and as legislators, to act in accordance with the great principles of moral and religious obligation. This is a duty they owe to God. And they are, moreover, obliged to respect the religion of those for whom they legislate. They have no right to order the violation, on their part, of any of its precepts. This latter obligation is irrespective of the nature of that religion. The British government in India, has never pretended to the right, nor would they dare to assume it, of requiring the Hindoos to act contrary to their faith. And the Emperor Nicholas is obliged to accommodate his laws to his Mohammedan subjects, as far as they are concerned. From the fact that our constitution having wisely placed religion beyond its jurisdiction, it has been strangely inferred, that those who act under it, are authorised to legislate as though the people had no religion. This is the fallacy of all the Reviewer's arguments on this point. The people, in reserving the care of this subject to themselves, never intended thereby to authorise the government in making laws for them, to trample on their religious opinions. All they desire, and all the petitioners desire is, that Congress WOULD LET THE MATTER ALONE. As they have no right to pass any law in support of religion; so they are not authorised to make any, which interferes with it. If it be proper for them to pass a law which requires thousands to disregard the Sabbath, or submit to certain disabilities; it is competent to them to pass an act which visits with similar pains any man who goes to church. So long as it cannot be denied that Congress legislates for a Christian people, any law which requires the violation of the Christian religion, is oppressive and unjust. But it is asked what government is to do when the people are of different religions? We answer, the principles, which should regulate the movements of government in such cases, are perfectly obvious. In the first place, it should interfere as little as possible with the opinions of any party. It should pass no law, except in cases of necessity, which requires the violation of the precepts of any form of religion its citizens may adopt. Secondly, as it is clearly impossible to avoid this evil entirely, where there are Atheists, Deists, Christians and Jews living together, that course must be pursued which will produce the least injustice. In a Jewish country, the Jews are to be principally regarded, and in a Christian country, Christians. The plain principle is, that the religion of the country is to be respected. By religion of the country is meant, not an established religion, but that which the mass of

the people profess. Unless this be regarded, intolerable oppression must be the result. Acting on the principle assumed by the chairman and the Reviewer, that the government are to pay as little regard to Christianity, as to Judaism, that is, to the interests of thirteen millions, as those of a few hundred, would only multiply the evil an hundred fold. It would disfranchise all the sincere Christians in the land, without the least benefit to the Jews. But the fact is, no government could exist which acted on this principle. Our own has always been wise enough to know that they were legislating for Christians, and to act accordingly. They, therefore, have in practice and by laws, recognised Christianity, and disregarded Judaism. They have acknowledged a God, and a future state of retribution, to the confusion of the Atheist and the Universalist. These "theological points," the Government takes for granted as embraced in the religion of the people, and proceeds upon them as settled. The principle of the chairman is completely and radically revolutionary. It would change the whole practice of the government, and overturn it from its very foundations. Let Congress once announce to the people that they are to be treated as Atheists; that their most sacred rights and opinions are to be trampled in the dust, and our government is at an end.

This recur

rence to first principles, in matters of government, and pushing them, even when correct, to extremes, is of all courses the most dangerous; and yet, one of the most common with men of ardent and inconsiderate minds. Because a man's religious opinions are sacred and the rights of conscience inviolable, it is inferred, that the government can pay no regard to Jews, Turks, Christians, or Infidels, but drive on blindfold, careless whether its laws clash with the opinions of the hundred or the million. Yet, acting on this plan would be absurd and impossible. The same is true with regard to the liberty of the press, the inviolability of property, and other essential or conventional rights. They are of necessity limited and restricted, when men live in society; and pressing any of them to extremes would ruin any community in the world.

Setting aside, therefore, the obligation which Congress, as Christians, are themselves under to obey the precepts of Christianity, it is obvious that as long as they are the legislators of a Christian people, they have no right to pass a law which requires the violation of any of its commands. This, in the judgment of the petitioners, they have done; and of this they

Α

complain. Is it a crime, then, to represent to Congress, that by any law of theirs, they encroach upon the rights of their constituents; that they require of them what their religion forbids? The Reviewer, however, tells us that this is not the case; that every man is free to act as he pleases. "He is not called upon to do what he thinks wrong; nor is he prohibited from doing what he thinks right." "No one requires him to depart a jot from his principles, or to violate his sense of duty." The law does not force him to be a mail contractor, nor a postmaster; neither does it require him to get his letters or papers on Sunday. This is all true. Let us apply this principle to other cases. Suppose a law passed ordering both houses of Congress to sit on Sunday; the president, heads of department, all clerks and minor officers, all judges from the highest to the lowest, to disregard the Sabbath; and then Congress to tell their Christian constituents that they need not act against their conscience; the law does not require any man to be either a senator or representative; nor does it force him to accept of any office, from the president to a tide-waiter. If any of them have a cause pending in court, they need not prosecute it on Sunday; should it happen to be called up, they can easily submit to be non-suited. lawyer need not take a case likely to come to trial on that day. All that such persons have to do, is to renounce all places of honour, power, or profit; submit to be defrauded at every turn, and allow those "less scrupulous" to govern them. Strange liberty and equality this, in a Christian country! This course, which would disfranchise millions of the people; which would visit religious opinions with civil pains and penalties the most disgraceful; which would be a test-act of infidelity, according to the principles of the Reviewer, is true liberty, good enough, at least, for petitioners. We rather suspect, those same Calvinists, whom the Reviewer beards so unceremoniously, would find such a law as hard to bear, as they did the stamp-act of old. That such enactments are in fact test-acts, needs no proof. Any law, which prevents access to office to men of a certain creed, is a religious test. Our Reviewer might have comforted the Irish Catholics, as he now consoles American Christians, by telling them, they were not required to do what they thought wrong, nor prohibited from doing what they thought right." What could they wish more? They need not take the offensive oath; all they had to do, was to stay out of parliament, and let the

less scrupulous manage matters for them. Strange doctrine for freemen! Strange instructions for an American Congress! It is undeniable, that the post-office law, as far as it goes, is a law of proscription, a religious test administered to every servant of the department. So far, therefore, is the assertion, that the petitioners apply for a law to deprive any man of a right, from being correct, that their application is only for the repeal of an act which deprives a large body of our fellow-citizens of their rights. But the Reviewer tells us he has a right to have his letters on Sunday, and therefore, a law forbidding him to get them, is injurious and oppressive. If he has this right, it is more than any other man in the land has. Who gave him the right in a Christian country, to require the government, or any individual, to wait on him on Sunday? Must other people violate their sense of duty for his accommodation? Has he a right to have a cause tried on Sunday? Can he force Congress to receive a petition or perform any of its functions, on that day, in his behalf? If not, whence does he get the right to make government carry letters for him, or to employ persons to deliver them on Sunday? No such right exists.

The fact is, the Reviewer knows, as well as we do, that all his arguments on this head are not worth a straw. He cannot help knowing it; because, he himself has placed the whole subject on its proper basis. He tells us that Sunday, in this country, is to be respected by the people and government, as a day devoted to rest and worship, except when public or private necessity forbids. And, consequently, the whole question about the mail is, whether this necessity exists. If this be once made out, there is not a Christian in the land who would utter a syllable of objection. As this, according to his own showing, is the real point at issue, he must be able to see, that all arguments to prove that granting the prayer of the petitioners would be an interference with the rights of conscience, and requires an unconstitutional exercise of power, are in direct contradiction to his own doctrine, and bear with all their force on the practice of government in all the other departments. He must see, too, that if his principles were applied to the other branches of the State, the result would be a most odious proscription and tyranny, a test-act more offensive than has ever yet disgraced a Christian country.

We have dwelt on this subject much longer than we at first intended. It is, however, one of incalculable importance. Did the petitioners not believe that the Sabbath was divinely VOL. III. No I.-R

appointed, as the great means of preserving religion and good morals; that its influence was essential to the well-being of society, Congress would never have heard one word of remonstrance or complaint. No selfish motive can, with the least semblance of truth, be imputed to them. If stopping the mail on Sunday would occasion all the inconvenience which is predicted, they would bear their full share of the burden. Seeking such an object as the best interests of their country, by means obviously just and proper, is surely not a crime of sufficient magnitude to justify the amount of vulgar abuse which has been heaped upon them. So long as this was confined to papers confessedly hostile to all religion, and to many of the most sacred institutions of society, it was not a matter of surprise. Nor did we wonder that the chairman of the committee of Congress should allow himself to stray from the real point in hand, into a disquisition on the diversity of religious creeds, and the value of religious liberty. Such things are common in reports. But that a work, of the standing of the American Quarterly Review, should present its readers, not with a fair discussion of the question at issue, but with an article in which the religious principles of a large part of the community are ridiculed, their motives vilified, and their general character defamed, is a matter of unmingled regret. It would seem as though, by a strange mishap, some stray sheets from pens under the influence of a nameless female, had found their way into the mahogany escritoir of the unsuspecting editor. The tone of a book cannot be quoted. A specimen we are bound to give, to justify a charge so serious, and so derogatory to the respectability of the work. On page 186, the following passage occurs: "It is your man-gods, who make such laws, and impiously assume the power to condemn and inflict awful penalties upon those they shall adjudge to violate them; while with a most impudent self-complacency, they find an expiatory apology for their own deviations. The stern and cruel severity with which these self-righteous expounders of the law visit its utmost rigours upon all who dissent from their opinions, warrants us in probing their pretensions to the quick; and in searching their lives to see if the fruit shows the tree to be better than those they would cut down, and cast into the fire. Admitting that there are pure and bright examples of a good life among the terroristsnot, however, more or better than are found among their opponents-if we look at them individually, we shall see them,