[Price 17 cts.] .
PARALLEL BETweeN
¥ntemptrautt attu tige Sélaut-traut.



PARALLEL BETWEEN INTEMPERANCE AND THE
SLAVE TRADE.
AN
A HD DR FESS
IOR LIVERED A.T
AIMHER.S.T. Col. II; GE,
JULY 4, 1828.
BY HEMAN HUMPHREY, D. D.
PRESIDENT OF THE COLLEGE,
Published at the request of the students.
AMTHERST :
J. S. AND C. ADAMS, PRINTERs.
1828.
HV
5.245
, H 73
Yvg|RSITY OF MICHIGAN
GENERAL LIBRARY
ANN ARBøk, MICHIGAN
" )
Jº $
(
* → *... . ** 3.
_2 * > T
AID D R. ESS.
THE birth-day of our nation is the brightest era in:
the political history of the world; and may the
fourth of July never dawn, without exciting in
every American bosom the warmest gratitude to
Heaven, for the blessings of civil and religious lib-
erty. May the sun never shine between our ocean
boundaries upon any other than a free, united and
happy people. But the popular and stereotyped
topics, of the anniversary, I do not intend to intro-
duce on the present occasion. Enough will be said
by others to satisfy, if not to surfeit, the very ge-
nius of patriotism—about liberty in its cradle and
in its armour; in its perils and in its triumphs.
Enough there will be of boasting—of our ancestors,
of ourselves, and especially of our posterity : enough
of Mars, and the Bird of Jove, and our star-spangled
banner. Indeed, so many bows of promise and ha-
los of glory have already been painted on every
cloud, that there is no room left upºn the face of
the heavens for another. As for bºrning charcoal
and nitre, pouring out, or rather pouring down li-
W
4.
bations to Bacchus, and the prodigious travail of
producing witty and piquant sentiments, after the
cloth is removed, we covet neither the honor nor
the hazard of such marvellous exploits.
The subject which I have chosen, though not
invested with the rhetorical attributes of our rev-
olutionary struggle, is nevertheless but too painfully
appropriate. Slavery and not Independence will be
my theme. Would that there was no such dis-
cord in the jubilant sounds of the day we celebrate.
But the mortifying truth is, and the world knows
it, that after the lapse of nearly fifty years of undis-
puted political freedom, the blood-freezing clank of
a cruel bondage is still heard amid our loudest re-
joicings. You will naturally suppose I allude to
that grievous anomaly in our free constitution,
which darkens all the southern horizon; but I have
a more brutifying and afflictive thraldom in view.
For however cruel and debasing and portentous
African servitude may be, beyond the Potomac,
there exists, even in New-England, a far sorer
bondage, from which the slaves of the South are
happily free. This bondage is intellectual and
moral as well as physical. It chains and scourges
the soul, as well as the body. It is a servitude from
which death itself has no power to release the cap-
tlve.
Yes, therg is a domestic tyrant now traversing
the fairest districts of our country—consuming its
young and vital energies; treading down the blos-
P
J
som of its hopes; undermining its free institutions;
setting at defiance all its authorities; multiplying
engines of torture; fencing off grave-yards—and
breathing pestilence upon every acre of our goodly
heritage. This man-devouring shape,
“If shape it may be called, which shape has none,
“Distinguishable in member, joint, or limb,
“Fierce as ten furies, terrible as hell,
is INTEMPERANCE. “Other lords have had dominion
over us,” but here is the very Nero of the horrid dy-
masty, and we must dethrone the despot, or we are
lost. If we sit still but a little longer, and look
quietly on, while this scourge is raging like a
tempest of fire in all our borders, the fourth of
July will indeed come ; but we shall have no inde-
pendence to celebrate. Our liberties will exist
only in the song of the drunkard. Fuit Ilium, will
be written upon all the monuments of our glory.
With me this is not a new subject of lamentation
and alarm. I cannot remember the time, when I first
heard the dashing of these fiery surges against the
buttresses of my country : and more than fifteen
years ago, I made an effort in my humble sphere,
to awaken some of her sentinels. I thank God
that since that time, but more especially within the
last two years, far louder voices than mine have is-
sued from the temple and the forum and the halls
of Esculapius. Facts have been accumulated and
estimates compiled with great industry, from the
most authentic sources. The causes of so great a
plague have been ably investigated and powerfully
6
exposed. The downward course, from moderate
drinking and coniac hospitality, to dead intoxica-
tion, has been sketched again and again, with graphic
power and in horrible colours. Total abstinence is
now becoming the watch-word, not only upon all
the heights of Zion, but in almost every department
of civil and social influence. - -
Indeed, so much has been said and written on
this subject of late, and so well too, that it becomes
me to approach it with extreme diffidence. It can-
not be supposed, however, that every possible view
has been taken ; and if I can secure a position,
which abler combatants have not found time to oc-
cupy in the pending contest, and open a new fire
upon the enemy’s beleagured walls, I flatter myself
that some little aid will accrue to the common
cause. To speak without a figure, I have long
thought, that a great advantage might be gained, by
comparing intemperance with some other terrible
scourge of humanity, which has fallen under deep
and universal reprobation. Such a scourge is the Aſ-
rican Slave-trade ; and the position which I mean to
take is this, that the prevalent use of ardent spirits in
the United States, is a worse evil at this moment, than
the slave-trade ever was, in the height of its horri-
ble prosperity. However much this position may
shock and stagger belief, I am confident it can be
maintained, without the least extenuation on one
side, or exaggeration on the other. Nothing but a
sober and sorrowful parallel is necessary ; and such
7
a parallel I shall attempt to sketch with as much
brevity as I can.
The bare mention of the slave trade, is enough
to excite indignation and horror, in every breast that
is not twice dead to humanity. Any thing short of
these emotions, would be counted disgraceful in the
last degree to an American citizen. The wretch
who should be accessary to a foreign traffic in hu-
man flesh and sinews and torment, would be brand-
ed with eternal infamy, if not hunted as a monster
from the face of civilized society. I would set the
mark of Cain upon such a reprobate if I could, and
so would every one that hears me. And yet, I re-
peat it, intemperance is worse than the slave-trade—
is heavier with woe and guilt and death—both being
“laid in the balances together.” -
The principal ingredients of suffering and crime
in the slave-trade, are the infernal ambush—the
midnight attack and conflagration of peaceful villa-
ges—the massacre of helpless age and imploring in-
fancy—the stripes and manacles and thousand unut-
terable cruelties inflicted between the place of cap-
ture and embarcation—the horrors of the middle
passage—the shambles prepared for the famine-
stricken survivors on a foreign shore—the separation
of husbands and wives, mothers and children, under
the hammer and branding-iron—the mortality of
*easoning, amid stripes and hunger and malaria:—
to which must be added the dreadful accumulation
of heart-breaking remembrances and forebodings,
#
8
incident to a state of hopeless bondage in a strange
and hated land. Nor even is this all. The wrongs
and miseries of that accursed traffic, which once
disgraced our own country, did not cease with the
lives of its immediate victims. Servitude was
entailed upon unknown generations of their poster-
ity;-and last, though not least, who can tell what
dangers now hang over us, in the heaving bosom of
that spreading cloud which darkens half the land P
And can any thing, you will ask, be worse 2
Can any guilt, or misery, or peril surpass that
of the slave-trade F Can any national stigma
be deeper, than for a single year to have tolerated
the importation of human blood and broken hearts
and daily imprecations * Yes, I answer, intemper-
ance in the United States is worse than all this—is a
more blighting and deadly scourge to humanity, than
that traffic, all dripping with gore, which it makes
every muscle shudder to think of. I am well aware
that so heavy a charge against a great and profess-
edly christian people, requires strong proofs; and I
shall leave the appeal with you, whether such proofs
are not found in the following parallel.
First, let us look at the comparative aggregate
of misery, occasioned by the slave trade on one
hand, and intemperate drinking on the other. The
result of this comparison will obviously depend upon
the number of victims to each, the variety, inten-
sity and duration of their sufferings, bodily and men-
tal; together with the degree and extent to which
“g
their friends and relations are made to suffer on their
account. I am aware, that the parallel does not ad-
mit of mathematical precision; neither does the
nature of the argument require it. We every hour
decide that one man is older and taller than anoth-
•er, or more guilty or more miserable, without think-
ling it at all necessary to determine exactly how
much. So in this case, without pretending to com-
pare numbers and degrees precisely, we may come
‘ to an equally satisfactory conclusion.
To begin then, with the number of victims on
both sides, as nearly as it can be ascertained. AG-
cording to Mr. Clarkson, and other good authori-
ties, not far from 100,000 slaves have been shipped
from the coast of Africa in a single year. This was
the estimate for 1786; and of these, about 42,000
were transported in British vessels. The period in
question, however, was one, of the most afflictive
and disgraceful activity, when the English, French,
Dutch, Portuguese, and Danes, seemed most eager-
ly to vie with each other in driving the infernal
traffic. Probably, the average shipment of slaves
for twenty years, immediately preceding the act of
abolition by the British Parliament, may have rang-
ed from seventy, to seventy-five thousand. What
proportion fell to our share, it is difficult, perhaps
impossible to determine. But when it is consider-
•ed, that the great markets of Cuba, St. Domingo,
Jamaica, and many other islands, (to say nothing of
-Mexico and South America,) were at the same time
O)
- vºd
IO
to be supplied, we can hardly suppose that more
than 25,000 were consigned to the United States.
My own belief is, that the average did not exceed
20,000; but to make the case as strong as it will
bear, against the slave trade, let the number be
raised to 30,000; that is, let us suppose that near-
ly half of those human cargoes were sent to our
ports;–making an aggregate of 150,000 in five
years, or 300,000 in ten years. What a multitude
of men, women and children, to go into captivity
and wear the yoke of slavery forever !
But we must follow these miserable beings a step
further, and enquire for them in the bills of mortali-
ty. According to the most authentic estimates
which I have been able to find, the number of
deaths during the middle passage, varies from six to
fifteen per cent. In some extraordinary cases it
has gone up to thirty, or even higher. But the av-
erage, taking one year with another, may be put
down at ten, or twelve deaths in a hundred, before
the slaves reach the great shambles, to which like
beasts of burden they are consigned. I speak here
of the trade, not as it existed fifty years ago, when
it was as legal as any other, but as it is now carried
on, in spite of the laws, and in defiance of the most
solemn compacts and treaties, which renders it far
more cruel and destructive. But of this difference,
I shall take no advantage in the present argument.
Let the painful supposition stand, that our share in
the infamous traffick, cost from three to four
| 1
thousand lives annually, in the middle passage,
and from eight to ten thousand more, in the two
first years of servitude. This indeed must have
been, considering the cause of it, a most horrible
mortality. From ten to fifteen thousand human
beings, sacrificed every year, to the cupidity of our
merchants and planters!
But let us inquire, whether at least as many
thousands are not now enslaved and destroyed, by
a more ruthless enemy of happiness and of life.
According to the recent calculations of Mr. Pal-
frey and others, which I believe an exact census
would more than veriſy, thirty six thousand new vic-
tims are yearly snared and taken and enslaved by
strong drink. For thirty-six thousand perish by the
hand of this fell destroyer, and of course, it requires
an equal number of fresh recruits to keep the ranks
of intemperance full, and the drunkard’s knell still
sounding through the land.
The parallel, then, as nearly as it can be ascertain-
ed, stands thus. Shipment of slaves, say in 1786,
from twenty-five to thirty thousand. Brought into
a worse bondage by intemperance, in 1828, thirty
six thousand. Deaths by the slave-trade, from ten
to fifteen thousand—-by ardent spirits, thirty-six
thousand! Thus it appears, that where the slave-
trade opened one grave, hard drinking opens three.
Again ; as intemperance holds this “bad pre-em-
inence” over the slave-trade in point of numbers, so
I am persuaded it does in the aggregate of human
1.2”
inisery which eitinflicts. The full amount of suffer-
ing, indeed, which is caused by the trade in human
blood, it is impossible to estimate, and I hope to:
convince you, if I have not already, that you cannot
abhor it more than I do.
Go then with me to that long abused continent,.
where the first act of this infernal tragedy is acted
over every month, and you will gain some faint idea
of the atrocities which it unfolds. In that thicket.
crouches a human tyger; and just beyond it, you.
hear the joyous voices of children at their sports.
The next moment he springs upon his terrified prey,
nor sister nor mother shall ever see them more. On
the right hand, you hear the moans of the captive
as he goes bleeding to his doom ; and on the left, a
peaceful village, all at once flashes horror upon the
face of midnight; and as you approach the scene of
conflagration you behold the sick, the aged and the
infant, either writhing in the fire where they lay
down, unconscious of danger, or if attempting to es-
cape, you see them forced back into the flames, as
not worth the trouble of driving to market. And
then, O what shrieks from the bursting hearts of
the more unhappy survivors! What agonies in the
rending of every tie ' What lacerations, what
ſainting, what despair wait on every step, and af-
flict the heavens which light them on their way to
bondage ' How many would die if they could, be-
fore they have been an hour in the hands of those
incarnate daemons, who are hurrying them away !.
13
Shall I attempt to describe the horrors of the
middle passage—the miseries which await these
wretched beings in crossing the ocean F I have no
pencil, nor colours for such a picture. But see
them literally packed alive by hundreds in a floating
and pestilential dungeon—manacled to the very
bone, under a treble-ironed hatchway—tormented
with thirst and devoured by hunger—suffocated' in,
their own breath—chained to corpses, and madden-
ed by despair, to the rending of all their heart-
strings. See mothers and young girls, and even lit-
the children, watching their opportunity to seek
refuge in the caverns of the deep, from the power
of their tormentors; and not to be diverted from
their purpose, by the hanging and shooting of such
as have failed in similar attempts. Behold the sick
and the blind struggling amid the waves, into which
avarice has cast them ; and shrieking in the jaws.
of the shark, for the unpardonable crime of having
sunk under their tortures, and lost their marketable
value on the voyage. See them headed up in wa-
ter casks and thrown into the sea, lest they should
be found and liberated by the merciful cruiser.
The foregoing is a mere extract from the blood-
stained records of the slave-trade. Who them will
undertake to sum up the amount of human misery
which is wafted by the reluctant and wailing winds
upon the complaining waters, to be chained and
scourged, to pine and die in the great western house
of bondage?
14
But while intemperance mixes ingredients equal-
ly bitter, if not similar, in the cup of trembling and
woe which it fills up to the brim, it casts in others,
which the slave-trade never mingled—for it ſetters
the immortal mind as well as the dying body. It
not only blisters the skin, but scorches the vitals.
While it scourges the flesh, it tortures the con-
science. While it cripples the wretch in every
limb, and boils away his blood, and ossifies its
channels, and throws cvery nerve into a dying tre-
mor, it also goes down into the unsounded depths
of human depravity, and not only excites all the
passions to fierce insurrection against God and
man, but kindles a deadly civil war in the very
heart of their own empire.
Who can chumerate the diseases which intem-
perance generates in the brain, liver, stomach,
lungs, bones, muscles, nerves, fluids, and whatever
else is susceptible of disease, or pain in the human
system P How rudely does it shut up, one aſter an-
other, all the doors of sensation, or in the caprice of
its wrath throw them all wide open to every hate-
ſul intruder. How, with a refinement of cruelty
almost peculiar to itself, does it fly in the face of its
victims, and hold their quivering eye-balls in its
fangs, till they abhor the light and swim in blood.
But to be a little more particular—mark that car-
buncled, slavering, doubtful remnant of a man,
retching and picking tansy, every morning before
sunrise—loathing his breakfast—getting his ear
15
bored to the door of a dram shop an hour after—
disguised before ten—quarrelling by dinner time,
and snoring drunk before supper. See him next
morning at his retching and his tansy again ; and
as the day advances, becoming noisy, cross, drivel-
ling, and intoxicated. Think of his thus dragging
out months and years of torture, till the earth re-
fuses any longer to bear such a wretch upon its
surface, and then tell me, if any Barbadian slave was
ever so miserable.
But who is this that comes hobbling up, with ban-
daged legs, inflamed eyes, and a distorted counten-
ance f Every step is like the piercing of a sword, or
the driving of a mail among nerves and tendons. He
suffers more every day and every night than he
would under the lash of the most cruel driver. And
what is the cause P The humours he tells us trouble
him; and though he has applied to all the doctors far
and near, he can get no relief. Ah these wicked
and inveterate humours! Every bcdy knows where
they came from. But for the bottle he might have
been a sound and healthy man. Now he is the most
miserable of slaves and there is no hope of his eman-
cipation. He may live as long, possibly, as he would
in a sugar-house at Jamaica; but to grind more mis-
erably in the prison which he has built at his own
expense, and in manacles which his own hands have
forged.
Look next at that wretched hovel, open on all
sides to the rude and drenching intrusion of the ele-
*I'6
ments. The panting skeleton, lying as you see, up-
on a little straw in the corner, a prey to consump-
tion, was once the ownerof yonder comfortable man-
sion, and of that farm so rich in verdure and in
sheaves. He might have owned them still, and
have kept his health too, but for the love of strong
drink. It is intenperance which has consumed his
substance, and rioted upon his flesh and his marrow,
and shortened his breath, and fixed that deep sepul-
chral cough in his wasting vitals. Was ever a kid-
mapped African more wretched in his Atlantic dun-
geon P But your sympathies come too late. Perhaps
you sold him the very poison which has brought him
to this—or it went out sparkling from your distillery
to the retailer, and thence into the jug, half conceal-
ed by the tattered garment of the victim, as he car-
ried it home to his starving family. There is no
help for him now. He must, day and night, groan
and cough away the remnant of his mortal exist-
gence, without mitigation and without hope.
Does your sickened and harrowed soul turn away
with horror from such a scene P Go with me then
to the alms house, and tell me whether you recog-
nize that bloated figure, sitting all day and all night
in his chair, because the dropsy will not suffer him
to lie down, and thus lingering from week;to week
Żunder the slow torments of strangulation. How
piercing are his shrieks, as if he was actually
<drowning, from which, indeed, he can obtain a short
reprieve only, by diverting from the seat of life the
17
accumulating waters. He was once your neigh-
bour, thrifty, reputable and happy—but he yielded
to the blandishments of the great destroyer. He
drank, first temperately, then freely, then to excess,
and finally, to habitual inebriation. The conse-
quences are before you. His daily and nightly
sufferings no tongue can utter. His disease no skill
can cure. The swelling flood in which he catches
every precarious breath, no finite power can long
assuage. The veriest wretch, chained and swelter-
ing between decks in a Portuguese Guineaman, is
not half so miserable.
But here we must leave him to be cast a wreck
by the angry waters upon the shore of eternity; and
enter that hut, towards which a solitary neighbour is
advancing with hurried steps. Here a husband and
a father, (shall I call him such P) is supposed to be
dying. The disease is delirium tremens. And O
what a pitiable object. Every limb and muscle
quivers as in the agonies of dissolution. Reason,
having been so often and so rudely driven from her
seat, by habitual intoxication, now refuses to return.
Possibly he may once more be reprieved, to stagger
on a little further, into his ignominious grave ; but
in the mean time, who that is bought and sold and
thrown into the sea, for the crime of being sable and
sick, suffers half so much as this very slave P
I might ask you in pasing the Insane Hospital, just
to look through the grated window, at the maniac in
his straight-jacket—gnashing his teeth, cursing his
3
18
keepers, withering your very soul by the flashes of
his eye, disquieting the night with incoherent cries
of distress, or more appalling fits of laughter. Here
you would see what it is for the immortal mind to
be laid in ruins, by the worse than volcanic belch-
ings of the distillery ; and what happens every day
from these Tartarean eruptions. But I cannot de-
tain you.
“Who hath woe P. Who hath sorrow P Who hath
contentions f Who hath babbling 2 Who hath
wounds without cause P Who hath redness of eyes P
They that tarry long at the wine ; they that go to
seek mixed wine.” Strong drink may exhilirate for
a moment, but, “at the last it biteth like a serpent
and stingeth like an adder.” And can any slave-tor-
ture be more excruciating than this P. Glance your
eye once more at the poor African captive—trace
his bloody footsteps to the ship——let your sympathies
all cluster round the sufferer in the middle passage,
so proverbial for its horrors——follow him thence to
the plantation, and thence through years of toil and
pain to his refuge in the grave. Then look again
at the self-immolated victim of intemperance—hob-
bling—ulcerated—bloated—cadaverous — fleshless;
—every nerve and muscle and sensitive organ of his
body, quivering in the deadly grasp of some merci-
less disease, occasioned by swallowing the fiery
, element. Hear him cry out under the hand of his
tormenters. Follow him, too, through the middle
passage from health and freedom and happiness, to
19
all the woes of habitual intoxication; and thence
through scenes of the most grinding and crushing
bondage that ever disgraced and tortured humanity,
to his final rotting place, and tell me which of these
slaves suffers most. Ah, give me, you say, the
chains and stripes and toil and perpetual servitude
of a West-India plantation, rather than the woe, the
wounds, and the diseases of the dram-shop.
Shall I speak of shame, as prolific of mental suf-
fering P What has the manacled and starving cap-
tive done to be ashamed of? He is in a degraded
condition to be sure ; but his degradation is not vol-
untary. He fought for liberty as long as he could,
or he fled from bondage with his utmost speed.
Brutal force has prevailed over right. Shame be-
longs to the master and not to the slave. But look at
the intemperate man. No one can become a sot
and a reprobate, without suffering extreme mortifi-
cation, especially in the early stages of his down-
ward course. Indeed the veriest drunkard, not on-
ly in his sober moments, but even when half intox-
icated, evidently despises himself, from the bottom
of his heart. A hundred times in a year does he
wish himself dead from mere self-contempt. From
the public gaze, as you have often seen, he tries to
skulk away to some horse-shed or other place of
concealment. For days together, after a debauch,
he shuts himself up to brood over his degradation ;
and when at last, he ventures out, how does he
shrink from the glance of every eye, and glide
20
along by the wall, or under the fence, like a
sheep-stealer. Nay more ; so intolerable is the
mortification which preys upon the drunkard’s heart,
in his lucid intervals, that desperation often ensues,
and drives him to suicide. Were there no other
suffering then, but the mere sense of shame, which
intemperance begets, in its three hundred thousand
victims, it would well nigh balance half the miseries
of the slave-trade. A
In a still more vital point, the parallel entirely
fails; for the suffering is all on the side of intempe-
rance. Whatever bodily torture the slave may be
compelled to endure, he has a clear conscience. He
did not sell himself. He never lacerated his own
flesh, nor plucked the bread out of his own mouth.
Poor and half naked, indeed he is, but not by his own
fault. In bondage he must wear out his life, but he did
not forge and rivet his own chains, nor thrust himself
into the dungeon which conveyed him to mark-
et. If his parents died with grief after he left them
he was not the guilty cause of it. If his wife has
sunk down by his side, with a broken heart, gladly
would he have saved her if he could. If his children
are as wretched and hopeless as himself, it is not
through his voluntary agency. Of all this guilt he
stands acquitted at the bar of conscience. He can
lie down in his cabin and be at rest.
But how is it with the bond-slave of intemper-
ance P What tormenter was ever so fierce and re-
lentless as a guilty conscience? I know it is possi-
* 21
ble to silence her voice for a season; and the drunk-
ard in his progress subjects her to the slow process
of crucifixion. But she, in most cases, maintains a
long and desperate struggle in his bosom ; and even
when apparently dead embraces every lucid interval
which he has, to upbraid him as a fool, a madman
and a wretch. She charges him with the meanness
of driving himself to market—of selling his own
flesh and blood for nothing, to the most cruel
master—of buying, and when his money is gone
begging the privilege of being a slave. She up-
braids him with the guilt of wasting his proper-
ty, sacrificing his health, blasting his character, de-
stroying his usefulness, disgracing his friends, viola-
ting his connubial vows, entailing poverty and infa-
my upon his children and ruining his own soul.
When thus maddened by her whip of scorpions, he
flies to his cups for relief, she but intermits her tor-
tures, to renew them the first moment that return-
ing reason brings him within her reach, and scourg-
es him back again to the very brink of desperation.
Again he plunges, deeper than ever, in the obliv-
ious flood, and again emerges to feel the dreadful
renewal of her stripes and perhaps the next moment
to rush into a burning eternity. “The spirit of a
man will sustain his infirmity; but a wounded spirit
who can bear?” Si
Rarely indeed, I believe, does the drunkard, with
all his pains, free himself entirely from the compunc-
tious visitings of his conscience. She knows how to
c)6). *
make her terrible voice heard even in the midst of
his revelry. She enters before him into his sick
chamber, with her thorns for his pillow—takes her
stand by his bed side, on purpose to terrify him with
her awful forebodings and rebukes, and when the
king of terrors comes, she anticipates his entrance
into the dark valley, that she may there haunt his
soul with undying horrors. Now what, I pray you,
is African slavery in its most terrific forms com-
pared with this? The mere sting of an insect, com-
pared with the fangs of a tyger—the slight incon-
venience of a ligature, contrasted with the live and
crushing folds of the Boa Constrictor. Drag me
bound and bleeding, if you will, from my blazing
habitation—thrust me half dead into the fetid hold of
any slave-ship—sell me me to any foreign master—
doom me to labour in any burning climate—set over
me any iron-hearted driver—load me with any
chains and compel me to toil might and day in any
sugar-house –but deliver me not over to the retri-
butions of a conscience, exasperated by the guilt of
intemperance O bind me not to a rack where I can
neither live, nor die under the tortnre
Again ; it is demonstrable, I think, that intem-
perance inflicts more misery upon the immediate
friends and relatives of its victims in this country,
than was ever caused in Africa, by our participa-
tion in the slave-trade. I have alluded already to
the cruelty of the lucre-bitten prowler, in sending
down multitudes of parents sorrowing and childless
25
to their graves; and to the bloody conflagration in
which the helpless perish, at the moment when
their dearest friends are swept into hopeless captivity.
Twenty-five or thirty thousand Africans, could never
have been torn from their friends, for our shambles,
without carrying desolation and despair into thou-
sands of families. But, to say nothing of the keener
sensibilities of a civilized than of a savage state, can
it be doubted, that the anguish, occasioned by the
intemperance of husbands, sons and brothers, is more
acute, or that it afflicts a still greater number of fam-
ilies f When you have poured out your sympathies
over a sorrowing mother, and her half-starved chil-
dren, whose husband and father is pining in western
bondage, enter the forlorn habitation of the thrice
widowed mother of a drunkard’s offspring. Or
when you have wept with that aged pair, on the
slave-coast, whose only son has just been carried off
by the ruthless man-stealer, come home to New-
England, and see the only prop of once doting, and
now aged parents, falling intoxicated and blasphem-
ing over the threshold of their door; and tell me,
whose breach is widest, whose sorrows spring from
the deepest fountain P Much as I love my children,
let them all grind in chains till they die, rather, in-
finitely, than become the slaves of strong drink.
And if intemperance pours such wormwood and
gall as this into the hearts of four hundred thousand
families, (and this is probably a moderate esti-
mate,) what must be the mighty aggregate of mis-
24
ery which sends up its ceaseless groans to heaven
from every part of the land
Secondly, as intemperance holds a dreadful prepon-
derance over the slave-trade, in the sufferings which
it occasions, it is still more pre-eminent in the guilt
with which it is stained. The criminality of trading
in human flesh, cannot indeed be computed. The
cry of this traffic has lodged accusations against these
states, which a world could never meet. But in
this guilt, the slaves themselves had no participa-
tion. It lay at the door of their oppressors, and of
those who abetted the nefarious commerce. But,
probably, not twenty thousand persons, were ever,
either directly, or indirectly concerned in it at any
one time. Whereas in the case of intemperance,
every slave is a criminal; and three hundred thousand
at least, are chargeable with all the guilt which is
involved in wasting property, throwing away influ-
ence and reputation, abusing reason, rending asun-
der allied heart-strings and kindling up fires which
will burn to the lowest hell.
Can it be so bad, them, can it be so criminal in
the sight of heaven, for ten or twenty thousand per-
sons to hunt, and enslave and kill the poor black-
men, as for two hundred thousand white men, to en-
slave and torment and kill, not only themselves, but
their parents, sisters, wives and children P. If the
guilt of the twenty thousand is crimson what must
that be of the fifteen times twenty thousand If the
sins of the former were legion, who will undertake
to number those of the latter.
25
Thirdly; intemperance is beyond all compari-
son more destructive to the souls of men than the
slave-trade. Diabolical as this traffic is, it does not
deprive its victims of the means of grace, for they
never enjoyed them. It seals not up the bible, nor
blots out the sabbath, nor removes men from the
“house of God and the gate of heaven.” It har-
dens not their hearts. It sears not their conscien-
ces. They are not more likely to lose their souls in
America, than they would have been in their native
country. On the contrary, many are brought under
the saving light of the gospel here, who, in all prob-
ability, would never have heard of a Saviour there.
This I know, affords not the slightest apology for
man-stealing ; for we may never “do evil that good
may come ;” and even if we might, the saving of
souls, is not among the motives, which have so long
desolated the shores of Africa.
But how much more terrible are the effects of in-
temperate drinking, upon the character and destiny
of men, born and educated in a christian land. If
there is any evil which hardens the heart faster, or
fills the mouth with “cursing and bitterness” soon-
er, or quickens hatred to God and man into a more
rapid and frightful maturity, I know not what it is.
And if there is in this mether world, a broader seal
of perdition, than the confirmed drunkard has burnt
upon his own visage, I know not where to find it.
Look at him as he was, and as he is. Once the law
of kindness dwelt upon his tongue, and the social
4.
26
affections had their home in his bosom. He was
strictly moral and exemplary. He kept the sabbath,
read his bible, instructed his children, went regularly
to the sanctuary, and was, at times, “almost persuad-
ed to be a christian.” But the fell destroyer came,
disguised at first, in cordials and sparkling holi-
day pledges, and side-board hospitality. Yes the
destroyer came, and dried up the fountain that dif-
fused gladness around him, and kindled every ma-
lignant and wrathful element of depravity into a
raging conflagration, and converted his throat into
an open sepulchre, and banished the scriptures from
his sight, if not from his dwelling, and estranged
him from God’s house, and incased his heart in ada-
mant, and launched him upon that headlong torrent
which thunders down into the bottomless abyss.
But for his love of strong drink, this man might
have been saved. He was perhaps just entering the
kingdom of heaven, when he grew dizzy and his
feet began to slide, and now “where is he P’’ And
where are all the victims of intemperance, who have
annually left their thirty acres of corpses behind
them P “Be not deceived. Neither formicators, nor
idolaters, nor adulterers, nor drunkards, shall inherit
the kingdom of God.”
Fourthly; Our free institutions are more endanger-
ed by the love of ardent spirits, than they ever were
by the slave-trade, or than they now are by the ex-
isting slavery of the south. No true and enlight-
ened patriot, can think without deep solicitude
27
of the jeopardy which originated in stealing, buying,
selling and consuming human merchandise; and
which becomes more and more imminent from year
to year, as our slave population increases. Even
the quiet servitude of two millions of people, is a
sleeping volcano, within the reach of whose smother-
ed fires, nothing can be entirely safe. The value of
our national tranquility and liberties therefore, no less
than the dictates of justice and philanthropy, urges us
to co-operate in every practicable measure, for re-
moving the curse of slavery from the land, and with
it the dangers which slumber beneath our feet.
But even though the curse and the peril should
still cleave to our skirts, how much more is to be
feared from three hundred thousand veterans in the
army of intemperance. This great army, be it re-
membered, is not confined to any particular section
or district of the United States, but is quartered
upon every town, and village, and settlement in the
nation. We encounter these mercenaries in their
uniform, wherever we go: and the power which
they wield over the destinies of the country is already
tremendous. They are always found at the polls,
and often stand as centinels over the ballot boxes.
They choose our rulers for us, and are chosen them-
selves to govern us. They find their way not only
into the inſerior legislative assemblies, but into the
grand council of the nation. We find them at the bar,
in the jury box, and even on the bench. They steal
into the church of the living God; and how shall it
28
be spoken, the sacred desk itself cannot be effectu-
ally closed against them
Is religion any thing more than a name P Do our
institutions rest upon the virtue and intelligence of
the people * Does every thing depend upon the pu-
rity of the elective franchise, is almost every drunk-
ard an elector, and are half the offices in many a
populous district, sold to the highest bidder for in-
toxicating liquors f What then must the end of
these things bef This question may be promptly
answered without a prophet’s ken. If intemperance
should increase as it has done and go on to corrupt
the public morals, and set the laws at defiance our
government cannot stand. Its death warrant is only
waiting for the proper signature, and may shortly be
read on the fourth of July. A sober people may
possibly be enslaved; but an intermperate people
cannot long remain free. They must have a mas-
ter, to measure out their rations, and keep them in
awe, at the point of the bayonet. And if the
emblems of liberty are ever to be torn from our ban-
mer——if her statues are to be hurled from their ped-
estals—if the car of a despot is to be driven over our
suppliant bodies, it will be by the aid of strong drink.
For an army of sober men can never be raised to
enslave their country.
Of the enormous expence at which this Moloch of
America is supported, and for which there never was
the shadow of a parallel in the slave-trade, I shall
say but little, both because my limits forbid, and
29
because the topic is too familiar to need anything
more than a passing remark. But if our annual li-
bations cost forty, or even thirty millions of dollars;
if this immense sum might be expended in a thou-
sand ways, to promote private happiness and the best
interests of mankind; and if the votaries of intoxicat-
ing liquors, derive infinite damage, instead of the
slightest advantage from all their pecuniary sacrifi-
ces, then is here another proof, that intemperance is
worse than the slave-trade.
Were the object of this address, merely to make
out a strong case, or to prove that one great nation-
al curse and stigma, is heavier, and more disgrace-
ful than another, it would be needless to pursue the
subject any further. But who ever attempted to
mount a battery, without intending, if possible,
to rake the enemy’s lines P A few rounds, at least,
we must discharge on this occasion, just to try the
caliber, and should a friend, or an ally, happen at the
moment, to be in the opposite camp, or somewhere
between, in the range of our guns, he will, if he is
wise, consult his safety, by hastening back to his
post as soon as possible.
In the first place, then, if intemperance is worse
than the slave-trade, what can be more inconsistent,
than the conduct of hard drinkers ? They all, with
one voice, condemn the slave-trade, as inhuman, and
criminal to the last degree. Not a man of them
would go to Africa, for the purpose of stealing the
poor Bushmen, and reducing them to bondage-
30
The most veteran drunkard amongst us, would shud-
der at the thought, of staining his hands with guilt
so red and reeking. And yet, he is a wholesale
dealer, in a far more criminal traffic. While he
washes one hand, he deliberately fixes an indelible
stain upon the other. Indeed, every man who
drinks to excess, lends all the weight of his exam-
ple and influence, to perpetuate a national vice,
which is more aggravated in the sight of heaven
and earth, than the bloody commerce, which we
inherited from the king and parliament of Great
Britain.
In the next place; if intemperance is more crim-
inal than the slave-trade and more dangerous to our
free institutions, then what is the plain duty of our
civil rulers P Is it not to discourage the former as
well as the latter? Congress has no hesitation in
passing the severest laws against the one, and why
not do something to check the more dreadful rava-
ges of the other P Suppose the state of Massachu-
setts to have embarked her capital in the trade so
often mentioned; and suppose her to remonstrate
against any contemplated restrictions, as prejudicial
to her interests, would the government listen to her
complaints for a moment? Ought it in such a case
to listen ? Certainly not. On the contrary, it would
be its duty to cut up the trade, root and branch,
though it were utterly to destroy our commerce.
Why then should the same government, not only
tolerate but encourage the manufacture of a delite-
31
rious poison, which destroys an army of men every
year, and which threatens the very heart of the
body politic? While the importation of slaves is
made piracy by our laws, in obedience to the united
voice of policy, humanity and religion, why should
not the same voice prevail against the importation
and manufacture of ardent spirits, at least so far as
heavy duties can go to shield us from their ravages f
In the third place ; if intemperance is worse than
the slave-trade, then how ought a sober aud moral
community to regard that easy system of licensing,
which fills our large towns with groceries and the
whole land with dram-shops ? Would the authori-
ties which now so readily lend their sanction to
multiply the facilities for drinking at every corner,
listen for a moment to any application for license,
to carry on the slave-trade, even if they had the
power P No ; they would spurn at it with indigna-
tion and horror. Let them look well then to the
character and the number of applicants for liberty
to retail the most insidious and destructive poisons.
For it admits not of a doubt, that in this way, more
evil is done, more lives are destroyed, and more fam-
ilies are beggared, than would be, by licensing a
thousand small traders, to bring home and sell the
wretched children of Africa.
In the fourth place; if strong drink is a more dan-
gerous enemy to our liberties, and the cause of more
guilt and suffering in this land than the slave-trade
ever was, what influence ought these considerations
32
to have upon those who are engaged, either in im-
porting, or manufacturing the poison. Would they
send out their ships for cargoes of bond-men and
bond-women F Would they think it right or repu-
table to raise as many slaves as possible at home for
the market? No-they would shudder at the bare
proposal. How then can they employ their capital,
and tender their personal services, to encourage and
perpetuate the more dreadful slavery of body and
and soul, to intoxicating liquors P I can believe
that when John Newton commanded an English
Guineaman, and before the guilt and cruelty of "tra-
ding in human flesh had excited much discussion,
some good men might have been engaged in the
business. But the times of this ignorance are past—
so that if, with all the light which has since been
poured upon the atrocities of the slave traffic, any
one should continue in it; should own or navigate a
vessel thus employed, or act as an agent or super-
cargo abroad, or build his stalls at home to receive
the miserable captives he would be justly regarded
as utterly destitute, I will not say of religion, but of
common humanity; and would bring down upon
himself the indignant rebukes of an outraged com-
munity.
In like manner, I doubt not, that in times past,
men of the fairest character and of real piety have
been large importers and distillers of intoxicating li-
quors, and this may be the case to some extent even
now. But iſ in full view of the estimates and ar-
33
guments and appeals which are going forth to en-
lighten the public mind in regard to the extent and
guilt of intemperate drinking, and if any should long
persist in creating the fiery element, they cannot
fail of bringing suspicion upon their love to God and
their country.
No conscientious man, I am persuaded, will be
able much longer to own, or work a distillery in
New-England. For how can he, who would indig-
nantly refuse to make handcuffs and iron collars
for men and women of another continent, persevere
in making a liquid poison, which is productive of
far greater mischief and suffering to his own coun-
trymen P
In the fifth place; if intemperate drinking is
pregnant with more guilt and misery and political
danger than the slave-trade ever was, how can it
be right to retail spirits as a common beverage f
Who is there, that for the sake of a small and pre-
carious profit, would burden his conscience with
the guilt, and his character with the reproach of
supplying the dealers in slaves with staples, and fet-
ters, and ring-bolts, and padlocks, to carry on the
accursed traffic P Will any man attempt to justify
himself in dealing out strong drink to his custom-
ers, by the plea, that they will have it, and iſ he re-
fuses, somebody else will supply them and take the
profits P This very argument was strenuously urged,
in the British Parliament, against the abolition of
the slave trade. The demand, it was said, exists.
5
34
The Colonies must and will have more slaves. If
we relinquish this important branch of commerce,
our rivals will carry it on and reap all the advantage.
Would any British statesman use this argument
now P-4: If we do not steal and buy and sell and
manacle human flesh and blood, under a little dark-
er skin than our own, other nations will do it, and
enrich themselves by the trade l’” Would any en-
lightened and conscientious man in the world now
reason in this manner P
But how, if the evils of intemperance are great-
er than those of the slave-trade, can any man per-
mit himself to encourage the former by dealing in
spirituous liquors, while he would shrink from eve-
ry participation in the latter, with the utmost ab-
horrence F I trust in God, that the time, is very
mear, when our patriotic and conscientious mer-
chants, will no more vend ardent spirits, in the com-
mon way of pouring out these streams of fire upon
a suffering community, than they would now sell
arsenic by the pound, or retail hogsheads of nitric
acid for the daily use of our families:—when a re-
spectable tavern keeper will no more think of wait-
ing and bowing in his bar, with a sparkling array
of labelled decanters behind him, and plenty of the
“blue ruin” before him, than of turning auctioneer
in a Brazilian slave market—and when no man of
a decent character, will any sooner stand and mix
liquors in a dram-shop, than he would use a red hot
35
branding-iron, to fix the indelible stamp of servi-
tude upon the flesh of a child.
In the sixth place; if intemperance is more af-
flictive and disgraceful to humanity than the slave-
trade, who can justify himself even in the moderate
use of strong drink P Would those respectable and
influential men who drink sparingly, lend the weight
of their example, for a moment, to perpetuate the
slave-trade, supposing it had not yet been abolish-
ed P. Would they go into the market and buy at
all P Would they tell us, that much as they abhor
a wholesale traffic in human flesh, they see no harm
in trading a little ; and that nobody can be comfort-
able without a few slaves? Who does not feel that
such reasoning would be sufficient to stamp, either
infamy, or the most pitable imbecility, upon the
man who should employ it?
But wherein does it materially differ, from what
is so often and so gravely urged in favour of mod-
erate drinking f The man who takes his scanty ra-
tions, is extremely temperate in comparison with
many others, it is true—for where they purchase
gallons, he only fills his small decanter once, or
twice. What he does consume, however, is the
same kind of poison, which destroys its tens of thou-
sands of lives every year. And so long as he buys
the smallest quantity, for any other than medicinal
purposes ; so long as he continues to drink at all,
he lends the weight of his example, to prolong the
Sorest plague that ever visited our country.
36
In the seventh place; if intemperance deserves
this character, and if the means hitherto employed
to stop its ravages have proved unsuccessful, is it
not the duty of every temperate man in the commu-
mity, to take a public stand against the common en-
emy, by a recorded enlistment? A popular excuse
for declining to do so, where temperate societies
are formed, has been this. “I drink no ardent
spirits, or very little indeed ; and I presume I nev-
er shall. Why then should I be urged to sign your
paper P What good will it do P You have my ex-
ample already, and you need no such bond as this
to keep me sober.”
Now this looks plausible enough at the first
glance ; but, my abstemious friend, would such
reasoning satisfy your conscience, if the slave-trade
was now briskly carried on in all our sea-ports, in
spite of every effort to check it? Would you say
to the agent of an anti-slavery society, “I pur-
chase no slaves—I never embarked a dollar of cap-
ital in the trade, and therefore I see no advantage
in giving you my name * No—you would sub-
scribe at once, and you would consider it the duty
of every man to do the same. And why P. Because
union is strength. And ought you not for the same
reason, to unite with those who are now combining,
to save their country from the more dreadful thral-
dom of strong drink?
It is entirely in the power of the temperate
and sound part of the community, to drive the mon-
37
ster from our land. Total abstinence will do it in a
very few years. But such is the power of custom
and example, that the great object can never be at-
tained without extensive co-operation: and it seems
to me, that those who refuse to co-operate ;-who
stand aloof from temperate societies, and leave
their brethren to go on without them, are answera-
ble to God and their country, for every discourage-
ment and hindrance which may accrue from their re-
fusal. The measures now in train, for redeeming
twelve millions of people from the curse of intem-
perance, cannot fail, but through the criminal apa-
thy of the temperate themselves. And shall they
fail from this cause F Suppose it were equally
in the power of the same class of men to remove
the curse of African slavery from the United
States, and they should leave it still to press like
an incubus, upon the heart of the body politic, and
stop its pulsations; how would the benevolent uni-
verse regard such a dereliction of humanity and jus-
tice. With what indignation would a holy God
frown upon it.
In the eighth place; if intemperance is so prev-
alent, so criminal, and so pregnant with misery,
and danger, as has been represented, how can any
man feel justified in laying his orchard, or his field of
rye, or corn, under contribution to the distillery P A
common excuse is, that oftentimes the farmer can
find no other market. Then let him keep his
produce. But the plea is not valid. The most
38
that ean be made out, is, that his grain will sell
for a few cents more at the distillery, than in any
other convenient market. And is this an object of
sufficient importance, to justify any man in becom-
ing accessary to the ruin of his neighbours, by fur-
nishing the means of inebriation P Who can believe
that the staff of life was ever made to be subjected
to the action of fire, and converted into a liquid
poison P
Besides : what does the farmer gain, in the end,
by the higher price, which tempts him to encoun-
ter the fumes and noxious vapour of Pluto's labora-
tories fº To fill his keg, or some larger cask for fam-
ily use, is almost a matter of course ; and when he
finds his children one after another becoming drunk-
ards, upon the avails of his farm, as thousands
have done before, let him tell the public how much
richer he is for going to such a market.
Will the owner of a great and fruitful orchard
say, “Providence has loaded every tree with his
bounty; it is my duty if possible to save the pro-
duct;—and as there is no other demand, it can only
be saved by sending it to the distillery P’ So might
the planter say, of his vast and luxuriant cane-field.
“Providence has put this great plantation into my
hands to be cultivated, and if I do not import more
slaves, the bounty of heaven must be rejected and
lost.” It will be time enough for the thriving far-
* Or as a shrewd foreign traveller, once more appropriately styled them,
“the Devil's Tea Kettles.”
89.
mer to talk of gratitude and duty, in converting his
apples into brandy, when he has proved that his
lands will produce nothing else; or that if he, or
his father, had planted an orchard of the Bohon
Upas and the product were abundant, and the
demand for the poison were brisk and urgent, it
would be his duty to gather and send it to mark-
et, though it should destroy the lives of thousands.
Finally; if intemperance is worse than the
slave-trade, let every christian, every patriot, every
philanthropist, gird himself up to the great work of
reform, and never cease from it till it shall be ac-
complished. A fearful responsibility rests upon the
men of this generation ; especially upon the influen-
tial and the temperate—upon the guardians and
teachers of youth in all our public and private sem-
inaries; and above all, perhaps, upon the young
men of our beloved country. Let this responsibili-
ty be deeply felt by my youthful audience. As you
have not been backward in expressing your abhor-
rence of intemperate drinking, and your readiness
to co-operate with others in discouraging the use of
ardent spirits, let me exhort you to persevere, and
never for a moment to lose sight of the great object,
which has already so deeply interested your feel-
ings. Some of you will shortly go out to mingle
with the busy multitudes, in the active duties of
life. Others will soon follow; and remember, that
the friends of virtue and religion, have a right to
expect much from you, in aid of the efforts which
40
are now making to purge the land of its foulest
abomination.
Wherever you go, in whatever profession or em-
ployment you may be called to serve God and your
generation, let total abstinence be your own motto,
—at home and abroad, in winter and in summer, in
the social circle and on all public occasions. “Touch
not—taste not—handle not.” Let your constant
aim be, to crush the head of the serpent, and never
intermit your strokes so long as you can perceive
one lingering, writhing sign of vitality in him.
Let this course be taken, by all the liberally
educated youth of our country, and by all others of
enlightened minds and benevolent hearts—let union .
and perseverance every where be the watch-words
of the sober and the virtuous, and soon a drunkard
will become as rare a monster, as he was in the days
of our Pilgrim Fathers; and posterity will look back
upon the present ravages and toleration of intem-
perance, with emotions of astonishment, grief and
horror, similar to those which we now feel, in read-
ing the most afflictive history of the Slave-trade.