Eastern times., 1855-04-12
For the Eastern Times.
Maine Liquor Law.

the infallible cure for all the evils that alhc'
society. They have troused large field IN
their laborious efforts to display their wisdom,
and to sigualize their virtue. They have re-
moved from the Courts of Maine the power to
grant naturalization papers to aliens; they
have pronounced against the fugitive slave
law, mathematical the Kansas Nebraska bill,
denied TO the United States the use of the
lails of Maine for the detention of fugitives !;
passed resolutions repudating the federal con-
stitution but they have reached the climax
Of folly and absurdity in the last edition Of the
the Maine law.
In,emperance is social evil, but it is only
one of the forms of evil that atilict our world.
1t is one Of the greatest, but it is not the con-
summation Of all evil. 1t is like many others
that are nseparable from social existence, and
equally removed beyond the reach OF prohibit
tory law. | could wish that intoxicating
drinks were denied an existence in our land
but that wish cannot be gratiied, so long as
its importation is legalized, its public sale
mathematical, its profits monopolized, and all
at the same time by a government which
pleads its medicinal virtues as Indispensable TO
the health of community.
But this revised and corrected liquor law
seems to proceed upon the ground that moral
ity and virtue are the product of force and COM
pulsion. But that this is a mistaken polisy,
is evident, if we consider the nature of man,
| nd III Df th &c fho
design of this law to accomplish. Most men
have desire to be considered virtuous, or at
least human and the wish to be thought so,
shows their instructive adherence of all views
that. deiract from the merit and character OF
their species. Now the true philosophy of
reform is in the cultivation and encourage
ment of those instincts. in their efforts to ra-
tionalize and moralize the man. Most men
love 10 be respected and surely public i'm
parchment of their manhood will never concili-
ate their favor, or secure their obedience. In
the applications of these principles of reform,
mans social aud political condition must be
considered. Under absolutism, which devel-
opes man downward, reduces his individuality
to mere name, and checks the spirit of en-
quiry, man falls back upon a stupid obedi-
ence, and submission becomes necessity,
rather than ylriue-bnt under liberal insti-
tniions, whose foundation is mans faith in
himself, he acts from an intelligent conviction
Of his rights; and his right 10 act, 10 think,
TO speak, and his power TO criticize and re-
view the acts of his equals, enable him TO
call in question the propriety and validity of
law that smacks Of interference with his per-
sonal and private affairs. and threatens TO in
wade the peace and quiet of his fireside. He
will resist whatever he fancies TO be an en-
croachment upon his individual rights, and,
perhaps without starting the original question
whether the law is based upon valid au,hori-
", he resists its execution, or evades its scru-
tiny, under the impression that it abridges his
freedom, or undertakes his manhood.
However great are the evils of intemper-
ance, and however much Legislation may seem
to be demanded to remove them, that kind of
Legislation embodied in the Maine liquor law,
viii fnrever prove impracticabls- Is s>Aiil neS
er accomplish the end it aims at, if that end
is the abolition of the traffic in ardent spirits,
and the reformation of the inebriate. 1t may
build prisons, erect galows, and impose fines,
but it can furnish the offenders heart with no
motive to obey its mandates, nor inspire the
drunkard with sympathy o. even respect for its
undertaking. The drunkard finds consolation
in believing that it is unconstitutional, and
hates it that it intends him no mercy, and the
deliberate traficker in the forbidden poison,
finds virtue in resistance.
Attempt its execution, and you lash the pas
sions Of the offender into a rage-he defes
your authority, desPses your business, and
while you seem 10 make lawful nri.n ~'L;-
,IOPusrr, ne mas the intolerable nuisance still
in his quarters beyond your most viglant
search. He only waits your absence to re-
peat with an air of defiance the offence for
which you plundered his property. In the ar
bitrary enforcement of law against traffic
in himself which he sees legalized in others,
he sees partial discrimination of the objects
public favor; and the barrier which the ''bil
of rights has interposed between him and the
State, he sees broken down to afford dema-
demagogues and fanatics an easier passage to
political power.
You may philosophize, and you may subtitle
until your brain is bewildered, upon the subtle
distinctions of property; and by refinement
peculiar to Maine law logic, you may prove
to him that ardent spirits in government
grogshop, though guarded only by the discre-
tions of responsible temperance man, acquire
the character of a respectable article of mer-
chandize, and by transfer of the same arti-
Gle across the street, it loses the character of
merchandise, and becomes an outlawed nui-
sauce. But your sophistry is far from being
conclusive, and added TO the idea of force, pro-
vokes the resentment and courts the opposition
of the man whom you would detach from a
vicious traffic. l do not wish to be understood
as asserting that the law is wrong in its OBJ
ject or that it requires duty of society in
consistent with the principles Of sound moral
ity and virtue, but that it is essentially de:
fective as a means for promoting that object, /
do mean to assert; and, further, that its ex-