Shedding some light on Liberty

I am currently finishing up my reading of Jefferson Davis, Ex-President of the Confederate States of America Part Two V2 A Memior by his Wife by Varina Howell Davis. After Jefferson Davis was released from being in prison for at least a year and a half with no trial, him and his family spent time in Canada, New Orleans, and Europe before eventually settling at the Beauvoir House near the Gulf Coast. Mr. Davis tried his best to stay away from politics, being disfranchised by the Federal Government and not being able to hold office, he did not want to influence what he could not be a part of. At this time around 1887, the state of Texas was debating the question of prohibition. I think Mr. Davis's response to a letter seeking his opinion by his friend F. R. Lubbock is brilliant. If you, like me are trying to understand the meaning behind the Constitution and Constitutional liberty, this letter has helped shed light on some of the same type of issues today. So, here is the letter in full:

"Beauvoir, Miss, June 20, 1887.

"Colonel F. R. Lubbock.
"My Dear Friend.... My reason for not replying was an unwillingness to enter into a controversy in which my friends in Texas stood arrayed against each other.
In departing from the rule heretofore observed, I trust that it will not be an unwarrantable intrusion.
Reared in the creed of Democracy, my faith in its tenets has grown with its growth, and I adhere to the maxim that 'the world is governed too much.'
When our fathers achieved their independence, the corner-stone of the governments they constructed was individual liberty, and the social organizations they established were not for the surrender, but for the protection, of natural rights. For this, governments were established deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. This was not to subject themselves to the will of the majority, as appears from the fact that each community inserted in its fundamental law a bill of rights to guard the inalienable privileges of the individual.
There was then a two-fold purpose in Government: protection and prevention against trespass by the strong upon the weak, the many on the few.
The world had long suffered from the oppressions of government under the pretext of ruling by divine right, and excusing the invasion into private and domestic affairs on the plea of paternal care for the morals and good order of the people.
Our sires rejected all such pretensions, their system being: Government by the people for the people, and resting on the basis of natural inalienable rights. Upon the basis of these general propositions I will briefly answer the inquiry in regard to the prohibition amendment at issue.
'Be ye temperate in all things,' was a wise injunction, and would apply to intolerance as well as to drunkenness. That the intemperate use of intoxicating liquors is an evil, few, if any, would deny.
That it is the root of many social disorders is conceded, but then the question arises, what is the appropriate remedy, and what the present necessity? To destroy individual liberty and moral responsibility would be to eradicate one evil by the substitution of another, which it is submitted would be more fatal than that for which it was offered as a remedy. The abuse, and not the use, of stimulants, it must be confessed, is the evil to be remedied. Then it clearly follows that action should clearly be directed against the abuse rather than the use. If drunkenness be the cause of disorder and crime, why not pronounce drunkenness itself to be a crime, and attach to it proper and adequate penalties? If it be objected that the penalties could not be enforced, that is an admission that popular opinion would be opposed to the law; but if it be true that juries could not be impanelled who would convict so degraded a criminal as a drunkard, it necessarily follows that a statutory prohibition against the sale and use of intoxicants would be a dead letter.
The next branch of the inquiry is as to the present necessity. I might appeal to men not as old as myself to sustain the assertion that the convivial use of intoxicants, and the occurrence of drunkenness, had become less frequent within the last twenty years than it was before. The refining influences of education and Christianity may be credited with this result. Why not allow these blessed handmaidens of virtue and morality to continue unembarrassed in their civilizing work. The parties to this discussion in your State have no doubt brought forward the statistical facts in regard to the effect produced in other States by this effort to control morals by legislation, and I will not encumber this letter by any reference to those facts.
You have already provision for local prohibition. If it has proven the wooden horse in which a disguised enemy to State sovereignty as the guardian of individual liberty was introduced, then let it be a warning that the progressive march would probably be from village to State, and from State to United States.
A Governmental supervision and paternity, instead of the liberty the heroes of 1776 left as a legacy to their posterity. Impelled by the affection and gratitude I feel for the people of Texas, and the belief that a great question of American policy is involved in the issue you have before you, the silence I had hoped to observe has been broken. If the utterance shall avail anything for good, it will compensate me for the objurgations with which I shall doubtless be pursued by the followers of popularism of the day.
I hope the many who have addressed me letters of inquiry on the same subject will accept this as an answer, though somewhat long delayed. Faithfully yours,
"Jefferson Davis."