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OR,
Vol. I ]
THE WASHINGTONIAN.
HU BUSHED BY JAMES MeCAFFERTY,
TWICE EVERT MONTH.
Office 0,1 Macintosh street — opposite the Post Office.
TERMS.
For a single copy, for one year. One Dollar ; for six
copies, to one address. Five Doll in ; for ten copies, to
one address, Eight Dollars—and so in proportion.
Payment in all cases to he made in advance.
All communications by mail, must be rosv pud,
to receii e attention.
WASHINGTON
Total Abstinence Society of Augusta.
OFFICERS:
Dr. Joseph A. Eve, President.
llev W». T. BRAXTLr, Vice-President.
Wm. Haixes, Jr.,Secretary and Treasuier.
Mjnagei r—James Harper,Dr. F. M. Robertson, F. W.
I'olman, Jesse Wolton, James W. Whitlock, William 1
Shear, C. C. Taliaferro.
Speech of tile Uni:. Thomas-F. Marshall,
on Fashionable Wine Drinking. Deliv
ered at the Btoadway Tabernacle, \ew
York, on tne Ith of May, 1811.
I had expected. Gentlemen and Ladies that
my colleague and friend, Mr. Briggs, of Massa
chusetts, would have been here to-night to make
some remarks; but I am informed, since arriving,
that he has been attacked by a severe indisposi
tion, which continues, and is of such a kind as
prevents his affording you the agreeable treat of
his presence and an address to-night. I have
myself—and I name the fact that the audience
may excuse the, knyness of my Voice at least
ween I first commence the remarks I design to
sake -I have labored all day under a severe cold,
pprtw?--; . ted lust night by very imprudent
ly going into the cold without my cloak. * lell
trie room extremely heated and went into the
open air. which wVs exceedingly cold, and struck ;
at once to my chest. 1 have labored under a so- I
vere pain in my head and breast, with a feeble
ness of voice, all day; and it was with great
difficulty that 1 reached here myself. Nothing,
ind. cd, hut the very deep interest which 1 take
in the cause in which ! am engaged, and noth
iri-r hut a disposition, to the very best of my abili
ty,’to return the kindness I have received from
the citizens of New-\ork ever since 1 visited it. i
would have induced me to be present to-night.
Judging ftom the immense concourse of people
which attended at tlic Tabernacle on \vednes
day evening, and seeing that the -nretnirr to-night
was advertised in all the city papers, I had the j
win it v to presume that it was expected by many
who would here attend that I should be present;
and from the fact of my being a stranger, and the .
somewhat singular relation to this great ques- j
tion which I hive been made to sustain by the 1
public prints, which are in every body's bands, 1
have been led to think that many may have !
come here upon this occasion from a curiosity to
bear me —a curiosity lam perfectly willing, on
mv part, to gratify, especially in relation to a |
people who havereceived and treated me with so ;
much kindness and attention.
You have heard to-night, and have had exhib
ited palpably to your senses by the learned gen
tleman who preceded me, the physiological facts
in connection, with the use of alcohol by man.
I mean not to go into this subject at any great
length, for lain no physician. It has however
been asceitained and proved that alcohol, where
eier we find it— no matter in what fluid or with
what fluid we find it in composition, through
them all— wine, cider, {hard, cider that is,) beer,
ale, porter, brandy, whiskey, rum—in all the
forms of fluid which the device and ingenuity of
man has discovered, with vvhicn alcohol is com
mingled—trace it through them all, and its oper
ation is the same. There is no organ with which
nature has armed the human frame, of sufficient
power to digest and appropriate it as aliment to
the animal System. It enters into the stomach
alcohol; it circulates through the system alco
hol ; it leaves the system alcohol —unchanged
and unoperated upon by any of the organs with
which it comes in contact, or to whose influence
it is subjected through all its passage in circula
tion. Its influence on the delicate coats of the
stomach—the most delicate surfaces ofthe human
frame—has been exhibited to your view. Its
influence on the nervous system is among the
most remarkable phenomena it exhibits. Its in
fluence there is peculiar to itself, as every one
knows. Nothing else that /know of—no poison
with which l am at all acquainted —no other
fluid, certainly, which I have ever swallowed—
produces the same effect on me as alcohol does in
any of its forms. (Cheers.) It not only in
flames the stomach in the manner which has
been exhibited so truly—advancing on from the
TOTAL ABSTINENCE ADVOCATE.
first stages of irritation to the last stage of gan
grenous inflammation—prostrating all the pow
ers and the functions destined for
that organ— o wonderful in its contrivance and
so important in all the relations of the animal
economy—to perform; it no only does this—if it
were content with this: if it only achieved what
other substances alien to the constitution per
form, it would not be so serious an evil; —but it
is upon finer and subtler instruments—the finer
and subtler instruments of the human mind by
which this wonderful creation called the human
understanding, so far as we are acquainted, oper
ates—it is on the sensorium—on the brain and
! nervous system —that alcohol works its greatest
mischief; and it is through the destruction of
this all-important instrument that it achieves the
overthrow of the moral and ineffectual man.
What this connection of mind and body is, it is
not for me to inquire. It lias perplexed and bat
fled all philosophy,
, flow is it that the mind 1 possess - which eve-!
, ry one of us believes to lie spiritual and immor
tal—which a creed not fanciful apprehends to be
an emanati n from Divinity itself— infused into
man from the very nostrils of his creator —as
communicated to us by the revelation of God
himself-—how it is that this immortal principle
does operate and communicate with external
nature through the .brain and nerves and fluids,
which permeate and penetrate and circulate
through every part ofthe human body—through |
which alone sensation and ideas arecominunica- [
ted to the understanding—how these wonderful j
effects are achieved 1 mean not to inquire; and j
if I did, perhaps the inquiry would be fruitless.
But we know that such is the fact. Destroy the !
nerves andsensations ceases. Destroy one set of I
nerves, and one class of sensation ceases: des-!
troy another set and the power of the mind over ;
the muscles—the action of the will, of volition,!
ceases. W • know then that the nervous fluid |
whatever it nay he—that the brain is the seat of i
sensation and the great organ of the mind, and i
that the nerves are like so many messengers sent j
out from the brain to every part of the body to ;
| bring to the intellect—its throne- -all that they (
learn of the mighty nature by whicli they are
; surrounded. This alcohol operates upon these
messengers so as to deprive them of theirpeculiar
funetions-to distort the information tiiey receive,
and to render t hem, instead of the heralds oftruth
from the universe to the enthroned monarch
within—the soul of man—lying heralds—the !
heralds of false impressions and perceptions to
the mind to which they announce whatever oc
curs in the wide world around. It is then on
these finer instruments of the intellect--material
though these instruments be —yet by means of
: which the Almighty has enabled the human
understanding to bold communication with, and j
draw information fromsurroundingnnd external;
nature —on these instruments it is tnat the subtle
I foe to all that is divine in our nature exerts its
1 greatest power and its greatest destruction. And
; what a ruin—and what a ruin, gentlemen,
is this! Men say it stimulates—and so it does,
and a most unhealthy stimulus it is to the animal
spirits with which nature has turnished us. Let,
these animal spirits alone—or supply them only
with the natural aliment which nature has pro
vided and God has furnished—an all-sufficient
magazine to serve all the purposes of life and
enable us fully to supply the wants of failing
nature and to replenish any waste that the busi
ness and pursuits of life may make in the stores
ofthe animal system. Why the stimulus alcohol
furnishes is something like that which the in
cendiary would supply to the means of defence
provided for a great country—in its magazines—
ample magazines of powder sufficient to serve it J
for a long and dangerous war, if only you called ;
upon it in prudence and in time of danger, aJI
sufficient for all defence. But the incendiary j
madman may seize a chunk of fire and rush into
this magazine and blow up all at once, all your
strength and hope and means of defence. Call
(hat a stimulus—and it resembles that stiirlulus
which all at once blows up the human system.
[This was followed by deafening applause: and
after a momont’s consultation of his watch Mr. j
Marshall proceeded.]
I don’t like to speak against time much, but!
my own strength and the patience of the audience
are both indications that I should not take too i
wide a scope in a subject which is perfectly and
entirely inexhaustible —connecting itself as it •
does with all the moral, social, and political rela
tions of man—all the duties he owes to his fel
lows, his country, and his God. My friend at
my elbow, [Mr. Marsh,] suggests that I had a
particular subject chalked out for discussion at
this time, and that is Fashionable Wine-drink
ing. Unacquainted as lam with the people of
New-York, and almost a stranger to all the bright
faces I see around me, I am still led to infer, from ,
the promptings that are given me, that there
must be a vast number of fashionable wine-
AUGUSTA, GA. JUNE 11, 1842.
drinkers present on this occasion. I hope—
indeed I know—from every indication furnished
me, both to-night and on Wednesday evening,
that the audience to whom I have spoken, both
now and then, appreciate perfectly the delicacy
of my situation and the embarrassing circum
stances into which I have voluntarily thrown
myself. That I, appearing for the first time in
the great citv of iNcw-Yotk, and addressing a
New-York audience for the first time on my very
first visit to that proud city,should labor under a
feeling of embarrassment, is perfectly natural;
so natural thatyou must be aware of it, and with
due consideration will make all allowance forme
arising out of that circumstance. It has been
my fortune, or rather my misfortune, never to
have been inthecity of New-York till last Wed
nesday. Tie whole scene burst upon me with
entire novnity and a splendor almost equal to
that which met the gaze of Adam when he fi'st
! opened his eyes upon the whole universe, (Ap
plause.) The sensations 1 experienced were
entirely novel; for they were like nothing 1 had
ever known before. Nothing in my experience
furnished me any means or instrument of com
parison by which to measure my feelings as I
approached the point below. That I might have
the best view on this my first visit, I came by '
water, and took the boat from Amboy on Wed-1
nesday. And can you, or can you not—albeit j
accustomed to the scenery through which 1 j
i passed from that point to Castle toarden — can j
j you, or ralher can you not, imagine how a j
| stranger m|ist have felt on beholding the eviden- i
! ces of the progress of your city which burst upon j
my view from the time i first embarked 1 Bred i
! in the “ ffr West,” beyond the Apalachian I
| mountains; the deep and rolling ocean, in all his \
■ solemn ami silent grandeur, never presented him- j
; self to my qyc, except the glimpse 1 caught of him j
| as we rounded Staten Island. Then again be-!
; yond the Narrows—there he lay! the. ocean on
I one side, and the ocean's queen- -the city ofNcw
: York—on the other! [Loud applause.] i la
j bored under all the vast sensations which a scene
»o grand could not fail to produce, and which
: were produced; and for a moment 1 forgot that I
was a Washingtonian! Notwithstanding ihe
amount of cold water that rolled before me, for a
single instant the object of my mission vanished
from my mind, and 1 forgot—pardon me—that 1
ever was a Washingtonian! But the intellect
soon returned, and oh! upon the very subject
upon which I have been sent, or rather been call
: ed here to say something, in this great city, there
was abundant food for meditation in the grand
scenery which was then spread out before me.
As I looked upon the city of New-York, the
metropolis of my country—for the United States,
thank God, is my country: I approached it as a
; city jn which I had some interest . I looked upon
j NeW-York as a city containing a vast commerce,
capital, and commercial enterprize, and laboring |
for the necessities, the comforts, and the inde
pendence of that far country from whence I
come. I looked upon it as a means of support to
thatcountry.
This emporium of commerce, this great centre
of ttade—and this great centre of fashion with j
all its appendages —for 1 consider all the towns j
aroUnd it, big as some of them are, as dwindling
into: villages beside the mighty mother and parent |
of them all; as part and parcel of this great city
of New-York—containing a population approxi
mating to a million of people—larger than some
of the proudest sovereign States of this Union
I locked on this, I say, as the centre ot trade and
the centre of fashion—as destined to influence,
now and forever, in a most immense degree, not
only the fashions but the ideas ofthe men ofthat
vast Western country. (Applause.) And it is
so. Perhaps you have never been in the West:
you that are located here. Then you can scarce
ly know or immagine what an influence Ncw-
Ifork has even in the smallest and merest trifles
every i’hcre in the great Western Country.
Why a Western fellow does not consider him
self half dressed unless he has every thing from
New-York—unless he has even a New-York !
hat on] (Applause.) If you come across two j
; bucks [here, let them meet in the street of some !
| village; and get into a dispute about the block of |
! their bfcaver- ‘Why,’ says one, ‘I got mine ini
Philadelphia.’ ‘ Pooh,’ says the other, ‘ I got |
i mine in New- York’ —and that’s a settler. Why
the vejy cut and fashion of our garments must
! come from New-York. New-York has better
tailors evgp, than any other city, let that city do
her b^t; and whenever a Western fellow wishes
to appfar particularly charming in the eyes of
some fiiir lady—and some of us Western chape
are extremely fond of exhibiting the beauty of
our persons —he don’t think himsel f half clad
unlessevery garment is made in the city of New-
York. Every thing must come from New-York!
; From her, as a root, spring all the branches of
fashion and manners. How immensely import
ant then does it become, not only that the city of l
New-York, but that the whole wide-spread
country of which she is the centre and the pride
—to the whole world—what fashions and what
manners she is toettle for them all! It becomes
of infinite moment to tho whole country, what
are the fashions of New-York : it becomes a ter
ritory which, if hostile to us Washingtonians,
we have a great interest in invading at once
If evil fashions do prevail—if evil manners, hos
tile to the single tiuth which we maintain, do
prevail in fvew-York, it is important that we
make tear upon this your city; and i! we wish to
cut up the evil by the root, the place to be-in is
this same city of New-York. It is not worth
while to be climbing out ou the branches and
lopping off the limbs, and twigs, and cutting off
the leaves. Here is the trunk— here's the root of
the matter, and if we can only dig that up: the
trunk, boughs, limbs, branches, twigs, leaves,
and all must wither and perish a9 a mat ter of
physical necessity! (Applause.) Do you let it
become established and known as a pan" of man
ners in New-York : as one principle of good
breeding and of the fashion of society: that it is
an ungentlemanly thing to offer and to press
upon a friend to do that which if he does to any
extent—to just that extent that he does it, it
infallibly injures him; and not only that but
which, if he had no liking for it before, it imme
diately provokes a liking and leads necessarily to
farther indulgence and farther injury. Let it
once he known that it is considered ungenteel in
New-York for one gentleman to ask. another to
drink wine with him, at his table or his house
let this once be understood, and I’ll bet you it is
instantly considered the bight of vulgarity all
j over the United States! (L.auohter and ap-
I plause.)
I am telling you now a simple truth ; and I do
| not do it from any disposition to compliment you
at all, but just to make you aware of the prodi
j gious influence the manners and fashions of this
I city have over the whole country, and to make
you aware, of the tremendous responsibility un
der which you live. Let it be understood and
it will be quoted; begin here and go to the small
est village in Kentucky; Let the richest mer
chant in that village, who has made his money
by buying here and selling there, and has at last
retired, as they call it, to enjoy in old age the
fruits of the labor and industry of his youth: let
him offer a bottle of wine and press his guest to
drink it—he will be told, ‘Why, my clear Sir,
have you ever been to New-York 1 " Don’t you
know that in New-York it’s held to be very vul
gar to offer a gentleman wine V Now it’s no
matter whether this be founded in propriety and
right or not; hut the fact is so, and if you can
set and change the fashionsevery month—if you
can make a broad skirt to a gentleman’s coat
beautiful one month, and a narrcnc skirt just as
beautiful another month, and just because its the
I fashion in New-York, why you can also set the
fashion on this as on any other subject.
Well, then, since this is perfectly understood,
that if New-York says its ungentlemanly to ask
aman to get drunk, it will be pronounced vulgar
everywhere, the only remaining question is,
ought you to do it 1 Is it a mere question of fash
ion, as perfectly indifferent as the length of the
skirt of a gentleman’s coat, or is it notf Isthere
any thing more important in it, or is there not?
I said just now, and I wish to repeat it if you
please, not that I don’t suppose it perfectly un
derstood, but just to keep up a sort of connection
to my subject, that there is one remarkable physi
cal peculiarity to alcohol, which no other liquid
possesses; and another is that the food it craves
never satisfies it. Every other appetite is satisfi
ed by its appropriate food, but the instant you
have swallowed alcohol, that instant it "excites a
craving for more.
And whatever the quantity of the fluid /ou
take, the system siiiu.s just as far bejfevv as it was
raised above its natural tone; and this might
well be illustrated by regarding the system as a
thermometer. Thus the seeond time vou take
it, you want it more than at first, and so" or until
at last it becomes absolutely necessary. Y< u
liav’nt that healthy state With which you b 1 ; .n:
but you must not onlyjdrink then with the risk
which was incurred at first, but you have to
bring the system bwdk to the healthy system with
which you commenced : the first dram you drink
makes it necessary if you follow your sensations ;
and this ; s tile secret of the great dangeT ot
temperate drinking. Did you ever know an in
temperate drinker who haii not first been a tem
perate drinker ? Bnd was there ever a man on
God’s earth that took the second glasß thithad’nt
before taken the first ? and was there ever a
mortal man found to be drunkard who had
never touched, nor tasted, nor bandied the
‘critter’at all? (Loud laughter.)
This is the philosophy of tbc matter. Ought
you not to change the fashion if it exists—and
1 know nothing about the people or the fashion?
of this citv-.I can’t tell how 'tis with others, but
[No. I.
