Duelling prevailed among men of honor. Public opinion made it compulsory that personal differences between gentlemen should be settled in this way. Persons were branded as cowards who would not put their lives in jeopardy. Few had the courage to resist. Duels were common among the political leaders at Washington. Many a shot rang out at sunrise in the little valley at Bladensburg, the noted duelling ground. Jackson and Benton and Clay and De Witt Clinton were duellists. After the killing of Alexander Hamilton by Aaron Burr, in 1804, the whole country was aroused and an agitation began against the custom, but it yielded slowly. In 1838 and 1841 there were duels between distinguished congressmen. But now public opinion is so transformed that the "honorable and brave" duellist is a moral coward.
Gambling was a common sin. There were lotteries organized for the raising of funds for state and municipal expenses. There were raffles at church fairs to support the ordinances in the sanctuary. The rules of the games were protected by the laws of the state. No one who had lost in a game could recover by law unless he proved that the rules of the game had not been followed. The rules for gambling were regarded as legitimate as the regulations of any business. The gambler was only a law-breaker when he "cheated." Now gambling is unlawful in every state and territory, and any newspaper advertising a lottery is shut out of our mails. Even an "honest" gambler is now classed among robbers.
Intemperance was rampant through the eighteenth century and more than half the nineteenth. Whisky was king. Through a false physiology it became the almost universal opinion that in the great portion of the United States the climate required the use of "ardent spirit." Ministers and all classes of the people were thus deluded, and almost every person, adult or child, was a consumer.
"Upon rising in the morning a glass of liquor must be taken to give an appetite for breakfast. At eleven o'clock the merchant in his counting-room, the blacksmith at his forge, the mower in the hay field, took a dram to give them strength till the ringing of the bell or the sounding of the horn for dinner. In mid-afternoon they drank again. When work for the day was done, before going to bed, they quaffed another glass. It was the regular routine of drinking in well-regulated and temperate families. Hospitalities began with drinking. 'What will you take?' was the question of host to visitor. Not to accept the proffered hospitality was disrespectful. Was there the raising of a meeting house, there must be hospitality for all the parish: no lack of liquor; and when the last timber was in its place a bottle of rum must be broken upon the ridge-place. In winter men drank to keep themselves warm; in summer to keep themselves cool; on rainy days to keep out the wet, and on dry days to keep the body in moisture. Friends, meeting or parting, drank to perpetuate their friendship. Huskers around the corn-stack, workmen in the field, master and apprentice in the shop, passed the brown jug from lip to lip. The lawyer drank before writing his brief or pleading at the bar; the minister, while preparing his sermon or before delivering it from the pulpit. At weddings bridegroom, bride, groomsman, and guest quaffed sparkling wines. At funerals minister, friend, neighbor, mourner, all except the corpse, drank of the bountiful supply of liquors always provided. Not to drink was disrespectful to living and dead, and depriving themselves of comfort and consolation. In every community there were blear-eyed men with bloated, haggard faces; weeping women, starving children." (Building of a Nation. Page 271.)
While "temperate" men were grieved at the tide of wretchedness and protested, they did not think it possible to get on without whisky. Dr. Prime, for so many years editor of the New York Observer, told of the meeting of the family physician and the pastor at his father's home in a case of severe illness. When the physician took his leave the pastor followed him into the yard, where they had a long consultation. The pastor was anxiously seeking advice. Three drinks made his head swim, and the problem was how he could make more than three calls and not become unsteady. The doctor gave directions and Dr. Prime said that neither the minister nor the physician thought of the simple remedy, "not drinking."
It has taken two generations, but the transformation is marvelous. The minister can now call in every home in his parish and never once have an opportunity to drink. If Rev. John Pierpont was yet living, who was put out of his pulpit in Boston by an ecclesiastical council because he publicly protested against the use of the basement of his church as a storeroom for whisky, he would see every minister losing his pulpit who would not publicly protest against such a desecration. Rev. George B. Cheever, the dreamer, in 1830, woke up the stupid consciences of the fuddled men and women; he wrote out his dream and published it, "Deacon Giles' Distillery," and went to jail for it, but even he never dreamed of the greatness of the temperance reform that has followed.
The overthrow of chattel slavery is complete and the human rights of the inferior peoples are recognized. Human slavery was of old, as ancient as history; it was widespread over the world; there was an immense and profitable commerce in human flesh; luxurious wealth and ease was secured by appropriating labor without compensation; it was thought that the Scriptures in both Testaments approved the holding of bondmen; there was a consciousness of superior gifts; there was a firm belief that the negroes, especially, needed the care of the superior race; that they were better off and happier than they would be in freedom; there was a deep-seated race prejudice that remains unyielding till this day. Yet the slave trade has ceased, stopped by armed vessels patroling the seas. The slaves, eight hundred thousand, in the West Indies were set free; the shackles were stricken off by the sword in the United States; Brazil adopted gradual emancipation, and chattel slavery disappeared forever from the civilized world.
The reform battles fought and won are assurances that victory shall also reward those who contend against this sin of usury. There are also other good grounds for confidence.
1. They are seeking only a return—a reform: "a restoration to a former state;" they are not seeking for the establishment of some new and untried theory, but they are seeking a return to the faith and conduct of the righteous from the beginning and up seventeen centuries of the Christian era. The race is but temporarily deflected to the worship of the golden calf.
2. There is coming forward a great army of intelligent, virtuous young people. They are made intelligent by our high schools, seminaries and colleges. They are made students of the Bible and stimulated in righteousness by Sunday Schools, Christian Associations, Endeavors, Leagues and Unions. From these there shall rise up defenders of the truth, free from the burden of debt and unbiassed by life-long association with conditions familiar to those older. The reformers in all ages have been young, and this reform will be no exception. There is a rashness in youth that needs direction, but there is also a dash and hope and confidence that is necessary to break away from old customs. One generation of intelligent, virtuous young people could give this evil its fatal blow.