The Litchfield County post., 1827-05-17
EesAY ON INTEMPERANCE,


 CoIlere, last uastsuan, sSrittenIy Mr. JUDAH
 ELY of Bu6alO county ". ".
 COacINded.
 But you are told my countrymen that the press is the ,palIadium of your liber- ties, that the press will save you. The assumption is gratuitous. Where did the oress ever save nation The press, like every thing else in this country speaks the mind of the people, and is under their control. It has no power but such as the people give it. Its agency depends on their volition. How then can it reform nation unwilling to be reformed How can it give sobriety to the most intemper- ate people that ever existed How much longer. how much more must it increase before the press begins to, exert its re- straining energy How much lower must we descend in the scale of national degra- dationebefore we feel its elevating power If the press had not hitherto exerted with effect its controlling agency, what pledge ? can it give that it will hereafter do it /? If this engine was intellectual at first to pre- vent or repair the breach, how can it re- store the foundations which as the current of intemperance- grows stronger are every year more and more swept away ? The press has not been adequate to the control, much less will it be to the extirpation of the evil. If it does not stay us in our downward course, what rational hope does it afford of efficiency to recoverthis nation from its degenerate condition to its pris- tine temperance ,and the presentinhabitants, or their prosterity, to the health, corporial vigor, and longevity, oftheir forefathers !! The press reveals the past not the future. 1t makes no promises. Much less c0n it promise to protect and preserve nation increasingly incorporate. If this nation so continues, and yet preserves it's liberties and its privileges, it will be an anomaly in history. Such an event is in opposition to all past experience. But ifsthe press be in truth friendly to- the perpetuity of our institutions, and really hostile to this iniquitious pestilence which vastly more endangers them than Africo-American bay. onets,or than all the cannon of Europe,- fit be really willing to sound the alarm that shall ring through nations ears, let that tfriendship be evinced. Tell the great Emporium which expends, if her own statement be true $5 ,OOO daily to purchase wretchedness and pollution, and pow erty and crime, I--tell every Ameri- can from the Lake to the Gulf, from Bos- ton to the Missouri that persevcring in our present habits we shall be ruined ,-tha elegance in literature, and refinement ir the arts, did not save Greece, that ths wealth of the world could not save Rome, ,TH and that a happy form of gov. ernment will not save us without temper. ance demonstrate the absudity of apply ing, for defence against the militant ex tremcs of heat and cold to this Proteal god under whose supplying influence som, are every year leftsto be stiffned in fros or immolated in flames. Repeat till i cannot be forgotten what Plutarch ha. said, ''of all the destroyer of nerves healtt and life this is the greatest" and I have g no doubt but it has broken down more constitutions, brought on more distempers and sent more people tO an early grave than all other vices of the world united and the memorable words of late sage, s'all the crimes on earth do not destroy so many of the HUMAN RACE, nor alieneate so much PROPERTY as drunkenness''*** Ex- pose the folly of building continually aims houses, poor--houses, hospitals, asylum refnges, bTidewells, treadmllls, prisons and pe1itenfisries, and of educating the rising generation to i'll them of laylshing mill- 5ous for the sws q tAs srsl. and of doing aaGaiug tn rgmave Gkr GaaEsg-
 LaE gs'aESamsn sf tze sar rsEeat wath the vuiEa Gf uiERadsu. wiazEr has been SGrs1 said tliGn & ulir,,ss-fs1ntis ef all the criases cos- mifrs,f ars through uhs mflIeucs of spiriIt- anuH EIglnrs,' ' S4 tms-rhrds of those now pHlperss ars made ss sy Eareuspersncs. '' And leu nat rfe ~ ssScyg faaEes aayIT pFe- Veur the execution of that summary jus tsce upon this flint hearted InstIgztor to criminal deeds which an injured country demands Drag out this overgrown giant, and huEl at him the stones of exfermIna- ton. The evils he has done this country deserve not any redress but vengance. Let those guilty of Drunkenness undergo civ- il disabilities like that in Spain, where for merly man convicted of drunkenness was legally incapacitated to give testimony in a court of justice. Let every means be de- vised to pour contempt on intemperance, and let the bodies off the suicidal wretches, who persevsre, be delivered over for dis- section. Thus might the innocent sleep m safety, which never can be the case, till