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solicit. We ask the National Legislature to act negatively; to retire from the controversy, and to repeal a law which has violated what is admitted by Christians to be a religious duty. * *

"Other countries in Christendom respect the day, even with their mail intercourse; and we regret that our own Government is, in this respect, almost a solitary exception to the practice of suspension of Sabbath labor. ** In almost all, if not every State code, the Sabbath is recognized, and penalties inflicted on its breach. **

"Now your memorialists would urge the impropriety of Congress expressly authorizing acts to be done on the Sabbath, which violate all these State codes. Can Congress, by one or two sentences, in regulating her Postoffice Department, virtually repeal and annul all these State laws? If they come into collision, which is to yield? If the State officer, in execution of a State law, stops the mail, which is forbidden by that law to travel on the State soil, will the discretion vested by act of Congress in the Postmaster-General, to direct mails to travel at all hours, protect the traveler, annul the State law, and paralyze the power of the prosecuting officer?” * *

From Alexandria, D. C.

"Your memorialists regard the institution of the Sabbath as one of the most striking proofs of Divine beneficence; and as affording the only adequate means for preserving the fear of God, the sanctity of oaths, genuine personal integrity, and public morals; and our civil and political principles. * *

"The friends of religion and virtue have witnessed the increase of immorality with deep regret and solicitude; and they are constrained to believe that it is in vain for the friends of good order to attempt to protect this holy day from profanation, while the Government allows the mails to be carried on Sundays, and requires Postmasters to deliver letters, papers, and packets, on every day of the week.' We feel that we have a right to look for example to the Government of that people who have often called themselves the most virtuous people on earth; to hope that those whom they have clothed with power, will not longer permit a practice which is continually undermining the

morals, and consequently endangering the liberties of the nation.

“Your memorialists can look upon a disregard of the Sabbath in no other light than as the first step on the road to crime; and they believe with that distinguished commentator, Judge Blackstone, that the profanation of that day is an offence against God and religion. The records of the criminal courts of all nations will show that a disregard of the Sabbath and its sacred duties has been the commencement of a departure from those principles which are the best protection against crime. Moral delinquency, in any country, increases in a ratio with the profanation of the Sabbath. It has been said by the advocates of transporting the mail and opening it on Sunday, if this was not done, it would be violated by individuals hiring and sending expresses. This may be done, * * yet, will the violation of the Sabbath by individuals, excuse the Government of a people, who call themselves Christians, for giving sanction by their laws and practice to the profanation of a day set apart by the positive command of God for holy duties? With as much propriety might the Government excuse the passage of laws authorizing the violation of each of the other commandments, by pleading the practice of individuals. * *

"We do not solicit you to put a stop by public laws to private sins; but, by example, to arrest a great national sin, founded in a practice sanctioned and commanded by the Government, which practice is in opposition to the best interests of our country; to the laws of a holy and merciful God; to the rights of the religious portion of the community; and even to the rights of the brute creation."

From Augusta, Maine.

"Let the Christian Sabbath cease to be observed as a day of rest from secular labors, and of devotion to the offices of religion, and the influence of religious principle would soon be at an end. But public sentiment in favor of the Sabbath must be sustained and strengthened by the manifestation of respect for it, in the official acts of the Government. * *

"But it has been alleged, that if the transportation of the mail,

and the opening of the Postoffices, on the Sabbath, should cease, it would occasion an interruption of public and private business; productive of evils which no justly-to-be-anticipated good can countervail. To this objection we reply, that if it had been usual to hold courts of justice and to transact legislative business on the Sabbath, it would be deemed a great detriment to the public and private interests to suspend their proceedings on that day; and arguments of as much weight might have been urged, and with equal confidence and zeal, as are now offered against the prayer of our petition. But will it be insisted, that suspension of business in those instances should not have occurred, and ought not to be sanctioned? Is not the reason of the thing as strong and conclusive in the one case as in the other? * *

"We deeply feel, that it is an object of the greatest import to propitiate the favor and blessing of Him, whose smiles give prosperity to every enterprise, and whose frown rendereth abortive every purpose."

From Boston, Mass.

"That your memorialists, in common with multitudes of their fellow citizens in all parts of the United States, regard the observance of the Christian Sabbath as pre-eminently conducive to the prevalence of good morals, intelligence, and happiness; as tending to secure and perpetuate all the blessings of a free Government, and as incomparably the best and most powerful means of preserving good order in the community, and of promoting the public prosperity. On the other hand, they consider the desecration of the Sabbath as a great evil, which, if it should become universal, or nearly so, would be followed by general ignorance, licentiousness and vice; and in such a state of things, it would be impossible to sustain our republican institutions, or those religious privileges, which are more valuable than life itself.

"Your memorialists cannot but lament, that any thing should be done by the authority of the General Government, which tends to diminish the sanctity of a divine institution, or to weaken the bands of public morality. They respectfully and earnestly request, therefore, that so much of the Postoffice law as re

quires Postoffices to be kept open on the Sabbath, may be repealed; and that the laws of the several States now in existence for the protection of the Sabbath, may not be violated by the Postoffice establishment, nor by any branch of the public service. "Your memorialists ** complain that the present law, which requires Postoffices to be kept open on the Sabbath, is, as they conceive, unconstitutional. Of the constitution of the United States, it is a fundamental principle, that powers not given to the General Government, either expressly or by fair implication, cannot be exercised by that Government. But no power is thus given to the General Government to encroach upon the religious privileges of the people. From the first settlement of this country, the privilege of keeping the Sabbath without interruption has been esteemed most valuable, and would not, at any time, have been voluntarily surrendered. * * "Should it be said, that the transportation of the mail, and the keeping open of the Postoffices on the Sabbath, are works of necessity, the assertion is sufficiently refuted by these facts, viz: that, during a great part of the period of our national existence, the mail has not been transported, and Postoffices have not been kept open on the Sabbath; that many of our most enterprising merchants habitually refuse to take their letters from the office on that day; and that in the greatest commercial emporium in the world, the Postoffice is not opened, nor is any mail made up or received there on the Sabbath. There is supposed to be five times as much commercial intercourse between London and Liverpool, as between New York and Philadelphia ; and yet no mail leaves London for Liverpool between Saturday evening and Monday evening. **

"If Congress has power to make the servants of the public labor on the Sabbath in one Department, it has equal power in all other Departments. But would it be tolerated in this Christian community, that courts of justice and custom-houses should be open on the Sabbath, and that all public offices under the General Government should be held by men who have no regard to that day, in exclusion of all who reverence the sanctuary, and remember the Sabbath to keep it holy? Is a conscien

tious attachment to religious observances a disqualification for office? **

"The proper management of the Postoffice requires the agency of men of integrity; and it cannot be good policy to lessen any of the sanctions by which honesty and fidelity are preserved.

"The transaction of public business by the transportation and opening of the mails tends constantly and powerfully to increase the number of those who do not observe the Sabbath, and ultimately to destroy the public influence of that divine institution altogether.

**“If these habits and practices should continue to increase, nothing can be clearer than that the restraints of religion will be removed from the community at large, and either cease to exist, or be consigned to a comparatively small number of retired and obscure individuals.

Who

“No legislator should be ignorant that those members of the community who utterly disregard the Sabbath, are soon brought to make it a day of dissipation and riot; and those who have thus desecrated the day for any considerable time, are prepared for the grossest vices and the most disgraceful crimes. does not know, that the perpetration of fraud, theft, arson, burglary, robbery, and murder, has become frequent in most parts of the United States? Who does not know, that these crimes are perpetrated, almost exclusively, by persons who have long been in the habit of violating the Sabbath? In one of our state prisons, containing five or six hundred convicts, particular inquiry was made on this subject. The history of one convict was the history of all. They had never observed a Sabbath, or had ceased to observe it before they committed the crimes for which they were suffering the vengeance of the laws.

"The system of Government, then, which tends to increase the number of Sabbath-breakers, tends to fill our state prisons with felons, and our streets with the cry of violence; and to stain our land with blood. Here is no mistake; there can be none; and the more this subject is examined, the more irresistibly will it appear, that those who would promote the observ