The Consumer.

Again, the consumer, he who complains that you assault his manhood, his personal liberty; that you lock up his mouth with a sumptuary law; that you trample upon his God-given freedom, when you deprive him of his rum, whisky, brandy, and gin; when you interfere with his right to get drunk, to be drunk, and to help others to be drunk like himself, even this man can not complain, for before the year 1900 he will be in his grave. And I have never yet seen the sot even who wanted to transmit his right to be destroyed by strong drink to his son. There is hardly a victim of intemperance on this continent to-day who will not vote to save his son from the dreadful appetite which chains him to his fate. The parental sentiment of the country will cry out for this amendment, and the instincts of human nature will crowd to the ballot-boxes of the land to save the children of the ages to come. I firmly believe that if Congress will only give the American people the opportunity to act on this proposed amendment, it would win, upon a popular vote, after two years' discussion.

But there is no form in which the appeal can be made but by the submission of an amendment from the National Legislature to the States at large, and why should not the opportunity be given and the result left with the people themselves?

The importation of liquors is now the subject of treaty stipulation with France and other countries, but we have the unquestionable right to abrogate these treaties after reasonable notice. Every nation has this right, and I allude to it only because I have heard the existence of these treaties suggested as an obstacle to the adoption of the amendment.

Again, this resolution proposes to prevent the