PROHIBITION. 



665 



attorney of Chittenden county, writing from 

 Burlington, said, " The law has put an end to 

 drunkenness and crime almost entirely." In 

 New Hampshire several counties reported 

 (1856) their jails tenantless. In New York, 

 where the opposition was greatest, the law was 

 declared by Gov. Clark to hav been generally 

 obeyed outside the great cities; and in Al- 

 bany, Syracuse, Auburn, Utica, and Roches- 

 ter, the police committals for offenses other 

 than drunkenness, in six months only, were 

 decreased 1,910. New York had prohibition 

 but a short time before its unconstitutionality 

 was declared by the Supreme (Jourt, not be- 

 cause of its principle, but because the act did 

 " not express itself with sufficient specificness 

 and discrimination " ; and in 1857 a license law 

 ras enacted, prohibitory as to selling to In- 

 lians, minors, and habitual drunkards, also as 

 selling on Sunday. "With some modifica- 

 tions, rendering it no less prohibitive in char- 

 3ter but more easy of evasion, it has contin- 

 3d until now. 



The prohibition era ended in 1856, when 

 slavery came to the front, as a great moral 

 id political question, and overshadowed tem- 

 srance. Special work to secure the enact- 

 lent of prohibitory laws ceased in 3855, and 

 jtive effort to hold these laws and secure 

 leir enforcement lasted but a year or two 

 mger in most of the States. Five years of 

 iti-slavery agitation followed the decade of 

 iti-liquor agitation, and four years of civil 

 rar spread the drink-habit disastrously. Li- 

 ise had become the prevailing State policy, 

 nth such partial prohibition as the traffic 

 rould permit. The distilling and brewing in- 

 rests had swelled to enormous proportions. 

 Curing the last year of the war, the revenue 

 Government from distilled and fermented 

 iquors multiplied almost fourfold. Intemper- 

 ice was more general than at any tim 3 be- 

 >re in two generations. Anti-liquor agitation 

 again, both reformative and political, 

 icited largely by the beer-brewers, who were 

 ^solved upon removing all restrictions from 

 fermented liquors, and doing away in particu- 

 with Sunday prohibition. At the seventh 

 ir-Brewers' Congress, held in Chicago, June 

 1867, they declared " the action and influ- 

 of the Temperance party " in " direct op- 

 sition to the principles of individual freedom 

 id political equality," and 



Resolved, that we will use all means to stay the 

 rogress of this fanatical party, and to secure our in- 

 ividual rights as citizens, and that we will sustain 

 ) candidate, of whatever party, in any election, who 



in any way disposed toward the total-abstinence 

 mse. 



There was at this time no Prohibition party,, 

 lational or State ; there had been none ; and 

 the "Temperance party" here referred to was 

 but the unorganized mass of temperance voters, 

 * both political parties, who carried their prin- 



ples into the elections as opportunity offered. 



lese men, represented in the Sixth National 



Temperance Convention, held in Cleveland, 

 Ohio, July 29 and 30, 1868, accepted the is- 

 sue, and resolved, "that temperance, having 

 its political as well as moral aspects and du- 

 ties, demands the persistent use of the ballot 

 for its promotion," and the convention, in the 

 same resolution, urged "the friends of the 

 cause to refuse to vote for any candidate who 

 denies the application of the just powers of 

 the civil government to the suppression of the 

 liquor-traffic," and exhorted "the friends of 

 temperance, by every practical method in their 

 several localities, to secure righteous political 

 action for the advancement of the cause." 



A National Movement. The idea of a national 

 Prohibition party was broached during the 

 session of the Right Worthy Grand Lodge of 

 Good Templars, held in Oswego, N. Y., May 

 25, 1869, and a committee was appointed to 

 issue the call. Pursuant thereto, nearly 600 

 delegates, representing twenty States, assem- 

 bled in Chicago, September 1st of the same 

 year, organized the National Prohibition Re- 

 form party, and adopted an address by Gerrit 

 Smith. The first nominating convention of 

 that party was held at Columbus, Ohio, Feb. 

 22, 1872, adopted a comprehensive platform, 

 and nominated for President, James Black, of 

 Pennsylvania ; for Vice-President, John Rus- 

 seil, of Michigan. State organizations auxil- 

 iary followed the Chicago Convention, begin- 

 ning with Ohio, in 1869, and the nomination 

 there of the first distinctively Prohibition tick- 

 et, for which 679 votes were cast. In 1870 

 the party's vote, in five States, was 17,401 ; 

 a year later it reached 17,127 in six States; 

 in 1872, the presidential ticket received 5,508 

 from six States ; the next year six States gave 

 22,737; in 1874 ten States counted 46,025; 

 and the next year twelve States gave 51,986, 

 Pennsylvania leading with 13,244, followed by 

 New York with 11,103, Rhode Island with 

 8,724, and Massachusetts with 9,124. The 

 second national nominating convention of the 

 party was held in Cleveland, Ohio, May 17, 

 1876, with an attendance of about 100 dele- 

 gates, from twelve States. It nominated for 

 President, Green Clay Smith, of Kentucky ; for 

 Vice-President, Gideon T. Stewart, of Ohio ; 

 and they received 9,757 votes in seventeen 

 States, while the State tickets, in ten States, 

 received 26,014. In 1877 seven States polled 

 55,779, considerably more than have been re- 

 corded since, with the exception of 1882, when 

 the aggregate, in thirteen States, reached 98,- 

 768, New York leading with 25,763. -The na- 

 tional ticket, in 1880 Neal Dow and Henry 

 A. Thompson had but 10,305. Twenty of the 

 States have had Prohibition tickets, one year 

 or more, since the party was first organized. 

 The largest vote cast by any of them was that 

 of New York in 1882. But, small as these 

 figures appear, prohibition has entered largely 

 into State and national politics since 1870. 

 Both the Democratic and Republican parties 

 have pronounced upon it. In their National 



