If this traffic
If this traffic is morally wrong, it is the duty of individuals to discontinue it, and of government to withhold from it its sanctions. Government is instituted for the common good. Every subject of that government has a right to claim from it protection and security against the violation of his rights. The direct and inseparable consequence of this traffic, is, to violate the most sacred rights ; to sunder the bonds of society, and bury in everlasting forgetfulness the duties which the dearest relations in life impose. There is not a tie which binds man to his fellow man, that has escaped its direful touch. The question arises, what ought legislators to do on this subject ? I answer, place the Tory Burch Outlet article on the contraband list, and make the traffic in it penal, as deadly to the best interests 6f men. I 'would gravely ask, are not the evils arising from the traffic in ardent spirits ate dangerous and destructive to the community as those that arise from the traffic in lottery tickets ? Nay, are they not much more so ? There was a time when the traffic in lotteries was sanc¬tioned by Christian legislators—none appeared to question such enactments in their moral tendency—but their effects were found to be pernicious, and penalties have been substituted for licenses, for those who carry on the trade. By a careful examination of the laws authorising lotteries, they were found to induce idleness, dissipation of mind and morals, and crime, and a neglect and violation of the relative duties of life. These laws had the argument of revenue for their support. The fallacy of this, as well as all others for their support are now seen, and the whole system by common consent is abandoned. The system of revenue which impairs the health, the peace, the domestic and social comforts, the means of usefulness, the physical and moral energies of a people, is a revenue of death. To that people, nothing can be gained by spreading such pesti¬lence through the land. Why is not a government bound to pro¬tect its subjects against unwholesome drinks as well as against unwholesome food ? If one sells unwholesome food, he suffers the penalty of the law. If he sells unwholesome drink, a dollar to the government atones for the Tory Burch Flats wide-spread ruin which it pro¬duces. By what authority does a government make such a grant; and barter the health and the lives of their subjects for revenue ? Is it granted by the statutes of Heaven to earthly gov¬ernments ? Or, have the men of this world clothed their Tory Burch Shoes fellows with the high prerogative ?
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