“The warfare hitherto waged against the demon intemperance has somehow or other been erroneous. Either the champions engaged or the tactics they have adopted have not been the most proper. …Another error, as it seems to me, into which the old reformers fell, was the position that all habitual drunkards were utterly incorrigible and therefore must be turned adrift and damned. …In my judgment such of us as have never fallen victims have been spared more from the absence of appetite than from any mental or moral superiority over those who have… Happy day when – all appetites controlled, all poisons subdued, all matter subjected – mind, all conquering mind, shall live and move, the monarch of the world. Glorious consummation! Hail, fall of fury! Reign of reason, all hail!”
Speech at Springfield, February 22, 1842
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