Farmers and distillers, whom I address, pause, I beseech you, and meditate upon this fact. It is poison into which you convert your rye and apples; it is poison which, under the name of whiskey and cider-brandy, you put into your cellars; it is poison which you draw out from the brandy and whiskey casks for drink, and which you offer your children and friends for drink; it is poison which you sell to your neighbors; it is producing the same effects as other poisons upon you and upon them; that is, it is undermining your constitutions, and shortening your lives and happiness. You would not dare thus to manufacture and distribute among the community calomel or arsenic, if these were in use, leaving it to every man to determine how large doses he should take. Yet it would not be half as dangerous for men of all descriptions to deal out and administer these substances to themselves and others, for there would be none of that bewitching temptation to excess, in the case of calomel and arsenic, which attends ardent spirits. But if by carelessly distributing calomel or arsenic in society, you had destroyed only one life, your conscience would be exceedingly burdened with the guilt. And who is to bear the guilt of destroying the thirty or forty thousand who are cut off annually in this country by intemperance? Suppose the distilleries were all to stop, how many would then die from hard drinking?
But if alcohol is poisonous in a degree, yet it is often necessary, you say. Physicians say not, except in a very few cases as a medicine; and even in these cases it is doubtful whether they have not other remedies as good, or better. Spirits are necessary, you say, to enable a man to endure great extremes of heat, cold, fatigue, and in exposure to wet, and attendance upon the sick. If this be correct, farmers will sometimes need them. But many of the most hard-working and thorough farmers in the land have, within a few years past, tried the experiment of laboring without spirits; and their unanimous testimony is, that they are stronger, healthier, and better able to bear all extremes and severe fatigue without them. Have you ever tried the same experiment? Be persuaded to make the trial, at least for one year, before you reject so much substantial testimony.