IjINCOLN VERSUS ===== LIQUOR i UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LIBRARY presented by Marion D. Pratt Estate I Lincoln vs. Liquor -by- David Charles Baker BAKER PUBLISHING COMPANY ST. LOUIS, MO. Copyrighted 1908 By DAVID CHARLES BAKER qns.n u ABRAHAM LINCOLN (From Barry's famous portrait, made in June, 1860) Lincoln vs. Liquor. "He saw the ruin which ardent spirits were causing, and became strictly temperate, refusing to allow a drop of liquor to pass down his throat." Historians have written that Abraham Lincoln was uncontaminated by a single vice. Intimate personal friends, close political associates, those who best knew him, from his youthful days in Indiana until the end of his glorious life, have veri- fied what the historians have written. Lincoln belonged to no church, but he was a Christian. He was the true model of the Christian character as set forth in the sermon on the mount. "Thou shalt love thy Lord, thy God, with all thy heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and thy" neighbor as thyself" is the grandest rule of action ever spoken for the guidance of man. Lincoln observed it. Upon it, the broad structure of his fame was builded. It was the light that directed him throughout his remarkable career. It was his strict obedience to this rule that made him the most sublime moral character the world has known since the crucifixion of Christ. The Bible was the first book Lincoln read. His mother was a good Christian. In his early youth she drilled him in the great moral truths which it contains. She taught him obedience, the love of truth, and the desire to be honest. He never wavered from the moral path that she out- lined for him. Lincoln's mother warned him against the vice of intemperance. She showed him that the use of liquor degraded the mind and that it was destruc- tive of the soul. There is absolutely" no evidence to show that in his entire life he ever took a drink of liquor. There is plenty of evidence to the effect that he was as abstemious as an anchorite; that he never took a drink of liquor, and that he persuaded others to leave it alone. For the defenders of any cause to be able to truthfully point to Lincoln's life as an argument in its behalf, is, of itself, a great victory for that cause. Knowing this, the friends of the liquor traffic have been trying to show that Lincoln was not unfriendly to their cause. Their efforts must fail. History provides the proof that Lincoln was not only a total abstainer, but that he firmly believed, and he so expressed himself, that the sooner liquor was abolished the better it would be for the peace and welfare of the country and the homes of our land. He believed in beginning at the roots of the evil in all efforts to eradicate it. He spoke plainly. His words were simple. Everybody could under- stand him. What he said so many years ago was so well said that his words cannot be misconstrued today. In the Presbyterian Church at Springfield, Illinois, on the twenty-second day" of February, 1842, Lincoln delivered an address to the Wash- ington Temperance Society. It is his most exten- sive and his greatest utterance on the temperance question and the liquor evil that has been pre- served to us in its entirety. This speech contains the convincing evidence that Lincoln believed that the liquor traffic should be wholly" suppressed. Friends of the liquor interests have garbled this speech in an effort to show that Lincoln was not unfriendly" to them. They do not dare reproduce the speech in its entirety. The following is but one of many paragraphs in it which they have studiously failed to quote: 'Whether or not the world would be vastly benefited by a total and final banishment from it of all intoxicating drinks, seems to me not now an open question. Three- fourths of mankind confess 5 the affirmative with their tongues, and, I believe, all the rest acknowledge it in their hearts." Lincoln viewed liquor and slavery as twin evils. In his Springfield speech, referring to the temper- ance revolution, then in progress, he said: " If the relative grandeur of revolutions be estimated by the great amount of misery they alleviate, and the small amount they inflict, then, indeed, will this be the grandest the world has ever seen." After referring to the pride of our country in the political revolution of 1776, he said: " Turn now, to the temperance revolution. In it we shall find stronger bondage broken, a viler slavery manumitted, a greater tyrant deposed; in it, more of want supplied, more disease healed, more sorrow assuaged. By it, no orphans starv- ing, no widows weeping. By it, none wounded in feeling, none injured in interest. Even the dram- maker and dram-seller will have glided into other occupations so gradually" as never to have felt the change, and will stand ready to join all others in the universal song of gladness. And what a noble ally this to the cause of political freedom, with such an aid, its march cannot fail to be on and on, till every" son of earth shall drink, in rich fruition, the sorrow-quenching draughts of perfect liberty. Happy" day, when, all appetites controlled, all poisons subdued, all matter subjected, mind, all conquering mind, shall live and move, the monarch of the world. Glorious consummation! Hail, fall of fury! Reign of reason, all hail! " Do the above sound like the words of one not unfriendly to the liquor traffic? Do the following closing words of the same speech give evidence that Lincoln was friendly to the liquor cause? Do they not place him on record as being its avowed enemy? " And when the victory shall be complete: when there shall be neither a slave or a drunkard on the earth, how proud the title of that land which may truly claim to be the birthplace and the cradle of both these revolutions that shall have ended in that victory. How nobly distinguished that people, -who shall have planted, and nurtured to maturity, both the political and moral freedom of their species." To attempt to strengthen the bad side of a momentous moral question by misrepresentation will fail. Through the medium of newspaper articles, and by the agency of pamphlets, a deplor- able effort is under way to show that Lincoln "occasionally took a drink," and that he was not an enemy of the liquor traffic. In the light of his- tory, and the evidence of men who knew Lincoln, and who still live, such attempts are shameful. 7 They are not supported by the smallest parti- cle of truth. In the discussion of Lincoln's morals, his words, and the words of his friends, and the writing of the historians of his time, are worth more, we are bound to believe, and are more worthy of acceptance, we insist, than the words of any friend of the liquor traffic. Lincoln repeatedly told friends that he had never drank liquor. Companions of his youth, those who were closely associated with him at New Salem, men of his company in the Black Hawk war, his law partners, and lawyers who rode the circuit with him for many years, all test- ify to the fact that he was a total abstainer. Dennis Hanks lived with the Lincoln family, in Indiana, from the time that Abraham Lincoln was ten years old untill he had attained his majority. "Abe was strictly moral," said Hanks, after Lincoln had become President. "He never drank liquor, never used tobacco, and he never swore." Long after Lincoln became a lawyer, he enjoyed telling the story of an experience he had with an old Kentuckian, who had been his only companion in a long and tiresome stage-coach journey. The two became friendly on the journey. The Kentuck- ian had a bottle of French brandy and offered Lincoln a drink. "I never drink," Lincoln replied. Later, he offered him tobacco. "I never use 8 tobacco," Lincoln told him. When the coach reached the end of its journey, the old man shook Lincoln's hand warmly, and, in good humor, said: "See here, stranger, you are a clever, but strange companion, I may never see you again, and I don't want to offend you, but I want to say, that my experience has taught me that a man who has no vices has— few virtues. Good-day." Lincoln's determination to reject liquor is well illustrated in the story of a feat of strength per- formed by him just to help a friend out of a little affair. "William Greene was one of Lincoln's earliest and most intimate personal friends at New Salem. They served in the same company in the Black Hawk war. Greene had just been instru- mental in selecting Lincoln as Captain of the Company, and was boastfully telling a temporary sojourner in the town that Lincoln was the strong- est man, physically, in Illinois. The stranger said he knew a man who was stronger. "How much will he lift?" asked Greene. "A barrel of flour," the stranger replied. "Abe will lift two," retorted the enthusiastic Greene. "That's a great story," said the stranger, laughing. 'Great story or not," replied Greene, "I'll bet you a hat that Abe will lift a barrel of whiskey, 9 holding forty gallons, and drink from the bung- hole." The stranger accepted the wager, and they went to the store where Lincoln was employed and made known their errand. ' I don't think much of the betting part," Lin- coln told them, " but I guess I will help William out of the affair." He then proceeded to perform the feat. The barrel was lifted, and a quantity of the whiskey was taken from the bung-hole. 1 That is the first dram of whiskey I ever saw you drink," said Greene to Lincoln. The words were hardly uttered, when Lincoln sat down the barrel, and spurted the whiskey from his mouth upon the floor, saying, "And I haven't drank that, you see." In a letter to William M. Thayer, one of the earliest writers on the life of Lincoln, Greene wrote, 'That was the only drink of intoxicating liquor I ever saw Lincoln take, and that he spat upon the floor." In the same letter Greene wrote that, on the evening following the affair, Lincoln lectured him on the evil of betting, and secured his promise that he would not repeat the offense. A version of the foregoing story was recently published by leading daily papers of the country, evidently in an effort to help the liquor cause, but it was garbled and not told as Greene, himself, wrote it to historian Thayer. 10 Andrew Shuman, who, as staff correspondent of a leading Chicago daily paper, traveled over the State of Illinois with Lincoln during the famous senatorial campaign of 1858, tells of an incident when the party, having missed a train, were com- pelled to stay" over night in a cross roads town in the central part of the State. "After supper," said he, "Lincoln sat in the public room of the town tavern, for an hour, talking familiarly with the loungers of the town. Every man present, Lincoln excepted, smoked or chewed tobacco, and occa- sionally indulged at the bar." Mr. Shuman was afterwards lieutenant-governor of Illinois. G. W. Harris first met Lincoln in 1840, when the latter was " stumping " the State for General William Henry" Harrison. Later he became a student and clerk in Lincoln's law office, and was intimately" associated with him for many years. He has furnished history with many" interesting reminiscences of him. In one of these, he says : 'Lincoln was abstemious in every" respect. I have heard him say that he had never taken a drink of liquor." Stuart, Logan and Herndon, law partners of Lincoln at different periods, have all given evidence as to his strict temperate habits. Lincoln made temperance speeches as early as 1837. n UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LIBRARY In 1855 Lincoln attended a session of court at Clinton, Illinois. One of the cases on the docket was the result of an indictment that had been found against fifteen women, on a charge of tres- pass. Their offense was that of having entered a liquor shop and knocked in the heads of several barrels of whiskey. The shop was kept by a man named Tanner. Lincoln was not employed in the case, but he was interested in the trial as it pro- ceeded. In defending the women, their attorney seemed to evince little tact, and this fact prompted one of the defendants to ask Lincoln to say a few words to the jury, if he thought he could aid their cause. The attorney of the women consenting, Lincoln made use of the following argument before the jury : " In this case I would change the order of indict- ment and have it read, The State vs. Mr. Whiskey instead of The State vs. The Ladies ; and touch- ing these there are three laws— the law of self- protection, the law of the land, or statute law, and the moral law, or law of God. "First, the law of self- protection is a law of necessity, as evinced by our forefathers in casting the tea overboard and asserting their right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. In this case it is the only defense the ladies have, for Tanner neither feared God nor regarded man. 12 << Second, the law of the land, or statute law, and Tanner is recreant to both. 'Third, the moral law, or law of God, and this is probably a law for the violation of which the jury can fix no punishment." Lincoln then gave some of his own observa- tions on the ruinous effects of whiskey in society, and demanded the early suppresion of the liquor traffic. The Court dismissed the women. Immediately after Lincoln's nomination for the presidency, in 1860, a committee from the National Republican Convention, of which Governor Edwin D. Morgan, of New York, was chairman, visited him at his home, and officially notified him of his nomination. After the ceremony was over, Lincoln remarked to the company" that as an appropriate conclusion to an interview so import- ant and interesting as that which had just hap- pened, he supposed good manners would require that he treat the committee with something to drink. Opening a door that led to the rear of the house, he called a servant girl to whom he spoke a few words in an undertone, and then resumed conversation with his guests. In a few minutes the girl entered the room, bearing a large tray, with glass pitcher and tumblers, and placed them upon a centre table. Lincoln arose, and gravely addressing the committee, said : 13 a Gentlemen, we must pledge our mutual health in the most healthy beverage that God has given to man. It is the only beverage I have ever used or allowed my family to use, and I cannot consci- enciously depart from it on the present occasion. It is pure Adam's ale from the spring." He touched the tumbler to his lips, and pledged them his respects in a cup of cold water. His guests admired his consistency and joined in his example. Abbott, the historian, says that, " before the committee of the convention waited upon Lincoln with the announcement of his nomination, some of his friends sent him several hampers of wine for their entertainment. But Lincoln was not only a temperance man, but a total abstinence man. Resolved not to allow that new temptation to induce him to swerve from his principles, he returned the gift with kindest words of gratitude for the favor intended." William H. Herndon, who was Lincoln's law partner when he was elected president, wrote that " Lincoln had no vices. " Judge Joseph Gillespie, of Edwardsville, Illinois, who served as a member of the legislature with Lincoln, said of him: "As a boon companion, Mr. Lincoln, although he never drank a drop of liquor, or used tobacco in any form, in all his lifetime, was without a rival." William H. Seward, Lincoln's great Secretary of State said 14 of him: He was the best man I ever knew. " Stanton, his Secretary of War, looking upon his remains, just after his death, said to those who stood by him: " He was the most perfect ruler of men the world has ever seen. " Responding to an address from the Sons of Temperance, at Washington, September 29, 1863, President Lincoln, in part, said: "As a matter of course, it will not be possible for me to make a response co-extensive with the address you have presented to me. If I were bet- ter known than I am, you would not need to be told that, in advocacy of the cause of temperance you have a friend and sympathizer in me. When I was a young man, long ago, before the Sons of Temperence, as an organization, had an existence, I, in an humble way, made temperance speeches, and I think that I may say that to this day I have never, by my example, belied what I then said. I think that the reasonable men of the world, have long since agreed that intemperance is one of the greatest, if not the very greatest, of all evils among mankind. That is not a matter of dispute, I believe. " But very recently, a Chicago man issued a pamphlet, the purpose of which was to show that. Lincoln was not friendly toward prohibition. He tried to prove his case, and satisfy the liquor interests, by garbling what Lincoln said on the 15 great question. If the Chicago defender of the liquor evil will issue a pamphlet containing Lin- coln's public utterances on the temperance ques- tion, unabridged and in their entirety, he will show how grossly" he has misrepresented the greatest American in his zeal to help the liquor cause. To attempt any defense of the liquor evil is bad enough. To attempt its defense by mis- representing the attitude toward it of the most revered American is infinitely" worse. Lincoln's speech at Springfield, February 22, 1842, and his short talk to the Sons of Temperance, in Washing- ton, twenty- one years later, define his position on the questions of both temperance and prohibition. In the absence of better evidence, which the liquor interests cannot produce, those speeches, and the testimony of personal friends, and the his- torians of his time, must be accepted in preference to the pamphlet writer of Chicago. James A. Connelly, who knew Lincoln, per- sonally, and well, delivered the principal address at the Lincoln memorial exercises, at Springfield, Illinois, April 15, 1885. Among other things, he said: "As he went from county to county on his wide circuit, men followed him without knowing why. When the night fell, and the lawyers gathered to make a night of it with wit and song and story, the gathering was sure to be where 16 Lincoln was, and while the rest of the company burnished their wits, after the fashion of the Knights of the Round Table, Lincoln, abstemious as an anchorite , seemed to draw from an inexhaust- ible fountain such rich treasures of wit and story that the rest of the company always crowned him king of the carnival; and yet, when they looked upon that sad, homely face in repose, they won- dered whence came his magic spell that so enthralled them." It is said that the speech delivered by Lincoln to the members of the Washingtonian Temperance Society, in the Presbyterian Church, at Springfield, Illinois, February 22, 1842, was the first of his speeches to appear in print. It was published, in full, in the Sangamo Journal, at Springfield, Illinois, March 26, 1842. It is his most extensive utterance on the temperance question, and, if the liquor interests can get any" satisfaction from it, taking it in its entirety, they are welcome to it. The speech makes it plain that he believed that the total abolition of the liquor evil would be the grandest thing that could happen to our country. It is here given in full enabling all readers to judge from it just where Lincoln stood on the question of tem- perence; and how far he went toward absolute prohibition: "Although the temperance cause has been in 17 progress for nearly twenty years, it is apparent to all that it is just now being crowned with a degree of success hitherto unparalelled. The list of its friends is daily swelled by the addition of fifties, of hundreds, and of thousands. The cause itself seems suddenly transformed from a cold, abstract theory, to a living, breathing, active and powerful chieftain, going forth conquering and to conquer. The citadels of its great adversary are daily being stormed and dismantled; his temples and his altars; where the rites of his idolatrous worship have long been performed, and where human sacrifices have long been wont to be made, are daily dese- crated and deserted. The trump of the conqueror's fame is sounding from hill to hill, from sea to sea, and from land to land and calling millions to his standard blast. For this new and splendid suc- cess we heartily rejoice. That success is so much greater now, than heretofore, is doubtless owing to rational causes, and if we would have it con- tinue, we shall do well to inquire what those causes are. "The warfare heretofore waged against the demon intemperance, has somehow or other been erroneous. Either the champions engaged or the tactics they adopted, have not been the most proper. These champions, for the most part, have been preachers, lawyers and hired agents. 18 Between these and the mass of mankind, there is a want of approachibility, if the term be admiss- able, partial at least, fatal to their success. They are supposed to have no sympathy of feeling or interest with those very persons whom it is their object to convince and persuade ; and again, it is so easy and so common to ascribe motives to men of these classes, other than those they profess to act upon. The preacher, it is said, advocates temperance because he is a fanatic and desires a union of the state and church ; the lawyer from his pride and vanity of hearing himself speak ; and the hired agent for his salary. But when one who has long been known as a victim of intemperance, bursts the fetters that bound him, and appears before his neighbors 'clothed and in his right mind,' a redeemed specimen of long lost humanity, and stands up with tears of joy in his eyes, to tell of the miseries once endured, now to be endured no more forever; of his once naked and starving children, now clad and fed comfortably; of a wife, long weighed down with woe, weeping and a broken heart, now restored to health, happiness and a renewed affection; and how easily it is all done, once it is resolved to be done; however sim- ple his language, there is a logic and an eloquence in it that few with human feelings can resist. They cannot say he is vain of hearing himself 19 speak, for his whole demeanor shows he would gladly avoid speaking at all; they cannot say he speaks for pay, for he receives none. Nor can his sincerity in any way be doubted; or his sympathy for those who would persuade to imitate his example be denied. "In my judgment, it is to the battles of this new class of champions that our great success is greatly, perhaps chiefly owing. But had the old school champions themselves been of the most wise selecting, was their system of tactics most judicious? It seems to me it was not. Too much denunciation against dram-sellers and dram- drinkers was indulged in. This, I think, was both impolitic and unjust. It was impolitic, because it is not much in the nature of man to be driven to anything; still less to be driven about that which he thinks is exclusively his own business; and least of all, where such driving is to be submitted to, at the expense of pecuniary interests, or burning appetite. When the dram-seller and dram drinker were incessantly told, not in the accent of entreaty and persuasion diffidently addressed by erring man to an erring brother, but in the thundering tones of anathema and denunciation, with which the lordly" judge often groups together all the crimes of the felon's life and thrusts them in his face just ere he passes sentence of death upon him, 20 that they were the authors of all the vice and misery and crime in the land; that they were the manufacturers and material of all the thieves and robbers and murderers that infest the earth; that their houses were the workshops of the devil; and that their persons should be shunned by all the good and virtuous, as moral pestilences. I say, when they were told this, and in this way, it is not wonderful that they were slow, very slow, to acknowledge the truth of such denunciations, and to join the ranks of their denouncers, in a hue and cry against themselves. To have expected them to do otherwise than they did, to have expected them not to meet denunciation with denunciation, crimination with crimination, and anathema with anathema, was to expect a reversal of human nature, which is God's decree and can never be reversed. "When the conduct of men is designed to be influenced, persuasion, kind unassuming per- suasion, should ever be adopted. It is an old and true maxim, 'that a drop of honey catches more flies than a gallon of gall.' So with men. If you would win a man to your cause, first convince him that you are his sincere friend. Therein is a drop of honey that touches his heart, which, say what he will, is the great high road to his reason, and which, when once organized, you will find but 21 little trouble in convincing his judgment of the justice of your cause, if indeed that cause really be a just one. On the contrary, assume to dictate to his judgment or to command his action, or to mark him as one to be shunned and despised, and he will retreat within himself, close all the avenues of his head and his heart; and though your cause be naked truth itself, transformed to the heaviest lance, harder than steel, and sharper than steel can be made, and though you throw it with more than herculean force and precision, you shall be no more able to pierce him, than to penetrate the hard shell of a tortoise with a rye-straw. Such is man, and so must he be understood by those who would lead him, even to his own best interests. 'On this point the Washing tonians greatly excel the temperance advocates of former times. Those whom they desire to convince and persuade are their old friends and companions. They know they are not demons, nor even the worst of men; they know that generally" they are kind, generous neighbors. They" are practical philanthropists; and they glow with a generous and brotherly zeal that mere theorizers are incapable of feeling. Ben- evolence and charity possess their hearts entirely; and out of the abundance of their hearts, their tongues give utterance, 'Love through all their actions run and all their words are mild;' in this 22 spirit they speak and act, and in the same they are heard and regarded. And when such is the tem- per of the advocate, and such of the audience, no good cause can be unsuccessful. But I have said that denunciation against dram-sellers and dram- drinkers are unjust, as well as impolitic. Let us see. "I have not inquired at what period of time the use of intoxicating liquors commenced ; nor is it important to know. It is sufficient that to all of us who now inhabit the world, the practice of drinking is just as old as the world itself— that is, we have seen the one just as long as we have seen the other. When all such of us as have now reached the years of maturity, first opened our eyes upon the stage of existence, we found intoxicating liquor ; recognized by~ everybody, used by everybody, repudiated by nobody. It commonly entered into the first draught of the infant, and the last draught of the dying man. From the sideboard of the parson, down to the ragget pocket of the houseless loafer, it was con- stantly found. Physicians prescribed it, in this, that and the other disease ; government provided it for the soldiers and sailors; and to have a log-rolling or raising, a husking or 'hoe-down' anywhere about, without it, was positively unsuf- ferable. So, too, it was everywhere a respectable 23 article of manufacture and of merchandise. The making of it was regarded as an honorable liveli- hood, and he who could make most was most enterprising and respectable. Large and small manufactories of it were everywhere erected, in which all the earthly goods of their owners were invested. Wagons drew it from town to town ; boats bore it from clime to clime, and the winds wafted it from nation to nation ; and merchants bought and sold it, by wholesale and retail, with precisely the same feelings on the part of the seller, buyer and by-stander, as are felt at the selling and buying of plows, beef, bacon, or any other of the real necessaries of life. Universal public opinion not only tolerated, but recognized and adopted its use. ' It is true, that even then it was known and acknowledged that many were greatly injured by it ; but none seemed to think the injury arose from the use of a bad thing, but from the abuse of a very good thing. The victims of it were to be pitied, and compassionated, just as are the heirs of consumption, and other hereditary diseases. Their failing was treated as a misfortune, and not as a crime, or even as a disgrace. If, then, what I have been saying is true, is it wonderful that some should think and act now as all thought and acted twenty years ago, and is it just to assail, 24 condemn, or despise them for doing so ? The universal sense of mankind, on any subject, is an argument, or at least an influence, not easily over- come. The success of the argument in favor of the existence of an overruling Providence mainly depends upon that sense ; and men ought not, in justice, to be denounced for yielding to it in any case, or giving it up slowly, especially when they are backed by interest, fixed habits, or burning appetites. "Another error, as it seems to me, into which the old reformers fell, was the position that all habitual drunkards were utterly incorrigible, and, therefore, must be turned adrift, and damned with- out remedy, in order that the grace of temperance might abound, to the temperate then, and to all mankind some hundreds of years thereafter. There is in this something so repugnant to humanity, so uncharitable, so cold-blooded and feelingless, that it never did nor never can enlist the enthusiasm of a popular cause. We could not love the man who taught it; we could not hear him with patience. The heart could not throw open its portals to it, the generous man could not adopt it— it could not mix with his blood. It looked so fiendishly" selfish, so like throwing fathers and brothers overboard, to lighten the boat for our security, that the noble-minded 25 shrank from the manifest meanness of the thing. And besides this, the benefits of a reformation to be affected by such a system, were too remote in point of time to warmly engage many in its behalf. Few can be engaged to labor exclusively for pos- terity ; and none will do it enthusiastically. Pos- terity has done nothing for us, and theorize on it as we may, practically we shall do very little for it, unless we are made to think we are, at the same time, doing something for ourselves. What an ignorance of human nature does it exhibit, to ask or expect a whole community to rise up and labor for the temporal happiness of others, after themselves shall be consigned to the dust, a majority" of which community" takes no pains whatever to secure their own eternal welfare at no greater distant day ? Great distance in either time or space has wonderful power to lull and render quiescent the human mind. Pleasures to be enjoyed or pains to be endured, after we shall be dead and gone, are but little regarded even in our own cases, and much les*s in the cases of others. Still, in addition to this, there is some- thing so ludicrous in promises of good or threats of evil, a great way off, as to render the whole subject with which they are connected, easily turned into ridicule. ' Better lay down that spade you're stealing, Paddy. If you don't you'll pay for 26 it at the day of judgment.' ' Be the powers, if ye'l credit me that long, I'll take another.' " By the Washingtonians this system of con- signing the habitual drunkard to hopeless ruin, is repudiated. They adopt a more enlarged philan- thropy, they go for present as well as future good. They labor for all now living, as well as hereafter to live. They teach hope to all, despair to none. As applying to their cause, they deny the doctrine of unpardonable sin, as in Christianity it is taught, so in this they teach— 1 While the lamp holds out to burn ; The vilest sinner may return.' "And what is a matter of the most profound congratulation, they, by experiment upon experi- ment, and example upon example, prove the maxim to be no less true in the one case than in the other. On every hand we behold those who but yesterday were the chief of sinners, now the chief apostles of the cause. Drunken devils are cast out by ones, by sevens, by legions ; and these unfortunate victims, like the poor possessed, who was redeemed from his long and lonely wander- ings in the tombs, are publishing to the ends of the earth how great things have been done for them. To these new champions, and this new system of tactics, our late success is mainly owing; and to them we must mainly look for the consum- 27 mation. The ball is rolling gloriously on, and none are so able as they to increase its speed and its bulk— to add to its momentum and its magnitude —even though unlearned in letters, for this task none are so well educated. To fit them for this work they have been taught in a true school. They have been in that gulf, from which they would teach others the means of escape. They have passed that prison wall which others have long declared impassable ; and who that has not, shall dare to weigh opinions with them as to the mode of passing ? " But if it be true, as I have insisted, that those who have suffered by intemperance personally, and have reformed, are the most powerful and efficient instruments to push the reformation to ultimate success, it does not follow that those who have not suffered have no part left them to per- form. Whether or not the world would be vastly benefited by a total and final banishment from it of all intoxicating drinks, seems to me not now an open question. Three-fourths of mankind confess the affirmative with their tongues, and, I believe, all the rest acknowledge it in their hearts. "Ought any, then, to refuse their aid in doing what the good of the whole demands? Shall he, who cannot do much, be, for that reason, excused if he do nothing? 'But,' says one, 'what good 28 can I do by signing the pledge? I never drink, even without signing.' This question has already been asked and answered more than a million of times. Let it be answered once more. For the man to suddenly, or in any other way to break off from the use of drams, who has indulged in them for a long course of years, and until his appetite for them has grown ten or a hundred fold stronger, and more craving than any natural appetite can be, requires a most powerful moral effort. In such an undertaking he needs every moral support and influence that can possibly be brought to his aid and thrown around him. And not only so, but every moral prop should be taken from whatever argument might arise in his mind to lure him to his backsliding. When he casts his eyes around him, he should be able to see all that he respects, all that he admires, all that he loves, kindly and anxiously pointing him onward, and none beckon- ing him back, to his former miserable 'wallowing in the mire.' "But it is said by some that men will think and act for themselves; that none will disuse spirits or anything else because his neighbors do; and that moral influence is not that powerful engine con- tended for. Let us examine this. Let me ask the man who could maintain this position most stiffly, what compensation he will accept to go to church 29 some Sunday and sit during the sermon with his wife's bonnet upon his head? Not a trifle, I'll ven- ture. And why not? There would be nothing irreligious in it; nothing immoral, nothing uncom- fortable—then why not? Is it not because there would be something egregiously unfashionable in it? Then it is the influence of fashion; and what is the influence of fashion but the influence that other people's actions have on our own actions— the strong inclination each of us have to do as we see our neighbors do? Nor is the influence of fashion confined to any particular thing or class of things. It is just as strong on one subject as another. Let us make it as unfashionable to with- hold our names from the temperance pledge as for husbands to wear their wive's bonnets to church, and instances will be as rare in one case as the other. 'But,' say some, 'we are no drunkards and shall not acknowledge ourselves as such by joining a reformed drunkards' society, whatever our influ- ence might be.' Surely no Christian will adhere to this objection. " If they believe, as they profess, that Omnipo- tence condescended to take on Himself the form of sinful man, and, as such, to die an ignominious death for their sakes, surely they will not refuse submission to the infinitely lesser condescension, 30 for the temporal, and, perhaps, eternal, salvation of a large, erring and unfortunate class of their fellow creatures. Nor is the condescension very great. In my judgment, such of us as have not fallen victims have been spared more from the absence of appetite than from any mental or moral superiority over those who have. Indeed, I believe, if we take habitual drunkards as a class, their heads and their hearts will bear an advantageous comparison with any other class. There seems ever to have been a proneness in the brilliant and warm-blooded to fall into this vice- the demon of intemperance ever seems to have delighted in suck- ing the blood of genius and of generosity. 'What one of us but can call to mind some relative, more promising in youth than all his fellows, who has fallen a sacrifice to his rapacity? He ever seems to have gone forth like the Egyptian angel of Death, commissioned to slay, if not the first, the fairest born, of every family. Shall he now be a rrested in his desolating career? In that arrest, all can give aid that will; and who shall be excused that can, and will not? Far around as human breath has ever blown, he keeps our fathers, our brothers, our sons, and our friends prostrate in the chains of moral death. To all the living else- where, we cry, 'Come, sound the moral trump, that there may rise and stand up an exceeding 31 great army.' 'Come from the four winds, O breath! and breathe upon these slain that they may live.' If the relative grandeur of revolutions shall be estimated by the great amount of human misery they alleviate, and the small amount they inflict, then, indeed, will this be the grandest the world shall ever have seen. C'j Of our political revolutions of '76 we are all justly proud. It has given us a degree of political freedom far exceeding that of any other nation of the earth. In it the world has found a solution of the long mooted problem as to the capability of man to govern himself. In it is the germ which has vegetated, and still is to grow and expand into the universal liberty of mankind. "But, with all these glorious results, past, pres- ent, and to come, it had its evils, too. It breathed forth famine, swam in blood, and rode in fire; and long, long after, the orphan's cry and the widow's wail continued to break the sad silence that ensued. These were the price, the inevitable price, paid for the blessings it bought. ' Turn now, to the temperance revolution. In it we shall find stronger bondage broken, a viler slavery manumitted, a greater tyrant deposed— in it, more of want supplied, more disease healed; more sorrow assuaged. By it, no orphans starv- ing, no widows weeping. By it, none wounded 32 in feeling, none injured in interest; even the dram- maker and dram-seller will have glided into other occupations so gradually as never to have felt the change, and will stand ready to join all others in the universal song of gladness. And what a noble ally this to the cause of political freedom. With such an aid, its march cannot fail to be on and on, till every son of earth shall drink, in rich fruition, the sorrow-quenching draughts of perfect liberty. Happy days, when all appetites controlled, all poisons subdued, all matter subjected, mind, all- conquering mind, shall live and move, the monarch of the world. Glorious consummation ! Hail, fall of fury! Reign of reason, all hail! " And when the victory shall be complete; when there shall be neither a slave or a drunkard on the earth, how proud the title of that Land which may truly claim to be the birth place and the cradle of both these revolutions that shall have ended in that victory. How nobly distinguished that people, who shall have planted and nurtured to maturity, both the political and moral freedom of their species. 'This is the one hundredth anniversary of the birthday of Washington. We are met to cele- brate this day. Washington is the mightiest name of earth— long since mightier in the cause of civil liberty, still mightiest in moral reformation. On 33 that name a eulogy is expected. It cannot be. To add brightness to the sun, or glory to the name of Washington, is alike impossible. Let none attempt it. In solemn awe pronounce the name, and in its naked, deathless splendor leave it shin- ing on." Lincoln was thirty-three years old when the foregoing address was delivered. It was at the very end of his career as a member of the Illinois legislature. At another time Lincoln said; "The liquor traffic is a cancer in society. There must be no more attempts to regulate it. It must be eradi- cated; not a root must be left behind." Mr. Lincoln is also quoted as follows on the temperance question: "if the prohibition of slavery is good for the black man, the prohibition of the liquor traffic is equally good and constitutional for the white man." "Law must protect and conserve right things, and punish wrong things, and if there is any evil in the land that threatens society or individuals more than another, it is the liquor traffic." "After reconstruction, the next great question will be the overthrow of the liquor traffic." 'The most effectual remedy would be the 34 K, passage of a law altogether abolishing the liquor traffic." "Under the license system the saloons multi- ply drunkards." You have Mr. Lincoln's record on the liquor question. Your intelligence is insulted whenever you are told that he was other than liquor's avowed enemy. As already declared, Lincoln was never on the wrong side of a great moral question. In the last letter he ever wrote for publication and which was a general discussion of political questions, Ex-President Grover Cleveland said; "Since the last presidential election the temper- ance sentiment has developed marvelously and extended to a greater scope than anything else in our history since the abolition of slavery." The next few years will witness an even greater development of the same sentiment unless all signs fail. 35