"One's religion is one's own possession and he has a right to it"
About this Quote
A lawyer’s sentence that sounds like a blessing is, underneath, a boundary line. Paul Harris frames religion not as a shared civic project or a public badge but as property: “one’s own possession.” That word choice matters. Possessions are protected, transferable only by consent, and immune to casual seizure. He’s smuggling a legal ethic into a moral argument: belief belongs to the believer, and the state, the church, the neighbor, even the majority has no standing to repossess it.
The second clause sharpens the edge. “He has a right to it” shifts religion from sentiment to entitlement, from culture to claim. Rights language is designed for conflict; it assumes someone will try to interfere. Harris is implicitly addressing coercion-by-custom: social pressure, sectarian gatekeeping, patriotic piety, the expectation that “good citizens” worship correctly. The quote doesn’t romanticize faith. It defends privacy.
Context helps. Harris lived through the peak and aftershocks of industrial-era pluralism in the U.S.: immigration, urbanization, and periodic spasms of anti-Catholicism, anti-Semitism, and nativist Protestant certainty. In that environment, tolerance isn’t a warm feeling; it’s a rule of coexistence. His phrasing is also tellingly gendered (“he”), reflecting the era’s default citizen. That limitation underlines the cultural work the line is trying to do: define a minimal civic compact where difference can’t be litigated away by the loudest congregation.
The intent is restraint. The subtext is: keep your hands off my conscience, and I’ll keep my hands off yours.
The second clause sharpens the edge. “He has a right to it” shifts religion from sentiment to entitlement, from culture to claim. Rights language is designed for conflict; it assumes someone will try to interfere. Harris is implicitly addressing coercion-by-custom: social pressure, sectarian gatekeeping, patriotic piety, the expectation that “good citizens” worship correctly. The quote doesn’t romanticize faith. It defends privacy.
Context helps. Harris lived through the peak and aftershocks of industrial-era pluralism in the U.S.: immigration, urbanization, and periodic spasms of anti-Catholicism, anti-Semitism, and nativist Protestant certainty. In that environment, tolerance isn’t a warm feeling; it’s a rule of coexistence. His phrasing is also tellingly gendered (“he”), reflecting the era’s default citizen. That limitation underlines the cultural work the line is trying to do: define a minimal civic compact where difference can’t be litigated away by the loudest congregation.
The intent is restraint. The subtext is: keep your hands off my conscience, and I’ll keep my hands off yours.
Quote Details
| Topic | Human Rights |
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