The organ of the temperance reform. (Cincinnati, O. [Ohio]) 1852-1853, 1852-04-09

Maine and for me to withhold It's cooling,
efficacy from her feVerish lips,
would brand me as the basest parricide.
The law TO which, Gentlemen, you have
called my attention, have carefully exam
ined, and while it is quite possible that in
some Of the provisions for its execution it
might be mproved--indeed, it would be
strange were it otherwise--I am free to say,
that the Justice and mercy, which are so
beautifully blended in its great principles,
fill me with admiration. 1t tears from the
liquor seller, the shield Of protection which
States have so long held before him while
hurling his death-dealing arrows, and
throws it around the community against
which he wars. 1t unbolts the prison doors
and bids him walk in, and there expiate his
crimes, and learn, in the society of his poor
victims, to pity them with fellow feeling,
and share with them in " the sweet uses of
adversely" Like Infinite justice, it pro-
yides glorious escape, an ample deliver
ance for the tempted, while it denounces its
penalties against the tempter, and though
it does not sentence him with his great
father to crawl upon his belly and eat the
dust down among his PROSTATE and grovel-
ing victims, it, by no means, intimates that
he is undeserving Of such doom.
How passing strange that civil govern
ment, which was instituted by the Divine
hand. to protect man in the enjoyment Of
his natural rights, should have been trans
formed into dreadful engine of destruction
TO man, by Withdrawing from him its sacred
@gis Of defense, and throwing it around the
destroyers of his peace, prosperity and hap
pinessl As if its mission we're one of
malevolence rather than of benevolence, it
has long legalizedth business which makes
criminals and pahpers, and lunatics. and
idiots and taxed those of its citizens who
would not submit themselves to the opera
ton to pay the costs, The government
of Connecticut does not, indeed, directly
license murder and other crimes, but t
licenses the prolific cause of nearly all the
murders and four-fifths of all the other
offenses committed within the State. It
does not openly enact laws for the en-
couragement of penury, insanity, idiocy,
sickness, and death but it enacts laws
which assume to regulate the process. It
dooms its inferior criminals to the gallows
and the penitentiary, while its superior
criminals, the instigators and tempters to
crime, its criminal nllkeTs, 90 unhung and
imprisoned. On the contrary, it tenderly
embraces them as public functionaries, and
laYishes upon them the tokens of its shell
tering love. 1t hugs the liquor-seller, all
crimsOned with guilt and reeking with pol
luton, while it spurns his poor, miserable
victims and consigns them to punishment.
1t licenses men to SOW the State all over
with tie dragons teeth of the curse: and
after the seed has sprung up and ripened
into a baleful harvest of criminals, and pau
pers, and lunatics, and idiots, it thrusts in
its legal sickle, reaps, and garners them
into its prisons, alms-houses and asylums,
as the blasted fruits of its crazy husbandry.
1t commissions men to WELD, in the name
of the State, the toddy .stick-that weapon
of death more potent and devastating than
the sword and the poor wretches, who are
smitten by its power, it permits to crawl
into its poor-hOuses to die, sends to its pri-
sous to expiate guilt, or hangs by the neck
with the pious ejaculation" may God
hove mercy on your soul p having itself, in
this world, shown them no pity, but left
them to the cannibal cruelty Of its licensed
lquor-sellers.
That Spartan boy who stole fox, and to
conceal the theft hid him under his tunic
until he gnawed into his vitals; or that
other precocious lad of olden times, who
was bitten by the serpent which he resusci-
tated from torpidity in his warm bosom,
was a young Solomon, prodigy of wisdom
and good sense, compared with the govern
ment of State, which shelters in its bosom
the more crafty and VenOmous liquor seller,
who is sure to eat into the very heart of the
body polite, and strike his deadly fang
deep into the interior life, poisoning and
corroding the soul.
Another crowning excellence of the Law
under consideration, in my view, is found
in that provision, which treats intoxicating
liquors, when kept for sale otherwise than
by the authorized agents, as nuisances SO
perilous to society as to demand swift de-
structiOn. This principle. more than any
other, vitalizes the Law, and makes it a ter
ror to evil dOers. 1t was worse than in vain
that Hercules beat off the towering heads
of the Lernean Hydra, until he called upon
friend to scar the decapitated necks with
hot iron. This provision of the Law is
the hot iron to cauterize the wounds Of the
modern Hydra, and prevent the instanta-
neons growth of many heads where but one
grew before. Hitherto, liquor sellers, If con-
Dicted of irregularities, have been left in the
undisputed possession of the accursed thing;
and oftentimes, before leaving the court
room, they have sworn vengeance to the
community, by opening their floOd-gates of
death wider But this provision wrests
from them the agent of destruction, and
disarms them of the weapons of their mex
orable wrath. This is done in accordance
, with the long settled principle, that what
+ ever tends to endanger the health, corrupt
the morals, disturb the peace, and destroy
the lives Of the community, is nuisance,
, and must be abated. Now, it is undeniably
true, that intoxicating drinks do all these
things and many more. They are known
, TO be the most pestilent nuisances OF mo-
dern society, and, consequently, should be
is demanded by that old civil axiom, which
declares the safety of the people to be the
I supreme law-saIus p0puh leE supTema.
J But hasten to a conclusion of this al
7 ready too heightened answer to your in
! quiry, by remarking of the Maine Law,
in general, that it commends itself to my
4 admiration, inasmuch as it is no timid
} hating, bobbling step, like nearly all its pre-.
/ decessors akin, but bold, unshrinking, and
: manly stride toward the everlasting sum-
mits of justice. 1t is no temporizing, COW
/ ardly, halfway measure, contemplate for
b its weakness and discrediting itself, but a
9 hearty, intrepid, and whole-way measure.
5 laying the axe, with fearless energy. at
s the root of the tree, "whose mortal taste .
/ has brought a second death into our world
e with augmented woes. This is what makes
it so effective and mastery for good, and
invests it in its native State, with an EARTH
!. quake force, to shake the groggeries to their
e foundations, and strike their scOwling and
4 shuddering occupants with terror, as they
e read their fastening doom in letters of FIRE
l on the tottering walls.
7 But presuming that may reply to your
| question is already sufficiently full and ex-
plicit to be iDtelligible, pause here, and