Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1859-04-27
no AnVERTIsERs.
THE DECISION OF THE SUPREME COURT.

THE DECISION OF THE SUPREME COURT.
The decision of the full bench in the Rock
port case, which, last year, excited much in
terest in our own community, as well as
throughout the State, was given at the session
of the Court at Salem, yesterday, and is pub
lished in another column. 1t will be seen that
the ruling of Chief Justice Shaw, made sub
ject to the opinion of the whole Court that
common nuisances may be abated by any citi-
zen, is reversed purely upon questions of law.
The high character and the distinguished ability
which are represented upon the bench of that
Court would commend their decision upon any
legal question to the favorable consideration OF
the people of this Commonwealth. The de-
csion in this case will not constitute an ex-
ception
There are, however, some general reasons,
foreign to the contemplation of the Court,
but of interest to all citizens who desire
to see all things done decently and in order,
which seem to give this important decision
peculiar claims to the approval of right
minded men. In our imperfect society and
daily life, there are many things which they
cannot fail to regard with unaffected sorrow,
and, which are, nevertheless, confessedly be-
yond the limits that, in every well-regulated
and well-governed state, are established to de-
fine individual power. Moral and social
wrongs cannot be successfully opposed by the
means which are used in repeling personal
assaults or in removing Instructions upon the
highway. The promiscuous and indiscrimi-
nate sale of intoxicating liquors, resting, like
all other social evils, with its heaviest bur
dens upon the poor, and infiicting inJur-
les which cannot be estimated upon whole
communities, cannot be destroyed by cembina-
tons of individuals acting independent of
laws made for the sake of accomplishing by
peaceful and judicial means the same object
which they approach with the bad example OF
violence and disorder. The sober judgement
of every citizen accords with the invincible
ministered and applied.
There is in all enlightened communities
such an instructive aversion to the mob spirit,
that they can never be tolerated except in
cases of direct invasion of individual rights
and personal safety. As society natures, and
wise laws are established to meet all reasona-
Bile dangers to which its members are exposed,
the necessity of force diminishes. Force is
the especial and approved agency of barbarous
and semi-civilized states 1t is the power
which is used alternately to turn men into
slaves, and to make tyrants tremble. But in
towns and villages like those which unite to
form our proud Commonwealth, all of which
are, in theory at least, governed by the wisest
and the best men, what absurdity, and what
folly it is, to provoke, or to participate in
measures of violence against general evils,
which the representative Judgment of the
State has already regulated by law
There are other considerations. We ven
ture to say that there is. not town in Massachu-
sets, where evidence, sufficient to palliate
the violent breaking up of dram shops by in
dignant neighborhoods or vigilance committees,
would not, when brought to the notice of the
proper authorities, convict every rumseller
within its limits. And that public opinion
which could look on with unmoved complacen-
oy while excited people were destroying NUS
ances with clubs, would be strong enough by
the force of its moral power to remove every
temptation from the reach of the unwary, and
those who are ready to fall
We have been accustomed to look upon
those communities in which wrongs have to be
abated by wrong-doing as governed by the
most depraved and deplorable influences.
There is something exceedingly foul in the
moral atmosphere Of those places in which the
weapons of savages are common weapons of
redress or defence. Such things were tolera-
ted in the early history of California They
were last year displayed in New Orleans, and
within twenty-fo hours street murder has
been declared by the courts in Washington
very proper and justifable substitute for the
operations of law. But here in Massachusetts,,
with history as pure as any in the world,
with worthy and high-minded people of
which any State might be proud, with com
parative growth and maturity of public and
private morality which is justly text for an
nual Thanksgiving, what justification can be
found for appeals to violence as the first and
best means of redressing the temporary evils
under which we still suffer?