habits could be predicted so clearly upon general principles--how
vastly more certain and more serious must these consequences be when
such a law is fastened upon the people by means that would be
abhorrent even in the case of any ordinary law! The people who object
to Prohibition are exultantly told by their masters that it is idle
for them to think of throwing off their chains; that the law is
riveted upon them by the Constitution, and the possibility of repeal
is too remote for practical consideration. Thus the one thought that
might mitigate resentment and discountenance resistance, the thought
that freedom might be regained by repeal, is set aside; and the result
is what we have been witnessing. On this phase of the subject,
however, enough has been said in a previous chapter. What I wish to
point out at present is some peculiarities of National Prohibition
which make it a more than ordinarily odious example of majority
tyranny. National Prohibition in the United States --granting, for the
sake of argument, that it expresses the will of a majority--is not a
case merely of a greater number of people forcing their standards of
life upon a smaller number, in a matter in which such coercion by a
majority is in its nature tyrannical. The population of the United
States is, in more than one respect, composed of parts extremely
diverse as regards the particular subject of this legislation. The
question of drink has a totally different aspect in the South from
what it has in the North; a totally different aspect in the cities
from what it has in the rural districts or in small towns; to say
nothing of other differences which, though important, are of less
moment. How profoundly the whole course of the Prohibition movement
has been affected by the desire of the South to keep liquor away from
the negroes, needs no elaboration; it would not be going far beyond
the truth to say that the people of New York are being deprived of
their right to the harmless enjoyment of wine and beer in order that