Arizona republican., 1908-04-04
FOLLY OF PROHIBITION.
WHAT EMINENT MEN SAY.
 Thomas Jefferson.

Thomas Jefferson.
 Our legislators are not sufficiently apprised of the rightful limits of their power; that their true office is to de- clare and enforce only our natural rights and duties. and take none of them from us. No man has a natural right 10 commit aggression on the equal rights of another; and this is all from which the law ought to restrain him: every man is under the natural duty of contributing to the necessities of society. and this Is all the laws ought tO enforce on him: and no man having a natural right to be the judge between himself and another, it is his natural duty to submit to the umpir- age of an impartial third. When the laws have declared and enforced all this. they have fulfilled heir functions and the idea is quite unfounded that on entering into society we give up any natural right"
 Abraham Lincoln.
 Prohibition will work great injury to the cause of temperance. It is a species of intemperance within itself for it goes beyond the bounds of reason in that il attempts to control a mans appetite by legislation. and in making crimes out of things that are not crimes. A prohibition law strikes blow at the very principles on which our government was founded. I have all ways been found laboring to protect the weaker classes from the stronger, and I never can give my consent to such law as you propose to enact Until my tongue shall be silenced in death. l will continue to fight for the rights of men"
 Horatio Seymour.
 T owe it to the subject and to the friends of the measure to add the eX- pression of my belief that intemper- ance cannot be extirpated by prOhibi- tory laws; they are not consistent with sound principles of legislation. Like decrees to regulate religious creeds, or forms of worship. they provoke resis- tance where they are designed 10 force obedience. The effort to suppress in- temperance by unusual and arbitrary measures proves that the legislature is attempting tO do that which is not within its province tO enact or it's power to enforce. All experience shows that temperance. like other vir tues. is not produced by lawmakers but by the influence of education. mo- rality and religion"
 General U. S. Grant
 T know from my own experience that when I was at West Point the fact that tobacco in every form was pro- hibited. and the mere possession of the weed severely punished. made ma jority of the cadets. myself included try to acquire the habit of using it."
 Samuel J. TIden.
 'It is no part of the duty of the state to cOerce the individual man. ex- cept SO far as his conduct may effect others: not remotely and consequent tially. but by violating rights which legislation can recognize and under take to protect. The opposite principle leaves no room for individual reason and conscience, trusts nothing to self culture and substitutes the wisdom of the senate and assembly for the plan of moral government ordained by pro- vidence. The whole progress of socie- ty consists in learning how to attain by the independent action or voluntary association of individuals those ob- jects which are at first attempted only through the agency of government and in lessening the sphere Of legislation and enlarging that of the individual reason and conscience"
 John Quincy Adams.
 Forget not. pray you. the right of personal freedom. lf-government is the foundation of all our political and social institutions, and it is by self