according to some, was formed from a part of Virginia; according to others it was formed from the Territory of the United States south of the river Ohio. So Tennessee is said by some to have been formed from North Carolina, and by others, from the territory before mentioned. For Ohio a number of different dates of admission are given, extending from April 28, 1802, to March 3, 1803.

The Constitution provides that new states may be admitted by Congress, but a new state may not be formed within the jurisdiction of another state without the consent of its legislature. Vermont was the first new state admitted. As New York claimed that Vermont was within her boundaries, Congress made the consent of that state a condition of the admission of Vermont. That consent was given in 1790, and on the 18th of February, 1791, Congress passed an act admitting Vermont, to take effect the 4th of March. Vermont, therefore, is said to have been formed from a part of New York, and to have been admitted March 4, 1791.

On the 4th of February, 1791, Congress enacted that on the first day of June, 1792, Kentucky should be admitted into the Union. The act recites. that on the 18th of December, 1789, "the legislature of Virginia consented that the district of Kentucky, within the jurisdiction of the said commonwealth, and according to its actual boundaries at the time of passing the act aforesaid, should be formed into a new state. This would seem to be sufficiently explicit. Virginia consents that a certain district within her jurisdiction may become a separate state, and Congress enacts that on a certain day the said district shall be admitted as a state into the Union. Yet in various official publications Kentucky is affirmed to have been a territory, or part of a territory, prior to her admission.

What territories had been organized up to that time? There were two; "The territory of the United States northwest of the river Ohio," established by the celebrated ordinance of July 13, 1787, and "the territory of the United States south of the river Ohio," established May 26, 1790. These included all the public domain to which at that time the United States had undisputed title. If Kentucky ever existed in a territorial form, it must have been under the second of these.

Up to this time six states had made to the United States cessions of their claims to western territory. New York, whose claim extended from the lakes to the Cumberland Mountains, ceded in 1781, and without reservation. Virginia in 1784 ceded her claim on the north side of the Ohio, but not that on the south. Massachusetts made cession in 1785, and Connecticut in 1786; both claims lying north of the Ohio. In 1787 South Carolina ceded her claim to a narrow strip lying south of what is now Tennessee; and in 1790 North Carolina ceded her claim to the territory beyond the mountains west. Immediately after this cession, Congress established the Territory south of the river Ohio. It embraced the cessions made by the two Carolinas. Did it include Kentucky?

The only states that had laid claim to what is now Kentucky were New York and Virginia. Had they both ceded to the United States their claims to it, then Kentucky might have been regarded as part of the Territory south of the Ohio. New York had done this, but Virginia had not. Her cession had no reference to any land south of the Ohio. And before the act of May 26, 1790, creating that territory, had been passed, Congress had recognized Kentucky as a part of Virginia. In the judiciary act of 1789, Virginia was divided into two judicial districts; one to consist of the state of Virginia, except that part called the District of Kentucky, and to be called Virginia District; one to consist of the remaining part of the state of Virginia, and to be called Kentucky District. It seems clear then that Kentucky prior to its becoming a state was a part of Virginia, and was not a territory.

We find, nevertheless, in various works, including some published by the government, the assertion that Kentucky was a part of the Territory south of the river Ohio. In the Ninth Census Report, Volume I., on Population and Social Statistics, the map at page 570 puts Kentucky in the "Territory south of the river Ohio." So on page 573 the cession by Virginia is spoken of as "including the state of Kentucky and the parts of the states of Illinois, Ohio and Indiana which lie south of the Forty-first parallel." On page 575, under the heading, "The Territory South of the river Ohio," we read: "The district included the territory comprehended