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Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

In Senate, Feb. 2, 1841.

The Special Joint Committee, to whom was referred the petition of Josiah Newhall and others, of Lynn, praying for the enactment of a law "authorising the County Commissioners to require bonds, with sureties, from all persons to whom they may grant licenses to sell spiritous liquors, to reimburse the Commonwealth for all expenses incurred in the prosecution and commitment of drunkards, in proportion as such licensed persons are assessed for their town taxes”—have given that consideration to the subject which its importance seems to demand, and respectfully ask leave to make the follow

ing

REPORT:

The principle assumed by the petitioners, "that whereas the Legislature, by tolerating the sale of ardent spirits, confers a monopoly to those engaged in the traffic, and that consequently, those to whom such monopoly is granted, should be held responsible to the granting power for all expenses resulting from the abuse, or misuse of the

article," is, in the opinion of your Committee, an assumption as untenable as it is novel. The practical operation of a law founded upon such an hypothesis, would be more unjust than that under the Mosaic code, which visited the sins of the fathers upon the heads of the children, as the parent is, in some degree, morally responsible for the conduct of the child, but a man who should comply with every tittle of the statute himself, would, upon such premises, be responsible for the transgressions of his neighbors, with whom he has no connection or interest. Your Committee are fully aware that it is extremely difficult to restrict or regulate the sale of ardent spirit, by the several states, while the general government tolerates its importation from foreign countries, and from which a revenue is derived; and especially if our courts of justice hesitate to convict for violations of our statutes, in reference to the sale of this article: and the various ineffectual attempts that have been made, within the last ten years, to provide an antidote against the evils of intemperance, in the form of law, would seem to warrant the conclusion, that the remedy must be found in the moral sense of the community. It is true that lesser evils have been removed through the intervention of legislative action, but their influence were not so pervading in their tendency, or so pernicious in their effects, as to excite an organised hostility to the means offered for their suppression. The sale of lottery tickets was, at no very remote period, tolerated by law, and the sanction of this species of gambling was recognised by acts of legislation; but when a majority of the people became convinced of the evils resulting from the system, they prohibited the practice by strong legal enactments, and the evil has been entirely abated. And there are many other grievous evils and immoralities still

existing among us, besides intemperance, which time and a zealous perseverance inay yet eradicate, but to tamper with these, or any other evils, by recognising their existence, in the form of a license to commit them, is to sacrifice principle on the altar of expediency.

The cause of temperance is the cause of humanity; it is the cause of philanthropy and virtue, and no railing accusations, charging its advocates with hypocrisy, will ever be able to silence or stifle its appeals to a conscience open to conviction.

Thousands, and even millions, of the human family, have been induced to abandon the use of all intoxicating liquors, who, but for the untiring efforts of the friends of temperance, would have gone down to the grave confirmed drunkards; examples of the truth of this declaration, are too numerous in every town, and every neighborhood, to be denied by any rational man; and if it should be found impracticable, at the present time, to enact a law for the further restriction of the sale of ardent spirits, we trust it will not diminish the zeal or abate the efforts of the friends of a cause so important to the present and future happiness of the human race. If it is a fact, as all experience fully proves, and as a large majority of the community readily admit, that the use of alcoholic liquors is a positive evil, and productive of no possible good, it would seem but a mere tampering with the evil, to tolerate its use by statutes purporting to limit its sale; or to require of its venders any indemnity in money, as an equivalent for the misery it entails; as no pecuniary remuneration can compensate for a moral wrong. Upon this acknowledged principle of sound morality, we believe every act of legislation should be established; and in proportion as this principle becomes paramount to self-interest, its applica

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