, 1870-02-27
TEMPERANCE RxFoRM AND RRFoRM-
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abolition o{ intemperance. A personal T.
lust1ation may sometimes, as in this case,
enforce truth With much greater power
and distinctness than columns Of argument.
Mr.. Garrison has lived to Bee the four mill
ions Of slaves endowed with all the rights
and privileges Of freemen and citizens as
the result OF all the efforts, moral. and
material, made in SO many ways
On their behalf. But in that
other cause In which he, with
30 many others, has labored with no 1eaa
zeal and pezsistenoy, appealing both to tha
moral sensa Of the people and to legisA-
ton, IN every way that could bs brought to
bear upon it, there has been no such posi- |
tire result. Good, undoubtedly, has cone
Of it. The evil consequences Of inteuper~
anee and it's dAnRcra arc lar more roanifest
now than they were a. quarter OF century |
ago; the habits Of the people and the die
changed That drinking is NO longer held to
be ono Of the marks Of good breeding or
necessity Of society. And this realy is the
chief good attained-that he who chooses,
for any reason, to abstain from drinking
can do 10 without being marked as one who
holds himself above or aside from the hab-
its Of his fellows, So far there ia q gain,
and by no means small one. But it is all. |
There is not dtunkard the less in thu |
whole country than there was thirty years
ago, and probably not one whit less drink
in1. Il is just as fashionable and custom
ary as it ever wss, Though it is voluntary
and not compulsory, and only those abstain
from it who do SO from conscientious mo-
tiyea, or Who know that, from constitutions
al weakness OF hareditary tendency, their
oulE safety is in total ahstinence.
Now, for this failure Of the temperance
movement there must be reason. So
much zeal, 80 much 6e1f.denfal, so much
eloqnenee, 80 much Learning, such earnest
appeals for 40 many years to The conscience
Of a people, hare not borne the f1ait they
ought to have borne, nor produced the TO-
suits that similar efforts have produced on
other moral and social questions. And tho
reason that all this work has been in vain.
80 far as the end striyen for il concerned,
! must be because it has been mis-:
directed. The mistake has been in con-
founding total abstinence with temperance;
in assuming that man could not be tenn
perata who drank at al; in ignoring tho
fact that stimulants are natural want
and IN proposing to check excess by pro
hihiting the qualification Of the want in
stead Of seeking to regulate it. Tbs
question fs no longer ona Of abstract
reason but Of fact aud experience. There
wns a given thing to do; ample time and
ample appliances have been given in
which and BY which the thing was to be
done and the result is total failure.
And it is a total failure because the given
thing vas an impossible thing, AID no time
and no appliances can ever bring it to pass.
We are not at all sangufne, however, that
the temperance people, par ezeelenee, will
SEQ their mistake, or, II they sec it, that
they will acknowledge 1t. Nor ere We par
dau1arly disposed 70 find faul. with them
for that, for that would be finding
fault with the constitution oi
The human mind. It il useless
to argue with xrongheadedness, and, as the
world is never free of it, it finds retug.
always in questions which have ctystallizet
:. into Oausee- These advocates Of the Caust
must go their way, and while we are thank
, fnl for the good they hare done, such as i
is, the real question comes back again, ani
: other people must deal with an acknowledges
svil, and End, If they can, remedy. Ant
that remedy is, we most sincerely. believe
: not in banishing from the community al
: stimulating drinks whstsyer, but in pro
- III il ~ AMMk