Washington sentinel. [volume] (City of Washington [D.C.]) 1853-1856, 1855-05-26

decency and the g.,od sense TO pretermit this
topic.
The meeting to whiclh we refer was addressed
by several speakers. We extract the following
from one of the speeches the OCCASION:
''ls there child old enough to have the first
glimmerings of reason that supposes that this
traffic in intoxicating spir Is, for medicine, W any
thing but gull and humbug, compared to the
great amount that is sold for that purposes Every
body in the country, who has grain of common
sense, knows that all this trading through town
agents, in ardent spirits, under the name, pur-
pose, and disguise of medicine, I" is but arrant
and sheer hypocrisy from beginning to end
Great cheers.
"Who corrupts the people of Massachusetts I
Who makes them liars Your Government
which makes the law. Your Government says
if you will lie, if you will cheat, if you will be
hypocrite, if you will divest yourself of honesty,
If you will be a miserable and canting hypocrite,
you may have as much rum you want. [Cheer-
ing.l is that a law for the moral benefit of the
community Is such law to make us wiser
AM better men, Is law productive only of
such immoral results to be tolerated in this gross
invasion of the rights Of citizens ;-in this unau-
thorized and outrageous seizure and destruction
of property"
These remarks are characterized by both truth
and pungency. The late Legislature of Massa-
~
was stupid. Famed for her federalism in the olden
times, Massachusetts,, following insane impulses,
has shot to the opposite extreme-nullifcation
She now presents strange spectacle Her Leg
islature, at one and the same session, has passed
| laws multiplying the Constitution Of the United
States, and passed other laws so oppressive to
her own citizens, that they gravely threaten null
| LITIGATION.
| The speaker who made the above remarks has
| hit upon the truth. Massachusetts, legislation is
fast Transforming Massachusetts, people into mis-
cradle, canting, despicable hypocrites. 1t is
doing more. 1t is rapidly Transforming the
healthy and robust people of that most cody and
purtanical State into set of pale and tottering
| nvalids Their Legislature says they shan I have
| liquor unless they sick. They love liquor,
and, rather than go without it, they affect sick
| ness. Their Legislature says they shan't sell
| liquor. Rather than not sell it, they have some
thing fashioned in the shape of book 1t is la
belled "the Holy Bible" 1t is filed with liquor,
instead of the gospel of salvation. In this form
it is sold. An ungodly, unpaying, contraband
trade thus springs up. 1t springs up precisely as
smuggling does under high and onerous system
of duties. 1t is a sort of necessity.
This whole thing, and the whole system of
modern Massachusetts, legislation, results from
| false theory of Government. Massachusetts,
politicians lock upon the State as the father, the
mother, the husband, and the wife of the people
They give to the State not only political, but re-
ligious, social, and domestic power Its functions
are made to extend to all the relations and affairs
of life. With all their boosted learning and at
tainments, Massachusetts, statesmen have gone
back to the benighted patriarchal times when the
old men Of the family ruled alike men, women,
children, and sheep.
The excessess of this error, the revolving and
disgusting excuses of it, promise some benefit to
that State. They promise to do what reason and
virtue cannot do--to eradicate and destroy it.