The Case for Sunday Mails

In the years 1828–31, thousands of Americans joined a fierce public debate over an issue that, while appearing trivial to a modern eye, exposed differing visions of the meaning of the First Amendment and the limits of religious influence in a republican government. That issue was Sunday mails. Under the 1825 federal law regulating the post office, postmasters were obliged to open their offices “on every day on which a mail shall arrive” and to deliver this mail to its recipients “on every day of the week.”1 Outraged that the federal government was sanctioning a practice that violated the Christian Sabbath, Protestant evangelicals began an energetic petition campaign to force Congress to end not just the delivery but also the transportation of mail on Sundays. In response, a diverse group of citizens formed their own petition campaign to ensure that the law remained unchanged. In so doing, this group of petitioners articulated their understanding of the boundaries of religious activism and the extent to which Christianity was woven into the constitutional structure of the nation.

First amendment · Free Exercise Clause · Government (linguistics) · Meaning (existential) · Petitioner · Political science · Politics · Protestantism · Separation of church and state · Sociology · State (computer science) · Supreme court · Vision · American Constitutional Law and Politics · Law · Mormonism, Religion, and History · Philosophy · Religion and Society Interactions

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