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THE RESPONSIBILITY
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And here the community renews its call to accountability. It presses this
heavy additional charge in the face of the liquor-seller. It charges him, not
merely with a disregard of his own personal obligations, but with systematic
illoyalty ; with waging a constant and destructive warfare against all its dearest
interests;—with besieging ever, night and day, with a frenzied army and the
mightiest engine of destruction, those great interests in which all its interests
are summed, and which it has ever been the sole object of its organization to
promote,—. Tee FO3TMON DEFENCE mon GENERAL WELFARE." it charges him
with not only seducing multitudes to a desertion of its intereste, And a disregard
of the duties they owe it, in common with himself, but with arraying them in
unnatural and deadly hostility; arOng them with a weapon more to be dreaded
than thOsWord, than any other. ex pt his own matchless engine of ruin,—with
the fire-brand of the moral incenalary I It charges him with riot only making
them loungers and vagabonds, but with throwing back upon it—letting loose in
its midst—a portion of them, trained to every species of lawleseness and disor
der;—brawlers, and rioters, and gamblers, and pickpockets, and Jacobins, anal
thieves, and robbers, and murderers. It charges him with taxing it not only with the
support of his paupers ;—a burden which humanity assists it to bear—but with
the support of his malefactors, and' with the keeping up of tribunals and a police
to protect it nun as possible againet their outrage; with the burden of supporting,
not only:poor-houses and asylums, but jails and penitentiaries. It charges
him with poisoning the atmosphere of public morals, in which it alone can exist
in healthful vigor, as with the blast of the desert simoom! And still willing to
? reserve its might and majesty for a demior necessity, and, not :withstanding the
t multitude and magnitude of its wrongs, to meet him on the ground of entreaty
y 1 end expostulation, it appeals to his patriotism, and conjures him; by the ties,
the memories and associations of a common home, a common country, to desist
front Ins treason ! The appeal to his patriotism is in vain. '
It raises the mantle Irvin the wounds he has inflicted upon its body, and ap- 1
peals to hie LIUMANIT, - It points to the wretched hovel of his victim; for it is
within view of every grog-shop. II is eye rests upon the haggard visage of mis
ery itself. He sees what no one else can behold without emotion; the very eight
of which is sufficient to break up alt the fountains of feeling, and swell to °e'er
flawing every stream of commiseration. lie sees there the sorrowing, woe.
striken 'nether, pining away ill secret misery and grief, beneath the heavy hand
of want, neglect, cruelty, end in view of the lowering storm of degradation and
ruin, raging above, and threatening ere long: to sweep before it the last vestige
of her earthly hope. Ile trees a band of children, ragged—shivering with cold,
, and pinched with hunger ; —their expanding minds, their immortal souls yet more
neglected. The liquor-seller has taken their sustenance, despoiled their once
happy home of its comforts and its joys,—and their father is a drunkard !
Maternal care has been diverted by spectacles of more obvious misery, or
drowned in the stupefaction of broken-hearted sorrow. There is no kind heed
to guide their inexperienced footsteps through the dangers and Imams which sur
round them ; no tender voice to teach their lisping accents to seek assistance !
The liquor-seller looks upon tide scone, which could not fail, one would think,
to touch the heart of obduracy itself; to swell the bosom ofindifference with the
sigh of sympathy ; extort from the eve of insensibility the tear of pity. He be
holds the picture, mad recognizes it as one drawn to life by his ovin graphic art!
Oh, can lie behold it without pity! Can he gaze upen it without remorse !
Another scene is presented. The grating doors of a prison open, mad before
him stands the manacled victim of crime which would never have been commit
ted but for his trade; and as ho views him attentively, reflection calls to remem
brance what the wretched outcast was, and how, and by whom, he became what
he is. lie beholds his erect farm, bent down with irons; his eye, his visage,
.down-cast, indeed, but still the speaking index to en immortal soul--beering the
visible iumnesa of an Almighty maker, an eternal deedny ! And ac he beholds,
how truly might Inc exclaim—. THE wow...snip is Goat's;--'con WRECIL
38 MNS" !
He is shown to the family from whose bosom the poor wreck of humanity
has been torn; smarting with wounds which cannot he healed; mourning with
grief dist refuses comfort. White a brother's, a sister's, a wife's heart 'netts with
I affection and pity for the loved, the lost, the ruined one, the cheek is wet with the
Vtear of grief, crimeoned with the blush of conscious disgrace, at the very mention of
lain name ! And his aged parents are sinking beneath the elm& too much for
years and feebleness to hear, "in sorrow to the grave"! The liquor-seller is
told to look !—and RS 110 looks, and hears, " who did all this" 7—conscience,
with stifled voice, whispers, " TIIOU ART THE MAN"!
Scene., ouch as these, to be witnessed wherever the liquor-seller is found, but
which human lenguag,e cannot describe, or human fancy sketch, in half the
horrors of the reality, arc pressed upon his view, and expostulation does its
utmost. As they pass before him, lie is asked, and asked to answer, as he shall
answer to his bleeding country end to his God, if his pulley gain ie worth all this?
He is asked whether, at the view of what his trade hes thus done, he feels no corn
. ',unction . ; and entreated, in the Hanle of humanity, to stay his hand, and cease
4. from his heartless work. As cold, and callous, and unblushing as a statue, he
heeds it not. The tears humanity weeps over his havoc, congeal upon urn
as upon an iceberg. He has no feeling, if we judge of his sympathies by his
conduct, but that which thrills through his soul when his fingers gripe the
price of a gill !
' But let him not mistake. He is an arraigned culprit; anal his conscience, and
. his humariity, thank God, are not the laws by which he is to be tried, or destined
• forever to be the arbiters of his country's peace! Thin , partying and entreaty
have been for his own lemeilt ; the offer of forgiveness on the easy terms of re.
pentane and amendment. These he refuses. And now he stands before the
high tribunal which is to judge him, stripped of all claims to sympathy, one of
the highest grade of criminals, and most meet for the stripes of justice; a crimi
nal, self-convicted, of the second, third, thousandth offence, and after repeated,
s reiterated admonition and expostulation ;—not penitent and promising amend
- ment, but hardened and persisting in his crimes, and still " breathing threatning
and slaughter" ! Every judgment approves, every heart assent., while every
voice pronounces him GUIL'T'Y!
Let final sentence, however, be suspended, until his trial be fully ceded, and
the penalty due to all his crimes can be visited at once upon his guilty head.- -
He must answer for another, higher and heavier than Alen. the rest!
IV. The business of the liquor-seller is not only of rio.benefit to any, and the
mires of all the evils enumerated, but it has literally carried assns--death in
its most apelling form—into every family in the land !
Oh, let a fever dry up my blood, or consumption prey upon my vitals—from
any other cause, let the cold sweat of death glisten upon my brow; but let me
not fall a prey to a disease whose pangs, "with tripple barb, pierce soul and
body both"! Let not the grave into which I sink, ho wept over by friends, or
pointed to by enemies, as 0 die grave of the drunkard" ! Yet death, in this
moat dreadf u l form, has the liquor-seller ruthkselq curried into every family
in the land! Do you milt for the evidence? 'lt is runes [pointing to the
grave-yard hill]; and in every other grave-yard in the country ; and you all know
it. Yes, IT Is Triune ! I can point to a gentleman in this town—in this house
—and not an old man, either—one whose head, indeed, is gray, but not with
years—whose personal observation and knowledge enable'llien to enumerate
65 drunkards graves upon that hill. Yes, the evidence is there; and there it
will remain (solemn thought!) until the resurrection of the dead; until the ine
briate and the liquor-seller, the poor drunkard and the drunkard maker, shall rise
from the same mortal resting place, mid stand together in the final judgment !
Ile you call, besidee, for living witnesses'? They aro everywhere. They make
tut every group. They aro. ueay. They till this house, and make up this
assembly. Who in this house—who hero or elsewhere, can say with truth, "no
one in any way related to me, fills a drunkard's grave" ? Who here con say it
'Alas, I cannot. If any one should say so, I must have hie family history from
some other source, before I can believe it. Some, indeed, may have to travel
farther back in the mirth than others; but it is undoubtedly true of ell. let
any and every one here try it, harrowing and painful as must be the experiment.
It is true, I repeat it, that the person is not in this house who can say with truth,
"no one in any way related to me, fills n drunkard's grave"! It would 220 i be
true, if there had never been any liquor sellers. It is true that every family hes,
in some of its branches, a drunkard'e grave. It would not be true, it there had
never been any liquor-sellers. It is true that his traffic has continually ehrouded
the land in mourning; filled its streets with mourners. Oh, it is true, I repeat it,
and every one knows it, that the liquor-seller's cold-blooded trade has carried
death—death in its most awful form--into every family !
If every 1200 of the population of the whole country have sustained n loss of
63 KILL ED, within the recollection of those who are for from being its oldest citi
zens, besides the wounded, as many, if not more, of whom, there can scarcely be
a doubt, have, within the ,ante time, died from their wounds, with What an im
mense aggregate multitude of our citizens has the liquor-seller's warfare peopled
" the city of the dead" ! Oh; if all the blood of all the hundreds of thousands it
has beyond all doubt Slain, wore, as Emmet told Lord Norbury, collected to
gether in one vast reservoir, all the liquor-sellers now in the land might swiss
in it"—aye, might be drowned in it !
And thin charge against liquor-sejling is not alone true of the past. It in em
phatically true of the present; and, if something mars mmeessful then dispaission
ute appeals to the liquor-seller's heart and conscience do not interpose for our
eddy, I fear it will be true of the future. Vi bat he has over done, lie is stilt
doing, and will continue te de, while public opinion tolerates his murderous and
a.)„ 1ci34342„.
soul-destroying trade. There are those in this house who can count seven
sudden deaths within a circle of two miles around this town in the brief space of
the last two years, by the same criminal agency. All the inquests of the present
Coroner of the county. have been over the bloated bodies of liquor-seller's vic
tims. And though reduced in number since public opinion has to some extent
thinned the ranks of the destroyer, and many litho learned to shun him, we still
see amongst us some, pierced through with his deadly arrow, and reeling and
staggering into the dark abyss of infamy and despair! The nightly whoops and
revels which disturb our own streets, but too plainly tell, that NOW,—ltYlt&,
since maturer age has begun to shun his coils, and he has feared his occupation
was gone; thoughtless boys, who would once have found protection in a liquor
seller's magnanimity, are tempted "like birds to the snare, not knowing it is for
their life," into the road that leads "down to the chambers of death"! Instead
of better, the liquor-seller (with some exceptions, it is true) is becoming more
reckless and desperate in his trade, ns he dreads its departure; more guilty, amid
the multiplied warnings and entreaties that salute his ears, the increasing light
that shines upon his havoc.
And what paliation can he offer for this highest and blackest of all his deeds,
proven by evidence which comes home to every man's bosom, which challenges,
every man's senses, and cannot be denied? If the time ever was when the
liquor-seller might have innocently made men drunken, with the Bible on his
shelf, in which he might have read, if lie did not, "wo unto him that gireth
his neighbor drink, and puttest thy bottle to him, and maketh him drunken
also;"—if he could ever have doubted that his trade took the life of his fellow
beings, when he saw them falling all around !tiro; or his own guilt, when, in
addition to its warning and threatened " wo," lie rend, or might have read, in
the sante holy book, "thous shalt not kill ;"--or the depth to which lie plung
ed them, in the face of its explicit and awful declaration that the drunkard
"shell not inherit the ItinE r relom of heaven :"—if, I say, such time ever was,
that time has gone by. The liquor-seller of this day, is stripped of all excuse.
Ho works against light and knowledge'—" with malice aforethought." Every
one that now falls into the drunkard's grave, is, beyond all peradventure, at un
pmts. ; AND WOO AIIE Ins surnnEnses ? That they are an extensive clan, a
numerous banditti, stationed at their individual posts throughout the land, by
each one of whom it may be said that 'ethers dealt out the poison no well as
he,'—or if he had not dealt it out others would'—does not alter the l ase.
flint his infatuated victim, lured by temptations spread out before him, and
blinded by thy enchanter's fatal spell, rusher voluntarily into the snare, would
not surely be inentioned, or thought of, in extenuation. What murderer for lucre,
if the fact were so, would ever dreint of finding refuge in the silly plea that his
victim mode no objection, hut, tired of life, had even bared his bosom and invi
ted the stab I No ! Every one that now falls into the drunkard's grave, let it
be proclaimed abroad as solemn truth, is sem:nen ; and who, let the inquiry
float on every breeze, end sound in every ear.—who. wttn.sn E It is MCniantEßO
All, all these things has the liquor-seller done. For all these is he Recounts
bk. Wherb emit I lied words to express his accumulated tesponsibility ?
What numbers could estimate. what words telt, what fancy paint, the anguish
of heart he has produced 1 Who can analyze and estimate the tear of sorrow!
Who can weigh the burdens he has kid upon his country? Who, but the
Almighty, Can measure the tempornl and eternal consequences If the millions of
crimes with which he has cursed and afflicted his country and his kind Who
but is utterly confounded in the attempt to conceive vt lint he should render, if
he could, for the lives ho bus taken, the blood he has shed? If he hassunk one
soul to endless perdition, who trill gainsny the word of Eternal Truth, and say
that the whole world, if it were his to give, would be an adequate reparation 1
But who can have the feeblest conception of the responsibility which ass his
victims, ruined forever by his trade, Will lay to his charge in the day of judg
ment! When the sighs and prayers of the widow, and orphans he has made,
—the record of the crimes he has produced,—the groans of the dying,--the
wnilings of the souls lie has ruined,—the cry of the blood with which he has
drenched and saturated the soil of " own, his native land," and all amidst the
brightest moral light that ever hemmed upon the earth,—shall rise at once to the
heavens, and cutter the ears of the righteous God that fills them,' into what
heart of manilas it ever entered to conceive the retribution whichlnfinite Justice
droll meet out, as his," just recompense cf reward !!!
That he voluntarily closes his eyes to these solemn truths, and turn not see
them ; or steels his heart egninst, and will not feel them,--so fitr from lessening,
but increases, (if it can he increased) Ida responsibility ; so far from averting,
will but hasten and aggravate the coming retribution. His attitude, indeed, is
one of the most amazing recklessness. The startling FACTS upon which the
high charges against him and his business are based, no one has the hardihood
to deny. They stand forth to every'eye, and come home to every heart, as Allo
tem. Tnuarg. That his business, which produces all this ruin, is not only
evil, but "evil ONLY, and that continually," producing Na countervailing good
upon which, the slightest plea of justification could be built,—is equally undeni
able; and must stand prominently forth as 'TRUTH coxeswren. It would, in
deed, require an amount of good to result from it, at least equal to the evil, to
give him any just claim to impunity, not to soy justification. This no liquor
seller would have the effrontery to claim. So far from it, the utmost that the
duped and doomed slaves who crowd his bar-room are usually heard to ple9d, is,
—not that•liquor-selling hie not done, and is not doing, to others rind to the
country, ell that we charge against it, for this, us matter of fact, even they can
not deny,—but, that "a little liquor does them sun HARM: " while, ns to this,
infinitely as it would fall short, if true, of laying the groundwork of the feeblest
excuse,—rt trembling hand, a bloated visage, a fatal fondness for thus intoxica
ting draught known to ell but themselves, gives the lie to their words. Scarcely
en intelligent man, who does not drink himself; or is not in some way interested
in the traffic, can be found ready to allege, at this day, that intoxicating liquors
can be used as a drink, by persons in health, without harm while all our
learned physicians, (saving only such ns come within the exceptions stated) and
thousands, and hundreds of thousands who have used and abandoned the use
'Of them, and who speak from mature experience. certainly the best secondary
evidence on the point, overwhelm the interested and infatuated few with testi
mony the most unequivocal;- and while xo ONE, be he a liquor-seller, ore liquor
seller's landlord, or a liquor-seller's victim, eau point out, much less prove, ANY,
EVEN TUE LEAST, positive good which results front it. With, therefore, a re
sponsibility of inconceivable weight and magnitude suspended over his head, the
liquor-seller, when called touccount, must be speechless. Anti yet he persists!
What ingenuous man of any other calling,--every other consideration aside,—
c Ottld hear charged against him or his business by one; only ova, respectable man,
a tithe of what is proclaimed as from the house-top against tbo liquor-seller, with
out feeling constrained to pause and examine, and have the foul aspersion wiped
out, if the chew wereTalse, or retrieve his own ersor, if it were true? Yet the same
pigeon-hole in the &lice of the clerk of the cow t oTQuarterSesgions which contains
the petitions of the 33 liquor-sellers in this county for the license tinder which they
now curry on their trade, contains the testimony of near 1000 respectable
citizens of the county, [displaying heroin the audience the " Remonstrance" pre
sented to the count at January Sessions 1843,] that his business spreads abroad
emus, ismer, WANT, DISEASE, AND DEATH I" And still lie goes on ! Oh,
by what consideration cast he be moved? Our wonder that any one, claiming
kindred with civilized men, could be induced to occupy such a position an hour,
is only exceeded by our astonishment at the apparent insensibility with which
many, claiming the respect of others, thus bravo it out, and, in mockery of every
warning and expostulation from above, around, within, smile at their prosperity,
and glory in their shame. But let him not vainly suppose that his callousness
can always afford him a sand uaty. Let him not fall into the fatal error of suppos
ing that the coat °fined which now shields Itim from every argument arid appeal to
his heart and conscience, will prove equally impervious to the defensive fire of
nn aroused and indignant public, or thedenounced and unerring maledictions of
heaven. His armor, his attitude of mockery and defiance, let him know, will
but tend to provoke the one, and call down upon him the other.
The retributions of society are even now in his pursuit. The great mass
begin to view the subject in its true light. The public mind is convinced; and
the public heart begins to burn and throb with the conviction. ""What,"—the
inquiry now bursts forth in 11121(10119 astonishment,—" what could have produced
—whence has come—the infatuation, the enchantment, that has i.o long eclip
sed our reason, blinded our eyes, and stolen stray our common humanity !" We
reason in the same way upon no other subject. If an army of foreign merce
naries should land upon our shores, and spread abroad one hundredth part of the
crime, desolation, and blood, which marks the liquor-seller's track, every eye
would flash with indignation, every sword leap froth Its scabbanl, every bayonet
glisten in the sunbeam, every arm be nerved for defence. Once already the
whole nation, ranking common cause with a low impressed seamen, engaged in
a bloody war:—the liquor-seller's trade impresses more, far more, American
freemen, "to prison and to death," sv ERIC DAY If a banditti—if as many
Indians were lurking :drool our mountains, and committing in our midst one'
half of the depredations of the thirty-three liquor-sellers in this county, they
would be hunted clown like wild beasts. the liquor-sellers themselves joining in ,
the chase ! The evils—burdens—strife—,orime—desolation—blood-shed,—
strewed around rs by liquor-selling, in the light of heaven and before our very
oyes, wrought by any Mlle: agency, would not be tolerated an hour! With
eyes partially opened, it is utterly importable that a thinking public can ever
relapse into; the marvellous lethargy front which they begin to arouse t—when,
glancing at the present and the past, they ore ready to exclaim in astonishment
and self-reproach,
Oh judgment, thou bast fled to brutish beast,
And men ban h st thdr
They not only begin to think, and think rightly.
They begin to speak. They begin to act. Their
thoughts and sentiments are fast assuming the nerve
and muscle of determined conduct. Nearly one
thousand men in this county, within a year, and
they, would be joined at this day by that many more,
and twice that number of the female community,
have spoken out in the most bold and intrepid man
lier, and have not hesitated to make their testimony
Matter of record. 13000 ladies speak out similar
sentiments from the records of the criminal court
of Philadelphia. The liquor-seller's petition for the
removal of present restraints upon his traffic, war,
but a week ago, spurned by a unanimous vote of
the Senate of Pennsylvania. Everywhere the sen
timent is spreading, and ripening into vigorous and
effective action. The great majority of the public
are handed together in one vast army, pledged, not
only by example, but by an exertion of all their in
fluence, to discourage, suppress, and banish the use
of Intoxicating liquors: and they begin to see that
it is folly approaching madness to think of drying
up the stream of pauperism, crime, and death,
while the source is open. They are daily becoming
snore sensible of the import of their pledge, the im
parlance of their object. Old and young, male and
female, daily ;lock to their standard, and swell their
ranks. And, with all their artillery directed toward
the camp and bulwark of the destroyer, and with
'tlitsgrave-yards in their view, they are marching
forward, animated by the same feeling which nerv
ed and goaded the American patriots to conflict at
Stony Point, the fate of their slaughtered brethren
fresh in remembrance, and their watchword " re
member the Paoli:" •
And this sentiment must grow and ripen. It 18
• utterly impossible that the community could slum
ber forever, amid the groans of its dying, over the
ashes of its dead. It cannot be. Oh, it cannot be
that humanity is so absolutely dethroned—so utter
ly deposed from her place—that we can still look
coldly and complacently upon our drunkards' graves!
No ! Every family will begin to count " the va
contplaces"in their little circle. Fancy will cdlupin
reinini6renee the lung forgotten brines of their
murdered kindred; from the dishonored grave in
which the I iquo,seller has laid than,—from beneath
the dark pall he has spread over their tenth. The'
father and the mother will stand by the grave of a
ruined son, and feet ngnin the fond solicitude with
which they watched his baloney, und guarded his
childhood. The brother and the sister will recur to
the time when he joined them in their childish
sports, and rend again the guileless innocence of
his heart in his happy face, and view the sunlight
of joy and promise that then played upon his brow.
A whole family group will meet around the tomb
of a father, end enter again into the holy ties, the
kind otters and sympathies, which united them all
irt one, ere his untimely and awful end, cost upon
them the inheritance of widowhood and orphanage.
Every heart, musing upon severed ties and blasted
hopes, and smarting afresh from wounds which had
been closed, but not healed, will burn with holy in
dignation; and every voice will utter the purpose,
and swell the sentiment, lately proclaimed by a re-
sPodablo ntembor of, the hoe of an adjoining comi
ty, in the State Temperance Convention--" we
have sworn unecaeing hostility to liquer-selhng—
andtve tvillnerer cerne our warfare upon it, w4fle
a brother'e,—a hu.band's,—a ton's,—a fither's
111.9011, cries from the earth !"
'their weapon is ounce cuitNlON—concentrated,
settled, determined, scathing. resistless;—et , cue
opinion, built upon facts undeniable, conclusions
unquestionable, and supported, and strengthened,
and contented, by every consideration that could af
fect the conscience, all the tender feelings that clus
ter around the heart j-PU U LIC era mt., manifested
in looks, and frowns, and tears, and prayers, and
and words, and actions. The remembered fate of
lost kindred, ruthlessly torn from every family, while
it will caU for vengeance, will remind theta that he
who dug their graves is still abroad; and all the
undying affections of the heart, in their deepest,
broadest extent, and in their utmost power, will
make common cause for the dead and for the living.
Fancy will return from its sad and frequent visits
to the tombs of the loot,—from the contemplation
of their unsuspecting childhood, or unmarred youth,
when nll was bright before them,- -to the little prat-
tlors, the loved and artless ones., Now Anovzra.us
and oh, with what deep, painful, vigilant solicitude,
must it dwell upon tho sealed mysteries of the fu
ture ! Every heart will feel for the safety of those
it loves. The many will cease to view with favor,
• or speak of with indiffesenco, or treat with civility,
the places where drunkards - arc made. Age, lean
' ing upon its staff, when it sees them, will raise its
! feeble hand, and shake its hoary locks, in indigna
tion and horror. The nursery will teach childhood
to hate them. The mother will impress, amongst
her first lessons, upon lisping infancy, and it will
be the parting counsel of the dying father to his
son, to shun the liquor-seller, its one whose heartless
trade it is to make merchandize of the morals. the
happiness, the lives, and the smile of his kind !
From every,domestic altar,. and front every temple
of God the voice of prayer will rise to heaven, for
protection tp the fire-side and the land, against his
desolations.. The thick film, woven by blinding
custoin,—if it he Divinely ordered that truth, reo ,
son, and humanity shall prevail,--will soon be brush
ed entirely away ; and he will stand forth in his
true character, an necessary in ten thousand crimes,
—his hands wet, his garments stained, with blood;
--and grogi-shops will be viewed, and shunned, and
loathed, as whited sepulchres, tilled with rotten-.
neras and dead men's buttes;"—abodes of crime,
peitilence, and death;—slaughter-houses of the
human species;—ante chambers of hell ! And all
the elements of popular opposition willgather, and
concentrate, and strengthen, until, in the mild fury
of the raging storm, the liquor-seller's haunted ini
. agination will picture before him,—Lis knees smiting
together like those of the doomed Belshazzar,—the
hand-writing of condemnation, the sentence of in
famy, upon the walls of his charnel house I
But what guaranty has he that the threatened
juL4iscnts of God vs ill slumber In times of fur
les light, of comparative " ignorance," when, alum'
some strange delusion, his trade was viewed as
harmless, and its evils as unavoidable, is it not true
that the visible displeasure of heaven has marked
his course! If other judgments have Hot averts
:cell him, and more terrible to lie looked for now and
henceforth, have not the dreadful evils which hisbusi.
nose has scattered abroad, been so over-ruled and di
alwaYs,.llust they'have fallen with fourfold
as eiBht on ilia OWII fussily and hianeolf I Go where
you please, sal it trim, found that there is no gen
eral rule subject. to fewer exclitions. the
limits of our own county, and within the recollection
of living witnesses, while few, if any, have long en
tirely escaped, inure than ono family engaged in
the liquor-trade, has been almost literally swept by
it horn the We Ll' the earth. and Ito very name and
generation almost literally blotted out! Now,
when retribution so swiftly and visibly follows sin
against light,' that a man is a drunkard almost as
soon as he is tempted to taste, what multiplied hoe
rors may the liquor-seller not justly dread being
made the instrument of infliction upon his own
household! And he; who, under present eircurn
stances,—suppoaing him to be incapable of feeling
for others,--will continue the traffic, and see nit
own CHILDREN falling victims to it in his own
house—thus living upon, or at the expense of, their
temporal and eternal welfare--how awfully "join
ed
to his idols" and forsaken must he be! To such
moral cannibalism, if I may venture to give it a
name, the history of civilization scarcely furnishes
a parallel, if it he not found in the case of the for
saken mother in the doomed city of Jerusalem, who,
when its enemies had "encompassed it with ar
mies, and dinged a trench about it," and fierce fa
mine raged within, quenched her thirst with the
blood, and satisfied her hunger with the flesh, of her
own infant! if more, indeed, was to he expected
from her sex, let it be remembered also, before she
be rashly condemned in the comparison, that elle
acted under the heavy pressure of "affliction such as
was not from the beginning of the creation which
OM created until that time, neither shall he." Oh,
what can he expect but iijitdpittill .er
ey, who a/totes no merry," Ey.. TO Ills OWN OFF
SPRING !-We, brethren, have bright assurance
that Providence will, in some way, a.) mer or
later, and the indications are that it will be soon,
interporre Almighty power, and arrest forever this
cursed traffic. Trams can as no oxos-sitoes,
WHEN NILLENIAL rEACE ♦till GLORY SHALL FILL
THE WOULD !
From the Aidionol IntelFgeneer,
CIL,I I' 'S.LETTE
AGAINST THY:
ANNEXATION OF TEXAS.
RALtian, Aprill7, 1844.
Gentlemen:—Subsequent to my departure from
Ashland, in December last I received various com
munications from popular assemblages and private
individuals, requesting an expression of my opinion
upon the question of the Annexation of Teias to
the United States. I have forborne to reply to
them, because it was not very convenient, during
the p: ogress of nay journey, to do so, and for other
reasons. I did not think it proper, unncessarily,
to introduce at present a new element among the
other exciting subjects which agitate and engross the
public mind. The rejection of the overture of Tex
as, some years ago, to become minted to the United
State., had met with general acquiescence. Noth
ing had since occurred materially to vary the ques
tion. I had seen no evidence of a desire being en
tertained on the part of any considerable portion
of the American people, that Texas should become
an integral pnrt of the United States.—During my
sojourn inNew Orleans, I lead indeed, been greatly
surprised by information which I received from Tex
se, that, in the course of last fall, a voluntary over
' tore hart proceeded from the Executive of the Uni
ted States to the authorities of Texas to conclude u
treaty of Annexation; and that, in order to overcome
the repugnance felt by any of them to a negotiation
upon the subject, strong and as I believe, erroneous
representations had been made to them of a state of
opinion in the Senate of the United States favorable
to the ratification of such a treaty. Accordingly to
these representations, it had been ascertained that a
number of Senators, wining from thirty-five to
forty-two' whore ready to sanction such a treaty.
I was aware, too, that holders of Texas lands and
Texas scrip, and speculators in them, were actively
engaged in promoting the object of annexation.
Still I did not believe that any Executive of the
United States would venture upon so grave and
momentous a proceeding, not only without any
general manifestation of public opinion in favor of
it, but in direct opposition to strong and decided
ex prcssions of public disapprobation. I 3 ut it appears
that I was mistaken. To the astonishment of the
whole nation, we are informed that a treaty of annex
ation has been actually concluded, and is to be sub
mitted to the Senate for its consideration. The ma
,fives of my silence, therefore no longer remain, and
I feel it to be my duty to present an exposition of
my views and opinions upon the question, for what
they may be worth to the public consideration. I
adopt this method as being more convenient titan
several replies to the respective communications
which I have received.
I regret that I have not the advantage of a view
of the treaty itself;so as to enable Inc to adapt an
expression of my opinion to the aotual conditions
and stipulations which it contains. Not possessing
that.oppoitunity, I am constrained to treat the ques
tion according to what I presume to be tho terms of
the treaty. If, without the loss of national elfaracter,
without the hazard of foreign war, with the general
concurrence of the nation, without any danger to
the integrity of the Union, and without giving an
unreasonable price for Texas, the question of an-
notation were presented, it would appear in quite
a different light from that in which, I appr shred, it
is now' to pe regarded.
The United States acquind a title to Texas, ex
tending, ns I behove, to the Rio del Norte, by the
treaty of Louisiana. They ceded and relinquished
that title to Spain by the treaty of 1816, by which
the Babine was substituted for the Rio del Norte as
our writer,, boundary. This treaty was negotiated
under the Administration of Mr. Monroe, and with
the concurrence of his Cabinet, of which Messrs.
Crawford, Calhoun, and Wirt, being a majoiity,
all. Southern gentlemen composed a part. When
the treaty. was laid before the !hien of Representa
tives, being a member of that body, I orprssed the
opinion, which I then entertained, and still hold,
that 'Texas was sacrificed to rho acquisition of Flor
ida. We wanted Florida; bat 1 racughl it meet,
etWirot Pe •
:f. In " 0 -9111
%.,...w'Vact)ncE) ca).
from its position, inevitably ful in our posession ;
that the point of a few years, sooner or later, was of
no sort of consequence, and that in giving live mil
lions of dollars and Texas for it, we gave more than
a just equivalent. But if we made a great sacrifice
in the surrender of Texas, we ought to take care
not to make too great sacrifice in the attempt to re
acquire
My opinion of the inexpediency of the treaty of
18111 did not prevail. The country and Congress
were satisfied with it, appopriations were made to
carry it into effect, the line of the Sabine was recog
nised by no as our bouni"ary, in negotiations both
with Spain and Mexico, after Mexico became inde
pendent, and measures have been in actual progress
to mark the line, from the Sabina to Red River, and
thence to the Pacific ocean. We have thus fairly
alienated our title to Texas, by solemn national
compacts, to the fulfillment of which we stand bound
by good faith and national honer. It is, therefore,
perfectly idle and rediculous, if not dishonorable to
talk of resuming our title to Texas, as if we had
never parted with it. We can no more do that
than Spain can resume Florida, Frnnce Louisiana,
or Great Britain the thirteen colonies, now compo
sing a part of the United States,
During the administration of Mr. Adams, Mr.
Poinsett, Minister of the United States at Mexico,
was instructed by me, with the President's authori
ty, to propose a re-purehuse of Texas; but he for
bore even to make an overture for that purpose.--
upon his return to the United States, he informed
ut New Orleans, that his reason for not making
it was, that he knew the purchase was wholly ini
practicable,and that he r. yersuaded that,if horned°
the overture, it would have no ether effect than to
aggravate irritations, already existing, upon mat
ters of difference between the two countries.
The events whiz!' have since transpired in Texas
are well known. She revolted against the Govern
ment of Mexico, dew to arms, and finally fought and
won the memorable battle of San Jacinto, annihi
lating a Mexican array, and snaking a captive of the
Mexican Fraident. The signal succors of that
Revolution was greatly aided, if not wholly achie
ved l y citizens of the "United States who had migra•
ted to Texas. These succors if they could not
always be prevented by the Government of the
United States, were furnished in a manner and to
un extent which brought upon us some national
reproach t,, the eyes of an impartial world. And,
its my opinion, they impose on us the obligation
of scrupulously avoiding the imputation of having
instigated anti aided the Revolution with the ulti•
mate view of territorial aggrandizement. After the
bottle of San Jacinto, the United States recognized
tl,e independence of Texas, in conformity with the
principlaand practice which have always prevailed
cc mci!. - ; of r.,e,,priziog the Government
Inde filets," without regarding the queston of de
fore. That recognition did not effect or impair the
rights of Mexico, or change the relations which ex
isted between her and Texas. Site, on the contra
ry, has preserved ell her rights, and has continued
to assert, and so far as I know yet asserts, to reduce
Texas to obedience, as a part of the Republic of
Mexico. According to the late intelligence, it is
probable that she has agreed upon a temporary sus
pension of hostilities; but, if that has been dune, I
presume it is with the purpose, upon the termina
tion of the armistice, cf renewing the seer, and enfor
cing her rights, as she considers them.
This narrative shows the present actual con
dition of Texas, so far as 1 have information
about it. If it be correct, Mexico has not abandon
ed, but perseveres in the assertion of her rights by
actual force of arms, which, if suspended, are inten
ded to he renewed. Under these circumstance, if
the Government of the United States were to ac
quire Texas, it would acquire along with it all the
Membrane.; which Texts is under, and among
them the actual or suspended war between Mexico
and Texas. Of that consequence there cannot be a
doubt. Annexation and war with Mexico are iden-
Id g, deal. Now, for One, lam not certainly willit, to
involve this country, in a foreign war for the object
of acquiring Texas. 1 know there are those who
regard such a war with indifference and as a trilling
affair, on account of the weakness of Mexico, and
her inability to inflict serious injury upon this court
•try. But Ido not look upon it thus tightly. I re
gard all wars as grout calamities, to be evaded, if
possible, and honorable peace as the wisest and
truest policy of this country. What the United
states most need are union, peace and patience.—
Nor JJ I think that. the weakness of u rower should
forma motive in any case, for inducing us to en
mige in or dcpricatc the evils of war. Honor and
good faith end jit,ti. e are equally due from this
country towards the weak as towards the strong.--
And, ifan act of injustice were to be perpetrated
towards.any Power, it would be more compatible
with the dignity of the nation, and, in my judgment,
lens tic lieu to inflict on a powerful instead of
a weak foreign nation. But are we perfectly sure
that we should be free front injury in a state of war
with Mexico? have we any security that count
less numbers of foreign vessels, under the authority
.d flag of Mexico, would not prey upon our
defenceless commerce in the Mexican gulf, on the
Pacific ocean, and on ,very other son and ocean ?
What commerce, on the other hand, duos Mexico
offer as an indcautity for our losses, to the gallantry
I and enterprise of our countrymen 1 This view of the
subject supposeto that the war would be confuted to
the United States and Mexico as the only belliger
ents. But have we any certain guaranty that
Mexico would attain no alhos among the great
European Poise_ a Suppose any ouch risme,