Staunton spectator and vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1896-1916, 1909-07-16
Governor Patterson on the Liquor

III wi 4eiSSG1Ohs
To the Honorable Members of the Sen
ate and House of Representatives
AS Governor, I transmit the follow
ing message for your consideration or
the liquor question:
Prohibition is fundamentally and
profoundly wrong as a governmental
policy, and in country where the
largest measure of freedom of action is
accorded the individual it becomes in
tolerable.
For a State, through its making
power TO attempt to control what the
people shall eat and drink and wear,
except to see that they are protected
from imposition, is tyranny and not
liberty.
No State has yet attempted to forbid
what a man should eat, but pure food
laws are necessary to see that what he
eats is not adulterated or Misbranded
and that he obtains what he wants
without substitution or deceit by the
dishonest manufacturer or dealer.
No State has yet attempted by law
to prescribe the manner of dress for
the people, but it would be competent
for the State to provide by law that
the goods should be properly marked
SO as to prevent imposition.
No State has attempted TO force the
people not to use certain kinds of med
icines or to use certain others, but it
can and ought to have all medicines
properly labeled so as to prevent fraud
All such meddling and vexatious
laws ceased in England with the
growth OF constitutional government
and when the rights OF man were firm
ly established upon the basis of indi-
vidual liberty and conscience.
They passed in our country when in
tolerance and early fanaticism gave
way to advancing religious freedom,
and the Constitution of our own coun-
try was framed for self-governing
people, who reserved to themselves
and guaranteed with one another the
rights and privileges of freemen.
But the attempt has been made by
prohibitory laws relating to drink to
forbid the manufacture or sale of LIQUOR
The claim is made that the use of
liquor produces drunkenness, vice, and
crime, and that public morals, the
welfare of the individual and of the
State would be bess conserved by it's
total abolition
1t is also said that because of the
appalling consequences which often
follow the incorporate use of liquor,
that legislation Oh this subject is to be
differentiated from legislation on the
other subjects, and is not only justifia-
BILE, but desirable and necessary.
While having great respect for this
opinion shared by so many of our peo-
pie, am still convinced that any at
tempt by legislation to abolish the
manufacture and sale of liquor is abor-
tive, in that it does not accomplish
the result hoped for, and, again, that
it violates the plainest and most obvi-
GUS rule of individual action and per-
SonaI freedom.
Ii we can legislate against the man.
ufacture and sale of liquor because it
often produces crime and frequently
becomes hurtful to the individual and
society, can we not also legislate
against the manufacture and sale OF
tobacco or poisonous drugs; and if we
begin such legislation, where is it to
end?
Shall we prohibit the manufacture
and sale of liquor to all the people be-
cause some, by reason of incorporate
use, ruin themselves?
Shall we so legislate that man who
uses it moderately and without injury
to himself and others shall be wholly
deprived of it's use because another
uses 1t immoderately?
Shall the sick not use it, if the ply
stefan prescribes it, because some who
are well will abuse it?
Shall its manufacture and sale be
wholly forgidden by law without re-
gard to its proper use or abuse?
To do this is both unwise and de-
structive.
The use or non-use of liquor should
be left to the individual.
In my conception of popular govern
nent and the relation of the individu-
al to society, it is just as much an in
vasion OF personal liberty to attempt
by law to forbid its use as it is by law
to forbid the use of anything else.
Character in the individual is not
made by prohibition or the withdraw
| ing of temptation, but by resistance to
temptation. The scheme of God in the
redemption of man has not been to
take from him temptation, but to leave
| him free TO resist; and as he resists, so
| will be his reward.
Shall we destroy property to make
| men honest?
Shall we abolish the manufacture of
gunpowder because men sometimes
use it to murder their fellow men?
Can we make men virtuous by law,
or is it only through law, or is it only
through education, Christian infiu-
ence, and the growth of intelligence,
consciousness, and responsibility In
man himself?
The answer is but one, and that is
that man must work out his own des-
tiny under human law, as he must his
own salvation under divine law.