Hennington v. State
| Decision Date | 08 June 1892 |
| Citation | 17 S.E. 1009,90 Ga. 396 |
| Parties | HENNINGTON v. STATE |
| Court | Georgia Supreme Court |
Syllabus by the Court.
The provision of section 4578 of the Code making it a misdemeanor to run a freight train upon any railroad in this state on the Sabbath day is a regulation of internal police, and not a regulation of commerce. It is not in conflict with the constitution of the United States, even as to freight trains passing through the state from and to adjacent states, and laden exclusively with goods and freight received on board before the trains entered this state, and consigned to points beyond its limits. State v. Railroad Co., 24 W.Va 783, approved; and the majority opinion in Norfolk & W R. Co. v. Com., (Va.) 13 S.E. 340, disapproved.
Error from superior court, Dade county; I. W. Miller, Judge.
L. F Hennington was convicted for violating the Sunday law, and brings error. Affirmed.
W. U. & J. P. Jacoway and R. J. & J. McCamy, for plaintiff in error.
A. W. Fite, Sol. Gen., for the State.
If the sanction of time can ever be invoked to justify the exercise of governmental authority over a particular subject-matter this can certainly be done in respect to setting aside one day in each week for rest and the cessation of all unnecessary labor. A law to this effect prevailed in the earliest times of which we have any authentic record, and the subject was one of statutory regulation in Georgia during her colonial period, and has so continued throughout the whole term of her existence as a state. At no instant since her independence was declared has she been without such a law on her statute book. It is not only unlawful, but penal, for any person whatsoever to "pursue their business or work of their ordinary calling upon the Lord's day, works of necessity or charity only excepted." Code, § 4579. This prohibition upon Sunday labor was already in force when the Code was adopted, and dates back to the year 1762. The penalty prescribed by the colonial statute has been changed, but in other respects that statute has been operative continuously since it was enacted. There can be no well-founded doubt of its being a police regulation, considering it merely as ordaining the cessation of ordinary labor and business during one day in every week; for the frequent and total suspension of the toils, cares, and strain of mind or muscle, incident to pursuing an occupation or common employment, is beneficial to every individual, and incidentally to the community at large,--the general public. Leisure is no less essential than labor to the well-being of man. Short intervals of leisure at stated periods reduce wear and tear, promote health, favor cleanliness, encourage social intercourse, afford opportunity for introspection and retrospection, and tend in a high degree to expand the thoughts and sympathies of people, enlarge their information, and elevate their morals. They learn how to be, and come to realize that being is quite as important as doing. Without frequent leisure, the process of forming character could only be begun. It could never advance or be completed. People would be mere machines of labor or business,--nothing more. If a law which, in essential respects, betters for all the people the conditions, sanitary, social, and individual, under which their daily life is carried on, and which contributes to insure for each, even against his own will, his minimum allowance of leisure, cannot be rightly classed as a police regulation, it would be difficult to imagine any law that could. With respect to the selection of the particular day in each week which has been set apart by our statute as the rest day of the people, religious views and feelings may have had a controlling influence. We doubt not they did have, and it is probable that the same views and feelings had a very powerful influence in dictating the policy of setting apart any day whatever as a day of enforced rest. But neither of these considerations is destructive of the police nature and character of the statute. If good and sufficient police reasons underlie it, and substantial police purposes are involved in its provisions, these reasons and purposes constitute its civil and legal justification, whether they were or not the direct and immediate motives which induced its passage, and have for so long a time kept it in force. Courts are not concerned with the mere beliefs and sentiments of legislators, or with the motives which influence them in enacting laws which are within legislative competency. That which is properly made a civil duty by statute is none the less so because it is also a real or supposed religious obligation; nor is the statute vitiated, or in any wise weakened, by the chance, or even the certainty, that in passing it the legislative mind was swayed by the religious, rather than by the civil, aspect of the measure. Doubtless, it is a religious duty to pay debts, but no one supposes that this is any obstacle to its being exacted as a civil duty. With few...
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