The late Philip Clark, of Mattoon, Illinois, an old-time friend of Lincoln, is reported to have said: "We were together one night in a country neighborhood, when some one proposed that we all go to church, close by, to hear the Rev. John Berry preach a temperance sermon. After listening intently, Abe remarked to me that that subject would some time be one of the greatest in this country."
In the year 1847, Lincoln made a number of temperance addresses and circulated a total abstinence pledge, urging persons to sign it. Among those who signed the pledge presented by Mr. Lincoln were Moses Martin and Cleopas Breckenridge, who are still living. Recently I wrote to Mr. Martin, asking him to furnish for this book a statement concerning his recollections of Lincoln and his temperance speech. He promptly answered, as follows:
"Edinburg, Illinois, January 14, 1909.
"Mr. J. T. Hobson, Dear Sir:—I heard Abraham Lincoln lecture on temperance in 1847, at the South Fork schoolhouse. He came out from Springfield. He had gotten up a pledge. It was called the Washingtonian pledge. He made a very forcible lecture, the first temperance lecture I ever heard, and the first one ever delivered in our neighborhood. It was in the grove, and a large crowd came out to hear the lecture. Lincoln asked if any one had anything to say, for it or against it, while he circulated the pledge, he would hear from them. My old friend, Preston Breckenridge, got up and made a very forcible talk. He signed the pledge, and all his children. Cleopas was his son. Nearly every one there signed it. Preston went out lecturing. I usually went with him and circulated the pledge copied after Abraham Lincoln's pledge. It read as follows: 'Whereas, the use of intoxicating liquors as a beverage is productive of pauperism, degradation, and crime, and believing it is our duty to discourage that which produces more evil than good; we, therefore, pledge ourselves to abstain from the use of intoxicating liquors as a beverage.' When I signed Lincoln's pledge I was about nineteen years old. I am now eighty years old.
Moses Martin."
At my request, Mr. Martin kindly sent his picture for this book. Cleopas Breckenridge, who is referred to in Mr. Martin's letter, is living, in his seventy-third year, at Custer, Illinois. As he has furnished a statement for other publications, he writes that he prefers not to furnish it again. It may be said, however, that he was ten years old when Lincoln, by permission, wrote his name under the pledge, then placing his hand on the little boy's head, said, "Now, sonny, you keep that pledge, and it will be the best act of your life." In his long life, subject to many temptations, Mr. Breckenridge has faithfully kept his pledge made at Mr. Lincoln's temperance meeting.
On the 29th of September, 1863, in response to an address from the Sons of Temperance in Washington, President Lincoln said:
"If I were better known than I am, you would not need to be told that, in the advocacy of the cause of temperance you have a friend and a sympathizer in me. When I was a young man—long ago—before the Sons of Temperance as an organization had an existence, I, in a humble way, made temperance speeches, and I think I may say that to this day I have never, by my example, belied what I then said.... I think the reasonable men of the world have long since agreed that intemperance is one of the greatest, if not the very greatest, of all evils among mankind. This is not a matter of dispute, I believe. That the disease exists, and that it is a very great one, is agreed upon by all. The mode of cure is one about which there may be differences of opinion."
It is true that President Lincoln, during the awful pressure of the Civil War, signed the Internal Revenue Bill, (H. R., No. 312,) to raise money from various sources to support the Government, among which was the licensing of retail dealers in intoxicating liquors. This bill was warmly discussed. Some years ago, I read these discussions in the "Congressional Record," of May 27, 1862. Senators Wilson, Pomeroy, Harris, and Wilmot opposed the licensing of the sale of intoxicants in the strongest manner. Mr. Lincoln threatened to veto the bill, but, as a war measure, and, acting under dire necessity, with the assurance that the bill would be repealed when the war was over, he reluctantly signed the bill, July 1, 1862. Up to this time, however, the bill has never been repealed. There have been some changes made, among which the word "license" was changed to "special tax," but the import is practically the same.