PROHIBITION. 



663 



tions multiplied. In 1751 the consumption of 

 spirits had reached over 11,000,000 gallons. 

 Then more stringent measures were tried, with 

 marked effect. Distillers were prohibited, un- 

 der a penalty of 10, from either retailing 

 spirituous liquors themselves, or selling them 

 to unlicensed dealers; debts contracted for 

 liquors, not amounting to twenty shiDings at 

 a time, were made irrecoverable by law; li- 

 censes were greatly limited ; the penalties for 

 unlicensed selling were much increased : for a 

 second offense the offender might be impris- 

 oned and whipped, and for the third he was 

 liable to transportation. But in spite of all 

 this the traffic did not remarkably diminish. 



In the United States. In this country, the 

 worst forms of liquor-selling were prohibited 

 in colonial times ; and partial prohibition early 

 prevailed. In the town records of East Hamp- 

 ton, Long Island, is an order of a town-meet- 

 ing, "That no man shall sell any liquor but 

 such as are deputed thereto by the town " ; 

 and in 1655 the authorities interfered between 

 the neighboring Indians and their drink with 

 prohibitory provisions. As given by Bancroft, 

 the summary of a new Constitution for Vir- 

 ginia, under date of 1676, has a prohibitory 

 clause as follows: "The sale of wines and ar- 

 dent spirits was absolutely prohibited (if not in 

 Jamestown, yet otherwise) throughout the 

 whole country." 



Distillation began in Boston in 1700, with 

 the making of New England rum from West 

 India molasses ; and four years later whisky- 

 making, from rye, began in "Western Pennsyl- 

 vania. In less than 100 years there were 

 40,000 distilleries in the United States, and 

 the results thereof had excited sober concern. 

 On Feb. 27, 1777, the following resolution was 

 passed by the first Continental Congress, then 

 sitting in Philadelphia : 



Resolved, That it be recommended to the several 

 Legislatures in the United States immediately to pass 

 laws the most effectual for putting an immediate stop 

 to the pernicious practice of distilling grain, by_ which 

 the most extensive evils are likely to be derived, if 

 not quickly prevented. 



There is no proof that this recommendation 

 bore fruit, though in 1788 the Legislature of 

 New York passed an act "to lay a duty on 

 strong liquors, and for the better regulation of 

 inns and taverns." It provided that the Com- 

 missioners of Excise should not grant permits 

 to any person to sell strong drink and spiritu- 

 ous liquors, for the purpose of keeping a tav- 

 ern, unless it should appear to them that such 

 an inn or tavern was necessary for the accom- 

 modation of travelers. Good character, and a 

 recognizance not to keep a disorderly house, 

 were also required. April 7, 1801, a more 

 stringent bill passed the same body, which 

 prohibited the sale of spirituous liquors by re- 

 tail, or to be drunk in the house of the seller; 

 restrained and limited the power of Commis- 

 sioners of Excise ; and made each violation of 

 its provisions a misdemeanor. In December, 



1790, the College of Physicians in Philadel- 

 phia memorialized Congress, declaring "that 

 the habitual use of distilled spirits, in any case 

 whatever, is wholly unnecessary," and asking 

 Congress "to impose such heavy duties upon 

 all distilled spirits as shall be effectual to re- 

 strain their intemperate use in our country." 



In 1794 Dr. Rush's " Medical Inquiries " at- 

 tacked the common professional belief in the 

 virtue of alcohol as diet, and in its prophylac- 

 tic power as medicine ; and, as a consequence 

 of the agitation which followed, the first tem- 

 perance society of modern times was organixe<l 

 April 13, 1808, in Moreau, Saratoga co., N. Y., 

 entitled " The Union Temperate Society of 

 Moreau and Northumberland." Like the Mas- 

 . sachusetts Society for the Suppression of In- 

 temperance, formed in 1813, it did not aim at 

 total abstinence, but to discountenance "the 

 too free use of ardent spirit." Feb. 13, Ih26, 

 the American Temperance Society was organ- 

 ized in Boston, and in a manifesto, issued the 

 following month, its Executive Committee 

 declared for the total prohibition of distilled 

 liquors. Temperance societies were formed all 

 over the country, numbering above 7,000 in 

 five years, with a membership of 1,250,000. A 

 Congressional Temperance Society was among 

 these. Great enthusiasm prevailed everywhere, 

 culminating in the Washington movement of 

 1840, which carried total abstinence on a strong 

 tide of popular feeling from State to State. It 

 was prohibition of the individual by the indi- 

 vidual. No longer could it be said, as forty 

 years before, that Americans were the most 

 drunken people on thtf face of the globe, be- 

 cause of national revenue sought from spirits, 

 to pay a national debt resulting from war. 



The License Question. But while thousands 

 pledged themselves to abstain from strong 

 drink, and pledged men were enthusiastically 

 rallying into organizations, the dram-shop held 

 place as a necessary evil, recognized as such, 

 and legalized. No-license did not compel gen- 

 eral consideration till 1832, and was adopted 

 then but here and there. The city of New 

 York largely reduced the number of retail 

 licenses in 1819, and next year the mayor tes- 

 tified to an improved condition of morals there, 

 and imputed the same " to the suppression of 

 so many of these poison-shops, where a man 

 might buy rum enough to make himself beastly 

 drunk for six cents." The era of no-license 

 fairly overlapped on the era of organization, 

 the former beginning a decade before the lat- 

 ter may be said to have ended. Dr. Lyman 

 Beecher, in his famous sermons on " The Na- 

 ture and Remedy for Intemperance" (1826), 

 had proclaimed a national remedy needful, 

 " the banishment of ardent spirits from the 

 list of lawful articles of commerce." Dr. Jus- 

 tin Edwards, in a report of the American Tem- 

 perance Society (1833), had said, " The point 

 to be decided is, shall the sale of ardent spir- 

 its, as a drink, be treated in legislation as a 

 virtue, or a vice ? " In 1833 the question was 



