The Perils of Pure Democracy PDF - Liquor Politics in Antebellum America

```markdown # The Perils of "Pure Democracy": Minority Rights, Liquor Politics, and Popular Sovereignty in Antebellum America **Author**: Kyle G. Volk **Source**: *Journal of the Early Republic*, Winter, 2009, Vol. 29, No. 4 (Winter, 2009), pages 641-679 **Published by**: University of Pennsylvan...

```markdown # The Perils of "Pure Democracy": Minority Rights, Liquor Politics, and Popular Sovereignty in Antebellum America **Author**: Kyle G. Volk **Source**: *Journal of the Early Republic*, Winter, 2009, Vol. 29, No. 4 (Winter, 2009), pages 641-679 **Published by**: University of Pennsylvania Press on behalf of the Society for Historians of the Early American Republic **Stable URL**: https://www.jstor.org/stable/40541900 ## Abstract The article discusses the perils of "pure democracy" in antebellum America, focusing on minority rights, liquor politics, and popular sovereignty. > One would suppose that even in a country so young as this is more Republican, or more Democratic as some would call it, in its character than any other-that some questions would, by this time, be settled, and especially those which give to the people the power of establishing their own publicly expressed regulations. - *Pittsburgh (PA) Gazette* (1847) ### Introduction The article introduces the conflict between majority rule and minority rights in the context of liquor licensing in the 1840s. > He who fears or objects to trust the people in any matters pertaining to general or national questions should have written on his forehead anti-American. - *Select Committee of the Maryland General Assembly* (1847) ### The Perils of Pure Democracy The repeal of the Excise Law of 1845 in New York, which empowered local voters to decide liquor license issues, led to concerns about "despotism" and the unchecked power of the majority. > "A law which we have shown to be monstrous and abhorrent in prin-ciple, and both demoralizing and dangerous in tendency, should be swept from our living records and consigned to an oblivion from which it should be hoped the curious historian of after ages would never rescue it." So concluded Abel E. Chandler, Samuel J. Davis, and Joseph Davis, ### Local Option Laws In the mid-1840s, several states passed laws creating a referendum-like mechanism for determining local liquor license policy, giving voters the choice between "License" or "No-License". ### Temperance Reformers and Local Option Temperance reformers saw local option laws as beacons of freedom and emblems of democracy, believing licensing was immoral. ### Popular Sovereignty and Rethinking Commitments As local option was implemented, and voters returned "No-License" decisions, many Americans began to rethink the commitment to popular sovereignty and questioned the legitimacy of the ballot-box mechanism for decision-making. ### Delaware Court of Errors and Appeals decision The Delaware Court of Errors and Appeals sided with liquor dealers, ruling that local option established a "pure democracy" which leads to unstable policymaking and oppression of local minorities. ### Popular Self-Rule The article discusses competing visions of America's commitment to popular self-rule: whether elected officials should make policy decisions, or if the majority should directly decide public policy through the ballot box. ### Key Questions Raised by Local Option Local option raised questions such as: * What is "public opinion" and how can it be ascertained? * What are the obligations of elected officials to "the people"? * Should public policy always reflect public opinion? * What are the boundaries to majority rule and the rights of minorities? ### Maturing of Ideas The ideas of direct democracy's opponents gained legitimacy as a result of liquor dealers' constitutional victory before the Delaware Court of Errors and Appeals. Progressive Era champions of initiative later cited antebellum local option as precedent for their own reform measures. ### Beyond Temperance Reform and Liquor Regulation Local option was enacted contemporaneously in twelve states and territories, advanced the divisive moral objectives of temperance reformers, and sparked coordinated resistance, therefore becoming the premier site of direct democracy. ### Temperance Movement Expansion The turn to direct democracy resulted from the struggles of temperance reformers whose movement expanded in the 1830s. ### Anti immigrant Sentiment The reformers would argue that liquor businessmen sold small quantities of alcohol to workingmen and immigrants in taverns and grog shops, which led to intemperance, crime, poverty, and sexual impropriety. ### Journal of the American Temperance Union (JATU) The Journal of the American Temperance Union protested that every foreigner was permitted to open a groggery and fill up prisons and almshouses and that liquor dealers had prompted social decay courtesy of the government. ### Reformers vs Liquor Dealers Legislators passed license laws that authorized for county administrative bodies to grant select licenses to sell liquor, based on the recommendation of town selectmen. Refomers condemned such laws as inadequate, but the liquor consumption remained. Only if state governments restricted licenses could temperance advocates win. ### Temperance Advocate Tactics Temperance advocates lobbied legislatures, waged public opinion campaigns, and mobilized "No-License" votes. In New York, evangelical Protestants, businessmen, statesmen, lawyers, doctors, etc. printed pamphlets and newspaper articles and held numerous state and local conventions. They turned local temperance societies into political infrastructure for organization and communication. ### Influential Temperance Voices Influential voices included Reverend John Marsh, Horace Greeley, Abigail Powers Fillmore, and Edward C. Delavan. ### Lessons from the Massachusetts Fifteen-Gallon law Reformers learned that statewide legislation prohibiting alcohol was difficult to obtain and that local option was the more practical approach. The Massachusetts Fifteen-Gallon Law of 1838 imposed a statewide ban on the sale of liquor in small quantities, but dealers and drinkers protested and found ways to evade it, ultimately leading to the Whig Party losing the governorship. ### Temperance Leaders and Local Option Temperance leaders marketed local option as agreeable to the public and safe for legislatures; they assured legislators that local option was operating with the consent of the public and had the ability to separate from political parties. ### Jacksonian Democracy and Reformers Reformers co-opted the populist rhetoric of Jacksonian Democracy, deifying the people, majority rule, and local self-government, and protesting special privilege to fight the Rum Power. ### Moral Obligations By the early 1840s, some reformers began to believe that voting majorities are wise and that the electorate was moral enough to decide public policy, giving temperance efforts the legitimate empowerment of men to put an end to the Rum Power. ### The Temperance Movement and Female Voters Temperance movement women were fully cognizant that local option would make them reliant on male voters and wondered if woman suffrage was a thing of the future. ### The Pearl (New York Temperance Magazine) *The Pearl* asked women that if they could vote, those rights would be respected, in the making and the administration of the laws, and how long they would allow the tippling shops with yearly thousands of drunkards of their brothers and sons. ### Critique of Local Option Local option proponents argued that this was convenient of reformers to claim this was not governmental transformation, that it was in "perfect harmony with the spirit and genius of our government," and that it demonized their enemies of democratic self-rule. ### Key Names on the Topic Key names on the topic include Horace Greeley, Democrats, New England and Midwestern States, "the temperance ballot box." and Frederick Grimké. ### John O'Sullivan and Legal Physical Compulsion When an 1841 New York legislative committee suggested that local option presented "no aspect of coercion," Democrat John O'Sullivan questioned this characterisation. He re-torted that it was loaded with "legal physical compulsion" ### Imposed upon them by the Local Majority While the law was "imposed upon them by the local majority," this would not save pro-liquor voters of Delaware from those who oppose interference of drinking alcohol, a violation of the legislative power. ### Wilmot Proviso The Wilmot Proviso, from any territory acquired from Mexico, catalyzed discussions about congressional power over slavery in the territories. ### Pro-Liquor Dissent John Clayton indicated that Claytons made choices to stop at liqour licensing to prevent property redistribution The Delaware Court of Errors and Appeals unanimously declared local option a delegation of unconstitutional liberty as a pure democracy Legislators should not have listened to direct democracies while under oath to protect and serve the constitution ### Court Justices The court was opposed not by one's own but others attempts to reclaim the distinction between democracy and republican governments and attempted to reclaim to support their cause. ### State Vs Federal power Booth touched on points of state federal separation, indicating that as long as local option was present, a national constitution meant nothing. Madison claimed as such, that "vices of democracy" were bound to happen and that a majority could soon control this new state-level system and that action must be taken to stop them. He indicated the only people the measure did was give those not qualified to vote and determine their opinion on licensing ### Conclusions For Clayton, "general subjects" like licensing and slavery required centralized policy at the state level. These legal difficulties would require voters and decision makers to decide if the state would present as one country or every county legal to a degree of their choices. For that, he concluded the state legislature should take back power into their own hands from the counties. *Rice v. Foster* played a part, and gave some a moment to re-access their beliefs and those previously held and then supported. Some began claiming this was elective legislation and so on. Those outside Delaware agreed with liquor and law dealers, who demanded it is now for the state courts declare the unconstitutional and state-level laws for discretion in the legislature be put back in place, then-with the press and some people agreeing and working together to ensure their points were recognized and then-in the long time the courts reversed the state level ruling and said the decision and rights over local option are again in the state legislature. ### The great principle that majorities shall govern The American Temperance Union explained 1898 that now is the key time the great republican principle that majorities shall govern is seen, as those now wish to pander to the wickedness and enrich to those filling poor houses. ### The solution was, and is, incorruptible If each voter will have those rights the "solution" the world may know the rum power is ended once and for all. In 1885 others sought to do as much, to end "liquor" forever and the damage it has brought.