The Holy Trinity Court by David Barton

Congress clearly intended that “the mail must go through!” Since Kirby and the three with him had confessed to interfering with the mail-carrier, they should be punished; however, there was more. It turned out that:

Two indictments were found by the grand jury of the county against the said Farris the mail-carrier for murder and placed in the hands of Kirby the sheriff commanding him to arrest the said Farris and bring him before the court to answer the indictments; that in obedience to these warrants Kirby arrested Farris, and was accompanied by other defendants as a posse, who were lawfully summoned to assist him in effecting the arrest.  By arresting Farris, the mail-carrier, Sheriff Kirby and his posse had indeed interfered with the delivery of the mail. But was the law intended to keep a Sheriff from arresting a mail-carrier charged with murder? The Court recognized that although his actions violated the letter of the law, they did not violate its intent. The Court thus noted:

All laws should receive a sensible construction. General terms should be as limited in their application as not to lead to injustice, oppression, or an absurd consequence. The reason of the law in such cases should prevail over its letter.

That same Court provided some additional examples to buttress its point:

The common sense of man approves the judgment mentioned by Puffendorf a Christian philosopher quoted by numerous Founders that the law which enacted “that whoever drew blood in the streets should be punished with the utmost severity” did not extend to the surgeon who opened the vein of a person that fell down in the street in a fit. The same common sense accepts the ruling which enacts that a prisoner who breaks prison shall be guilty of felony, does not extend to a prisoner who breaks out when the prison is on fire “for he is not to be hanged because he would not stay to be burnt.” And we think that a like common sense will sanction the ruling we make, that the act of Congress which punishes the obstruction or retarding of the passage of the mail, or of its carrier, does not apply to a case of temporary detention of the mail caused by the arrest of the carrier upon an indictment for murder. The Holy Trinity Court cited thirteen similar cases and then concluded by declaring emphatically that the spirit of a law should always prevail over its letter: