people of these United States, in their national capacity and character, constitute a Christian nation; if a Christian nation, then our Government is a Christian Government, a government formed and established by Christians, and therefore bound by the word of God, not at liberty to contravene his laws, nor to act irrespectively of the obligations we owe to him. ***

Your memorialists do not ask a legislative act, or any governmental declaration that Sunday shall be kept holy; they only ask that the existing laws, requiring any part of that day to be appropriated to secular business in the Postoffice Department, may be repealed."

**

From North Carolina. December, 1829.

**The practice of thus violating one of the express commands of God, having the sanction of the constituted authorities of the Government, assumes a national character, and may be justly called a national sin—the awful consequences of which are so often detailed in the sacred volume. * *

"To put a stop to this practice is not to impose restraint on the rights of any, but rather to remove a restraint which is grievous to many; it is to give liberty to all to enjoy the rest and privileges of that sacred day; and to terminate a practice, the example of which your memorialists humbly conceive to be injurious to the morals of the people. * *

แ By the observance or profanation of the Sabbath, the standard of morals is regulated in every Christian land; and in proportion as Christian morals prevail, the people are happy and the country prosperous; and if the bond of union, which holds our beloved country together, is ever dissolved, (which may Heaven avert!) it will be by first throwing off all religious and moral restraints. ** No nation has ever suffered by cherishing the spirit of Christ; but many have been ruined by giving place to a contrary spirit. ** It would be too much to say (and it is now too late to say it) that there shall be no legislative sanctions to enforce the laws of God; the statute book of the nation furnishes too many instances of such sanctions, now to call in question the right. And if, in copying the laws of God, your honorable body can say (without approaching the awful whirl

pool of church and state) that murder is a crime, and shall be punished with death, where, your memorialists would respectfully ask, is the danger in saying, after the same example, that the violation of the Christian Sabbath is a sin, and ought not to be countenanced? But, in truth, the subject matter of this memorial does not involve the question of Church and State, but of morality and State. And in such an union as the latter, all ** would have much cause to rejoice."

From the County of Williamson and others, Tenn.

"We usurp powers of the General Government to disturb the Sabbath's rest, which the States have never granted; and we interfere with their constant use of powers, to protect its rest, which they have reserved to themselves. We brand our nation with a dishonorable inconsistency; virtually declaring, it is from no regard to the authority of the Most High, that we suspend, on the Sabbath, our legislative and judicial business. * * We entice thousands of our citizens from their duty to God, to their families, to society, and their own souls, on the Sabbath, to work for unlawful gain; or to amuse themselves and their acquaintances with the news just brought from a distance by the Sabbath mail. We assume jurisdiction over religious concerns in opposition to the genius of our free and tolerant constitution, and to our own profession; and, under the plea of avoiding a religious establishment, which no man asks for, and which the truly religious would most deplore, we make an irreligious establishment, against the authority and observance of the whole decalogue; for, to offend deliberately, in one point, is to be guilty of all. Thus we spread a disastrous influence over our numerous population throughout the whole land; we entail a bitter experience of its direful effects upon the next generation; and tempt the God of the Sabbath to send down his fearful judgments upon our rising nation, without delay and without

cessation.

"In doing all this, we sin against light. Neither the people in general, nor those who represent them, are at liberty to plead ignorance. We all know, or may know, that the decalogue is the permanent moral law of the Almighty Ruler of nations in

his uncontrollable government over us; that the four commandments which point out our duty to God, lie at the foundation of the six which point out our duty to men; that the fourth, which requires our keeping holy to the Lord one day in seven, is as sacred and perpetual as any of the ten. * * * * On its faithful observance, in every community favored with it, depends the prospect that the people will understand, love, and obey the other precepts of the decalogue; or that they will ever be restrained from the most lawless and destructive immorality.

"In the infinite benignity of the Deity, the Sabbath was made for man-all mankind. It consults their best interests for time and eternity. It communicates their most important information. It originates and cherishes their best affections. It imparts the happiest direction to their moral conduct in all the relations of public and private life. It supplies the only adequate cement to human society. It controls the wicked, and protects the good. It is the anchor of the nation's safety and prosperity. Loose its moorings, and you involve millions in the consequent shipwreck. While God visits our world in mercy, it will be a sign and a witness between him and men, how they feel and conduct towards each other. Sanctified by any people to its proper use, it will bring upon them a blessing in its train; or profaned, a curse; and such a blessing, or such a curse, as shall comport with the majesty of its Almighty Lord, and the importance he attaches to this signal institution. The united testimony of prophecy, history, and observation, confirm this anticipation.

"Hence it is manifest, that, by the transportation of the mail and the opening of the Postoffices, by law, on the Sabbath, we make an incalculable sacrifice of principle, character, blessing, and prospect; while we are supported by no plea of necessity or mercy; or by no better than that of mere temporal convenience and worldly gain."

From Philadelphia, Penn.

"Your memorialists cannot but think that the enactment of which they pray an appeal is a virtual infraction of the Constitution of the United States; and they ask no more than a resto

ration of its integrity. **** A religious, or rather an irreligious test, appears to your memorialists to be in this case imposed, and equal rights to be plainly and injuriously denied to a large portion of the community. * *

"Now we believe that nearly all, if not the whole, of the confederating States, at the time they adopted the Federal Constitution, had laws in existence, and which still exist, explicitly prohibiting such acts as constantly take place in the conveyance of the mail, and the transaction of business at the Postoffices on Sunday; nor has the power of repealing these laws ever been surrendered to the Federal Legislature. Yet they are in effect repealed; for they are completely set aside by that part of the Postoffice law to which your memorialists refer. The example, moreover, which is every week exhibited of a total disregard to the day of sacred rest, in the traveling of the mail under the countenance of a national act, is of more pernicious influence than can easily be set forth. It renders impracticable the effectual execution of any of the State laws, by which a due observance of the Lord's day is enjoined; so that the utter disregard and desecration of that day, seems likely soon to ensue, if the example which has been, and still is, a principal cause of the evil shall not be withdrawn. * *

“And why, let your memorialists be permitted to ask, should the numerous individuals employed in the Postoffice Department, be deprived, as they are, of the rest and the other privileges, which their fellow citizens of all descriptions enjoy, by the suspension of their ordinary engagements for one day in seven? No necessity or efficient cause for this peculiarity, your memorialists are persuaded, can be assigned, even if the paramount consideration of the sacredness of the day should be left out of view. * *

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Finally, your memorialists are under the solemn conviction, that the preservation of all our free institutions, in their purity and integrity, if not in their very existence, is deeply involved in this subject. No maxim in politics is better established, than that virtue and good morals are the only basis on which a free government can permanently rest; and no truth is more clear or important, than that which was inculcated in the farewell

address of the Father of his country-that morality cannot be preserved without religion; and to this it may with truth as unquestionably, be added, that without a Sabbath, a day of sacred rest, religion cannot be maintained in an extensive community. Do we then ask that Congress should interpose to maintain it? No; we repeat that we only ask' that Congress may not permit the law of the United States to destroy it. We entreat that the law of our country may not be permitted to undermine and prostrate the palladium of its freedom."

From Kentucky.

"It is sufficient for the purpose of your memorialists, that the fact exists of abstinence from labor on the Sabbath in all countries, where Christianity or civilization has prevailed; and that the day has been recognized and respected in every Government in such countries; and almost every code of human laws there adopted has acknowledged the sanctity of the day. The example of the Government, whose organs we address, can be quoted on this subject. Congress ceases from their deliberations, Courts adjourn, and the President and all the Executive Departments close their offices on that day, except that portion of executive power placed under the Postmaster-General, which, contrary to the general rule, is on that day in busy operation. To open all these offices, and to set all these departments to the exercise of their duties on the Sabbath, would be resisted by the sense of the American people; and your memorialists cannot see that the exception alluded to, as practised, is any better in principle than such conjoint labor would be in every Department.

"Your memorialists protest against the States supporting, aiding, or being united to the Church; and they also protest against the civil power being used to trample down or persecute the Church, or to weaken and destroy one church duty. * * We know Congress cannot, and ought not, to enforce the duties of the Sabbath. We ask them not to do this; but we ask them to keep their hands from pulling down, destroying, and disregarding a day, the duties of which are established by another, and infinitely superior power. It is no act of positive legislation in favor of the Sabbath, or any other religious duty, that we