The "liquor argument" is no solution of the sociological question in hand. During all those years that prohibition has existed in Breathitt, ostensibly so, at least, without apparent diminution of crime, without any receding of the murder wave, other counties, neighbors to it, we might say, have rejected local option laws, and permitted saloons without any apparent increase in the crime rate. Reverting again to the spirit of the Scottish Highlander as responsible in part for the murder lust: Nearly all of southeastern Kentucky is peopled by the same stock. Jackson and Laurel counties have never been contaminated with the feuds which have raged on their very borders. Jackson County in all its history has not seen as many murders committed as have stained the soil of Breathitt in less than one year. Jackson County has never had a feud; its chief lawlessness has been the promiscuous sale of whiskey, illicitly, of course. The argument has been advanced that the lawlessness which has disgraced Breathitt and other mountain counties is directly traceable to the contempt for law instilled in the growing up generations during the period immediately following the Civil War. It doubtless furnished the foundation for the deadly feuds which have in times passed ravaged the border counties of Bell and Harlan. These counties were frequently subjected to invasion by rebel and Union troops, with their attendant elements of lawless camp followers, deserters and guerillas. Kentucky attempted to remain neutral at the outbreak of the war. But the people divided sharply. The State Guards and Home Guards frequently clashed. They ravaged the country without regard to military proprieties or discipline. The civil authorities had been superseded by military courts which often dealt more harshly than wisely with the people they attempted to govern. In Harlan and Bell Counties bad blood was caused by these retaliatory invasions of rebels and Home Guards. Many men took advantage of the opportunity to wreak vengeance upon an enemy they had feared to attack single-handed and did so under the protection of the mass. Crimes went unpunished because committed under the guise of military operations. But in Breathitt County there did not exist a border war. After all the matter sifts itself down to what has been pointed out in the introduction: Lawlessness can exist only so long as the good element of a community refuses to rise up against it, and suffers itself to be intimidated. It should be needless to say that in a republic the people must rule supreme. By their formation of republican form of government they have declared themselves capable and willing to govern themselves, and to enforce the laws they have themselves made. If a people fails to discharge the duty of properly governing themselves, they forfeit their right of citizenship.