A discourse on intemperance : delivered at Cincinnati, March 1, 1828, before the Agricultural society of Hamilton county, and subsequently pronounced, by request, to a popular audience / By Daniel Drake.

  • Drake, Daniel, 1785-1852.
Date:
1828
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A discourse on intemperance : delivered at Cincinnati, March 1, 1828, before the Agricultural society of Hamilton county, and subsequently pronounced, by request, to a popular audience / By Daniel Drake. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    excitement; which, in general, is attained, whatever may be the fate of the pretended object. But supposing that object to be real and attainable; no moralist or patriot could refuse So condemn racing, unless he adopt the maxim, sub- versive of all morali:y, that the end will justify the means^ The Olympic games required discipline of body and mind,; and, to a certain extent, gave that energy to both, for which the ancient Greeks weve distinguished. But these modern games call out the mass of our young men, and array them against each other over the bottle, as their coursers are matched upon the turf. We thus sacrifice the morals ofi our sons, to improve the speed of our horses! Intemperance is promoted by several kinds of stated, pops- ular meetings, which are indispensable to the constitution of our free governments. Our annual elections, semi-annual militia trainings, and, in Virginia and Kentucky, the monthly courts of justice, are all of this kind. In Ohio the militia musters are most promotive of dissipation; but in Kentucky, from a difference in the laws, all three, are, perhaps, equally injurious. Every philanthropist should open his eyes to the vices which arc practised, by many of those who attend on these occasions. They cannot be abolished, but the inso- briety which they generate, might be much abated by the frowns or exhortations of (he temperate; and it is truly de- plorable that these should be so generally withheld. Great, however, as the drinking on election days really is, it amounts to nothing, in comparison with the aggregaied in- temperance, which, in some parts of the Western country, grows out of what is denominated the electioneering cam- paign. Even in common years, the candidates take the field several months before the election;—when a true po- litico-civil war ensues, and rages, with increasing violence, till the balloting takes place. The intellectual gladiators