There are some great principles in regard to our country, which are settled, and which are never to be violated, so long as our liberties are safe. Among them are these: that every thing may be subjected to candid and most free discussion; that public opinion, enlightened and correct, may be turned against any course of evil conduct; that that public opinion is, under God, the prime source of security to our laws and to our morals; and that men may be induced, by an ample and liberal discussion, and by the voice of conscience and of reason, to abandon any course that is erroneous. We are to presume that we may approach any class of American citizens with the conviction that if they are convinced that they are wrong, and that their course of life leads to sap the foundation of morals and the liberties of their country, they will abandon it.

Our present proposition is, that the manufacturing and vending of ardent spirits is morally wrong, and ought to be forthwith abandoned.

We mean by the proposition, that it is an employment which violates the rules of morals that ought to regulate a man’s business and conduct. The doctrine proceeds on the supposition, that there is somewhere a correct standard of morals—a standard by which a man’s whole conduct and course of life is to be tried; and that this business cannot be vindicated by a reference to that standard. Or, for example, we mean that it is man’s duty to love God, and seek to honor him, and that this business cannot be vindicated by a reference to that standard. That it is man’s duty to love his fellow-men, and seek to promote their welfare, and that this business cannot be vindicated by that standard. That it is man’s duty to render a valuable compensation to his fellow-men in his transactions with them, and that this business cannot be vindicated by that standard. That every man is bound to pursue such a course of life as shall promote the welfare of the entire community in which he lives, as shall not tend to promote crime, and pauperism, and misery, and to make widows and orphans, and that this business cannot be vindicated by that standard. In one word, that by any rules of life that have been set up to regulate the conduct of men, whether in the Bible, in the necessary relations of the social compact, in the reason and conscience of Christians, and of other men, this business is incapable of vindication, and is to be regarded as immoral.

In this proposition, however, it is important to be understood. We mean to confine it simply to the business where it is sold as an article of drink. For to sell it as a medicine, with the same precaution as other poisons are sold, would be no more immoral than it is to sell arsenic. And to sell it for purposes of manufacture, where it is necessary for that purpose, is no more immoral than to sell any other article with that design. Between selling it for these purposes, and selling it as an article of drink, there is, as any one can see, the widest possible difference.

When we speak of this business as immoral, it is also important to guard the use of the word immoral. That word, with us, has come to have a definite and well understood signification. When we speak of an immoral man, we are commonly understood to attack the foundations of his character; to designate some gross vice of which he is guilty, and to speak of him as profane, or licentious, or profligate, or dishonest, or as unworthy of our confidence and respect. Now, we by no means intend to use the word in such a wide sense, when we say that this business is immoral. We do not mean to intimate that in no circumstances a man may be engaged in it and be worthy of our confidence, and be an honest man, or even a Christian: for our belief is, that many such men have been, and are still, unhappily engaged in this traffic. The time has been, when it was thought to be as reputable as any other employment. Men may not see the injurious tendency of their conduct. They may not be apprized of its consequences; or they may be ignorant of the proper rules by which human life is to be regulated. Thus, the slave-trade was long pursued, and duelling was deemed right, and bigamy was practised. But for a man to maintain that all these would be right now, and to practise them, would be a very different thing.

In this view of the subject, we do not of course speak of the dead, or offer any reflection on their conduct or character. Many men are unwilling to regard this traffic as wrong, because, by so doing, they would seem to convey a reflection on their parents, or friends, who may have been engaged in the same business. But nothing of this kind is intended. The great laws of morals are indeed unchanged: but the degrees of light and knowledge which men possess may be very different. We should not deem it right to apply our laws and knowledge, in judging of the laws of Sparta, which authorized theft; nor our laws to judge of the conduct of the Hindoo in exposing his father on the banks of the Ganges; nor our present views to determine on the morality of our fathers an hundred years ago in the slave-trade; nor our views of the marriage relation to condemn the conduct of Abraham, David, or Jacob. Man’s conduct is to be estimated by the light which he has. They who sin without law, are to be judged without law; and they who sin in the law, are to be judged by the law. Your father might have been engaged in the traffic in ardent spirits. Whether he was innocent or not, is not now the question, and has been determined by a higher tribunal than any on earth. The question now is, whether you can pursue it with a good conscience; or whether, with all that you know of the effects of the traffic, it be right or wrong for you to pursue it.

With these necessary explanations, I proceed to prove that, in the sense in which it has been explained, the traffic is morally wrong.

In proving this proposition, I shall take for granted two or three points which are now conceded, and to establish which would lead me too far out of my way. The first is, that this is not an employment in which the properties of the article are unknown. The seller has as good an opportunity to be acquainted with the qualities of the article, and its effects, as the buyer. There is no concealment of its character and tendency; there can be no pretence that you were deceived in regard to those qualities, and that you were unintentionally engaged in the sale of an article which has turned out to be otherwise than you supposed it to be. For, alas, those properties are too well ascertained; and all who are engaged in this employment have ample opportunity to know what they are doing, and engage in it with their eyes open.

The effects of this traffic are well known. The public mind has been, with remarkable intensity, directed to this subject for ten years in this land, and the details have been laid before the American public. It is believed that no vice has ever been so faithfully gauged, and the details so well ascertained, as the vice of intemperance in this nation. It is far better understood than the extent of gambling, of piracy, or robbery, or the slave-trade. It is established now, beyond the possibility of debate, that ardent spirits is a poison, as certain, as deadly, and destructive, as any other poison. It may be more slow in its effects, but it is not the less certain. This is established by the testimony of all physicians and chemists who have expressed an opinion on the subject. It is not necessary for the welfare of man as an ordinary drink. This is proved by the like testimony, by the example of many thousands who abstain from it, and by the fact, that before its invention, the Roman soldier, the Scythian, and the Greek, were as hardy and long-lived as men have been since. Its direct tendency is to produce disease, poverty, crime, and death. Its use tends to corrupt the morals, to enfeeble the intellect, to produce indolence, wretchedness, and woe in the family circle; to shorten life, and to hurry to a loathsome grave; to spread a pall of grief over families and nations. It is ascertained to be the source of nine-tenths of all the pauperism, and nine-tenths of all the crimes in the land. It fills our streets with drunkards, our almshouses with loathsome wretches, our jails with poor criminals, and supplies our gibbets with victims. It costs the land in which we live more than 100,000,000 of dollars annually, and renders us no compensation but poverty, want, curses, loathsomeness, and tears.

In any single year in this Union, could the effects be gathered into one single grasp, they would present to the eye the following affecting details. An army of at least 300,000 drunkards—not made up of old men, of the feeble, but of those in early life; of our youth, of our men of talents and influence; an enlistment from the bar, the bench, the pulpit, the homes of the rich, and the firesides of piety; the abodes of the intelligent, as well as the places of obscurity, and the humble ranks—all reeling together to a drunkard’s grave. With this army Napoleon would have overran Europe. In the same group would be no less than 75,000 criminals, made such by the use of ardent spirits; criminals of every grade and dye, supported at the expense of the sober, and lost to morality, and industry, and hope; the source of lawsuits, and the fountain of no small part of the expenses of courts of justice. In the same group would be no less than 200,000 paupers, in a land abounding in all the wealth that the richest soil can give, and under all the facilities which the most favored spot under the whole heaven can furnish for acquiring a decent and an honest subsistence. Paupers, supported at the expense of the sober and the industrious, and creating no small part of our taxes, to pay for their indolence, and wretchedness, and crimes. And in the same group would be no less than 600 insane persons, made such by intemperance, in all the horrid and revolting forms of delirium—the conscience destroyed, the mind obliterated, and hope and happiness fled for ever. And in the same group there would be no less than 30,000 of our countrymen, who die annually, as the direct effect of the use of ardent spirit. Thirty thousand of our countrymen sinking to the most loathsome and dishonored of all graves, the grave of the drunkard. This is just a summary of the obvious and sure effects of this vice. The innumerable woes that it incidentally causes; the weeping and groans of the widow and the fatherless; the crimes and vices which it tends to introduce into abodes that would, but for this, be the abodes of peace, are not, and cannot be taken into the account.

Now, this state of things, if produced in any other way, would spread weeping and sackcloth over nations and continents. Any sweeping pestilence that could do this, would hold a nation in alarm, and diffuse, from one end of it to the other, trembling and horror. The world has never known any thing else like it. The father of mischief has never been able to invent any thing that should diffuse more wide-spread and dreadful evils.

It is agreed further, and well understood, that this is the regular effect of the traffic, and manufacture, and use of this article. It is not casual, incidental, irregular. It is uniform, certain, deadly, as the sirocco of the desert, or as the malaria of the Pontine marshes. It is not a periodical influence, returning at distant intervals; but it is a pestilence, breathing always—diffusing the poison when men sleep and when they wake, by day and by night, in seed-time and harvest—attending the manufacture and sale of the article always. The destroyer seeks his victim alike in every hogshead, and in every glass. He exempts no man from danger that uses it; and is always secure of prostrating the most vigorous frame, of clouding the most splendid intellect, of benumbing the most delicate moral feelings, of palsying the most eloquent tongue, of teaching those on whose lips listening senates hung, to mutter and babble with the drunkard, and of entombing the most brilliant talents and hopes of youth, wherever man can be induced to drink. The establishment of every distillery, and every dram-shop, and every grocery where it is sold, secures the certainty that many a man will thereby become a drunkard, and be a curse to himself and to the world. The traffic is not only occasionally and incidentally injurious, but it is like the generation before the flood in its effects, evil, and only evil continually.

Now the question is, whether this is an employment in which a moral man and a Christian man ought to be engaged. Is it such a business as his countrymen ought to approve? Is it such as his conscience and sober judgment approve? Is it such as his God and Judge will approve?

In examining this, let it be remembered, that the reason why this occupation is engaged in, and the sole reason, is, to make money. It is not because it is supposed that it will benefit mankind; nor is it because the man supposes that duty to his Creator requires it; nor is it because it is presumed that it will promote public health, or morals, or happiness; but it is engaged in and pursued solely as a means of livelihood or of wealth. And the question then is reduced to a very narrow compass: Is it right for a man, for the sake of gain, to be engaged in the sale of a poison—a poison attended with destruction to the property, health, happiness, peace, and salvation of his neighbors; producing mania, and poverty, and curses, and death, and woes innumerable to the land, and to the church of God? A question this, one would think, that might be very soon answered. In answering it, I invite attention to a few very obvious, but undeniable positions.

1. It is an employment which tends to counteract the very design of the organization of society. Society is organized on a benevolent principle. The structure of that organization is one of the best adapted instances of design, and of benevolence, anywhere to be found. It is on this principle that a lawful employment—an employment fitted to produce subsistence for a man and his family, will not interfere with the rights and happiness of others. It may be pursued without violating any of their rights, or infringing on their happiness in any way. Nay, it may not only not interfere wits their rights and happiness, but it will tend to promote directly their welfare, by promoting the happiness of the whole. Or, for example, the employment of the farmer may be pursued, not only without interfering with the rights or privileges of the mechanic, the physician, or the merchant, but it will directly contribute to their welfare, and is indispensable to it. The employment of the physician not only contributes to the support of himself and family, but to the welfare of the whole community. It not only does not interfere with the rights and happiness of the farmer and the mechanic, but it tends directly to their advantage. The employment of the merchant in lawful traffic, not only contributes to his support, but is directly beneficial to the whole agricultural part of the community; for, as has been well said, “the merchant is the friend of mankind.” He injures no man, at the same time that he benefits himself; and he contributes to the welfare of the community, by promoting a healthful and desirable exchange of commodities in different parts of the land, and of various natures. The same is true of the mechanic, the mariner, the legislator, the bookmaker, the day-laborer, the schoolmaster, the lawyer, the clergyman.

Now, we maintain that the traffic in ardent spirits, as a drink, is a violation of this wise arrangement. It tends to sap the foundation of the whole economy. It is solely to benefit the trafficker, and it tends to evil, evil only, evil continually. If every man should act on this principle, society could not exist. If every man should choose an employment that should necessarily and always interfere with the peace, and happiness, and morals of others, it would at once break up the organization. If every manufacturer should erect a manufactory, as numerous as our distilleries and dram-shops, that should necessarily blight every farm, and produce sterility in its neighborhood, every farmer would regard it as an unlawful employment; and if pursued, the business of agriculture would end. If a physician could live only by diffusing disease and death, who would regard his as a moral employment? if a mariner could pursue his business from this port to Calcutta or Canton, only by importing the plague in every return voyage, who would deem it an honorable employment? If an apothecary could pursue his business only by killing nine persons out of ten of those with whom he had dealing, who would deem it a lawful business? If a man can get a living in his employment only by fitting out a privateer and preying upon the peaceful commerce of the world, who will deem it a lawful employment? If a man lives only to make a descent on the peaceful abodes of Africa, and to tear away parents from their weeping children, and husbands from their wives and homes, where is the man that will deem this a moral business? And why not? Does he not act on the same principle as the man who deals in ardent spirits—a desire to make money, and that only? The truth is, that in all these cases there would be a violation of the great fundamental law on which men must agree to live together in society—a violation of that great, noble, and benevolent law of our organization, by which an honest employment interferes with no other, but may tend to diffuse blessings in the whole circle of human engagements. And the traffic in ardent spirits is just as much a violation of this law, as in any of the cases specified.

2. Every man is bound to pursue such a business as to render a valuable consideration for that which he receives from others. A man who receives in trade the avails of the industry of others, is under obligation to restore that which will be of real value. He receives the fruit of toil; he receives that which is of value to himself; and common equity requires that he return a valuable consideration. Thus, the merchant renders to the farmer, in exchange for the growth of his farm, the productions of other climes; the manufacturer, that which is needful for the clothing or comfort of the agriculturist; the physician, the result of his professional skill. All these are valuable considerations, which are fair and honorable subjects of exchange. They are a mutual accommodation; they advance the interest of both parties. But it is not so with the dealer in ardent spirits. He obtains the property of his fellow-men, and what does he return? That which will tend to promote his real welfare? That which will make him a happier man? That which will benefit his family? That which diffuses learning and domestic comfort around his family circle? None of these things. He gives him that which will produce poverty, and want, and cursing, and tears, and death. He asked an egg, and he receives a scorpion. He gives him that which is established and well known as a source of no good, but as tending to produce beggary and wretchedness. Now, if this were practised in any other business, it would be open fraud. If in any way you could palm upon a farmer that which is not only worthless, but mischievous—that which would certainly tend to ruin him and his family, could there be any doubt about the nature of this employment? It makes no difference here, that the man supposes that it is for his good; or that he applies for it. You know that it is not for his benefit, and you know—what is the only material point under this head—that it will tend to his ruin. Whatever he may think about it, or whatever he may desire, you are well advised that it is an article that will tend to sap the foundation of his morals and happiness, and conduce to the ruin of his estate, and his body, and his soul; and you know, therefore, that you are not rendering him any really valuable consideration for his property. The dealer may look on his gains in this matter—on his houses, or mortgages, or lands, obtained as the result of this business—with something like these reflections.

“This property has been gained from other men. It was theirs, honestly acquired, and was necessary to promote their own happiness and the happiness of their families. It has become mine by a traffic which has not only taken it away from them, but which has ruined their peace, corrupted their morals, sent woe and discord into their families, and consigned them perhaps to an early and most loathsome grave. This property has come from the hard earnings of other men; has passed into my hands without any valuable compensation rendered; but has been obtained only while I have been diffusing want, and woe, and death, through their abodes.”

Let the men engaged in this traffic look on their property thus gained; let them survey the woe which has attended it; and then ask, as honest men, whether it is a moral employment.

3. A man is bound to pursue such a business as shall tend to promote the welfare of the whole community. This traffic does not. We have seen that an honorable and lawful employment conduces to the welfare of the whole social organization. But the welfare of the whole cannot be promoted by this traffic. Somewhere it must produce poverty, and idleness, and crime. Even granting, what cannot be established, that it may promote the happiness of a particular portion of the community, yet it must be at the expense of some other portion. You may export poison to Georgia, and the immediate effect may be to introduce money into Philadelphia, but the only important inquiry is, what will be the effect on the whole body politic? Will it do more good than evil on the whole? Will the money which you may receive here, be a compensation for all the evil which will be done there? Money a compensation for intemperance, and idleness, and crime, and the loss of the health, the happiness, and the souls of men?

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.

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.

But more especially may I call on young men, and ask their patronage in this cause. For they are in danger; and they are the source of our hopes, and they are our strength. I appeal to them by their hopes of happiness; by their prospects of long life; by their desire of property and health; by their wish for reputation; and by the fact that by abstinence, strict abstinence alone, are they safe from the crimes, and loathsomeness, and grave of the drunkard. Young men, I beseech you to regard the liberties of your country; the purity of the churches; your own usefulness; and the honor of your family—the feelings of a father, a mother, and a sister. And I conjure you to take this stand by a reference to your own immortal welfare; by a regard to that heaven which a drunkard enters not—and by a fear of that hell which is his own appropriate, eternal home.

Again I appeal to my fellow professing Christians; the ministers of religion, the officers and members of the pure church of God. The pulpit should speak, in tones deep, and solemn, and constant, and reverberating through the land. The watchmen should see eye to eye. Of every officer and member of a church it should be known where he may be found. We want no vacillating counsels; no time-serving apologies; no coldness, no reluctance, no shrinking back in this cause. Every church of Christ, the world over, should be, in very deed, an organization of pure temperance under the headship and patronage of Jesus Christ, the friend and the model of purity. Members of the church of God most pure, bear it in mind, that intemperance in our land, and the world over, stands in the way of the Gospel. It opposes the progress of the reign of Christ in every village and hamlet; in every city; and at every corner of the street. It stands in the way of revivals of religion, and of the glories of the millennial morn. Every drunkard opposes the millennium; every dram-drinker stands in the way of it; every dram-seller stands in the way of it. Let the sentiment be heard, and echoed, and reËchoed, all along the hills, and vales, and streams of the land, that the conversion of a man who habitually uses ardent spirits is all but hopeless. And let this sentiment be followed up with that other melancholy truth, that the money wasted in this business—now a curse to all nations—nay, the money wasted in one year in this land for it, would place a Bible in every family on the earth, and establish a school in every village; and that the talent which intemperance consigns each year to infamy and eternal perdition, would be sufficient to bear the Gospel over sea and land—to polar snows, and to the sands of a burning sun. The pulpit must speak out. And the press must speak. And you, fellow-Christians, are summoned by the God of purity to take your stand, and cause your influence to be felt.