The Lambertville record. [volume] (Lambertville, N.J.) 1872-1968, 1885-06-24
PROHIBITION AND LIBERTY.
DE- IonN nAsooM. d. n.

| '0'e''S"t " WtSc0HStB ct0te CHtcSFStty,
There is good deal said which is neith-
er wise nor discriminating about indi-
vidual rights and individual liberty. So
ciety first asserts itself, and often with
but little regard for it's members. Hence
there comes in due time reaction against
society, in which the individual claims
his rights and more than his rights, stand
| ing on the defensive before the State.
We are in the full swing of this reaction
Our theories of society often make the
individual the sole primitive source of
rights. Society and the individual have
each primitive and relatively independent
rights, that seek harmony and may be
harmonized under one law-that of mo-
rality; toward one end, the general we'll
being. Powers capable of beneficent ex-
ercise, no matter where they exist, carry
with them rights. Ten men acting in
concert have more power than any one
man, and by virtue of this power have
new duties and new rights. Society gives
birth to many and great powers, capable
OF various and manifold service and these
powers carry with them the right of ex-
ercise.
Liberty wisely used must mean tho en-
largement of powers. He is the freest
who possesses the most and highest pow
ers in successful exercise. The freedom
of the individual, therefore, can not be
won without that of The State. The larger
share OF our activities comes to us through
our relation to others. If society does not
advance, we can not advance. When our
powers are not given us by society, the
field for their exercise is given us, and
the primitive endowment and acquired
use are inseparable. Each man is strong
in himself and strong in the community
aud nation to which he belongs. There is
here at the very bottom no conflict, though
it takes much wisdom, in the confusion
incident to the slow steps of progress, to
see this fact. Society can not be strong
save through the strength of its members,
and the loss of any member is the loss to
1t of corresponding strength. The indi-
vidual can not be strong save through So
ciety, and any weakness in society in-
evitably becomes, in great variety of
ways, his weakness. Each of these two
terms in well-being has the right of de-
velopment in connection with, and in full
respect for, the other. The law, like that
OF the household, is not one of the subor-
dination of either party to the other but
of the concurrence of both parties in COM
mon gains. If the individual can not seek
his highest liberty, then the units which
are to make up the aggregate value of So
ciety become ciphers. If society can not
also do for itself unhesitatingly and con-
stantly ali that its own interests wisely
interpreted call for, progress is first made
sporadic, then impossible. Society IN de-
stroying itself destroys the individual
who is dependent on it. With this fact
of the solidarity of society steadily in
view, the solution of the problem of pro-
hibition is not difficult.
drinks is to limit individual action; so,
for that matter, is the entire criminal code
restriction of individual liberty. The
true question to be asked is, does the sale
of intoxicants increase the grand aggre-
gate Of physical and spiritual powers 10
the individual and in society of which we
are all partakers If it does not, it ought
to be restrained, and that, too, in behalf
of individual and social liberty with which
it interferes. II sober community is
capable of higher development than one
subject to the vice of intemperance, then
every man in it is also made capable of a
superior possession of powers, of more
liberty; and to withhold the needed egis-
lation is as If the State should refuse to
prohibit theft. The individual can not
attain his own powers save with and by
the power of the State; and IL the State
halts, the rank and file halt with it.
Says an influential paper: ain view of
existing social usages, 1t would probably
be great blessing to society if abstinence
from all intoxicants were generally prac-
ticed. But while to seek this end by ar
gument and persuasion is q noble mis-
sion, to attempt to reach it by physical
force is the most odious and irritating of
tyrannies. Physical force here stands
for prohibition. The doctrine of the
statement is that society may become sub
ject, in the social conditions which it
maintains, to the interest of its inferior
members, even If these are the minority.
If intoxicating drinks are sold in a com
munity the entire character of that com.
munity is and must be altered. Unfayor.
able physical, social, and spiritual condi-
lions are put upon every member of it,
and this, under the assertion of the free
dom of trade; that is to say, innumerable,
far-reaching, and higher powers, which
pure and cultivated life calls for, are
sacrificed in behalf of the liberty to sell
freely one article; which liberty itself is
the liberty to do base moral act. Or, IL
1t be said, that those who wish to use
these drinks temperately are interfered
with by prohibition, the answer is forth.
coming, that this is not the object, but
the incident of prohibition; and the ques-
ton becomes-the facts being of that
complex character which prevents us from
gaining any good without some evil
whether it is better that portion of the
community shall be narrowed in their
legitimate appetites, or all men shall
spend their lives and bring up their house.
holds under unfortunate and even disas-
trous social and spiritual conditions2
The solidarity of society must not be
overlooked for an instant in this question.
One of two things must be: intemperance
with its lower liberty, or temperance with
its higher liberty. Between these we
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