Sunday Laws and the Legal Workweek
It is said that if government fixes the number of hours in a legal day’s work, it has a right to prohibit labor on Sunday. But the cases are not parallel. If government has a right to determine the number of hours in a day’s work, it has the right to determine the number of days in a week’s work. This is a parallel. But when the government declares that eight hours constitute a day’s work it does not prohibit a man from working ten or twelve or more if he desires. So it could say that six days constitute a week’s work, but it has no right to say that a man shall not work any six, beginning those six anywhere he chooses. He may work seven if he desires. It is one thing to define a period of time; it is quite another to limit men to a fixed period. The one law pertains to an institution, a thing, the other pertains to men.