Sovereign right to govern, but not the right to give legal standing to slavery! There must have been some good and sufficient ground for denying the authority of Congress to give legal existence to slavery in the realm over which it had sovereign power to rule. That ground was many times and very clearly stated by Mr. Lincoln to be “the assumption that slavery is wrong."

Because it was wrong, and for no other reason, it was held that slavery could not be given legal existence in the territories of the nation. For the same reason slavery could not rightfully be admitted in any portion of the national domain where it did not at that time exist. This is implied. in the above declaration of the republican party as explained and defended by Abraham Lincoln. And as that declaration of the republican party respecting slavery is based upon fundamental law, it must be true that no power has the right to give legal existence to any admitted wrong. This was Mr. Lincoln's belief, and he repeatedly applied that rule to the liquor traffic. He regarded that traffic as inherently wrong, and advocated its prohibition upon that ground. In so doing he was simply applying to another evil the fundamental principles upon which he opposed the extension of slavery.

OPPOSED TO LICENSE

Mr. Lincoln was always opposed to the license method of dealing with the liquor traffic. There is no word from him, either written or spoken, in approval of that system.

During his campaign for a prohibitory law in Illinois in 1854-55 he kept it before the people that a license tax could not fail to fasten the liquor traffic more securely upon the community. He was very pronounced in his declarations that such would be the case. It is remarkable that while high license was first suggested and approved by temperance workers as a means for promoting temperance reform, and has been advocated by distinguished champions of temperance even in recent years, when the matter was first brought to his atten

tion, Mr. Lincoln emphatically declared that every dollar paid by the saloon as a license tax would be an entrenchment for the liquor traffic and make it more difficult ever to suppress it. "Never by licensing an evil can the evil be removed or weakened," was his oft-repeated declaration during his efforts to secure the adoption of a prohibitory law by the people of that state in 1855. Mr. Lincoln saw this clearly even at that early date, because of his thorough knowledge of the fundamental principles of government and the inevitable result of taking tribute of that which is wrong. His whole nature revolted against the thought of the license system, and as a young politician and reformer I learned from his teachings. the exceedingly objectionable and harmful nature of the liquor license policy. And if during later years, in my hostility to the license system, I have at times been in advance of some of my associates in the temperance work, it has been because of my unyielding adherence to the teachings of Abraham Lincoln.

Mr. Lincoln strenuously objected also to the section of

THE INTERNAL REVENUE MEASURE

that placed a tax upon alcoholic liquors for the support of the national government. "That tax," said he, "will tend to perpetuate the liquor traffic and I cannot consent to aid in doing that."

"But," said Secretary Chase, the author of that revenue law, "Mr. President, this is a war measure. It is only a temporary measure for a present emergency, and cannot fasten the liquor traffic upon the nation, for it will be repealed as soon as the war is ended."

While that Internal Revenue bill was under consideration in Congress it was well known that President Lincoln, for reasons already stated, was strongly opposed to its liquor license provision and was inclined to veto the measure unless that feature was removed. He did not mince matters, but was very pronounced and outspoken in the expression of his

convictions.

This is quite remarkable, in view of the low level of moral purpose in governmental affairs entertained by many leading statesmen of that period. That low level of moral purpose is indicated by the following declarations of Senator Fessenden of Maine, chairman of the Finance Committee of the Senate and subsequently Secretary of the Treasury. On the 27th of May, 1862, in his defense of the liquor tax provision of the Internal Revenue bill, Senator Fessenden said:

"The United States looking at it as a fact that this business as a business is carried on, and looking upon the luxuries and the vices of men as the most proper sources of revenue in the world, just lay their hands upon it and say, if you will do these things you shall pay for it; we lay a tax upon it." The declaration that "the vices of men," as well as their luxuries, "are the most proper sources of revenue in the world," constitutes a very dark background on which appears the illuminated and thrilling picture of President Lincoln's attitude upon that question. And the President was not alone in his hostility to the liquor license tax; able and distinguished statesmen like Senators Wilson, Pomeroy and Harris, with others scarcely less prominent and influential, very strongly opposed that tax upon alcoholic liquors. On May 27th, 1862, Senator Wilson, who subsequently became Vice-President of the United States, in discussing this feature of the Revenue bill, said:

"I do not think any man in this country should have a license from the Federal Government to sell intoxicating liquors. I look upon the liquor trade as grossly immoral, causing more evil than anything else in the country, and I think the Federal Government ought not to derive a revenue from the retail of intoxicating drinks. I think if this section remains in the Bill it will have a most demoralizing influence upon the country, for it will lift into a kind of respectability the retail traffic in liquors. The man who has paid the Federal Government $20.00 for a license to retail ardent spirits

will feel that he is acting under the authority of the Federal Government and that any regulations, state or municipal, interfering with him are mere temporary and local arrangements, that should yield to the authority of the Federal Government. Sir, I hope the Congress of the United States is not to put upon the statute books of the country a law by which the tens of thousands of persons in the country who are dealing out ardent spirits to the destruction of the health and life of hundreds of thousands and the morals of the nation, are to be raised to a respectable position by paying the Federal Government $20.00 for a license to do this.

"I would as soon have this Government license gambling houses, or houses of ill-fame; and it would be just as creditable to this Congress. I believe that such a provision sanctions the grossest immorality; that it will have a most deleterious effect upon the prosperity of the nation and the morals of the nation. For the sake of putting a few thousand dollars into the treasury, we, the people of the United States, are to give licenses to sell rum.

"The Senator from Maine (Mr. Fessenden) has told us several times since this Bill was before the Senate that our object is to put money into the treasury. I do not agree to the declaration. That we want to put money into the treasury is true; that the primary object of this Bill is to put money into the treasury is also true; but there is something over and above putting money into the treasury; and that is so to arrange this mode of putting money into the treasury that it shall not interfere with the business interests of the country, and, above all, that it shall not tend to demoralize this people and dishonor this nation. Every senator knows that this nation has been, and is being, demoralized by the rum traffic. Every man knows that our army of 500,000 or 600,000 men in the field has been greatly demoralized by the sale and use of rum. I saw a letter a day or two ago from one of the most accomplished officers in the service in the State of Kentucky, and he said more men in the army of the United States

were slaughtered by whiskey than by the balls of the enemy. Since this war opened we have lost thousands of lives by rum. Sir, with this nation suffering as it is suffering by the sale of ardent spirits, the Congress of the United States proposes to give its sanction to the traffic. I would as soon give my sanction to the traffic of the slave trade as I would to the sale of liquors. This nation comes forward and proposes to give a sort of sanction to the liquor traffic by taking $20.00 out of the pockets of the men who by dealing out poisons to the people have wrung them from suffering wives and children.

"There is not a rum seller, or a friend of the rum seller, on this continent that will not welcome this tax. It will be hailed from one end of this country to the other by the whole rum-selling interest. If the rum sellers of the country had held a national convention they would have asked you to put precisely such a thing as a license to sell liquors into your Bill. Why, Sir, it has been the struggle of the retailers of rum all over this country for a quarter of a century to adopt this license system and to get licensed. . . . This act will be a source of gratification in every rum shop and low doggery in this section."

Mr. Fessenden. "To pay twenty dollars?"

Mr. Wilson. "Yes, they will rejoice to pay it. Why? They are under the ban of the moral sentiment of the nation today. Now you come forward and put in the pocket of every liquor seller in the land a license, give him a charter to go forth in the community and deal out his liquors under the authority and sanction of the United States. This Government license is a certificate of character. The liquor dealer will so regard it, and he will be proud to shake your certificate in the face of an outraged moral sentiment."10

This speech by Senator Wilson was in harmony with the views of President Lincoln, who, however, finally yielded to the entreaties of the Secretary of the Treasury, Hon. Salmon 10 Congressional Globe, pp. 2376-2377.