the one epitaph with my lead pencil on the shingle over the pauper's
grave; I write the other epitaph with a chisel, cutting on the white
marble of the senator: "Slain by strong drink." The time came when
dissipation was no longer a hindrance to office in this country. Did we
not at one time have a Secretary of the United States carried home dead
drunk? Did we not have a Vice-President sworn in so intoxicated the
whole land hid its head in shame? Judges and jurors and attorneys
sometimes tried important cases by day, and by night caroused together
in iniquity.

During the war whiskey had done its share in disgracing manhood. What
was it that defeated the armies sometimes in the late war? Drunkenness
in the saddle! What mean those graves on the heights of Fredericksburg?
As you go to Richmond you see them. Drunkenness in the saddle. In place
of the bloodshed of war, came the deformations of character,
libertinism!

Again and again it was demonstrated that impurity walked under the
chandeliers of the mansion, and dozed on damask upholstery. In Albany,
in Harrisburg, in Trenton, in Washington, intemperance was rife in
public places.

The two political parties remained silent on the question. Hand in hand
with intemperance went the crime of bribery by money--by proffered
office.

For many years after the war had been almost forgotten, in many of the
legislatures it was impossible to get a bill through unless it had
financial consideration.