citizens intemperate; that in consequence of this intemperance
the country sustains an annual loss, in the productive labor of these
drunkards, of not far from $30,000,000; and a loss of more than
twenty-five thousand lives, from her middle-aged citizens, who are thus
cut off prematurely? That two-thirds of the pauperism in the country,
costing from $6,000,000 to $8,000,000, and two-thirds of the crime among
us, perpetrated by an army of eighty or ninety thousand wretches, result
from the same cause; and that from forty to fifty thousand of the cases
of imprisonment for debt, annually, are imputed to the same cause? That
the pecuniary losses proceeding from the carelessness and rashness of
intemperate sailors, servants, and agents, are immense; and that the
degradation of mind, the bodily and mental sufferings of drunkards and
their families, and the corruption of morals and manners, are
altogether beyond the reach of calculation to estimate, and of words to
express?[E]

[Footnote E: In order to obtain the result in this paragraph,
the well-established estimates that have often been made,
concerning the cost and evils of ardent spirits in our
country, have been reduced about one fourth or fifth part, to
make allowance for the amount imported from abroad.]

Can it be that these men have ever soberly looked forward to see what
must be the ultimate effects, upon our free and beloved country, of this
hydra-headed evil, unless it be arrested? Can they be aware that,
judging by the past proportion of deaths from intemperance in the most
regular and moral parts of the land, one third of the six million adults
now living will die from the same cause? Do they know how the
intemperate entail hereditary diseases and a thirst for ardent spirits
upon their descendants, and how rapidly, therefore, the bodily vigor of
our citizens is giving way before their deadly influence? And can they
doubt that vigor of mind will decay in the same proportion? Corruption
of manners and morals too, how rapidly it will spread under the
operation of this poison! Nor can religious principle stand long before
the overwhelming inundation; and just in the degree in which alcoholic
liquors are used, will the Sabbath, and the institutions of religion,
and the Bible be neglected and trodden under foot. And when the
morality, and religion, and the conscience of the majority of our nation
are gone, what but a miracle can save our libertie