South was against slavery. Old
Virginia, when a colony, appealed to King George to remove the
threatening danger from her borders. It was the voice of a General Lee
of Virginia that was lifted against slavery in the House of Burgesses.
But with the passing of time slaves grew in value, until a slave in
the South reached about the price of a saloon license now in the
North. Then the conscience of the South quieted and slavery was
justified by press, politics and pulpit. There is a remarkable analogy
between the effect of a thousand dollar slave upon the conscience of
South Carolina and a thousand dollar saloon upon the conscience of
Massachusetts. The South paid the penalty of her mistaken policy; the
North will reap its reward in retribution, if it persists in making
the price of a saloon in the North the same as the price of a slave in
the South. When the value of a world is profitless compared with the
worth of a soul then even if every saloon were a Klondyke of gold this
republic could not afford to legalize the liquor business for revenue.

I believe my northern friends will permit me to press home a little
further the lesson of southern slavery. The phase I would impress is
that any question that has a great moral principle involved is never
settled until it is settled right. We tried to regulate slavery but it
wouldn't regulate. First it was decided that the importation of slaves
should cease in twenty years. Did that settle it? Next came the
Missouri compromise, "Thus far shalt thou go and no farther."
Politicians said: "Now it's settled." But a fanatic in Boston name
Garrison said: "It is not settled." Daniel Webster, as intellectual as
some of our high license advocates of today said to Lloyd Garrison:
"Stop the agitation of this question or you will bring trouble on the
country; the compromise is made and the question is settled." Lloyd
Garrison replied: "I don't care what compromise you've made; you may
pull down my office, pitch my type into the sea, and hound me through
the streets of Boston, but you will never settle the slavery question
until you settle it right."

It kept breaking out despite all legislative restrictions. At last
Columbia with one hand on her head, and the other on her heart, began
to reel on her throne, and Abraham Lincoln seized his pen and signed
the proclamation, "Universal Emancipation." Then the whole world said:
"It's forever settled." So the liquor question will be settled as w