THE
INTERFERENCE THEORY
OF
GOVERNMENT.
BY
CHARLES ASTOR BRISTED,
MEMBER OF THE EXECUTIVE CO3XITTEE, AND EX-CORIESP'ONDING
SECRETARY OF THE A3IERICAN FREE-TRADE LEAGUE.
"The League protests against the paternal' inte:ference of Government with pinvate pursuits, being convinced that the less Government is
felt and seen, the better for all concerned."-faiJsefsto of the Asnerican
Free- T'ade League.
NEW YORE:
LEYPOLDT & HOLT,
a867.




Entered according to the, Act of Congress, in the year 1SG67,
BY CHARLES ASTOR BRISTED,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the
Southern District of New York.
LITT,  Y PE rN  & Co,
7RINEtRS, STEREOTYPERS, AND ELECTROTIPER2S,
4tl30 uroom  STREET, N.Y.




TO
PROFESSOR ARTHUR  LATHAM  PERRY,
OF WILLIAMIS COLLEGE,
WITH MUCH RESPECT
EOR HIS INTELLIGENCE AND INDEPENDENCEr
THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED.








CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
CAUSES OF INTERFERENCE.
THE " POLICEMAN" THEORY OF GOVERNMENT.-REACTION AGAINST
IT.-FORCE VS. INTELLECT.-REACTION IN FAVOR OF STRONG
GOVERNMENT.-LouIS  NAPOLEON'S SUCCESS, AND ITS EFFECTS ON DIFFERENT COUNTRIES.-THE MOiMRMONS.-OUR WAR.
-IGNORANCE OF AND INDIFFERENCE TO SIDE ISSUES. —THE
PURITAN SPIRIT THE LINK BETWEEN STRENGTH AND INTERFERENCE.-THE AQUARIAN OR SO-CALLED TEMPERANCE MOVEMENT.-FRENCH SOCIALISM...............................
CHAPTER II.
ERRORS OF INTERFERENCE.
INTERFERENCE CONTRARY TO THE TENDENCY OF MODERN CIVILIZATION AND PROGRESS.-ITS BEING THE ACT OF A MAJORITY
DOES NOT ALTER THIS FACT.-IT LOGICALLY LEADS TO A STATE
CHURCH.-PRESSES ON THE POOR MORE THAN ON TIHE RICH.
-DEMORALIZES THE COMMUNITY IN VARIOUS'WAYS: BY CONFUSING TIlE DISTINCTION BETWEEN REAL AND TECHNICAL
CRIME: BY FAMILIARIZING WITH FALSEHOOD THOSE WHO ADVOCATE IT: BY INTRODUCING THE HANDICAP PRINCIPLE INTO
ECONOMICS AND MIORALS: BY MISPLACING RESPONSIBILITY..... 36




6                       Conlents.
CHAPTER III.
THE PROHIBITION STAGE OF THE AQUARIAN
MOVEMENT.
IMPORTANCE OF THE SUBJECT.-PRESTIGE IN FAVOR OF AQUARIANISM.-WHY FALLACIOUS.-THREEFOLD DIVISION OF THE
QUESTION.-ABSURDITIES OF THE AQUARIANS ON THE BIBLICAL ARGUMENT: ON THE PHYSIOLOGICAL.-THE MORAL POLICE ARGUMENT: STATEMENT OF IT: ITS RESULTS SHOWN
BY APPLICATION OF THE PRINCIPLE TO THE TREATMENT OF
OTHER VICES, LICENTIOUSNESS, GAMBLING, FALSEHOOD, AND
SLANDER.-APPEAL TO AQUAiRIANS........................... 66
CONCLUSION..................................................... 102




THE
INTERFERENCE THEORY
OF
GOVERNMENT.
CHAPTER I.
CAUSES OF INTERFERENCE.
THE " POLICEMAN" THEORY OF GOVERNMENT.-REACTION AGAINST
IT.-FORCE VS. INTELLECT.-REACTION IN FAVOR OF STRONG GOVERNMENT. -LOUIS  NAPOLEON'S SUCCESS, AND ITS EFFECTS ON
DIFFERENT COUNTRIES.-THE MORMONS.-OUR WAR.-IGNORANCE
OF AND INDIFFERENCE TO SIDE ISSUES.-THE PURITAN SPIRIT
THE LINK BETWEEN STRENGTH AND INTERFERENCE.-THE AQUARIAN OR SO-CALLED TEMPERANCE 3IOVEMENT.-FRENCH SOCIALISM.
1\M /ANY intelligent men have lately noticed-indeed scarcely any intelligent man can have
failed  to  notice-a  great recent change  in  the
popular conception of a free government's duties
and functions. When the middle-aged of our pres



8              Causes of Interference.
ent generation were boys, the great majority of intelligent Anglo-Saxondom and all the wisest Liberals of
the European continent accepted a theory of government which has sometimes been disparagingly called
the " Policeman," but which may more properly be
designated as that of non-interference wzith Ihe zndivzdual.
Lord Macaulay was one of its most distinguished
advocates, and his illustrations of it are among the
best known. According to it, the sixth, seventh, and
eighth commandments were that part of the Decalogue with which the legislator and the magistrate had
chiefly to do.  Their business was to protect properly
andperson, leaving to individuals all the liberty compatible with this general protection.  The end of
government was good roads and safe streets, cheap
food and clothing, cheap and good education, not
the enforcement of any moral or religious practices,
the cultivation of special virtues, the protection of
individuals against the consequences of their own
acts.*   Freedom  in every sense-civil, religious,
commercial-was the ideal toward which the progress
of society tended.  To such an extent was this theory
recognized among ourselves, that the great political
party then generally dominant might be said to have
adopted it as a device; the party's official organ
* Vide Macaulay and Sydney Smith, passim.




Twenty _years ago, aiza now.        9
hung out for its motto, "That government is best
which governs least." But we were very little if at
all in advance of the European Liberals. The " paternal" system of government, which wanted to do
everything for the people and feared to let the individual take a step for himself, was generally scouted
as a relic of a darker age. Even the English Conservatives, the successors of the Tories, were ashamed
of it. The Continental Bureaucracy-felt, an(l felt
heavily, in the smallest transactions of private lifewas the standing bugbear and horror of all who were
happy enough to live beyond its influence.
Such was the case twenty, or less than twenty years
ago. N2ous avons change loutl cela. The pendulum has
swung the other way with a vengeance I The citizen
of Massachusetts is now, in some respects, more restrained of his personal liberty than the subject of Louis
Philippe then was; the former subject of that constitutional king is now living under the rule of an autocrat.
England is not a country of rapid changes; but she
has advanced-or backwarded-so far toward approval of interfering governments as to respect strong
ones more than formerly. From among her distinguished literary men have arisen apologists for autocraty and palliators of Mormonism.  Perhaps the
climax was lately reached, when the editor of a
standard English critical paper seriously held up the
T 




10           Causes of Interference.
Oriental polygamists and sodomites as models for
Christendom. *
In short, that theory is rapidly becoming the popular one which maintains, in effect, that the best
government governs most and is most felt in governing.  The word prokzbited, t which used to be the
shibboleth of "paternal" rule, is becoming very familiar to republican citizens.  Government is expected to prescribe what men shall eat and drink
and wherewith they shall be clothed, to regulate the
hours of labor, and distribute the profits of industry.
Merely as a matter of historical curiosity, this
change would deserve examination. The best intellects have long speculated about the English Revolution of I688, the French Revolution of I789, the
Age of Elizabeth, and the Age of Louis XIV. They
are speculating yet, and the subjects are not yet exhausted. Our own epoch, however inferior it may
be from a literary point of view, scarcely yields in
political importance to any of these great eras.  The
* See the 40th and 41st chapters of that singularly crude
book, Mr. Hepworth Dixon's " New America." Perhaps,
however, we ought not to wonder at this discovery, since
the aquarians found out many years ago that Mohammed
was wiser than Christ in respect of wine.
f Defendit, Verboten, the regular refrain of life in a great
part of Continental Europe.




Subject merits inveshtgahin.n       I
inversion of popular feeling which we are about to
discuss would be interesting had it taken place in
the last century.
But it is something more than a subject of curiosity.
It is of the greatest practical importance to us.  We
are in the midst of the change.  Our children are
growing up under influences the very opposite of
those which presided over our education. Are they,
in this respect, more or less favored than we are? -It
is a vital question for them  and for us.  Investigation, in the first place, of the causes which have
produced and are still producing this change in sentiment is to be desired, whatever view the inquirer
may be predisposed to take of the change itself.  He
may hold, as I do, that it is a very decided step
backward, or he may suppose, like many of our
most active partisans, that it is a wonderful development in the direction of real progress; either way it
is worth while to look for and into the springs of the
movement. Without professing to constitute an exact science of history, we may suppose that some
reason can be assigned for many, nay, for most of
the great political events which take place, and that
they are not all, as Mr. James Parton wisely supposes
our late civil war to have been, a mere chapter of
accidents.
Were a French critic of reputation to investigate




12            Causes of Interference.
our social and political state, he might not improbably begin by telling us that all the phases of society
which come up before our eyes in the daily papers
and in every-day life: Beecher and Barnum, total
abstinence and tariffs, the Jerome Park races and the
eight-hour strikes, the ballets at the New York theatres and the college commencements all over the
country, and twenty more things apparently without
the slightest connection, may, every one of them, be
shown.to have their origin in the same leading ideas
and forces, and their tendency toward the same end.
I shall not profess or attempt to make so exhaustive
an investigation, but only to trace some causes which
are sufficiently obvious and sufficiently potent.
The first is doubtless reaction, an influence always
ready to exert itself among people who have any intelligence, under governments that have any freedom,
and therefore on both accounts especially powerful
in our country.  The non-interference theory, both
here and in England, had been pushed to extremes,
and had sometimes become a cloak for the selfishness
of individuals and the weakness of rulers, particularly
where large masses of capital ivere accumulated on
the one side and herds of proltazires on the other.
Human nature, and common sense, and the laws of
trade did not znvarzably arrange matters for the best.
In such cases as infant labor and the lodging of city




Reachlon zn favor of strong government.   13
poor, some interference beyond the protection of
liberty and property was found necessary.
This explanation in itself would probably seem a
sufficient one to many persons-the pendulum has
oscillated in one direction, it now oscillates in
another; let it alone, it will come to an equilibrium
in time-which makes a neat reference in a newspaper article, and is good enough as far as it goes,
but really goes a very little way.  True, it is highly
important to us to know if the present inclination be
to the right or the left, for good or for evil.  The
licentiousness of the court of Charles II. was a natural reaction from the tyrannical interferences of
Puritanism: that did not make it proper or profitable.
The dead conservatism which all over Europe succeeded the first Napoleon's fall was a necessary reaction from the convulsions which followed the
French revolution: that did not make it a condition
desirable to prolong.  Let us then look further, and
let us begin by investigating what may at first seem
to have only a distant bearing on our subject-the
parallel reaction that has been going on for fifteen
years in favor of " strong" government, and material
instead of intellectual dominion.  To comprehend
thoroughly the nature and scope of this movement,
we must be fully impressed with the extent to which
the purely intellectual element had prevailed in the




14            Causes of Interference.
politics of both hemispheres for some twenty years
preceding the success of the second French Empire.
In these United States of America the sway of intellect, though not always intellect of the highest
order, was almost supreme.  Indeed, throughout a
large portion of our country the physical man was
shamefully ignored and neglected both publicly and
privately. Our world was moved by speakers and
writers.  Many of our leading men had well-nigh
lost the conception of physical force as a great political agency. The peaceful victories and revolutions
of the ballot-box were the only ones which they could
imagine possible.  When the Rebellion broke out,
they thought it must fail at once because it was unreasonable and illogical.
The national taste for field-sports saved the English
from neglecting their physique; their national awkwardness and bashfulness prevented them from setting
a high value on public oratory.  But all their physical
prowess had never inspired them with military tastes,
and their comparative neglect of rhetoric tended to
concentrate on their Press a remarkable amount of
talent and learning: their commercial interests and
heavy debt also contributed to make the English
a peaceful and, therefore, an intellectually governed
people. This impression of mental superiority over
physical force lasted with them, as with us, quite into




Effects of Zouzs Napoleon's success.   15
the new state of things. As late as I858 Mr. Buckle
was congratulating the world that the reign of Mars
had nearly passed away, and that for a great war to be
possible in future, one at least of the parties must be
a semi-barbarous nation!
France, scarcely yet recovered from the exhaustion
of the first Napoleonic wars, easily found a vent in
Africa for her faintly renascent belligerency. Both
the journalist's desk and the orator's tribune were
greater political powers than the general's sword, and
both were filled by the very first talent of the country.
All this was changed by Louis Napoleon's accession
to power.  It is a choice bit of popular cant to talk
about the impotence of individuals in the present age.
As an antidote to the exaggerated hero-worship of
the Carlyle school, the notion may not be altogether
mischievous; but as usually promulgated in its broadest sense it is equally unphilosophical and untrue,
and the single example of the French emperor
would be sufficient to disprove it. This one man,
daring, able, lucky, and unscrupulous, caused a
reaction all over the civilized world. There are very
good reasons for supposing that his success tempted
Jefferson Davis to prepare and attempt a coup d'etla
here.  It was then that the idea of a great Southern
Confederacy began to take definite form. In an
embryo sort of way it had existed since I832, and




16            Causes of Izlerference.
some of the conspirators had even held national
offices; but it had not masked itself in the guise of
friendship, and its movements were comparatively
open and honest.  Davis himself was an avowed
Secessionist, not a make-believe Unionist, in I850.
But after Louis Napoleon's triumphant usurpation,
the brigands systematically entered the citadel in the
disguise of servants, just as they had done in France.
JMutahFs  mutandis, there was a great resemblance in
the schemes.  Louis Napoleon was elected to the
presidency, a position which gave him the best chance
of seizing supreme power. Davis could not get himself made president, but he could bully the cipher
who was elected into giving him the cabinet office,
which was more convenient for carrying out his plans
than even the presidency would have been, and he
could cause himself to be succeeded by a fellow conspirator. Louis Napoleon relied on the army for
seizing power: on the army, together with the priests
and the proletarian class, for maintaining himself in
power. Our army was too small to intimidate the
nation, and the clergy was geographically divided.
Yet even amid these great differences we perceive a
similarity of action.  In the extent to which officers
were tampered with, in the religious professions of
Davis, and the almost unanimous adherence of the
Southern clergymen to his cause, in the dependence




Force vs. Intellect.           7
placed on the "mean whites" of the South and the
mobs of our Northern cities, we may recognize the
American imitation of the European prototype.
Be this as it may, there can be no question about
the great extent of the Emperor's influence in Europe.
First, what was it on the country directly under his
control?
The elder Napoleon was the foe of literary men,
especially social and political theorists.  He called
them "ideologists" (whatever he meant by it), and
tried to suppress them wherever his power extended.
Such pen-work as he was obliged to have done, was
done by scribblers of the lowest class, men like Barrere, who would hardly be admitted now-a-days to
the columns of a Sunday newspaper. The nephew,
who has, in more ways than one, profited by his
uncle's mistakes, had no such insane hatred of intellect. He did not want a Barrere to do his more
or less dirty work; he would have preferred a Guizot
and a de Tocqueville. He was willing to make the
position of great political and literary men pleasant,
profitable, and even, as far as he could, honorable,
if they would submit their wishes and plans to his.
But this was precisely what the " illustrations" of the
country would not do.  Putting all patriotic and conscientious motives out of the question, ordinary selfrespect would have prevented men, who had been




iS            Causes of Interference.
powers in the State, from becoming his literary lacqueys.  Hence, he was forced to take, both for his
ministers and his journalists, second or third rate
men. Now and then a young writer, like About, or
a worn-out one, like Emile de Girardin, might coquet
with the government; but it could command the
entire services of none but inferior capacities.  Finding that he did very well with these (thanks to the
blunders of his enemies as well as his own ability
and courage), the Emperor, strong in his six hundred
thousand bayonets, grew more careless about the
claims of intellect, and indifference easily passed into
aversion. Officers were encouraged to bully and even
assassinate literary men; and the young patricians
whom  the Emperor attached to his person and specially favored, were among the least intellectual of
their set, distinguished for a sheer, unreasoning, bulldog courage.
To this reign of the sabre, both principle and interest placed the English in violent opposition.  But
their very hostility evinced their admiration, and amid
all the invectives of their writers it was evident that
they had been struck, if not terrified, by the brilliant
and rapidly-achieved successes of the French autocrat.
It was not merely that he had upset their European
supremacy by fair means in the Crimea, and shattered
the power of Austria in a sharp, short war.  It was




The reign of force-France, Germany.   I9
not that he had pocketed Savoy and Nice. The- internal progress of France seemed to keep' pace with
the external.  Her metropolitan improvements extorted the praise of those who most abhorred their
contriver. All the insular self-sufficiency could not
prevent British visitors from feeling that Paris had
become the world's wonder for beauty and convenience; while London was the wonder of the world
in another sense-for its unimproved and inartistic
condition. The perfect organization of all departments, civil and military, impressed graver observers.
The force of old traditions and principles and prejudices was partly broken down. A "strong-government" influence invaded and pervaded England, and,
despite many of her ablest and most patriotic writers,
the political demoralization and reaction went on, till
they culminated in the general favor accorded by the
upper and literary classes to our own "Great Rebellion."
To recent events in Germany a bare allusion is
necessary, since they are so recent that the work
(elsewhere) was already done. It is merely worth
while to notice, in passing, how Bismarck's triumph
shows that the German mind also was prepared for
the reign of force.
In our own country the apparent effect of Louis
Napoleon's success was, to provoke opposition and




20            Causes of Inteiferencc.
diminish somewhat our old friendship for France.
But-putting aside the inspiration of Davis, which is
only a matter of probable conjecture-it cannot be
denied, by any candid and well-informed observer,
that, amid all the continually recurring popular panegyrics of free institutions, a combination of circumstances had, for several years before the war, been
shaking the republican faith of many, and those not
the worst or most ignorant of the community.  The
innumerable errors and villainies in our municipal
administrations (generally worse as the city is larger,
and culminating in the corruptions of our largest and
most metropolis-like city), brought unfavorable comparisons to the minds of those who remembered or
had heard of the splendors and comforts of Paris.
The sway of intellect was breaking down. The general spirit of lawlessness, engendered by slavery and
fostered by the pro-slavery party at the North, inspired
quiet people with a feeling of distrust and insecurity.
Nor, though the strangely-styled "Democrats" were
foremost in this lawlessness, could they be said
to have altogether a monopoly of it; the Republicans
were at least inclined to break the laws, if they did
not always put their wishes into execution.  The
Central Government, too, was growing weaker and
weaker under the nonentities who pretended to administer it. While Jeshurun waxed fat and kicked,




The Aiormoons-Brigham Young.       2 1
while the popular mind was intoxicated with ideas of
boundless wealth and dominion, thoughtful men hesitated and trembled, and foresaw, as through a glass
darkly, an impending catastrophe.  The fears of
some were not unmingled with hope. The soulcrushing influences of arbitrary government, its destruction of all that is honorable in the individual
man and woman-these evils were overlooked in
view of its apparent public utility, its conservation of
law and order.
While this influence was undermining us from one
side, another power was growing in the Far West, the
mention of which, after the French Empire, may at
first strike the reader as a ridiculous anti-climax.
But we cannot regard the Mormons as contemptible,
when we consider what an impression they have made
on very able Europeans.  If they had only attracted
the attention of such men as the able but eccentric
and perverse Burton, or Mr. Hepworth Dixon, the
confusion of whose moral ideas is only equalled by
that of his style, we might pay little heed to them,
but there are others who cannot be lightly passed
over. And though I believe none of our own people
have ever openly taken up the cudgels for Brigham
Young, a sort of involuntary admiration for his organizing ability may frequently be detected in the
reports of travellers. Men coming from a dangerous




22 2           Causes of Inlerference.
journey between the almost equal risks of starvation
and murder, from regions where it is considered
an excellent jest to stop a mail-stage by firing after
it, and a man killed by mistake is rather a joke than
otherwise, were pleased with the contrast of a community living in material plenty, under a regular
though despotic system, and became half inclined to
pardon the retrogression towards Oriental semi-barbarism. *
It is worth our while to notice, in this connection,
that the success of these autocratic and despotic examples was mainly a material success. In the case
of the Mormons it was altogether such. Brigham
Young from the first discouraged colleges and all
higher intellectual appliances, and the literary performances of his sect are of the weakest and most
contemptible description.  In the case of the French
Empire the materialism was comparative. No one,
with any knowledge in the premises, will deny that
the French still maintain a high literary position* The Mormons are Orientals in more ways than oneunless our own "Gentiles," who come in contact with
them greatly abuse the traveller's privilege. Have their
European apologists never heard of the assassinations,
mutilations, and other crimes, currently attributed to the
" Saints," or do they consider the evidence of these crimes
insufficient?




Assumptiotn  f powe-r hy the U  S. Governzmen.  23
that the current literature of France is infinitely above
our own, for instance.  But the new celebrities of
Louis Napoleon's time are not, on the whole, by any
means equal to the old ones of Louis Philippe's;
and all the greatest intellectual force, except that expended in fiction and the drama, is opposed to the
Government.
Now this kind of success was exactly calculated to
effect our popular mind, because the material progress
of our country had turned the public attention that
way, and weakened the hold of intellect in its more
settled portions.
While these influences were thus working, our
civil war broke out. For a moment national existence
trembled in the scale.  It really seemed as if we were
going to destruction for want of those very things, the
absence of which had been our chief boast-a standing army, taxation, checks on the press and the right
of public assembly, centralization of the executive
power, etc., etc. And though a magnificent uprising
of the people put down the one great danger, our
preservation was only accomplished by great deviations
from  both our theoretical and our practical standard.
Dictatorial powder was intrusted to the President, unrepublican measures (like conscription) were resorted
to; in short, the Government was pretty effectually
slrengtlhened, with more regard to safety than consist



24            Causes of Interference.
ency.  And in this respect there has been no alteration or reaction since the close of the war, but rather
the reverse; and one department of the Government
has gone on strengthening itself by practically absorbing the other two.  And as the less is apt to follow
the greater, this new taste for strong government shows
its pervading influence by some queer social demonstrations.  Last year the school teachers, in various
places, as if by common consent, took to threshing
their pupils without much consideration for age or
sex, till it looked as if the implements of torture,
banished firom their old quarters at the South, had
taken refuge in the North and West.
But now it may be asked, What connection has
this general change of feeling in favor of strong government with the tendency to government interference? It is true that the two ideas overlap at many)
points, and there seems an obvious analogy between
them; but then there are other points where they
completely diverge. There is nothing like Aquarian
or Sabbatarian legislation in Continental Europescarcely anything in Western Europe, at least —which
can fairly be brought under the head of sumptuary
legislation at all.  Nay, do we not find that the tendency of strong governments abroad is rather not to
interfere with personal liberty in all matters unconnected with politics or religion?




P]urzianism.                 25
This is true.  The reaction in favor of strong government goes but a little way to explain the reaction
in favor of interference.  The former was converted
into the latter by another potent spirit-the Puritan
element.
Probably no other social and political principlenot even the Church of Rome-has ever been extolled
with more fulsome panegyric on one side, and decried
with more virulent invective, on the other, than Puritanism; and there are few contests of equal importance respecting which it can truly be said that bolh
sides are so much in the right.  Not merely that they
are equally sincere (though, of course, with some
hypocrites in both camps), but that their contradictory
and seemingly opposite statements contain a large
portion of positive truth.  It is the old story of the
two knights with the shield between them.  The
panegyrists have regarded the Puritan's conduct towards himself, while powerless to control others; the
detractors have looked at his conduct to others, when
able to put them under his own rule.
It is of the greatest value to a nation that it should
include among its citizens a body of men who are
always thinking about and striving for their own civil
and religious liberty, and who at the same time carry
out the idea of God's kingdom on earth, according to
their best comprehension of it, into their daily life.
2




26            Causes of Interfirence.
When the French all but extirpated the almost identical Huguenot element, they inflicted a lasting and
probably irreparable injury on their political liberty
and social morality.   So long as he is properly
checked and tempered by other ingredients, the Puritan is a most precious member of society; but give
him the upper hand completely, let him have the
supreme power, and he becomes one of the most
fearful nuisances that ever went to and fro on the
earth.
Not satisfied with being righteous himself, he insists
on making all his neighbors righteous, by force if
necessary, after his own fashion.   He wiZd cut all
their social coats according to his moral cloth.  A
petty provincialism, a narrowness of ethical vision,
has always been a marked trait of the Puritan character.  His Mrs. Grundy is a village gossip. And this
is why Puritanism is so specially distasteful to men of
cosmopolitan experience.  There is something provincial in its essence, and the Puritan can scarcely
travel out of his circle and enlarge his knowledge of
men and things without sensibly modifying his more
salient peculiarities in spite of himself as it were, and
often without his own knowledge.  Our best journalists have exposed the fallacy of trying to deduce the
government of a great city from that of a small village; but the principle is much wider in extent, and




Inlellectual agzalhon necessary. when bnjurious. 27
lies at the root of nearly the whole system of interference. There is hardly a country doctor in New
England but considers himself qualified to give advice
to all the world and his wife about everything.
The Puritan, meddling with other men's occupations,
whether serious or sportive, has often been satirized.
Two sayings respecting it deserve especial mention
and remembrance, — Macaulay's, that the Puritan hated
bear-baiting, not because it gave pain to the bear, but
because it gave pleasure to the spectators; and Charles
Leland's, that a New Englander's idea of hell was a
place where every one had to mind his own business.
As long as this spirit of interference is kept within
bounds, as long as this moral Quixotism is confined
to the use of moral means, it cannot be said to do
any positive harm; on the contrary, it is rather productive of good, first, because its vagaries furnish
amusement to better-regulated minds; secondly, because almost anything that provokes ethical discussion
is so far praiseworthy.  Intellectual motion is as
necessary to a free community as tides are to the sea,
and we can scarcely imagine a form of the eristic
element which is not beneficial. But when it gets
supreme control of the civil power, it becomes one
of the most irritating and tormenting tyrannies that
the evil wit of man ever devised. A political autocracy is not necessarily brutal and ignorant; and if it




28            Causes of Inzerference.
be neither, all those who are not specially earnest
and serious in their pursuit of freedom and their
moral purpose of life (that is to say, a large majority
of mankind) can live along under it very tolerably.
Multitudes make themselves quite comfortable in
France.  For those who have saved a portion of their
property, and are not frightened out of their wits by
the grimaces of Thaddeus Stevens, life under the
military government now supreme at the South is by
no means insupportable, and its principal annoyances
are due to social interference rather than political
subjugation.  Autocratic oppression is neither universal nor constant: it weighs on particular persons
at certain times, -as in a country whose wild beasts are
not exterminated, a tiger now and then carries off
some unfortunate. But the supremacy of a Puritan
majority is felt by every individual in the minority,
every week, every day, every hour of his life.  It is
like enveloping a whole community in musquitos.
On examining nations, or political parties, or almost any large collections of men, we are often struck
by startling contradictions, of which the most acute
philosophy can hardly find a satisfactory explanation.
Nominally, the Puritan system abounds in the most
self-sacrificing elements of the Christian scheme.
Judging by the more respectable of their religious
papers, and still more by the books which they write




Inculcale t/le New law, but live by Mhe O1d.    29
and recommend for children, a stranger would set
them  down for the meekest, mildest, best-tempered,
least self-asserting of men, or at any rate for men
who recognized the vital importance of these qualities; whereas, we find them  in their own practice
among the most arrogant and obstinate of mortals,
generally regardless of the rights of others, and nearly
as overbearing as the Romish Hierarchy.  The fact
is, that the Puritans inculcate on their children and
inferiors the precepts of the New Testament, while
they prefer to take the Old, and the most questionable
parts of the Old, as the model for their own conduct.*
During the great agitation which culminated in
war, the Puritans, shrewd enough, as usual, when
their own liberty was at stake, flocked under the
national banner.  And  so this restless, domineering sect, or combination of sects, became the leading and controlling  element in the dominant pox The Judaism of the Puritans and of Calvinists generally is manifest in many ways-e. g., by their use of that
very contradictory expression, the Christian &Sbbat]h.
Of course, it is not pretended that all upholders of the
interference system are Calvinists, or vice versa. Some of
the worst interferists can hardly be said to have any religion at all. B ut, as a general rule, the interference faith in
politics and the Calvinistic faith in religion are found
together.




30            Causer of Inlerference.
litical party.  The reaction in favor of strong government chimed in precisely with its ideas of personal
interference, and gave to the latter their most active
and oppressive form.  Many circumstances connected
with the war helped on this fusion.
First, the ignorance of other political subjects
which the long agitation of the slavery question had
brought about.  This was particularly the case with
regard to all matters of political economy.  In regard
to such knowledge our people were more backward
in I865 than in I835.  It was not merely that they
could not attend carefully to these topics during the
war, though that is certainly one reason. All manner
of swindles and impositions spring up and thrive during a great conflict, as thieves are busiest when a city
is in flames. thus we may reasonably suspect that
the preoccupation of the public mind about slavery
contributed to the enactment of the New England
Prohibitory Laws; and may feel quite sure that the
Morril Tariff and its immediate successors slipped
through Congress under cover of the war-cloud.
A man engaged in a deadly struggle for his life is not
exactly able to keep a sharp eye on his bank-account
or his right of way.  But this was not all.  The present generation fairly forgot what they had learned or
begun to learn as boys and young men. When, a
little more than two years ago, the American Free



Domznanl/ lary drunk zwit success.   3 I
Trade League was founded, an official position in it
led me to ventilate the subject among my friends and
acquaintances, comprising many well-educated and
intelligent men. The ignorance which I found on
every side was a source of daily astonishment to me.
I don't mean that those with whom I conversed had
wrong notions on the matter; they positively had
none at all. Though this ignorance was most striking
in subjects directly politico-economic, it was equally
mischievous in several others; for instance, men having become accustomed to expect danger to their
liberty from a single quarter, could not see that it
might be in great peril from influences not oligarchic.
After the war, the disciples of Interference, who
nearly all belonged to the victorious party, were
tempted on by the intoxication of victory.  Metaphor
is indeed a copious source of fallacy, but it is also at
times the most forcible way of expressing truth. The
most violent of the Republicans were as literally drunk
with success as ever man was with wine. And while
the good sense of a large portion of their own party,
and the possible though doubtful resurrection of the
opposition, kept some feeble check upon them in the
North, at the South they had carle blanche, an unlimited
field open for experiment.  For whatever may be the
theoretical s/a/us of the Southern States (and it would
be difficult, perhaps impossible, to form a consistent




32            Causes of Inlerference.
one), they were practically conquered territory-that
is, the Congressional majority could do with them
pretty much what it pleased.  Mr. Stille's pamphlet,
How a Free People conduct a Long War, was widely
read, and did good service at an important crisis.
I think a neat sequel to it might now be written on
the theme, How a Free People are Sold after a Long
War, -a sequel which should draw a lesson, as he did,
from British history, and show how, for fifteen years
after the fall of Napoleon, every possible abuse, in
church and state, was defended on the plea that a
Tory government had put down Bonaparte, and saved
England from being made a French province.
Thus the meddling, narrow, and intolerant Puritan
spirit found itself possessed of almost unlimited political power, and encouraged by a general reaction in
favor of " strong" government and anything that resembled it.  Interference was, moreover, specially
stimulated by the partial success and apparent triumph
of the so-called "Temperance" agitation. Although
this movement, originally inspired by the purest motives, had accumulated about it so much that was
bad, as to have virtually lost its moral elements, and
become a mere political engine, even before it appealed to force, still it retained the name and semblance of a great moral agitation; and though its
achievements, since it had resorted to penal legisla



French Soczal&sm.             33
tion, were more specious than real, and what in reality
there was in them had been accomplished at the expense of much public dem  alzation in other ways,
still the superficial record of the Maine or Prohibitory
Laws was encouraging to the belief that men might
be made moral and virtuous by vote of a majority,
and perfect Christians by legislative enactment.  The
appearance, not only of drunkenness, but of drinking, had been abolished in several States: might not
all other possible vices and misdemeanors be similarly
put down by positive law?
Thus a number of causes were at work in the same
direction. But now came in another, which had been
operating nearly as long as the slavery agitation, though,
unlike that, it had sometimes slipped out of sight.
We are apt to reject with scorn the notion of borrowing political ideas from foreigners, and boast rather of
being able to influence the Old World. Yet it is certain
that many vicious ideas of Old World origin flourish
rankly among us. Those of the French, especially,
translated, diluted, and modified, make way here, as
in other countries, with many who are ignorant of
their origin, and with some who might repudiate
them if they knew it. The doctrines of French Socialism, borrowed and advocated by Greeley and
others, had frequently been rejected by the popular
common sense; but the snake, often scotched, was
2*




34             Causes of Inleiference.
never quite killed. After the war it started into new
life, stimulated and revived by the field for agrarian
operations opened in the newly reconquered territories.  Now the system of Socialism  rests on interference more than any other form of government or
society short of sheer despotism.  It was a reaction
against the (real or supposed) oppression of the poor
by the rich, the lower classes by the upper; and, accordingly, from the first attacked all that was eminent
or peculiar, and strove to set the lowest kind of work
above the highest.  So that one of its chief bases is
the principle of the handicap applied to legislation;
and this, as we shall hereafter have occasion to observe
in detail, also lies at the bottom of interference.
Such appears to me the rationale of the reaction in
favor of unlimited governmental interference with the
individual.   First, a reaction all over the civilized
world in favor of strong government, of which change
the ability, courage, and unscrupulousness of a single
man may be assigned as the prominent cause; then
the Puritan spirit of intermeddling, identifying itself
with the most active portion of our dominant party;
next, a special impetus given to interference by the
particular case of aquarian legislation; lastly, the
more secret workings of foreign-born Socialism.  I
do not pretend to say that this explanation is wholly
satisfactory. It may be affirmed, on the one hand,




Pohtzcal and social movements conzplex.  3 5
that the natural reaction of sentiment arising from
the insufficiency of the "policeman" theory in some
extreme cases and crises is sufficient to account for
the change, and that any further speculations are superfluous.  On the other hand, it is quite possible
that my enumeration may err from defect rather than
excess. Great political and social movements are so
complex, that it is difficult to trace all their springs
with accuracy.  But I did not think it right to discuss
the grave tendency which is our theme, without trying to throw some light on its origin; and the preceding explanation is that which appeared to be the
most reasonable.




CHAPTER II.
ERRORS OF INTERFERENCE.
INTERFERENCE CONTRARY TO THE TENDENCY OF MODERN CIVILIZATION AND PROGRESS.-ITS BEING THE ACT OF A MAJORITY DOES
NOT ALTER THIS FACT.-IT LOGICALLY LEADS TO A STATE CHURCH.
-PRESSES ON THE POOR MIORE THAN ON THE RICH.-DEMORALIZES
THE COM3IUNITY IN VARIOUS WAYS: BY CONFUSING THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN REAL AND TECHNICAL CRIME: BY FAMILIARIZING
WITH FALSEHOOD THOSE WHO ADVOCATE IT: BY INTRODUCING
THE HANDICAP PRINCIPLE INTO ECONOMICS AND MORALS: BY MISPLACING RESPONSIBILITY.
AVING  thus endeavored to get at the causes
and antecedents of the Interference reaction,
we have now to investigate the character of that
movement, and determine whether it be for good or
evil.  But here two difficulties arise.
In the first place it is not easy to approach the subject
with due equanimity and in a proper Christian frame
of mind. Any one who has read and considered
with the slightest approach to attention the vast and
costly sacrifices made by good and great men in every
age for freedom, and the enormous price which we
ourselves have just paid to protect it, is moved to unbounded indignation at the bare thought that this
precious temple should be nibbled away by vermin




Wise men buildfor foolzsh men lo destroy.    37
or pulled down by chattering apes-that his own fellowcitizens, supposed to be nothing more than his equals
in the eye of the law and by the theory of our government, should constitute themselves
" Kings and kaisers, knights and popes,"
and exercise despotic authority over the most trivial
and minute occurrences of his life.  In the conflict
between his emotions and his duty he feels like echoing the words of Panurge: "Page, my darling, take
my hat and go down into the court and swear half an
hour for me; I'll do as much for you another time."
If I were disposed to take a leaf out of the interferists'
book (which Heaven forbid!), and adopt their theory
of social rights,* I should say that they ought to be
summarily put down for causing reasonable men to
lose their temper, and placing decorous men under
strong temptation to use bad language.
The second impediment is the choice of materials in
the embarras de rzihesses which presents itself.  When
any one, not a fool or a fanatic, seriously contemplates the effects of this transplanting of petty despotism  into democracy, his difficulty is, not what to say,
but what not to  say.  Ex-Governor Andrew, in
* As expounded by the Secretary of an English "Alliance."  See Jil on Liberty, p. 160, English edition.
Quoted also by Ex-Governor Andrew.




38           E~rrors of Inlerference.
his Errors of Prohzbilion, has occupied nearly a hundred and forty pages in treating of one branch of our
topic; and very few of his sentences can be accused
of prolixity or irrelevancy, while there are various
pregnant hints in them that might easily be expanded
into chapters.  I understand that a single weekly
paper (1T4'lkes' Spzrit) published several columns a
week for several weeks on the New York license law;
and allowing three-quarters of this to have been mere
rubbish (as it probably was), there would remain
pertinent matter enough to make a fair-sized pamphlet on one subdIvision of one branch.  The literature
of the economic division alone, or those questions in
which morals occupy a very subordinate positione. g., that of free trade —would make a small library.
These prefatory observations are deemed necessary to excuse any harshness of expression, or abruptness of transition, or omission of intervening steps,
which the reader may remark.
Perhaps the first objection to the Interference theory,
which would naturally present itself to any man having even a superficial acquaintance with history, -is
that it is contrary to the general tendency of modern
civilization and progress.  The freedom  of the individual, as we moderns understand it, was almost
unknown to the ancient world in practice and utterly
repudiated in theory.  To tell a Greek philosopher




Sociely nolfor classes, bulfor inzdhvtuals.   39
that the political society called the State was made for
the benefit of its individual members, would have
seemed to him an inversion of all correct system.
His idea was just the other way, that the citizens were
made for the benefit of the Government.  Athens was
in many respects a model ancient republic; yet there
we find, on the one hand, a majority of the population slaves, and, on the other hand, the wealthiest
citizens holding their lives and property by a very
precarious tenure.  All through the Middle Ages
despotism was only tempered by anarchy, and the individual who enjoyed any freedom owed it to brute
force and personal prowess. But from the quarrels of
tyrants among themselves, and especially the disputes
between churches and potentates, the rights of the people gradually gained means of expression, until the liberty of the individual was recognized as a principle in
some countries. And the tendency of modern progress, though with occasional ebbs like the present,
has flowed pretty steadily in this direction.  Although
the " social contract" failed to secure general acceptance as a proper theory of government, the idea has
grown and established itself that society was made
for the live individuals who compose it, not for the
benefit of any single person or particular class, still
less for the sake of a political abstraction.  Religious
persecution has become so faint, that we may almost




40            Errors of Inierferenct.
speak of it as no longer existing.  The kidnapping
of a little Jew boy, a few years ago, raised a greater
outcry throughout Christendom, than the extermination of a whole province of heretics would have caused
two centuries earlier.  There is more commercial
freedom in France under the autocrat Louis Napoleon, than there was in England under the champion
of liberty, William III.- Serfdom has been abolished
by one nation after another, till almost every civilized
country has rid itself of the curse.  Even under arbitrary governments, there is a progressive extension
of education and suffrage, admission of the people to
their rights, and preparation of them for those rights.
But it is in our own land that the principle has been
pushed to something very near its utmost limits.
We have made the humblest member of the community eligible to its highest offices; we have proclaimed, both literally and virtually, ad nausearm, that
every man is politically and civilly as good as his
neighbor.  Yet this political sovereign is to be reduced to a state of pupilage like a school-boy or an
imbecile! How utterly absurd, that the man who is
pronounced qualified to decide on the gravest national
questions, perhaps to change the destinies of the world
by his vote, shall not be deemed capable of regulating
his own diet or of choosing a market in which to dispose
of the fruits of his own industry! What is this but




Not/king impossible lo fanaticism.  4 I
a repetition of the smallest and most contemptible
follies of "paternal" government, as practised by
absolute monarchs?
The only answer can be, that one set of acts emanate from the will of a single person, while the
others are expressions, more or less direct, of the
will of a majority.  But does thal alter Ihe character
of /he acts /hemselves?  Suppose in a community of
two hundred thousand, one hundred and ninety
thousand belong to the same church, and that by a
unanimous vote they proceed to burn the other ten
thousand as heretics; would the proceeding be any
less a violation of humanity and religious liberty because it was the act of a majority? Or, if the ten richest
men in the same community were seized and put to
death and their property confiscated, merely because
they were the richest men; would it make any difference to them or to justice whether the deed resulted
from the ukase of a single despot or the other one
hundred and ninety-nine thousand nine hundred and
ninety?  But we are supposing impossible cases.
No, nothing is impossible to fanaticism   It is not
amenable to the rules of ordinary logic, and, moreover, in this matter it would have logic on its side.
Once admit the principle that it is right f6r Government (whether representing a majority or not) to
interfere, on account of the inferred moral tendency




42            Errors of Inlerference.
of their acts, with the personal freedom of individuals
who have committed no crime, and you cannot consistently stop short of a State Church.  Do we not as
Christians profess to believe that a man's eternal interests are more important than all others-that saving
his soul is of more consequence than saving his body
and his goods? Are we not supposed to hold that
the highest and safest morality has its support, if not
its origin, in our blessed religion? If Government
ought to interfere with every man's private life under
pretence of making him healthy or moral after its
own pattern, a fortiori is it bound to regulate his
religion? Have we, the majority, a right to prevent
one citizen from drinking beer because it may encourage to get drunk on whiskey? and have we no
right to check (what appears to us) the tremendous
errors of Romanism or Socinianism? Verily, this is
making meat more than the life, and raiment more
than the body.
This is no new or forced aspect of the case.  More
than twenty years ago the question came up incidentally in England. A species of modern transcendental
Tories (of whom Gladstone was then one) defended
not only the Church "Establishment," but its right to
control all the secular education of the country. This
position was disputed by Macaulay and other Liberal
leaders, whose chief organ was the cdinburgh ]Revzezv;




Leads lo a Stale Church.         43
and these able men founded their arguments on the
hypothesis that the "policeman" theory of government was the correct one, that it was the business of
civil rulers and legislators to protect life and property,
not to supervise or dictate the morals and religion
and education of the whole community. And they
tacitly admitted that, conversely, the Interference
theory led not merely to a State Church, but to a State
religion of the most pervading and exacting kind.
It may be said, however, that this is a purely abstract speculation about a danger altogether imaginary,
since the multiplicity of sects among us precludes any
possibility of a dominant church anywhere. Now,
I am not so sure of this.  In the first place, allowing
it to be unlike'y that any one denomination will ever
assume a decided preponderance in any of our new
or reconstructed States, I do not see the zmnpossz'bdi
of such an occurrence.  But further, it is not necessary that the aggressive sect should constitute a majority: they need only be compact and energetic
enough to influence a majority or turn the political
balance.  In our Empire State and \IMetropolitan City
the Church of Rome has actually for some time enjoyed exclusive advantages and extorted large contributions from Protestant tax-payers for its benefit; yet
the Romanists are probably not even a majority in the
city, and certainly very far from  one throughout the




44            E'rrors of Interference.
State.  Besides, there are certain outward formulas
of Christianity in which pretty nearly all denominations agree, and it would need only a slight extra infusion of fanaticism to unite nearly all denominations
in forcing them upon skeptics and unbelievers.  One
of these is the weekly attendance on divine service.
Christians generally believe that public worship is not
only a religious —that is, a theological —but a moral
necessity: even those who have doubts about the utility
of the sermon recognize the value of meeting for purposes of prayer and praise. And many of those who
are not themselves regular in their attendance, admit
the importance of that privilege, which indolence or
other temptation leads them to slight.  Nor can we
say that the neglect of God's house is an evil of small
extent.  A popular, or once popular writer of the
Tupper species, asserts that only one-third of the
population of New England are regular church-goers.
I am not aware on what statistics this assertion is
founded, but supposing that it is within a hundred
per cent. of the truth, we may form a shrewd guess
at the proportion in other parts of the Union.  Sabbatarian legislation of various kinds is not wanting,
but the people do not seem to go to church any the
more for being kept out of other places.  Is it not
our duty, on the Interference principle, to make them
go? Surely, there is as much injury done to a man's




.Leads lo a Stale Church.         45
soul by pertinaciously abstaining from all occasions
of public worship as by drinking a glass of wine, and
the example in the former case is at least as bad as
in the latter.
And this, to my mind, is a decisive argument, and
disposes of the whole question by the reduclto ad absurdum.  If you assume to take care of every man's
morals, you must also take care of his religion. As
the greater includes the less, the repudiation of a
united Church and State ought to involve the rejection
of the whole system of Interference.  It may be objected, however, that this argument does not reach
those interfering regulations in which the economic
element is admitted to dominate over the moral, and
which only inflict a pecuniary loss upon their victim
without subjecting him to any personal restraint.
Thus, it does not touch the iniquitous imposition of
" Protection. "   We therefore  proceed to another
count in our indictment. There is no lack of them.
All the paternal, protective, prohibitive legislation
with which we are harassed, is not only unjust in itself, but specially un-democratic and un-American,
because it weighs more heavily on the poor than on
the rich.
I should be one of the last to admit that a measure
is necessarily bad because it runs foul of some democratic ideal. The strongest element in a government




4 0           Errors of Inierference.
has a constant tendency to go on accumulating
strength, and a slight drag upon it may at times be
very desirable.  But when the question is not one of
limit or modification, but of positive opposition, when
a measure or institution is thoroughly hostile to the
broad principles on which our whole political fabric
is founded, the case becomes very different. And
thus is it with any law which bears unequally on rich
and poor; and of this class is all the legislation begotten of Interference.
Take a prohibitory liquor law. You shut up barrooms and forbid hotels from serving wine to customers.  What does the rich citizen care?  He usually has two places of refuge —his club and his own
house.  Go further, suppress all retail traffic: he
can afford to buy his wines wholesale.  Carry out
your fanaticism to its highest pitch; inoculate all the
United States with the prohibition mania, and forbid
the manufacture of fermented liquors in the country.
Even then he may escape you. He can fly to France
or some other comparatively free country.
Or take Sabbatarian laws.  You prohibit cars and
steamboats from  plying on  Sunday.   How  does
this affect the rich man? He can hire a carriage.
Close the livery stables on that day: he can afford to
keep a vehicle of his own.  Go to the scarcely possible length of making vehicular locomotion on Sun



Oppresses ihe poar more t/an the rich.   47
day penal. Still, the millionaire is hardly touched;
for he is not bound to his work all the week; he can
select another day for his out-door amusement. The
inconveniences of Liquor Laws and Sunday Laws
fall exclusively on the poor man.
The interference of Protection, though it affects all
classes, touches the poor most severely. If a rich man
has to pay fifty per cent. more than he ought for his clothing, he must only make two coats last him as long as
three used to, or cut down some other luxury in proportion. But to the poor man fifty per cent. extra on
his clothing, and that of his family, is a serious matter.
Of many necessaries, such as the cheaper kinds of
clothing, bedding, iron tools, and sewing-thread, the
poor family consumes nearly as much as the rich,
and the difference of a large increase in their price to
the two classes is the difference between taking half
a story off a four-story house, and taking it off a onestory house.
There is, indeed, a class of interfering laws which
affect the rich man more than the- poor, indeed
scarcely touch the latter at all.   These are laws
strzilly sumptuary, enactments limiting personal expenses, simply as personal expenses; —laws, for instance, forbidding a citizen to inhabit a house of more
than a certain size, or to drive more than a specified
number of horses, or to wear garments of peculiar




48             Errors of Inlteference.
fabrics or values.  Such legislation, at one period
very common, has long been exploded in the Old
World.   Not many years ago it was feared that a
species of unwritten law of this class might be framed
in the New by popular opinion. The material luxury inseparable from the growth of large cities, has
pretty well dispelled this fear, at least for the present.
All the interfering statutes now in vogue, or likely to
be for some time, strike the poor hard, and pass
lightly by the wealthy.
Still, it may be urged that there is too much of
mere theory and speculation in this argument, inasmuch as necessities (real or supposed) have led us
frequently, during the last six years, to violate republican principles. I therefore proceed to another, resting directly on fact, and involving, under different
forms, all the practical merits of the dispute.
Interfering legislation is wrong, because it demoralizes the community in various ways.
This is going to the root of the matter, meeting the
enemy point-blank, carrying the war into Africa. For
the greater part of Interfering legislation is founded
on the assumption that Government ought to take
charge of every man's private morality, for the purpose
of protecting the public morality; and even in cases
like that of Protection, where the economic element
predominates, the moral element is also quite appre



iP demoralizes Ihe communzmy.      49
ciable, since many Protectionists admit that, according to the rules of political economy, the case must
go against them; wherefore they take refuge in moral
and patriotic motives.
Nor must we be astonished that men in pursuit of
good ends should fall into evil. When legislation
goes beyond its appropriate sphere, the better the men
the worse their mistakes often are.  And the errors
of the best men are apt to be the most instructive.
John Stuart Mill, in his justly-renowned essay on
"Liberty," has protested with equal warmth and
acuteness against the interference of governments in
individual concerns.  Yet, as if afraid of carrying out
his own principles, he afterwards proceeds to admit
and approves of some very arbitrary interferences in
vogue on the European Continent —e. g., the laws
which forbid marriage unless parties can show that
they have the means of supporting a family.* If
Mr. Mill had chosen to investigate the practical working of this law in various parts of Germany, he would
have seen that it produces no end of immorality in
the shape of concubinage, and concubinage licensed
by public opinion. If he had chosen to apply his
powerful mind a little more closely to the regulation,
I think he would have perceived its theoretical weakness.  "Supporting a family."  What zis a family?
* Page 194-English edition.
3




50            Errors of Intrference.
Is it one child, or three children, or a dozen? How
can it be told beforehand how many children the
couple will have? Are they to be allowed to begin
with a sufficiency for one child, and must they show
a corresponding increase of means before every successive increase of family is lawful? The more we
look at such a rule, the more it appears to us as absurd as it is oppressive-which, indeed, is a general
characteristic of paternal, protective, and prohibitive
legislation.
I repeat, then, emphatically, that Interference legislation demoralizes the community in various ways:
that it must do so theoretically, that it does so
practically.
First, by confusing the popular conception of law,
and making men regard it as a mere matter of arbitrary enactment, without foundation in their consciences and feelings.
The experience of history has caused ethical students to receive, as something very like an axiom, this
proposition: that the multiplication of mala prohibz#a,
or technical offences, causes the mass of the people to
ignore the distinction between them and miala in se,
or actual crimes, which the impulses of civilized men
generally agree in reprobating. Thus it would not
be difficult to prove that prohibition of marriage with
a deceased wife's sister causes a great deal of incest




Excesszve punishmenI begels public symipaly.   5 I
among the lower orders in countries where it is the
law. Of course, our own prohibitionists expect to
change all this. They hope, for instance, to make
beer-drinking as disreputable as fornication is and
falsehood ought to be; but until they can change
human nature they will be disappointed.
Even actions allowed on all hands to be bad and
justly punishable, may become objects of public
sympathy when visited with punishment in excess of
their desert. Less than a hundred years ago, women
were hanged in England for shop-lifting, a species of
petty larceny.  Here the wrong done to the criminal
by the punishment was evidently greater than the
wrong done to society by the crime.
Next, we see mala in se popularly excused by their
association with mala prohzibza.  The execution of
women for shop-lifting, just mentioned, is an instance
of the always great and sometimes exaggerated respect
paid by the Anglo-Saxon mind to the rights of property; yet we find a doubtful character in more than
one sense, Robin Hood, erected into one of England's
traditional heroes; his example cast a glory about
highway robbery which continued to gild it almost to
the present day.  Why was this?  Because the followers of Robin Hood (whether he be a real person
or an eponymous hero, a man or a myth) were political
outlaws before they were bandits.  It has often hap



52            Errors of In/erferewce.
pened, and sometimes still happens, that in conquered
and oppressed countries law becomes a synonym of
wrong rather than of right.
Finally, let us eliminate the positive offence entirely, leaving only the technical-that is, men who
have never committed any malum  in se, are found
guilty of mala prohzbzta.  In this case the sympathy of
all not directly engaged in passing and supporting the
law will be with the violators of it, because the law is,
from a moral point of view, arbitrary. Thus, very
few persons consider smuggling, as constantly achieved
by travellers, anything more than a venial sin. Common sense tells every man not infected with the Prohibition phrensy that selling a glass of beer or cider is
not a crime in the same sense as theft or assault;
and if he has intelligence and learning to reason out
the matter, he sees that the proceeding is as illogical
as it is oppressive.  The first effect of his convictions
is to lessen his respect for the makers of the law,
though that is too mild a way of putting it.  It would
be nearer the truth to say that he regards them with
abhorrence and disgust; and if not with contempt
also, it is because they are too formidable to be safely
despised.  Gulliver could not afford to despise the
insects of Brobdignag.  The law having no moral
force on the large number of persons opposed to it,
continual attempts at evasion will naturally be made,




Where there is a local majority agazinst i.    53
and many of them will be successful. There is no
evading a law against robbery or murder, except
where robbers and cut-throats form a large part of the
population, for to put down such crimes is the interest of every honest man; but in the case of this
"paternal" legislation of Interference, the interests of
a great number is the other way.  And though the
law may have been passed by the vote of a majority,
still, as the majority are not likely to have so lively an
individual interest in taking away the minority's liberty as the latter have in preserving it, they will not
show the same individual energy in enforcing the law
that the others practise in violating it.  Moreover,
there need not be, and very frequently is not, a local
majority in favor of the law. The legislator must
therefore have large recourse to the services of spies
and professional informers; and this still further increases his unpopularity.  The detective who tracks
and traps the assassin or the forger is the bloodhound
of the law, and is regarded everywhere with a certain
fearful respect. The common informer is the imangy
cur whom all men long to kick, while some would
not be sorry to extend the same greeting to his employers.
Thus the legislation of Interference demoralizes
the masses who oppose it, by confusing their ideas
of wrong and right.  But it also, in the second place,




54            -uErrors of Iftnef/rence.
demoralizes those who promote it, by confusing their
ideas of truth and equity.
The amount of positive falsehood which passes
current among our modern Puritans ought to awaken
more astonishment and indignation than it does.
Whence they get it is a puzzle, for the old Puritans
were certainly not remarkable for sTstematic and pertinacious violation of truth. Such untruths of theirs
as have come down to us seem usually to have been
hallucinations rather than inventions.  But many of
their descendants seem to have lost the perception
and appreciation of truth as completely as the Irish
Romanist, who, it is notorious, understands by truth
whatever makes for his side, and by falsehood whatever makes against it.  Is it possible that they ultimately owe this vice to the Irish among us, who first
infected the democratic party with it, and the Republicans then caught it from the Democrats while striving
to overbid them (as they have more than once done)
with the baser elements of society?  Or, if this be
deemed too recondite an explanation, shall we say
that outrageous falsehood is a. necessary concomitant
of violent partisanship, and that this is only another
example of the folly of attempting to accomplish
moral reforms by dragging moral questions into the
dirty field. of partisan warfare? Perhaps we may admit that both agencies had their share, and still leave




Supported by exaggerathon andfalsehood.    55
room for a third explanation-namely, that the system
of Interference, being founded on false principles,
naturally looks to falsehood for its support, and that
Protectionists and Prohibitionists have recourse to exaggeration, mendacity, and calumny for lack of serious arguments. Whatever the cause, the melancholy
effect is palpable and salient.
One of the most recent and marked exhibitions of
it was the nomination for Congress, as an Aquarian
or so-called Temperance candidate, of P. T. Barnum,
the notorious showman, whose whole life, by his own
autobiographical confession* has been a career of unmitigated deception.  A great many persons who
professed and called themselves Christians, thought
it decent and proper to uphold and recommend this
lover of lies; and though he was unsuccessful, his
bad character did not defeat him. There happened
to be a party majority on the other side.  The discussion on the Prohibition Law in Massachusetts, this
year, brought out some of the loosest and wildest
assertions imaginable. A witness, before the Special
Committee of the Legislature, gravely stated that "the
annual mortality from intemperance in the United
States was fifty thousand." t Ex-Governor Andrew
* Which, considering its immoral tendency, should rather
be called an ought-not-to-buy-ography.
f Errors of Prohibition, p. 112.




56            Errors of interference.
showed in black and white that the return of deaths
from that cause, in I86o, was less than one thousand.
This sample of Prohibition facts reminds one of Carlyle's saying that we must sometimes get up statistics,
" not in the vain hope of acquiring knowledge, but
to prevent other people's ignorance from being thrust
upon us." It is equally notorious that the Prohibitionists raised the hue-and-cry against all who opposed
them, and denounced as either a drunkard or a friend
of drunkenness every man who did not support the
hourly interference of Government in the diet of individuals.  They invented the tasteful and decorous
name of "rummy" wherewith to stigmatize their
opponents.  To be sure, persons who are proud to
call themselves teetotiers (I am not sure how the word
is spelled-any way is good enough for it) cannot be
expected to apply very elegant epithets to their antagonists.
Some of the Prohibitive legislation is avowedly
founded on assumptions which are sheer falsehoodse. g., that lager bier is an intoxicating liquor.  It is
not such in any natural or rational sense of the words.
Under exceptional circumstances it may produce a
slight exhilaration; so may soda-water, tea, animal
food, or even fresh air and sunshine.  The Protectionists really hate light beers and wines, because




Suzpporled by exaggeratlon andfalsehood.    57
they do nol habitually produce intoxication, and thus
invalidate their sweeping assertions.
The moral and economical lines of our question
overlap here, as at many other points.  Prohibition
and Protection go consistently together, and the perfection of mendacity and malignity, of carelessness
about truth and calumny against persons, may safely
be looked for in any organ of both these forms of
Interference-the New York Tribune, for instance.
The manner in which this newspaper wages warfare
against those who oppose its pet systems of Interference, is simply to lie about them as hard as it can.
Out of a multitude of examples which might be given,
we need only take as a specimen its random and frantic vituperation of the American Free-Trade League.
If there ever was an Association eminently respectable
and honest in its origin, it was that League.  Its
founders belonged, in about equal proportions, to
the two great political parties, but none of them were
party leaders, and few of them politicians at all.
Their general pecuniary position was that of men too
rich to be bought, and not rich enough to buy others.
They were not seeking fortune, or office, or notoriety.
That the capacziy of such a body should be attacked
was perfectly natural, since it is a current popular
delusion that no man is fit to give an opinion on pub3*




58            Larr s of Inerference.
lic affairs unless he has dragged through years of
dirty caucus work; but there was no excuse for
assailing their integrity.  The T~rzbune, however, having ascertained that out of more than thirty officers
of the League, five or six had some business connection with England, immediately set up a howl that all
its officers were bought agents of the English manufacturers. This abominable lie it repeated day after
day (possibly is repeating still), and the. falsehood
found a ready echo in other Protectionist journals
throughout the country, and on the floor of Congress.
It is worth while noticing, in the present connection,
that this paper, the Tribune, has always been anxious
to destroy the faint shadow of assistance which our
laws still profess to give to the individual slandered
by the journalist.
It may be said that these calumnies are only the
ordinary amenities of partisan warfare.  But they are
most certainly not the necessary and inseparable
results of partisanship, as the example of other
well-known and influential political prints clearly
shows. The palliation, at best, amounts to this, that
these Interferists, under pretence of promoting public
morality, not only meddle with private liberty, but do
so by employing the worst devices of the worst class
of party hacks.  Can there be any reasonable doubt as
to the effect of such proceedings upon their own nature?




Handicap system.               59
Thus we have seen that the legislation of Interference demoralizes both sections of the communitythat which suffers under the law, and that which inflicts it.  But it demoralizes the whole community in
another way-by the introduction of the handicap
system into both economics and morals.*
I do not know how far the progress of the turf
among us may have familiarized general readers with
the meaning of the technical term handicap. It is a
race in which horses of all merits compete, and the
best are so heavily weighted as to put them on an
equality with the worst.  The worst horse, not the
best, is made the standard; and the results of the
running are as unnatural-that is, as little in accordance with the natural capacity of the horses-as can
well be imagined. Now this is exactly the principle
on which all the Interference legislation reposes, for
it restrains the natural capacities and developments of
its subjects, and makes the worst of them its standard
instead of the best.
Thus, the eight-hour law is an attempt to measure
the physical capacity and industrial perseverance of
the best workmen by those of the worst. The Pro* As some of my readers may possibly have seen something like this before, it is proper to say that an article on
Handicap Legislation, which appeared in the Round Table
this summer, was written by me.




6o           tErrors of li/erference.
tective system insists on regulating the price of commodities, not by what it costs to produce under the
most favorable, but by what it costs to produce them
under the least favorable circumstances.  Socialism,
as we have already had occasion to remark, is prone
to these absurdities; because its essence is to set the
lower kind of work above the higher —of which we
find a good illustration in Greeley's assertion, that a
man who can raise potatoes is better educated than
one who knows Greek and Hebrew. Hence, Socialists are usually Protectionists, and Interferists generally.
The moral handicap of Interference is not quite so
obvious as the economic, to the hasty observer; but
it comes out clearly enough on a little examination.
It usually takes the form of the argument against
temptation.   "You must not drink that claret.""Why not? I believe it is good for me, and my
doctor tells me to drink it; and as to drunkenness,
a child of fourteen might take a pint of that wine and
water with impunity."- "Perhaps so; but your
neighbor, Paddy O'Rafferty, wzll get drunk if there is
a drop of liquor in the country: it is necessary to remove this temptation from him; therefore, nobody in
the country shall drink anything that can.by any possibility be supposed capable of intoxicating!"  Were
this principle carried out into all the departments of




T7he g'ood cztlzen Ihe scapegoat for the bad,.    6 I
life, it would cause a very general shutting up shop,
and bring society nearly to a stand-still.  If there is
no liquor in the place, there can be no intoxication.
Certainly; and if there are no women, there can be
no fornication; if there is no property, there can be
no theft; if there are no books or periodicals printed,
there can be no lies printed.  But this, though a very
fair reducho ad absurdum of the Interference principle,
is not what I am now urging, neither will I dwell on
the set-off pointed out incidentally by Mill-namely,
that persons of independent and antagonistic natures
are roused to opposition by such laws.  What I insist
on is the inversion of all ethical logic, the utter injustice of taking as a basis of legislation the presumed
needs of the lowest, and weakest, and worst members
of society.  If Paddy O'Rafferty is unable to control
his appetite for liquor, if you consider his life so valuable that Government is bound specially to interfere
in the case, shut hzn up, punish him.  Why meddle
with me, and my family, and my friends, and all the
respectable people in the neighborhood?  Why try
us by his standard, and judge of our temptations by
his?  May I not walk in Broadway, because Lovelace
insulted a lady there last night? May I not enter
Tiffany's shop without a guard of two policemen, because one of the swell-mob tried to steal a diamond
ring the other day? Carry out the principle, and




62             Errors of Interference.
you will end in a government for which (happily) no
language has as yet found a name, but which might
not unaptly be expressed by the term Cacocracy.  For
it would be a government, not indeed necessarily
administered by the vilest members of the community,
but based upon the real or presumed moral requirements of the very worst subjects under its jurisdiction. *
But there is still another way, analogous to the last,
in which Interference legislation on moral questions
demoralizes the community. It transfers and mis* Several years ago I was staying with a very excellent
friend of mine, a college professor. He excused himself for
not offering me wine at dinner, because a drunken student
had killed one of the tutors in a row. I could not then
and have never since been able to see the connection. But
the moral of the incident is worth noting. Some years
later I went to stay with my friend again. He produced a
bottle of wine after dinner. His doctor had ordered him to
drink it.
Interferists say that it is selfish for a man to indulge in
that which tempts others to excess. Perhaps it is; but at
any rate the selfishness is not all on one side. What name
shall we give to the feeling which prompts a man to deprive
his neighbors of their necessaries and comforts, in order to
remove fiom himself the temptation which he is bound to
resist? And in what terms shall we characterize the attempt to make men unselfish by dint of legislation?




Compulsory and volunlary benevolence.     63
places responsibility, calling one man to account, not
only for another man's action, but for another man's
different action.
If A abstains from drinking wine lest B hurt himself by drinking whiskey, though the logic of the
proceeding may not be transparent to all, the motive
is doubtless good; at any rate, it is no one's business
but A's. But that A should hinder C from drinking
wine lest B injure himself by drinking whiskey, is an
equal inversion of logic and equity. The whole
merit of the sacrifice consists in its being voluntary;
the absence of the voluntary element converts it into
intolerable oppression. Sydney Smith ridiculed the
pretended benevolence of some persons, by putting it
into this formula: A, seeing B's distress, is irresztz'bly
moved to make C gzve himn something.  But there is no
need -of caricature here.  We have only to state the
fact.  A, seeing the mischizf which B works for hznself
and others by dozing something, is irresistibly impelled to
prevent C from dozing something else.
A proper sense of responsibility is one of the essential foundations of morality, and every erroneous
distribution of responsibility tends to sap the community's moral sense. In uncivilized and unsettled
countries this erroneous distribution is of constant
occurrence. When the king of the Cannibal Islands
has the belly-ache, he brains the first of his subjects




64               v-EJrors o.f Zh/ejer'cnce.
on whom he can lay hands. When a Western gambler has lost his money, he is apt to stab or shoot the
first stranger whom he encounters.  One of the leading characteristics of law, and order, and civilization,
and true progress, is the proper tracing and placing
of responsibility,-" putting the saddle on the right
horse," according to a familiar phrase.  It is the
difference between an African ordeal and a trial by
judge and jury.  An arbitrary shifting of responsibility is odious to men, nearly in proportion to their
advance in civilization, and if reduced to a sort of
system, it will go no little way toward uncivilizing
them.
It is the habit of shallow philosopherlings to get
hold of half-truths and use them at random; to take
principles by the wrong end and dislocate them fearfully by mishandling. Various social and political
influences have long prevented the lower classes of
most European countries from getting a fair start and
fair play in the race of life.  Hence, some serious
and many sentimental moralists started the idea of
social responsibility for the acts of the individual.  In
one sense it contained a great deal of truth, and that
not with regard merely to the poorest and most obscure proltlazires; but the Interferists misconstrued it,
and regarded the responsibility not as binding the
individual and society soldazrelenzt, but as transferred




1Krocious phizant/zropy.       6 5
to other individuals.  Thus there can be no reasonable doubt that the American public is partly responsible for the sins of the Herald and the Tribune,
since it has made the editor of the one journal a
millionaire, and the editor of the other a political
personage; but it would be a most unreasonable and
unfair inference, that all the newspapers in the
country ought to be made subject to a government
censorship.  Yet this is exactly the principle of the
Prohibition laws.  There exists a species of ferocious
philanthropy, professed by many French and some
Anglo-Saxon writers-the late Horace Mann afforded
a good specimen of it-which runs a muck at every
quiet, respectable, minding-his-own-business citizen,
for the evil which he does not do, and which they
have never been able to show him clearly how he
might prevent.  If society has not been just to any
of its members, it should endeavor to remedy the injustice-first, by looking after the improvement of
their physical well-being, and then by judiciously
stimulating their mental and moral capacity; instead
of which the tendency of Interference is to worry and
aggravate them by diminishing their sources of enjoyment, while at the same time it attempts to make
scapegoats of those among the more favored classes
who have the misfortune to dissent from the ethical
dogmas of a temporary, perhaps accidental and fictitious majority.




CHAPTER III.
THE PROHIBITION STAGE OF THE AQUARIAN
MOVEMENT.
IMPORTANCE OF THE SUBJECT.-PRESTIGE IN FAVOR or AQUARIANISM.-WHY FALLACIOUS.-THREEFOLD DIVISION OF THE QUESTION.
-ABSURDITIES OF THE AQUARIANS ON THE BIBLICAL ARGUMENT:
ON  THE PHYSIOLOGICAL.-THE  MORAL POLICE ARGUMENT:
STATEMENT OF IT: ITS RESULTS SHOWN BY APPLICATION OF THE
PRINCIPLE TO THE TREATMENT OF OTHER VICES, LICENTIOUSNESS,
GAMBLING, FALSEHOOD, AND SLANDER.-APPEAL TO AQUARIANS.
E have already had occasion to remark (what
indeed must be obvious on slight reflection)
that the laws inspired by the principle of Interference
are of two kinds: the one sort, like "Protective"
enactments, merely mulct their victim in a pecuniary
sum, or operate as an unjust tax; the other sort, like
Aquarian or Sabbatarian legislation, directly attack
his personal freedom  and comfort.  Of this latter
class, the Prohibitive development of the movement,
loosely called "temperance," more precisely "total
abstinence," vulgarly " tetotal," " teetotal," and " Ttotal," and which may most correctly be styled Aquarian (since it aims at the suppression of all ordinary




Dangerous Io personal libertv.       67
beverages except water), is so important as to deserve
and require a separate notice.   Since the ascetic
tendency of early Christianity (like which, it originated
in a reaction against rampant vice), no moral agitation
has been so formidable in its proportions or so perilous to individual liberty.
This movement, I repeat it, in its present stage, is
fraught with the gravest peril to the personal liberty
of the individual; for whenever anything bad, whether
proposed measure or established institution, has on
its side a large number of men who are, or are reputed to be, good, it is on that account tenfold more
dangerous. Wherefore it is better to begin by disposing of this prestige.
There are a great many "good men," clergymen,
church communicants, respectable citizens, etc., etc.,
in favor of Aquarianism, and so much in favor of it
that they are willing to go to the length of enforcing
it by civil penalties. Very well. This amounts to a
prizma facie evidence in its favor, strong prima facze,
if you will, but prizna facie only. It is like good
character at a trial.  The prisoner at the bar has a
good reputation, but if crime is clearly proved against
him, what does his previous reputation avail? Some
maintain that it positively aggravates his guilt. So,
conversely, with the argument drawn from  the fact
that many bad and corrupt-men, New York demo



68            lze A4uariazn AMvemenl.
cratic politicians, etc., are opposed to Aquarianism.
The reign of the Patlander is the one thing under
God's heaven worse than the reign of the Puritan, and
those who have suffered under the former may be
pardoned for committing themselves blindly to the
latter. Still, let us bear in mind that this, too, is
merely _prziza facie, and that the old maxim, Nosczzur
a soclb, is not necessarily true in all cases.
It is of course a great point for a partisan if he can
attach bad or unpopular associations to what he opposes.   Thus,  Protectionist  journals  are  always
"hoarsely bawling," Britzsh Free-Trade    But suppose we say British Free Speech, British Free Press,
British Habeas Corpus. All these are British, as much
as Free-Trade is.
Suppose that in any country (as has happened in
some modern countries) the people should abolish
and persecute Christianity.  Then the Romanists and
Protestants of that country would be in the same boat
as regards the majority. Or suppose (as has also sometimes happened) there was a Romanist majority bent
on stifling all free discussion, and a minority composed of Protestants and skeptics; that minority
would naturally unite against the dominant party.
How  unfair it would be to charge the Protestants
with Romanism  in the former case, or with infidelity
in the latter!




1z/liziudes of great and good mez nolt Aquarzans. 69
Besides, when we come to scrutinize the goodness
of those who support penal Aquarian legislation, we
shall probably find that, so far as it exists, it exists in
spite, not in consequence of their Aquarianism, which
makes them very careless of truth, and equally regardless of their neighbors' rights. When Buckle propounded his curious paradox, that civilization owed
everything to intellect and nothing to morals, and
illustrated his position by the crimes of bigots, Goldwin Smith indignantly denied the goodness of bigots.
Without going so far as the ex-Professor, we may
safely question the thorough goodness of a fanatic,
however free from sensual vices, or eminent for what
are called business virtues.
Once more: if those who are carried away by an
array of names would only extend their vision beyond
one portion of one country, and take into account
the multitudes of great and good men all over the
civilized world who are in the daily habit of using
fermented liquors, they might see how much this
prestige amounts to.  But here comes in the overweening, unbounded, illimitable conceit of the narrow-minded Puritan.  "We are so far superior in
intelligence and morality to all the world, that no
others can set us an example in anything." And
sadly but naturally enough, this assertion, loudly put
forth by some, tacitly inferred by others, is accepted




70           The Aquarzazn Movemzein.
without question by many, because it flatters national
or sectional vanity.
To persons of ordinary modesty, or any modesty,
the list of names on the other side might well inspire
some little hesitation. No distinguished man, except
Shelley, ever was a demonstrative and aggressive
Aquarian. Will any one have the face to assert that
Gough, Dow, Wilson, Greeley, and the other noisy
notorieties who march in the van of the Aquarian
army, are greater men than Grant and Sherman,
Tennyson and Longfellow, Mill and Stanley, Napoleon and Bismarck, and the other remarkable personages of all countries and walks of life who are not
Aquarians? I can understand how the fear of being
called a drunkard, or friend of drunkenness, should
have great influence on a peace-loving individual, in
a community making great pretensions to morality;
but surely the fear of being considered a conceited
idiot, an abettor of obstinate and irrational ignorance,
ought to count for something on the other side.
Dismissing, then, this bugbear of imputed wickedness, and estimating the hard names of which the
Aquarians are so liberal at their proper value, let us
examine the claims of these persons to fasten their
sweeping legislation upon us. Ex-Governor Andrew
might well say that the Prohibitory laws of Massachusetts were "not strictly consistent with any theory."




7The BiMzlCal Arg-umenl.       7L
We may go further, and assert that the claims of
Aquarianism are not logically consistent even before
it reaches the Prohibitory stage.  But, such as they
are, they come under three heads-the Biblical, the
Physiological, and the Moral, or more exactly the
Moral Police argument.  In spite of a good deal of
dodging and shifting and manceuvring from one to
the other, any plea on their side may be brought under one of these three heads.
The Biblical argument naturally divides itself into
investigations of the Old and New Testament. The
former we can afford to dispose of briefly. It may
be an evidence of great crassitude on my part, but I
never could see the reason why learned men should
wrangle about Tzh3osh, Scheclhar, and Gain, or why the
Aquarians, having an impregnable defensive position
to fall back on, should go outside of it for the express
purpose of stultifying themselves.  It is pretty evident
that the Jews under their theocracy were permitted a
large use of intoxicating liquor.  But it is equally
true that this only furnishes a prima facie evidence in
favor of drinking wine, exactly as good, and no better, than the analogous support given by Hebrew
practice to slavery and polygamy, two institutions
which even the most Judaizing of Puritans have long
learned to abhor.  The supererogatory work of showing that when the same historians and prophets say




72           f The Aquarian Mllovement.
wzene they mean something else, can only have been
undertaken by the Aquarians from their natural logical
incapacity and irresistible propensity to torture and
pervert language. Some instances of this mania on
their part are almost incredible. The "American
Temperance Society" has lately published, as an
authoritative exponent of its views, a book called
Scripture  Testimony  against Intoxicahtng  Wine, by
the Rev. William Ritchie, (appropriately of) Dunse,
Scotland. This treatise breaks ground by affirming,
with much parade of reiteration, that because wine is
spoken of in different passages of the Old Testament
as having different effects, therefore the same thing
cannot be meant by the word.*  Surely, men who
put forth a text-book containing arguments like this
must have water on the brain.
With the New Testament the case is very different.
Of course, the miracle at Cana immediately suggests
itself in this connection.  It really does seem (I wish
to speak with all reverence) as if this miracle was
performed and recorded on purpose as a prospective
protest and defence against Aquarianism, just as -the
Parable of the Tares was uttered and recorded as a protest and defence against religious persecution. How do
* See the passage quoted at length by D. R. Thomlason,
Teetotcaisnm, etc., pp. 18 and 99.




The Bi/lz'cal ArgumenzI.           73
the Aquarians get over this testimony?  As usual, by
a perversion of common sense and ordinary language.
They insist that the word otvoS, which in all recognized Greek authors means an intoxicating liquor,
was used by the writers of the New Testament to mean
a non-intoxicating liquor,-a piece of reasoning worthy my Lord Peter.*
Indeed, the longer we regard the miracle of Cana,
the stronger appears the case.  There is more in it
than meets the eye.  For reasons familiar to the Biblical and historical student, but not necessary to enter
upon here, our Saviour and his early disciples practised a more rigid way of life than any large community of moderns has ever professed. They were nonresistants; they held their property in common; some
of them abstained from marriage.  If, then, we found
" The brother so often mentioned for his erudition, who
was well skilled in criticisms, had found in a certain author, which he said should be nameless, that the same word
which in the will is called fiinge does also signify a broomstick." -Tcale f a Tub, Section Second.
" Look ye, gentlemen," cries Peter; "to convince you
what a couple of blind, positive, ignorant puppies you are,
I will use but this plain argument. * * *  It [the brown
loaf] is as true, good, natural mutton as any in Leadenhall
market; and God confound you both eternally if you offer
to believe otherwise."-Ibid., Section Fourth.
4




74           flze Aquarzzn A,[ovemelt.
an explicit record that He or some of His apostles
did not use wine, that would be no conclusive argument against its use by us, unless we were also prepared to profess non-resistance, celibacy, and community of goods.  But when, on the contrary, our
Lord actually went out of his way to make wine, not
as a medicine, but for festive purposes, it is wonderful how any man can admit the genuineness and authenticity of St. John's Gospel, and yet call himself
an Aquarian from Christian motives.
The Physiological plea of the Aquarians is one of
those soz-disant arguments which are difficult to hear
patiently or answer seriously, so stupendous is the
conceit of those who put it forth.  In face of the
notorious facts that all the most warlike and vigorous
races of all times,* the present included, have made
a liberal use of fermented liquors; that all athletes
use some alcoholic stimulus in training-in fact, can
hardly train well without it; that the English upper
classes, at this day the most active and powerful body
of men in the world, are, to a man (we might almost
add, to a woman), large consumers of wine and ale;
that our own people, among whom Aquarianism has
* Except, possibly, the Saracens. Possibly, I say, because
it is doubtful how far their practice was consistent with
their theory.




Whal a majorizy of physiczzns do.   75
gained a considerable foothold,,are by no means the
healthiest or the longest-lived among nations; that in
wine-growing countries the failure of the vintage (as
I have myself witnessed in Tuscany) causes an immediate deterioration in the health and appearance of
the inhabitants; that the majority of physicians of all
schools and countries prescribe the use of wine and
beer to numerous classes of patients; in spite of these
facts, and many more that might be produced, Aquarians insist that every beverage containing alcohol,
even the weakest beer, is a poison, and should only
be sold under the same restrictions as other poisons.
And why? because some scientific men have instituted
experiments to prove, what nobody of common sense
ever denied, that raw alcohol is not fit to drink, and
that distilled liquors containing a large percentage of
alcohol are deleterious to most constitutions, unless
used with care and in very moderate quantities.
What an insult to human understanding! " Hippocrates may say what he likes, but the coachman is
dead."'Carpenter and Lallemand may say what they
like, but Lord Brougham is alive, and so are many
old gentlemen who have used their bodies and minds
to some purpose for many years while imbibing this
" poison" every day.
The experiments on which Dietarians (not Aquarians merely) rely, are usually of the most extreme




76           Tihe Aquarian Movemenlt.
character, and as it is attempted to apply them, have
absolutely no practical value! You exhibit (as the
medical term is) a pinch of snuff to a rabbit; the rabbit sneezes and breaks its neck; therefore tobacco is a
deadly poison to man, and its use must be interdicted.
You lay a pint of strong green tea on the stomach of a
new-born infant; the new-born infant renounces the
game of life at the start, and throws up its hand; therefore tea-drinking is a crime only second to the impiety
of wine-drinking. You pour a glass of gin down a
cat's throat; puss dies in convulsions; therefore lager
bier and Bordeaux are not fit to be drunk by human
beings. A French savant finds a man who is fool
enough to swallow a pint of brandy on an empty
stomach. The poor wretch unscrews his billiard-table
(as the classic slang of the savant's metropolis hath it)
in thirty-six hours. The only wonder is that he did
not die sooner: and we are asked to infer from this
experiment that a glass of grog on a cold night is
equal to a dose of arsenic and small-pox mixed i *
Putting inferior animals out of the question, conclusions from one individual to others, or to the
whole human race, are apt to be among the worst
X The same amount of brandy, properly diluted and administered, at intervals, after a fall or other severe injury,
might have been the means of saving the man's life. Probatum est.




" One man's meal is anolher's poison. "  77
fallacies of imperfect generalization. A person who
should maintain that no man could run a mile in five
minutes, because he could not run one in ten, would
soon be laughed out of court; yet our receptive powers differ quite as much as our active.  I consider it
very probable that a large glass of raw whiskey would
kill me on the spot; at any rate, there is no sum in
the Secretary of the Treasury's report that would tempt
me to try the experiment; and I am sure that if I were
to smoke as many oscuros in two days as I have seen
General Grant smoke in two hours, a serious, if not
fatal illness would be the result.  But I have had
ocular demonstration that our illustrious warrior can,
consume this great amount of nicotine without special
inconvenience, and I know that there are several men
within a stone's throw of me who can imbibe the
above amount of Bourbon without serious suffering.
In these matters the proverb is emphatically true:
"One man's meat is another's poison."
The Aquarians are fond of calling water the natural
drink of man.  Suppose it could be proved that
man, in his natural state, is better without any stimulants. alcoholic or other.  What is the practical value
of this conclusion? We live in a highly artificial
state; not only we, but even the tame animals about
us.  It is not natural to a horse to wear iron shoes;
but it is found very necessary for the work to which




as           R~i~~7he Aquarzan fiovemeni.
we put him. It seems natural to man, in a hot country, to adopt the Diolewisian costume-an umbrella
-perhaps not even that.
But in fact the incapacity to use stinmulants with
benefit is just as likely to be a sign of weakness as of
strength. After an unusual physical or mental effort
they offer the most efficacious as well as the most
pleasant means of recuperation, as any one can testify
who has enjoyed either the unpretending lager or the
more costly champagne, after a pedestrian excursion,
a hard row or ride, or even a real college examination.  To be sure these are things which the Aquarians rarely understand, for most of them belong to
sects which consider athletic sports as rather sinful
than otherwise.  But the very abuse of stimulants,
during the war, showed how the need of them was
felt by men whose energies wvere at work.  The human frame swas not intended to be a machine so fragile and delicate that it could not deviate occasionally
from one particular routine. Thus, it is natural and
necessary to pass a part of the twenty-four hours in
sleep; but the man who cannot, under pressure of
work or for other good reason, sit up one night without subsequent suffering, is not in the best physical
condition-far from it.  I think this is a point which
ought to be noted, because many persons utter doubting apologies for the use of fermented liquors, only




The moral-polhce argumenl.        79
by those who labor under some "vital deficiency;"
whereas there are many occasions in which the youngest and strongest and healthiest men may use them
with the utmost propriety.
There remains what may be called the moral-police
argument, and this must be supposed the strongest, as
it influences many who do not insist on the other two.
Stripped of the ad caplandum Billingsgate which is its
usual accompaniment, it runs somehow thus:
Intemperance is a great vice and a great evil.  It
causes numerous breaches of the peace, and other
offences and crimes, including murders. Ten per
cent. (in round numbers) of the national mortality
may be charged to its account.  It is a more fruitful
source of insanity than even camp-meetings and religious revivals. It disables many men from supporting their wives and children, who thus become a public burden and increase the taxes.  (This is usually
presented by and to the New England mind as. the
climax.) For more than forty years good men have
been preaching and exhorting against it; yet it still
flourishes.  As the grass of moral suasion has not
been sufficiently effectual, we must try the stones of
prohibitory legislation.  If men can find no ardent
spirits to drink, of course they will not get drunk.
Let us, therefore, prohibit the manufacture, transportation, and sale of distilled liquors.  But to do




80o           Ile Aquarzan Mlovemenl.
this effectually, it is also necessary to prohibit the
manufacture, transportation, and sale of fermented
liquors, because one man's temperate use of wine or
beer is made an excuse for another man's intemperate
use of rum or whiskey.* True, this is a great invasion of personal liberty; but we have incurred so
many taxes for liberty, that we cannot afford to pay
any more, especially as we need any possible surplus
to "protect" home industry.  Nor can the persons
thus debarred from their usual beverages justly complain, if we can only get a popular vote in favor of
our measure, for this is a government of the majority.
The majority can do no wrong; the minority have
no right, except that of grumbling.  Neither can they
pretend (except in some peculiar cases) that drinking
fermented liquors is necessary for their life: it is
only subservient to their comfort and pleasure.  That
comfort and pleasure they ought to be willing to give
up for the sake of the public morality and economy,
consoling themselves with the reflection that they are
indirectly contributing to diminish the percentage of
mortality and lower the taxes.
I have tried to state the argument fairly; indeed,
* Similarly, if A wishes to marry, and B does not, because he thinks he cannot afford it, A's marriage should
be forbidden, lest it be made an excuse for B's fornication.




The moral-police argumclzl/.      81
the effort to do so has cost me more time and trouble
than any other two pages in the book. Yet, sometimes it has been too much for me. The Aquarian
arguments are so incoherent and fallacious that the
mere attempt to enunciate one of them, in a regular
and connected form, is generally enough to show its
absurdity to any one who has a habit of close reasoning. Doing our best to detect a coherent nucleus,
we succeed in evolving these two propositions:
First, that the abuse of anything is a conclusive
reason for suppressing all similar or analogous things;
wherefore, secondly, because a great vice exists, it is
our duty to put down, at whatever cost, everything in
the remotest degree connected with or ancillary
to it.
The results of these principles we shall see more
clearly by applying them to other prevalent vices.
And the first which I shall take up for the purpose
of illustration and comparison is prostitution, which
unreasoners, like Greeley, are accustomed to call the
violation of the Seventh Commandment. Of course,
it is nothing of the sort-the Seventh Commandment
having reference to a special variety of illicit intercourse, with a special independent element.  (This is
a small matter, but worth noticing as an exemplification of the confusion of mind under which men like
Greeley labor, and which hinders them from express4*




'2            I_7Z ite Aquar-lan itilovemulen/.
ing the simplest proposition correctly.) That prostitution is a vice of tremendous extent and influence,
every one admits, and it would generally be recognized
as more essentially vicious in its character than intemperance, which many regard only as an abuse.
Thus, none but the most rabid Aquarians consider
the mere act of drinking a glass of light wine or beer
as a sin in itself apart from  the example; but all
Christians agree that the act of fornication is wrong
in itself.* Even among Europeans of Latin descent,
who commonly wink at the practice, it is theoretically
condemned, and no person professing to be specially
devout, could openly indulge in it without subjecting
himself to censure.  But setting all this aside as an
unnecessary refinement of speculation, and confining
* When we reflect that venereal disease was almost entirely unknown to the ancients, and is generally unknown
to savages before their acquaintance with civilized men,
persons who still believe in the moral government of the
world may be pardoned for supposing (pace the memory of
Mr. Buckle) that chastity is a virtue peculiar to the Christian religion, and the netw virtue which it introduced. Of
course, it would not follow from this, as the sage Greeley
supposes, that it is wrong to protect, by legislative action or
nmedical skill, the sinner from the physical consequences of
his transgression, any more than it is right to oppress the
Jew or the negro-both which practices have been defended
on like scriptural and historical grounds.




l7nilAperance and hZcenlzousness comzpared.    83
ourselves to intemperance, in the true sense of the
word, acknowledged by all to be an evil, when we
compare it with licentiousness, we see that the latter is
as efficient a servant of sin as the former, from whatever point of view we contemplate its ravages.  It
destroys the peace of families.  It gives rise to numerous crimes-to  embezzlements and  robberies, to
broils and murders.  It is the cause of diseases and
insanities, premature deaths and deterioration of the
species.   It demoralizes the community and  increases the number of pensioners on the public.
Surely here, if anywhere, is a subject for Prohibitive
legislation, pursuing the evil to its very roots.
I have no doubt that many very well-intentioned
persons consider it quite possible to do so, and
wonder why it has not yet been done. It is not easy
for the inhabitants of a country town or village to
understand the difficulties, moral and political, of
dealing with men in great masses. Nor does this
assertion cast any slur upon the wisdom or intelligence of the country-dwellers within their proper
sphere.  It only states a simple fact, that they have
not experience of other phases of society.  The difference of the means available in a small and large community is continually making itself manifest in a
variety of ways. A lady who had long conducted
with much success a small and select female school in




84           [The Ayuaria;z Movemziel.
a New England village, made public her experience
some years ago for the benefit of her pupils, some of
whom had adopted her own vocation. Among her
bits of advice was this: "Never appeal to emulation
by giving prizes or rewards." And doubtless she, in
her little family (for such the school was), had never
felt the necessity of invoking the spirit of emulation;
but a great majority of those connected with any large
academical institution of boys or young men could
bear testimony to its potency and necessity in such
places.
So, too, it is quite possible that in a village or
country town, where the people have been from the
first properly educated in this respect, a satisfactory
standard of purity may be attained, and that, too,
without much special legislation. In one of these
hamlets where, as a friend of mine once said, "you
can't kiss a woman without alarming the neighborhood," we may satisfy all the material requisitions of
technical morality, especially since a small community can always protect itself by expelling its unworthy
members. But the moment you apply this regimen
to a large town or city, innumerable difficulties present themselves.  In the first place, the most annoying violations of personal liberty would be necessary.
It would be requisite to arrest every female found
alone in the streets after dark, as she mziht be a




VWhere shall be Me henzz of Prohzkzlzon?  85
"social evil."  It would be incumbent on every
couple stopping at a hotel to prove their identity and
exhibit their marriage certificate.  Every house suspected-not of being disorderly or a nuisance, any
such limitation the theory of Prohibition despisesbut of containing vicious people, must be turned
inside out forthwith.
Next, everything which may possibly become, or
may be supposed capable of becoming, accessory to
prostitution must be suppressed without mercy. The
theatres, whether running in their own name or under
the aliases of museums, lecture-rooms, academies, etc.,
must be closed; for have not grave divines denounced
the theatre as a nursery to the brothel?  With the
theatre must go the opera; for is it not written in the
books of Titcomb that the opera hath "licentious
revelations?" All "promiscuous" dancing (as it is
called in the elegant vocabulary of the sectarian
press) must be put down by force of law, because
some fashionable dances are of doubtful propriety.
A very extensive raid must be made upon literature;
one which, starting with Swinburne and Walt Whitman, would not altogether spare Tennyson, and
might be expected to end in a general expurgation of
everybody.  Lastly, the length of women's dresses in
both directions must be regulated by law, for there
are those whose delicate virtue cannot behold with



86            The Ayuarzran Movemeni.
out emotion an ankle or a shoulder of the other
gender.
Here is Prohibition applied to the "social evil."
Well, suppose it has all been carried out according to
the most sanguine anticipations of the reformers, and
that prostitution is suppressed.  What then?  I am
very much afraid that human frailty would find another
vent, and that we should have a largely increased
violation of the Seventh Commandment as the very
first result of our reform.  In short, that we should
substitute not merely one vice for another, but, all
things considered, a greater for a less.* To be sure,
this result is only hypothetical, for we have never had
the Prohibitory system carried out in this direction;
but it is by far the most probable one to any man
with a reasonable knowledge of history and human
nature.
Now let us go back to our Aquarian Prohibition.
We see in this case analogous violations of personal
liberty carried out. We see everything that can tend,
however indirectly, to intemperance, crushed down.
We see every person, not merely who is a temperate
user of the " wine that maketh glad the heart of man, "
but who hesitates to join the Aquarians in their
* Strictly speaking, it would be the substitution of a crime
for a vice; but this is not important to the illustration.




Wine banished, and tobacco iznslalled.  87
crusade against non-Aquarians, abused and slandered,
vilified and calumniated.  It really looks as if these
persecuting meddlers would eventually succeed in
prohibiting the use of fermented beverages throughout the whole country. What would be the consequence? There are symptoms already which enable
us to guess.
First, it is obvious that the consumption of tobacco
would be enormously increased. Every man who is
in the habit of using both alcoholic beverages and
tobacco, when, from any cause short of complete prostration by sickness, he is temporarily deprived of the
former indulgence, has a propensity to "take it out"
in the latter.  Those men who, without any parade
of superior virtue, have renounced wine for sanitary
or other reasons, are apt to be great smokers.  The
observation of individual cases justifies us in assuming
that were the consumption of fermented and distilled
liquors to cease, that of tobacco would be increased,
as I have phrased it, enormously. And I hardly think
that any man, however fond of the weed, or impervious to its bad effects, can say that this is a result
greatly to be desired.  I do not hesitate to lay down
this proposition, fully convinced that a large majority
of medical men in all countries would bear me out:
If the consumption of wine, beer, and spirits, in our
own or any other country, were to cease entirely, and




88          7The Ayuarian Movementf
that of tobacco to increase proportionately, the physical
condzhon of the people would nol be improved.  I think,
indeed, we ought to go further, and say that their
morals and manners would not be greatly improved,
though there might well be a diminution in the number of crimes against the person. Tobacco, unless
used in great moderation, or by persons of very powerful constitutions, weakens and injures men in many
ways.  It upsets the stomachs of some and the nerves
of others; and where any disorder of the heart exists,
is more mischievous than any fermented liquor can
be.  Its harmful effects on certain constitutions take a
wide range, from petty annoyances, like blisters on the
lips, to the most serious afflictions, such as weakening
of the intellect.  If using anything which can cause
intoxication be the one unpardonable sin, consumers
of tobacco are certainly involved in it, for tobacco
frequently intoxicates.  To be sure, this drunkenness
being only narcotic, and not preceded nor followed
by exhilaration, does not, like the drunkenness of
alcohol, incite to breaches of the peace; but then,
on the other hand, the most moderate use of it in
public is a great annoyance to those who do not like
it, in which respect it is the most selfish of luxuries.
And if it be a strong argument, as Aquarians affirm,
against the use of beverages containing alcohol, that
the taste for them grows upon the consumer, this ap



Tobacco banished, and opzum zistalled.  89
plies with double and more than double force to tobacco, as the experience of every man who has himself used both articles, and is conversant with the
habits of their users, can testify. In fine, almost every
charge against fermented drinks is also applicable to
tobacco; wherefore, the most consistent Aquarians
already openly maintain that, as soon as they have
succeeded in putting down the former, they will suppress the latter.
Well, let us suppose tobacco also prohibited, and
the smoker, like the drinker, lurking in holes and
corners, or fled to some comparatively-free country.
Still, somehow or other, people will have narcotic
stimulants. The whole community will not be deprived of them. As you drive out wine and tobacco
on one side, opium and hachish slip in on the other.
One effect of the Aquarian agitation has already
been to double the consumption of opium in the
United States, notwithstanding the great increase in its
price. Let Aquarianism go on, and in twenty or
thirty years we may be a people of opium-smokers,
and speculative foreigners will debate whether this
terrible vice was introduced by the Chinese through
California, or grew solely out of Prohibitive legislation. *
* We need not dwell on the mischiefs likely to arise




90            The Aquarian Movement.
In using the illustration and making the comparison which I have just done, it is quite possible that
some may tax me with indelicacy and irrelevancy.
In respect of the former charge, I can only shelter
myself under the example of an eminent English
judge (the late Baron Alderson), whom I once heard
repeating some gross expressions of a witness.  There
was a titter in the court.  "Gentlemen," said he
to the jury, "there is no indecency in a court of
justice." What they wanted was to get at the truth;
and decorum must not be allowed to stand in the way
of that result.  When our liberties are so seriously
threatened by the Interferists, it is necessary to show
the extent of the danger, even if, in order to do so,
we must trample on a few conventionalities.
As to the latter, it is a very common, because very
convenient one. The easiest way to get rid of an inconvenient chain of reasoning, is to say that the reasoner sets up "men of straw." It is an objectzon of
which we cannot be too suspiciozus.  Very often it proceeds from the objector's ignorance of what has been
from a largely increased consumption of tea and coffee,
because, though in our exciting climate such increased use
would be very injurious, it could not strictly come under
the head of vice.  But it is worth noticing, in this connection, that the vegetarians and all the sternest Aquarians proscribe tea and coffee.




Relations of the sexes.           91
said on the topic under discussion; very often, also,
from his incapacity to draw inferences and follow
principles to their results.
In fact, the natural relations of the sexes are one
of the first things that an interfering ruler or moralist
is apt to lay hold of. Their legitimate connection, in
a certain sense the creature of law, has been a fruitful
subject of legal experiments, and real or fancied
philosophers have in most cases labored rather to
tighten than to lighten existing fetters.  From  Plato,
who destroyed the family tie for the most important
class in his imaginary " Republic" (not for the whole
of that Republic, as the learned Greeley once asserted),
down, in every sense, to the Kentucky Legislaturewho having discovered, the other day, that there was
an extra percentage of idiocy among the issue of first
cousins (it does not appear how many of the Legislature were the result of such unions), forthwith recommended that the marriage of first cousins should be
prohibited-the constant tendency has been to multiply restrictions. As to the illicit relations of the sexes
-but there is no use of going into a historical disquisition about them, when our case lies just at hand.
Of the probable results of Prohibitive legislation,
which I have enumerated, the greater part have been
actually proposed.   Dancing has always been under
the Puritan ban. Theatrical amusements have been,




92            The Aquarian Afovemen4.
possibly are still, illegal in some parts of New England.  The propositions most verging on the grotesque, such as the suppression of poets and novelists,
and the legal regulation of out-door female dress, I
have myself, within a few months, seen advocated in
very respectable and non-sectarian papers.  The danger, then, is no imaginary one, though most of these
reforms are still in the ante-Prohibition stage.
Let us now look at Prohibition as applicable to another vice.   No one, I presume, will deny that
gambling is one of the great moral curses of our
country.  It may be more prevalent in the West than
ill the East-in great cities than in small villages;
but, on the whole, it is sufficiently common to be
justly entitled a national vice.  Nor is it necessary to
expatiate on the terrible evils of which it is the causethe distress and ruin of families, the forgeries and defalcations, the murders and suicides.  Surely, this
mighty sin should be attacked.  Well, then, let us
attack it on Prohibition principles.
What has Government done to suppress gambling?
Nothing.  What ought it to do?  Everything.
Our legislative enactments on the subject vary in
different States, but, briefly, they amount to this:
Gambling debts (wages included) are not recoverable
by law; public gaming houses are forbidden (at least
in all settled parts of our country), and "hells,"




Whalt it legztzmalely leads to.    93
nominally private, are occasionally molested by the
police.*  Behold what is done.  Now, what should
be our Prohibition principles?  We must prohibit the
manufacture and sale of all possible implements of
gambling-cards, dice, etc., for though they may be,
and often are, used innocently, they are always capable of guilty use.  We must shut up all public
billiard-rooms, for publicly-played games of billiards
give rise to betting, and, though betting and gambling
are by no means the same thing, yet there is a certain
analogy and connection between them, and the former
has a much greater tendency to slide into the latter
than the drinking of beer into the drinking of whiskey. The turf, in all its branches, must be put downnot for the Puritan reason, "because it gives pleasure
to the spectators," but because races are made an occasion of betting. Nay, we must prohibit all very fast
horses, of whatever gait; for, though a man may re* The italics are used with a purpose.  Probably there
are twenty hells in full blast every night in any half mile
of Broadway, between Canal-street and Madison-Square.
At the fashionable watering-places these establishments are
so well known that even non-gamblers fiequent thenl; for
instance, gentlemen starving at the Newport hotels, go
there to get supper. I mention these things because some
innocent country gentlemen, who write in the newspapers,
appear to think the laws do not permit gambling.




94            The A quarian Movemreni.
fuse to trot his "flyers" for money, people will be
sure to bet on their performances whenever they are
exhibited in public.  So Bonner must be suppressed;
Beecher can't save him. Base-ball, and cricket, and
regattas must go the same way, for all these are beton-able. Finally, let every man who has ever attended
a horse-race, or bet a pair of gloves, be denounced as
a gambler, or friend of gambling. No, not finally.
Thus far all chimes in excellently with the Puritan
idea, which denounces all these amusements as sinful.
But can we consistently stop at amusements? There
is no end of downright gambling in Wall-street and
other commercial centrest-gambling (thinly disguised
under the name of speculation) in stocks, in flour,
in cotton, in gold.  All this traffic, therefore, must be
put under Government supervision, and the absurd
gold-bill of Thaddeus Stevens, at once the laughingstock and the terror of the mercantile world, must be
adopted as a pattern of legislation.  What a nice
specimen of a free government we should have!
XWhat a glorious specimen of a model republic!*
Yet this is the legitimate and natural result of Prohibition.
*In fact, freedom is the least thing these people care
about. What they want is the right to opjpress and wcorry
others. An Aquarian agent recently told me that he considered HeIll the only free government.




Prohibuiion justjies censorshzi of lhe Press.   95
There is one more illustration, about the production of which I somewhat hesitate, for the vice which
supplies it is not generally recognized as a vice-at
least in practice-by Puritans and Prohibitionists.
They do not remember, or do not choose to rcmcmber, that "whatsoever goeth out of the mouth defileth a man." Falsehood in a good cause-a: e., their
own-they consider, if not like the Jesuits an actual
virtue, at any rate a slight and pardonable offence.
Nevertheless, I believe that most Protestant Christians
will bear me out in considering falsehood, calumny,
and slander as very vicious and sinful; and it is evident to any man, Christian or not, that they are frequently productive of great harm.  Especially is this
the case when they are circulated in print among hundreds of thousands of readers. The Herald, in its
early days, drove some weak-minded individuals to
suicide; and though this could hardly happen again
now, since the very virulence of the evil has partly
wrought its own cure, and newspaper statements about
individuals meet comparatively little credence, still
the general tendency to debauch the public mind, by
accustoming it to falsehood, remains in full force.
According to Prohibition principles, it is evident
that in order to put a speedy check to this practice, a
censorship of the press is necessary.  It must be a
general and universal censorship, for though many




96           The Aquarian Movement.
papers are now decent and truthful, they may be
tempted some day to follow the example of the
Herald and Trzibune, just as the moderate drinker may
become a drunkard.
This investigation might easily be extended. Some
writers have carried it further, and inferred very
plausibly that Prohibition eventuates in Socialism and
abolition of private property; but I think enough
has been said to show that the moral-police principle
generally carried out would produce an arbitrary
government of the most irritating and intolerable
kind. Imperial France or Austria would be a very
free country in comparison with America under a
pure Prohibitionist regime.
"But," says the Aquarian, "shall this great evil
of intemperance be rampant in the land, and shall I
not essay to abate it?"  Certainly; by all truly moral
means-by your example and your influence. Every
earnest Christian man will have a higher moral standard than the people about him-by people, I mean
both the mass of the community and his own peculiar
set. But this is his own standard, which he has no
right to force upon others.  Just consider how many
topics of' life there are, major and minor, on which
men's ideas of right and propriety differ. How can
one individual give law to another in these things?
If I think certain dances indecent, I may abstain




iy ovwjn, not lo be S;he sianldardfor olhers.    97
from them, and refuse to have them taught to my
children; but I have no right to make or try to make
the perpetration of the polka a penitentiary offence.
If I believe that some or all theatrical representations
are immoral, no one obliges me to witness them
why should I seek to deprive of their amusement my
neighbors, who (possibly after quite as careful an examination of the subject) have arrived at a different
conclusion? If I consider the ]Herald and the rlz —
une huge agents of public corruption, I do not buy
them or suffer them to enter my house; but I cannot
prevent others from  purchasing them.  If I imagine
that servants' liveries are hostile to Republican government (there are some grown men who really believe this, and hold that the presence of a few dozen
breeches-wearing Irish and negro grooms in a public
park threatens to subvert our institutions), I have a
full and perfect right to let my coachman dress himself like an omnibus driver, a scarecrow, or a Methodist parson, as he pleases; but I have no business
to pull Mr. Belmont's tiger out of his boots.  The
old law-maxim, Szc utere tuo ul non alienavn ladccas, is
a very good rule in most such cases.  For instance,
if a band of rowdies disturb a quiet congregation by
their outcries, or annoy people going to church, there
is good reason why the law should take hold of them;
but if you see a man driving out into the country on
VI~ 1 dI DJ~~ Y l~~~ U.~T~~  M*~~~*J ~-~r ~~d~.b5d




98           27he Aquatriulw ilz'//tc'L
Sunday afternoon, it is not a valid plea for forcibly
interfering with him that he shocks your moral sense
by what you call violating the Sabbath.  If a drinking
hole is a centre of crime and riot, its keeper " injures
others' property" too much to be allowed to "use his
own" in that way; but when a knot of orderly Germans are quaffing their beer in a garden, you have
no moral or equitable grounds for turning them out
because you hold a theory that every fluid containing
a drop of alcohol is poison, or that ovos in the New
Testament means something different from what it
does in all other Greek books.  Nay, there are cases
in which the maxim must be a little loosely construed
in favor of individual liberty. There are ways in
which a man may indirectly inflict pecuniary injury
on me, without my being able to prevent or punish
him.  One wealthy man in a small community may,
through ostentation, or carelessness, or faulty goodnature, raise the standard of prices for his less wealthy
neighbors.  Unless they can, by friendly expostulation, prevail on him to change':is way of life, it is
hard to sa): what remedy they can or ought to have.
I have known one landlord, by letting his house too
low, throw down the rents of a whole neighborhood.
The other proprietors suffered; but he surely had a
right to do what he did. And the reason of such exceptions is not difficult to trace.  We cannot right




A9z appeail t Ayuarzavzns.     99
the small wrong without committing a greater, or
reach the equity of the particular instance without
violating broad general principles.
The.greater number of such matters in every-day
life are regulated by common sense, that most ordinary form of common sense which tells a man that
he should not go from Boston to New York by way
of China, or " turn in" to bed with his hat on; that
he should not ask his doctor to mend his boots, or
call in the constable when his wife is to be delivered,
or turn to the Tri'bune when he wants to know the
truth of any matter.  Now, Deacon Coldstream, can't
you apply a little of this ordinary common sense to
your dealings with other men on the subject of what
you call temperance? You drink water; I don't
wish to prevent you from doing so.  I don't think
any the worse of you for doing so. Indeed, I don't
think about it at all.  You are supposed to be old
enough to know what is good for you; and if you
are not, it is none of my business.  If you believe
that all fermented beverages are poisonous, of course
you do right not to touch them. I, who have arrived
at a different conclusion, claim to enjoy an equal
liberty.  Why not let me have it?  It will be better
for both of us, and for charity and good feeling generally.  As long as you do not try to " prohibit" me,
you are only an extraordinary moral phenomenon, to




too          ~he iAquLarzin Miovementi
be contemplated from a distance without apprehension, and even with some degree of mild curiosity;
but when you strike at my travelling comforts, or
actually threaten to invade my house and "dash from
my lips" what you are pleased to miscall " the winecup," you become a social pestilence and a personal
enemy.
You believe in free institutions-at least you think
you do. You also hold that a people should be
moral in the largest sense of the term.  So much
ground have we in common.  Do you seriously hope
to advance either freedom or morality by Prohibition?
Freedom you certainly will not.  The very examples
of generally approved Prohibition show in the strongest light its incompatibility with freedom.  It has
been found necessary to prohibit the use of alcoholic
drinks by the rank and file of the army at certain
times.  It has been found expedient to prohibit their
use by students in certain cases.  But neither soldiers
nor students are under free government.  They are
subject to laws more or less arbitrary, which they had
no share in making.
On morality the good effect of your Prohibition is
more apparent than real.  There is a forced external
conformity, dearly paid for by the drawbacks enumerated in the preceding chapter.  It is by indirectly
working with moral means that real moral reforms




An appeal to A uarzans.            1 I
are effected.  You may see one conspicuous instance
of this among ourselves.  Despite all our self-congratulation about republican virtue, the candid and wellinformed observer will confess that we are less truthful than some nations, less honest than several, less
temperate than many. But in one respect-namely,
in what concerns domestic morality-however short
of an ideal standard, we take comparatively a very high
place, perhaps the highest.  Now, whatever be the
cause of this superiority, it certainly is not Prohibition
nor Draconian legislation.  Our laws against adultery
and seduction are not more severe than those of most
civilized countries.  Our marriage-tie, is, if anything,
rather looser.  There is no censorship of the press
in the interest of domestic virtue; but there is a
healthier public opinion on the subject.  Why not
trust to a like influence in behalf of' temperance, real
temperance?  Why, by your unwarrantable interference with private liberty and comfort, infuse into
the discussion of important and delicate moral questions the same bitterness which so long rendered the
very name of religion odious, and still too often
makes the mere mention of party politics a nuisance.




CONCLUS ION.
PRETTY much every theoretical principle is subject to practical exceptions; it is precisely in
these that the difficulty of its practical application consists.  I suspect that most readers of Mill's remarkable work on " Liberty" have felt his conclusions
to be somewhat of a falling-off. At the same time,
I do not see why a writer, who is not a lawgiver
nor law-maker, should be forced to explain and adjust every possible application of his general rule,
especially when that rule is essentially negative.  We
say, "Hands off!  No'paternal' interference with
personal liberty; no Protection, no Prohibition!"
If you ask, " But may not Protection be temporarily
beneficial under certain circumstances? May not the
chance of suppressing or abating a particular vice authorize an infringement on private freedom?" I answer: The particular case must be decided according
to its own circumstances, always bearing in mind
these two things: First, that the burden of proof
always rests on the opponents of freedom.  Secondly,




)alernal linerference-a case slaied.  103
that unless you can be very sure of your result beforehand, you are incurring a certain evil for an uncertain
good. Liberty is too precious a commodity to be
experimented with, d la Greeley, for the mere sake
of experimenting.
Nevertheless, I am willing, in a broad and general
way, to enter into some particulars, for the purpose
of contrasting the two systems in their application.
Education is granted by most persons to be a necessary support of free institutions. But all parents will
not send their children to school, even when they can
do so without payment.  Such being the case, the
legislator may attack the evil in two ways. He may
make a law compelling all children of the requisite
physical ability, between certain ages, to attend school
for a certain period of the year, regardless of their
circumstances and wishes and those of their parents.
He will thus secure an appearance of uniform education-I say appearance, because bringing a horse (or
a donkey) to the well of knowledge does not involve
his drinking: this he will do at the expense of a decided violation of the parents' right. Or, on the other
hand, he may say, We oblige no man to be educated
or to educate his children; but no man utterly uneducated is fit for a republican citizen; therefore no
man shall vote unless he can read and write.  We do
not prescribe the time at which or the way in which




104                  Conclusion.
the man is to be educated; but we make a certain
amount of education a szize qua non for suffrage.
(This is an extreme case, and purposely chosen as
such.  Most of the stoutest "Liberty" men, including Mill himself, allow, nay, insist on the State's right
to educate all members of the community, whether
they choose or not.  But I believe that the general
principle need not be violated in this particular case,
and that the way which I have pointed out secures at
once public interests and private rights.
It is desirable to encourage native industry.  On
that point we are all agreed.  But there are two very
different ways of doing or attempting to do so.  Government may put on a duty here and a bounty there,
bolstering up special interests, one after another, as
they have strength and pertinacity to urge their claims.
The natural end of this is, that everybody clamorous
enough is more or less "protected," which is very
like trying to win at roulette by putting money on all
the numbers.  Or, it may exert itself to remove, as
far as possible, all fetters from  commerce, thus indirectly assisting the people to economize their industry
by producing those articles for the production of
which their country is best fitted, so that they will
obtain the greatest possible reward for their labor.
A certain vice is alarmingly prevalent, and requires
to be checked.  There are two ways of operating




fihe proper course to be pursued.  05
against it.  You may endeavor by the most stringent
enactments to stamp out everything which can, by the
most ingenious exaggeration and misconstruction, be
possibly made out ancillary to it-no matter how flagrant your interference with personal liberty and comfort-no matter how much odium you may excite
against law and lawgivers generally-no matter how
much deception you encourage in the people-no
matter how much falsehood you are forced to promulgate yourselves-no matter how many new vices you
may cause to spring up before you have succeeded in
crushing out the old one.    Or, refusing to infer
vice where it does not exist, and to punish one man
in advance for the possible fault of another, you may
attack the enemy indirectly, forwarding all vehicles
of moral and intellectual improvement, and at the
same time promoting, by all available means, the
physical improvement of the masses, -one way of doing which is, not to discourage, but, on the contrary,
encourage all proper amusements, especially out-door
recreations. *
Other illustrations might be adduced, but the above
are sufficient. The principle is always the same:
* Even merely Epicurean considerations may be conducive to morality. Thus, it has frequently been observed that
bad cookery promotes intemperance, and good cookery
diminishes it.




io 6               Concilszon.
on the one hand, liberty, respect for the rights of the
individual, limited only by the similar individual
rights of those with whom he comes in contact; on
the other, a petty tyranny of perpetual government
interference with daily pursuits, a tyranny none the
less such because imposed by a majority instead of
an autocrat or an aristocracy.  Indeed, the tyranny
may well be more oppressive in the former case than
in the latter; for an autocrat or an aristocracy, after
taking the best of everything for themselves, will make
some provision for the rest out of the rest, while a
popular majority knows only what it wants, and cannot appreciate the condition of its opponents. When
the Protective-Prohibition-Paternal theory shall have
been carried out according to the wishes and designs
of its advocates, when every man's food, and drink,
and locomotion shall be regulated by law, and all his
clothes and tools cost twice as much as they ought to,
what becomes of that liberty for which we have renounced so many of the ornaments and accomplishments, the decencies and refinements of European
civilization, for which we have just spent hundreds
of thousands of lives and thousands of millions of
money?
Will you say that a man's religious freedom  is untouched, his liberty of conscience unfettered, that he
is free to worship God as he likes? This is but the




Fr-om wihal has been, zs seen whal may be done. 107
result of a lucky accident: in the multiplicity of sects
no one has yet been able to gain a complete local
predominance. This may not always be the case,
and the probable consequences of a change may be
seen in what has already resulted from the incomplete
predominance of the Romanists in the city of New
York.  They have compelled the Protestants to pay
taxes to and for them, they have blocked up the
streets with their processions and the squares with
their bazaars.
Will you say that he has the ballot? So has the
French peasant.  France stands before us, a Providential warning how easily universal suffrage may
co-exist with other institutions the reverse of free.
But, you say, he has freedom of speech; he can declaim, and write, and publish what he pleases. Well,
to be sure it is something to be able liberare anziam
suam.  It is some small comfort to be allowed openly
to call a Greeley a Greeley. But it is only a small
comfort after all.  In the daily life of ordinary men,
doing is more important than saying. If you are
shut up in prison, it does not help you much to curse
your jailer. You would rather make him a polite
bow outside the wall.  Besides, it is not always easy
or even possible for un unpopular person or cause to
get a hearing.  Editors do not care to print what is
unpopular; nor can we blame them much for this,




108                 uwictislion.
since writing is a business like any other, and men
cannot go on with it unless they make money by it.
The same may be said, up to a certain point, and with
a few exceptions, of publishers. As to publishing unpopular ideas at one's own expense, it is a luxury
which none but a millionaire can allow himself frequently.
Yet, feeble and inefficient as this protection is, it is
the best we have, and we must make the best of it,
and trust to reaching, by its means, Anglo-Saxon
common sense and Anglo-Saxon sensitiveness to attacks on personal freedom,-qualities which, however
occasionally obscured, are permanent and valuable
traits of our great race.  I send out this little book
with a very faint hope that it may make some Interferist reflect, and pause in his design of lording it
over his neighbors' concerns and habits, and forcing
every one to live according to his moral and social
standard. I send it out with somewhat more expectation, that it may here and there stir up some rightminded and liberal, but too easy man, to the necessity
of taking a bold stand in defence of his rights.  For
the peril is imminent and formidable.  While making huge strides forward in one direction, we have
slipped back without knowing it nearly as far in
another.  Well did the great Hungarian orator say,
that God has bestowed two supreme boons on man



A useless sacrzjfce.             I o9
celestial bliss hereafter, and liberty on earth.  Under
a delusive pretence of helping us to the first, the
fanatical votaries of Interference would deprive us of
the second.
LAKESIDE, LENOX, MASS.,
August I5, I867.








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