The law which makes it piracy to traffic in the foreign slave trade is a dead letter; and I doubt not it has been so in the more southern states ever since it was enacted.
But even if the letter of the law would fully protect the life of the slave, 'public opinion' in the slave states would make it a dead letter.
Colonial statutes had indeed been passed, but they were a dead letter; since, however ill they were treated, they were not considered as having a right to redress.
Hence it had arisen, that when positive laws had been made, in some of the islands, for the protection of the slaves, they had been found almost a dead letter.
Undoubtedly, the Act of 1807 came very near being a dead letter.
Virtually this provision is little better than a dead letter, and the women evade it by walking when an officer is in sight, and thus deprive him of the only proof which would enable him to make an arrest.
It was quietly allowed to remain a dead letter, and, with probably few exceptions, the prostitutes of Paris pursued their calling unmolested.
The prospect was, that it would either remain a dead letter, or be swept away under the ridicule and abuse of the press, and the open attacks of its enemies.
Of the word "white" in this article your memorialists need not speak, as it is made a dead letter by the limitations of the fifteenth amendment to the United States constitution.
But, though ratified by the States General promptly, the convention remained almost a dead letter, and left the Netherlands virtually autonomous.
When a Diet, under skilful manipulation or by unscrupulous trickery, was induced by the executive to pass an unpopular measure, like the Edict of Worms, the law became a dead letter.
As Brabant and Antwerp repudiated a law that would have ruined their trade, it remained, in fact, a dead letter.
The Church took care that this legislation should not remain a dead letter.
It is true that Raymond of Toulouse and his nobles had been induced to issue an edict banishing all heretics, but this remained a dead letter.
It is true that the canon law was full of admirable precepts respecting the virtues and qualifications requisite for incumbents, but in practice they were a dead letter.
A dead letter, a little ink and paper, of three or four shillings' price.
The same agreement existed between them upon the necessity of inward light from the Holy Spirit; without which they both considered the Bible to be a dead letter.
It is not necessary to suppose that the executive veto will be a dead letter, and to argue from its disuse in the case of the self-governing colonies is to argue from the like to the unlike.
Later on, when objection was taken to such a method, the Deputy, it is said, silenced the resisters by assuring them that they were mere formalities which must remain a dead letter.
Nor were these acts allowed to remain a dead letter.
There is no adequate protection to either, and in this respect our treaty with that Republic is almost a dead letter.
Unless this be afforded, the Constitution becomes a dead letterin this particular, and; even worse, it becomes a means of deception.
Our seven years of waiting have all ended in a dead letter.
The fair little oracle hesitated; remembering Dolly's passionate despair and grief over that "dead letter," she could scarcely trust herself to speak.
If this could have been accomplished, the compulsory measure would not have been enforced, and the law would have remained a dead letter; but the attempt proved unsuccessful.
The new law lost much of its power in twelve months of such conflicts; and it was reduced almost to a dead letter by Personal Liberty bills, which were enacted in nearly every Northern State.
If every Sunday law were a dead letter, it ought to be repealed, because it tends to bring needed laws into contempt; but among recent results of Sunday legislation are the following.
This was already a dead letter; and the theatres had announced with perfect safety twenty years before, in their playbills, "We defy the law.
The above list will hopefully provide you with a few useful examples demonstrating the appropriate usage of "dead letter" in a variety of sentences. We hope that you will now be able to make sentences using this group of words.
