New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1868-07-05

community from the terrible evils
,conseo 5sAnt uDon its continuance.
1t does not make the sale unlawful
when the article is to be used FOR
medicinal or mechanical purposes,
but by stringent provisions limits the
sale to these uses, directing the ap-
peintment of agents therefor, who are
placed under bonds to conform strictly
to the provisions of the statute. Pro-
hibition, exclusion, outlawry, and not
protection or regulation-this, then,
is the grand principle of the Maine
law, armed with a sufficient number of
minor provisions to give force and
certainty to the principle. Nearly
all previous legislation had proceeded
upon the assumption that the traffic
was an evil to be regulated, which is
the theory of the license system.
Tnis Maine law, proceeds upon the
assumption that it is an evil to be sup
pressed or removed altogether. 1t is
the ''summit-leyel of entire prohibit
ton" -a7 r, .ina- srci..a- oit Is,
The principle of the Maine law is
the only. one adapted to the result.
theoretically the question is a very
simple one. Intemperanee and its evils
depend on two causes: the supply of
intoxicating, beverage, and the con-
sumption. Remove either and the
| vice is dead. There is difficulty in
directly attacking the consumption by
law in saying to man under the sol
lemnity of statute that he shall not
make use of alcoholic beverage. This
would be a kind of sumptuary
legislation likely to defeat itself, i'm
practicable in its operations, and at
war with those notions of personal
liberty which are so thoroughly rooted
in the American mind. Hence, if the
arm of the Law is to be interposed at
all it must operate upon the supply,
and this is the direction of all the leg
islation that has ever been attempted
on the subject. The supply is the
only point where law can make its
agency felt. \. ,,.r
In respect, then, to the supply you
may take one Of three grounds. The
first is to have no law on
the subject, leaving every man
to manufacture or sell as much
as he pleases, to conduct the
liquor business just as he does any
other that is neither regulated nor
restrained by law. Upon its face this
is no remedy, and leaves the whole
matter to the instincts of profit and
appetite. A man may advocate this
ground; yet he will not be so absurd
as to call it a remedy.
The second ground is that of reguta-
ton, which is the license system in its
different phases. This system admits
that the traffic is an evil too serious to
be open to all, and that it must there
fore be limited to few persons
licensed by law to conductit, and pro-
tected by law in doing so. Now it is
a sufficient objection to this system to
say that in practical effect it is, ever
has been and always must be, a fall
ute. It has been tried in various
forms, and for long series of years;
and this has been the uniform
result. 1t never did and never
can reach the evil, as the most
abundant facts conclusively show.
Though it professedly undertakes
to limit the number of the suppliers.
it does not limit the supply. This
keeps pace with the demand, and by
generating an appetite creates and
increases that demand. 1t is the So
Der truth, that under every form of
the license system there has always
been liquor enough in market to sup
ply all the drinkers who want it and
can pay for it. The system, there
fore, amounts to nothing as rem
edy; it creates monopoly to do a
bad business, on the pretense of lin
iting it, without accomplishing this re-
suit. 1t protects, by legalizing, the
evil it seeks to ourtail. Under it
grogshops, especially in cities, are al
most as thick as loousts of Egypt, at
all times sufficient in number to keep
the drinkers perfectly supplied.
The third ground is that of the
Maine liquor law and, as we have
already said, it is total prohibition
of the supply, except when the article
is to be used for medicinal or mechan-
ieal purposes. Its penalties, in the
way Of fines, confscation, and
Imprisonment, ~ are intended to
be sufficiently searching and
severe to carry this point. II is a
thorough, radical, and stringent effort
to destroy the liquor traffic, and in
this way dry up the fountain whence
issue the desolating streams of in
temperance. 1t proposes no terms
with the business; it makes no COM
promise with it. Its deliberate and
undisguised aim is destruction, and
not regulation or liberation. ara.
Now, it must be evident to every re-
Aeeting mind that this kind Of legisla-
tion,sn we have any, is of the right
sort. Il is adapted, as no other has
been and no other can be, to the work,
so far as law can do it at all. If YOU
want to have intemperance tolerated
and continued, then the present license
system will answer the purpose; but
if you wish to Danish the vice by re-
moving its means, then the Maine
liquor law, or some other one of sim
liar aim and stringency, must be the
instrument. You can not reach the
result without the use of law; neither
can you do SO by any system of legis-
lation that falls short Of this mark. If
we have legal remedy we must have
one that viii do the work, and this