Blue Laws in the 19th Century U.S. - Historum

JohnnyREB1977 · September 13th, 2009, 02:27 PM

Hey y'all,

I was wonderin' if anybody here knew anything about blue laws in the 19th Century - those laws which prohibited work/drink/etc. on Sundays. I was watching "Sunday Morning" on CBS last Sunday and the subject was brought up on the show. An author, Stephen Miller, had this to say about blue laws:

Quote:

Americans once had a very narrow choice of permissible Sunday activities: "There were so many arguments in the United States, especially in the 19th century," Miller said. "Sunday legislation was the second-most debated subject after slavery, because there were different opinions about what you could or couldn't do on Sunday."

Link

Is the above quote true and, if so, did these blue laws fall along sectional lines?

Raven45 · September 13th, 2009, 03:19 PM

I was born in 1964 and sometime before 1973, I remember that some blue laws were still in effect in parts of Maryland and Virginia. I'm thinking those were rural counties. I can remember my mother stopping at a store and all the stores were closed in that area on Sunday.

**Pedro** · September 13th, 2009, 04:25 PM

I think the quote is accurate enough. Darn good question tho. It would certainly be interesting to see maps and/or scattergrams on this. Damn...something else to look for.

NEW ARK? · September 13th, 2009, 07:29 PM

In Bergen County, New Jersey all stores are closed on Sunday.

DesertPilot · September 13th, 2009, 08:02 PM

19th Century? Heck, when I was a graduate student in Boston, some of those laws were still in effect. In a world grown increasingly secular, their defenders offered the excuse that repealing those laws would mean people would spend less time with their families.

People were not fooled...

**Patito de Hule** · September 13th, 2009, 08:28 PM

This is the 21st century and about one half the states still have some blue laws on the books.

JohnnyREB1977 · September 14th, 2009, 08:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pedro

I think the quote is accurate enough. Darn good question tho. It would certainly be interesting to see maps and/or scattergrams on this. Damn...something else to look for.

I found somethin' concernin' this topic that you might find of interest, Pedro. In 1810 a postal bill was passed in Congress. This was durin' a time when Jefferson was President and his Republicans, mostly Southerners, were in control of Congress. This bill, or at least a portion of it, allowed for the openin' of post offices on Sundays. A book entitled Morality and the mail in nineteenth century America (pages 4 and 5) had this to say about the subject (please pardon any spellin' errors; I'm transcribin' the work because I can't copy and paste it):

Quote:

In any event, the origin of section nine appears to be more complicated than Wylie's problem. Years after its passage, a former member of Congress who had been in office at the time of its enactment explained that Congress had acted without fully understanding the impact the bill would have on the Sabbath. But, that is most unlikely. Early 1810 amendments to the Postal Bill of 1810, which would have opened post offices on Sundays, had twice been proposed in the Senate, but thanks to the opposition of senators from Sabbath-keeping New England were twice rejected. It was a repudiation of which even the most obtuse members of Congress must have been aware. Moreover, the secrecy with which members enacted section nine, as well as the flexibility they gave the postmaster general to fix the hours that post offices could be open on Sundays to avoid interrupting church services, were surely indications that they knew they were encroaching upon a sacred tradition that would offend many Americans.13

and later the author wrote:

Quote:

Perhaps, after all, the new Sunday service was a victory of Mammon over God. Yet the passage of a measure so repugnant to so many Americans suggested that Congress had other reasons unrelated to business interests for its determination to establish a Sunday mail service. In the end, the law owed more to the quarrel over post roads and sectional jealousies, cultural differences between the North and the South, and enduring animosities between Federalists and Republicans, the nations two political parties, than to various business interests.

After the above, the author goes on to briefly mention the issues between the Federalists and Republicans, how policies pertainin' to postal roads favored New England, and how many Southerners in Congress felt it unfair that New England had so many more postal roads than the South.

**diddyriddick** · September 14th, 2009, 10:24 AM

Texas had a law that stores could be open on either Saturday or Sunday, but not both. That was repealed in the 1980s.

**Pedro** · September 14th, 2009, 10:28 AM

Good stuff JohnnyReb1977.

Bobby · September 14th, 2009, 10:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JohnnyREB1977

Hey y'all,

I was wonderin' if anybody here knew anything about blue laws in the 19th Century - those laws which prohibited work/drink/etc. on Sundays. I was watching "Sunday Morning" on CBS last Sunday and the subject was brought up on the show. An author, Stephen Miller, had this to say about blue laws:

Link

Is the above quote true and, if so, did these blue laws fall along sectional lines?

You know I live in Massachusetts, amongst the most liberal, anti-religious states in America...and we still have many Blue Laws on the books. In fact if I want a six pack on a Sunday I have to go to New hampshire, a living remnant of the Blue.