George Barrell Cheever: Deacon Giles' distillery (1844)

Do I say these things in a spirit of exaggeration 1 It is not in human power to exaggerate the evils of one distillery. Do I speak of these evils because, however great, they would be any justification for other crimes? God forbid. If I had really slandered my neighbor, though he were the most atrocious reprobate on earth, his vices would be no excuse for mine. But I have not done it. I have not slandered an individual of the human family. For the use of allusions to actual occurrences I do not need even the justification which I may well draw from the destructive nature of the occupation I have endeavored to portray. But I would remind you, that in an earnest attempt through the medium of fiction to stigmatize that business as the business of fiends, something is to be pardoned to the spirit of honest indignation awakened by the contemplation of this horrible traffic. Some allowance is to be made, when the motive is a sincere desire to stay the ravage of that work of death; and you are not too anxiously to pursue an illustration from real life, because it may possibly be construed into a legal offence; because, though the motive were destitute of malice, the reference might be distorted into the appearance of a libel. Something must be pardoned to the liberty of description, when the subject to be delineated is one of wanton misery, temporal and eternal, inflicted on the community for the sake of individual wealth.

The liberty of the press is a mockery, if the truth may not be told of every man's occupation. And if, when I attack a public nuisance, I am liable to be arraigned for crime at the will of any man in the community, who thinks he can prove that my facts are applicable to him, or whose conscience proclaims that I mean him, how long will it be possible to maintain that freedom and fearlessness in asserting truth, and that energy in the cause of suffering humanity, which ought to characterize every lover of his race 1 Wo be to that community where the laws are such, that while the real criminal can often hide behind them, the exposer of his evil practices shall be placed at the mercy of unprincipled men.

There must be liberty for the use of illustrations from actual life, and reference to actual occurrences, in our efforts to advance the cause of temperance. If it be not so, our Temperance Reports are the most libellous productions in the world. If the truth may not be spoken in regard to the ravages of ardent spirits, or the infamous tendency of its manufacture, because the family where a drunkard dies, and the family by which the distillery that killed him is owned, will be disgraced and libelled by the declaration, what advancement can be made 1 We cannot illustrate the evil we seek to remove, but by constant, minute, and repeated reference to actual life; and we cannot refer to actual life without exposing ourselves to the prosecution of the law.