spirit, I am under the immediate eye and sanction of the laws. Mine is
no contraband traffic, as you very well know. I hold a license from the
rulers and fathers of the state, and have paid my money for it into the
public treasury. Why do they continue to grant and sell licenses, if it
is wrong for me to sell rum?
CONSCIENCE. Another hard question, which I leave them to answer as best
they can. It is said, however, that public bodies have no soul, and if
they have no soul, it is difficult to see how they can have any
conscience; and if not, what should hinder them from selling licenses?
But suppose the civil authorities should offer to sell you a license to
keep a gambling-house, or a brothel, would you purchase such a license,
and present it as a salvo to your conscience?
RETAILER. I tell you once more, there is no use in trying to answer your
questions; for say what I will, you have the art of turning every thing
against me. It was not always so, as you must very distinctly remember.
Formerly I could retail hogshead after hogshead of all kinds of spirits,
and you slept as quietly as a child. But since you began to read these
Reports and Tracts about drinking, and to attend Temperance meetings, I
have scarcely had an hour's peace of my life. I feared that something
like this would be the effect upon your nervous temperament, when you
began; and you may recollect that I strongly objected to your troubling
yourself with these new speculations. It now grieves me to think that I
ever yielded to your importunity; and beware that you do not push me to
extremities in this matter, for I have about come to the resolution
that I will have no more of these mischievous pamphlets, either about
my store or tavern; and that your temperance agents may declaim to the
winds and walls, if they please.
CONSCIENCE. I am amazed at your blindness and obstinacy. It is now from
three to five years since I began to speak--though in a kind of
indistinct undertone at first--against this bloody traffic. I have
reasoned, I have remonstrated, and latterly I have threatened and
implored with increasing earnestness. At times you have listened, and
been convinced that the course which you are pursuing, in this day of
light, is infamous, and utterly inconsistent with a Christian
profession; but before your convictions and resolutions have time to
ripen into action, the love of _money_ regains its ascendency: and thus
have you gone on _resolving, and relapsing, and re-resolving_--one hour
at the preparatory lecture, and the next unloading whiskey at your door;
one moment mourning over the prevalence of intemperance, and the next
arranging your decanters to entice the simple; one day partaking of the
cup of the Lord at his table, and the next offering the cup of devils to
your neighbors; one day singing,
"All that I have, and all I am,
I consecrate to Thee,"
and the next, _for the sake of a little gain_, sacrificing your
character, and polluting all you can induce to drink! O, how can I hold
my peace? How can I let you alone? If you will persist, your blood, and
the blood of those whom you thus entice and destroy, be upon your own
head. Whether you will hear, or whether you will forbear, I shall not
cease to remonstrate; and when I can do no more to reclaim you, I will
sit down at your gate, in the bitterness of despair, and cry, _Murder!_
Murder!! MURDER!!!
RETAILER. (Pale and trembling.) "Go thy way for this time; when I have a
convenient season, I will call for thee."
BARNES
ON THE
TRAFFIC IN ARDENT SPIRITS.
There are some great principles in regard to _our_ country, which are
settled, and which are never to be violated, so long as our liberties
are safe. Among them are these: that every thing may be subjected to
candid and most free discussion; that public opinion, enlightened and
correct, may be turned against any course of evil conduct; that that
public opinion is, under God, the prime source of security to our laws
and to our morals; and that men may be induced, by an ample and liberal
discussion, and by the voice of conscience and of reason, to abandon any
course that is erroneous. We are to presume that we may approach any
class of American citizens with the conviction that if they are
_convinced_ that they are wrong, and that their course of life leads to
sap the foundation of morals and the liberties of their country, they
will abandon it.
Our present proposition is, that THE MANUFACTURING AND VENDING OF ARDENT
SPIRITS IS MORALLY WRONG, AND OUGHT TO BE FORTHWITH ABANDONED.
We _mean by the proposition_, that it is an employment which _violates
the rules of morals that ought to regulate a man's business and
conduct_. The doctrine proceeds on the supposition, that there is
somewhere a correct standard of morals--a standard by which a man's
whole conduct and course of life is to be tried; and that _this_
business cannot be vindicated by a reference to that standard. Or, for
example, we mean that it is man's duty to love God, and seek to honor
him, and that this business cannot be vindicated by a reference to that
standard. That it is man's duty to love his fellow-men, and seek to
promote their welfare, and that this business cannot be vindicated by
that standard. That it is man's duty to render a valuable compensation
to his fellow-men in his transactions with them, and that this business
cannot be vindicated by that standard. That every man is bound to pursue
such a course of life as shall promote the welfare of the entire
community in which he lives, as shall _not_ tend to promote crime, and
pauperism, and misery, and to make widows and orphans, and that this
business cannot be vindicated by that standard. In one word, that by any
rules of life that have been set up to regulate the conduct of men,
whether in the Bible, in the necessary relations of the social compact,
in the reason and conscience of Christians, and of other men, this
business is incapable of vindication, and is to be regarded as immoral.
In this proposition, however, it is important to be understood. We mean
to confine it simply to the business where it is sold as an article of
_drink_. For to sell it as a medicine, with the same precaution as other
poisons are sold, would be no more immoral than it is to sell arsenic.
And to sell it for purposes of manufacture, where it is necessary for
that purpose, is no more immoral than to sell any other article with
that design. Between selling it for _these_ purposes, and selling it as
an article of drink, there is, as any one can see, the widest possible
difference.
When we speak of this business as _immoral_, it is also important to
guard the use of the word _immoral_. That word, with us, has come to
have a definite and well understood signification. When we speak of an
immoral man, we are commonly understood to attack the foundations of his
character; to designate some gross vice of which he is guilty, and to
speak of him as profane, or licentious, or profligate, or dishonest, or
as unworthy of our confidence and respect. Now, we by no means intend to
use the word in such a wide sense, when we say that this business is
immoral. We do not mean to intimate that in no circumstances a man may
be engaged in it and be worthy of our confidence, and be an honest man,
or even a Christian: for our belief is, that many such men have been,
and are still, unhappily engaged in this traffic. The time has been,
when it was thought to be as reputable as any other employment. Men may
not see the injurious tendency of their conduct. They may not be
apprized of its consequences; or they may be ignorant of the proper
rules by which human life is to be regulated. Thus, the slave-trade was
long pursued, and duelling was deemed right, and bigamy was practised.
But for a man to maintain that all these would be right _now_, and to
practise them, would be a very different thing.
In this view of the subject, we do not of course speak of the dead, or
offer any reflection on their conduct or character. Many men are
unwilling to regard this traffic as wrong, because, by so doing, they
would seem to convey a reflection on their parents, or friends, who may
have been engaged in the same business. But nothing of this kind is
intended. The great laws of morals are indeed unchanged: but the degrees
of light and knowledge which men possess may be very different. We
should not deem it right to apply _our_ laws and knowledge, in judging
of the laws of Sparta, which authorized theft; nor our laws to judge of
the conduct of the Hindoo in exposing his father on the banks of the
Ganges; nor our present views to determine on the morality of our
fathers an hundred years ago in the slave-trade; nor our views of the
marriage relation to condemn the conduct of Abraham, David, or Jacob.
Man's conduct is to be estimated by the light which he has. They who sin
without law, are to be judged without law; and they who sin in the law,
are to be judged by the law. Your father might have been engaged in the
traffic in ardent spirits. Whether he was innocent or not, is not now
the question, and has been determined by a higher tribunal than any on
earth. The question now is, whether _you_ can pursue it with a good
conscience; or whether, with all that you know of the effects of the
traffic, it be right or wrong for you to pursue it.
* * * * *
With these necessary explanations, I proceed to PROVE that, in the sense
in which it has been explained, the traffic is MORALLY WRONG.
In proving this proposition, I shall take for granted two or three
points which are now conceded, and to establish which would lead me too
far out of my way. The first is, that this is not an employment in which
_the properties of the article are unknown_. The seller has as good an
opportunity to be acquainted with the qualities of the article, and its
effects, as the buyer. There is no concealment of its character and
tendency; there can be no pretence that you were deceived in regard to
those qualities, and that you were unintentionally engaged in the sale
of an article which has turned out to be otherwise than you supposed it
to be. For, alas, those properties are too well ascertained; and all who
are engaged in this employment have ample opportunity to know what they
are doing, and engage in it with their eyes open.
The _effects_ of this traffic are well known. The public mind has been,
with remarkable intensity, directed to this subject for ten years in
this land, and the details have been laid before the American public. It
is believed that no vice has ever been so faithfully gauged, and the
details so well ascertained, as the vice of intemperance in this nation.
It is far better understood than the extent of gambling, of piracy, or
robbery, or the slave-trade. It is established now, beyond the
possibility of debate, that ardent spirits is a poison, as certain, as
deadly, and destructive, as any other poison. It may be more slow in its
effects, but it is not the less certain. This is established by the
testimony of all physicians and chemists who have expressed an opinion
on the subject. It is not necessary for the welfare of man as an
ordinary drink. This is proved by the like testimony, by the example of
many thousands who abstain from it, and by the fact, that before its
invention, the Roman soldier, the Scythian, and the Greek, were as hardy
and long-lived as men have been since. Its direct tendency is to produce
disease, poverty, crime, and death. Its use tends to corrupt the morals,
to enfeeble the intellect, to produce indolence, wretchedness, and woe
in the family circle; to shorten life, and to hurry to a loathsome
grave; to spread a pall of grief over families and nations. It is
ascertained to be the source of nine-tenths of all the pauperism, and
nine-tenths of all the crimes in the land. It fills our streets with
drunkards, our almshouses with loathsome wretches, our jails with poor
criminals, and supplies our gibbets with victims. It costs the land in
which we live more than 100,000,000 of dollars annually, and renders us
no compensation but poverty, want, curses, loathsomeness, and tears.
In any single year in this Union, could the effects be gathered into one
single grasp, they would present to the eye the following affecting
details. An army of at least 300,000 drunkards--not made up of old men,
of the feeble, but of those in early life; of our youth, of our men of
talents and influence; an enlistment from the bar, the bench, the
pulpit, the homes of the rich, and the firesides of piety; the abodes of
the intelligent, as well as the places of obscurity, and the humble
ranks--all reeling together to a drunkard's grave. With this army
Napoleon would have overran Europe. In the same group would be no less
than 75,000 criminals, made such by the use of ardent spirits; criminals
of every grade and dye, supported at the expense of the sober, and lost
to morality, and industry, and hope; the source of lawsuits, and the
fountain of no small part of the expenses of courts of justice. In the
same group would be no less than 200,000 paupers, in a land abounding in
all the wealth that the richest soil can give, and under all the
facilities which the most favored spot under the whole heaven can
furnish for acquiring a decent and an honest subsistence. Paupers,
supported at the expense of the sober and the industrious, and creating
no small part of our taxes, to pay for their indolence, and
wretchedness, and crimes. And in the same group would be no less than
600 insane persons, made such by intemperance, in all the horrid and
revolting forms of delirium--the conscience destroyed, the mind
obliterated, and hope and happiness fled for ever. And in the same group
there would be no less than 30,000 of our countrymen, who die annually,
as the direct effect of the use of ardent spirit. Thirty thousand of our
countrymen sinking to the most loathsome and dishonored of all graves,
the grave of the drunkard. This is just a summary of the obvious and
sure effects of this vice. The innumerable woes that it incidentally
causes; the weeping and groans of the widow and the fatherless; the
crimes and vices which it tends to introduce into abodes that would, but
for this, be the abodes of peace, are not, and cannot be taken into the
account.
Now, this state of things, if produced in any other way, would spread
weeping and sackcloth over nations and continents. Any sweeping
pestilence that could do this, would hold a nation in alarm, and
diffuse, from one end of it to the other, trembling and horror. The
world has never known any thing else like it. The father of mischief has
never been able to invent any thing that should diffuse more wide-spread
and dreadful evils.
It is agreed further, and well understood, that this is the _regular
effect of the traffic, and manufacture, and use of this article_. It is
not casual, incidental, irregular. It is uniform, certain, deadly, as
the sirocco of the desert, or as the malaria of the Pontine marshes. It
is not a periodical influence, returning at distant intervals; but it is
a pestilence, breathing always--diffusing the poison when men sleep and
when they wake, by day and by night, in seed-time and harvest--attending
the manufacture and sale of the article _always_. The destroyer seeks
his victim alike in every hogshead, and in every glass. He exempts no
man from danger that uses it; and is always secure of prostrating the
most vigorous frame, of clouding the most splendid intellect, of
benumbing the most delicate moral feelings, of palsying the most
eloquent tongue, of teaching those on whose lips listening senates hung,
to mutter and babble with the drunkard, and of entombing the most
brilliant talents and hopes of youth, wherever man can be induced to
drink. The establishment of every distillery, and every dram-shop, and
every grocery where it is sold, secures the certainty that many a man
will thereby become a drunkard, and be a curse to himself and to the
world. The traffic is not only occasionally and incidentally injurious,
but it is like the generation before the flood in its effects, evil, and
only evil continually.
Now the question is, whether this is an employment in which a moral man
and a Christian man _ought_ to be engaged. Is it such a business as his
countrymen ought to approve? Is it such as his conscience and sober
judgment approve? Is it such as his God and Judge will approve?
* * * * *
In examining this, let it be remembered, that the _reason_ why this
occupation is engaged in, and the sole reason, is, _to make money_. It
is not because it is supposed that it will benefit mankind; nor is it
because the man supposes that duty to his Creator requires it; nor is it
because it is presumed that it will promote public health, or morals,
or happiness; but it is engaged in and pursued solely as a means of
livelihood or of wealth. And the question then is reduced to a very
narrow compass: Is it _right_ for a man, for the sake of gain, to be
engaged in the sale of a poison--a poison attended with destruction to
the property, health, happiness, peace, and salvation of his neighbors;
producing mania, and poverty, and curses, and death, and woes
innumerable to the land, and to the church of God? A question this, one
would think, that might be very soon answered. In answering it, I invite
attention to a few very obvious, but undeniable positions.
1. It is an employment which tends to _counteract the very design of the
organization of society_. Society is organized on a benevolent
principle. The structure of that organization is one of the best adapted
instances of design, and of benevolence, anywhere to be found. It is on
this principle that a lawful employment--an employment fitted to produce
subsistence for a man and his family, will not interfere with the rights
and happiness of others. It may be pursued without violating any of
their rights, or infringing on their happiness in any way. Nay, it may
not only not interfere wits _their_ rights and happiness, but it will
tend to promote directly their welfare, by promoting the happiness of
the whole. Or, for example, the employment of the farmer may be pursued,
not only without interfering with the rights or privileges of the
mechanic, the physician, or the merchant, but it will directly
contribute to _their_ welfare, and is indispensable to it. The
employment of the physician not only contributes to the support of
himself and family, but to the welfare of the whole community. It not
only does _not_ interfere with the rights and happiness of the farmer
and the mechanic, but it tends directly to their advantage. The
employment of the merchant in lawful traffic, not only contributes to
his support, but is directly beneficial to the whole agricultural part
of the community; for, as has been well said, "the merchant is the
friend of mankind." He injures no man, at the same time that he benefits
himself; and he contributes to the welfare of the community, by
promoting a healthful and desirable exchange of commodities in different
parts of the land, and of various natures. The same is true of the
mechanic, the mariner, the legislator, the bookmaker, the day-laborer,
the schoolmaster, the lawyer, the clergyman.
Now, we maintain that the traffic in ardent spirits, as a drink, is a
violation of this wise arrangement. It tends to sap the foundation of
the whole economy. It is solely to benefit the trafficker, and it tends
to evil, evil only, evil continually. If every man should act on this
principle, society could not exist. If every man should choose an
employment that should _necessarily_ and _always_ interfere with the
peace, and happiness, and morals of others, it would at once break up
the organization. If every manufacturer should erect a manufactory, as
numerous as our distilleries and dram-shops, that should necessarily
blight every farm, and produce _sterility_ in its neighborhood, every
farmer would regard it as an unlawful employment; and if pursued, the
business of agriculture would end. If a physician could live only by
diffusing disease and death, who would regard his as a moral employment?
if a mariner could pursue his business from this port to Calcutta or
Canton, only by importing the plague in every return voyage, who would
deem it an honorable employment? If an apothecary could pursue his
business only by killing nine persons out of ten of those with whom he
had dealing, who would deem it a lawful business? If a man can get a
living in his employment only by fitting out a privateer and preying
upon the peaceful commerce of the world, who will deem it a lawful
employment? If a man lives only to make a descent on the peaceful abodes
of Africa, and to tear away parents from their weeping children, and
husbands from their wives and homes, where is the man that will deem
this a _moral_ business? And why not? Does he not act on the same
principle as the man who deals in ardent spirits--a desire to make
money, and that only? The truth is, that in all these cases there would
be a violation of the great fundamental law on which men must agree to
live together in society--a violation of that great, noble, and
benevolent law of our organization, by which an honest employment
interferes with no other, but may tend to diffuse blessings in the whole
circle of human engagements. And the traffic in ardent spirits is just
as much a violation of this law, as in any of the cases specified.
2. Every man is bound to pursue such a business as to _render a valuable
consideration_ for that which he receives from others. A man who
receives in trade the avails of the industry of others, is under
obligation to restore that which will be of real value. He receives the
fruit of toil; he receives that which is of value to himself; and common
equity requires that he return a valuable consideration. Thus, the
merchant renders to the farmer, in exchange for the growth of his farm,
the productions of other climes; the manufacturer, that which is needful
for the clothing or comfort of the agriculturist; the physician, the
result of his professional skill. All these are valuable considerations,
which are fair and honorable subjects of exchange. They are a mutual
accommodation; they advance the interest of both parties. But it is not
so with the dealer in ardent spirits. He obtains the property of his
fellow-men, and what does he return? That which will tend to promote his
real welfare? That which will make him a happier man? That which will
benefit his family? That which diffuses learning and domestic comfort
around his family circle? None of these things. He gives him that which
will produce poverty, and want, and cursing, and tears, and death. He
asked an egg, and he receives a scorpion. He gives him that which is
established and well known as a source of no good, but as tending to
produce beggary and wretchedness. Now, if this were practised in any
other business, it would be open fraud. If in any way you could palm
upon a farmer that which is not only _worthless_, but mischievous--that
which would certainly tend to ruin him and his family, _could there be_
any doubt about the nature of this employment? It makes no difference
here, that the man _supposes_ that it is for his good; or that he
applies for it. _You know_ that it is _not_ for his benefit, and you
know--what is the only material point under this head--that it will tend
to his ruin. Whatever _he_ may think about it, or whatever _he_ may
desire, you are well advised that it is an article that will tend to sap
the foundation of his morals and happiness, and conduce to the ruin of
his estate, and his body, and his soul; and you know, therefore, that
you are _not_ rendering him any really valuable consideration for his
property. The dealer may look on his gains in this matter--on his
houses, or mortgages, or lands, obtained as the result of this
business--with something like these reflections.