whether, then, you love your species, your country, or your God, you are here furnished with an opportunity of indulging the best feelings of your hearts, of subserving interests most precious in themselves, and of aiding a cause approved of high Heaven.

Mr. LEIGH said:

But it is replied that there are but few of the thousands that use the article, injured, and the State should not deprive the many of the luxury because the few abuse it. This is a statement of fact. For a correct understanding, I would refer to the thousands and tens of thousands who are this day suffering, whether there are few only that are injured.

But the bill makes ample provisions for the purchase of the article for all necessary purposes. It should also be borne in mind that the law does not forbid the use, but the sale. To this it is replied, if the sale is forbidden, the purchase is also forbidden, and, of course, the use thereof. The question returns upon this, has government the right to prohibit the sale of spirits, wines, etc., as a luxury? Strip the question of all its lumber, and I apprehend this to be the naked question for this House to decide.

With your permission, Mr. Speaker, I will take the affirmative of the question, and briefly give my reasons:

1. The use of the article as a luxury is the direct and indirect cause of four fifths of all the crimes that are committed in the community; in proof of which I refer you to the reports of the wardens of our prisons and penitentiaries, and the records of the criminal courts.

If, then, the assaults upon the persons of our citizens, endangering their lives; if nearly all the cases of stabbing; if almost all the murders that have been committed in the State, are done by persons under the influence of this excit ing beverage, used by such persons as a luxury only, is it not the right and the duty of government to interpose and protect weak and inoffending citizens from the cruelties inflicted upon their persons by those using the article, and say unto them, "The lives of our citizens are too precious to be sacrificed on the altar of your traffic; therefore you must be restrained from the sale of the article."

2. My second reason is that the use of alcohol as a beverage is the cause of four fifths of all the pauperism, depriv

ing thereby the State of the productive industry of a large number of her citizens, and reducing them to beggary; thus taxing honest industry with their support, by which the State is the loser of millions annually.

3. The use of alcohol as a beverage produces idleness and debauchery to an extent fifty-fold more than all other causes put together.

4. The use of alcohol as a beverage undermines and destroys the morals of our citizens to an extent that is fearful, and if continued, threatens to overthrow the government itself; for the history of nations shows that no republic can stand upon any other foundation than a virtuous, intelligent, and industrious people.

5. The use of alcohol as a beverage shortens the lives of the citizens, depriving the State thereby of their labor and intelligence at a time when their maturity should make them most useful and important to the State.

6. The use of alcohol is the direct cause of the destruction of that beautiful, incomprehensible, and God-like attribute of man-the human intellect. Under its influence our constantly enlarging asylums are filled, and many, whose minds are not totally wrecked, wander about our State with enfeebled intellects, minds debased, genius prostrate; and thousands of our educated and most promising young men, who once bid fair to give lustre and glory to the State, sink below mediocrity into mental feebleness. This bill seeks to prevent this destruction of intellect. Sir, enact and put into execution this law, and you will rescue from vice and mental degradation, and bring forth to the service of our State, men who will shine in her future history as poets, orators, philosophers, and in mechanic arts, with a lustre equal to a Shakspeare, Milton, Webster, Newton, Franklin, or Fulton; for what man has done, the indomitable perseverance of our youth can and will do again. If to save from wilful destruction the property of the citizen is a part of the duty of the government, surely none can doubt the course government should take in saving that which is of more value to the State than property itself-the intellects of her children; for it is by the creative genius of man that that which to-day is of little or no value, is converted into property, real and valuable, enriching thereby the State. Again, the State spends millions in educating her children, it being a part of her policy to mature and de

velop the intellect of all her citizens. Who can say it is not the duty of government to foster and protect that which she has, at so great an expense, matured, educated, and developed?

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Finally, I ask, who will object to the law? I answer, none but those who are governed by avarice or appetite. And shall mammon and lust be stronger and have a greater influence over this Legislature than the cries of suffering humanity, the tears of the child, the sighs of the mother, and the heart-rending agonies of the wife? Heaven forbid it! The people, in their majesty, have said the humanity of the times and the light of the nineteenth century demand the law. They have said to us, their servants: We will have the law;" and, thank Heaven, a majority of this Legislature are willing to give their votes to secure the passage of the law.

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Reject this law, and it will be a deed over which angels and good men will weep, and wicked men and devils rejoice.

Mr. BAKER spoke at length in opposition to the measure. He stated at the outset that in regard to this bill, its opponents had been placed in a false position, and its advocates also. While its opponents were held up to the public as the opponents of temperance, its friends claim to be the only true friends of that desirable reform. He denied this. As an opponent of this measure, he claimed for himself and those who acted with him as sincere a desire to promote the cause of temperance as any of those who had become the self-constituted champions of this bill, and who claimed to be the exclusive friends of temperance. He retorted upon the latter that their bill was itself a false pretense-that whilst it pretended to suppress intemperance, it did no such thing-it did not pretend to reach intemperance—that it did not pretend to prohibit the sale of intoxicating drinks, but only to prohibit the sale in one mode, and to permit it in another; that it did not nor could not prohibit nor restrain intemperance half so effectually as the existing laws, properly enforced--that it attempted indirectly to enact a sumptuary law, but did not venture in a plain, flat-footed way, to prohibit the use of intoxicating liquor; and he charged that this great temperance reformation had become -and that this measure was proof of it—a mere political

hobby, to be mounted by every needy politician who de sired to ride into office on it; and that thus a great and desirable reform had been subjected to all the vicissitudes and hazards of party politics, to go up or down with a political party.

He took the position that the people of this State, by a large majority, stood opposed to a prohibitory law-and he cited the figures of the last election to sustain this position -and at much length dissected and exposed the deceptive character of the bill, as a measure designed to suppress intemperance. It was a bill, the effect, if not the design of which, was to create a monopoly of the sale of rum in a few hands, and to exclude all others from competing with them in this traffic.

In conclusion, Mr. B. said: But, sir, I will briefly recapitulate some of my objections to this bill, and then close.

1. I am opposed to it, because it is false and deceptive on its face and in its title. It professes to be a bill for the suppression of intemperance, pauperism, and crime; but I believe if it becomes the law of the State, it will increase all of those evils!

2. I am opposed to it, because it discriminates against. American labor, manufactures, industry, and products, and in favor of the capital, labor, industry, and products of foreign countries and foreigners.

3. Because it creates a monopoly of the business, which will enable those enjoying it to oppress and extort from the poor.

4. It overthrows and reverses one of the most sacred rights secured to us by our laws-the right "to be deemed innocent until proved guilty."

Finally, sir, I am opposed to this bill, because I believe there is a large majority of the legal voters of this State opposed to it; and I believe it the bounden duty of the government to pass such laws, and such laws only, as the clear majority of the voters of the State indicate through the ballot-box. That, sir, is the true spirit and intent of our republican institutions; and any law, enforced upon the people, to which even a large minority are opposed, will lack that moral force and power necessary to command respect and cheerful submission from the masses, or to give it permanence and stability; and because it will have the effect to injure and ruin many of the best eitizens of our State by

depreciating and rendering their property worthless, without diminishing the amount of drunkenness, pauperism, and crime; and finally, sir, because I am opposed to making the cause of temperance a political hobby for the benefit of a set of men who have no higher motive than their own political success.

February 21st being the day appointed for taking the final vote, the bill passed-ayes 80, noes 45, as follows:

AYES-Messrs. Baldwin, Beecher, J. Bennett, J. P. Bennett, Beyea, Blakeslee, Blatchford, Boynton, Brush, Bushnell, Chester, Clark, Cocks, S. B. Cole, Covey, Eanies, Everest, Fairchild, Ferdon, Fitch, Gates, Gleason, Goddard, Headley, Hull, Jimmerson, C. P. Johnson, L. B. Johnson, Knapp, Kirkland, Lamport, Leigh, Littlefield, Lourie, Machan, McKinney, Mallory, Main, Masters, May, E. Miller, L. Miller, Munro, Paine, D. Palmer, F. W. Palmer, J. C. Palmer, Peck, Pennoyer, Phelps, Platt, Ramsay, Raymond, Rickerson, Rider, Rhodes, Robinson, Schuyler, Speaker, B. Smith, J. A. Smith, S. Smith, Stanton, Stebbins, Stevens, Storrs, Terhune, G. Tompkins, I. Tompkins, Van Etten, Van Osdol, Walker, Wells, Whalen. Whallon, G. D. Williams, Wilsey, Wisner, Wooden, Wygant-80.

NOES-Messrs. Aitken, Allen, Baker, Blessing, Bridenbecker, Buckley, Campbell, Case, Chapin, Churchill, Coleman, Comstock, Congor, Davidson, Davy, Devening, Dixon, Donnon, Dumont, Edwards, Emans, Green, Ivans, Kendig, Maguire, McLaughlin, Mundy, Odell, O'Keefe, Parsons, Petty, Rhoda, Seagrist, Searing, Selden, Seymour, Smalley, E. L. Smith, W. B. Smith, Stuyvesant, Wager, Ward, Waterbury, Weed, A. G. Williams-45.

On motions to be excused from voting, the members named below spoke substantially as follows, and then voted as recorded above.

Mr. AITKEN spoke against the general provisions of the bill, referring particularly to the unconstitutional character of the bill.

Mr. CONGER declared his settled hostility to the bill, and was proceeding at length to state his objections to it, when he was called to order, and voted No.

Mr. DAVIDSON said he should vote against the bill because it was, in his opinion, grossly unjust and unconstitutional, and because, by providing for the destruction of private property, it would operate ruinously upon a large number of his constituents.

Mr. ODELL, though in favor of a temperance bill, could not vote for a bill so obnoxious as this in its inception and character.