Author: William Babcock Weeden

Publisher: General Books

Published: 2012-02-01

Total Pages: 88

ISBN-13: 9781458928054

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THE WORKING OF PROHIBITION. r I HE abstinence reformers sincerely believed that the law only lacked power; if they could have greater force at their command, then they thought they could abolish the traffic in liquors. This feeling was general among them, and it was not a new discovery, but a practical application of this supposed principle, which Neal Dow accomplished in the famous Maine Law. This was introduced shortly into other States, and became the political shibboleth of the abstinence party. It proceeded against the property as well as the offender under the law, and gave stringent power of seizure. This statute was enacted in Rhode Island in 1852, and it is interesting to review some of the arguments which were used in obtaining it, because they are the same in kind which prevail with the whole party. Amos C. Barstow led the reformers, and we cite from his speech in the Rhode Island House of Representatives, as reported in the Providence Journal: ? We are acting on a petition of 25,000 persons, of whom 11,500 are adult male citizens; they embrace a large part of the moral worth of the State. . . . These petitions bear the names of the learned and excellent President of your University, of ministers of religion, of your physicians, merchants. . . . They represent the industry and the virtue of the State. I beg gentlemen who are preparing amendments to this bill to mark the prayer of these petitions. They want a law to Suppress the rum traffic, ? not to regulate, but to Suppress. They ask for nothing more, and will be content with nothing less. ... I charge the evils of intemperance upon this traffic, ? and for this reason, the appetite is not natural but acquired, and acquired through the temptations presented by this traffic. The only way, therefore, to sto...