Martinsburg gazette. [volume] (Martinsburg, Va. [W. Va.]) 1833-1855, 1852-10-20
miscellaneous.
From the ational ntellgcncer
GENERAL SCOTT ON TEMPEKANCE.


GENERAL SCOTT ON TEMPERANCE.
| To The Editors
GENTLEMEN w i'll you permit an old SOL
der in the cause of Temperance who
has been engaged for the last twenty odd years
battling against the armies of Bacchus- to
express his surprise that. while other brilliant
deeds Of the illustrious Scott have been nam
ed, and have elected the admiling gratitude
Of his country, nothing has yet been said Of
him as an interested and noble advocate of
the Temperance reform?
ask then. the privilege, through the col
umns OF your paper. to say to every friend of
this benevolent enterprise, ard particularly
those who understand the full meaning of the
words Lone. Purity and FideHty.' to re-
member that Gen. Winfield Scott, while q
member Of the Societies formed in New York
for 1.-THE prevention of pauperism' aud the
suppression ofvice and immortality struck the
devouring beast of intemperance blow be
tween the horns which has been felt from that
day to the present
He is one Of the first pioneers in this great
work About the year 1926. Dr. Lyman
Beecher preached his celebrated Temperance
discourse, and, though not the founder, was
yet among the earliest advocates oftbis cause
But. previous to this on the 22d December
1921. Gen. Scott published his great Tenn
perance document, ono If the most able ever
written on the subject IL appeared in the
1e0th number of the above date, o. the Ma.
tional Gazette, edited by Robert Walsh, and
occupied twelve columns of supplement of
that paper, from which it was copied aud sent
abroad in every direction as living messen-
ger to plead the cause Of suffering thousands
We give short extract from this essay, and
here it is, "ad rcrbum :"
ut is now many years since the writer OF
this essay was FIRST made to reflect, WITH some
intensity, on the vice of drunkenness, whilst
endeavorirg to apply remedy. in a small
corps. to that greatest source Of disease and
characterization in the rank ard file of an ar.
my. Having the attention so awakened, and
subsequently, being much accustomed 0
change of place from one extreme Of the
Union to another, he has been led to observe,
with more than usual keenness, the ravages
of the same habit among the more numerous
classes o. the community. The conviction
has thus been forced upon him that, of all
accidental evils this is the most disastrous
to our general population.
Insanity from other causes is for exam
pie. exceedingly rare. The yellow fever on
ly visits occasionally some of our larger cities
on the seaboard; the small pox, once the
terror of the world, has disappeared before
the benign influence of vaccination; but the
rirns Of intempcrance still circulates every
where, and saps the foundations of morals
health and happiness For, not infinitely to
dwell. in this place. on the innumerable dis
orders both domestic and public. which hour
ly result from the earlier progress of intoxi-
cation happily, in some few individuals new
err carried to excess, nor ripened into fixed
habit. and such ills alone constitute fright
full aggregate-how few are the families that
have not been within the memory of the liv-
ing. planeed into the deepest affection by this
baleiul vice ), that have not bad son blight
ed in the vigor of youth and genius By its
pestllentlal breath "a fond husband alienated
by the syren; or father laid in an uniime
Is grave by the destroyer. leaving tender
offspring destitute aud forlorn. Lives there
person who believes this picture overcharged
Let hin 60 forth from his corner and inquire
of the frs, man of observation in his way
whether such calamities do rot almost daily
occur within the sphere of lis knowledge p
There can be no doubt that magistrates. law
ycrs, physicians. divines, and others much in
the world or much connected with its bust
ness and sufferings would universally concur
in one mournful reply ha
"HTis quenchless thirst
or ruinous ebriety that prompts
His every action and imfrutes the man.
Who slaryes his own who persecntes, the blood
He gave them in his chillrens veins, and hates
And wrongs the woman he has sworn to love"
ais there, then, no antidote for this evil
no kind preventive to the mother vice which
augments. in thousand ways. the general
sum of human wretehedpess
1--WE are told Of an ancien. spring. the wa
tiers Of which gave 20 those who even once
drank of them sovereign distaste Of isfoxi-
eating liquors. In our times. private assoc
Citations have interposed their benevolent eff
forts to arrest the burning food moralists
have detained and Legislatures enacted par
till laws against it; and the pulpit. tho. arm
ed with Divine Revelation, everywhere sends
forth its denunciations . Theevils till spreads
A master remedy yet remains to be found
"'The gathering number, rs 1t moves along,
Involves a vast Involuntary throng;
Who, gently drawn, and struggling less and less,
Roll in her vortex, and her power confess.'n
General Scott proceeds to show some Of
the happy results which would flow from the
adoption of temperance principles
''Thus it has been shown (apd some OF the
probable results viii be more strictly demon
strated) that, under the operation Of the pro.