This work was continued for several years without intermission; we had a definite object in view, and that was to overthrow the liquor traffic, to outlaw it, to put it under the ban, and to drive it out as a pestilent thing, the whole influence of which was to spread poverty, pauperism, suffering, wretchedness and crime broadcast among the people, at the same time that no possible good came from it. In due time we made earnest application to the legislature for a law of prohibition, but our prayers were not heeded. We were regarded as having no rights which politicians were bound to respect, and we were treated with small courtesy. We soon took in the situation, and addressed ourselves at once to the only instrumentality through which we could possibly succeed—that is, the ballot box. We sent in great numbers of petitions to the legislature, but we were beaten by more than two to one. At the next election we swept the State House clear of almost every man who had voted against us; we did this irrespective of all party ties and affiliations.

To the legislature thus elected we sent no petitions; we went there in person, with a bill all prepared, and offered it as one that would be acceptable to temperance men. It was on Friday, the 30th of May, 1851, that we did this. We had a public hearing in the Representative Hall on the afternoon of that day. Saturday, the 31st of May, was to be the last day of the session. The committee voted unanimously to accept the bill as it was, with no change whatever. It was printed on Friday night and laid upon the desks of the members the next morning. Immediately after the morning hour it was taken up for consideration.

Now this was the situation on that Saturday morning. The liquor traffic was a lawful trade in Maine, as it was throughout the civilized world. There were liquor shops, wholesale and retail, all over the state, with large stocks of liquor for sale, as there are now in all our states, where the traffic is yet prosecuted by authority of law, and under its protection. The bill lying upon the members’ desks proposed to change all that; it forbade the trade absolutely; it declared that there was no property in intoxicating liquors kept for unlawful sale; that such liquors so kept, or supposed to be so kept, should be seized on complaint and warrant, or on sight, without warrant, and should be confiscated and destroyed, unless the claimant could show to the satisfaction of the court that they were not intended for sale. They might be seized wherever seen; on railway cars, on steamboats, or in transitu by any other mode of transportation; they might be hunted like wild and dangerous beasts, and like them, if resistance was offered, they might be destroyed upon the spot. If it be decided that the liquors are kept for unlawful sale, the party is sentenced, in addition to the loss of the liquor, to a fine of one hundred dollars and costs, and on the second conviction, to the same fine and to imprisonment at hard labor for six months. And it was expressly provided that no action should be had or maintained in any court in the state for the recovery of intoxicating liquors nor for the value thereof. The liquor traffic was put by that bill outside the law, beyond its protection, and was denounced as an enemy to the state and people—utterly inconsistent with the public welfare.

On that Saturday this extraordinary measure, such as had never been heard of in the world before, with no change whatever, was passed through all its stages to be enacted, and on Monday, at nine o’clock in the morning, it was approved by the Governor, and from that moment it was the law, because the act provided that it should take effect when signed by the executive. All the stocks of liquors in the state were then liable to be seized and destroyed, but the local authorities allowed the parties having them in possession a reasonable time in which to “send them away to other states and countries where they could be lawfully sold;” and this was done. There was a hasty departure of these liquors from all parts of the state. It was not an appeal to the legislature by petitions that accomplished this wonderful overturn in the status of the liquor traffic in Maine, it was simply and only because the people put their will in relation to it into the ballot box. There is no other way in which it can be done in any other states, or in the nation. This movement against the liquor traffic is now, as it was then, a far more important political question than any other, more important than all others combined, to every interest of the nation, state, and people. What has been the result of this legislation?

“In some places liquor is sold secretly in violation of law, as many other offences are committed against the statutes, but in large districts of the state, the liquor traffic is nearly or quite unknown, where formerly it was carried on like any other trade.

“Sidney Perham,
“Governor of Maine.”

“I can and do, from my own personal observation, unhesitatingly affirm that the consumption of intoxicating liquors in Maine is not to-day one-fourth so great as it was twenty years ago; in the country portions of the state the sale and use have almost entirely ceased. In my opinion our remarkable temperance reform of to-day is the legitimate child of the law.

“Wm. P. Frye,
“M. C. of Maine, and ex-Att’y Gen’l of the State.”

“I have the honor unhesitatingly to concur in the opinions expressed in the foregoing by my colleague, Hon. Wm. Frye.

“Lot M. Morrill,
“U. S. Senate.”