Sword and shield. (Clinton, Miss.) 1885-1888, 1885-02-14
A New Departure.


When mariners have been long at
sea, they often find it necessary to
change their vessels course, in con-
sequence of adverse currents and
changing winds; and, like these,
the Temperance people who fist set
out on the track of mere moral
suasion have found the current Of
the people and the drift of the great
popular tide requiring them to go
into legal suasion arguments, exam
lining the right of the makers and
vendors of intoxicants to send forth
hurtful streams that fill the land
with vice and destitution. 1t is now
recognized as an established political
axiom that all powers draw their
right to govern from the consent of
the governed and that governments
have not the right to license or toll
crate any business that carries de
struction to the people. unless the
said people so will to be destroyed.
The making of dynamite, like the
making of whisky, was considered
right until it was found to be de-
structive to the lives and property
of the people. 1t is only after ex-
perlence declares thing deadly and
destructive to society that the law
making power begins to suppress
that thing.
Now, all are convinced that the
manufacture and sale of liquor both
are evils. We have tried to regu-
late 1t by license, but find it will not
regulate at all, and finding ourselves
thus situated, our next resource is
to prohibit its sale by legislation.
The friends of the traffic claim
that legislatures have no power to
touch it ar all, and yet law has been
touching and restricting it for full
quarter of century. Legislation
has already assumed the tight to
restrict it, to suspend its sale on
election days and in a thousand
places, and the question has long
cast itself into politics. Every ques
ton that appeals to political legisla-
lures or tribunals for settlement, be-
comes a political question by the
mere trying it before such a body.
The slave trade on the seas was not
a political but an international one /;
so, also, the one of piracy and priva-
teering; all of which went out before
higher growth Of moral opinion.
Domestic slavery was not interna-
tional. Our fathers strove to keep
it out of politics. Mr.. Calhoun
once observed, Slavery is going in
to politics North, and we will be
ruined whenever the people begin
to support their moral convictions
at the ballot-box." We tried hard
to keep slavery out, but
Although we lsbored day by day,
Our efforts would not win,
For every time twas showed away
1t but got deeper in.
No great question like Prohibi-
ton that now excites our people
from Erie to Ell Paso can be kept
out Of their politics. L. this State
no fewer than sixty-eight acts were
passed by the last session of the leg
islature, prohibiting the sale Of in
toxicants in different parts of the
State. This shows that the people
are in motion everywhere, that
liquor is an evil everywhere, and
that there is a powerful element
being arrayed against it everywhere.
Tell us people acting without the
concert Of organization, who have
thus honey-combed their Statute
Book with Prohibitory laws, will
not organize and bring their infu-
ence to bear at the ballot-box? Any
man who has discernment enough to
know hawk from a hand-saw'
knows this.
Petitions are the first indices, the
first finger points of reform, and a
people who petition will eventually
vote before the thing is over. We
| petitioned England prior to the
Revolution. then we whereased
then We resolved, and then We die
something else. We would o.
course have voted had we been con
stituted SO we could. Our people
now have petitioned their rulers t
relieve them from this dynamite
destroyer, and our petitions have
been noticed, but they are not sufh
ciently effective. There is an ire
pressibIe conflict between happines
and liquor, a conflict Of opposit,
and enduring forces and the ballot
box, is to be the "uhimG rati
regatm'' to settle the matter. Work