Defenders of Prohibition seek to do away with the objection to it as an invasion of personal liberty by pointing out that all submission to civil government is in the nature of a surrender of personal liberty. This is true enough, but only a shallow mind can be content with this cheap and easy disposition of the question. To any one who stops to think of the subject with some intelligence it must be evident that the argument proves either too much or nothing at all. If it means that no proposed restriction can properly be objected to as an invasion of personal liberty, because all restrictions are on the same footing as part of the order of society, it means what every man of sense would at once declare to be preposterous; and if it does not mean that it leaves the question at issue wholly untouched. Submission to an orderly government does, of course, involve the surrender of one's personal freedom in countless directions. But speaking broadly, such surrender is exacted, under what are generally known as "free institutions," only to the extent to which the right of one man to do as he pleases has to be restricted in order to secure the elementary rights of other men from violation, or to preserve conditions that are essential to the general welfare. If A steals, he steals from B; if he murders, he kills B; if he commits arson, he sets fire to B's house. If a man makes a loud noise in the street, he disturbs the quiet of hundreds of his fellow citizens, and may make life quite unendurable to them. There are complexities into which I cannot enter in such matters as Sunday closing and kindred regulations; but upon examination it is easily enough seen that they fall in essence under the same principle--the principle of restraint upon one individual to prevent him from injuring not himself, but others.