CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT AND STATE RIGHTS. 393 carried on where large masses of capital are concentrated. Granted, that individuals will manufacture their own poison, yet they must do it in secret and under such difficulties and public reprobation that comparatively small injury could result. And if it is possible to regulate the sale, and successfully, or even with approximate success, to restrict the sale to legitimate and necessary uses in detached States, as has been so largely done even under all the embarrassments of existing laws and a public sentiment none too sensitive and never hereafter to be less so than now, how much easier will it be to regulate and control the manufacture by licenses from the States or from the general government, as should be found best in practice. Especially would this be so when, by the control of transportation, every particle made could be traced to the proper and authorized dealers or custodians throughout the country. It would be impossible to conceal the manufacture if carried on to any injurious extent. Nothing can reach the manufacturer but a constitutional amendment, for two reasons: first, as before observed, the Constitution now recognizes ardent spirits for all uses to be property, and, second, no matter how strictly any State law might provide for its suppression, capital could locate in some other jurisdiction, in some other State or Territory, or in some foreign state, and create the supply which the drinking appetite of the consumer demands. Nor can there be any valid objection to this legislation based upon the doctrine of State rights, for the Constitution now asserts and exercises the power to substantially control or thwart the police power of the States by rendering nugatory their efforts to regulate and suppress the evil. The police powers of the States are thus really nullified or abridged in a most important, nay a matter of vital, con'cern. The deadliest foe of social happiness and public order is placed under the protection of the national Constitution, and the State must subordinate its process to the rights of rum, protected by the national power. This amendment proposes to repeal those restrictions upon the rights of States to govern themselves, and substitute provisions in harmony with the tendencies of enlightened State legislation and the interests of society, and thus it proposes to re-enforce the police power of the States acting for the public good. This certainly, at the worst, is no greater restriction of the powers of the States than now exists in the Constitution by virtue of the protection given to the liquor interests against which the States, so many of them, wage war. And it is difficult to see why an advocate of States' rights should be satisfied with the Constitution as it is, and then complain when it is proposed to change the Constitution so as to give the States still greater power to restrict and control an evil over which, but for this Constitution, the States would have absolute power. It seems to me that this is a sufficient reply to those who, claiming that they desire to suppress the evil, object to an increase of State power for that purpose. If the real difficulty is that the objector would relieve the liquor traffic of all legal disabilities, whether State or national, then this view of States' rights will not be satisfactory. He will then be satisfied with no constitutional amendment which does not destroy all "police power," State or national, to interfere with the evils of alcoholic intemperance. "States' rights is a term too much abused in these latter days, and honest men should examine well the motives and pretenses of those who appeal to prejudices engendered by controversies which, with their causes, are vanished away. We certainly are a nation to such extent that a vast evil which contaminates the atmosphere of the continent can be assailed with national power, especially when it can be reached successfully in no other way, and the method proposed leaves to the States the execution of the great work if they will perform it in their own self-chosen way. But I would not fail to urge that there be no national action at the expense of that which otherwise would be done in the States. The two forms of agitation and legislation should go on together, and each as the ally of the other, promoting, by their joint action, the success of both, fortifying and securing their conquests when made. In the same campaigns we discuss both State and national issues. Why is it not easier and better to consider the issue against alcohol in its broad and national aspect, which is the really important and only decisive one, rather than wholly in THE NATIONAL ASPECT. 395 its local and lesser relations in States, counties and towns? At the same primaries we select both State and national candidates, or choose delegates to act for us in conventions which perform our will. Why not, then, see to it that national candidates are sound upon the temperance issue, as well as those who are to be officers only of the State? No more important questions ever arise in Congress than questions upon bills and resolutions which relate to traffic in alcohol, and yet we ignore them in the formation of national platforms, and in the choice of candidates for the exercise of the executive and legislative power. The movements of the present time for prohibitory amendments of State constitutions and for statutory prohibition and regulation, including the system of "local-option" effort, are of great importance, especially as the means of temporary restraint, and as the centers of agitation and means of creating enlightened public opinion; but such is the nature and scope of the evil, and such are the relations of the general and special or State governments to each other, that nothing but a movement based upon the national idea presents a clear prospect of permanent success. The same and greater difficulties arise in all action for the permanent or even temporary suppression of the liquor traffic that does not include aggressive co-operation of the national government, which ruined the country under the Articles of Confederation, and which did not abate until the whole subject of commerce, foreign and between the States, was placed under the control of one sovereign power. The combination of local and national effort is indispensable to the desired end. Neither can prevail without the other; neither can be postponed for the other without harm. Let everybody throw a stone at the liquor traffic, each in his own way, when he is so organized that he can not or will not use prepared ammunition nor shoot with the regulation gun. But still the fact will remain that to ignore or delay the movement for a prohibitory amendment of the national Constitution, so that it may be reserved to be a Yorktown rather than a Bunker Hill-that is to say, a crowning rather than a preliminary battle — is to decide to fight as a mass of individuals, or an isolation of States, rather than as a trained army with a general plan of campaign, and a national concentration of organized power for the destruction of an organized national curse. It is a division and misdirection of power where combination and definite aim are required to give substantial success. It is time that the prohibitory idea should assume that control of any national party which belongs to a sentiment which is the conviction of three-fourths of the people in that party. No party can remain permanently three-fourths for prohibition and one-fourth against it. That is less possible than it once was for the nation to remain permanently half slave and half free. Ideas never compromise. Ideas never compromise. They contend for mastery, but they never conciliate nor coalesce. the dividing of the ways: "The crisis presses on us. Face to face with us it stands, With its solemn lips of question, Like the Sphinx on Egypt's sands.” We are at Our generation is passing away. Let not those of us who have chiefly done our work forget that the nation will survive us, and that the tree of liberty will be full of sap after we are gone. Let us die in the direction of hope. If the victory come not in our time, nor to our advantage, let those who bury us have reason to embalm our hearts, that in the thick fight which is between us and the Holy Land, chieftains who command our children shall, like the crusader, cast the sacred relics far forward into the ranks of the foe. So may the armies of the cross win victories from the memory of our devotion to the right. Let us at least leave behind the example of unflinching and unselfish valor put forth in a sublime cause a cause which it is duty to uphold, even though complete success may linger until our warfare is ended, and our sacrifices and calamities, if any there be, endured for its promotion, shall be long overpast. 3 CHAPTER XIX. WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND TEMPERANCE REFORM. - Woman's Kingdom, the Home, at Stake Woman the Greatest Barrier to Intemperance-Temperance is Woman's War-Rum Destroys the Home-Suffrage of Woman Indispensable to the Temperance Reform - Human Suffrage the True Ideal-Woman Suffrage Discussed Senate Committee's Report on Suffrage of Woman Woman's Christian Temperance Union, an Illustration of Woman's Ability to Shape Action-Ouida's Notions about Women - Intelligent Men Concede Woman's Capacity and Moral Fitness - Suffrage not a Right Dependent on Sex-To Vote the Great Primitive Right Maternity does not Disqualify; Motherhood adds Motives Mothers can Attend Church, why not the Polls?-Objection that Woman does not Desire Suffrage-Objection that Husband and Wife will Disagree-Experience of Wyoming, Washington, and Kansas - Women Voting has made Voting Respectable -- Senate Report, on Development of Woman Suffrage-School Suffrage in Eleven States-Speech of Hon. Albert Griffin-Free Suffrage for All. HE worst consequences of the liquor traffic fall upon women and children. THR Intemperance is the most cowardly of all crimes. I say of all crimes; for it must be admitted that if so long as the effects of self-poisoning by the use of intoxicating beverages are confined to the drunkard, the practice is only a vice, yet the moment that he is led by it to violate his duty to others, and trespass upon their rights, he becomes a criminal. Although there is much intemperance among women, and it is to be feared that the habit is increasing, especially among the fast and wealthy few, still the gentler sex is comparatively free from the dreadful practice, which is so common among men. Some of the reasons for this fact may be that the woman nature, if not the better, is less inclined to the indulgence of coarse animal tendencies, like gluttony and drunkenness, that woman has fewer temptations, and, when there is opportunity, is more readily reclaimed. Then, again, woman is the supreme being in the family, and instinctively perseveres |