To the legislature thus elected we sent no petitions; we went there in person, with a bill all prepared, and offered it as one that would be acceptable to temperance men. It was on Friday, the 30th of May, 1851, that we did this. We had a public hearing in the Representative Hall on the afternoon of that day. Saturday, the 31st of May, was to be the last day of the session. The committee voted unanimously to accept the bill as it was, with no change whatever. It was printed on Friday night and laid upon the desks of the members the next morning. Immediately after the morning hour it was taken up for consideration. Now this was the situation on that Saturday morning. The liquor traffic was a lawful trade in Maine, as it was throughout the civilized world. There were liquor shops, wholesale and retail, all over the state, with large stocks of liquor for sale, as there are now in all our states, where the traffic is yet prosecuted by authority of law, and under its protection. The bill lying upon the members’ desks proposed to change all that; it forbade the trade absolutely; it declared that there was no property in intoxicating liquors kept for unlawful sale; that such liquors so kept, or supposed to be so kept, should be seized on complaint and warrant, or on sight, without warrant, and should be confiscated and destroyed, unless the claimant could show to the satisfaction of the court that they were not intended for sale. They might be seized wherever seen; on railway cars, on steamboats, or in transitu by any other mode of transportation; they might be hunted like wild and dangerous beasts, and like them, if resistance was offered, they might be destroyed upon the spot. If it be decided that the liquors are kept for unlawful sale, the party is sentenced, in addition to the loss of the liquor, to a fine of one hundred dollars and costs, and on the second conviction, to the same fine and to imprisonment at hard labor for six months. And it was expressly provided that no action should be had or maintained in any court in the state for the recovery of intoxicating liquors nor for the value thereof. The liquor traffic was put by that bill outside the law, beyond its protection, and was denounced as an enemy to the state and people—utterly inconsistent with the public welfare.