New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1855-06-19
FROM ILLINOIS.
DEFEAT OF THE PROHTBITORY LAW.

DEFEAT OF THE PROHlBlIORi LAW.
Correspondence The n. Y Tribune.
CHESTER, Ill.,, Monday, June IL, 1855.
As the readers of THE TRIBUNE will already
have learned from scattering dispatches sent
from different parts Of our State, the Prohlbitory
Law submitted to the people on the 4th inst.
has been defeated. OF course fall returns from
every county in the State have not been re-
ceiyed, for so far as the transmission of news is
concerned the south. eastern portion of Illinois
might as well be located in Kamtschatka, but
enough is known to make the rejection OF the
law by some 10000 or H. 900 majority positive
certainty. When the first tidiDgs of defeat were
teegraphed from the centers of trade and business
the friends of Prohibition still hoped that the rural
districts would roll up an aggregate OF small ma
iorities that would cOunterbaance the heavy vote
in the hostile parts of the State, and atone for the
unforeseen and deplorable defeats experienced in
supposed strong holds like SangamOn County, but
the checkered and unprOmisng reports as they
have come in have gradually dissipated all grounds
for rational hope.
While the friends of Prohibition deplore the re-
suit tLey may gather from it an instructive lesson
The same mysterious political warfare which has
astoDisbed politicians in every part OF the country
has been acted Ia Illinois during the past year on
a small scale The election from which We have
lust emerged has merely been the rec0 from the
frauds and treachery practised at the election last
Fall-a manifestation of popular power not very
discriminating in its objects or very rational In the
inictOn Of its revenge, but nevertheless perfectly
natural and easy to be accounted for. The result
has been brought about by the rash attempt to
identify KnOw-Notbingism with the powerful
and progressive movements in the State-an at
tempt which very nearly defeated /" Anti-Nebraska-
ism " in Illinois last Fall, and which has COM
pletely overwhelmed the Maine Law now
That any politician with three grains of discreet
ambition and an atom OF sense should ever have
attempted to foist the doctrines of the Know
Nothing party upon any measure or organization
from which he expected anything, may appear
incredible; and still more so that any party
should consent to engage in such an alliance.
OF course the ProhibitOry movement IN Illinois
was not necessarily identified with the secret
Order but as in the old fable Of the dogs it suffered
from being found in bad company Some Of the
prominent friends of Prohibition had aso the for
tune, or misfortune to be disciples OF HindOoism,
ard like most of the credulous believers in that
mystic creed, thought that allying the two forces,
the Maine Law" and SAM" would work like
any other mathematical proposition, and that " one
"and one" would make two" and that certain
victory TO such an alliance would be fOregone
conclusion. Those astute philosophers are be-
ginning TO realize that there must have been
something radically wrong in the data or the arith-
metic and the friends of the Maine Law who half
reluctantly lent themselves to the deusion under
vague hope that it might be profitable, are
awakening to the conviction that Sam" don't
vote for principle. That mysterious individual is
earning quite reputation in this quarter for his
devotion TO "men-not measures" Sam there
fore as "Sam" could not vote for the Maine Law.
He had succeeded in fixing what little hatred he is
capable Of awakening upon the law to be sub
mitted to the people, but he could not bring a
single voter to the cause which it did not legti-
| mately have without him; that he could not do
| this is evident from the fact that he did not.
At the election last Fall people generally voted
on the exciting questions before them just as they
were impelled; in some few cases suspicion Of
secret csbal weakened and defeated the popular