Prospects Of Temperance In Michigan

AHhough, in common with all abolitioniate, we have a etrong interest in this cause, we have hitherto said but little in reference to it. We now solicit attention to tho following propositione, each of which we believe to be true, and can be fully sustained. That while there have recently been some encouraging resulte of temperance efforts in Borne placee, generally through the State, indifierence and inaction have extensively prevailed. Many societies are dead. 2. More intoxicating drink is consumed now than formerly. 3. The number of dietilleries'is increasing. 4. Temperance lectures, papers, books and addreases, have but little influence with the great mass of those who drink or sell intoxicating hquors.5. So long as the law licencea the enle of intoxicating drink as a beverage, as t now (loes, moral suasion cannot remove Ihe evil, and DRCNKKNNE8S WILL 3URELY CONTINUE. Any person, by a moment'e reflectiou, can satisfy himself that while it is exposed for ealeevery where, men wil! dríníc it. While they drink it, tliere will be drunkards, and al! the attendant evila which curse society. The only alternative is a suppreseion of the traffic, or eternal drunkenncss. 6. The traffic will not be suppressed by la, unlil men are sent to the legislatura who nre known to be m favor ofsuppressing it lef ore they go . VVhy? Becauso their constituents will expect their RepresentaUves lo carry out the same principies which they avowed previous to election- and they tvill do it. If they are elected while tipplcrs it will be.expected ofthomthat they will oppose thü suppression of the traffic, They will consequently support tipplmg. Every body would be astonished if they should not. . a majority, and probably a very large majority, of the legislatura use inloxicating drinks, and are opposed to a suppression of the traffic. Such tliey have been- such they will be, until influences are set at work which will accomplish a different state of thinga.- Tippling, wc have reason to believo, is, among them the geueral rule- total abstinence the exception.8 Merely petitioning such a legislature will not procure the suppression of the traffic. Wby? Becauseitamountstonothitig. What does the legislator care for the number of hi& consituents who sigo their temperance pont ons to ñim,solonga3hknow3 ihat every one of them will vote their party tickets at the next eleclion? Ho will care nothing aboiit their petitions unti! they begin to affect the number of votes which is cast for hira. Wby should he? He was elected as a Whig or a Democrat, not ag a teraperance or anti-temperance man, He expects to eland or all with his partyMark, we do not eay petiiioning will accompling nothing. JJut we do say that tmat alone, unaccompanied by a refusal to vote for suchmen at the polls, never will cause a legal suppression of the traffic. Besides,ii is the height of absurdity to vote for a known tippler, and then petition h.m to do ihe very thing you knevv he would not do. 9. There is no hope that eitber the Whi or Democratie parliea, as parties, will eve" do any thing for the cause. Only last year Vis sav the former, embracing more than ialf the nation, advancing aloft the emblema of drunkenness, and adopting the drink G? drunkards as the great watchword and rallyngcryby which our country was to be redeemed. Whatever may be thought of it now, posterity will esteem it no honor to Daniel Webster, that at the Baltimoreccssion, Le rode aftcr a flag, insenbei! "Hard Cider"! a motto which ouglit to disgrace a band of decent Indiana. QWhat haa temperance tu expect from a party whosc very motto is the drunkard's drink? On the other hand, we find the great majority of the Democratie party in this State moet decidedly opposed. to the suppression of the traffic, and the liquid poison freely and extensively. The 1 ca ding noen of that party, we believe, are usually far from being total abstinents. What, then, can we expect thera to do for a cauue to which their poiitical interests and their own practice and feeüngs are all opposed? The leaders of the great parlies in eorae measnre, represent the principies and feelings of their parties. The first Governor of our State, we suppose, was not, on the whole, very exemplary as a temporáneo man; and it is well known that the eecond, while a State Senator, opposed his official influence against the efforts of temperance men, and when Governor, habitualfy regaled his friendB on public occasions, with intoxicating poison, thua giving the weïght of his station and character in favor of intemperence. The present acting Governor, we believe, is not a temperance man. Sball we have such Governors for aix yeara to come? We ehall have, if temperance men vote for them: we siiall not have, if they will carry out their principies.10. The legal trafile in intoxicatingdrinka will not be auppressed lili temperance men willihold their votes from all legislators who will not oppose the legalized traffic in intoxicating dmtks by their official acts. And while the traffic is Icgalized, drunkenness will continue. Tliere is no mistakeobout this. 11. The Abolitionists of this State are 6trenuous temperance men, tvith faut few, if any exceptions. In fact, they constilute no inconsiderable porhon of the whole body.- Their feelings have been deeply interested in the attempts that have been made to check the progresa of this wide-spread curse, and it will be found that their candidates partake of the same spirit, A tr ue hearted abolitioniet would think it inconsistent to vote for a slaveholder for President, and at the same time pray to Almighty God to remove the evi] of slavery from the n'ation. So as a temperanee man, he feels that ho cannot consistently ask the blessing of Hearen on his endoavors to do away this legalized curse, while at the same time, he votes for the very men who will surely sustain it. He feele ihtu it is absurd to bestow his time, and money and labor, to build up an enterprize, and then bestow hie vote in such a manner B6 thereby to destroy or counteract the good he had already accomplished. The uösurdity of this course is beginning to be extensivcly feit.- Our Legislature has been netitioned on thisaubject tor a number of years, and yet nat ane num has yet been found in either branca of the Legislature, who has dared to advocate the proyer of the petitioners. VVhen will that body be prepared to act o thia subject ïf tliey inake progresa at this rateï We coinrnend this faci to the consideration ofj temporance men whoexpectnext fall tovote! for their party pro-rum candidates, and then eign temperance petitiona to the honorable body of drunkard making Iegislators tvhom theraselves have elected. Brethren, how long before your petitions will be granted? 12. It) then, these things are so - if it be true that drunkenness will, certainly, abound, while intoxicating drinka are fsold' by authority of law in every nook and corner of the State- if the traffic can only be suppressed by legislative action, and thattion can only be obtained by electing legisla tors vvho are opposed to the trafSc - fit b vain to expect the Whig or Democratie mem bers to exert themselves in their official ca pacity, in behalf of a cause from wliich they hve nothing lo hope,and ngainst which moa ofthem are yirtuajly or absolutely pledo-od before their election- if political actiono some kind is indispensible to thé ultimato euccees of the cause- and, finally, if itshal e found when the time of election arrivés that the candidates of the Liberty party wil aleo be the advocates of temperance reforn -may it not bo confidently expectcd, tha rnany fuendsof this latter cause will lay aaide their predilectione for the elevation of temponzmg and unprincipled politicians, who care nothing for the interesls of humanity when they come in contact mih their own little selfish interests, and that they will be iound willing to support for their Represen tives men oí unblemished moráis and untirïnw zeal for the good of community.(Krllon. J. R. Giddings, of Ohio, has addiessed a letter to the Emancipator,comlaining of injastice done him, because the editor had said, ihat he special rule adopted by the House of Representativesjhad all the force and operation of a gag, and that the only reason why all petitions were thus gagged, was a desire to keep out abolition petitions. So far as he was concerned, Mr. G. deriied this altogelher. To this Mr. Leaviu replies, that neither Mr. G. nor ttny other person has ever assigned any other reason for the peculiar fo.-m of the rule, except that it would keep out the difiiculty ia regard to AnliSlavery petitions, and that the universal voice of the press, of both parties, North and South, has prooounced the special rule a temporary surrenderof thequestion, for the sake of facilitating the business of Congress. Mr. Slade has also written to the editor of the Emancipator reepecting the same charge. The anxieiy of these gentlemen to clear themselves from the obloquy of supporting the gag, is quite a redeeming fait in them, and shows how strongly Northern feeling is setting in against such a rneasure.