INTEMPERANCE.
The intelligent legislator can not close his eyes to the fact that the intemperate use of intoxicating liquors is fearfully prevalent, and that it is the fruitful source of pauperism and crime, of social disorder and domestic wretchedness. Nor can it be doubted that much the larger share of this intemperance is caused by the existence of the numerous places where public tippling is practiced and encouraged for pecuniary gain, under the auspices of the State. While it must be conceded that men can not be made virtuous by statutory enactments, it does not follow that schools of vice and nurseries of crime ought not to be restrained or suppressed to that extent to which public opinion will sustain and execute the laws made for that purpose. As Mr. Lincoln said of slavery, so say I of tippling houses, namely: If they are not wrong, then nothing is wrong. Every existing wrong can not, however, be overthrown in a day by a mere act of legislative authority, but it does not follow from this that nothing is to be done looking or tending toward such overthrow. The legislation of the State should on this subject keep pace with public opinion, and it would be better to have the law a little in advance of public opinion than to have it lag far behind. Good laws aid in the formation of a healthy public opinion, just as an enlightened public opinion aids in the formation and execution of good laws. I do not believe in the existence of the power or in the expediency of enacting sumptuary laws, but a law which restrains or suppresses one tippling house or all the tippling houses in the State, attempts to regulate no man's expenditures, nor does it prescribe what he shall eat or what he shall drink, or wherewithal he shall be clothed. In one set of public schools we educate the children and youth of the State, at the expense of the State, for the performance of the duties of American citizenship. In another set of public schools, over which mammon presides and in which the State is a partner, we authorize their proprietors to undo what the first have done or are doing, and to unfit every citizen who will yield to their influence for the performance of these same page: [16][View Page [16]] duties of American citizenship. No man who has any faith in human progress can believe that this state of affairs can or will always last. The enlightened statesman, remembering that in a republic public opinion is the foundation of the laws as well as the mainspring of their execution, will ask himself not only what is right, but what is practicable under existing circumstances, and will legislate for the right without defeating his own intentions by attempting the impracticable. You are fresh from the ranks of the people, assembled from all parts of the State, and are much better acquainted with public opinion than I am, and should, in my judgment, legislate for the restraint and diminution of public tippling houses to the highest point that the existing state of public opinion will sustain, so that (as Mr. Lincoln on another occasion said of slavery) the public mind may confidently rest in the belief that they are in process of ultimate extinction. In my opinion public drunkenness ought to be declared a misdemeanor by State law, and punished accordingly.
