National Republican. (Washington City (D.C.)) 1872-1888, 1874-03-11

AsAo sAAe P0"SI VI Pu1eiy WOI1l luca. W.
refer, Of course, to the temperance move-
ment While 1t is impossible to define the
difference between political legislation for
the good Of the people and moral legisla-
tion for their physical and mental benefit,
It Is nevertheless true that difference
exists. We may say that laws are made
for the protection of all and to guarantee
certain rights and privileges to the gov
erned. When this Is said the definition of
political legislation is given. But when
we 60 further than this. and attempt to
legislate for the government of indi-
vidual appetites and habits upon the ground
that the public morals would receive bene-
ut. we are apt to trench upon the rights and
privileges guaranteed by purely political
legislation. 1t may be argued that it is the
duty of national as well as State and mu-
nicipal legislators to make laws to protect
and advance public morals; but the ques-
ton arises in answer to this argument, how
far can this legislation be carried without
affecting individual rights! and weare COM
PEELED to admit that each Individual is to 3
certain extent the competent judge of his
own personal morality. The bran-bread
vegetarians may insist that the use of meat
as an article of food is physically injurious.
while the beer-drinking Germans, peace
able. and proverbially god citizens, may
insist that lager and sourkrout are proper
articles of diet. The meat-eatcrs and the
teetotallers are at once arrayed against both
of these classes, and we begin to find our
selves drifting toward prohibition against
coffee drinking or the use Of stimulants of
any kind. Thus the definition of immo-
ralify and its causes, be they physical or
mental, Influenced either by drinking or
eating. becomes sadly confused. While it
must be admitted that drunkenness is the
leading cause Of crime in any community,
1t is also true that certain classes of habitual
drinkers rarely overstep the bounds of
orderly citizenship. Merriment, social en-
joyment, of the less refined kind perhaps,
and good nature, are induced by the habits
ofmoderate drinkers, and where one crime
is committed under the influence of liquor
thousands of good deeds are provoked by it.
But that one crime outweighs the thousands
of good deeds. ...
The arguments on both sides of this ques-
ton, however, are inexhaustible, and the
question at issue cannot possibly be effected
by them. That question is simply whether
the Republican party can afford to respond
favorably to the apparent design of the pro-
hibitionists to accept their theories as part
and parcel of its political faith. Made up,
as we have explained the party to be, of re-
formers and theorists. the struggle to force
this acceptance will not be an idle issue. 1t
is now pending in its earlier stages before a
Republican Congress. The bill to appoint
a liquor commission now before the House
is. as we have explained, the incipient step.
We have before this discussed its constitu-
tional aspect, and now allude to it merely as
a question Of party policy. The enactment
of the law will be treated as an initiatory
Endorsement by the anti-temperance people
of the entire project. They will conse-
quently hinge upon it arguments to show
that the party intends to infringe upon indi
vidual rights, and we shall hear great hue
and cry about sumptuary laws. The moral
benefits intended by the bill will be ignored
and the selfishness of the people will be ap
pealed to for reasons to prove that the party
tendency is in the direction of tyrannical
The answer to these argu-
ments that Congress will not dare to violate
the rights of States by assuming to legislate
in interference of State prerogatives will be
by the query, why, then, do you
expend thousands of dollars in q purpose
less investigation?