FFQF: Can Legislation and Reason Change America's Moral Climate?

Posted by: Hercules Mulligan on Friday, August 28th, 2009

To hear so many public figures, or even ordinary people who publicly sound their opinions, say it, many might answer “yes” to the above question. So many people, on all sides of any issue, see so many wrongs in a country, including ours, that need to be corrected. It seems to be the fashion these days, indeed, the fashion throughout the ages, to seek solution to moral and social ills in reason and in legislation. We humans tend to look to the source of power for the righting of wrongs; usually, that source of power, intended for the preservation of truth and justice (when Superman is not available, of course), is the government. We go to the halls of legislation and law enforcement to right social and moral wrongs. In doing so continually, we are demonstrating the great confusion we have over (1) the purpose and capability of government and (2) the cause of moral and social problems.

I have discussed these two issues extensively on this blog, so I will not go into these issues presently. Instead, I will focus on answering the original question: “Can legislation and reason change America’s moral climate?”

I choose to answer this question, by presenting to my readers a parable, in the form of a dream that Benjamin Rush had in September of 1808, which he related in a letter to his good friend John Adams in that same month. Benjamin Rush was deeply concerned about the effects of alcoholism on the American populace, especially after observing how one of his patients had abused it. This moral pestilence troubled him deeply, and followed him into his sleep. Hence the dream:

After having recently observed the fatal effects of intemperance in the use of ardent spirits in one of my patients, and reflecting afterwards upon the incalculable evils they are spreading through our country, I went to bed a few evenings ago at my usual hour, and during the night I dreamed that I had been elected President of the United States [may I insert here, that Dr. Rush was a very humble man?*]. At first I objected to accepting of the high and honorable station [See? What did I tell you?], but upon recollecting that it would give me an opportunity of exercising my long-cherished hostility to ardent spirits by putting an end to their general use in our country, I consented to accept the appointment and repaired to the city of Washington where I entered upon the duties with spirit and zeal.

The secretaries brought me a number of letters and reports. I laid them upon a table and told them I would do no business until I got a law passed by Congress to prohibit not only the importation and distilling but the consumption of ardent spirits in the United States and counties in which spirits were consumed in the greatest quantities. Petitions flowed in upon me from all quarters to advise Congress to repeal the law, but I refused to comply with them.

One day sitting alone in my council chamber, a venerable but plain-looking man was introduced to me by one of my servants. I offered him a chair and delicately asked him what his business was with me. “I have taken the liberty,” said he, “Mr. President, to call upon you to remonstrate with you against the law for prohibiting the importation, manufactory, and consumption of ardent spirits. He said the law was well enough for a month or two, during which time all the drunken men had become sober, but, protracted as it was for nearly a year, it did such violence to the physical and commercial habits of our citizens that it had not and could not be carried into general effect; that many of the persons who had conformed to it had been sick form drinking nothing but cold water; that the plow and the wagon stood still from the want of that strength in the men which they formerly derived from their morning dram; that the stage drivers and coachmen everywhere fell from their seats from the same cause; that the clergy in many places were unable to preach and the lawyers to plead from the want of a little grog to moisten and oil their organs of speech; that women everywhere became unusually peevish and quarrelsome from a relaxation of their nerves brought on by the want of a little brandy in their tea; and that all the West India merchants, distillers, and tavern-keepers in the country were in an uproar; and that unless the water and small beer law were instantly repealed, we should soon have our country filled with hospitals and our jails with bankrupts.”

“Hold, sir,” said I. “You don’t know the people of the United States as well as I do; they will submit to the empire of Reason, and Reason will soon reconcile them to the restrictions and privations of the law for sobering and moralizing our citizens.”

“Reason! Reason! Mr. President. Why, you forget that it was Reason in the form of a Goddess that produced all the crimes and calumnies of the French Revolution, and that it was by a book entitled The Age of Reason that Tom Paine demoralized half the Christian world. You forget too that men are rational only, not reasonable creatures. … But Mr. President … permit me to mention an empire of another kind to which men everywhere are yield a willing, and in some instances, involuntary, submission, and that is the Empire of Habit. You might as well well arrest the orbs [planets] of heaven in their course as suddenly change the habits of a whole people. Even in little things they resist sudden innovations upon their ancient and general customs. Peter, the husband of the late Catherine of Russia, lost his life for an attempt to change a part of the dress of his subjects. The inhabitants of Madrid once rose in a mob to oppose an edict which was intended to compel them to use privies in order to prevent the accumulation of night soil in their streets. An hundred other instances might be mentioned of the fatal or mischievous consequences of opposing the settled habits and prejudices of nations and communities.

“Indeed, Mr. President, I am sorry to tell you, you are no more a philosopher than you are of a politician, or you never would have blundered upon your spirit law. Let me advise you to retire from your present station and go back to your professor’s chair and amuse your boys with your idle and impracticable speculations, or go among your patients and dose them with calomel and jalap [internal medical purges] –”

“Stop, stop, sir,” said I. “What do you mean by thus insulting the First Magistrate of your country? Here, John (calling to my servant), turn this man out of doors.” The noise of John coming hastily into the council chamber, and the vexation I felt in being thus insulted, awoke me and made me happy in discovering that the whole of the scene that I have described was nothing but a dream.”
Benjamin Rush: Signer of the Declaration of Independence, by David Barton, pages 153-156; cites Letters of Benjamin Rush (edited by Lyman Butterfield), volume 2, pages 977-979
*DISCLAIMER: It is not the intention of the author to be sarcastic, but the styling of Rush’s words here prompted him, and said author could not resist inserting a little humor. Said author does indeed believe in the humble character of Doctor Benjamin Rush.

There is a lesson that can be learned from this. Rush saw a legitimate problem, and he cared about it enough to try to fix it, as much as was within his power. His solution came through the means of strict legislation, that was sure, he thought, to stamp out the problem (liquor) once and for all. He was convinced that the people of America would “submit to the empire of Reason” — that they would see the wisdom in such legislation, and would jump on the bandwagon of anti-alcoholism, “President Rush”-style. This, of course, did not seem to happen. Such was the complaint among the people, that Congress was flooded with petitions, and “President Rush” was himself personally visited by one of the protectors. This anonymous visitor seems to have taken less concern for the moral health of the nation than for other things; and he did not seem to argue very strongly in support of his view, until he argued that men are more creatures of habit than creatures of logic.

This was his unshakable point. It is a point that we Christians especially seem to miss in so many of our efforts to reclaim our culture and win the hearts and souls of our fellow-men. We think that it will only take reason and the arm of the law to at least preserve the corps of what is long-dead. We try to work up and to manufacture what only the Holy Spirit can do with willing and obedient vessels. As I wrote recently, our refusal to learn this lesson is reaping bitter fruit. Let us learn it and apply it while we still have time.

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