The Jackson standard. [volume] (Jackson C.H., Ohio) 1847-1888, 1874-10-01
INTOXICATING LIoUoRs


INTOXICATING LIQUORS.
Another issue squarely made between
the parties respects the traffic in intoxi-
eating liquors. The Republican party.
believing that an intelligent and virtuous
people will best appreciate and most eal-
ously maintain republican institutions,
assert it to be the right and duty of gov
ernment to promote the moral and mate
rial welfare of the State by encouraging
a system of common schools, and diffu-
sion of general knowledge, to secure these
ends. On the same principle and for like
reason it believes, and its platform ex-
pllcltly declares it to be the right and
duty OF the State to employ the extent OF
Its constitutional powers in the restraint
OF. intemperance and its causes, which it
regards inimical alike to intelligence,
and virtue, and whatever else promotes
the moral and material welfare of society
and the safety of its institutions.
Inc democratic party, protesting the
promotion OF temperance to be its policy
and object, hosts the banner of license
so recently stricken down, and offers for
It's mode of securing this end to give the
sanction of law and the protection of the
Constitution to the cause whence intem-
perance springs. Defeated in the recent
ond expression of popular opinion, where
in it will have the advantage of political
ties and affnities from which to draw
support that it could not otherwise re-
celve. The success of the Democratic
ticket Will be interpreted as such express
sion, to secure which party machinery,
party cohesion, and the party LASH is to
be employed. Temperance men should
understand and appreciate the signif-
canoe and Importance of this ISSUE and
not allow this political strategy of license
to ensnare them into giving favorable
expression by voting for the men who
are now carrying its banner.
AS 1 chance to be the author of the
temperance plank in the Republican
platform, L may be pardoned for saying a
word about it. 1t is as it was intended to
be-a terse, but distinct, clear and un-
qualified expression in favor of not only
the right, but the duty of society and the
State to restrain intemperance and the
causes of intemperance, to the extent and
by the rational employment of whatever
powers the Constitution confers.
believe this to be right. The impov-
erishment of home, the squalor and
wretchedness of destitution, the corrupt
ing of youth, the brutalizing Of manhood,
the heart-bleedings of filial, parental and
connubial anguish, are effects of intem-
perance which society has the right to
avert to the extent of its legitimate pow
ers. This involves no interference with
individual liberty. So use your own as
not to lnjure another, is the great maxim
of law. | have no right to furnish weap-
ons, having reason to suppose they will
be used for suicide l have no right to
furnish poison, having reason to suspect
1T will be used for selfdestruction. On
the same principle, am denied the right
OF furnishing the means of impoverishi
home, infiicting destitution, corrupting
youth, or brutalizing manhood, to which
selt-destruction is often to be preferred.
10 prevent me from doing SO but pre-
vents me from injuring another; inter-
feres with no legitimate liberty.
The limit of Constitutional power has
never been judicially determined Where
1t will be fixed l do not presume to say
The present laws have been held consti-
tutlonal. Others more efficient no doubt
would be, if the instrument be properly
interpreted. But if the champions of
free traffic get possession of the supreme
bench, they may make the limit very
narrow. 1t is of tt utmost Importance, |
therefore, that men be maintained in |
Judicial position, who will decide what
the powers of the constitution are, not
what their personal appetites would have
them. But surely none are so visionary |
as to think that the present Constitution, |
or any that ever may be framed, will IS
sumo to interfere with or control yhe /
right of the citizen to use whatever beT-
erage to him may seem good, so long as
he does no injury thereby to himself or
others. His limbs are free, but not to
intiict injury, His tongue is free but not
to defame. His appetite is free, but not
to cause hurt or nuisance to himself or
his neighbor. In case of wrongful use
society has the right to interfere, not
otherwise This is legitimate liberty, |
To the extent of restraining such injury
and prohibiting others from furnishing
the means to inhict it, the law may right
fully interfere.
1t is objected that this is sumptuary
legislation Not so, unless the restraint
of poisons, the prohibition of unwhole-
some food. the inhibition of opiates or
the thousand laws against other agencies
of human destruction or decay be classi-
he'd as sumptuary. But suppose it is;
then is not a license law sumptuary. Its
professed purpose as declared by its adj |
vocates is to restrain the quantity and
regulate the quality of intoxicants; to |
designate tho -e who shall engage in the |
traffic, cls lssses @ persons to whom |
they shs.4 % sold, N q word to limit /
saee ..a-,2 and dUE.1.sh intemperance |
oy s1esc .ocoe OF sy9.2geEcy.
A license Jaw therefore is in the high I
est sense SumpJuarY, If laws operating /