LINCOLN ON TEMPERANCE.
Reading edition
In response to an address from the Sons of Temperance in Washington, on the 29th of September, 1863, Mr. Lincoln made the following remarks:
"As a matter of course, it will not be possible for me to make a response co-extensive with the address which you have presented to me. 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 sympathiser in me. When a young man—long ago—before the Sons of Temperance, as an organization had an existence, I, in an 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. That 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 opinions. You have suggested that in an army—our army, drunkenness is a great evil, and one which while it exists to a very great extent, we cannot expect to overcome so entirely as to leave such success in our arms as we might have without it. This, undoubtedly, is true, and while it is, perhaps rather a bad source to derive comfort from, nevertheless, in a hard struggle, I do not know but what it is some consolation to be aware that there is some intemperance on the other side, too; and that they have no right to beat us in physical combat on that ground."