Volume IV Part 48 (1/2)

To authorize a lottery in the county of Gloucester.

6. Lotteries for the benefit of towns.

1782. c. 31. Richmond, for a bridge over Shockoe, amount not limited.

1789. c. 75. Alexandria, to pave its streets, 1500.

1790. c. 46. do. do. 5000. 1796. c. 79. Norfolk, one or more lotteries authorized., c. 81. Petersburg, a lottery authorized.

1803. c. 12. Woodstock, a lottery authorized c. 48. Fredericksburg, for improving its main street. c. 73. Harrisonburg, for improving its streets.

7. Lotteries for religious congregations.

1785. c.lll. Completing a church in Winchester. For rebuilding a church in the parish of Elizabeth River.

1791. c. 69. For the benefit of the Episcopal society.

1790. c. 46. For building a church in Warminster, 200. in Halifax, 200. in Alexandria, 500. in Petersburg, 750. in Shepherdstown, 250.

8. Lotteries for private societies.

1790. c. 46. For the Amicable Society in Richmond, 1000.

1791. c. 70. For building a Freemason's hall in Charlotte, 750.

9. Lotteries for the benefit of private individuals. [To raise money for them.]

1796. c. 80. For the sufferers by fire in the town of Lexington.

1781. c. 6. For completing t.i.tles under Byrd's lottery.

1790. c. 46. To erect a paper-mill in Staunton, 300. To raise 2000 for Nathaniel Twining.

1791. c. 13. To raise 4000 for William Tatham, to enable him to complete his geographical work. To enable---------to complete a literary work.*

* I found such an act, but not noting it at the time, I have not been able to find it again. But there is such an one.

We have seen, then, that every vocation in life is subject to the influence of chance; that so far from being rendered immoral by the admixture of that ingredient, were they abandoned on that account, man could no longer subsist; that, among them, every one has a natural right to choose that which he thinks most likely to give him comfortable subsistence; but that while the greater number of these pursuits are productive of something which adds to the necessaries and comforts of life, others again, such as cards, dice, &ic, are entirely unproductive, doing good to none, injury to many, yet so easy, and so seducing in practice to men of a certain const.i.tution of mind, that they cannot resist the temptation, be the consequences what they may; that in this case, as in those of insanity, idiocy, infancy, &c, it is the duty of society to take them under its protection, even against their own acts, and to restrain their right of choice of these pursuits, by suppressing them entirely; that there are others, as lotteries particularly, which, although liable to chance also, are useful for many purposes, and are therefore retained and placed under the discretion of the legislature, to be permitted or refused according to the circ.u.mstances of every special case, of which they are to judge: that between the years 1782 and 1820, a s.p.a.ce of thirty-eight years only, we have observed seventy case's, where the permission of them has been found useful by the legislature, some of which are in progress at this time. These cases relate to the emolument of the whole State, to local benefits of education, of navigation, of roads, of counties, towns, religious a.s.semblies, private societies, and of individuals under particular circ.u.mstances which may claim indulgence or favor. The latter is the case now submitted to the legislature, and the question is, whether the individual soliciting their attention, or his situation, may merit that degree of consideration, which will justify the legislature in permitting him to avail himself of the mode of selling by lottery, for the purpose of paying his debts.

That a fair price cannot be obtained by sale in the ordinary way, and in the present depressed state of agricultural industry, is well known.

Lands in this State will not now sell for more than a third or fourth of what they would have brought a few years ago, perhaps at the very time of the contraction of the debts for which they are now to be sold.

The low price in foreign markets, for a series of years past, of agricultural produce, of wheat generally, of tobacco most commonly, and the acc.u.mulation of duties on the articles of consumption not produced within our State, not only disable the farmer or planter from adding to his farm by purchase, but reduce him to sell his own, and remove to the western country, glutting the market he leave's, while he lessens the number of bidders. To be protected against this sacrifice is the object of the present application, and whether the applicant has any particular claim to this protection, is the present question.

Here the answer must be left to others. It is not for me to give it. I may, however, more readily than others, suggest the offices in which I have served. I came of age in 1764, and was soon put into the nomination of justices of the county in which I live, and at the first election following I became one of its representatives in the legislature.

I was thence sent to the old Congress.

Then employed two years, with Mr. Pendleton and Mr. Wythe, on the revisal and reduction to a single code of the whole body of the British statutes, the acts of our a.s.sembly, and certain parts of the common law.