- Title
- North Carolina historical review [1934 : April]
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-
- Date
- April 1934
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-
- Place
- ["North Carolina, United States"]
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North Carolina historical review [1934 : April]
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The North Carolina
Historical Review
Volume XI
Apeil, 1934
X UMBER 2
NORTH CAROLINA PROHIBITION ELECTION
OF 1881 AND ITS AFTERMATH
By Daniel J. Wiiitenee
The popular referendum in North Carolina on the question of
state prohibition in 1881 was the most important single incident
in the movement to reform the liquor laws before the passage of
the Watts law in 1903. Despite the fact that other states were
experiencing similar agitation, the movement in North Carolina
had very little connection with what was taking place elsewhere.
Just as in 1852 and 1854, the demand for such a prohibition law
grew out of the social and, more specifically, the legal efforts of
society to correct the evils connected with the traffic in intoxi¬
cating liquors.1
The origin of the demand for the election must be sought,
therefore, in the movement to outlaw the saloon. The question
of restricting or abolishing the saloon by legal means had been
agitated, debated, endorsed, and condemned in virtually every
community. Petitions, signed by hundreds of earnest men and
women, asking for state prohibition, had been pouring into the
General Assembly in an ever increasing number since 1870.
These petitions were in addition to those demanding statutory
prohibition around churches and schools and in towns.2
Sentiment for state prohibition was crystallized by religious
organizations, led by socially-minded ministers who believed that
the function of the church was primarily to render service to
humanity. To the annual State Conference of the Methodist
1 Prohibition was strongly agitated during the early fifties. After the General Assembly
had refused to consider a petition signed by about 18,000 people, asking for state prohibition,
the temperance advocates turned to local option and independent political action,
2 MSS. in Legislative Papers, 1870-1881, in the North Carolina Historical Commission.
More petitions have been presented to the Legislature on the subject of prohibition and
liquor control than on any other issue. Indeed, prohibition in North Carolina might truth¬
fully be called a “Petition Movement.”
[ 71 3
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