children, who, if left to go on in vagrancy and vice, it is almost certain will fall into pauperism and crime, or both; and, 2dly, to the intemperate; and in connexion with these, to the facilities and excitements to intemperance, which are so far at least authorized, as to be licensed by our laws. I have placed the children to whom I here refer in the second and third classes of the poor. And I have spoken of their claims upon public and private interest for provision for their support. They have, however, quite as strong a claim to special care for their moral security. I am solicitous for no object more than for this regard, and provision for this class of the young; for, I repeat, there are no means by which so much may be done, as by these, for the prevention of pauperism and crime, and all their attendant personal and social evils. A large provision is indeed made by our city, and throughout New England, for the support of free schools. This is well. The laws which require, and provide for the support of these schools, are a recognition, on the part of the legislature, of the just claims of children, and of the duty of government in regard to them. But is the law which establishes these schools commensurate with the claims of - those for whom they are instituted? It is, indeed, as far as these schools are commensurate with those actual necessities of children, without a provision for which there is neither security for themselves, nor for the society in which they may live. In other words, they fairly satisfy the claims of those children, who need not any further care for their education, except on the part of their natural guardians. But there are children in our own community, and in many other communities, who are at an age at which they should be in some school, but are not in any; who are idlers and vagrants; who are living without moral restraint; and are every day advancing as rapidly in the vicious education which they are receiving not only in the streets, and in their haunts, but in their very homes, as the most industrious children in our schools, and the best morally taught at home, are advancing in useful knowledge, and in virtue. And, it should be understood, there are children also in our schools, who, by the vicious associations in which they are living, either from the indisposition, or the inability of their parents to restrain them, are in a daily and regular training for a vicious, a mischievous, and a miserable life. Where, then, lies the responsibility for these children? I pray for a calm and serious attention to this inquiry. Is it answered, first, without doubt, with their parents, or their other near relations? True. But suppose that they have not parents, or near relatives; or, if they have, that these parents or relatives are unequal to the charge, or are faithless to it. Is there then no further responsibility for them? Does society owe, I mean literally, does society- owe them no further care, and no other provision for their moral safety and well being? Or, if this inquiry be deemed exceptionable, I will ask, has society no direct claim upon them for its own security, and no corresponding duties towards them, which it may not wisely disregard? This question, I am happy to say, has been answered by our city government, in the ordinance which has established the House of Reformation at South Boston. And it has received as distinct a reply from our community, in the measures which are in train for the institution of a Farm School, the great design of which is, a provision for the moral education, as extensive and complete as it may be, of all the children in our city, whose moral exposures are believed to require peculiar care, at once for their own virtue and happiness, and for the well being of the community. Our city has no greater benefactors than the men, who, by these, and other means, are doing what may be done to close the very springs of pauperism and crime among us. The Savings Bank, the House of Reformation, and the Farm School, are among the noblest of human devices for human good. They are preeminently christian institutions, because they are exclusively the growth of christian sentiments of humanity and duty; because they meet a class of the claims of humanity, which Christianity distinctly recognises. Let their character and influence, then, be justly estimated, and they will never want either friends or pat rons. Let them be duly supported, and cherished, and, with the increase of our population, we shall have to diminish, rather than increase our provisions for abject poverty and crime. Happy will be the society, in which great moral preventives shall supersede the necessity of legal coercion, for the security and happiness of its members! The experiment of the tendencies of force and of fear, as the great instruments for the government and security of society, has been continued quite long enough to satisfy every fair mind. Our country, at least, is in a favorable condition for a fair trial of the efficacy of an appeal to, and a reliance upon, the higher principles of human nature. And if proper measures shall be taken to call forth these principles, and to secure their predominance, I have no fear for the result. To the extent to which the trial has been carried, we have the most satisfactory evi dence of its happy results; and our community can be blessed by nothing more, which God has placed within the power of man, than by the widest possible extension of this good among us. We may, however, do all that can be done for the moral education of the young, and yet, to a very painful extent, be expending our strength for nought, as long as our streets are everywhere holding out facilities and excitements to intemperance, under the very sanction of the law. Intemperance, under these circumstances, will increase, and with it the number of poor, and of criminals. Where, then, I would here also ask, lies the responsibility for these evils? The Legislature assumes the right to regulate the sale of ardent spirits. This assumption is founded in the right, which is conceded to government, of controlling those operations of individuals, an unrestricted allowance. of which is incompatible with the general welfare; as the power to require the erection and maintenance of Work-Houses, Houses of Correction, County Jails and State Prisons, is founded, in like manner, upon the right which is also conceded to government, of depriving of their liberty, and otherwise of punishing those, whom its other restrictive enactments are insufficient to deter from idleness, vagrancy and crime. And yet, by the very terms on which it offers to license the keeping of dramshops, and the freest sale of the substances which it recognises, in their abuse, to be a cause, and of which we have the evidence everywhere around us, that they are among the most active and influential of the causes, of abject pauperism and crime, it does all which it can well do to legalize that, which it acknowledges to be inconsistent with the public safety; and, thus to secure a perpet ual increase of the inmates of those very institutions, a principal demand for which grows out of the facilities and excitements which dram-shops and bar-rooms offer to intemperance, lawlessness, and every civil and moral offence. Now I would say, that government either has the right and the power to restrict the sale of these spirits, or it has not. If it have not the right, let the assumption of it be relinquished; and let every one, in this respect, do what he will, without asking permission, and purchasing the privilege to do it. But if it have the right and power, I would ask, what is the extent of that right and power ? Is it limited to acts which do not, and which it is known cannot, and will not, impose the smallest possible restraint upon the sale of these spirits? Why, then, waste time and money in laboriously framing and modifying legislative enactments, which not only go for nothing in the cause either of private virtue, or of public security, but which themselves virtually sanction debasement and crime, and, indirectly call up any sentiment in the public mind respecting other legal restraints, than that of respect, and a sense of the importance of regarding them? I would appeal to Legislators, and to our whole community, on this great subject. If government have the power to restrict the sale of these spirits, except on the conditions on which it shall see fit to license their sale, it must then have the power to impose conditions, which shall be effectual to the restraint of their sale. This seems to be self-evident. And if they have the power to impose these conditions, where lies the responsibility for the six or seven hundred dram-shops in our city; and for the facility, in every village in our Commonwealth, of obtaining a gallon of these spirits for the small cost of forty |
