Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1850-1854, 1853-08-19
PROHIbrToRY LIQUOR LAw.--LE-

hibitory liquor law primarily 10 be 10 reform men S
morals. We suppose it TO be like any other pen
al law-simply designed to prohibit and punish the
wrong and establish the right. Men look around
and see the universal and horrible evils wrought
blythe manufacture and sale of Intoxicating liquors
and they say to themselves it is tcroay and being
Wrong, like any other uTong should be prohibited
under pains and penalties. The object of the law is
not TO reform man who drinks but like any other
penal law, TO protect innocent members of society.
a law is enacted TO punish horse stealing What is
the object of it! To reform the horse-stealer
No; it is by adequate penalties, simply to deter
him from stealing horscs-to keep his vicious pro-
pensties in check by adequate motives-motives
that he can understand-thcf fear of pains and pen
alties. We want this distinction clearly under
stood for it is important. We know the idea is
somewhat prevalent, and has hold with all ITS torres
of the editors of the Democrat, that this Maine
law is designed by its friends directly as great
moral reform engine. Its friends have no doubt
whatever that great moral fruits will flow from It's
enactment, but it is as any other law, simply de-
signed to prevent the preparation of wrong by ad-
equate pains and penalties
The anti Maine Law friends would have the
whole thing left to moral suas,oa. Itmay perhaps
be a question exactly what moral suasion is for
it cannot be denied that law nag be the most eff
iectivc kind of moral suaSion. All penal laws, all
laws for the punishment of offences are necessar-
" moral agents, though indirectly. The moral
sense of society is opposed TO murder, theft, &c,
and that moral sense forms itself into law cores
ponding with its best knowledge of the means of
preventing such offences-which laws are of neccs-
sity to some extent moral agents. The moral
sense of community is developed 10 understand
that liquor making and selling is wrong
| The common sense of community tells it, that the
wrong can be prevented only by imposing the pro-
per penalties on those who do the wrong. Can Il
! law, then, enacted from such motives be without
moral force These laws are enacted by the me-
raj sense of the community and their direct pur-
pose is 10 protect net the morals of the delnquents
but the mordis of the community. Community
does II to protect itself 1t first determines the
thing to be @Tong-a proper thing to be prohibit
ed-and then it vindcatcs its moral sense by doing
the very best thing it to prohibit and prevent
the commission of the wrong. Should society fail
to do this thing it would be false to its moral sense,
and to carry out the principle would be to cruelty
the entire moral sense of community by the aboli-
ton of all penal laws and to introduce force dsor-
der and anarchy into all society, nsuring its final
total destruction. These laws are the moral
aids society puts forth in its onward march as its
own helpers, and to abolish them or refuse to pass
them, would be unwse and destructive.
But again, is what our friends more particular
~ designate moral suason in any wise impair
ed or destroyed by the passage of this law Is
moral suasion dead as against horsc-steang be-
cause you punish the horsc-steacr or is it neces-
Sary TO give moral suasion its full force against
horse stealing that you should license nunbcr of
men TO steal horses. As we remarked, the object
of such laws is TO give moral Suason a fair chance.
Suppose you licensed men to steal horses, and
these men educated others into the practice about
twice as fast as you could get them out by moral
suasion, would you not consider it quite help to
moral suasion TO put stop in the first place to the
means by which men got into these pcrnicious
habits. y reservoir constructed on the "moral
suasion principle of our friends, would have a
hole in the bottom to let the water out little fas-
ter than it got in at the top and under such cir
cumstanccs how long would it take to fill the res
eryor? Common sense would say make plug and
drive it in by hard thumps if necessary TO stop
the outflow, but our peculiarly " moral suaSon y
friends say, go, no; hold on-wait awhile
preach awhile longer, the reservoir will surely get
full eer long, and besides you might split out one
of the slaves by driving in the plug" Rccollcct,
not single instrumcntaty of human advance
ment or human development is impaired or de-
stroycd by the passage of this law. The school
house, the press, the pulpit, every instrumcntality
of education is at work with all its force. We
have simply prohibited the manufacture and sale
of poison in community by adequate penalties
And we have not done nor did we expect to- iegiS-
late morality or virtue into the human heart any
more than it was expected to legiSiate it into the
horse stealcr when penalties were imposed for
horse stealing. We expect only to curtail the ad-
yantagcs, the facilities of wrong doing. We ex-
poet to cast out, to outlaw great wrong, TO the
end that the real moral agents of society may have
Il chance to do their work and get morality and
virtue into the hearts of men. Understand this,
then, on this question of moral suasion.
Again say our anti-Manc Law friends, it is an
abridgemcnt of personal rights to say what man
shall eat or drink-in short to pass ii sumptuary
law. Q, most worthy friends, show us if Won can
where the least attempt has been made to do this
thing. Why don't you say that the law to pre-
vent the exposure and sale of damaged meats is a
sumptuary law designating what IA man shall eat.
Ii you have taste for tainted meat, the law will
let YOU eat to your hearts content You can
slaughter your meat and hang it up till corruption
oozes from every pore, before eating it, if YOU
choose, but you cannot make it into that shape
and impose it upon the offended sense of comm,l-
nifty by exhibiting it and pressing ii. Of sale. You
may poison yourself but you shant be permitted to
poison others. That law only says the weak and
ignorant shall not he imposed upon by the cum
ming and vicious, by the sale of that which is gen
orally hurtful, and that is all this law proposes 1t
designs to prohibit the exposure and sale of decay-
al vegetable matter for al liquor is simply decay
CT vegetable matterl just decdyed meat is now
prohibited and is more a sumptuary law in one
case than the other. This much on this point is
just a good as a volume, and when our friends
talk about Sumptuary law, we do hope they will
show that sumptuary law is or ever has been