George Barrell Cheever: Deacon Giles' distillery (1844)

But it is argued that the business of distilling and selling ardent spirit is a lawful business, and that the vender of rum ought to be protected by the law from the reproach cast upon him through the scandal of his occupation. I acknowledge that it is a lawful business. From the catalogue of human crimes the state has singled out that traffic, which is the source of all crime, and has sanctioned its individual prosecution for the increase of the public revenue, and the accumulation of private wealth. The business of Murdering by the poison of alcohol is Legalized. The arm of the law is stretched out for its protection, and men are licensed for public good to pursue this trade of death! But the fact that this business is legal does not make it right. No law of the land can supersede God's law, or convert sin into holiness. No law of the land can give to any man the moral right to make merchandise of the bodies and souls of his fellow-men. or to pollute and destroy them for gain. The fact that the business of distilling is legal can neithefmake it wrong nor unlawful for me or any individual to proclaim its iniquity. It is the business of death, temporal and eternal, and the fact that it is legal only makes it so much the more important to stamp it with infamy. All reform is arrested for ever, the march of improvement in society is stopped, and it has justly been said that we are thrown back into the dark ages, if the legality of any nuisance can shield it from investigation and attack.

The slave-trade itself, now branded as piracy, was once universally protected by law; and, according to the doctrine of this indictment, the efforts of benevolent men in its suppression were nothing but serious libels. The domestic slave-trade in this country is still protected by law, 'with all its nefarious abominations; but, according to this doctrine, that man is worthy of a prosecution as a criminal, who shall call it nefarious, and reprobate its supporters E(s he ought. According to the same doctrine every man is a libeller, who tells the domestic slave-holder that in holding his fellow-beings as property he commits sin; for the lawfulness of that sin protects it from exposure. In some parts of the country not only distilleries, but brothels and gambling-houses are licensed. Shall this fact make it libellous to proclaim their infamy 1 Or, if the keeper of a gambling-house sold Bibles in his bar-room, and any one should publicly advert to this fact, could such a reference be distorted into a libel 1 There is not a grand jury in the United States which would sustain the indictment. Yet the occupation of a distiller is incomparably more ruinous to society than that of a gambler.