the German Empire. Bismarck opposed it, and in doing so he took 

 occasion to state what in his view was the primary object of the 

 Prussian government, and I was startled at the statement : 



All gentlemen around me will admit — 



said he — 



that the primary object of the Prussian government is to maintain and defend the 

 Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. How, then, can one who disbelieves in Chi-ist be 

 properly admitted as a sharer of power in this kingdom ? 



I was struck with the fact that the great statesman of Germany — 

 probably the foremost man in Europe to-day— stated as an unques- 

 tioned principle that the support, defense and propagation of the 

 Christian gospel is the central object of the German government. 

 Then I considered in contrast with that the peculiarity of our own 

 Government. Our fathers, though recognizing in common with Ger- 

 many and the other Christian nations of the earth the supreme im- 

 portance of religion among men, deliberately turned to the great nation 

 they were to establish and said: "You shall never make any law 

 about religion ; " and to the States they virtually said "You shall never 

 make any law establishing any form of religion." In other words, here 

 was an interest too precious to be trusted either to the nation or to the 

 States. Our fathers said : " This highest of all human interests we 

 will reserve to the people themselves. We will not delegate our 

 power over it to any organized government, State or national. We 

 will not even allow Legislatures to make any law concerning it." 



To my mind it is the sublimest fact in our American system that, in 

 defining the boundaries of delegated powers, they chose to intrust 

 the most precious of all the interests of human beings on this earth 

 absolutely to the voluntary action of the individual people of the 

 Republic, not to be voted upon by their representatives, but to be 

 regulated, protected, and cherished by their own voluntary action, 

 leaving- themselves perfectly free to have no religion if they chose or 

 any religion that they pleased. Thus they exhibited their regard for 

 liberty, their faith in the voluntary action of the people, and their 

 belief that the most precious interests would be safest under the im- 

 mediate guardianship of freemen. In my view, we have spent too 

 much time in discussing State sovereignty and national supremacy, 

 and have neglected to recognize and appreciate the vast importance 

 of the reserved rights of the people. 



It is a safe and wise rule to follow in all legislation, that whatever 

 the people can do without legislation will be better done than by 

 the intervention of the State or the nation. 



What I have said in reference to religion, applies with almost equal 

 force to science. In the main, the framers of our Government trusted 

 science to the same jurisdiction to which they intrusted religion. With 

 the single exception of one clause in the Constitution authorizing 

 Congress to promote science by granting copyrights and patents, the 

 chief support and maintenance of science are' left, and I think wisely 

 left, to the voluntary action of our people ; and this was done, not in 

 the interest of liberty alone, but in the interest of science itself. 



This leads me to inquire what ought to be the relation of the Na- 

 tional Government to science ? What, if anything, ought we to do in 

 the way of promoting science? For example, if we have the power, 

 would it be wise for Congress to appropriate money out of the Treas- 

 ury to employ naturalists to find out all that is to be known of our 

 American birds? Ornithology is a delightful and useful study ; but 

 would it be wise for Congress to make an appropriation for the ad- 



