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Pcuotcct to Citcufliuriy. 6ncncc, ftitb Art, tlje Sons of temperance, (Dbb jTclloiusljip, itlasourn, anb (General intelligence.
VOLUME I
ADDRESS.
Delivered before the Grand Division of the S. of T.
of the State oj Georgia, at their Annual Session in
Ancon, Oct. 24 th 1849, by the Rev, Brother A
Aeons, A. M. M . D. Prof Phys. Sc. E mory Col
lege, Oxford. Prof. Chan, und Pharm. Medical
College iff Georgia..
( Continued.)
The Heart. —The muscular conlractibility of
ibis solitary but central organ of the circulation,
excited by the stimulating tide which passes
ihiough its cavities, charged with suspended Alco
hol, labors with increased vigor to hurry it on
ward, swelling the arterial tubes and giving a
bounding pulse and bloodshot eye, or under large
and sudden draughts whose narcotic effects reach
the whole nervous centres, the viscus suffers the
entire destruction of its irritability, ceases to con
tract or dilate, and death ensues.
The Lungs. —The blood circulating through the
pulmonary tissue by its alcoholic impregnation,
irritates the delicate membrane which lines the
air cells, induces a free secretion from its mucous
surface, excites cough, and throws off’ a large
quantity of inflamatory (?) vapor strongly charged
with the odor of spirit, or in some cases may su
perinduce an apoplexy of the organs, likely to ter
minate fatally.
The Absorbents too, under the long continued
use of this deleterious beverage, lose their tone
and their consequent activity, and fail to perform
their accustomed functions. The balance between
the absorbent and secernent systems being thus
destroyed, serious effusions take place in the cel
lular tissue, or in the thoracic and abdominal cavi
ties, and all the horrors of dropsy, pale, swol
len dropsy, haunt the inebriate to his grave.
Who then would subject the complicated and
delicate machinery of .the human body—the hab
itation and the home of an immortal mind, to the
dreadful driving force of alcoholic stimulants?—
VI hat American youth in this large assembly, with
aa open pulse, and a brilliant, lustrous eye, with
a palate yet unvitiated and morals yet unstained,
would voluntarily peril the purity of his person,
and the loveliness of his virtues, the fairness of
his future fame, and the dories of the sercat here
after, by touching, tasting, or handling the unclean
thitig? Let hut the swelling triumphs of our
lb and organization be complete, and this fearful
fate shall he forever averted. The coming gen
o o
eration, with clear heads and calm purpose, shall
enter upon the theatre of life ready for its highest
responsibilities and loftiest aims. Congress halls
and Council chambers shall no longer be disgraced
by die bludgeon and the billingsgate of stagger
ing politicians. Justice no longer blush in pub
lic places for ber drunk and revelling defenders,
and Christianity herself, no more weep over the
revolting, humiliating spectacle of a Hushed cheek
and a blood shot eye about her holy altars.—
Science too, shall sit enthroned in queenly state,
and control her empire of wonders in the world
of arts with a cloudless mind and unpalsied
The mysterious and powerful agents recently
disclosed to the researches of Philosophy, and now
rapidly extending their reign over ever} 7 depart
ment of life, require too much delicate manipu
lation, and already wield too fearful an influence
over the fortunes and fates of men, to be commit
ted to the direction of the whirling brain and
soaked senses of a trembling inebriate. Clear
cold water is the hygienic beverage prepared by
heaven for the whole human race, favors the finest
developments of the human form, and the rarest
achievements of cultivated intellect. The unfor
tunate Selkirk, who for four long years slaked his
thirst only from the purling streams ot his desert
island, acquired three times the strength and
vigor of his former days, but no sooner did he
again find access to the fermented beverage of
his native land on board the English vessel which
restored him to his home, than his strength began
to decline, and in one short month be was an or
dinary man. The distinguished metaphysician,
T'hn Lock, with a feeble constitution and asthma
ttehabit, by making this fluid his common drink,
protracted a life of P intellectual labor to the ven
erahle nge of seventy-three years. And the ini
mon.al author of the “ Principle,” —the “ non
pared” 0 r En „ lish philosophers, while writing
bis memorable Treatise upon optics, allowed liirn
no other beverage than that over which our
oanners wave. Finally, the utilitarianism ot the
a £ e > hurried on by the locomotive’s whistle and
tho lightnings thong, pants for the goal of hu
man greatness and national glorv, and for the
s’und consummation ot its laudable purpose, de-
the clearness of conception and vigor of
peculiar to a temperance brain. Nature
? be unpolluted and unshorn a Nazariie
Wni [ ler birth, and consecrated by parentage to
tne task before her. The private citizen, or the
Public functionary,•though gibed with genius and
lr) nored with trust, if sensualized and embiutcd
*} the lust of the goblet, is unfitted for the cmei-
gcncies of the times. Like the wine drenched
Cyclops in pursuit of ./Eneas and his ships crew,
he may wield a hemlock trunk, and wade mid
thigh deep in danger, but his blinded eye-ball
fails to direct the wandering blow, while wounded
virtue bleeds unavenged, and unsmitten guilt
tauntingly laughs at the vaunting giant in his cups,
The wants of the world then demand sober men,
and if heaven shall continue to patronise the es
tablishment we endow in these days of manufactu
ring prosperity, the world shall have them—have
them by the million—have them of perfect finish
and reliable brand, challenging the scrutiny of
even custom-house inspection.
Secondly, as a Citizen, shall I here pause to
encounter again the revived ghost of the old pop
ular objection that “ Temperance associations
are anti-republican in their tendency because
they restrain personal liberty ?” Who does not
know that in all such organizations no violence to
individual will or inclination is either approved
or tolerated. Liberty of action, the freeman’s
birth-boon, voluntarily to pledge or refuse, is fully
and freely inculcated. But suppose no moral re
straints are encouraged or recommended and
men indulge their boasted liberty of drinking to
ebriety, are then no personal or social injuries to
be experienced from such excess? Who dares
avow it ? Then occupying the high vantage
“round which this confession gives, we turn the
tables upon our objectors, and avow, that in ac
cordance with the spirit of our republican insti
tutions, and the mutual rights which they guar
antee to society, no man properly deserves the appel
lation cf a gpodcitizen who claims and exercises the
privilege of doing what he must be aware injures him
self incapacitates him for discharging the whole du
ties of citizenship , or is manifestly deleterious to the
wellbeing of those around him. But if the imposi
tion of voluntary restraints upon the intemperate
use of alcoholic liquor be deemed subversive of
the principlesjof republicanism, must not the fear
ful causes be assumed as a logical consequence?
viz : that an absence of all such restraints, and
therefore open indulgence, ad libitum, cherishes
the spirit and promotes the cause of freedom !
Who shall gainsay the legitimacy of the conclu
sion ? And yet the testimony of Gtul and the
voice of history give the lie to all such licentious
logic. Verrilyif this be true, then did the pulse
of liberty beat highest in down-trodden Ireland
when her mountains, her caves, and her peat bogs
were darkened by the smoke of her illicit,distil
leries, and thousands of her starving and squallid
population were reeling around the shebeen and
brandishing shelalahs over broken skulls and ex
hausled tankards of usquebangh and small beer.
No verily, sober minds and steady habits favor
the cause of freedom. When! oh when in mod
ern days has the spirit of resistance to monarch
ical misrule shone with a brighter flame in the
Emerald isle than since the plecfge of the venerable
apostle of Temperance has sobered a million of
his countrymen ? Why it was but the other day
that the patriotic speech of Patrick Henry before
the Virginia House of Delegates, delivered too by
a secend rate travelling lecturer, in the presence
of an intelligent Irish audience, so inflamed the
popular mind that legal authority interfered to
suppress the commotion, and threatened imme
diate imprisonment to the innocent offender, who
had only professionally used the stirring language
of that “great American orator to illustrate the laws
of elocution.
On the contrary, we confidently pronounce
intemperate habits, with all the public modes
which community have heretofore tolerated; fa
voring their indulgance and wider spread, to be
wholly anti-republican in their tendencies.
Ist. Because they prevent free and enlightened
suffrage • Under the stimulus of his cups, the in
fatuated toper is no longer capable of balancing
issues, or looking to the political consequences ol
his vote. His reason is unseated-r-his judgement
flounders —imagination runs riot, and a thousand
distorted images whirl through his brain, like the
changing figures in kaleidescope. In short ram
pant appetite reigns ; and the vast responsioilities
of the elective “franchise, which arc onU secure
under the guidance of intelligent mind, are now
recklessly committed to the sensual promptings of
a burning stomach ; and the heartless demagogue
who offers the largest “horn,” most frequently re
peats the Lethean potation, and most lovingly
swings to the elbow of his odcrous victim until his
fumbling finders find the ballot box, is Hiost like In
to secure the undying horfor of a boasted Freemans
vote ! What after all is this contemptible trickery
and political swindling on the part of candidates;
for.high places, practiced in order to secure sup
port at the polls, or in the meek, but evasive
phraseology ot the conscientious politician so pr<
vent the loss of patronage ,” which perhaps he never
had —what, but the downright establishment of a
whiskey aristocracy —the practical opei ation ol the
Rottenborough system ot England, where the
SAVANNAH, GA.. SATURDAY. JANUARY 19. 1850.
I charms of a foaming quart cup, are substituted for
the attraction of golden guineas.
2nd. They deteriorate public morals. Intemper
ance relaxes the bonds of moral obligation—
weakens the defences of every virtue, and expo
ses the soul to the inroads of other vices; pro
fanity, licentiousness, insubordination to law, rev
elry, violence and murder, are its accursed but
legitimate progeny. In a government like ours,
where the sovereignty reside in the masses, popu
lar vice is political poison and to the extent of its
prevalence impairs the moral soundness and
health of the body politic. In all republics, what
the pcopde arc the government is. Largely corrupt
then this primitive source of power, and the in
fection shall be felt and its ravages deplored from
the circumference to the centre of the nation, and
from the lowest to the highest official station—from
the sentinel’s box to the Senate chamber. How
deeply important therefore to the prosperity ofour
beloved country to preserve sober pure citizenship!
3d. Talent and Moral worth are too often kept from
places of power by the common mode of conducting elec
tioneering campaigns. It must be no small tax
upon the delicacy and self respect of a gentle
man of merit to undergo the preparatory drudgery
of the canvass, by holding senseless grog shop
colloquy’s over the reeking slop bowl —enduring
the bearish hug, and snuffing the foetid breath ol
his jabbering constituents.
Let but public sentiment, however, chastened
and purified by the redeeming spirit of the age,
pronounce its anathema upon these public baccha
nalian orgies, where demagogues and vote raon
gers are chief worshippers; let that sentiment
condemn and rule out these degrading and de
moralizing scenes wherever thev mav have ob
tained, and then, and not till then, may any
amount of virtue and intelligence be readily com
manded to fill the posts of trust and honor.
4th. It wastes time and prevents labor. By an es
timate made some few years since there were not
less than 300,000 confirmed drunkards in the United
States. Now it is likely that counting the days
of absolu le debauch, the time spent in recovery
and out of employment from the forfeiture of
confidence, together with that lost from accidents,
injuries, and diseases incurred by dissipation,
<me third of the inebriates whole time (or 100 days
per annum) were utterly proffitless, and even con
tribited to incapacitate him for future duties. —
This, it will be seen, at fifty cents per day, gives
the sum of $ 15,000,000 which are lost to the
world, and which but for this controlling vice
would have been actually realized to swell the in
dustrial resources of the country.
sth. It inci cases crime and pauperism. By a care
ful reference to facts it has been ascertained that
at least three fourths of all the criminal cases com
ing under the jurisdiction of the courts of the
country, are attributable directly or remotely to
the use of spiritual liquors, and an honorable in
cumbent of the Bench in this State assures me
that that ratio is too small. The expenses annu
ally entailed upon the country by the disposition
of these £ascs is about 9J millions ot dollars,
while the amount expended for the support ot
drunkard's families, in alms-houses, hospitals, laza
rettos, &c., together with paupers who have been
made such by strong drink, numbers eight millions
more, furnishing the enormous aggregate ol sev
en teen and, a half in til t ons of doll a rs! No r are ill e
thousand private charities tendered in aid of such
miserable sufferers taken in this estimate. And
all this exhorbitant outlay for what? To repair
the.hideous breaches made in society by this al
coholic curse—to cleanse the slime Irom the track
along which the loathesome monster crawls. —
Could this vast sum be saved to the nation and ap
propriated to educational purposes, it would es
tablish two colleges in every State in the Union,
with the liberal endowment ot SIOO,OOO each, and
in addition to this, ten respectable schools in every
separate county of every Stale with an annual ap
propriation of $ 500 to each teacher, and then
leave a surplus of two millions! And had your
speaker the disbursement ol these residuary
plums, he could not more agreeably appropriate
them than to present them in wedding dowries of
SIOOO each, to 2000 lovely American girls who
should each approach the hymenial altar with a
Son of Temperance for her bride-groom.
6th. It consumes breadstuff's and turns them into poi
son. And here the #political economist might
write a volume to illustrate the folly and absurdity
of convt rung the alimentary gilts ol God, by
millions of bushels annually, into fiery fluids
which corrupt the morals, madden the brain, and
demonize the passions of our race, while famish
ing multitudes upon the same soil, daily goaded
by the pangs of unappeased hunger, drag out a
miserable and brief existence, feeding upon roots
and water cresses, and even upon the half putrid
carcases ot dead animals.*
* This may he* regard, <1 as literally true ot Ireland a tew
years since, while her distilleries were in full blast, and her
healthfu nutritious grains converted by tons into strong dnnk.
In confirmation of this position I find from re
liable statistics, that in one year (1529) England
manufactured so London Porter alone 7,400,000
bb/s. or estimating each bbl. at 30 gals. 222,000,000
gals, valued at £ 22,000,000 or $110,000,000 ! !
To assist our conceptions of so vast an amount of
liquid allow me to submit a few plain but startling
calculations—
Ist Allowing one half pint to be swallowed by
the toper every ten minutes , and the process to be
continued without cessation night and day — asleep and
awake—sick and well —it would require 1126 years
to consume the stock—or nearly the united ages
of 38 successive generations of men!
2nd. It would form a lake, 25 feet deep—2oo
feet wide, and one mile long, which would float
upon its bosom, 4S steam ships each equal in di
mensions to the Great Western !
3d. Once more : —at the lowest estimate of Slbs.
Avoiderpose, per gallon ; the whole mass would
weigh no less than 1776,000,0001b5., an amount
sufficient to load 59,200 waggons, drawn bv nearly
one fourth of a million of horses, and these assign
ing 40 feet of road to each team ; would present
an unbroken caravan of more than 448 miles long!
Here is no exaggeration, but naked truth, howev
er astounding and revolting.
Nor is this all:—In the same year, England
produced of Table Beer 1,500,000 bbls., at 25 cts.
per gallon —$11,250,000. In 1832, of distilled \\-
quors, 7,350,00 u gals., bringing a revenue $2,000,
000. Her dependencies also, have helped to
swell the inundating flood. Scotland in 1830 dis
tilled of spirits, 6,070,000 gals., at 37 h cts —$2,276,
111. Also of Ale and Beer, 339,000 gals., at 25
els —$169,500. Amid this vast waste, aye more
—this gross prostitution of her agricultural pro
ducts, while her starving millions were clamoring
for bread. No wonder that the English govern
ment, a few years since, felt herself constrained
solemnly to prohibit the distillation of grain . —
But alas! alas! the thirsty subjects of the ocean's
queen must still be furnished with the quantum suffi
cit of strong drink, audio! royal authority sub
stitutes the distillation of sugar to keep up the
revenue and gratify the lust for rum . Anc who
does not remember the almost instantaneous effect
produced upon the sugar market on this side of
the Atlantic? The same article which had sold
in onr Southern cities for SOJ per hundred, sud
denly commanded $Sj ; so that even the purse
of the poor American peasant who ventured to
sweeten his morning coffee, was taxed to supply
the alcoholic luxuries of the tippling world. —
Ireland in 1832, manufactured of spirits , 8,657,-
000 gallons, (besides contraband,) $3,246,375.
France too, although a grape-growing) country
and furnishing annually 770,000 000 gallons of
wine ; one sixth of which is distilled into
brandy ; bringing an aggregate income of $218,-
000,000, nevertheless also produces Cider and
Strong Beer, (the latter from farinaceous grain,)
estimated together at $22,000,000.
But let us turn from these transatlantic statistics
to examine the reports from the land of our birth.
The United States since the year 1790 and until
1832, has, according to Custom House returns,
imported of Spirits and Tl me, 300.000,000 of gal
lons! To this add the amount manufactured to
gether with Beer, Porter &c., and we have about
2,700,000,000 of gallons, which, at. the average
price of 50 cts. per gallon, gives the enormus sum
of $1350,000,000! Now the seven years war of
the Revolution , only cost the country $135,000,000.
Add to this the average expense of the Govern
ment, per annum, (i c 15 millions,) since the adop
tion of the Constitution in 17S8 up till IS4S, w hich
is $900,000,000, and we have the grand tota4 of
$1035.000,000. And yet the cost of alcoholic li
quors imported, manufactured, and drunk in the
United Stales, up to the year 1532, would extin
guish that immense debt, and leave a ballance in
the treasury of $315,000,000 ! Merciful Heaven !
what seasof this liquid curse have been drained
by human gullets’. No wonder that over this
broad land 30,000 scathed and bloated victims
have annually given up the ghost, and that their
places have too long continued to be filled by in
fatuated successors, hastening to the same fate.
Thirdly, as a Christian. There is a class of
men who profess high reverence for Holy Writ,
and who object to our Temperance movements,
under the plea that “ there is no direct scriptural
prohibition to the use of spirituous liquors.” Were
even this pretext for indulgence admitted, as it is
not the merest tyro in theology knows that tfie
high moral teachings of the Bible, designed for
ali ases,’ countries, and conditions of mankind,
employ generic terms and adopt and on force great,
general principles which must necessarily embra- o
every possible particular under them. Heaven
well knew that in the lapsed ages the corrupt hit
man mind would devisp an endless variety o(
modes for the indulgence of its sinful proclivities.
Now to have traced and marked them all by spe
cial inhibition, would have required perplexing
and voluminous detail, unsuited to the wants of
NUMBER 46.