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and mere heart wringing sorrows come from
it than from any, or even all other, sources—
whomever gets so enlightened will not hesitate
to subscribe to the doctrine, that, from the mo-
ment a man put his intoxicating liquors on
sale for a drink, he forfeited all property in
them. He will not be held back by any
alleviating features, or occasional good, in
the dramshop—for there are none. It is
"any evil continually."

Whether the Legislature may authorize
the destruction of property is an issue, which
the friends of "Prohibition" should be very
careful to decline—be that issue tendered by
Mr. Hill, or by any one else. Nor should
they accept the issue whether even the Ju-
diciary can authorize its destruction. That
both the Legislature and the Judiciary—aye,
and the people, too, if neither the Legisla-
ture, nor the Judiciary will do it for them,
have the right to treat as no property, and
therefore, to destroy intoxicating liquors kept
for sale for a drink, is a ground, from which
they should never allow themselves to be
drawn away. It is wide enough for them all
to stand on sure and undebateable—and
from which they can deal out death blows to
all opposition.

We have no controversy with the owners
of property. We war not upon the rights
of property. We war not upon alcohol when
it is confined to the property and innocent
uses of alcohol. Our war with it is only
when it is let loose to its work of death.—
We say to its owner: "Keep your tiger
caged, and we will not molest him:—but un-
cage him, and we will surely kill him."

The day is coming, when the Courts will
not need a "Maine Law:" and when they
will feel their power to be as ample in the
case of intoxicating liquors kept for sale for
a drink, as they now feel them to be in such
cases as I have supposed—that of the run-
ning-at-large tiger, and that of the uplifted
cage, and that of the murder-aimed pistol.
In that day, when they shall say that of all
instrumental death alcohol is the most po-
tent and appalling, they will feel no need of
legislative direction and authority in determ-
ining how to dispose of it, when it dares to get
out of its place. In that day, the Courts
will as soon think of punishing a man for
beheading the rattlesnakes, which their
malignant owner has let out of their boxes
into the streets, as of punishing him for
knocking in the head of any barrel of whis-
key which is put on sale for a drink.

We shall, yet, have Judges more worthy
of their office than are some of our present
Judges. Those future Judges will not recog-
nize property in man, and sanction the re-
duction of the image of God to the level of
the brute. Yes, both ruin and slavery will
fare hard, when our Judges shall be the full
grown men of another and better genera-
tion.

In the Jewish economy there was no legis-
lature. The law of his reason and the law
of his God were held to be the sufficient
guide of the Judge. Will it not be so, the
earth over, when, the earth over, a true
christianity shall reign among men?

I invoke no "higher law." I have no faith
in the doctrine of a "higher law." On the
contrary, I regard the doctrine as entirely
false and exceedingly pernicious. Law is
one, and the law of earth is as high as the
law of Heaven. What is not as high is no
law.

Your friend,

GERRIT SMITH.