It will be observed that, indirectly, the author sustains the argument we advanced above, that the wheels of a government, like the works of creation, must necessarily move on “without impediment,” and that any labor performed on the Sabbath connected with such operations comes under the head of “necessity.”
Governments are formed and their laws based upon those of nature: we imitate and follow them as being essential to sustaining and perpetuating their stability and usefulness.
Nor do we think our preachers are disposed to interfere with the mails running on the Sabbath; for they invariably are the most anxious on a Monday morning to receive their letters and newspapers, which, as we all know, are invariably assorted and distributed throughout the office on the Sabbath for an early delivery on Monday. We allude to this important clerical fact because in several instances they have threatened to report clerks for neglecting their duties on the Sabbath, simply because that labor was not devoted, as it would appear, for their especial benefit! This want of consistency on the part of a portion of the clergy seems more tinctured with hypocrisy than it is with Christianity.
Return J. Meigs, the postmaster-general under James Madison in 1815, in reply to certain petitions remonstrating against the mails running on the Sabbath, makes use of the following language (we give extracts only):—
“ ... The usage of transporting the mails on the Sabbath is coeval with the Constitution of the United States; and a prohibition of that usage will be first considered.” He then gives the various mail-routes on the principal roads, and says,—
“If the mail was not to move on Sunday on the routes enumerated, it would be delayed from three to four days in passing from one extreme of the route to the other. From Washington to St. Louis the mail would be delayed two days; from Washington to New Orleans the mail would be delayed three days; from New Orleans to Boston it would be delayed from four to five days; and, generally, the mails would, on an average, be retarded equal to one-seventh part of the time now employed, if the mails do not move on the Sabbath.
“On the smaller cross-roads or routes the transportation of the mail has been avoided on the Sabbath, except when necessary to prevent great delays and to preserve connections with different routes.”
In relation to opening the mails on the Sabbath, it may be noticed that the ninth section of the “act regulating the post-office establishment” makes it the duty of the postmaster to attend to the duties of his office “every day” on which a mail shall arrive at his office, and at “all reasonable hours” on every day of the week. When a mail is conveyed on the Sabbath, it must be opened and exchanged at the offices which it may reach in the course of the day. This operation at the smaller offices occupies no more than ten or twelve minutes; in some of the larger offices it occupies one hour, and, it is believed, does not greatly interfere with religious exercises as to the postmasters themselves.
The practice of “delivering letters and newspapers on the Sabbath” is of recent origin, and, under the above-quoted section, commenced in 1810. Prior to that period, no postmaster (except the postmaster at Washington City), was required to deliver letters and newspapers on the Sabbath. The “reasonable hours” were to be determined by the postmaster-general, who established the following regulations, now existing:—“At post-offices where the mail arrives on Sunday, the office is to be kept open for the delivery of letters, &c. for one hour after the arrival and assorting of the mail; but in case that would interfere with the hours of public worship, then the office is to be kept open for one hour after the usual time of dissolving the meetings for that purpose.”
Also, if the mail arrives at an office too late for the delivery of letters on Saturday night, the postmaster is instructed to deliver them on Sunday morning, at such early hour as not to encroach upon the hours devoted to public religious exercises. If these regulations are not strictly attended to, it must be imputable to the urgency of applicants and the complaisance of postmasters.