J. H. Green

“ As might be suspected, seasoned as it was with such a population, drunkenness, debauchery, and murder walked abroad, hand in hand, day and night. Human life was valued no higher than the life of an ox or a hog, and the heart of the settlement was cold, and palsied to the most remote touch of feeling, and hardened to the recital of brutalities and crimes of the most indescribable enormity. Men talked of their evil doings, their deep, revolting guilt, with the most impudent freedom, and laughed and chuckled over them as though they were the best jokes in the world! ”

“ The vice of gambling is peculiarly destructive. It spares neither age nor sex. It visits the domestic hearth with a pestilence more quiet and stealthy, but not less deadly, than intemperance. It is at once the vice of the gentleman, and the passion of the blackguard. With deep shame we are forced to admit that the halls of legislation have not been free from its influence, nor the judicial bench unstained by its pollution.
It is against this vice, which is now spreading like a subtle poison through all grades of society, that the present work is directed. ”

“ Probably in no era of the world, and certainly never among a Christian people, was there formed a more bold, daring, and, at the same time, secret association, than the one whose constitution and by-laws we now present to the reader. Composed of men of all classes and grades in society, from the priest at the altar, the judge on the bench, the lawyer at the bar, down to the most common felon and street thief or pickpocket, all bound together by a solemn oath, they laboured for the general cause of secret plunder, to the enriching of themselves at the expense of the mass. ”

“ In no city of the Union has the depredations of the Band of Brothers been more extensive than in Cincinnati, Ohio, yet there seems to be a prevailing wish, entertained even by those who have witnessed their ravages, to doubt the existence of any such organization. Nor am I surprised at this incredulity—the thought that we are surrounded by hundreds of individuals, sworn to protect and assist one another in their ravages upon our lives and property, is no very pleasant prospect for contemplation. ”

“ In many respects, the lottery system may be deemed even more pernicious than ordinary gambling. It spreads a more accomplished snare; it is less offensive to decorum; it is less alarming to consciences which have not lost all sensitiveness; it numbers among its participants multitudes of those who ought to blush and to tremble for thus hazarding their own virtue, and for thus corrupting the virtues of others; it draws within its charmed circle men and women who fill up every gradation of age, and character, and fortune. ”

“ Johnson says that the gambler is no better than a robber, because he acquires property without an equivalent. The whole gist of the argument lies here. You strip a man of fortune, or tear from his hands the earnings of a long life, and give him in return—nothing! Mr. Freeman says, in answer to this—yes, you give him the chance of robbing you! And he goes so far in his sophistry, as to contend that if a man attempts to rob you on the highway, you have a right to rob him! ”

“ Like gamblers, they are hostile—not to say fatal—to all composure of thought and sobriety of conduct. Like gambling, they inflame the imagination of their victims and their dupes, with visions of ease, and affluence, and pleasure, destined never to be realized. Like gambling, they seduce men, especially the credulous and the unthinking, from the pursuits of regular industry, into the vortex of wild adventure and exasperated passions. Like gambling, they ultimately create a necessity for constant vicious excitement. ”

“ In the third place, I shall propose to prove beyond question, that cheating at cards is decidedly the most unfortunate thing for the cause of gambling and gamblers, that possibly could exist. And on the other hand, that it is the very saviour of that portion of mankind who have a sneaking fondness for play.
In the fourth place, I will attempt to prove that those tricks that Mr. Green is in the habit of illustrating with cards, are entirely worthless; that they can not be reduced to practice; that if they can, it must be on persons wholly destitute of common sense ”

“ Freeman appeared perfectly unconscious of the imbecility of his reasoning. More perfect hallucination we never beheld!
Every man feels, when he gains property without an equivalent, that he has done a wrong. Every dollar so acquired plants a fang in his heart. Conscience goads him. He is miserable, restless, tortured, and for temporary relief flies to the transient oblivion of the bowl. When he wins, he drinks—and when he loses, he drinks to desperation. ”

“ He consoles himself with the reflection that he will, at least, be upon the side of virtue: "I will tell the public that my only motive is to benefit the rising generation, (a profitable thought with Mr. Green, 'the rising generation') ; but in order to begin right, I will publish to the world a full history of my life, in which it will devolve upon me to make a confession of my sins. All, I will disclose to the world; but as to that ponderous machinery at Mr. Ball's in New York—I rather think I will skip that." ”

“ A mad desire for wealth pervades all classes—it feeds all minds with fantastic hope; it is hostile to all patient toil, and legitimate enterprise, and economical expenditure. It generates a spirit of reckless speculation; it corrupts the simplicity of our tastes; and, what is yet worse, it impairs, not unfrequently, in reference to the transactions of business, the obligations of common honesty. Upon these elements of our social condition and character, the lottery system operates with malignant efficacy. ”

“ He that is green enough to suppose that I am green-horn enough to get up before a large audience, in the enlightened city of Philadelphia, to defend an absurdity, must be verdant indeed I go not to defend gamblers, but to defend truth, and to show that Mr. Green, like a corrupt witness, in his eagerness to procure a verdict for his party, goes beyond the facts; and that too when there is no necessity for it, for the gambler has real sins enough without heaping others upon him which he never committed. ”

“ They not only go to prove the existence of a league of villany, but also laid open the machinery by which their wickedness was concealed; still, from many incidents of my own life, and from what I have learned by observing events which have transpired around me, as well as from narratives of undoubted truth which I have heard, I am constrained to believe that the band above alluded to does now exist, and that it has flourished for a long time, with astonishing power. ”

“ Green rose with the same pleasant smile which he always has worn during his debate with Freeman, and met his opponent's positions, not with smooth, oily, plausible words, but in a plain spoken, substantial, truth-telling language. He reiterated all that he had charged against gambling at former meetings. He said gamblers were no better than thieves, that they cheated always when they could, and that they had every advantage over those who fell into their clutches. ”

“ But when we find intoxication, only one of a legion of vices that attend on it—and that fraud, cheating, forgery, swindling, robbery, murder, and suicide, are its unfailing companions—we may well marvel that it should find any man so reckless of public opinion, as to venture its championship. ”

“ But is it unjust to punish the gambler with cards by imprisonment and public proscription, while the gambler in stocks, &c., whose crime is the same in principle, though not in degree, goes unwhipt of justice? Undoubtedly it is, for it is no reason that one vice should go unpunished, because another is able to escape for the present. ”

“ Freeman's argument is very good, so far as it applies to inflicting upon the gambler in stocks the same penalty as on himself; but the law of Progress, and the best interests of society, demand that these things should never be allowed to work backwards. For the way society advances, is simply this—the worst manifestations of vice are first proscribed, and then their proscription is made a stepping-stone to demolish others. For instance—we attack gambling with cards, the worst manifestation of the gambling principle; we make it abhorrent to the moral sense of the world ”

“ After repeated disappointments, they discover, when it is too late to profit from the discovery, how sadly they have been duped, and how recklessly they have abandoned their confidence in themselves, and in that gracious Being who never forsakes those who put their trust in him. They sink into despondency, and, seeking to forget themselves, they bring upon their faculties the brutal stupor of intoxication, or they exhilarate them by its delirious gayety. Suicide is often the fearful issue. Dupin ascribes a hundred cases of suicide annually to the lottery system in the single city of Paris. ”

“ Freeman was, that "a man has a right to do what he chooses with his own, if in so doing he does not injure anybody else." In a limited sense, this is true, doubtless—but he does injure somebody else if he fails to perform his duties to his family or to his country. For instance, he has no right to commit suicide. But gambling cannot be done without injuring somebody else, as it takes two to play at it—leaving out of view the injury done to society at large, as Mr. Green has shown in his various works on the subject. ”

“ That we labour to make proselytes of all with whom we come in contact, when it can be done without suspicion and danger to ourselves; that we believe this a true principle—founded upon Nature herself, our ruler—that policy dictates to us the necessity of keeping at peace with the world, and often appearing humble and Godlike, that we may be taken as pious and God-serving people: at the same time, that we keep our "lights so shining," that all who wish, may be able to understand, appreciate, and embrace our principles. ”

“ Freeman. He appears to be one of a singular class of men, some one of whom may be found in nearly every pursuit, however dishonourable—men of keen and subtle minds, and of as much goodness and honesty of purpose as is possible in the life which they have chosen, or into which perhaps they have been in a degree forced. In the course of his remarks, he made one allusion to his own history, which while it told as much as any thing that was said in the course of the debate against gambling, opened unto us, in a degree, the secret of his present position. ”

“ The lottery system, as at present constituted, presents the strongest temptations to fraud on the part of all those who are concerned either in the drawing of lotteries or in the sale of tickets. It is not known that fraud has in any case been perpetrated, though fraud is suspected. If perpetrated, it would be no easy matter to detect it. The ignorant and the credulous men and women, who seek to better their fortunes by gambling in lottery tickets, know nothing of those mystical combinations of numbers, on which their fate is suspended. ”

“ We have but little doubt in our mind that there may have been a great many words added to the original vocabulary, since the adoption of the constitution, as we find among the gamblers, and other dishonest men, language entirely incomprehensible to all without a key. The gambler, though not anywise connected, stands in his profession ready to conciliate them in their works of death, under the horrible idea that Nature, as their God, has plainly sanctioned the profession. And the religion of Nature they aver to be the only true religion on earth. ”

“ No man has a right to dispose of his property to the corruption of the public morals. Mr. Freeman adduced the instance of a father having a right to disinherit one son and prefer the other. This is not a parallel case. The parallel would be a rich man leaving his fortune to found an Institution of demoralizing tendency—say to teach you the art of cheating! ”

“ Thus has ended a debate which, we do think, has been productive of good to the community, while it has vindicated most fully the position which Green takes in his work of reform. We have no sympathy for Freeman, while he maintains his present stand, though we freely confess he is a gentleman of ability, and that we should be most happy to see him a co-labourer with Green, in crushing the vice of gambling. He says he is broken down in health and spirits. We know of nothing which can restore the last, and make him bear the first with greater resignation, than retire to the path of virtue. ”

“ As Nature, in every feature, dislikes a traitor, no provision has been made for dissembling. This society is ruled by Nature, as our God!—and it is the duty of each and every member to do all in his power to promote the welfare of his Brethren, as, by so doing, he must in time convince all observers that the Secret Brothers are the only true Christian sect on earth ”

“ The interposition which is now asked at the hands of the Legislature has been delayed too long, either for the interests or for the character of the state. It is time that we protected our interests, and retrieved our character. It is time that the lottery had ceased to be the "domestic institution" of Rhode Island. It is time that we abandoned, and abandoned for ever, the policy of supporting schools, and building churches, with the wages of iniquity. The memorialists are aware that the General Assembly have made lottery grants, which have not yet expired. ”

“ That we hold, as a duty to mankind, that the God of nature, the only God, has made a benevolent donation to all his beings; and that it is against the principles of true Christianity, to allow one man to fare sumptuously day by day, while his neighbours, as good by nature, and far better by practice, shall be made his servants;—and therefore, we, the members of this honourable body, do pledge ourselves to try, by every means in our [Pg 94] power, to diffuse the necessaries of life throughout the universe, that all may fare alike who live as Nature's Christians. ”

“ Green, I advise you to leave the city as soon as possible. There are two parties of the 'secret band' that seek your life; those who are so much enraged at the loss of the papers, because their reputation, fortunes, and lives, are thereby in jeopardy, and those who are the personal friends of my brother, and who support him, do or say what he may. They take his word with the infallibility of law and gospel, and are by profession great friends of mine, as well as of the other party, who swear they will have those papers at all hazards, right or wrong ”