664 



PROHIBITION. 



publicly debated in the city of New York, 

 " Wbat right have legislators to pass laws 

 which enable men legally to injure their fellow- 

 men, to increase their taxes, and expose their 

 children to temptation, druukermess, and ru- 

 in ? " " The law which licenses the sale of 

 ardent spirits," said Judge Platt, in the same 

 year, "is an impediment to the temperance 

 reformation; . . . and when the public safety 

 shall be thought to require it, dram-shops will 

 be indictable, at common law, as public nui- 

 sances." No -license appears to have been 

 successfully established in the old colony of 

 Massachusetts in 1832 ; only two criminals 

 were tried in Barnstable and Dukes counties 

 throughout 1835, or the larger part of that 

 year. Georgia took it up in 1834, and expelled 

 the traffic from two counties. Massachusetts 

 extended it through two additional counties, 

 and in numerous towns of that State licenses 

 were withheld. Connecticut caught the no- 

 license enthusiasm in 1844, and elected com- 

 missioners accordingly in 200 out of 220 towns. 

 A year later, four fifths of the towns of New 

 York voted strongly for no-license ; and it was 

 recorded of Massachusetts that from more than 

 100 towns the traffic was entirely removed. 



State Prohibition by Statute. Local prohibi- 

 tion, by towns and municipalities, led natu- 

 rally to the thought of State prohibition under 

 general law. Maine began the agitation con- 

 cerning it, and the first legislative attack on 

 the liquor traffic was made in the Maine Legis- 

 lature in 1837, when Gen. James Appleton 

 presented a memorial demanding the abolition 

 of all license laws, and the entire prohibition 

 of liquor-selling " except for medicine and the 

 arts." A prohibitory bill, according with this 

 demand, was defeated. In 1838 Tennessee en- 

 acted a law which prohibited the retailing of 

 drink in quantities less than one quart ; and 

 the same year a convention of 400 delegates, 

 in Massachusetts, organized a total-abstinence 

 State Temperance Society, and presented to 

 the Legislature a petition asking : " Is it right 

 to give authority to sell insanity and deal out 

 sure destruction? If it is right, why should 

 any be forbidden to do it? If not right, why 

 should any be permitted to do it?" The Le- 

 gislative committee recommended prohibition ; 

 and a bill was passed prohibiting the sale of 

 spirits in less quantities than fifteen gallons. 

 Mississippi enacted the one-gallon law in 1839 ; 

 and Illinois granted power to towns and coun- 

 ties to suppress the retail traffic, on petition 

 signed by a majority of the male inhabitants. 

 The next five years might be called the local- 

 option era, since many of the States made lo- 

 cal prohibition possible by popular vote. As 

 local option appeared democratic in idea, it met 

 with comparatively little legislative opposition. 



Maine, first to attack the liquor-traffic by 

 legislative memorial, passed the first general 

 prohibitory law in 1846, which year ended the 

 local-option era. This law failed, as has been 

 said, " because it was not as thorough in its 



apparatus as in its principle." Delaware fol- 

 lowed with a similar law in 1847 ; but this was 

 submitted to and ratified by the people, and 

 was then declared unconstitutional by the Su- 

 preme Court, because of such submission. In 

 1849 the temperance men of Maine, under the 

 leadership of Neal Dow, carried the elections, 

 and on June 2, 1851, by a vote of two to one, 

 the first prohibitory law was superseded by 

 the "Maine law," as it was soon denominated, 

 drafted by Mr. Dow. He declared confiscation 

 ot'^the liquor as the practical correlative of the 

 principle of prohibition, and this law embodied 

 " search and seizure " provisions which ren- 

 dered it effective. Under it the first seizure 

 was made at Bangor, July 4th of the year the 

 law passed, and a second followed in Portland 

 shortly after, where $2,000 worth of liquor was 

 destroyed in presence of a great crowd of peo- 

 ple. In May, 1855, the Maine law caused a 

 mob in Portland, the military were called out, 

 and one of the rioters was killed and several 

 wounded. At the next election the Prohibition 

 party failed to secure its necessary plurality 

 of votes, and in 1856 a Democratic Legislature 

 repealed the prohibitory law, and substituted 

 a stringent license law in place of it ; but after 

 two years' experience with increased crime, 

 pauperism, and disorder, Maine re-enacted pro- 

 hibition by a legislative measure submitted to 

 the people, and ratified by a majority vote of 

 22,952. The only subsequent change in that 

 law has been to render it more rigorous. 



Following the lead of Maine and partially 

 patterning after the Maine law, prohibition 

 was enacted in Minnesota (1852), Rhode island 

 (1852), Massachusetts (1852), Vermont (1852), 

 Michigan (1853), Connecticut (1854), Indiana 

 (1855), Delaware (re -enacted 1855), Iowa 

 (1855), Nebraska (1855), New York (1855), 

 New Hampshire (1855), and Illinois (1855). 

 Of the fourteen Legislatures which thus en- 

 acted prohibition in four years, eight were 

 Democratic, four "Whig, and two American; 

 two of the Democratic and one of the Whig 

 having anti-Nebraska members on the domi- 

 nant side. In only two of these States has the 

 prohibitory law stood until now Vermont and 

 New Hampshire. In six it was declared un- 

 constitutional Delaw are, Rhode Island, Mas- 

 sachusetts, Michigan, Indiana, and New York. 

 In Connecticut it was repealed. In Iowa a 

 " wine-and-beer clause" afterward rendered it 

 largely inoperative. In Illinois it failed of ap- 

 proval by the people. It was announced in 

 1856 that prohibition had driven the open 

 liquor-traffic out of three fourths of Massachu- 

 setts; and in the city of Lowell, in one year, 

 it caused a diminution of 77 per cent, in the 

 recorded cases of drunkenness. In Connecticut 

 Gov. Dutton said, " The home of the peaceful 

 citizen was never before so secure " ; and the 

 Mayor of Providence, after three months of the 

 law in Rhode Island, published statistics show- 

 ing that the commitments had been reduced 

 nearly 60 per cent. In Vermont the State's 





