Democrat and sentinel. [volume] (Ebensburg, Pa.) 1853-1866, 1855-07-25
Unequal Operation Of Suuptuary Laws.

unequal VpeTau0n OF Smptuary LAWS.
It is curious and noticeable fact in the history
Eof Legislation, that sumptuasy laws conflicting
with the privileges and natural rights Of citizens,
though often placed upon the statute book, have
always failed to stand the test of constitutional
criticism. Such laws have never been success
fully enfofced, except against those who We're too
poor friendless to vindicate their constitutional
rights; while the rich and influential have found
no difficulty in establishing an immunity under
them. Thus. in effect, they stand obnoxious to
the .gravest objections, as the most unequal and
oppressive asse5ption Of clas lssI slps;an. Furth-
ermore. The principle Of prohibition operate to the
special prejudice Of that portion Of the community
whose means of enjoyment, as well as of self pro-
lection, are limited inasmuch as it proscribes
species of property which is pecrniarily within
the reach of all classes, and which, from time inn
memorial, has been practically acknowledged
among all classes, one of g the blessings of lie
It denies to the poor man one of the few Injuries
which home industry and enterprise has placed at
his commend, while the man who is rich enough
to patronize foreign producers, and to purchase
imported package which has paid an impost duty
of one hundred per cent may indulge to his
hearts content, andset all prohibitiye laws at
Defiance It;gives to the Vineyards of France. and
Spain, the breweries of Germany ana Great Brit
ain, and the distlIleries of Holland and the West
Indies, monopoly of our home market, while the
native Americrn who produces case Of sparkling
Catawba, or cask of old Orchard, is shut out
from competition under the pains and penalties of
felony.-This according to the Know Nothing
Legislatures of Pennsylvania, New York, Massa-
ehusetts, Main and New Hampshire, is Native
American policy! asss..n
, The natural right to enjoy and traffic in what,
ever is desirable or sanctioned by popular usage,
though pre-eminenty republican privilege, is
not exclusively the boon of free institutions. 1t
has generally been recognized by the most arbi-
trary Of imperial rulers, and its occasional viola
ton has shaken thrones and empires no less than
it has agitated several States of this republic.
Even in the days of our colonial dependence and
discomfort, the king and parliament of Great
Britain did not go so far as to prohibit luxuries
among us, but only to tax them had they attemp-
ted the former, the popular Indignation would
have known no bounds, and the revolution been
undoubtedly precipitated. An intelligent writer
on this subject, in the Boston Post, pertinently
says w s i. ss4ls5ss =.
The mother country herself furnishes us with
ulatons. Even the broken and crushed spirit Of
the subjects Of British Plantagenef, protected by
no constitution but the judicial plecedents and
usages derived FROM. their Magma Charta. dsdain-
ed to submit to a less humiliating sumptuary re-
striction than that embraced in the provisions Of
this republican (2) statute. When the naughty
ts maiden majesty" !" of England, in "a fit of tyran-
mic caprice, undertook to cut down the ruffs and
shorten the swords Of the ladies and gentlemen of
her realm, the execution of her mandate ELECTED
only murlnurs aud rernonstrance while confined
to the tradesmen and lower class but when Mas
ters Jasper Keyering and Anthony Frimbly, sta
toned at Snithfeld Bars, with their official shears
and METRE undertook to break the sword of a
London alderman and curtail the fair proportions
of the Mechlin lace ruff of his arstocratic daugh-
ter, these myrmidons of the crown were met by
open defiance. The honorable gentleman not
very gently raped the representative of Elizabeth
over the head, while Mistress Rebecca Farley tore
off her collar and flung it in his face, charging
him to tell the Queen that the ladies of her realm
had rights as well as her male subjects, of which
they had no idea of being deprived. Seeing all
thus endangered, the wealth and chiv-
and defending their natural simptuary rights
against this unwarrantable assumption of power
on the part of the sovereign.
1t remains to be seen if the sovereign people of
with d constitution of their own
framing, are more abect and servile insubmitting
to the encroachments of arbitrary power, ON the
part Of their own public servants, than were the
English three centuries ago, id regard to similar
assumption on the part Of a sovereign who ruled,
not by their own election or sufferance, but abso-
uteiy g by the grace Of God. od."-Phaadclphia |
Argus.