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Gerrit Smith Broadside and Pamphlet Collection

Government bound to protect from the dramshop : speech of Gerrit Smith, on...

Smith, Gerrit, 1797-1874.

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Call number: Smith 605

SPEECH

OF

GERRIT SMITH,

ON

SALE OF INTOXICATING DRINKS IN THE CITY OF

WASHINGTON.

IN CONGRESS, JULY 22, 1854.

Mr. MAY of Maryland. I am instructed, by the Committee on the Judiciary, to report adversely on the prayer of the New York Temperance Alliance, in reference to the prohibition of the sale of intoxicating liquors in Washington, and to move, that the report be ordered to be printed.

Mr SMITH. I move, that this report be recommitted, with instructions to report a bill, which shall clothe the city of Washington with express and ample powers to prohibit the sale of intoxicating drinks, in all places within its limits; and on this motion I propose to make some remarks.

It so happened. M. Speaker, that my first act on this floor, after taking the oath of office, was to present the memorial of the Temperance Alliance of the city of New York. That memorial pays Congress to empower the city of Washington to prohibit the sale of intoxicating drinks. I moved its reference to a select committee. This was objected to. It slept upon your table from that day, until the day last week on which I succeeded, though with much difficulty, in waking it up. With no less difficulty have I kept it awake, until this hour, when I am so fortunate, as to obtain the floor.

It may be thought, that the adverse report before us has preceded from enimity to the cause of temperance; and it is, therefore, due from me to say, that I know this is not so. The gentlemen of the Judiciary Committee, who are responsible for this report, sincerely desire the prosperity of the cause of temperance. For one, I cannot blame them for their inter-

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pretation of the charter of this city. I think it the only just interpretation. It is the same, that I would find myself have put upon it, had I been of their committee. I hold, that the liberty to license, irresistibly implies the liberty not to license; and that the word "regulate" covers the right to prohibit.

As you are aware, sir I make the limits of Government very narrow. And, yet, I find ample room between them for the doctrine of my motion. I admit, that Government is not the custodian of the people's morals; and that it is never to be called on to protect, still less to promote, the people's morals.

Government, according to my theory of Government, is not to do the work of the people. It is, simply, to protect the people in doing it. Government is but the great watch-dog of the people's house. It is ever to keep watch outside of that house: but it is never to come into it. It is never to mix itself up with the affairs of the people; but, whatever relation it may have to any of those affairs, is to be purely external. All that Government can legitimately do for its people, is to protect their persons and property. If it tries to do more for them, it will but harm, instead of helping them. Moreover, wherever there is a people, who, notwithstanding they are under the ample and effectual shield of a faithful Government, either cannot, or will not, do their own work, and take care of their own interests, both material and moral, there is a people, that Government cannot save; there is a people, that must perish.

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Were this the place for the usual style and topics of a temperance speech, I would dwell upon the horrors of drunkenness. I would begin my proofs and illustrations of these horrors, by summoning the drunkard himself. I would ask that unhappy being, in the language in which God asks him: "Who hath wo? who hath sorrow? who hath contentions? who hath babbling? who hath wounds without cause? who hath redness of eyes?" I would, then, turn to the wife of the drunkard, to inquire what is a drunkard; and to hear from her the answer: "Would that my husband were anything - nay, everything - but a drunkard!" And, then, to the mother of the drunkard, to hear her say: "Oh, that my child had grown up into any other monster of vice and wickedness that a drunkard!" And, then, I would appeal to the family, only one member of which is a drunkard, to hear that family reply: "Only one drunkard in a family is enough to make the whole family miserable!" I would, then, give opportunity to jails and penitentiaries to tell me, that a very large proportion of their inmates are drunkards; and then to the gallows, to tell me, that nearly every one of its victims is a drunkard. Finally, I would go to the Bible, to inquire what is a drunkard; and to listen to its awful response: "No drunkard shall inherit the kingdom of God."

Were this the place for the usual style and topics of a temperance speech, I would enlarge on the fact, that there are in our beloved country more than half a million of drunkards; and I would group along with them their wives, and children, and parents, and brothers, and sisters, to show, that drunkenness, makes millions of the American people miserable.

Were this the place for it, I would make much use of the fact, that the annual expense to our nation, from the vice of drinking intoxicating liquors, largely exceeds one hundred millions of dollars; and I would add, that, instead of doubting whether we have means adequate to the building of a railroad to the Pacific, we would, were the American people to abstain, for only two or three years, from drinking intoxicating liquors, save enough, by such abstinence, to build two or three railroads to the Pacific.

Were this the place for it, I would refer

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to the mighty hinderance, which this vice puts in the way of education, order, and every form of comfort, and of pure and true enjoyment. I would insist, that intoxicating drinks have much to do with the frequency of national wars, and, what is more than all else, that there is no other agency so mighty to block up the way of religion, and render it powerless, as the practice of drinking intoxicating liquors. There is no antagonism more decided and deadly than that between the spirit of Heaven, which alone can save the soul, and the spirit of the bottle, which is more effective than any other power to kill it.

Were this the place for it, I would endeavor to make it apparent, that total abstinence from intoxicating drinks is the only remedy for drunkenness, and the only sure protection from it. I would, in that case, expose the fallacy of the doctrine, that temperate drinking is friendly to sobriety, and is the cure and preventative of drunkenness, or is either.

Temperate drinkers claim great merit for their practice - great merit in it to serve the cause of temperance. These temperate drinkers are, by the way, a very self-complacent class of persons. They pride themselves on being the in medro tutissimus ibis - the juste milieu - class of persons; equally removed, on the one hand, from the vulgarity of drunkenness, and, on the other, from the cold-water fanaticism. Nevertheless, at the hazard of ruffling their self-complacency, I must tell them, that they are more injurious than drunkards themselves to the cause of temperance. In print of fact, drunkards are helps to the cause of temperance, instead of being obstacles in its way. Why, our half million of drunkards are our half million strongest arguments for the necessity of total abstinence! Indeed, I would, that no person were able to drink intoxicating liquors, without immediately becoming a drunkard. For who, then, would drink it, any sooner than he would drink the poison, that always kills, or jump into the fire, that always burns? It is because so many, who drink intoxicating liquor, escape drunkenness, that so many are emboldened to drink it. I said, that drunkards serve the cause of temperance. I appeal to mothers for the truth of it. Mothers! When you would most effectually admonish your children not to drink

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intoxicating liquors, do you not point them to this, that, and on the other drunkard? And so long as your children keep their eyes on these beacons, they take not one step in the pathway, which leads to the drunkard's grave and the drunkard's hell. But the danger is, that they will avert their eyes from these beacons, and fasten them on the long and attractive train of sober, respectable, temperate drinkers, and follow them. There is not one youth in this city whose habits are perilled by the presence and influence of drunkard - for the example of the drunkard is too bad to be contagious. On the contrary, there is not one youth in this city, whose habits are not in peril from the example of temperate drinkers. Alas, how many a temperate father has made drunkards of his sons, at his own table! - at his own table, adorned with decanters of wine - it, indeed, that can be called wine, which is, so generally, a vile mixture, continuing little, or no, wine! Alas, how seductive is the way to drunkenness in fashionable life! And why, therefore, do we wonder, that fashionable life is filled with drunkards? To the confiding and unwary youth who is just entering on his career of liquor drinking, how polite, attractive, and altogether unalarming are the drinking usages of fashionable life! These usages are commended by the brilliant wit and fascinating song, that are so often associated with them: and, more pernicious than all, are the smiles of beauty, with which they are too often garlanded. Surely, it is not strange, that, in these circumstances, this youth should sop a little wine. Nevertheless, it is at the fountain-head of all his wo and all his ruin, that his hopeful, happy youth has now, taken his stand. He, very soon, learns to drink his full glass. He, very soon, learns to quaff his wine, like a gentleman. "Like a gentleman!" Oh, what variety of ruin is convened over by this winning phrase! These, however, are but the first steps in the way of drunkenness, which our tempted youth has taken. His drunkenness is, as yet, but the little rill, which meanders through pleasant fields and flowery gardens. By and by, he drinks

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several glasses at his dinner, and, a little way further on, he likes brandy, as well as wine. That rill, of which we spoke, has now become a river, that is bearing him to his ruin: - so gently, however, that he is scarcely sensible of the motion. Nevertheless, he is still sage in its own eyes, and in the eyes of others. But time passes on. His appetite grows every year, and every month, and every day. His potations become stronger and deeper, and more frequent. All now see, that he is a drunkard. The gentle river is swollen into a raging torrent, that is hurrying its freight - its still precious, though temporally and eternally ruined freight - into the abyss, from which there is no return.

Such is the end of this youth, whom we chose as the type of innumerable millions. How easily he might have been saved from all these transformations and all this ruin of the Circean cup, had a friendly hand led him, whilst yet he could be led, to the immovable rock of total abstinence! There, and there only, he would have been safe from all the woes, which threaten every liquor-drinker. So long, as his feet remained planted upon that rock, he might have exclaimed: "A thousand shall fall at my side, and ten thousand at my right hand; but it shall not come nigh me. I am safe."

But some, who hear me, may be ready to ask: "What has Congress to do with all this, which I have been saying?" We will pass on, then, without any further delay, to a question, with which Congress certainly has to do. This question is not, whether Government may undertake to promote the cause of temperance - for I have, virtually, admitted it may not. But it is, whether Government must not do its duty, at every point, and even at that point, where the doing of its duty helps incidently the cause of temperance? To explain myself, I hold, that the suppression of the sale of intoxicating drinks is indispensable to the protection of person and property; and is, therefore, the manifest duty of Government. At the same time, I admit, that the suppression is important, yes, indispensable, to the success of the cause of temperance. Now, must Government forbear the suppression, in order to avoid rendering an incidental benefit to

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the cause of temperance? Surely, not for that reason, all will say. But I shall be called on to prove, that such suppression is needful to the protection of person and property. I hold, that it is, because the sale of intoxicating drinks is, by far, the most fruitful source of pauperism and madness - nay, more fruitful of these evils than all other sources put together. Indeed, I cannot better define a dramshop than to call it a manufactory of paupers and madmen: and this is a just definition, whether we have reference to the filthy, noisy hole, where the poor and humble slaves of appotite congregate, or to the elegant apartment, which is made attractive to the circles of wealth and fashion. Moreover, I charge the same character on the stores and distilleries, which stand back of the dramshop, and supply it. These stores and distilleries are virtual dramshops, and, in all my argument, they are undistinguishable, in responsibility, from the literal dramshop.

I certainly need not go into proofs of the fact, that the industry of the sober is heavily loaded by the pauperism, which the dramshop imposes on it. That fact is as plain, as the sun. And so is the fact, that the madmen of the land are, to a great extent, the manufacture of the dramshop. How frightfully insecure are both property and life, in the presence of these madmen? How know we, when we step into the stage-coach, the car, the steamboat, especially on the fourth of July, or some other holyday, but that the driver, or the engineer, as indulged in the maddening draught, and that our lives will be required to pay for the indulgence? How know we, when we walk the streets, that we shall not meet these madmen flourishing their deadly weapons? How know we, when we leave our dwellings, that these madmen will not, in our absence, fire those dwelllings, and murder their beloved inmates?

But still, the right of Government to suppress the dramshop is denied. Why should it be? Is it claimed, that there is no good at all in it. It is "only evil continually." I admit, that there are nuisances, which the Courts, should pause, ere sacrificing the costly and much-needed mill, which the pond supplies with

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water. But the dramshop does not fall in this class of nuisances. It has not one redeeming feature. There is nothing in it to mitigate its immitigable wickedness: - nothing to set over against its unmixed mischief. In the case of the former nuisance, there are two sides to be looked at, before deciding to abate it. In the case of the latter, but one.

So far, from true it, that Government exceeds its province, in laying its suppressing hand upon the dramshop, there is no duty of Government, that falls more clearly within its province. In truth, sir, among all the duties of Government, this stands pre-eminent. Indeed, I am prepared to say again, as I have often said, that, rather than have things remain, as they are now, I would compromise with Government, and surrender all my claims upon its protection from other burdens and perils, provided it would stipulate, in turn, to protect me from the burdens and perils of the dramshop. It is idle to say, that a people are protected by Government, who are left exposed to these perils and burdens. Such a people are emphatically unprotected: and their Government is emphatically faithless.

But why, I ask again, is the right of Government to shield its people from the burdens and perils of the dramshop denied? One reason is, because this service, not having been rendered hitherto, it would be unpopular and odious to render it, now. Another and stronger reason is, because there are so many interested in continuing these burdens and perils.

Suppose a shop should be opened in this city, for the sale of a very pleasant and exhilarating gas. It infuriates a portion of those, who inhale it, and disposes them to burn and kill: and the obvious tendency, in the case of most of them, is to make them more or less reckless of their own rights and interests, and of the rights and interests of others. Nevertheless, the gas is so palatable and attractive, that as many as fifty persons frequent the shop, to pay a liberal price for it. Would Government hesitate to shut up this shop? Certainly not. The number interested in keeping it open would be too small for Government to fear. And, again, there could be plea of custom or prescription in its behalf, as in behalf of the dramshop. No - Government would destroy this

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work; and, yet, (oh, mad inconsistency!) It spares, and even patronizes, this dramshop-work, which is ten thousand fold mor injurious and destructive.

Suppose, too, that an establishment for cutting off hands should be opened in this city. A score of persons, debased by rum, weary of work, and eager to cast themselves and their families, more entirely, on the public charity, hasten to this new establishment, and pay their dollar each, for having their hands cut off smoothly, and a speedily heating ointment applied to the bleeding stumps. Who would doubt the power, or disposition, of Government to put an end to this new business? No one. For, as in the case of the gas shop, there would be comparatively few persons, and no plea of usage, on the side of continuing it. And, yet, where the establishment in question would cut off one pair of hands, the dramshop virtually cuts off a hundred pairs. "Far worse than that," said a friend, in whose hearing I employed this same illustration. "The dramshop cuts off their heads!" "You are wrong," I rejoined. "The dramshop would be comparatively bearable, if it but cut off the heads of its victims. Its unspeakably greater wrong to the community is to cut off the hands only, and to leave the head on, with the hungry mouth in it, to consume the earnings of the industrious and sober."

Still another reason is given, why Government should not legislate to stop the sale of intoxicating drinks. It is claimed, that such legislation would be a sumptuary law. In no just sense, however, would it be such a law. If such legislation is called for, in order to protect persons and property, then, even if it should incidentally have, in some respects and in some directions, the operation of a sumptuary law, it, nevertheless, is not fair to look upon it as a sumptuary law, and to treat it with the hostility and contempt due to such a law. Suppose, that a certain kind of cloth were imported into this country from China; and that, everywhere, on opening the bales, a deadly and sweeping disease should ensue; would it not be the perfectly plain duty of Government to forbid the further importation of such cloth? Nevertheless, many might still be eager to wear it, as, in the face of whatever prohibition many might still be eager

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to purchase intoxicating drinks. And the one class would be as ready, as the other, to stigmatize, as a sumptuary law, the legal prohibition upon their indulgence.

But the loudest and longest objection to the suppression of the sale of intoxicating drinks by law, is to the suppression of it by means of the "Maine law." Now, as I admit, that such sale cannot be suppressed by any other law than the "Maine law," or a law of its leading characteristics, I am bound to vindicate the "Maine law." There is not time to examine all its features. But the law will be justified in your sight, if I succeed in justifying its great distinctive feature; - that feature, which authorizes the seizure and destruction of the liquor, when it is ascertained, that it is to be disposed of for a drink.

There is no occasion for discussing the question, whether Government may take, and dispose of, as it will, the property of its citizen, without compensating him therefor: nor is there occasion for discussing the question, whether, in any circumstances, it may take and control his property, without his consent. All I need do, at this point, is to prove, that Government may take, and treat, as it will, that, which is no longer property; but all rights of property in which are forfeited by the guilty and pernicious misuse, to which its owner had perverted it. My proof to this end need not be a train of formal arguments. A few simple illustrations instead will answer the purpose, and will save time.

I will suppose, that there is a loaded pistol in the pocket of my friend, who sits at my right hand, [Mr. MORGAN, of New York.]

Mr. MORGAN. Not a supposable case.

Mr SMITH. I admit, that it is hardly fair to suppose it of one, who so trusts in the shielding care of his God, and in the good will of his fellow men, as to be above the bad habit of going armed. Nevertheless, I trust that, as I have begun with the supposition, he will allow me to proceed in it.

Now, were I to take this pistol from my friend's pocket, and to break it in pieces, I should, of course, be legally liable to him for the value of it. But were he to take it from his pocket, and to aim it at the gentleman, who adorns the Speaker's chai. - nay, who from his pre-eminent

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judgement, impartiality, self-possession, dignity, seems to have been made purposely for the Speaker's chai- hen might I wrest it from his hand, and dash it in fragments on the floor, and be under no legal liability whatever. All the legal liability in the case would be on him, who was guilty of putting the weapon to so unprovoked and deadly a misuse; and who, thereby, forfeited all rights of property in it.

Suppose that Mr. Corcoran, of this city, should, in his love to do things on a large scale, purchase a barrel of rattlesnakes, for a thousand dollars. He puts them in boxes, with glass covers. He and his friends are in the habit of standing over these boxes, with glass covers. He and his friends are in the habit of standing over these boxes, a few minutes, every day, to inspect the serpents, and to study the laws, habits, and phenomena, of their being. All this is innocent and praiseworthy. But suppose Mr. Corcoran wakes up some morning "troubled," as was Saul, with "an evil spirit" - for, in these days, when rapping and tipping, and all sorts of spirits, good and bad, stand so thick around us, even Mr. Corcoran and other good men are liable to the invasion of evil spirits. Mr Corcoran, now, says: "I am tired of looking at these snakes, in their boxes. I wish to see them running about, and biting people." So he takes the boxes to the door, and lets out the snakes upon the ground. In a few hours, they are coursing through the city, and biting whom they can. The alarm is sounded. Members of Congress, and all, go forth to shy the snakes. Had we slain them, when in their boxes, Mr. Corcoran could have recovered his thousand dollars from us. But, now, he cannot recover it - for he lost all property in the snakes by his reckless and wicked liberation of them, and exposed himself, in so doing, to the gravest penalties.

Suppose, that, some pleasant morning, I take into my hand, my gold-headed cane, (if I have such an one) studded with diamonds, that cost ten thousand dollars. I go strutting up and down Pennsylvania avenue, swollen with the self-consequence of a member of Congress. I use my cane in knocking down children, on the right hand and on the left. A gentleman witnesses my pranks; hastens to me; and breaks my pranks; hastens to me; and breaks the cane in pieces across his knee. Can I make him pay any-

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thing? Oh, no! Not even if he had broken it in pieces across my head. I lost all property in the cane, by my wrong, and outrageous, use of it: and the sole question now is, not what penalty this gentleman shall suffer; but what penalty I shall suffer, in addition to the loss of my cane.

These supposed cases illustrate the actual case of the liquor-owner. Whilst his liquors are put to their proper an innocent uses, Government has the right to meddle with them. But just as soon as he brings forth to use them in manufacturing paupers and madmen, he loses all property in them: Government may destroy them; and punish the offender, at its discretion.

Let it not be inferred, that I would have Government declare all property forfeited, which is misused. It is only an extreme case, which can justify such declaration. Of such case Government must be the sole judge. Upon its sole responsibility, Government is to select the case, as upon their sole responsibility the people are to decide, whether to submit to the selection, or to rebel against it. The murderous torpedo-box Government would not hesitate to choose as such an extreme ease; and the people would not hesitate to acquiesce in the choice. Such an extreme case, in my own judgement, is alcoholic liquor, also, when on sale for a drink. Our patience under the sale of intoxicating beverages, with all its burdens, and perils, and woes, would be most wonderful and inexplicable, did we not know the power of education. We are educated to witness all this, in patience; and we are educated to it by Government itself. Civil Government is mighty to educate the people, upward or downward, either in a right or wrong direction. So long, as it licenses or protects the dramshops, so long it is a mighty influence to reconcile the people to the dramshop. The people will follow Government, even in us grossest inconsistencies. Government may declare horses, that are brought out for racing, to be forfeited. Government may declare the gambling apparatus, that is brought into public places, to be without the protection of law; and in all this the people will acquiesce, as they acquiesce in the gross inconsistency with all this of extending the shield of Government over the dramshop. Gross inconsistency, indeed! -

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for the evils of horse racing and gambling are not to be compared with the ends of dramshops. Another inconsistency, of which Government is guilty in this case, is that, in frowning upon horse-racing and gambling, it but seeks to protect the people from demoralization - a work, which, to say the least, is, when in its hands, of very doubtful legitimacy. But when Government lets the dramshop stand, it neglects to protect person and property, at a point, where they are far more fearfully exposed than at any other point: and, in neglecting such protection, it neglects what all admit to be the chief duty in the province of Government; and what many, beside myself, believe to constitute the sole province of Government.

Time forbids, that I should extend my argument, any further. Would that Congress might pass such a bill, as I have now called for; and as the people of this city did themselves virtually call for, a year ago, by a vote of two to one! For Government to break up the sale of intoxicating drinks is, as I trust, I have conclusively shown, no stretching of its functions. I again admit that the sole legitimate work of Government is to minister protection to person and property. But, if to abate a nuisance, which yields no possible good, and which, more than all things else, perils and destroys both person and property, is not a part of that work, pray what is? I again admit, that for Government to protect person and property from the dramshops of this city, as it could do, only by shutting them up, would be to render an immense service to the cause of temperance in this city, in this nation, in this world. I admit too, that I cannot, consistently, make a direct claim for this service, at its hands. Nevertheless, I can claim, at its hands, the protection of person and property: and, happily, the service in question is necessarily incidental to such protection. The service cannot fail to follow the protection. And who is there, that should not rejoice, that so great a direct good and so great an incidental good are brought together, and are inseparable?

The city of Washington is, in sacred language, "beautiful for situation." Than that it wears, there is no greater human name. It is, too, the capital of a great nation; - so great, as to need only to be as

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good, as it is great. Its population is increasing rapidly; and buildings are going up in, and art is embellishing, every part of its broad and beautiful amphitheatre. Fifty years hence, if our children shall be so wise and virtuous, as to constitute one nation, here will be two hundred thousand people; and here will then be a city unsurpassed in intelligence, and in all the refinements and elegances, which adorn the highest style of social life. Upon all this beauty - upon all this glory - shall the blot of the dramshop remain? Nay, will it be possible to attain to this beauty and glory, if this broad and deep blot is suffered to remain?

Why, then, should we not, in the clearest terms, authorize the suppression of the sale of intoxicating drinks, in this city? Who would be harmed by the suppression? What mother, what wife, would shed one tear the more, because of it? What sister would heave one sigh the more, because of it? And who of us would, be the worse for never again using any alcoholic liquors for a drink? And who of our successors, on coming to this city would suffer any injury by not meeting the temptation of the dramshop? I have spoken of our successors in these seats. But for the egotism of it, I would add, much in the language of Paul before king Agrippa: "I would to God, that not only they, (our successors,) but also all that hear me, this day, were both almost and altogether such as I am," in respect to intoxicating liquors! - for it is more than a quarter of a century, since I drank any of them; and, as to my children and children's children, they are ignorant of the taste of them. Happy ignorance! - may it last as long, as they shall last! Happy ignorance! - may it become universal!

Let, then, this city be purged of liquor-selling! And when that is done, it will be, not only "beautiful for situation:" but, in further sacred language, at will be "the joy of the whole earth." The good of every land will rejoice in the sight; and the evil of every land will be profitably impressed by it. Morever, to the Government of every land this authorized and indispensable exercise of governmental powers will be an influential and blessed example.