This year (^1833) is notable for another advanced step. Experience was daily demonstrating the insufficiency of a reform which interdicted distilled liquors only. Not a few drunkards signed the pledge against such beverages and kept it, and were drunkards still. Pub- lic opinion was steadih- moving towards the true ground
— total abstinence from all intoxicating drinks. Mr. Luther Jackson, of the city of New York, prepared a pledge of (ills character, and secured a thousand signa- tures. 'J"o him belongs the honor of inaugurating a new XTa in the history of the reform.
In May, 1833, the first National Temperance Conven- tion was held in the city of Philadelphia. Four hun- dred and forty delegates, representing nineteen states and one territory, counselled together three days. Two important conclusions were embodied in their resolu- tions— first, that the trafiic in distilled licpiors as a bev- erage is morally wrong; second, that it is expedient that the local societies should accept, as soon as practi- cal)le, the total-abstinence pledge. A permanent so- ciety was formed, which, under the name of the Ameri- can Temperance Union, accomplished much for the cause.
The contest from this time assumed a twofold direc- tion— one line of argument and effort aiming to dissuade the people from all use of intoxicants, and the other tak- ing the sliape of an attack upon the traffic and the laws which sanction it. Public sentiment was fast api)roach- ing the conclusion that instead of being protected by law, under the jiretence of regulating it, the traffic should be prohibited by law. The Grand Jury of the city and county of New York put on record their deliberate judg- ment that three fourths of the crime and pauperism are caused by the drinking habits of the people, and added, "It is our solemn impression that the time has now ar- rived when our public authorities should no longer sanc- tion the evil complained of by granting licenses." Sev- eral state conventions the same year adopted resolu- tions of the same tenor as those of the National Conven- tion.
In 1834 Rev. Albert Barnes, of Philadelphia, published two sermons on the iniquities of the traffic; and Sam- uel Chipman made a personal inspection of the alms- houses and jails in the state of New York, and publish- ed a report, showing how largely the alcoholic vice was responsible for crowding them with inmates. In 1835 Rev. George B. Cheever, then the youthful pastor of a church in Salem, Mass., published, under the title of Deacon Giles's Distillery, what purported to be a dream. Daemons were represented as working in the deacon's distillery, and manufacturing " liquid damnation," " mur- der," "suicide," etc., for the human employer. The stinging satire took effect. Mr. Cheever was assaulted in the streets of Salem, and was also prosecuted for slan- der by a certain rum-distilling deacon, who thought he recognised his own portrait in the deacon Giles of the dream. Mr. Cheever was convicted and im|)risoned for a few days, but on his release returned at once to the attack in another dream concerning Deacon Jones's Brewery, in which devils are described as making beer, and, as they dance about the caldron, chanting the spell of the witches in Shakespeare's Macbeth —
"Hound about the caldron go; In the |)iiisoned entrails throw; Drugs that in the coldest veius Shoi>t incessant pains ; Herlis thiit, brought from hell's black door, Do their business slow and sure— Double, dduble toil and trouble: Fire, buru ; and caldron, bubble."
The assault and the prosecution called universal atten- tion to the affair; the dreams were jiubli.-^hed every- where, and produced great effect. About the same time another local excitement aided the general cause. Mr. Delavan exposed the methods of the Albany brewers, whom he charged with procuring water for their busi- ness from a foul pond covered with green scum and de- filed with the putrid remains of dead cats and dogs. Eight brewers brought suits against him, claiming damages to the amount of three hundred thousand dol- lars, but did not succeed in recovering a dime.
In 1836 a second National Temperance Convention, attended by four hundred delegates, and presided over by Chancellor Walworth, was held at Saratoga, N. Y. The most important business done was the passing of a
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resolution that henceforth the pledge should be total abstinence from all that intoxicates. Tliis. resolution, though offered by Dr. Edwards, supported by Lyman Beecher, and adopted unanimously by the convention, was not approved by all who claimed to ,be friends of the cause. Not a few, whose temperance zeal consisted in an ardent desire to reform other people from rum and brandv. while they themselves drank wine without scru- ple, fell out of the ranks of the reform, and were seen no more. Societies disbanded in every direction, promi- nent workers under the old pledge became silent when the new one was adopted, and once more the cry of "fanaticism" filled the air, this time with some new voices in the chorus. Still, not until this hour had the reform planted itself on the right ground and grasped the true weapons of its warfare. The people rallied around the new banner, and the work went on with more efficiency than ever before. In January, 1837, the Journal of the American Temperance Union, edited by Rev. John Marsh, was established, and did valiant ser- vice till 18G5, when it was superseded by the Xationul Temperance A dvocate.