The Evansville daily journal. [volume] (Evansville, Ia. [i.e. Ind.]) 1848-1862, 1855-11-15
NUMBER 1s4.

tootalneo nefe accordln2 70 the contingent acelon
iof other powers and for the further reason, that
I their admission if claimed to be part Of the
object and policy OF the State liquor law, in
order to spply the the people with liquor rs
beverage, renders the law doubly Objectionable,
for while, according to such view, the law
designs to permit the use of liquors bey.
erage, it prohibits the people from manufacturs
ing for their own use 1t is as if the Law were
that the people might eat bread but should not
| raise the grain and grind it into -four where
with to make it. It would be an act to pro-
hibit the people from themselves producing;
and to compel them to purchase from abroad
what they might need to eat and drink. It
would involve the principle of an act toannihi.
late the State by starving the people cofistitat-
\ ing it to death; and such legislation would
hardly compot, we think, with constitution
established to promote the welfare and prospsri.
ty of the people. s-4' = 17sa- eiH1
We assume it as established. then. that the
liquor act in question is absolutely prohibitory
of the manufacture, SALE and use as beverage.
by the people Of this State, of whiskey, ale p0r.
ter and beer. The opinion has been al. yancsd
that the manufacture for sale out of the State
is not prohibited, but it has not the substance
of shadow; and the morality of that law
which prohibited, the distribution of pauperism
and crime, disease snd death, at home, but
permits them to be scattered amongst our
neighbors is not to be envied. And we may
as well remark here as anywhere that ii the
manufacture and sale these articles are proper
to be carried on in the State for any purposes
it is not competent for the government to take
the business from the people and monopoliss
lit The government cannot turn druggist and
become the sole dealer in medicines in the
State And why? Because the business was
at and before the organization ofthe govern
ment, and is properly at all times, a private
pursuit of the people as much so as the manu-
Ifacture and sale of brooms, tobacco, cloths, and
The dealing in tea, Coffee and rice, and the
raising Of potatoes; and the government was
organized to protect the people in such pursuits
from the depreciation ofpowerful and lawless
individuals, the barons cf the middle ages
whom they were too weak to resist single
handed by force; and for the government now
/ to seize upon those pursuits subversive of ths
very object for which it was created tAgov-
lernment is guilty of an invasion Upon the
faculties of industry possessed by individuals
when it tapproprates to itselfa particular branch
lof industry--the business of exchange and
brokerage for example; or when it sells the
Exclusive privilege of conducting it."-Says
i Political Economy, stots to p. 134.A .1gsspis
There are undertakings ofa public highways
providing uniform currency, &C., that single
lllUlfIUudl HAS LOb pONCI W dCCOlllpilSu, duQ
(which government must, therefore prosecute;
but they are not the ordinary pursuits bf The
lprivate citizen. 1Ai g 1880 Sii WI
These, certainly as the general rule and We
are not now prepared to name an exception,
the government cannot engage in.
i This is all we shall here say upon this
1point Time and space forbid that we should
elaborate all that arise in the case. sllag
The question now presents ITSELF issil1f
I Secondly. Could the Legislature Of this
State enact the prohibitory liquor law under
consideration? = = .ea 81 9a
Few, if any judicial decision, will be found
Ito aid US in investigating this question, as no
Isuch law, in country possessed Of a judiciary
and a const tuition limiting the Legislative
power, has till Of late been enacted Some
twelve hundred years ago, Mahomet made such
a law part of his religious creed in opposition
I to the Jewish and Christian systems, which
\ Recommended the moderate, but forbid the,
Excessive use of intoxicating liquors. This
law of Mahomet, Koran, PIP. rs and SO, was
perhaps the frs prohibtory act, but it does
not appear toil Lave been adopted by civilized
nations till its late revival in some shape or
other in one or often if atall, as to this point
passed under judicial consideration.
j A number Of European writers on natural,
public, and civil law, are cited by counsel on
behalf of the State to show the extent of legis-
lative power; but those writers respectable, able
and instructive upon some sebjects as they are
admitted to be, are not authority here upon this
point. They are dangerous, indeed, utterly
blind guides to follow in searching for the
land marks of legislative power in our free and
limited government; for they had in view, when
writing governments as existing when and
where they wrote; under which they lived anS
f had been educated, and which had no written
!, constitutions limiting their powers-goyern-
ments, the theory ofwhich was that they were
/, paternalin eharacter--that all power was in
: them by divine right. and they, hence absolute;
, that the people of a country had no rights ex-
) cept what the government Of that country gra-
} cously saw fit to confer upon them, and that it
; was its duty like as father towards his child
J ren, to command whatever it deemed expe-
} dient for the public good, without first in any
z manner consulting that public, or recongizing
in its members any individual rights. Erfs
Indeed, the discovery Of the great doctine Of
, rights in the people as against the government,
had not been made when the writer's above re-
ferred to lived. Such governments as those
. described, could adopt the maxim quoted By
} counsel, that the safety of the people is the
} supreme law, and act upon it; and beng seser-
ally the sole judge Of what their safety IN the
countries governed, respectively required,
} could prescribe what the people should eat
and drink, which political, moral ana Teiig1ous
creeds they should believe IN ana punlSn neresy
by burning at the stake, all for the public good
Even in Great Britain, esteemed to have the
Imost liberal constitution on the Eastern
continent, Magma Charta is not OF sufficient po-
, tencv to restrain the action of Parliament, as
/. 1<r rac n