but you can not make him drink. If this bill must pass, let it go to the people; and if the people should sanction it, he would submit.

The question having been raised as to what was the wish of the people in regard to a prohibitory

law

Mr. EMANS took the ground that the vote on Governor was not indicative of the popular voice on this subject Personally it was known that he was hostile to the Maine Law. Yet he was elected, and he stood here ready to give expression to his sentiments, free and untrammeled. He desired to apply the principle of moral suasion, and not of coercion, to the reformation of men. This bill dictates to men what they shall drink, and he would rather vote to exterminate the traffic in every form than to vote for it. It allows liquor to be sold for medicine. But liquor will intoxicate just as readily when taken as a medicine as when taken as a beverage. Names do not change principles Many members of the House were elected as "Know Nothings," but they fall back into their old positions of Whigs and Democrats. And if rum is sold as a medicine, and drank as a medicine, it will still intoxicate.

Mr. DAVIDSON spoke generally against the bill. He represented a constituency deeply interested in this proposition. The vote was distinct. His views were known during the canvass, and these views were endorsed. He had a constituency of nearly 4000; many of them were engaged in the manufacture of malt liquors, having hundreds of thousands of dollars invested. The passage of this bill would do them great injustice-an injustice which no honorable Christian man should inflict. It would destroy their property, and throw hundreds of mechanics and laborers out of employment. And all for what? Not to accom plish a great moral good; for he denied that this bill would reform the intemperate or keep mcn sober. It would fail, for it is not founded in justice, nor in the principles of the religion of the Gospel-whose Divine Author did not deem it derogatory either to that religion or to his own character to miraculously create wine at the marriage feast. It embodied a principle of ultraism which could not be justified. Wine in its purity, was not productive of intemperance

The wine countries were standing monuments of the truth of this assertion. He had spent months in Madeira, where wine was the common beverage of all classes, but he saw no drunkenness. In Cadiz, the laboring men's breakfast consisted of wine and bread, but he had never seen a drunken man in Cadiz. What the temperance reform needed more than any thing else, was temperance in its advocates. But that principle was not embodied in this bill, which he hoped would not receive the sanction of the House.

Mr. CHURCHILL said: Mr. Chairman, I have not the vanity to suppose that any thing I may say in relation to the bill under consideration will in any way affect the final result; yet, sir, I desire to offer a few remarks in explanation of the reasons which will influence my vote upon this question. Although a decided friend of temperance, and believing that men in a state of health had best abstain wholly from intoxicating drinks, I have ever doubted the policy of prohibitory enactments to accomplish that object and to abate the evils of intemperance. If persuasive means, addressed to the minds and hearts of men, fail to accomplish this desirable end, I have no faith in any thing else, and would say of them as was said of one of old, "they are joined to their idols, let them alone." There is, sir, a great diversity of opinion in the minds of the community on this subject. Many, I doubt not, hold to the belief, and honestly, too, that it is their right and privilege to use, in moderation, as a beverage, what the Saviour of the world, on certain occasions, did not discourage. Now, sir, when we undertake, by coërcive measures, to compel those who differ with us on this subject to comply with our opinions and wishes, a spirit of opposition is always excited; all the worst passions of their nature are brought into action to resist what they believe to be an encroachment upon their personal rights; they break loose from all moral influences, and indulge in excess ruinous to themselves and demoralizing to the community. It is a fact, I think, which will not be disputed, that the moral suasion principle has done much to stay the evils of intemperance. How has it accomplished this? Simply by appealing to the reason of the people. There is not one drunkard now where there were a score fifteen years ago. And why? Fifteen, twenty, or thirty years since, every man who had an orchard made his ten barrels of cider and twenty gallons of cider brandy.

and drank it all up in his family before the succeeding autumn. These, sir, were the nurseries of intemperance. Now, who makes or drinks this amount of cider or of cider brandy? Not one in five hundred. What has effected this surprising change?-a Maine Law? a blue law that whipped beer-barrels for working on the Sabbath day? No. It was an earnest, manly appeal, made to the earnest, manly American heart-an appeal that convinced his judg ment and left him his independence.

Americans love their independence. They celebrate, yearly, its bright birth-day. May they celebrate it for ever. It was this earnest, manly appeal that did away with the cider-mill and stopped the working of the brandy-still. Under these benign influences, the cause of temperance has steadily progressed. Wine and brandy are disappearing from the sideboard and the closet. Decanters and champagne bottles are tenantless. Behold, in this, the effect, not of the prohibitory tempest, not of the Maine Law hurricane, but of the "still small voice," that whispers to and convinces the heart. Why, sir, it strikes me that the Church of Christ might as well abandon the means she has heretofore relied upon for evangelizing the world, and resort to coërcive measures to accomplish that object.

Pass your Maine Law, and how quickly will the cidermill, that is now dropping to decay, be repaired and set in motion! How quickly will the cider brandy distillery rear again its dusky and dreaded front! How quickly will the decanter and the bottle gleam again with the evil spirits that had been driven out by the angel voice of persuasive pleading! Sir, the last state of this people would be worse than the first.

Pass this law, and the mass of men will scorn to go to town or district agent-your moral agent, though not a free moral agent-to get his gill of brandy, or his pint of rum, for the camphor-bottle. He will go for protection to home industry, and build his manufactory. Then will the old days of universal drinking dawn again. Then will the bloated face of the cider toper and the besotted cider brandy quaffer be seen in all the country's wide extent. Then again will our State be shrouded in mourning.

It has been said that this law can not be enforced. I do not say it can not be. I do say, however, that laws of this character-laws that prescribe to men their manner of liv

ing, can be enforced much easier in Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Maine, than here. The people of this State are more of a "free and easy" nature. They can be persuaded to give for a specified object freely, when not one cent could be obtained, if demanded with a threat. It is also said, that all laws are broken; laws against murder and stealing exist, and yet murder and larcenies are committed. A poor, weak argument. Murder and larceny are crimes, and admitted to be such by all men. Who ever saw a man who said they were not? Who, of all the murderers or thieves who have been brought within the meshes of the law, did not know and acknowledge that these acts are wrong? It is not so with drinking. Many believe that it is not criminal to occasionally indulge in a glass of cider, wine, beer, or even brandy; neither do they believe that it is a crime to sell them. Thousands and tens of thousands in this State are of this opinion. Hence the difficulty of enforcing any law which makes a crime of what they believe is not a crime.

Sir, it is a great task our Maine Law friends have to perform. They make a crime, and they punish it by law. Let reasoning and reasonable men pause and consider the effect of their action. These, sir, are some of the reasons which will influence me to vote against this bill. I have spoken freely and truly, if not effectually.

Mr. WELLS said if he had the power of some gentlemen on this floor, he would call up a spectacle which would horrify the House. Intemperance had stripped the land of its brightest ornaments-step by step, from the height of fashion to the lowest depths of degradation. These effects have flown from the present system; and members had better be carried home as dead men, than to go home without passing this bill-a bill not for the rich, but for the poor--for all. It is a bill to dry up the sweeping tide of death and desolation which is caused by intemperance. Pass this bill, and millions will be saved-will come up from great tribulation to rejoice in sobriety and peace. There will be seen a glorious resurrection-second only in glory to that great resurrection of the last day.

Mr. COLEMAN did not object merely to the position in which gentlemen had placed themselves by their premature and improper pledges to a self-constituted society, but to the bill also, as quite unnecessary to effect the reform pro

fessedly desired. The laws already upon our statute-books, if enforced, would be found sufficient. This was no fancy of his own. The fact had been recently demonstrated in the city of New-York; and, in proof of this, he begged leave to read the following letter from the Mayor of the city of New-York:

MAYOR'S OFFICE, NEW-YORK, Jan. 24, 1855.

HON. R. B. COLEMAN, Astor House:

DEAR SIR :—In reply to yours of the 22d inst., I have the honor to say, that my official engagements have been so pressing, that I have not had time to read the prohibitory bill, now before the Legislature, of which you ask my opinion, and therefore can not form a judgment of its provisions.

In answer to another inquiry, as to my opinion of the efficacy of the present laws, if properly executed, I reply, that if properly and efficiently carried out, the existing laws will do much to suppress intemperance. This evil in our midst appears to me to result rather from the non-execution of present laws, than from the character of the laws themselves. It is a popular error to mistake feeble administrative enforcements for defects in the statutes. This mistake has been productive of continual and neverending legislation, upon all subjects, until the books are so full of laws that none but the most astute and studious lawyers can tell what is and what is not law.

I regret that it is impossible for me at this time to go at length into the subject of the suppression of intemperance, and the proper mode to effect it, as your letter calls for. I can say, however, with truth, that the reform effected by me in the Sabbath dram-drinking has not been by coërcion. Until yesterday, no licenses had been revoked through my orders-no arrests have been made-no penalty or punishment inflicted; and yet, out of 6000 licensed, the number of places open upon the Sabbath, for the sale of liquor, has been reduced from 2300 before the commencement of my administration, to 26 last Sunday.

Very truly yours,

FERNANDO WOOD.

These are the views of the Mayor of the city of New-York. No man is more competent to express an intelligent opinion. He gives us no theory, but actual results. He speaks of that which he knows, and he speaks by authority and from experience. He, in common with all good men, had deprecated the evils of intemperance. But, when power was given him, he did not confine himself to complaints of the inadequacy of existing laws; he availed himself of the laws in force, as a good magistrate should do. And he found the laws sufficient for the purpose, as all would who should, with equal zeal and equal firmness and honesty, seek their enforcement.