Taking the Temperance Pledge

Preface to The Temperance Manual of the American Temperance Society for the Young Men of the United States (1836)

The “shadows” of Matthew Hale Smith’s New York were home to all sorts of disorders that reformers organized to address. Leading the list was alcohol abuse, an increasing problem that middle-class shopkeepers and business owners targeted in the hopes of sobering their workers. The American Temperance Society, founded in 1826, mobilized to encourage young men especially to take their pledge to abstain from alcohol and quickly developed several thousand local chapters, mostly in the northern states. The Temperance Manual, excerpted here, itemizes the Society’s arguments against intoxicating liquors.

TO EACH YOUNG MAN

IN THE UNITED STATES

RESPECTED FRIEND:

We are engaged in a great and good work; and to accomplish it we need your aid. It is the work of extending the principle of abstinence from the use of intoxicating liquor, as a beverage, throughout our country, and throughout the world. By means of the press, and of living agents, a strong impression has already been made, and a great change effected with regard to this subject. More than two millions of persons in the United States have ceased to use ardent spirit, and several hundred thousand of them have ceased to use any intoxicating drink. More than three thousand distilleries have been stopped; more than eight thousand merchants have ceased to traffic in ardent spirit, and more than ten thousand drunkards have ceased to use intoxicating drink. More than 100,000 persons, as appears from numerous facts, have been saved from becoming drunkards, who, had it not been for the change of sentiment and practice in the community, had, before now, been involved in all the horrors of that loathsome and fatal vice. The quantity of intoxicating liquor used, over extensive districts of country, has been greatly diminished; and pauperism, crime, sickness, insanity, and premature deaths have been diminished in proportion. Sobriety, industry, and economy have been greatly revived; and it is estimated by those who are acquainted with the subject, and have the best means of judging, that, in the state of New York alone, there have been saved in a year by the change with regard to the use of strong drink more than $3,000,000. The chief means of effecting this change, has been the formation, throughout the state, of Temperance Societies. Should such Societies be formed throughout our country, all persons join them, and the use of intoxicating liquor be done away, it would save annually more than $100,000,000; and more than 30,000 valuable lives. It would remove one of the greatest obstructions to all means for human improvement; one of the principal dangers to our social, civil, and religious institutions; and one of the chief causes, throughout our land, of human wretchedness and wo[e].

And what we ask of you, and of each young man in the United States, is, that you will not only abstain from the use of intoxicating liquor, but, for the sake of doing good to others, will unite with a Temperance Society; and for this purpose, that you will give your name, and the influence which is attached to it, to a pledge like the one which is annexed to this paper. And we do this for the following reasons, viz.

1. Intoxicating liquor, as a beverage is not needful or useful.…

2. Alcohol, which is the intoxicating principle in liquor, is a poison. When taken unmixed, in no very large quantity, it destroys life; and when taken even moderately, it induces disease, and forms an artificial, an unnatural, and a very dangerous appetite.…

3. The use of intoxicating liquor impairs, and in many cases destroys[,] reason. Of 781 maniacs in different insane hospitals, 392, according to the testimony of their own friends, were rendered maniacs by strong drink; and the physicians gave it as their opinion, that this was also the case with many others.…

4. It weakens the power of motives to do right. It is thus shown decisively to be in its tendency immoral; and no man can, consistently with his duty, either use it, or be accessory to the use of it by others.…

5. It strengthens the power of motives to do wrong. Temptation to crime, which men will withstand when they have not been drinking, will lead them when they have, in numerous cases, to go and commit it. Of 39 prisoners in the jail of Litchfield county, Connecticut, 35 were intemperate men. In the jail of Ogdensburg, New York, 7-8ths of the criminals were addicted to strong drink; of 647 in the state prison at Auburn, N.Y. 467 were intemperate.…

And did it destroy merely property, health, reason, and life, we could bear it. Though it should destroy more than $100,000,000 a year and bring down more than 30,000 persons annually to an untimely grave; though it should continue to make wives widows, and children orphans, and scatter on every side firebrands, arrows and death; yet, if it illuminated and purified the soul, and prepared that undying part of man, for glory and honor, immortality and eternal life, we could endure it; and for the continuance of its inexpressible and overwhelming evils, there might be a reason. But,

6. It destroys the soul. It makes sinners more sinful, and tends to prevent them from experiencing God’s illuminating and purifying power. It tends directly and strongly to make men feel, as Jesus Christ hates — rich spiritually, increased in goods, and in need of nothing; and for ever to prevent them from feeling as men must feel in order to be interested in the blessings of his salvation. The Holy Spirit will not visit, much less will he dwell with him who is under the polluting, debasing effects of intoxicating drink.…

And yet these evils, great as they are, rising up to heaven, and overwhelming, as, if continued, they certainly will be, may, nevertheless, with certainty, all be done away. Let each individual cease to use intoxicating drink, and intemperance and all its abominations will vanish; and temperance, with all its blessings to body and soul, will universally prevail.…

We, therefore, cannot but confidently anticipate that you will cheerfully, for the sake of doing good, add to the pledge which is annexed, the influence of your name. But some may say, Why sign a pledge? Why is it not as well, and even better, for each one to abstain, take care of himself, and let all others do the same? — What is the benefit of visible, organized union? […]

What was the benefit of that combination? That visible agreement? That universal pledge? Strength, action, SUCCESS.…

But says another, I should be ashamed if I could not abstain from intoxicating liquor without binding myself, and signing a paper. And suppose that one had said, when the declaration of independence was handed to him to sign, I should be ashamed if I could not be a patriot without binding myself, and signing a pledge. The object of signing that paper was not to make men patriots; but it was to lead all patriots to unite and free their country. The great object of temperance societies is not to lead their members, by signing a paper, to abstain from the use of liquor, and make them temperate; but it is to unite, in a visible, organized union, all that do abstain, and are temperate; in order to show, by example, the most powerful of teachers, that men of all ages and conditions, and in all kinds of business, are, in all respects, better without it. And when this is shown, as by visible, united example, it may be, no one, enlightened on this subject, can avoid the conviction, that it is morally wrong to use it, or to furnish it for the use of others, because of the evils which are inseparately connected with the use of it.…

But why, it is asked, should women belong to temperance societies? Because under the light of the gospel, which raises women in excellence of character and ability to do good, to an equality with men, every association, composed of both, will more than double its influence over the public mind, especially over the minds of youth and children. And the grand object of efforts for the promotion of temperance, is the salvation of the young. And to accomplish it, we need, and must have, the influence of mothers as well as fathers; sisters, as well as brothers.

There is another reason why all women should unite with temperance societies. More than a hundred thousand of the lovely daughters of the last generation were doomed to the tremendous curse of having drunken husbands, and rearing their little ones under the blasting, withering influence of drunken fathers. But there is no need of it. Let the fathers and mothers, the brothers and sisters of this generation, all cease to use intoxicating drink, and unite their influence in temperance societies, and the daughters of the next generation, and of all future generations, practising on the same plan, shall be for ever free.…

We, therefore, renewedly, and earnestly request you, and all the youth of the United States, to sign the annexed pledge, and let your names be enrolled as members of the temperance society.

And we earnestly entreat all, by the diffusion of information, the exertion of kind moral influence, and by consistent and united example, to do all in their power to cause the use of intoxicating liquor, as a beverage, universally to cease. And could we exhibit to the world the noble and sublime spectacle, of fifteen millions of people rising in their strength, and voluntarily renouncing the tyranny of pernicious custom, and resolving henceforward not to be in bondage, even to themselves, but to be doubly free, we should be indeed the people which the Lord hath blessed. And it would do more than all which has ever yet been done, to render our free institutions permanent; and by the manifestation of their blessings, to spread their causes and their attendants, knowledge, virtue, and blessedness, throughout the world.

PLEDGE.

We, whose names are hereunto annexed, believing that the use of intoxicating liquor, as a beverage, is not only needless, but hurtful to the social, civil, and religious interests of men; that it tends to form intemperate appetites and habits, and that while it is continued, the evils of intemperance can never be done away; — do therefore agree, that we will not use it, or traffic in it; that we will not provide it as an article of entertainment, or for persons in our employment; and that, in all suitable ways, we will discountenance the use of it throughout the community.

The Temperance Manual of the American Temperance Society for the Young Men of the United States (Boston: Seth Bliss, 1836), 3, 7–12.

READING AND DISCUSSION QUESTIONS