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| Frederick Hyde, M. D. |
Cortland County Express, Thursday, November 21, 1850.
COMMUNICATED.
County Temperance Convention.
MR. EDITOR:
It was my privilege to be present at this meeting. The number though not large was quite respectable, most of the towns being represented. After the election of Dr. Frederick Hyde as Chairman, and Rev. T. K. Fessenden as Clerk, resolutions were introduced and discussed coinciding with the recommendations of the State Society with regard to the prohibitory law.
These resolutions were discussed at considerable length; several gentlemen participated in the discussion. There was one or two that took exceptions to the resolutions, and threw in just objections enough to give animation and interest in the discussion. Happily these objections were brought forward by the first speaker that took the floor. He was hardly seated before the venerable Dr. Miller of Truxton was upon his feet and gave one of his thrilling speeches. He reviewed and disposed of the objections and then poured forth a torrent of invective against the traffic, drawing his facts chiefly from what had fallen under his observation. The scene was animating. The high standing of the speaker—his grey hairs—his long experience as a medical practitioner, gave a weight to his counsels that was irresistible. It reminded one of old Nestor at the sacking of Troy. He felt that a prohibitory law was just what was needed—nothing else would do. The law could be had. It was the sense of the people, and once obtained it would be sustained.
Several other speakers followed taking the same view of the question, among whom was Judge Stephens of Cortland. The resolutions passed unanimously, and the members of Convention separated, we trust, to go home and carry them out in the circulation of petitions to our Legislature for a law to prohibit throughout the State the sale of intoxicating liquors as a beverage. It is to be hoped that our Legislature will upon the first day of their session, find upon their table petitions sufficiently numerous from every part of the state to arrest their attention and command their action.
It is to be hoped that Cortland County will not be behind the sister counties in striving to reach this great end. She need not be. The names are ready. They only need to be called for.
So much for the Convention. But why should we have a prohibitory law?
1st. Because nothing else will or can afford the desired protection.
The license system, however modified or arranged with increased prices of license, will not do it, unless the price for a license should be 500 or 1000 dollars and then it would be far more honorable and strait forward to make the prohibition a statute, and then annex the 500 or 1000 dollars to it as a penalty for its violation.
It is time the license system was swept away. It has long enough disgraced the statute books of the land. It cannot be tinkered up into something that will do. Its day is passed. It is a doomed thing. All our associations with it are horrible. It is based upon wrong principle—Legislative permission to do wrong! Tell it not. It is a disgrace to the age. Trust it for protection? As soon commit ourselves to a pirate ship, or a company of banditti. It has a bad character which no modification or addition to can possibly redeem.
The people have said so once in a response loud and repeated which reverberated through every valley and over every hill throughout the Union, by that significant expression, NO LICENSE! But this is not enough. It is not enough that no one shall be licensed by the authorities to sell. That does not afford protection, for the sale will go on. Grant that individuals that sell may be arrested for doing that for which they have no permission by law. Yet they will not feel the same guilt as if there was a law prohibiting their business. The voting of No License was well. It gave an expression of the public sentiment. But it is not sufficient for protection. It merely furnishes a foundation upon which to build that rampart.
The vote is a sufficient declaration that the law is the will of the people. The law now is what is wanted. We want to throw ourselves under the broad shield of statute law for help. We want something that will meet the rum-seller as the angel met Balaam in the way, with a drawn sword in his hand, where there is no room to dodge to the right hand or to the left.
Making the rum-seller responsible for his business will not do. It does not afford protection. How can he or any one else make amends in dollars and cents to a distressed family who have not only had their estate but a husband and father taken from them alienated in his affections, changed to a brute and borne on speedily to a drunkard's grave, leaving them with all their accumulated woes to inherit his ignoble reputation.
No this is not soon enough. It waits until the mischief is done.
It is far better to have a statute to compel the keeper of a menagerie of wild and ferocious beasts to keep his beasts closely shut up in their iron cages, than to make him pay for the damage they would do should he take a fancy to let them loose. There is nothing then that can afford protection but a prohibitory statute. We want the same protection that we have from other crime—the authority of statute law—the voice of the people of the State of New York through their representatives at Albany, to which is annexed the privy seal of the State. Other reasons may be presented in a future paper.
Yours truly, B.
THE ELECTION RESULT.
The official returns from all the counties have been received. Washington Hunt is elected Governor by 396 majority over Horatio Seymour. The Democrats elect the Lieutenant Governor, Canal Commissioner, State Prison Inspector and Clerk of the Court of Appeals.
The Assembly is Whig by a large majority, and the Senate by a majority of two. Whig majority on joint ballot, 38.
The result, though greatly to be regretted so far as the majority of the State ticket is concerned, is in other respects highly gratifying. It proves that there is a Whig majority in the State, and that with a powerful and united effort it can be brought out. At the late election, many of the Whig presses and office-holders were directly arrayed against the Administration, while many Whig votes were lost in the city of New York, through the running of an independent ticket. At another election, it is hoped that the Whigs will be united, and that the whole force of the party will be concentrated upon one point. It is evident that the breach in the ranks of our opponents is not yet entirely healed, nor do we believe that it soon will be. So long as that breach continues, the Whigs can always carry the State by making a vigorous effort.—Syracuse Star.
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| Millard Fillmore. |
A PROCLAMATION FROM THE PRESIDENT.
From the N. Y. Express.
The recent tumult in Boston, and the spirit of resistance to the laws shown at Detroit and elsewhere, together with a well founded apprehension of future attempts to enforce the fugitive slave law, have at length determined the President to issue a proclamation, which will be published in a day or two.
The proclamation is firm and decided in its tone.
The Executive declares that any resistance to the peaceable execution of the law will be met and promptly put down by all the means at his command.
If necessary, even the army and navy will be called upon to uphold the Constitution and laws of the United States.
During the excitement in Philadelphia, a few days since, growing out of the Fugitive Slave case there, I am informed that Judges Grier and Kane addressed a letter to the Secretary of War, stating there were good reasons for apprehending forcible resistance to the officers of the United States, in the execution of the law, and requesting that the government troops might be ordered to assist and protect the magistrates in the discharge of their duty.
The Secretary of War opened the letter to the President, and after a Cabinet consultation, the Executive determined that measures should be taken to enforce the law at all hazards. He has drawn up an elaborate reply to Judges Kane and Grier, in which assurance is given that officers of the Government may count upon the fullest protection from Washington in the discharge of their duties.
Yours, M. S. R.
FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW AT THE NORTH.
It has been estimated by the author of a pamphlet published not long since, at Washington, under the name of "Randolph of Roanoke," that the number of fugitive slaves who have escaped from the South between 1810 and 1840, and taken residence in seven free states of the North, amounts to 46,224—and that 15,400 have escaped between 1840 and l850—making a total of 61,524, in forty years, or at the rate of 1,540 in every year. Valuing every slave at $450, the annual loss has been $693,000, and the total loss, $27,720,803.
The basis of calculation assumed is the difference between the actual increase of the free black population of the North, from one census to another, and what the increase would have been if left to natural causes. The writer also estimates that considerably more free negroes migrate from the slave States to the free States.
THE HOUSE OF THE FUGITIVE SLAVE IS HIS CASTLE.
It is understood, that on inquiry of the Marshal, Judge Sprague has intimated that the process for the arrest of a fugitive slave is in the nature of civil process—that, in serving it, an officer will not be justified in breaking open the outer door of any dwelling house; that every dwelling house is the castle of its occupants. This application of a familiar principle of the common law promises to give security to a certain extent to the unfortunate class of fugitives claimed as slaves. It must be borne in mind, however, that this protection is confined to the dwelling house, or house where a person sleeps, and not to his place of business. It is also confined to the outer door. If this is left open, or if the Marshal is admitted within it, he may break open an inner door.—Boston Journal.
THE SUBMARINE TELEGRAPH (HOUSE'S) AND TRANSATLANTIC NAVIGATION.
That the mail packet to and from America must henceforth, make Ireland the last point of departure for the western continent, and the first point to he touched on their voyage to the eastern land, is now a point decided; decided, not by government nor legislatures, but by an inevitable necessity arising out of a physical fact just accomplished. The wires of the submarine telegraph, from Dover to Calais, are now laid down, and have already transmitted messages along the bottom of the strait from land to land. The thirty miles strait at Dover being thus successfully spanned, there can no longer be any doubt but the sixty miles strait between England and Ireland will, within a very short time, be spanned likewise. The extension of the telegraph to any point in Ireland is an easy matter, and the means of instantaneous communication between any, [even] the remotest point of Ireland, and every important point of England being thus established, we have at length reached the time when mail steamers sailing for America must, as a commercial necessity on their outward voyage, either originally sail from, or at least touch at an Irish port, in order to carry with them thirty hours' later news; and must on their voyage home, deliver their intelligence at the same Irish port, in order that it may reach England thirty hours before these vessels can possibly reach England themselves.—Freeman's Journal.
EDITORIALS.
Winter.
How great the contrast in a few short days, from the bland and balmy weather that we enjoyed last week. Now the stern realities of winter are upon us with its biting whirling winds and its pure white carpet of snow; and old Boreas is urging through the atmosphere the fleecy white flakes, while we are writing, and we feel glad that we are not compelled to face the comfortless storm. To us the Winter always appears dreary and comfortless. We love the warm and balmy days of June, and the days when old Sol concentrates all his rays and pours them upon the earth. While many are driven to the shade, and are panting under the oppressive heat, then it is that we love to work while the perspiration gushes freely from every pore. But we shiver at the approach of frost and snow, and almost wish we were in possession of wings, that we might fly away and enjoy the balmy days of a southern Winter.
We pity the poor, who have to face poverty and want through the long and dreary Winter months, and endure the neglect of the world, colder and more biting than the frosts of Winter. How little the rich, and those in comfortable circumstances, remember their brethren who are in want. One would suppose that it would be one of the first impulses of those who have a competency in this world's goods, to look out and care for the poverty-stricken in their midst. That it would be the delight of their heart to relieve the wants of suffering humanity. But the sad history of thousands in past Winters, proclaims the reverse of this; and even when solicited to aid the needy, turn the cold and blighting look upon the sufferer, and say, "be ye warmed and be ye clothed," yet do not give them the things that they need, and drive them from their door to suffer on, and perhaps perish for the want of those things that were in the power of the individual to give, to whom he applied for aid. Ah, this is a cold climate, but the climate is warm compared with the coldness and selfishness of the hearts that inhabit it. No wonder that misery and crime are many times so nearly connected, when the sufferer in honest poverty is driven from the door of his more fortunate neighbor, with language that would freeze the warmest heart, and dry up the fountain of self-respect, and be the direct means to lead him on to dishonor and crime.
Never turn the sufferer from your door, but remember that now is the lime to remember the poor.
Winter, like all other seasons, has its pleasures, and its advantages. The long Winter evenings afford ample time for the improvement of the mind, and no youth should suffer the Winter months to find him destitute of means for this improvement. He should lay by a store of useful and interesting books and publications, the perusal of which will increase his knowledge of useful arts and sciences, and better prepare his mind to act well his part in the great drama of human life. Hence many of our young men and young women too, spend the long Winter evenings in foolish pastimes, forgetting that he who neglects the improvement of the mind has mistaken altogether the road to happiness.
FOR SALE.
A Good Telegraph Cook Stove. Enquire at this office.
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