“The Mass of Organic Utterances”

In my earlier days growing up within the Burri family, this phrase would have produced an effect causing all four of us boys to giggle uncontrollably as might any small faux pas or cross-eyed glance between us in a solemn church service, funeral, or wedding. To our mature minds, an ‘organic utterance’ would have manifested as a burp or fart. The incorporated ‘mass’, therefore, would have included a dash of puke or a ‘fart blossom’; forceful ejections of both gaseous and solid materials. The more erudite among us would have euphemized this as a ‘dingle-berry’ or, after a slight aging process, a ‘crispy critter’. We euphemized, Mom and Dad nearly euthanized.

In 1892, David Josiah Brewer posted an article on his blog that used the phrase in a more mature light. He concluded from his research that in American history ‘the mass of organic utterances’ indicated that...

“...this is a religious people. This is historically true. From the discovery of this continent to the present hour, there is a single voice making this affirmation.

The commission to Christopher Columbus, ... by the grace of God, ... "it is hoped that by God's assistance some of the continents and islands in the [496] ocean will be discovered,"...

The first colonial grant, that made to Sir Walter Raleigh in 1584, ... provided that "they be not against the true Christian faith...”

The first charter of Virginia,... "We, greatly commending, and graciously accepting of, their Desires for the Furtherance of so noble a Work, which may, by the Providence of Almighty God, hereafter tend to the Glory of His Divine Majesty, in propagating of Christian Religion to such People,...”

Language of similar import may be found in the subsequent charters of that colony from the same king, in 1609 and 1611; and the same is true of the various charters granted to the other colonies.

The celebrated compact made by the pilgrims in the Mayflower, 1620, recites: "Having undertaken for the Glory of God, and Advancement of the Christian Faith, and the Honour of our King and Country, a Voyage to plant the first Colony in the northern Parts of Virginia; Do by these Presents, solemnly and mutually, in the Presence of God and one another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil Body Politick, for our better Ordering and Preservation, and Furtherance of the Ends aforesaid."

The fundamental orders of Connecticut,... "Forasmuch as it hath pleased the Allmighty God by the wise disposition of his diuyne pruidence... a people are gathered togather the word of {515} God requires that to mayntayne the peace and union of such a people there should be an orderly and decent Gouerment established according to God,.. enter into Combination and Confederation togather, to mayntayne and presearue the liberty and purity of the gospell of our Lord Jesus wch we now prfesse, as also the disciplyne of the Churches, wch according to the truth of the said gospell is now practised amongst vs."

In the charter of privileges granted by William Penn to the province of Pennsylvania, in 1701, it is recited: "Because no People can be truly happy, though under the greatest Enjoyment of Civil Liberties, if abridged of the Freedom of their Consciences, as to their Religious Profession and Worship; And Almighty God being the only Lord of Conscience, Father of Lights and Spirits; and the Author as well as Object of all divine Knowledge, Faith, and Worship, who only doth enlighten the Minds, and persuade and convince the Understandings of People, I do hereby grant and declare,..."

Coming nearer to the present time, the declaration of independence recognizes the presence of the Divine in human affairs in these words: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." "We, therefore, the Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare," etc.; "And for the [143 U.S. 457, 468] support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the Protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor."

If we examine the constitutions of the various states, we find in them a constant recognition of religious obligations. Every constitution of every one of the 44 states contains language which, either directly or by clear implication, recognizes a profound reverence for religion, and an assumption that its influence in all human affairs is essential to the well-being of the community.

Even the constitution of the United States, which is supposed to have little touch upon the private life of the individual, contains in the first amendment a declaration common to the constitutions of all the states, as follows: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," etc., - and also provides in article 1, § 7, (a provision common to many constitutions,) that the executive shall have 10 days (Sundays excepted) within which to determine whether he will approve or veto a bill.

There is no dissonance in these declarations. There is a universal language pervading them all, having one meaning. They affirm and reaffirm that this is a religious nation. These are not individual sayings, declarations of private persons. They are organic utterances. They speak the voice of the entire people. While because of a general recognition of this truth the question has seldom been presented to the courts, yet we find that in Updegraph v. Comm., 11 Serg. & R. 394, 400, it was decided that, "Christianity, general Christianity, is, and always has been, a part of the common law of Pennsylvania; * * * not Christianity with an established church and tithes and spiritual courts, but Christianity with liberty of conscience to all men." And in People v. Ruggles, 8 Johns. 290, 294, 295, Chancellor KENT, the great commentator on American law, speaking as chief justice of the supreme court of New York, said: "The people of this state, in common with the people of this country, profess the general doctrines of Christianity as the rule of their faith and practice;...

These and many other matters which might be noticed, add a volume of unofficial declarations to the mass of organic utterances that this is a Christian nation.”

Holy Trinity Church v. U.S., United States Supreme Court ruling, Feb. 29, 1892. Majority opinion written by Justice David Josiah Brewer.

According to the opinion of modern historians and intellectual elite, not only did the nation’s founders and authors of The Bill of Rights not know the meaning of what they had enacted, but even over 100 years later the Supreme Court still did not know what these words meant. Such revelation wasn’t given until the latter 20th Century. A true miracle!

From these circumstances I am forced to conclude that ‘the mass of organic utterances’ of today’s luminaries, the higher courts, and organizations like the ACLU has now become a modernized recycled version that matches the intellectual depth of the Burri brothers’ fart blossoms and crispy critters. It is just as funny.

We Burri boys were far ahead of the curve.