Syracuse University Library
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Gerrit Smith Broadside and Pamphlet Collection

Edward C. Delavan : Peterboro, May 18, 1857.

Smith, Gerrit, 1797-1874.

Digital Edition.

This digitization project was supported by Regional Bibliographic Databases and Interlibrary Resources Sharing Program funds, awarded by the New York State Library.

Call number: Smith 505

PETERBORO, May 18, 1857.

EDWARD C. DELAVAN,

MY DEAR SIR,

I have your letter urging me to attend the approaching meeting of the New York State Temperance Society. This pleasure is denied me, since I must be in Wisconsin at the time of the meeting.

You are deeply desirous that the Society shall take a right position in regard to the new liquor statute. So am I. I hope it will judge wisely of the merits of that statute, and candidly and kindly of the votes, that were given for it. Not a few of these votes came from men, who love the cause of temperance. Ay, not a few of them from men, who would rejoice as much as you and I in a "prohibitory law." They did what they thought to be the best thing they were capable, in existing circumstances, of doing for temperance. There are parts of this liquor statute, which I hope the Society will not fail to commend. No friend of temperance should refuse to help enforce its prohibition to sell intoxicating drinks on certain days. Nor should any friend of temperance refuse to stand by its provision for punishing the drunkard.

But, in my judgment, no friend of temperance can consistently give any countenance to that part of this statute, which provides for licensing persons here and there to sell intoxicating drinks. I might add that no intelligent person whatever can consistently give it any countenance.

Intoxicating liquors put on sale for a drink are either property, or not property. They are either property, or, as our "Maine Law" called them, a nuisance. If they are property, then, beyond all controversy, all persons have the right, and an equal right, to sell them. If, on the other hand, they are a nuisance, then in whosoever's hands they may be, nothing remains but to abate the nuisance. That courts do not act upon these principles is only because courts are more addicted to follow precedent than common sense. Why should they not boldly protect every man in selling intoxicating drinks? It is a shame that they should skulk behind a statute. They know that the right to sell is one of the incidents of property; and that, wherever the right of property is unconditional and perfect, this incident is inseparable from it. Hence they know, that the legislation, which denies this incident, is void - as utterly void as would be the legislation, which denies property. Every person, who believes that the rights of property attach to intoxicating liquors in all circumstances must, to be consistent, be opposed to this new statute. Of course, I can consistently approve it, so far as it denies the right to sell such liquors for a beverage - because I hold that all rights of property in them cease as soon as they are offered for sale for a beverage. That moment they become a nuisance. Before this perversion, they were as sacred as any other kind of property. Valuable uses might they have been put to. But now not one good, however small, is to come from them. Nothing now but woes innumerable, deep, matchless. The pistol, whilst in my pocket, is property. But the moment I take it in my hand, and give it a murderous aim, all property in it is lost: and you or any other bystander can wrest it from me, and destroy it with impunity. The day will come, when the public sentiment will accord as full liberty to destroy the intoxicating liquors, which are transformed into the deadliest of nuisances. I add here, that the day is just at hand, when the courts will feel compelled to say, that intoxicating liquors, when offered for sale for a drink, are still property, and may therefore be sold by all; or are not property, but a nuisance, and may therefore be sold by none. There can be no permanent middle ground. The sale of intoxicating drinks must be free either in all hands or none. Both rich and poor must be forbidden to sell them; or both must be allowed to sell them. What a shameful violation of equal justice to deny the right to a poor man, and accord it to his neighbor because he has money to pay for it !

Oh that the friends of temperance were faithful to their cause! How soon then it would be crowned with triumph! But, alas, it is well nigh vain to try to serve this dear cause, so long as its friends continue to betray it at the polls! If they would only resolve, and abide by their resolution, to give their votes to no men, who recognize the rights of property in intoxicating liquors put on sale for a drink, then would a few years witness the extensive redemption of our land from the curse of drunkenness. But so long as they shall continue to know as law, sacred obligatory law, the infernal statutes, or the infernal parts of statutes, which authorize the heart-breaking and murderous uses of intoxicating liquors, so long will they continue to dignify the dramshop, make the frequenting of it respectable, and drunkenness excusable. If your Meeting shall take the right ground at this point, it will bless the State, the nation, and the world. But if it shall fail to take it, then infinitely better that it had never been held.

The ignoring of the claims of temperance at the last Fall's Election was a crime, which many tears of penitence cannot washout. And how poor was the excuse, that in order to help freedom, temperance must be neglected! I too have some love of freedom. But I will let her perish, ere I will serve her at the expense of temperance. It is not true however, that we harm one good cause by helping another. On the contrary, if we would do most effectually for one good cause, we must be faithful to every other. Reformers must not be one-idea men. Their hearts must offer a home, and their hands must offer help, to every great truth. Their lives must be devoted to the whole circle of human interests.

The friends of temperance - I mean of prohibition - cannot be at too great pains to disabuse the public mind of the impression, that they are in favor of sumptuary laws. I would that they all confined the province of government to the sole duty of protecting persons and property - for then would they all be able to argue the rightfulness of prohibition. How clear is it that the government, which licenses or tolerates the dramshop, grossly and wickedly fails of protecting the persons and property of its subjects! The dramshop - call it a hotel, or by any other name - is a manufactory of paupers and madmen. A heavy burden for the sober to bear are these paupers. And what vessel, or car, or stage-coach, or building, or precious life is safe from the destructions, which rum-made madmen are dealing so constantly and thickly all around them? It is not alone when they have drank enough to stagger, that men are dangerous. The preternatural excitement, which the captain, engineer, or driver derives from but a single glass, may be sufficient to peril all the lives entrusted to his care.

Now, to say nothing of the duty of government to shield the industry of the sober from this burden of pauperism - how manifest its duty to suppress this manufacture of maniacs! Were shops to be opened for making madmen with exhilarating gasses, or by means of some other temptations, government would promptly shut them up. Why then does it not shut up the dramshops? Because it is accustomed to protect them; and the people are accustomed to the protection. Nothing so much as custom has the power to sanction and to blind.

Is it said that the drunkard ought not to be punished until he has actually committed crime? - and that therefore the drunkard-maker should not be punished? I reply that drunkenness is itself a crime - and a crime of which government should be especially cognizant. For it is when men are drunk, that they are wont to commit the most frightful crimes against person and property - against what government is charged to protect. Why then should not government punish, both in the drunkard and drunkard-maker, this parent crime? All other crimes put together do not, so much as this one, hinder the functions of government. The story goes, that a man was doomed to make himself guilty of one of three crimes. He chose drunkenness, as the least of them; and whilst drunk committed the other two, one of which was murder. In making himself crazy, one is rendered morally guilty of all crimes - for in so doing, he throws off all restraints, and leaves himself free to commit all crimes. Hence the employment of the dramseller is rightly called murderous, not only with reference to his murdering the body and soul of the dramdrinker, but also with reference to the possibility, not to say probability, that the dramdrinker will, whilst in his dramshop frenzy, murder others.

I would return for a moment to the misapprehension of the object of temperance legislation. The chief reason why our most intelligent emigrants from Germany are so much prejudiced against laws to restrain the sale of intoxicating drinks is because they confound them with sumptuary laws. Now, I would have them persuaded that all, which we prohibitionists ask of Government, we ask for the sole purpose of protecting persons and property - a protection, which the Germans need in com-

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mon with all other people; and which we are equally as desirous to have them as any other people enjoy. The New York State Temperance Society should be at especial pains to have its positions and objects clearly understood by the Germans. To my eye they are the most hopeful element in our whole American population. They will prove themselves to be the most radical, and trustworthy, and efficient friends of liberty. They will heartily embrace the cause of temperance, as soon as they are relieved of their prejudices against it. What is more, their independent thinking, and their subjection of the whole realm of religion to the tests of reason will, in the end, make them our best christians. For, after all, the christian, who thinks and decides for himself, and is unswayed by human authority - the rational christian, who builds up his faith at every point on simple reason - it is he, and he only, who is fit to be called a christian. Bigotry, superstition, mental slavery characterize all other christians.

By the way, I hear Germans complain of the classing of their light beers with intoxicating drinks. They ought not to be so classed, if people do not get drunk upon them. They ought not to be proscribed by law, if people do not become insane and dangerous upon them. In saying this however, let me not be understood to commend any beers. I, who have not so much as tasted even tea or coffee for a quarter of a century, have no praises to bestow on any other beverage than simple, water.

Your friend,

GERRIT SMITH.