hat Constitution declared. Likewise, nothing
can be clearer than that Judge Hammond, in setting forth and
defining what he calls "sectarian freedom of religious belief" as the
meaning of either the United States Constitution or of the
Constitution of Tennessee, misses in toto the American idea of
freedom of religious belief.
According to the proofs here given, it is evident that Mr. King
occupied the American and constitutional position, and asserted
and claimed only his constitutional right when he presented the
plea which Judge Hammond refused to entertain. And it is equally
clear that Judge Hammond exceeded the jurisdiction of a court of
the United States when he refused to entertain the plea, and
demanded that the prisoner should prove that the point pleaded
was a part of some creed, and was religiously practiced by some
sect.
Further than this, and as a matter of literal fact, it is but proper
and just to say that the sect to which Mr. King belongs not only has
no creed, but utterly repudiates any claim of any right to have a
creed. The sect to which Mr. King belongs
31
longs occupies the Christian and constitutional ground, and holds
the Christian and American idea, that it is every man's right to
believe for himself alone, in the exercise of his own individual
conscience as directed by the word of God, and to worship
accordingly.
Therefore, when the court, either State or United States,
demanded that Mr. King should prove that his plea was held as a
part of the creed of his sect, it not only demanded what it was
impossible for him to prove, but it dem