Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1852-03-25
MASSACHUSETTS LEGISLATURE.
WEDNESDAY, March "a,

Mr.. KnowIton, of Ira M. Barton, of Worcester,n
aid of petition OF John Mills and others.
By Mr. Keyes, Of Curtis E. Nichols and 1873 |
others, that the laws OF this Commonwealth be |
so modified that no able-boded citizen may be I
forbidden or prevented from serving or holding
Office in the militia on account OF color.
BY Mr.. Alden, of several citizens of Barre,
Blackstone, Sutton and Petersham, for the diy-
sion Of the middle district for the administration
Of criminal law.
Sundry Reports of Committees were made,
among them the following:
BY MIR. Griswold, from the special committee
on the subJeet-a bill relating to practice and
rules of evidence in actions Of law; also request
ing 10 be discharged from further liberation Of
the order relating to the foreclosure of mort
cages.
By Mr. Sewall, from the Judiciary Committee
that the House bill relating TO the disposition Of
actions without trial ought to pass.
Passed to be engrossed.--The consideration of
the resolves concerning public lands of the Uni
ted States, was then resumed, the question being
on Mr.. Fuller's motion to indefinitely postpone.
The resolves were favored by Messrs. Keyes
and Lawrence, and opposed by Messrs. Wilson
and Grswold.
Mr.. Wilson offered the following resolutions as
an amendment to those proposed by the Com
.mIttee.
Resolved, That the public lands of the United
States should be held as Il sacred trust by the
Federal Government for the use and benefit Of
the 'coming Millions who are to inhabit this
vast domain; TO be disposed of so as 10 secure
their actual settlement and cultivation, and the
development of their national resources.
Resolved, That such policy will secure the
permanent interests of Massachusetts and Of the
old States, and best promote the strength, adj
vancement, and grandeur Of the whole country
Resolved, That Massachusetts accords its appro-
baton to the policy which has been adopted, of
granting portions of the public domain to the land
States for the purposes of education and internal
Improvement
HOUsE.--Sundry petitions, &C., were present.
and referred.
Reports of Committees. By MIR. Hosmer, of
BoyIston. Committee on Agriculture, resolve de-
claring it expedient and just that Congrs=~saDuld
appropriate portion ofihe public lands toward
the endowment OF National Normal Agricul-
tural College.
By Mr.. Putnam, of Roxbury, same committee,
that the resolve in favor of the Worcester West
Agricultural Society ought to pass. These and
the other reports were severally placed in the
ders Of the day.
Passed to be enacted. Bills, authorsing arbltra-
tors, referees, ami auditors, TO administer oaths;
for the voluntary closing of corporations; to incor.
porate the Union Marine Railway; increase the
capital stock OF the Salem Steamboat Company; to
authorize the construction of railroad track the
town of Fall River; addition act concerning
cemeteries; TO regulate the setting of mesh nets in
North River; resolves, the joint petition of the
Howard Benevolent Society, the American Un,a-
rian Association, and the President and Fellows of
Harvard College,; on the petition OF Jonathan P.
Earle.
The orders of the day were taken up, and snndry
matters advanced one stage.
b. 4l,,,, :, r.
E. Trask and others; the petition of Titcomb
street Church in Newburyport; on petition of Dam
iel Davis, NJ. D.; on the petition of John Spring
and others.
Passed to be engrossed. Bills to provide for the
preservation and arrangement of the Sawtell School
Fund in the town Of Grolon protect titles TO real
estate derived from aliens; to authorize Jonathan
II. Young to build wharf; concerning the Mari
ners Mutual Marine Insurance Company; to au
thorze E. w. Holway to build wharf Resolves,
the petition Of the Overseers of the Poor of the
town of Grafton; concerning the surface geology Of
the State.
THE LIQUOR BILL.
At half past IL, on motion of Mr. Wiggin, Of Bos-
ton, the House went into Committee OF the Whole,
the Liquor Bill; MIR Kellogg Of Pittsfeld in the
chair.
MIR Wiggin of Boston, who was entitled to The
floor, opened the debate in opposition to the bill.
He said he would not attempt at all to discuss the
conslitutionality of the measure. That, he left to
other and ADLER hands. Neither would he attempt
TO analyse or consider the bill in detail. He had
studied it carefully with That view, but had found it,
like SPIDERS web, incapable of being SO considered
In the first place, the bill provided that article
of merchandise, always heretofore throughout the
world considered property, shall not, after May
LIST, be property in Massachusetts. Probably there
in the State millions of dollars invest
ed in this property, three millions of which in
Boston. Was it to be supposed for a moment, that
81 al nf tn he hItafpH
at once? That parties who honestly and lawfully
had become possessed OF this property, would quiet
ly submit 10 its confscationl No.
Did not every one know that there were thousands
Of citizens who had their all invested in this species
of property, and could it be proposed to make them,
their wives, and their children beggars? Pass this
bill, and gentlemen might rely upon it, that those of
their fellow citizens whose property was thus de-
stroyed, would shelter themselves under the bill of
rights, and defend their right and their property;
peaceabiy if they could, forcibly if so it must be;
and the Supreme Court would sustain them in thus
doing.
Did the community require snch law? Had the
people become abandoned to self respect so imbe-
ce, so idiotic, that they could not trust themselves
to what they should eat and drink? Not so. And
ofthe thousands OF persons whose names on the
mammoth petition, not Of them wanted the law
for himself. 1t was for his neighbor.
Suppose the law passed. Did its friends really
suppose it would have the desired effect! BY no
In his judgment it would increase the con-
sumption Of iquor-peope would drink out of a
mere spirit of opposition to the arbitrary law And
the bill provided penalty for drinking, only for
selling The passage of the bill would have this
effect only-to take the traffic from the hands of
high minded and honorable men, and place il in the
hands Of men of an opposite character.
Gentlemen might as well enact law to prevent
! the sun from rising in the east and setting in the
west, as to obliterate alcohol from the articles of
| traffic.
The present Legislature had the reputation of be-
ing Democratic. What sort of Democracy was il |
that proposed to give to single individual or a |
| hundred individuals the MONOPOLY of supplying The