Part 23

Now we may easily determine this matter. The article thus exported will do as much evil _there_ as it would if consumed _here_. It will spread just as much devastation somewhere, as it would if consumed in your own family, and among your own friends and neighbors. We have only to ask, what would be the effect if it were consumed in your own habitation, in your neighborhood, in your own city? Let all this poison, which is thus exported to spread woes and death somewhere, be concentrated and consumed where you might see it, and is there any man who will pretend that the paltry sum which he receives is a compensation for what he knows would be the effect of the consumption? You keep your own atmosphere pure, it may be, but you export the pestilence, and curses, and lamentation elsewhere, and receive a compensation for it. You sell disease, and death, and poverty, and nakedness, and tears to other families, to clothe and feed your own. And as the result of this current of moral poison and pollution which you may cause to flow into hundreds of other families, you may point to a splendid palace, or to gay apparel of your sons and daughters, and proclaim that the evil is hidden from your eyes. Families, and neighborhoods, and states, may groan and bleed somewhere, and thousands may die, but _your_ gain is to be a compensation for it all. Is this an honorable traffic?

Suppose a man were to advertise consumptions, and fevers, and pleurisies, and leprosy, for gold, and could and would sell them; what would the community say to such a traffic? Suppose, for gain, he could transport them to distant places, and now strike down by a secret power a family in Maine, and now at St. Mary's, and now at Texas, and now at St. Louis; what would the community think of wealth gained in such a traffic? Suppose he could, with the same ease, diffuse profaneness, and insanity, and robberies, and murders, and suicides, and should advertise all these to be propagated through the land, and could prevail on men to buy the talismanic nostrum for gold--what would the community think of such a traffic as this? True, he might plead that it brought a vast influx of money--that it enriched the city, or the country--that the effects were not seen there; but what would be the public estimate of a man who would be willing to engage in such a traffic, and who would set up such a plea? Or suppose it were understood that a farmer from the interior had arrived in Philadelphia with a load of flour, nine-tenths of whose barrels contained a mixture, more or less, of arsenic, and should offer them for sale; what would be the feelings of this community at such a traffic? True, the man might plead that it would produce gain to his country; that they had taken care to remove it to another population; that his own family was secure. Can any words express the indignation which would be felt? Can any thing express the horror which all men would feel at such a transaction as this, and at the cold-blooded and inhuman guilt of the money-loving farmer? And yet we witness a thing like this every day, on our wharves, and in our ships, and our groceries, and our inns, and from our men of wealth, and our moral men, and our _professed Christians_--and a horror comes through the souls of men, when we dare to intimate that this is an immoral business.

4. A man is bound to pursue such a course of life as _not necessarily to increase the burdens and the taxes_ of the community. The pauperism and crimes of this land grow out of this vice, as an overflowing fountain. Three-fourths of the taxes for prisons, and houses of refuge, and almshouses, would be cut off, but for this traffic and the attendant vices. Nine-tenths of the crimes of the country, and of the expenses of litigation for crime, would be prevented by arresting it. Of 653 who were in one year committed to the house of correction in Boston, 453 were drunkards. Of 3,000 persons admitted to the workhouse in Salem, Mass., 2,900 were brought there directly or indirectly by intemperance. Of 592 male adults in the almshouse in New York, not 20, says the superintendent, can be called sober; and of 601 women, not as many as 50. Only three instances of murder in the space of fifteen years, in New York, occurred, that could not be traced to ardent spirit as the cause. In Philadelphia, ten. This is the legitimate, regular effect of the business. It tends to poverty, crime, and woe, and greatly to increase the taxes and burdens of the community.

What is done then in this traffic? You are filling our almshouses, and jails, and penitentiaries, with victims loathsome and burdensome to the community. You are engaged in a business which is compelling your fellow-citizens to pay taxes to support the victims of your employment. You are filling up these abodes of wretchedness and guilt, and then asking your fellow-citizens to pay enormous taxes indirectly to support this traffic. For, if every place where ardent spirits can be obtained, were closed in this city and its suburbs, how long might your splendid palaces for the poor be almost untenanted piles; how soon would your jails disgorge their inmates, and be no more filled; how soon would the habitations of guilt and infamy in every city become the abodes of contentment and peace; and how soon would reeling loathsomeness and want cease to assail your doors with importunate pleadings for charity.

Now we have only to ask our fellow-citizens, what right they have to pursue an employment tending thus to burden the community with taxes, and to endanger the dwellings of their fellow-men, and to send to my door, and to every other man's door, hordes of beggars loathsome to the sight; or to compel the virtuous to seek out their wives and children, amidst the squalidness of poverty, and the cold of winter, and the pinchings of hunger, to supply their wants? Could impartial justice be done in the world, an end would soon be put to the traffic in ardent spirits. Were every man bound to alleviate all the wretchedness which his business creates, to support all the poor which his traffic causes, an end would soon be made of this employment. But alas, you can diffuse this poison for gain, and then call on your industrious and virtuous countrymen to alleviate the wretchedness, to tax themselves to build granite prisons for the inmates which your business has made; and splendid palaces, at an enormous expense, to extend a shelter and a home for those whom your employment has turned from their own habitations. Is this a moral employment? Would it be well to obtain a living in this way in any other business?

5. The business is _inconsistent with the law of God_, which requires us to love our neighbor as ourselves. A sufficient proof of this would be a fact which no one could deny, that no man yet, probably, ever undertook the business, or pursued it from that motive. Its defence is not, and cannot be put on that ground. No man in the community believes that a continuance in it is required by a regard to the welfare of his neighbor. Every one knows that his welfare does not require it; and that it would be conferring an inestimable blessing on other men, if the traffic was abandoned. The single, sole object is gain; and the sole question is, whether the love of gain is a sufficient motive for continuing that which works no good, but constant ill to your neighbor.

There is another law of God which has an important bearing on this subject. It is that golden rule of the New Testament, which commends itself to the conscience of all men, to do to others as you would wish them to do to you. You may easily conceive of your having a son, who was in danger of becoming a drunkard. Your hope might centre in him. He might be the stay of your age. He may be inclined to dissipation; and it may have required all your vigilance, and prayers, and tears, and authority, to keep him in the ways of soberness. The simple question now is, what would you wish a neighbor to do in such a case? Would it be the desire of your heart, that he should open a fountain of poison at your next door; that he should, for gain, be willing to put a cup into the hands of your son, and entice him to the ways of intemperance? Would you be pleased if he would listen to no remonstrance of yours, if he should even disregard your entreaties and your tears, and coolly see, for the love of gold, ruin coming into your family, and your prop taken from beneath you, and your gray hairs coming down with sorrow to the grave? And yet to many such a son may you sell the poison; to many a father whose children are clothed in rags; to many a man whose wife sits weeping amidst poverty and want, and dreading to hear the tread and the voice of the husband of her youth, once her protector, who now comes to convert his own habitation into a hell. And there are not a few men of fair standing in society who are engaged in this; and not a few--O tell it not in Gath--who claim the honored name of Christian, and who profess to bear the image of Him who went about doing good. Can such be a _moral_ business?

6. The traffic is _a violation of that law which requires a man to honor God_. Whether ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God. And yet is this a business which was ever engaged in, or ever pursued, with a desire to honor God? Is it an employment over which a man will pray? Can he ask the God of heaven to give him success? Let him, then, in imagination, follow what he sells to its direct result; let him attend it to its final distribution of poverty, and woes, and crimes, and death, and then kneel before heaven's eternal King, and render thanksgiving for this success? Alas, it cannot be. Man pursues it not from a desire to honor God. And can the man who is engaged in a business on which he cannot implore the blessing of heaven; who is obliged to conceal all thoughts of it if he ever prays; who never engaged in it with a desire to glorify God, or to meet his approbation, can _he_ be engaged in a business which is lawful and right?

I might dwell further on these points. But I am now prepared to ask, with emphasis, whether an employment that has been attended with so many ills to the bodies and souls of men; with so much woe and crime; whose results are evil, and only evil continually; an employment which cannot be pursued without tending to destroy the very purposes of the organization of society; without violating the rule which requires us to render a valuable consideration in business; without violating the rule which requires a man to promote the welfare of the whole of the community; which promotes pauperism and crime, and imposes heavy burdens on your fellow-citizens; which is opposed equally to the love of man and the law of God--_whether this is a moral, or an immoral employment?_

The question is submitted. If moral, it should be driven on with all the power of American energy; with all the aids of wealth, and all the might of steam, and all the facilities of railroads and canals; for our country and the church calls the man to the honorable employment. But if it be immoral and wrong, it should be abandoned on the spot. Not another gallon should ever pass from your store, if it be evil, only evil, and that continually.

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We are prepared now to examine a few of the OBJECTIONS to this doctrine.

1. The first is, that the traffic is not condemned in the Bible. To this the answer is very obvious. The article was then unknown. Nor was it known until 600 years after the Bible was completed. This mode of extending and perpetuating depravity in the world was not suggested by the father of evil, until it was too late to make a formal law against it in the Bible, or to fortify the argument of human depravity from this source. It is neither in the Bible, nor in any other code of laws, the custom to specify crimes which do not exist. How remarkable in a code of laws would have been such a declaration as the trafficker demands, "Thou shalt not deal in ardent spirits," hundreds of years before the article was known. The world would have stood in amazement, and would have been perplexed and confounded by an unmeaning statute. But further, it is not the practice in the Bible, or in any other book of laws, to specify each shade and degree of wrong. Had it been, there could have been no end of legislation, and no end to books of law. I ask the dealer in ardent spirits, where is there a formal prohibition of piracy, or bigamy, or kidnapping, or suicide, or duelling, or the sale of obscene books and paintings? And yet does any man doubt that these are immoral? Does he believe that the Bible will countenance them? Will he engage in them, because they are not specified formally, and with technical precision, in the Scriptures? The truth is, that the Bible has laid down great principles of conduct, which on all these subjects can be easily applied, which _are_ applied, and which, under the guidance of equal honesty, may be as easily applied to the traffic of which I am speaking. Still further, the Bible _has_ forbidden it in principle, and with all the precision which can be demanded. A man cannot pursue the business, as has been shown, without violating its great principles. He cannot do justly in it; he cannot show mercy by it; he cannot seek to alleviate human woes by it; he cannot do as he would wish to be done unto; he cannot pursue it to glorify God. The great principles of the Bible, the spirit of the Bible, and a thousand texts of the Bible are pointed against it; and every step the trafficker takes, he infringes on the spirit and bearing of some declaration of God. And still further, it is _his_ business to make out the propriety of the employment, not ours to make out the case against him. Here is the rule--for him to judge. By this he is to be tried; and unless he can find in the volume a rule that will justify him in a business for gain that scatters inevitable woes and death; that accomplishes more destruction than all the chariots of war and the desolations of gunpowder on the field of blood; that sends more human beings to the grave, than fire, and flood, and pestilence, and famine, altogether; that heaps on human society more burdens than all other causes combined; that sends armies on armies, in a form more appalling, and infinitely more loathsome than Napoleon's "food for cannon," to the grave: unless he can find some prophecy, or some principle, or some declaration, that will justify these, the Bible is against him, and he knows it. As well might he search for a principle to authorize him to plant a Bohon Upas on every man's farm, and in the heart of every city and hamlet.

2. A second plea is, "If I do not do it, others will; the traffic will go on." Then, I answer, _let_ others do it, and on them, not on you, be the responsibility. But it is said, perhaps, if it is not in your hands--the hands of the respectable and the pious--it will be in the hands of the unprincipled and the profligate. I answer, THERE LET IT BE. There, if anywhere, it should be. There, if these principles are correct, is its appropriate place. And if that were done, intemperance would soon cease to curse the land. _It is just because it is upheld by the rich, and the reputable, and by professed Christians, that the reform drags so heavily._ The business has never found its proper level. And O that the dealers in it would kindly forego this plea of benevolence, and feel themselves released from this obligation. But is this a correct principle of conduct? Is this the rule which heaven has given, or which conscience gives, to direct the doings of man? Have I a right to do all which I know other men will do? Other men will commit murder. Have I a right to do it? Other men will commit adultery. Have I a right to do it? Other men will curse, and swear, and steal. Have you a right to do it? Other men will prey on unoffending Africa, and bear human sinews across the ocean to be sold. Have you a right to do it? The traffic in human flesh will go on; ships will be fitted out from American ports; and American hands will bear a part of the price of the tears and groans of enslaved men. And why should not you participate with them, on the same principle?

3. A third excuse is, that the traffic is the source of gain to the country. Now this is known to be not so. More than 100,000,000 of dollars would be necessary to repair to this land the annual loss in this business. Is it no loss that 300,000 men are drunkards, and are the slaves of indolence and want? Is it no loss to the nation that 30,000 each year go to the grave? Is there no loss in the expense of supporting 75,000 criminals, and nine-tenths of the paupers in the land? Is it no loss that bad debts are made, and men are made unable and unwilling to pay their debts? Whence are _your_ bad debts? Whence, but directly or indirectly from this business? From the indolence, and want of principle, and want of attention, which intemperance produces?

4. The man who is engaged in this business says, perhaps, "I have inherited it, and it is the source of my gain; and what shall I do?" I answer, beg, dig--do any thing _but_ this. It would be a glorious martyrdom _to starve_, contrasted with obtaining a livelihood by such an employment. In this land, assuredly, men cannot plead that there are no honorable sources of livelihood open before them. Besides, from whom do we hear this plea? As often as otherwise from the man that rolls in wealth; that lives in a palace; that clothes his family in the attire of princes and of courts; and that moves in the circles of fashion and splendor. O how cheering is _consistent_ pleading; how lovely the expressions of perfect honesty! This business may be abandoned without difficulty. The only question is, whether the love of man, and the dictates of conscience, and the fear of God, shall prevail over the love of that polluted gold which this traffic in the lives and souls of men shall introduce into your dwelling.

During a warmly contested election in the city of New York, it is stated in the daily papers that numerous applications were made for _pistols_ to those who kept them for sale. It is added that the application was extensively denied, on the ground of the apprehension that they were intended for bloodshed in the excitement of the contest. This was a noble instance of principle. But on the plea of the dealer in ardent spirits, why should they have been withheld? The dealer in fire-arms might have plead as the trafficker in poison does: "This is my business. I obtain a livelihood by it. _I am not responsible for what will be done with the fire-arms._ True, the people are agitated. I have every reason to believe that application is made with a purpose to take life. True, blood may flow and useful lives may be lost. But _I_ am not responsible. If they take life, they are answerable. The excitement is a favorable opportunity to dispose of my stock on hand, and it is a part of my business to avail myself of all favorable circumstances in the community to make money." Who would not have been struck with the cold-blooded and inhuman avarice of such a man? And yet there was not _half_ the moral certainty that those fire-arms would have been used for purposes of blood, that there is that ardent spirits will be employed to produce crime, and poverty, and death.

I have no time to notice other objections. Nor need I. I have stated the _principle_ of all. I just add here, that the excuses which are set up for this traffic will apply just as well to any other business as this, and will fully vindicate any other employment, if they are to be sustained. Apply these excuses to the case of a bookseller. The question might be suggested, whether it was a moral or an immoral business to deal in infidel, profligate, and obscene pictures and books. True, it might be alleged that they did evil, and only evil continually. It might be said that neither the love of God or man would prompt to it. He might be pointed to the fact, that they _always_ tended to corrupt the morals of youth; to blight the hopes of parents; to fill up houses of infamy; to blot out the hopes of heaven; and to sink men to hell. But then he might with commendable coolness add, "This traffic is not condemned in the Bible. If _I_ do not engage in it, others will. It contributes to my livelihood; to the support of the press; to the promotion of business; and I am not responsible for _their_ reading the books, nor for their desire for them. I am pursuing the way in which my fathers walked before me, and it is _my living, and I will do it_." Wherein does this plea differ from that of the trafficker in ardent spirits? Alas, we have learned how to estimate its force in regard to other sins; but we shrink from its application in regard to this wide-spread business, that employs so much of the time and the wealth of the people of this land.

Here I close. The path of duty and of safety is plain. These evils may be corrected. A virtuous and an independent people may rise in their majesty and correct them all. I call on all whom I now address, to exert their influence in this cause; to abandon all connection with the traffic; and to become the firm, and warm, and thorough-going advocates of the temperance reformation. Your country calls you to it. Every man who loves her welfare, should pursue no half-way measures; should tread no vacillating course in this great and glorious reformation.