■;i9S OF PmicEr^ 
 
 JUL t 
 
 
^ 
 
 REVIEW 
 
 OF A 
 
 REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE, 
 
 TO WHOM WAS REFERRED THE SEVERAL PETITIONS 
 
 ON THE SUBJECT OF 
 
 MAILS ON THE SABBATH, 
 
 PRESENTED TO THE 
 
 Senate of tije 2lnltet( States, 
 
 JANUARY 16, 18189, 
 
 y 
 
 BY THE HON. MR. JOHNSON, OF KENTUCKY, 
 
 CHAIRMAN OF SAID COMMITTEE. 
 
 1829. 
 
REVIEW. 
 
 Br the title and design of our work ; by the memory of those 
 who fled from Holland to Plymouth, because in that land of mer- 
 chandise they could not enjoy a quiet Sabbadi, or accustom dieir 
 children to keep it holy ; by all the blessings, civil and religious, 
 w^hich exist in close alliance with that day, whicli have been our 
 birthright, and are die just inheritance of the future generations of 
 our children ; and by all our obligations, as patriots to our country, 
 and as Christians to our God, we consider ourselves called upon 
 to animadvert upon the facts, principles and reasonings contained in 
 this Report. 
 
 We cherish an ardent attachment to the principles of our repub- 
 lican institutions, and believe that, in alliance with the Gospel, they 
 are destined to emancipate the world ; and, without permitting our- 
 selves to participate in the collisions incident to popular elections, 
 we hold ourselves bound, and declare ourselves disposed, to render 
 to the constituted authorities of our nation, from time to time, our 
 prayers, and our cheerful co-operation, in all diings which are lawful 
 and right. It is the happiness of our nation, diat so extensively the 
 people read and think for themselves ; and the glory of our govern- 
 ment, that it is so accessible to the people, and feels with such ease, 
 superceding the necessity of revolution, the slightest movement of the 
 public will. The press, which in Europe is struggling on to liberty 
 amid brisding bayonets, is with us free ; and those accommodations 
 to public sentiment, which there can be secured only by innovation 
 upon ancient usages, are obtained here with all the safety which 
 appertains to public discussion, and a judicious and peaceful legis- 
 lation. The people have only to ascertain what will be for their 
 good, and they are blessed with a government whose honor and 
 happiness it is to bestow it. 
 
 It is both admitted, and by us maintained, diat animadversions 
 upon public men and measures, legislative or judicial, should be 
 conducted with candor and respect. But the maxim diat no wrong 
 can be done by men in authority, belongs to the monarchy from 
 which our fathers fled, and not to the republic which they institut- 
 ed. In our animadversions, therefore, upon die Report of this 
 Committee, we both exercise a right, and perform a duty, which 
 belongs to us as cidzens and as Chi'isdans. 
 
 We enter upon diis duty without delay, because the principles of 
 
4 
 
 the Report are fraught with too much evil, and the reasonings which 
 recommend them are too specious and coincident with popular 
 inclination, to permit the bane to circulate long without the anti- 
 dote ; it being much easier to prevent the introduction of poison 
 into the body politic, than to expel it when it shall once have ob- 
 tained a brisk circulation. We are the more constrained to speak, 
 because in our view, the Sabbath is the mainspring of our repub- 
 lican institutions, every one of which, without its moral power, 
 will most assuredly run down ; and because, if the tide of pro- 
 fanation, set in motion by governmental example, continues to roll 
 on for fourteen years to come, as it has done for the fourteen 
 which are past, it may be impossible to preserve to the nation the 
 moral blessings of that day. If, with twelve millions of people, the 
 breaking forth, which at first was but a drop, and then a puny 
 stream, has become a flood, sweeping all mounds and landmarks 
 before it, what power shall stay it, when urged on, as in the course 
 of the present century it will be, by a population of thirty, sixty, 
 or even eighty millions. We are sure that the people of this 
 nation would not, by any public act, abolish the Sabbath ; and 
 we are equally confident that to all purposes of national morality 
 it will be done, unless a more efficient public sentiment can be 
 arrayed in favor of its preservation. To our apprehension, the 
 question now before Congress and the nation is. Abolish, or not 
 abolish, the Christian Sabbath. Of such a decision we dare not, 
 in time or in eternity, meet the result, without having done all which 
 heaven has enabled us to do, to produce a correct decision. Be- 
 tween the cradle and the grave of liberty we take our stand ; and 
 to the nation, and to heaven, we here pledge ourselves, never to 
 abandon our post, or to keep silence, till the Sabbath, the palla- 
 dium of our hopes, is rescued, or the grave has closed upon our 
 country's glory. And these, we have cause to know, are the views 
 and feelings which have waked up the nation, and called forth the 
 united, spontaneous burst of importunity which has flowed in upon 
 Congress. 
 
 The question, however, is not to be settled by mere feeling ; 
 much less by the argumentum ad invidiam, on either side. It is 
 manifest that the people, as yet, do not thoroughly understand the 
 subject, and when they do, we have great confidence that, under 
 God, they will decide right. Before we proceed, therefore, to a 
 particular consideration of the Report, we shall endeavor to afford 
 to our readers the means of forming a correct judgement, in re- 
 spect to the real and indispensable efficacy of the Sabbath to the 
 maintenance of our civil and religious institutions. 
 
 It has been said often by the advocates of a liberal exposition 
 of the fourth command, that ' the Sabbath was made for man.' 
 This is true, but in a sense directly the opposite of that which is 
 intended. The Sabbath was made (i. e. it was instituted and set 
 
apart by heaven) for the spiritual use and benefit of man. To be 
 made for man, denotes its universal necessity and universal and 
 perpetual oblio;ation : for the term man is generic, and includes 
 the race, of all ages and nations. The declaration ' the Sabbath 
 was made for man,' implies also that it was bestowed as a blessing, 
 and not imposed as a penance — a mitigation, and not an augmen- 
 tation of the curse, ' In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread 
 till thou return to the earth.' The six days were made for man 
 as really as the seventh ; but they are appropriated to labor, while 
 the seventh is given as a season in which to suspend his toils and 
 cares, and furnishes to the laboring classes of the world almost 
 their only opportunity for intellectual and moral cultivation. Thus, 
 it is said, at the close of creation, that God blessed and sanctified 
 the Sabbath. But to sanctify times, places, and things, is, according 
 to scriptural usage, to set them apart from a secular to a religious 
 use ; as the sons of Levi were sanctified to the priesthood, and 
 the tabernacle and temple to the worship of God, and all their 
 utensils to religious uses. 
 
 The necessity of some respite from the ordinary vocations of 
 life the Report admits to be the " voice of universal nature ;" and 
 the wisdom and benevolence of consecrating a seventh part of time 
 to this rest, appear in its experimental adaptation to the physical, 
 intellectual and moral necessities of man. Experience has ascer- 
 tained that the frames of men and animals are incapable of unin- 
 termitted action. Beside the repose of the night, a periodical rest 
 of the Sabbath is demanded. Those who labor through die sum- 
 mer, without intermission, accomplish less, with much greater ex- 
 haustion, than those who observe the Sabbath. Extended journies 
 are performed with more expedition, and less fatigue, by man and 
 beast, with, than without, the rest of the Sabbath. It was ascer- 
 tained in France, by experiment, that the labor of nine days, instead 
 of six, increased the exhaustion of man, and diminished the aggre- 
 gate amount of labor. The reason is obvious. No device of man 
 can make a pound weigh more than a pound, or limited strength 
 endure but a hmited degree of action ; and he who made the frame 
 of man prepared it to sustain healthful action six days in the week, 
 and no more. 
 
 It is manifest, that the mind has its limits of vigorous and health- 
 ful application to study, or to business, and that all taxation beyond 
 the exigencies of six days reacts, in nervous prostration, mental 
 aberration, or mortality. God has set the bounds to muscular and 
 mental effort which they cannot pass ; and though man, impatient 
 of constraint, has rushed upon them, and sought to pass, Hke the 
 waves dashing upon the iron-bound shore, he alone has been bro- 
 ken, while the ordinances of heaven have ' maintained their place'. 
 
 It is chiefly, however, in a moral respect that the Sabbath was 
 
made for man. For all experience has shown that cessation from 
 labor, without religious and moral instruction, results in dissipation 
 and excess, more injurious to mind and body, than uninteiinitted 
 toil. The Sabbath, as a mere holiday, has always exerted a most 
 terrific demoralizing influence ; and there is no alternative for man, 
 but to keep it holy, or waste away by the toil or the dissipation of 
 its violation. 
 
 That man is a free agent, to be governed by law, and not 
 by force, is a matter of universal consciousness. That the moral 
 law contained in the decalogue is the rule of duty, and would, 
 if obeyed, constitute perfect society, is admitted by Christians. 
 The entire influence of this law depends however on its being 
 known, explained, and pressed earnestly and often upon the at- 
 tention of men. It is the design of the Sabbath to give omni- 
 presence and energy to the moral law, by convening, one day in 
 seven, the population of the world to hear the expositions of its 
 precepts and sanctions. It is not to be denied, also, that man is a 
 sinner, and must be reclaimed and pardoned, to fit him for heaven; 
 and the Sabbath is given to him as a day of rest, in which he may 
 attend to such instructions as God has provided to make him wise 
 unto salvation. But the influence of both law and Gospel to ben- 
 efit man for time or for eternity is impaired, just in proportion as 
 the Sabbath is diverted from sacred, and is devoted to secular 
 uses. To establish this position, nothing is necessary, but a con- 
 cise consideration of the state of human society in respect to each 
 command of the decalogue, where the Sabbath does not give pre- 
 sence and influence to the law of God and the precepts of the 
 Gospel. We will name the commands in order, and illustrate, by 
 an appeal to facts, the state of society in respect to each, where 
 the Sabbath does not impart its energy to tlie moral law. 
 
 " Thou shalt have no other gods before ?«e." But unblessed by 
 the Sabbath, there is not a spot on earth, where the understanding 
 is enlightened by just conceptions of the character of God, or his 
 worship maintained. Or the hearts and lives of men purified by the 
 Gospel. Everywhere, as the Sabbath has disappeared, has dark- 
 ness covered the earth, and gross darkness the people ; and though 
 we exult in our hberties and superior illumination, in one century, 
 without the Sabbath, would our sun go down, and all our civil and 
 religious institutions perish. 
 
 " Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven imaged But 
 where has the Sabbath departed, and idolatry not entered ? The 
 reluctance of man to retain God in his knowledge is notorious. 
 It is only by the evidence of miracles, and the energy imparted 
 by the Sabbath to divine institutions, that the name and worship 
 of God have been maintained upon the. earth. The Jews, pre- 
 vious to their captivity at Babylon, were strangely addicted to the 
 worship of idols ; but after their return, when the synagogue wor- 
 
ship was established, the Sabbath more strictly observed, and the 
 law of God read and explained every recurring seventh day, they 
 never again relapsed into idolatry. 
 
 The Sabbath is the wall of partition between Christian and 
 heathen lands ; — the sun which enlightens the one, while all with- 
 out is the region of the shadow of death. The enemies of reve- 
 lation revile the Sabbath, as a day subservient to superstition and 
 the clergy ; but let them turn their backs on its hated light, and go 
 where its glimmerings do not reach, and everywhere they will wit- 
 ness the ignorance of the multitude, and the uncontrolcd despotism 
 of an idol priesthood. Idolatry has retreated before the hated light 
 of holy time, and now lies in ambush, waiting to return, whenever 
 it shall be extinguished. The enemies of revelation and the Sab- 
 bath are in fact the pioneers of idolatry, with all its abominable 
 superstitions, impurides, and blood. 
 
 " Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain,^^ 
 The entire influence of the divine government depends on the 
 reverence and love for God which prevail among his subjects. 
 Wherever respect for God declines — wherever his name, attri- 
 butes, word, and worship, are treated with irreverence and levity, 
 there the obedience of the heart has no place, and atheism itself 
 could scarcely be more licentious in its results. Profaneness is 
 ever associated in some form, and more commonly in many forms, 
 with immorality ; so that universally, the more profaneness abounds, 
 the more dissolute is the community in which it prevails. But 
 among what classes of the community does the profanation of the 
 name of God most abound ? Never among those, as a class, who 
 are reverential and strict in their observance of the Sabbath, but 
 among those, almost exclusively, who lightly esteem and violate 
 that holy day. 
 
 " Honor thy father and thy mother, that thy days may he long 
 in the land which the Lord thy God giveth theey But what is 
 the treatment of parents by their children, where no Sabbath pre- 
 serves natural affection, corroborates parental by divine authority, 
 invigorates conscience, and forms a public sentiment which renders 
 fiHal ingratitude disreputable ^ In lands nominally Christian, chil- 
 dren who are farthest removed from the influence of the Sabbath, 
 are most frequently irreligious, self-willed, ' heady, highminded, 
 disobedient to parents, without natural affection, implacable, un- 
 merciful;' while often, by their abusive conduct, they destroy 
 domestic peace, and by their vices and crimes bring themselves 
 and the grey hairs of their parents with sorrow to the grave. 
 In pagan lands, the insubordination of children to parents is 
 notorious, and the affections and comforts of the family state, as 
 they are enjoyed in Christian lands, are scarcely known. It is a 
 common event for children, when their parents have become old, 
 and can be of no further use to them, to carry them forth as a 
 nuisance, and lay them down under the canopy of heaven, by the 
 
8 
 
 river, or the way side, to die the lingering, intolerable death of 
 starvation. 
 
 " Thou shalt not kill.'''' But where the Sabbath does not give 
 presence and energy to the moral law, how cheap and insecure is 
 the life of man ? Duelling, as a general fact, prevails among Sab- 
 bath breakers. It is doubtful whether an individual can be found, 
 of the multitude who have fought, who was accustomed to pay a 
 strict regard to holy time. And where do those assaults most 
 abound, which indicate the absence of principle, and the predomi- 
 nance of intemperance, and rage, and brutal force ? Precisely 
 where the Sabbath is least revered, and the tavern has supplanted 
 the sanctuary of God. Where, with horrid frequency, and more 
 horrid impunity, do those assassinations multiply, which hold life 
 in jeopardy ? It is where the Sabbath, if known at all, exists in 
 name only, as a day of superstitious forms, and is, in fact, a holi- 
 day, more destructive to morals than the other six. In many such 
 places, the work of assassination has become a profession. For 
 a small sum, a desperado can be hired to take away life, and can 
 find a sanctuary from justice in the church ; and, for a small por- 
 tion of his gain, can be absolved from guilt by the ghostly priest- 
 hood. 
 
 There is a city in our own land, in which, a few years since, an 
 appalling number of assassinations took place in six months, and 
 every one of them with entire impunity. But there was no Sab- 
 bath there, wdiich gave presence and influence to the government of 
 God, or tone to public sentiment, or energy to the civil law. And 
 whoever reads the account of assassinations and murders which 
 are fast becoming a part of our weekly intelligence, and observes 
 the geographical location of these deeds of blood, will perceive 
 that they abound chiefly in the twilight of religious knowledge, and 
 where the Sabbath sheds upon the population but a faint and glim- 
 mering light. In most unevangelized nations, infanticide is com- 
 mon, and often prevails to such an extent that one half the chil- 
 dren born are destroyed, and not unfrequently by the hand of her 
 who bore them. In nearly all heathen nations have human sacri- 
 fices been offered, and in many are offered still ; and in all, the 
 life of man is set at naught with an inhumanity unparalleled even 
 in the worst papts of nominal Christendom. In India, every year, 
 multitudes of widow's burn on the funeral pile with their dead hus- 
 bands. It is said, indeed, to be done voluntarily ; but it is a com- 
 pulsory choice — the disgrace and persecution for a refusal being 
 more dreadful than death. In Rome, thousands were sometimes 
 murdered in a month, in the shows of the gladiators, merely for the 
 public amusement. But no Sabbath had brought to their ears the 
 divine prohibition, ' Thou shalt not kill.' Until the light of the 
 Sabbath arose on that dark empire, a vast proportion of the popu- 
 lation were slaves, over whom the master held the power of life 
 
and death, and whom, in passion or caprice, he often killed and 
 cast into fish ponds, to fatten the fish of his table. 
 
 Buchanan, in his Christian Researches, writes thus : 
 
 " Buddruck, May 30, 1806. We know that we are approach- 
 ing Juggernaut, (and yet we are more than fifty miles from it) by 
 the human bones which we have seen for some days strewed by 
 the way. Near the pilgrim's caravansera, there are more than a 
 hundred skulls. The dogs, jackalls and vultures seem to live 
 here on human prey. The vultures exhibit a shocking tameness. 
 This Buddruck is a horrid place. Wherever I turn my eyes, I 
 meet death in some shape or other." 
 
 "Juggernaut, June 14. I have seen Juggernaut. The scene 
 at Buddruck is but the vestibule. No record of ancient or modern 
 history, can give an adequate idea of this valley of death. The 
 idol of Juggernaut has been considered as the Moloch of the pre- 
 sent age, and he is justly so named ; for the sacrifices offered up 
 to him by self-devotement are not less criminal, perhaps not less 
 numerous, than those recorded of the Moloch of Canaan." " I be- 
 held another distressing scene this morning. A poor woman lying 
 dead, or nearly dead, and her two children by her, looking at the 
 dogs and vultures which were near. The people passed without 
 noticing the children. I asked them where was their home? They 
 said, ' they had no home but where their mother was.' O, there 
 is no pity at Juggernaut, no mercy, no tenderness of heart in Mo- 
 loch's kingdom ;" — and he mJght have said, because there is no 
 Sabbath there. 
 
 When the Sabbath was abolished in France, the Mighty God, 
 whose being they had denied, and whose worship they abolished, 
 stood aloof, and gave them up ; and a scene of proscription, and 
 assassination, and desolation ensued, unparalleled in the annals of 
 the civilized world. In the city of Paris, there w^ere in 1803, 
 eight hundred and seven suicides and murders. Among the crimi- 
 nals executed, there were seven fathers who had poisoned their 
 children, ten husbands who had murdered their wives, six wives 
 who had poisoned their husbands, and fifteen children who had 
 destroyed their parents. 
 
 " Thou sliaJt not commit adultery:' But in many nations lying 
 without the pale of Christendom, prom-iscuous concubinage has pre- 
 vailed to the annihilation of domestic purity, and all the sweet chari- 
 ties of the family state. At the Sandwich Islands, licentiousness and 
 disease w^ere fast exterminating the wretched population, until the 
 Sabbath and the glad tidings of the Gospel came to their aid. 
 The impurities of heathenism cannot be named — cannot be even 
 conceived. Buchanan, \\\\o witnessed the walls and gates of the 
 temple of Juggernaut " covered with indecent emblems in massive 
 and durable sculpture," and hstened to the obscene stanzas which 
 the priest said " are the delight of the god," beheld the " lascivious 
 2 
 
10 
 
 gesture," and " Indecent action," and heard from the multitude 
 " the sensual yell of delight," as they urged the car along, says, 
 " I was appalled at the magnitude and horror of the spectacle, 
 and felt a consciousness of doing wrong in witnessing it, and was 
 about to withdraw ; but a scene of a different kind was now to be 
 presented. The characteristics of Moloch's worship are lust and 
 blood. We have seen the former; now comes the blood." "This, 
 thought I, is the worship of the Bramins of Hindostan, in its sub- 
 limesi degree ! What then shall we think of their private manners 
 and their moral principles : for it is equally true of India, as of 
 Europe, if you would know the state of the people, you must look 
 at the state of the temple." 
 
 Why should we allude here to the temple of Venus, and the 
 similar abominations which pertained to her worship ; or to the 
 chastity of nations, a part of whose religion consisted in the most 
 shameless obscenities ? But there ivas no Sabbath there. 
 
 " Thou shalt not steal.^^ It is notorious, however, that the unevan- 
 gelized population of the world, with little exception, is addicted 
 to theft. By the law^s of some of the ancient heathen nations, 
 stealing was encouraged, if not expressly enjoined. And among 
 modern heathens, as missionaries and other travellers have con- 
 stantly witnessed, this vice almost universally prevails. And from 
 what class of society in Christian nations, does the anti-social con- 
 spiracy of swindlers, thieves^ and robbers usually proceed ? Be- 
 yond question, they are those whom in childhood no parental in- 
 struction and example taught to remember the Sabbath day — the 
 vagrants of our cities and land, to whom the returning Sabbath 
 brought leisure and opportunity to perfect themselves, by practice, 
 in all manner of wickedness. 
 
 " Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor. ^^ But 
 in Hindostan, Sir William Jones, who adorned alike religion, litera- 
 ture, and the bench, declares, that he " never knew a Hindoo, 
 whose testimony under oath could be fully relied on." " They 
 will swear falsely," says Mr. Ward, " in the most shocking manner, 
 so that a judge never knows when he may safely believe a Hindoo 
 witness. Some of the courts of justice are infested by a set of 
 men who, for a paltry sum, are willing to make oath to any fact, 
 however false." 
 
 The facihty with which forged papers and false testimony can 
 be obtained in most Catholic countries, is w^ell known to commer- 
 cial men. And in our own land, as we recede from the sanctuary 
 and the Sabbath to those classes of society, whose inclination or 
 employment carry them beyond its illumination and blessed attrac- 
 tion, we shall find the sanctity of an oath to decline, and life and 
 property, as protected by law, to be more and more insecure. 
 
 " Thou shalt not covet.'' " The Hindoos," says Mr. Ward, 
 *' are excessively addicted to covetousness, especially in the great 
 
11 
 
 towns, where ihey have been coriTipted by commerce." And 
 where, except in Christian lands, do governmenis exist, which are 
 not rapacious ? The rapacity of the Turkish government has well 
 nigh depopulated some of the fairest portions of the eardi, once 
 the most populous, where no crime is more dangerous to life than 
 that of being rich. And where will you look for confirmation of 
 the inspired declaradon, that ' the w^orld lusteth to envy,' and for 
 mobs and insurrections, laying rapacious hands on the property of 
 the rich, but among those whom the Sabbath has not visited, and 
 whose only restraint is the coercion of law ? IMen of weahh, who 
 are hasting to be rich by Sabbath day earnings, should understand 
 that their w^ealth is floating on a popular sea whose waves the laws 
 cannot chain, when the Sabbath has ceased to legislate in the name 
 of heaven — that a volcano is beneath them, whose explosion man 
 cannot prevent or withstand, when the fear of the Lord has ceased, 
 which is the beginning of wisdom. If our men of w^ealth desire 
 the scenes of rev'ohuionary France to be acted over, let them ob- 
 literate die Sabbath, and propagate infidelity, and ' from the vasty 
 deep,' call up the demons of blood — and they will come. 
 
 Volumes of facts, under each of these particulars, might easily 
 be accumulated. We have selected a few only as specimens, but 
 enough to show, that the moral law, without the Sabbath, is as im- 
 becile to restrain and bless mankind, as would be the constitution 
 and statutes of our government, without an administration. 
 
 From the moral efficacy of the Sabbath, as illustrated by facts, we 
 are authorized to infer the universality and perpetuity of its obliga- 
 tions. It is one of the ten commands, which epitomize the whole 
 duty of man to God, and to his neighbor; — the pracucal expression, 
 in worship and relative dudes, of that love which is called 'the fulfill- 
 ing of the law.' It w-as ' made' or instituted for man 'in the begin- 
 ning.' It might just as well be pretended that the world was not 
 created, as that the Sabbath was not instituted, till the time of Moses. 
 And it is no more an appendage of Judaism, than is the worship of 
 God, or the love of our neighbor. It is, in its nature, (the particular 
 day only in the seven excepted) a moral and not a posidve insti- 
 tution. It resuhs from the nature of God that he should be wor- 
 shipped ; and from the nature of man, that he should one day in 
 seven enjoy rest, and pay to God his adoration, and be instructed 
 in his duty. There is in the constitution of the human mind and 
 body, and in the nature of God's moral government, as real, as 
 universal, and as permanent a necessity for the Sabbath, as there 
 is for marriage, obedience to parents, or for truth and moral hon- 
 esty. Nay, the fourth command is more important than either of 
 die nine, as it is that alone which secures to the government of 
 God an effectual administration. 
 
 The change of the day from the seventh to the first, (of which 
 we cannot now speak) no more abolishes the obligadon to keep 
 
12 
 
 holy a seventh part of time, than it changes the nature of God or 
 man. To God worship is still due, and man needs instruction and 
 rest one day in seven. All the reasons, therefore, which ever 
 existed for the institution of the Sabbath, exist still, and will forever 
 exist, while the character of God, and the capacity and character 
 of man remain. 
 
 Were it admitted, as some Christians insist, that the obliga- 
 tion to keep the Sabbath is not derived from the fourth command, 
 but from its manifest and acknowledged utility, still, it must be 
 agreed, that the Sabbath is, as a matter of duty, to be set apart 
 from secular to religious purposes ; for unquestioned utility indi- 
 cates the will of heaven, and creates moral obligation. The known 
 use of the Sabbath, and the mischiefs of its profanation, afford 
 evidence of the divine will, which every man would be bound in 
 conscience to regard, though no express institution appeared upon 
 the record. God has not defined, by express precept, the kind of 
 garments we shall wear summer and winter ; but it would be suicide 
 to expose the body in the habihments of summer, to the storms of 
 winter. But it is no more credible that an institution so powerful 
 and salutary in the moral world as the Sabbath, rose up by chance, 
 or at human bidding, than that the sun itself sprung into existence, 
 and continues its course, in obedience to human volidon. 
 
 It is equally manifest in what manner the Sabbath must be 
 sanctified, to answer, in society, the benevolent end of its insti- 
 tution. It must be so kept, that the physical rest which universal 
 nature demands may be enjoyed ; that the worship which is due 
 to God maybe rendered by all, and the instruction which all need, 
 to make them good citizens in time, and fellow citizens of the 
 saints in heaven, may be obtained. All plans, individual or na- 
 tional, which interfere with the universal rest and moral instruc- 
 tion of the Sabbath, except as cases of real necessity shall indicate, 
 do, in proportion to the extent of the violation, contravene the 
 wisdom and goodness of God in bestowing the Sabbath upon 
 man. There are many, who eulogize the Sabbath, and would de- 
 precate its universal violation, who seem to think it may well be 
 kept by proxy — the few for the many. But the community at 
 large may as well eat by proxy, the few for the many, as to obtain 
 rest, or intellectual and moral culture by proxy. The Sabbath 
 exerts its benign power on those only who keep it ; and in pro- 
 pordon to the extent of its violation, are men robbed of the rest 
 which God has given them, and deprived of all the good influences 
 of his moral government. 
 
 It will appear also from the preceding facts and reasonings, 
 that violations of the moral law are proper subjects of legislative 
 prohibition and punishment, whether they invade directly, or only 
 indirectly, the rights of man. The blasphemer may not himself 
 be a thief; but his blasphemy, so far as it produces its legitimate 
 
13 
 
 effect, breaks down the moral government of God, emancipates 
 men from his fear, and lets them loose, urged on by furious pas- 
 sion, to prey upon society. The drunkard may not be himself 
 dishonest ; but by the neglect of relative duty, and the contagion 
 of his bad example, he sows far and wide around him the seeds 
 of irreligion and dishonesty. The adulterer may, in his commer- 
 cial intercourse, be a man of his word, and in the duelling world a 
 man of honor ; but he scatters in the community firebrands, arrows 
 and death, and sets on fire the course of nature, as if it were set 
 on fire of hell. The Sabbath breaker may not be in all respects an 
 immoral man ; but by his example, and by his influence when he 
 employs others to violate the Sabbath, he prostrates, as far as his 
 influence extends, the moral government of God, and lets men 
 loose to war upon their own souls, and upon one another, and upon 
 the State, as depravity, unrestrained by the fear of God, and stimi 
 lated by temptation, may urge them on. Is it proper then to pun- 
 ish the incendiary ; and shall he escape who made him such, and 
 laid the train to which he only applies the spark ? Shall the sword 
 of justice sleep, while the dagger is brandished, and the poison 
 is preparing, and smite only when the work of desolation is done ? 
 Shall the enemy be met only when he has planted his foot on the 
 soil of freedom, and no opposition be made to his landing ? 
 
 All Christian nations have considered it lawful to protect the 
 Sabbath from secular violation, as the means of self-preservation 
 and civil prosperity. Most or all of the American colonies did this 
 from the beginning ; w^e believe all the thirteen States enacted laws 
 prohibiting the appropriation of the Sabbath to secular concerns ; 
 and nearly every State which is a member of the social compact 
 now, has done the same. It is not without astonishment, therefore, 
 that we behold the principle advanced, that government has no 
 right to make the moral law the rule of legislation, because it would 
 imply a legislative exposition of its precepts, and settle theological 
 disputes. This w^e believe is a new maxim, wholly original, never 
 conceived or uttered before in a Christian legislature ; a position 
 which can be sustained only upon the supposition that there is no 
 God, or no national accountability to God. Is it true, that the gov- 
 ernment of a Christian people, under all the immense responsibili- 
 ties of legislation, must move on blindfold to the light from heaven? 
 Why then do Congress prescribe oaths, from the chief magistrate, 
 to the lowest office in the custom house, or postoflice department? 
 And how many disputed questions do they thus settle by legisla- 
 tion, — deciding against the atheist, that there is a God ; against the 
 fatalist, that man is a free agent and accountable; against the deist, 
 that the soul is immortal ; while they settle the much contested 
 question of future punishment — 'so help me God' being understood 
 to mean, ' may God deal with me in the world to come, as my testi- 
 mony shall be true or false.' The punishment for piracy or murder, 
 
14 
 
 expounds the sixth command, and decides the agitated question, 
 that the taking of life for national security is lawful, which more 
 persons disbelieve than there are Jews and Sabbatarians in the 
 land. The appointment of chaplains in Congress, seems to be a 
 legislative decision against the Jew, that Jesus is the Messiah, and 
 the Christian religion true. And why do Congress adjourn over 
 the Sabbath, and why are all the courts, and beads of department, 
 and custom houses, and navy yards closed ? Ought not all these 
 to be opened, to avoid such a seeming exposition of the fourth 
 command, such a trampling on the conscience of the Jew, and 
 such a sanctioning of " the principle of all the religious persecu- 
 tions, with which almost every page of modern history is stained ?" 
 
 What if the national government, instead of practising economy 
 by the violation of the fourth command, had authorized the viola- 
 tion of the seventh, by licencing, as they do in Europe, houses of 
 pollution ; and national shame and conscience had poured in these 
 petitions, that the nation might be released from such infamy and 
 crime ? The honorable Committee, in reply, would need to change 
 scarce a letter of their Report. ' We are aware,' they might say, 
 ' that a variety of sentiment exists in this nation on the subject of 
 the seventh command, and the obligations of chastity. The peti- 
 tioners seem to take it for granted, that the practice complained of is 
 a violation of the law of God. But a large and respectable class of 
 men (and women also) believe the Bible to be a cunningly devised 
 fable, and the seventh command, in particular, to be an invasion of 
 inherent rights, and a war against nature — the result of that arti- 
 ficial and arbitrary state of society which kings and priests have 
 introduced, and which it is the prerogative of reason and philoso- 
 phy to oppose, till the happy time shall come, when coercive 
 monopolies shall cease, and every man and woman, being fully 
 persuaded in their own minds, will act according to their persuasion. 
 
 ' With these different views about the seventh command, the 
 Committee are of opinion, that Congress cannot interfere. Should 
 Congress repeal the law, it would imply a legislative decision that 
 the Bible is the word of God — a legislative decision of a theolo- 
 gical dispute — an encroachment on natural hberty — an attempt to 
 coerce chastity by national law ; all which transcends, obviously, 
 the powers of the government.' 
 
 From the views here taken on this subject, we cannot but hope 
 it will seem plain to many, whose minds have been unsettled and 
 perplexed by the Report, that the transportation of the mail and 
 the opening of the post offices on the Sabbath cannot be regarded 
 as a matter of national necessity. To become such, it must be 
 as urgent as the necessity which authorizes individuals to do secu- 
 lar work on the Sabbath. But this, in the case of individuals, 
 must be only occasional, and never systemadc and habitual. And 
 it must be, where the great laws of self-preservation, which it is 
 
15 
 
 the object of the Sabbath to sustain, would be subverted. But no 
 such necessity to transport the mail, and open the post offices, 
 presses on the nation, as would constitute a justifiable necessity in 
 the case of individuals, — like that of preparing food, attending the 
 sick, pursuing voyages on the deep, or self-defence in time of war. 
 And as the necessity is not such as would justify individuals, even 
 in the occasional violation of the Sabbath ; much less can it justify 
 the government in extending its stated and habitual violation through 
 the land. Necessity, in the scriptural sense, is not even pretended. 
 All which is claimed is, that the running of the mail is a great conve- 
 nience, and a great saving in time and money. But may individu- 
 als violate the Sabbath statedly for convenience, time and money ? 
 How then can Congress do it ? Can the people invest their gov- 
 ernment with authority to do that which it is unlawful for them- 
 selves to do ? 
 
 This ple^ of national necessity is answered also by the considera- 
 tion, that the post office in London is closed on the Sabbath, and no 
 mail is permitted to leave the city on that day ; — by the fact that, 
 during the early part of our national existence, including a period 
 of unparalleled commercial activity and national prosperity, the 
 post offices of this land were closed, and the mails, but to a 
 very hmited extent, did not run on the Lord's day ; — and 
 from the fact that we enjoy now, by the improvement of 
 roads, and the facilities of steam, a more rapid communication 
 of intelhgence in five days, than fifteen years ago could have 
 been accomplished in seven. No necessity, therefore, presses 
 us now, which did not press the nation twenty years ago, without 
 the apprehension of creating a necessity for violating the Sabbath ; 
 and every year, the same causes are rendering the plea more and 
 more fallacious and inexcusable. Besides, not half the nation are 
 benefited now by the Sabbath mails. Probably three quarters of 
 the people do not receive their intelligence oftener than twice and 
 thrice in the week. How are these defended against expresses, 
 and commercial speculations ? Or is it only for the accommoda- 
 tion of the great cities, that the nation must surrender, to such a 
 fearful extent, the moral energies of the Sabbath? But that even 
 this is not necessary, is apparent from the facts, that many merchants 
 of the first respectability and most extensive business, will not re- 
 ceive their communications on the Sabbath ; and that a large portion 
 of the respectable mercantile community in our cities, have peti- 
 tioned Congress to close the post offices, and discontinue the 
 running of the mail, — while few, and comparatively feeble, have 
 been the notes of remonstrance. 
 
 We are aware it has been said, that if the government should 
 cease to transport the mail, private expresses would be hastened 
 through the land, and that a greater encroachment would be made 
 upon the Sabbath, than is now made ; so that even if it is a sin to 
 
16 
 
 keep up commercial business on the Sabbath, it is much cheaper, 
 on the whole, to have the government sin for the people, than to 
 have the people sin for themselves. But by the same authority 
 we have been told, and we believe it, that it is not the business of 
 the national government to sustain by positive legislation, either the 
 religion or the morals of the nation. It is wholly a pohtical insti- 
 tution. If other men will sin if the government do not sin for 
 them, that is not the fault of the government, and does not ex- 
 pose the people to punishment on their account ; and before the 
 government undertake to economize in wickedness for the peo- 
 ple, we think the constitution ought to be revised, and an article 
 inserted giving this power. Until this is done, all w^e ask of Con- 
 gress is not to impede our efforts to maintain the sanctity of the 
 Sabbath ; and by the laws of the states, and Sabbath schools, and 
 such other efforts as the honorable gentleman kindly recommends 
 to us, we will endeavor to " persM«^e," not " coerce^'' our country- 
 men into a unanimous opinion that it is best, for time and for eter- 
 nity, to remember the Sabbath day, and keep it holy. 
 
 We cannot but admire the admirable dexterity with which the 
 honorable gentleman touches and demolishes, as with magic 
 wand, all his own formidable objections to granting the petitions. 
 ' It cannot be done ! Impossible ! Jew and Gentile would justly 
 revolt at the odious impartiality. Should there be only half a 
 thousand Jews, we must violate the Sabbath of twelve millions of 
 Christians, to evince our consistency and impartiality.' — How ceas- 
 ing to violate the Christian Sabbath should alleviate the conscience 
 of the Jew, whose Sabbath will be violated at any rate, we cannot 
 perceive; but so it must be, until the petitioners are disposed of; and 
 then, having escaped from these rocks and quicksands to a smooth 
 and open sea, lo ! all at once, there is not the least difficulty in stop- 
 ping the mail on the first day of the week, if it be only expedient. 
 If a few dollars can be saved to the nation by stopping the mail, why 
 then it can be done ; for * it is the opinion of the Committee that 
 the subject should be regarded simply as a question of expediency, 
 irrespective of its religious bearings. Jew and Christian out of 
 the question, we can grant your petitions without the least difficulty, 
 if it is best.' Be it so, then. The petitioners have not asked that 
 Congress will be induced to stop the mail on the Sabbath for every 
 one of the reasons they have urged ; nor would the granting of the 
 petitions imply this. Does the decision of a case in favor of 
 counsel on one side imply the legitimacy of all his arguments ? 
 If the honorable gentleman had read the petitions extensively, 
 he would have seen, that they rest their argument as much on 
 the inexpediency, as on the immorality, of encroaching upon 
 the Sabbath, by the transportation of the mails. Indeed, if the 
 transportation of the mail is not a work of necessity, the evi- 
 dence of its inexpediency is irresistible. Those best acquainted 
 
17 
 
 with muscular strength, admit that, whatever seeming gain may- 
 be the result of unintermitted toil, it is more than balanced by 
 the waning powers, and shortened date of animal activity ; and 
 the general law of animal mechanism will, with infallible certainty, 
 cut short the date and the results of human exertion. So far then 
 as national prosperity depends on muscular and mental vigor, six 
 days will produce a greater income than seven ; with cheering rest, 
 and higher health, and better spirits, and social enjoyment, and reli- 
 gious privileges, and peace of conscience, and hopes of heaven. 
 But were the earnings of the Sabbath clear gain^ it is too soon to 
 exult, until the sickness and premature mortality occasioned by in- 
 cessant toil are estimated — the quarrels and law suits, the intemper- 
 ance, and improvidence, and idleness, the neglect of moral cul- 
 ture in the family, and the peculation and wasteful prodigality 
 which attend the latter end of national dissoluteness. How certainly 
 will all these sacrilegious earnings be swallowed up, and with them 
 double their amount of honest gains, in the vortex of dissipation, 
 which the violation of the Sabbath will not fail to create ; for noth- 
 ing is so improvident and wasteful as vice. Besides, if the transpor- 
 tation of the mail is not lawful, as a work of necessity, it is criminal, 
 and a great national sin ; and whoever contended with his Maker 
 and prospered ? Does he not hold at his disposal all the sources of 
 national prosperity, and all the engines of national chastisement ? 
 At what instant he speaks, pestilence and war, blast and mildew, 
 may invade us ; the wisdom of the wise may perish ; infatuation 
 fall on our counsels ; and the flames of a furious civil war burst 
 out in the nation. Until we are independent of God, it is madness 
 to trample on his institutions. 
 
 But we are told that no great encroachment is made on the 
 Sabbath, and no great evil inflicted, by the transportation of the 
 mail. This is the opinion of the honorable Committee, unsup- 
 ported by any competent testimony, and in opposition to the ex- 
 press testimony of the thousands of all classes in society, of all 
 rehgious denominations, and from all parts of the land, who express 
 their deep sense of the great evil which is done to the cause of 
 religion and morality, by the transportation of the mail, and the 
 opening of the post ofiices. Nor are facts in the case wanting 
 which justify their behef. There are twenty-six thousand men 
 employed on the Sabbath, in superintending the transportation and 
 opening of the mail ; many of whom are subjected to the entire 
 loss, and many more to the partial loss, of the privileges of pubhc 
 worship. Those who travel in the mail stages, and those detained 
 from worship for their accommodation, constitute an equal number, 
 who are deprived of the rest and benign influences of the Sabbath. 
 And probably three times the same number of children and ser- 
 vants are in this way denied the instruction and government which 
 their parents and masters are bound to give them on the Sabbath, 
 3 
 
18 
 
 and abandoned to their own way, under the powerful influence of 
 a bad example. And is ail this a trifle ? But to this must be 
 added the innumerable multitude of minds, tossed by restless anxie- 
 ties, and unblessed by the influence of religious instruction, in con- 
 sequence of the tide of worldly care and business which the mail 
 of every Sabbath throws upon them. And to conscience we appeal, 
 whether to these entire classes the mail does not counteract and 
 destroy nearly the whole moral influence of the Sabbath day. 
 When political intelligence or letters on business are expected or 
 received, how many thousands absent themselves from the house of 
 God wholly ; or with what vacant, vexed, and wandering minds, do 
 they attend ? Does not the seed fall among thorns, and the cares 
 of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the lust of other 
 things, spring up and choke the word ? Can the Sabbath exert 
 its benign influence on those, for time or for eternity, through 
 whose minds and hearts the Sabbath mail pours along, without in- 
 termission, the turbid stream of worldly care, and on whom it 
 imposes, in some form, and to a great extent, the tax of secular 
 labor ? How can the Sabbath be kept, when the entire secular 
 business of the nation is pressed every Sabbath upon the attention 
 of those who are concerned in it ? Most of these persons, too, 
 are parents and masters, whose children and servants are again 
 unblessed with that moral supervision whicli God has provided for 
 them, and left to grow up in darkness, or to borrow light from 
 other altars than their own. Is this wide spread diversion of mind 
 and heart, and this neglect of religious and domestic duties, a small 
 evil ? Millions are injured by it, and gradually, but certainly, the 
 moral power of the Sabbath will be destroyed by it. 
 
 But as yet we have not named the influence of Sabbath mails and 
 post offices, which is most comprehensively disastrous. We mean 
 the high countenance and sanction, which the example of the gov- 
 ernment affords, to an entire national sequestration of the Sabbath. 
 Until the mails stretched out their long lines of travel through the 
 nation, public sentiment and law, in many parts of the land, kept 
 back the immoralities of impatient worldliness. But this single 
 practice of running the mail, and opening the post offices on the 
 Sabbath, has been like the letting out of waters, — first the drop — 
 next the stream — and then the yawning breach — till all mounds and 
 landmarks have nearly disappeared before the universal inundation. 
 The laws of the States relative to the Sabbath have become a dead 
 letter, and public sentiment, paralyzed by familiarity, and faint- 
 hearted, has not been heard amid the foam and roar of the sur- 
 rounding flood ; until the precipice at length to which we are hast- 
 ing appears, and a panic of fear has flashed through the land, 
 while all instinctively lay hold on the Sabbath as the anchor of their 
 hopes. And yet the Committee tell them, while the cataract roars, 
 and cord after cord of the cable is cut, that no harm is done — that 
 
19 
 
 it is good economy, and that Congress, for conscience sake, and 
 the love of liberty and convenience, cannot stop ! 
 
 In our more particular animadversions on the Report, we regret 
 that truth and equity should require us to say, that the petitioners 
 are misapprehended, and, though we trust unintentionally, yet really 
 and grossly misrepresented. Both the language and the argument 
 of the Report imply, that the petitioners have requested Congress 
 to legislate over the citizens of the nation, to prohibit the violation 
 and enforce the observance of the Sabbath, by the penalties of 
 law. And the reply is, ' it would interfere with the rights of the 
 Jew ; oblige Congress to turn expositors of the ten command- 
 ments, and settle by legislation a theological controversy ; would 
 be Hke the Jewish theocracy, to enforce rehgious observances ; in- 
 troduce religious coercion in our civil institutions ; innovate upon 
 the religious rights of the citizens ; incorporate the observance of 
 a holy day in our land ; and we might as well provide edifices and 
 support the ministry ; — that there is no way to avoid these evils, 
 but to regard Congress as a civil institution, wholly destitute of re- 
 ligious authority ; and that our constitution regards no other power 
 than that of persuasion for enforcing religious observances.' 
 
 By all this variety of phraseology and argument, are the peti- 
 tioners held up to odium before the nation, as having petitioned 
 Congress to compel the people of the United States, by law, to 
 observe the first day of the week. Those who approve of the 
 Report, understand it thus, and seek to turn upon the petitioners 
 the odium of such a request. But have the petitioners made any 
 such request? Never. We challenge the honorable gentleman 
 who presented the Report to produce a single petition from the 
 multitude, which asks that Congress will by" law compel the people 
 of the United States to observe the first day of the week as the 
 Sabbath, or to observe any day. We admit, and the petitioners 
 well knew, that Congress have no power to do this, not because it 
 would imply an exposition of the moral law, or the setdement of a 
 religious controversy ; but the Sabbath, with many other subjects 
 of legislation, is reserved to the States, as independent republics ; 
 while to Congress is confided such matters of general policy, do- 
 mestic and foreign, as result from the relations of the States to one 
 another and to the government, and from our national character 
 and relations. Congress have no more authority to prohibit and 
 punish theft and adultery, than Sabbath breaking ; no more au- 
 thority to protect the life, reputation and property of the citizens 
 of the United States, except it be on the high seas, than to protect 
 the Sabbath ; no more right to build court houses and jails, and 
 appoint courts and sheriffs for the different counties, than to build 
 temples and support ministers. On all these subjects, it is the pro- 
 vince of the States to legislate ; and on all these subjects the States 
 have legislated from their colonial infancy to this day, without 
 dreaming of any of the horrible consequences portrayed in the 
 
20 
 
 Report, and without encroachment on the conscience either of 
 Sabbatarian or Jew, who have been permitted to be fully persuad- 
 ed in their own minds, and rest on which day of the seven they 
 pleased. 
 
 Will it then be demanded, what have the petitioners prayed for ? 
 Self-respect and public justice required the Committee to have 
 ascertained this, before with such needless haste and injurious mis- 
 representation they made their Report. The petitioners ask that 
 Congress will cause its own agents of the post office department, 
 over whom it possesses the entire power of legislation, to pay the 
 same respect to the Sabbath, which Congress itself, by its adjourn- 
 ment, pays to it, and which the national courts, and other heads of 
 departments, and the custom houses of the nation, pay to it ; and 
 they request Congress to do this by legislation, because they have 
 by legislation required and sanctioned the anomaly of disregard to 
 the Sabbath in the post office department. 
 
 The Committee are mistaken in saying that Congress have 
 never legislated on this subject. From an early date, the mail has 
 run on the Sabbath on some routes ; and repeatedly have Congress, 
 when petitioned on the subject, refused to give directions to the 
 Post Master General to the contrary. And in 1825, a law was 
 enacted, requiring every post master in the land to deliver letters 
 and packages on every day of the week, at all seasonable hours. 
 The refusal to direct the Post Master General to discontinue the 
 transportation of mails on the Sabbath, and this law compelling all 
 the post offices of the nation to be open on the Sabbath, is a legis- 
 lative confirmation of the practice. So the Post Master General 
 justly considers the subject. " The result of these applications," 
 he says, " has given a sanction to the policy of the department, 
 which I have considered as controlling any discretion the Post 
 Master General might be inclined to exercise on the subject. He 
 cannot act on the moral principle, unless he extend it to every 
 mail in the nation. This would involve a responsibility which no 
 individual can exercise with impunity, and would be in opposition 
 to the implied sanction of the national legislature." 
 
 The petitioners ask that Congress will cease to enforce, by law, 
 what they (the petitioners) deem a violation of the Sabbath ; that 
 they will give to the Post Master General a legislative sanction for 
 the discontinuance of the Sabbath mails, as unequivocal as that 
 by which they have foreclosed his discretion, and made it his duty 
 to continue them. They ask Congress, by its public agents, to 
 respect the Sabbath in the Post Office department, as it is respect- 
 ed in all other departments of the government. And they are 
 gravely told that Congress cannot expound the ten commands, 
 cannot setde theological disputes, cannot invade the conscience of 
 the Jew, cannot introduce religious observances into our institutions, 
 cannot coerce the observance of the Sabbath, cannot preclude the 
 discretion of the people to think for themselves, cannot sanction a 
 
21 
 
 principle of persecution which has stained almost every page of 
 history ; and they might have added with just as much relevancy, 
 and with as litde insult to the petidoners, cannot sustain a crusade 
 to rescue the holy sepulchre from infidels, or make a pilgrimage 
 to Mecca in honor of Mahomet, or send an embassy to explore 
 the concavity of the North Pole. 
 
 Nor is misrepresentation the full measure of retribution with 
 which the petitioners are visited. It is insinuated that they are a 
 combination to change the government from a civil to a religious 
 insdtution. To make such an attempt would be treason, and the 
 punishment of treason is death. But what have the petitioners 
 done ? Have diey met in midnight conclave, or in tumultuous as- 
 semblies, or assailed the government widi the language of autho- 
 rity or menace ? What unlawful word have they spoken ? What 
 unlawful act have they done ? Have not religious persons the same 
 right as others to petition Congress ? And when diey have done 
 so, are they to be denounced jjefore the nation as a treasonable 
 combination to change the government — as taking the first step, 
 and entering the opening wedge of revolution ? And yet the conspira- 
 tors are many of them such men that, if they are false, where shall 
 we look for integrity ; or if they are deceived, for talent and wis- 
 dom ? They approach the government, not for personal emolument, 
 but as patriots and Christians, to express their high sense of the moral 
 energy and necessity of the Sabbath for the perpetuity of our re- 
 publican institutions, and respectfully to request that the govern- 
 ment will not, by legislation, impair those energies. And by im- 
 plication they are charged with crimes which, were they real, 
 would subject them to the halter ! 
 
 There has been no combination, and is none, but what is i)ro- 
 duced by the concurrent feeling of grief and alarm among wise 
 and good men, at beholding die influence of die Sabbath impaired, 
 by a conspicuous and all pervading governmental sanction. And 
 no means have been resorted to, but such as the Constitudon 
 guarantees, the nature of the case demands, and all men adopt on 
 other subjects to bring out an expression of public sentiment. 
 
 The Report moreover denies to Christians the exercise of their 
 civil rights. The right of peddoning is guaranteed to all citizens 
 alike. But the object of petidoning is, by a statement of lacts and 
 arguments, and the exhibidon of public sentiment, to influence the 
 government ; and this the Report implies all persons may do, but 
 religious persons. Should they, alarmed by any supposed en- 
 croachment upon the religious or moral interests of the community, 
 venture to pedtion, they must be rejected, — for the prevention of 
 a religious despodsm, and the preservation of religious 
 LIBERTY ! Alas ! where is religious liberty now, if Christians may 
 not pedtion Congress ! 
 
 We admit that Chrisdans, as such, ought not to attempt to in- 
 
fluence the administration in things merely secular, beyond the 
 unobtrusive influence of their silent suffrage ; and ought not to 
 become political partisans, heated and agitated by all the little and 
 great disputes which must ever attend popular governments ; and 
 ought never to attempt, or be permitted, to make the government 
 a religious instead of a civil institution. But it is not a civil, but a 
 moral effect for which the petitioners ask, and one in their view 
 indispensable to the perpetuity of our republican institutions. Nor 
 do they request Congress to do anything by positive legislation to 
 support or even to protect the Sabbath. To the laws of the States, 
 and to moral influence and public sentiment they look for this. It is 
 their desire to ' recommend religion by deeds of benevolence, by 
 Christian meekness, by lives of temperance and holiness, by com- 
 bining their efforts to instruct the ignorant, to relieve the widow and 
 the orphan, and to promulgate to the world the Gospel of their Sa- 
 viour;' and they only request that Congress will not obstruct them in 
 their work, by impairing the moral energy of the Sabbath, on which, 
 under God, all their success depends ; — and they are told about 
 religious combinations to effect a political object, and the danger 
 of a religious despotism ! 
 
 Is the maxim settled, then, that the government can do nothing 
 injurious to the interests of republicanism and virtue, or that if they 
 do, religious persons must exert no influence to prevent the evil ? 
 Should infidelity begin to turn the influence of the government 
 against religion, might not the injured petition? Should Congress 
 war upon national morality by building distilleries all over the land, 
 might not the friends of Rehgion, beholding their demoralizing in- 
 fluence, petition Congress to discontinue them ? Would this be an 
 unlawful attempt to influence government by a religious combina- 
 tion ? To whom does it more properly appertain than to the reli- 
 gious community, to watch over the interests of morality, and to 
 send into the halls of legislation the voice of respectful, affection- 
 ate, but earnest expostulation ? 
 
 The Report perverts and misapplies historical facts, in respect 
 to religious usurpations upon the institutions of civil government. 
 The Report reasons as if the facts were, that religious people have 
 been accustomed to seek and to gain an insidious ascendency over 
 governments ; whereas the facts are, that governments, to augment 
 and perpetuate their power, have usurped the rights of the people. 
 Priests have indeed been the instruments, but they have been hire- 
 lings, appointed and supported by the government, and not by the 
 people. There is no instance in the annals of the world, in which 
 ministers, chosen and supported by their people, or churches, in 
 the full and intelligent enjoyment of religious liberty, ever attempted 
 to usurp an ecclesiastical dominion, and introduce a religious des- 
 potism. The facts assumed to excite so much odium, and bring 
 so much jealousy upon the religious community of this nation, are 
 
23 
 
 facts that never happened. The truth is, that Christianity, in its 
 doctrines and institutions, is theoretically, experimentally, and prac- 
 tically, republican in its tendency. Despotic governments know 
 this, and have therefore never permitted Christianity to go out 
 among their people in all her simplicity, loveliness, and power. 
 They have corrupted her doctrines, bribed her priesthood, and 
 encumbered her movements by state garments which they have 
 compelled her to wear ; while the history of the church presents 
 a continued effort of good men to throw off these encumbrances, 
 and of government to keep religion in chains. And if we may 
 trust infidel or Christian historians, a great proportion of the civil 
 and religious liberty of the world has resulted from the efforts of 
 the pious to obtain religious liberty. None were more determined 
 advocates of religious liberty, than the Fathers of this land, who 
 broke from the religious establishments of Europe, and by whom, 
 in their colonial state, all the elements of our civil and religious 
 institutions were formed. It was their spirit which burst out in the 
 Revolution, achieved our independence, and breathed itself into 
 our State and national governments. None, in that tremendous 
 conflict of an infant republic with a giant nation, were more influ- 
 ential in rousing the zeal, and sustaining the courage of the peo- 
 ple, or made greater sacrifices, than the ministers and their pious 
 hearers. Nor to the present hour has the flame abated. The 
 ministers and churches of this nation do not desire, but would 
 most solemnly deprecate, a union of church and State. Religion 
 does not obliterate intellect, nor blot out memory, nor subvert 
 the judgement, nor inspire ambitious and sinister designs. There 
 is reason, and philosophy, and talent, and learning, and patriotism, 
 and political wisdom, and integrity, among the religious portion of 
 the community. Nor have they done anything to forfeit the con- 
 fidence, or to justify an attempt to fasten upon them the suspicion, 
 of their fellow citizens. They know, as well as any can teach 
 them, that the alliance of church and State, corrupts religion, and 
 tends to despotism, and have no more desire than others to be- 
 queath degradation and bondage to their posterity. They feel that 
 it is the glory of our nation, that it is not cursed, as other nations 
 have been, with the union of church and State, and the perplexed 
 legislation about forms of worship, and the establishment of creeds; 
 and so far are they from desiring a national religion in any one 
 denomination, or by the amalgamation of all, that no class of the 
 community would regard such an attempt with more abhorrence, 
 or meet it with a more determined resistance. 
 
 Why, then, are the sins of Popery visited upon Protestants, and 
 the sins of despotic governments and national religions visited 
 on the Christians of a republic who abhor fhem, and who were 
 the providential instruments by which God prepared deliverance, 
 and established at length the fair fabric of our civil and religious 
 
24 
 
 institutions — at once the admiration and the hope of the world ? 
 And why do the honorable Committee forget that the last horrible 
 despotism which arose on the ruins of civil and religious liberty, 
 was reared by atheists, who obliterated the Sabbath, and denied 
 accountability, and with the sweet words of liberty and equality 
 on their tongues, waded in blood ? 
 
 The Report, were it sanctioned by the government, would be 
 an act of real and severe persecution. No device of persecuting 
 governments has been more common to inflame popular resent- 
 ment, prevent sympathy, and justify cruelty, than to multiply upon 
 good men false accusations and odious epithets, for the conscien- 
 tious performance of their duty. Jeremiah, for his faithful reproofs 
 was charged with treason and cast into prison ; and Jesus was 
 charged with aspiring to the throne of Caesar. Nero set Rome 
 on fire, and then threw upon Christians the odium of the execra- 
 ble deed ; dressing them up in the skins of wild beasts, and letting 
 out dogs to bark at and devour them. In the pagan and papal 
 persecutions, the most horrible designs and odious crimes were 
 charged upon Christians. Vice and irreligion have always chosen 
 to wrap themselves in the habiliments of virtue, and to throw their 
 own unseemly garments on the victims of their hate. In this na- 
 tion, the cry of 'church and State' has, by certain writers, been 
 rung through all the changes of the octave. But the names and 
 lives of the authors being known, have rendered their efforts harm- 
 less. But let these dark and unfounded suspicions, arising from 
 the lakes and fens of infidelity, be embodied and propagated by 
 the government, and a new era opens upon us. This would be 
 indeed the first step, and we trust the last too, of a most injurious 
 governmental persecution ; — " the entering wedge of a scheme to 
 make this government" a religious despotism, " instead of a social 
 and political institution." For of what avail would be a legal 
 equality on paper, and the sweet sounds of liberty playing about 
 our ears, if ambitious and irreligious and worldly men, may set at 
 naught the Sabbath, which all men admit to be indispensable 
 to the perpetuity of republican institutions ; and religious men, if 
 they express their fears, and pour out their sorrows, supplications 
 and arguments in the ears of the government, must be repelled 
 with the charge of treasonable combination. It was said of Nabal, 
 that ' he was such a son of Belial, that a man might not speak unto 
 him ;' and really, it would seem as if some gentlemen imagined 
 that their feet were already upon the necks of the pious, and gov- 
 ernmental influence their own by prescription, and that all attempts 
 to persuade a Christian government not to do wrong, were an un- 
 hallowed interference with the rights of a wicked man's conscience. 
 If atheists had petitioned for the preservation of the Sabbath, on 
 account of its good republican tendencies, they might have been 
 
25 
 
 treated with decorum ; but for the religious community to petition, 
 that alters the case. 
 
 Again we ask, of what avail are liberty and equality on paper, 
 and in name, provided such a perversion of public sentiment should 
 be sanctioned by the government itself, as makes the exercise of 
 tliose rights by Christians a crime, which are so liberally enjoyed 
 by all other classes of the community ? This would be a despo- 
 tism more injurious than unequal rights by constitution : for these, 
 modified by a generous public sentiment, might become a dead 
 letter ; but a perverted public sentiment, which gives to one class 
 of citizens rights, the exercise of which is treasonable combina- 
 tion in another, is a despotism which never sleeps, and is never 
 obsolete, — a despotism whose iron rod would be felt, not around the 
 throne merely, but wherever there is an atheist, or a scoffer, or a 
 profligate, to cry ' priestcraft,' and an irreligious multitude to echo 
 the cry, and browbeat the pious. Let the people of this nation 
 look to this, and remember, that religious hberty may be destroyed, 
 under the specious pretext of defending it. 
 
 The Report concludes by saying, that " the petitioners do not 
 complain of any infringement on their own rights." But they do : 
 it is their whole and only complaint, that their rights are invaded. 
 They complain that the government should make them partakers 
 in its sins, and in the judgements which, for national sins, God is 
 accustomed to visit both upon the government and the people. 
 They complain that their efforts to train up their children and the 
 rising generation, should be impeded, counteracted, and often de- 
 feated, by the floods of irreligion and immorality, which are let out 
 upon them by those increasing violations of the Sabbath, to which 
 the authority and the example of the government is accessary. 
 They complain that their own life, and character, and property, 
 should be rendered more and more insecure by such a fearful 
 perversion of that day, which alone gives energy to the moral 
 government of God, forms a correct public sentiment, and gives 
 efficacy to those civil laws which protect their rights. They com- 
 plain that conscientious men should be obliged to violate their con- 
 sciences, or be excluded from employment in one department of 
 the government, thus throwing the entire business of that depart- 
 ment, into the hands of men of a lax conscience. They hold that 
 our republican institutions are their birthright, and that neither the 
 citizens, nor the government, may take it from them, by impair- 
 ing the influence of the Sabbath, on which its perpetuity depends. 
 They are employed, as they have been exhorted to be, in under- 
 girding the ship by moral bonds, not at all aspiring to guide the 
 helm ; and they complain that while they are doing this, the high 
 officers on board should give orders to pull out the caulking, and 
 bore holes in the bottom. They have no desire to go to the bot- 
 tom, and the government have no right to sink them. 
 4 
 
26 
 
 Since most of the preceding was in type, we have been cheered 
 by the Report of the honorable Mr. McKean, chairman of the 
 Committee on post offices and post roads, between which and our 
 own sentiments, we are gratified to perceive so many points of 
 coincidence. It is a lucid, candid, able document. It treats the 
 petitioners with the decorum which every republican government 
 owes to its citizens, who approach it respectfully to petition, and 
 vindicates them from the unfounded aspersions so illiberally cast 
 upon them by the Committee of the Senate. It commences by 
 saying, 
 
 " The memorials on this subject, on account of the numerous sources from 
 which they have been received, the number and respectability of the signatures, 
 as well as the intrinsic importance of the question involved, require from the 
 Committee and the Legislature, the most deliberate and respectful considera- 
 tion. It is believed that the history of legislation in this country affords no 
 instance in which a stronger expression has been made, if regard be had to 
 numbers, the wealth, or the intelligence of the petitioners.'' 
 
 The Report thus proceeds ; 
 
 " The Committee entertain no doubt that the numerous petitioners for the 
 discontinuance of the Sabbath mail, and the delivery of letters from the post 
 offices, have generally acted from pure motives, and with a reference to what 
 they consider the best interest of the country. 
 
 " They do not ask Congress to impose certain duties on any portion of citi- 
 zens, which may interfere with their religious opinions, but to relieve from the 
 performance of such duties. 
 
 " The transportation of the mail is a great governmental operation, and 
 the petitioners believe it should be suspended on the Sabbath, and the post 
 offices closed, out of respect to the day, as well as the business of the legisla- 
 tive, judicial, and executive branches of the government. They did not, pro- 
 bably, consider that greater difficulty could arise in designating the first day of 
 the week as the Christian Sabbath, for this purpose, than had been incurred in 
 the instances referred to. It is not considered by the Committee, that the 
 petitioners ask the introduction of any new principle into our laws, but the 
 extension of one which has already been recognized. In the policy of the 
 measure desired, the Committee believe the petitioners are mistaken, but they 
 do not consider the attempt made by them, as tending to form the j ustly odious 
 combination of church and State." 
 
 The Report also in conclusion " earnestly recommends the repeal 
 of so much of the eleventh section of the post office law, of March, 
 1825, as requires post masters to deliver letters, newspapers, Sic, 
 on the Sabbath." 
 
 Though on some points, their Report is adverse to the peti- 
 tioners, yet, wherever the Committee differ from them, they treat 
 them respectfully, giving facts and arguments, instead of insidious 
 insinuation and unmerited rebuke. 
 
 The arguments for continuing the transportation of the mail, are 
 derived wholly from considerations of expediency; — the conve- 
 nience and gain of uninterrupted and rapid intelligence, and its 
 necessity to protect the citizens from the evils of speculation. 
 That some convenience and immediate gain may be the result of 
 the constant movement of the mail, and that there may be some 
 evils incident to its discontinuance on the Sabbath, may be ad- 
 
21 
 
 mitted. But so also would there be some immediate gain, should 
 Congress, and the courts, and heads of departments, and custom 
 houses, transact business on the Sabbath ; and there are some evils 
 incident to this general suspension of secular business in all the 
 departments of the government. The merchant also, and the 
 manufacturer, and the mechanic, and farmer, might be able to turn 
 the Sabbath to some immediate good account, and to avoid some 
 evils which attend its observance. But the question is, will these 
 temporary gains balance the permanent loss which will result from 
 a general relaxation of morals, produced by the rapid disappear- 
 ance of the Sabbath from our land ? 
 
 The subject is now fairly before the nation, and it is the most 
 important one on which a free people were ever called to decide. 
 It is, wdiether the Sabbath, as to all national influence, shall be 
 blotted out, or maintained ; for its name, as a holiday, will be of 
 no avail, when its moral energies shall have ceased. 
 
 This is no time for petulance and invective. We are now pre- 
 eminently free and happy, and with absolute certainty, our repub- 
 lican institutions may be made perpetual, by the moral energies of 
 the Sabbath, and not without. But no coercive legislation can 
 preserve it. Unless the nation will awake, and by a spontaneous 
 public sentiment arise for the preservation of the Sabbath, it is 
 gone. For the temptations of the seaboard, and steamboats, and 
 canals, are immense ; far and wide do they put in motion the 
 streams of business ; and as our millions multiply, and the power of 
 habit, and the tide of business shall increase, w^e may as well at- 
 tempt to stop the rolling of the ocean, or the currents of our mighty 
 rivers. Now we may perpetuate our republic, upon condition that 
 we will observe the Sabbath ; and the world, and heaven, and hell, 
 are looking on to witness our decision. 
 
fa