Transcribed from microfilm and contributed by: Charles A. Sherrill, 1992
A project of the Bradley County Historical Society

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Petition Number 123, Year 1851_

[A printed petition from males, this petition was apparently sent along with the womens’ petition. Copies of this petition were also signed and sent to the Legislature from other Tennessee counties. They read as follows.]

To the Legislature of Tennessee

The undersigned, citizens of Bradley County, Tenn., would respectfully represent to your Honorable Body, that from the accumulation of testimony during the last quarter of a century, the demonstration would seem to be complete, that the largest portion of the pauperism, crime and indeed of most of the social evils, with which our country is afflicted, flows from Intemperance; that Tennessee shares largely in these evils, and the consequently no subject more imperatively demands your careful consideration, as the representatives of an enlightened and Christian community.

They would also represent that the existing legislative enactments are found to be inadequate to the suppression of these evils; and that some of their provisions are considered disreputable to our good name and injurious to public morale, inasmuch as they lead to perjury, and from their operation as revenue laws, render the State a partner in, and give legality and dignity to a traffic, that enlightened public sentiment has everywhere stamped as immoral.

Among the measures that have been adopted by Legislatures of some of the States of the Union for the suppression of the great evil, your attention is invited to the following:

1. The entire prohibition of the sale of intoxicating liquors, except for medical and chemical purposes, the penalties being fines, imprisonment in the county jails and in the State Penitentiaries, and disfranchisement.

2. To allow every person to traffic in these liquors, but to consider the seller as an accomplice in all the crimes and misdemeanors resulting from his traffic, and to punish him accordingly. This enactment, it is said, has been found very salutary and efficient, and would seem to be recommended by the principle of common law and common sense, [italics] that a man shall be held accountable for his actions.

3. To pass an act, embracing one of the above provisions, or provisions equally stringent and prohibitory; and then submit it to the people, to be adopted or rejected by a majority vote of each county separately, or of the entire State, the act to be in force in such counties as adopt it, but inoperative elsewhere.

The undersigned would respectfully suggest that this last measure is recommended by the consideration that it is in accordance with the republican principle, [italics] that the will of the majority shall rule [end italics]; and relieves the Legislature from the responsibility of acting in opposition to this will, and is therefore recommended to your favorable consideration. They will only add that this brief and imperfect memorial may, with but little of fiction, be presented to hour Honorable Body as an appeal from thousands of suffering women and children enforced by the now unavailing tears of thousands of widows and orphans; and as such, it is believed will not be disregarded. All of which is respectfully submitted.