PROHIBITION PARTY, The. When the Prohibition idea rose to prominence, prior to the Civil War, the idea of its support through political action was not wholly absent. When the Republican party was formed, it was by many regarded as the party of Prohibitionists, and James G. Blaine so speaks of it in one of his early editorials. Myron H. Clark was elected governor of New York in 1856, almost directly on the prohibition issue, and there was in that campaign in New York State an 'anti dramshop party.* With the Civil War the prohibition question was largely pushed out of the public mind and, during the war or the years which immediately followed it, a large 'number of States which had adopted prohi bition went back to the license policy. Further, the liquor power was organized by the revenue taxation policy adopted by the Federal govern ment, and the brewer for the first time ap peared as a political factor in American affairs. The result was that, when the temperance ele ment of the country began to turn its mind again to the anti-alcohol reform, it discovered that a new condition existed in American poli tics and that by far the greater part of the political leaders of both parties were unwilling to give any toleration to the prohibition idea. This resulted in an agitation, which began in the Independent Order of Good Templars and centred chiefly around the Rev. John Russell, a Methodist clergyman of the State of Michi gan, beginning as early as 1867 and culminating An 1869, in May of which year the Right Worthy Grand Lod e, in session in Oswego, N. Y., took action which resulted in the calling of a convention to consider the advisability of forming a political party upon the basis of the prohibition issue. The call was signed by resi .dents of some 20 States and resulted in the meeting of a convention of about 500 people in Farwell Hall in Chicago, 1 Sept. 1869. There were representatives present from 20 States, by far the greater part of them people who had never before taken part in political affairs and few of them widely known. Perhaps the most famous individual among them was Gerrit Smith of New York State, who had been prominent as an Abolitionist and had been a member of Congress. One of the few remaining survivors, when this is written, is Col. John Sobieski, an exiled Polish prince, who served in the Federal army during the Civil War and against Maxi milian in Mexico. Women sat in this conven
tion on equal terms with men, probably the first political convention of history in which that was the case. The convention was by no means a unit in deciding to form a new party and its formation was decided upon by little more than a majority vote.
The basis of the action taken, as deduced from a study of the literature of the party, may be briefly stated as follows: I. Since the government of this country is administered and must be administered by means of political parties, it is obligatory upon honest citizens so to associate politically that the administration of government shall attain the ends for which government is ordained.
II. The legalization of the liquor traffic, which robs. debauches and kills a vast multitude of the citizenship of this nation, together with the innocent who upon them depend and the unborn who will follow them in life, is in contravention of the first duties and the fundamental pria aples of government and repugnant to every right doctrine of political science.
III. Therefore, and the more urgently since the existing legalization of such traffic presents an issue which over towers in its importance all of the other issues of the age. it is the duty of honest citizens to associate themselves to gether io & political party pledged to the enactment and the enforcement of laws which take away from this traffic the protection of legality and shall place it under the ben of legal prohibition.
The Prohibition party first appeared at an election in Ohio, in the fall of the year when it was organized, and Republican-Prohibition can didates were voted for in both Maine and Minnesota that fall. In 1870 Prohibition tick ets were nominated in six States and more than 20,000 Prohibition votes cast, not including 21,000 received in Massachusetts by Wendell Phillips, who, beside being the Prohibition can didate for governor, was also the candidate of the Labor party.
The first presidential election in which the Prohibition party appeared was in 1872, and from that time it has nominated candidates for every presidential election.
Much of the history of the party, so far as it is of general interest, may be best told in tabular form.