The Yazoo City weekly Whig. (Yazoo City, Miss.) 18??-1855, 1853-03-25

VI Law CHC1S Odn DC HV 4uCSSAOHs AA0 "
| pinions of all the Judges of the United Sta
ties Court are known on that subject. In 5
Towards Reports Of cases argued and ad-
judged in the Supreme Court of the United
!: States, page 504, Chief Justice fancy said:
Elf any State deems the retail and inter-
nal tarfic in ardent spirits injurious to its
citizens. and calculated to produce idleness,
vice, debauchery. / see nothing in the con-
stitution of the United States to prevent it
from regulating or restraining the traffic, or
from prohibiting It altogether if It think pro-
per-" Mr. Justice Grier said.-''It is not
necessary to array the appealing statistics
of misery, pauperism and crime, which have
their origin in the use and abuse of ardent
spirits. The police power, which is exclu-
sively in the State, is alone competent to the
correction Of these great evils, and all meas
ares Of restraint or prohibition necessary to
> effect that 1'u,pose are aOstltin tie scope Of that
outlsorty" = "And if a loss Of
revenue should accrue to the United States
from diminished consumption of ardent
spirits, she wiH be the gamer of thousand
fold, inte health, aoeolth and happiness of the
people," IS Howard, page 932. Aside
from the legal opinions thus expressed, you
see the estimate in which the evil is held by
the first men of the nation.
But the momentous question now comes
up-What shall be done for us in Mississip-
Ipi. Nothing" say hundred tongues
at once, 'Men will drink, ;" say responding
voices claw can't help it," say others.
'Men may be led, but won't be forced, "say
multitude of voices from behind thousand
bars. Persuade them, reason with them,
convince Them resounds from numerous
tongues. Persuade! reason! convince! Go
persuade the demon-ridden billow to spare
the barque that shivers in its grasp-go
speak in honied accents to the earthquake
as it mantle its brawny muscle with thunder,
and marches into the shuddering city with
a death warrant for every age, and sex, and
condition-drop tear upon the frantic confa-
grafton as it scars and surges on over the
lost and ruined, and quench its wrath
! then you may succeed in persuading men
not to injure their fellow men, when money
can be made by it. No, Move have tried
for the abatement of intemperence, have all
had in them the element of liberation and
protection. Let us try one more plan.
"Moral suasion'' has proved abortiye. We
have stroked the fiery crest of the Basiliske
with the delusive hope of tanning its fury,
curbing its power, and chloroforming its
horse-leech appetite; but alas! it has retur.
ned mockery for mercy, insolence for indul-
gence, and lamentation, mourning and woe,
disease and inglorious graves, for protection.
1t now terrifes with its red and burning
chances, and buries its envirused fangs in
the kind hand that coaxed it.
Citizens, Fathers, Philanthropists. Chris
tains! what say you? Shall we sit still and
scare for none of these things?" Shall We
still quietly submit to the triumphant rule
Of Rum, Ruin & Co.? Shall our children
be sacrificed in hecatombs, in the SHAMELESS
of this bloody Moloch9
Do you enquire what shall be done? Il
ask, what have other States done? What
are they doing? Let us notbe behind them
in the benevolent toll. Let us try the plan
adopted by them. We may not carry the
measure at once, nor in ten years-but if IT.
takes twenty, it is worth while to undertake
iii. If we never try, we shall never do any,
thing. But believe taOelue months Of tie
right sort Of united effort will give us a VIC
tory, and we may Danish the use Of alcohol
by law
We shall need union, for we shall be vio-
lently opposed, illuminated. nick-named,
called fanatics; and all evil will be astir to
maintain the right to XII By 1asO. Men viii
be found in every hamlet, village, city, and
at all the crossroads, who will have consti
tutional scruples, electioneering articles,
bubbles and vast skeletons of politicallogic,
and moral nostrums, with which to drug.
stupefy and blunt the consciences and rea
son of plain, honest men, and prevent the
suppression of the retailers business. A
thousand lies have been, are being, and will
be told, about the failure Of the Law in Maine,
Vermont, New Jersey. Kentucky, and other
States. One thing is true: we can't be wor-
Isted.
What say the friends Of Temperance to a
State Coeventiong Let us assemble at Jack
son and talk this matter over. Let us unite