Weekly Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1853-1861, 1856-01-10
INDIANAPOLIS, Jan. 2. 1855.

L1dteS:-1 our letter OF yesterday, asking
an explanation of the late decision of the Su-
preme Court upon the liquor law of 1856, is
before me, and | hasten TO answer. though
regret l cannot do so to the extent of your
wishes, as the Court itself has not considered
the question, so far as am advised, of the
effect of its decision upon future sales of IL
quor. The court being composed of four, IL
requires a concurrence of three judges to de-
eide any point positively. An equal divis-
ion affirms the judgment of the lower conrt,
whatever it may be, and settles nothing but
the particular case under consideration.
In the late decision of the Supreme Court,
to which you refer, no three judges concur
red except in holding the prohibition, con-
tanned in the law, to manufacture, and the
creation of county agents to sell, uncon-
stitutional; hence, nothing more was de-
cided. These points were sufficient, with
the aid of a properly used technicality, to
dispose of the case of Beebe, then before the
court, and hence the court proceeded no fur
ther. Such is its practice.
The inquiry which you put, now very nat
urally suggests itself. What is to be the ef-
feet of the decision made, upon future liquor
selling? The law, in its first section, con-
tanned am absolute prohibition upon all the
people of the State to sell, with an exception.
The exception was Il speak generality that
certain county agents might sell. The Su-
preme Court declared that exception illegal,
and perhaps the most logical consequence is,
that the exception being void, the absolute
prohibition stands, so that no one can sell for
any purpose.
But the position is taken that, under the
decision, every person can sell for the pur-
poses that county agents did. And again, it
is a very grave question whether so large
portion of the law has not been stricken out
as to leave the remainder so variant from
what the legislature intended, that the whole
mus fall; and, if enforced, be so as law
made by the court and not by the legislature.
These are questions yet to be decided
They will undergo professional discussion
and judicial decision in the lower courts, and
ultimately make their way to the Supreme
Court for final determination. Your own
good sense, therefore, will at once suggest
eae irApropffety OF any unofficial declaration
OF opinion upon them by me.
regret exceedingly to learn that intem-
perance is so extensively prevailing in your
beautiful city, so long my home-that weak
ness and folly there enter SO largely into the
COupOSltlOH vi Huuldu ndluIe, auu tudJ ulOr-
al influence is so powerless. Those of you
with whom l have the pleasure of an ac-
quaintance, will excuse me in saying that
endeavor to make my own, and the lives of
the members of my family, illustrations of
personal regard for temperance, and that
have an interest equal to that of the average
of men, in the maintenance of order and
well-being in community, and no motive to
encourage the contrary. But, in my judg-
ment, no temporary inconvenience, or partial
short-lived disorder, can be weighed against
a iudicially sanctioned invasion of the con-
stitution. Hence my course upon the liquor
act in question. | regret also, that law, as
might have been the case, within the consti-
tuition, was not passed by the Legislature of
1855, that, efficiently enforced, would have
remeded the evils of which you complain,
and [ look, as doubtless you do, anxiously to
the session of 1857 to give us the boon so
earnestly to be wished.
With sentiments of the highest esteem,
yours &c. 5. L. PERKINS.
Miss MARTHA w. BRowN and Others Com.
RICHMOND, Ind.