ADDRESS

ON TEMPERANCE; THE POLICY OF LICENSE LAWS, &C.

DELIVERED BEFORE THE NEW YORK STATE TEMPERANCE SOCIETY, AT ITS ANNUAL MEETING AT ALBANY, February 8, 1843.

Few subjects, in modern times, have commanded a greater share of public consideration than that of temperance. Its benign influences have been inculcated by philanthropists throughout the civilized world. The press has lent its giant power to disseminate its blessings, and the ministers of religion have mingled its precepts with the glad tidings of the gospel, in proclaiming peace on earth and good will to men.

In contrast, the evils of intemperance have been most vividly portrayed. The choicest figures of rhetoric and liveliest images of poetry have been invoked, and the pencil's mimic power has, with startling fidelity, thrown back from the canvas its hideous and loathsome deformity. But the painful and humiliating reality has not been shown, for in the history of intemperance, as in that of romance, “truth is stranger than fiction." It has been so often established, that the misery, pauperism, and crime, which burden and infest society are caused by intemperance, that to repeat it would be worse than gratuitous.

The salutary truth, that the effect produced upon the human system by stimulating drinks is highly deleterious, and that the physical and moral man is thereby degraded, is most generally conceded by all rational and reflecting men; and yet there are some strongholds of this scourge of the human race which have not surrendered. These are the dram-shops authorized by our excise system, and wine-drinking by the wealthy and influential.

The history of the last few years, marked as it has been by recklessness and profligacy-by a disregard of the sober pursuits of industry, and an apparent determination to reverse the divine declaration, that man should eat his bread by the sweat of his face-exhibits a period inauspicious for the cause of this salutary reformation. The fortunes, fancied and real, which have been wrecked; the unparalleled fluctuations in trade, and every department of business, by which thousands have been plunged from affluence to poverty, and goaded to madness and desperation, have driven many to drown their sorrows in the inebriating cup, though filled with greater bitterness and griefs more poignant than those which they would steep in the drowsy waters of forgetfulness. But this wild and fearful dream has passed away, leaving behind it traces of bleak and withering desolation; and the friends of temperance may well rejoice that their benevolent enterprise has outrode the storm unscathed, and apply themselves with renewed vigor to the completion of their work.

The excise system, which, in part, served as a precedent for our present excise law, was originally a mere inland duty or imposition charged upon general consumption, or retail sale, and was designed for purposes of revenue alone. It was adopted first among the Romans, by Augustus, after the civil wars, and continued by Tiberias and others in a modified form; and although it was suggested as the financial policy of Charles the First, by the treasurer of that monarch, who was the father of the system in England, it was not finally introduced there and acted upon until 1643, when it was adopted by the long parliament, after its rupture with the

crown.

It was laid upon articles where it was supposed its hardships would be the least perceivable; and it was remarked by its founder in that country, in a spirit of short-sighted craftiness becoming a mere politician, that it must be so managed that the people would become accustomed to its exactions gradually.

The difficulties consequent upon levying and collecting the excise upon ale and liquors sold in ale-houses and dram-shops, by small measure, induced the system of licensing inns and alehouses, and the paying of the excise in a gross sum, and subsequently to regulating them by law, and compelling them to

sell at reasonable prices; which latter provision was unfortu nately omitted, in framing the excise code of this State. The system of licensing and regulating ale-houses in England seems to have reached its zenith under the reign of George II., and although the wisdom of parliament was inadequate to the task of prescribing the number of beds and the kind of covering therefor, which it was proper and necessary each one should have, who should be authorized to sell by retail strong or spirituous liquors, as our statutes have kindly provided; yet, the act of parliament contained one provision equally sensible with all the others of the excise laws of either country, and which was doubtless overlooked in engrafting the system of the mother country upon our own, as otherwise it would have been adopted. It was the creation of an officer called an “ale taster,” whose business it was to visit from time to time, or at stated periods, the various ale-houses in a certain district, and, by tasting, ascertain the quality of the article, that the ale-drinking public should not be imposed on by that which was stale or spurious. This provision, being as wise, at least, as any other of our present system-having in view, as it has, the improvement and protection of the public morals, and particularly the public taste, and contemplating the creation of a new office at a time when the demand is at least equal to the supply-it is respectfully submitted that it should be incorporated at once into our excise code, if that is to be retained upon the statute book, with the trifling additional powers and duties of tasting rum and other liquors, as well as ale-and that the officer be denominated, by way of eminence, a "rum taster." In the process of drinking, like that of a rule in arithmetic, "more requires more, and less requires less," and it is insisted that the excise system invites and induces to drink as well as to sell more, and this operates as a facility rather than a preventive.

Our mongrel system of excise, composed of the oppressions of the Old World and the follies of the New, seems to have been framed with a view to the protection of morals, rather than the accumulation of revenue. It doubtless originated here, and certainly is kept on foot, by that mistaken and conceited policy, which believes that religion and morality can be infused by legislation; that legislators, as such, are more upright than their constituents; that the few are wiser than the many, and more

competent to prescribe a code of morals; and, in short, that the stream is purer than its fountain, and will ascend higher in its course.

Our statutes constitute the supervisor and justices of the peace of the several towns of this State commissioners of excise. They are required to meet on the first Monday of May in each year, and at such other times as may be designated by the supervisor. At these meetings of their board, they are authorized and required to give licenses, authorizing persons to keep inns or taverns, to sell strong and spirituous liquors, to be drank in their houses respectively, at all such points as they believe a public house necessary-requiring to be paid therefor a sum not less than five nor more than thirty dollars. The licenses are to be signed by the members of the board-the supervisor and justices of the peace-for which they are to receive, collectively, the sum of seventy-five cents for each license. This fortunate recipient of official favor is required on his part to sustain a good moral character, and to have two spare beds, with sufficient sheeting and covering for the same. Possessed then of these high requisites-a moral character, and two spare beds, he is next required-lest the benevolent intentions of this sage enactment should be defeated, and the thirst of the weary traveller should not be slaked at the proper point, through ignorance or inattention-to put up and keep up, on or adjacent to the front of his house, with his name thereon, a sign-indicating in some way that he keeps a tavern, and for an omission or neglect to put up and keep up such sign, he incurs a pecuniary penalty, and is guilty of a misdemeanor.

But lest some one who has not the mark of this legislative beast-the right to sell strong and spirituous liquors—should divide the patronage of the travelling public with his licensed neighbor, or that some weary traveller should be beguiled or led astray to a house where the intoxicating draught is not to be procured, the statute provides, that any one who shall put up a sign, indicating that he keeps an inn or tavern, who has not a license to sell strong or spirituous liquors, shall forfeit one dollar and twenty-five cents for every day he shall keep up such sign, and be adjudged guilty of a misdemeanor.

Thus it will be seen that the erection of a sign, indicating the keeping of a temperance house, is a violation of this law,

although no one has yet thought it profitable or desirable to attempt to enforce the penalty, and probably will not, until he shall be satisfied that the public mind is as stolid and corrupt as this law is ridiculous and shameless. Absurd and pernicious as has been the course of legislation upon this subject, it has not prohibited any one from entertaining either his neighbors or travellers, nor from receiving therefor a reasonable compensation-but he may not put up a sign unless he has authority to sell intoxicating drink. And upon the principle of the homely proverb, that it is a poor rule which will not work both. ways, the law adjudges him who has liquor and a license, guilty of a misdemeanor unless he invites the public to partake by the erection of a sign.

In contemplating the provisions of this statute, it is difficult. to determine whether it will be most becoming to treat it with that ridicule and mockery which is due to the height of human folly and absurdity, or to stand in silence, overwhelmed with shame, that enactments so reproachful and stupid should have found their way among the written laws of intelligent and civ ilized men. With all its absurdities, however, the excise law contains two sensible provisions, which shall be thrown into the opposing scale. It devotes the license fee to the sole purpose of defraying the expenses of the pauperism it helps to createand, after authorizing the sale of intoxicating liquors to be drank in the house, it very naturally calculates that lodging will neces sarily follow; and hence legislation, in the plenitude of its justice and mercy, provides that there shall be at least two spare beds, with good sheets and suitable covering—and, it might have added, for man and beast.

By the history of the excise system, it will be seen that a measure which originated with that universal robber of nations, and was regarded by the Caesars as one of exaction from their subjects and their slaves, has been gradually transformed with us, until it is hailed as the guardian genius of our purity, and the protector of the public morals.

It is justified under the plea of necessity-a plea which has been interposed in behalf of every absurd and oppressive measure which tyranny or ignorance ever inflicted on the human race, either in the old world or new: a plea under which, in Europe, foul and beastly dens of debauchery and licentiousness,