James Madison Quotes
Should ardent spirits be everywhere banished from the list of drinks, it will be a revolution not the least remarkable in this revolutionary age, and our country will have its full share in that as in other merits.
Madison, James. "Letter on Temperance." Letters and Other Writings of James Madison, vol. 4, J. B. Lippincott & Co., 1865.
This anti-prohibition plank passed by the largest margin of any on the platform.
Before we had national prohibition, many Southern states and counties outlawed alcohol. “Wets” were those who wanted to allow drinking of alcohol. “Drys” were those who did not. The South was “dry” and voted overwhelmingly for national prohibition, and later voted to keep it even when a majority of the country voted to repeal it. The irony was that the South has always been, and still is, one of the highest alcohol consumption regions and has had much alcoholism. Hence Roger’s humor.
i.e. serving no intoxicating beverages at the White House The practice to which he was referring was serving no intoxicating beverages at the White House.
He was Chairman of the Judiciary Committee and had sponsored the legislation enforcing Prohibition which was named for him as the Volstead Act. The American people soon changed their mind and flip flopped by passing another Constitutional Amendment nullifying the earlier Constitutional Amerndment.
With Prohibition, the demand for alcohol was the same as ever, but the supply was restricted. Since much of the alcohol in the south was produced in illegal stills, Prohibition, did not affect the supply from those sources. As a matter of fact history shows that they ramped up production to fill the supply gap that was created by Prohibition. The North had very few illegal stills before Prohibition and there was very little capability to replace the legal sources that Prohibition had curtailed.
The authenticity of this quotation has been in contention for years. While many sources attributed this statement to Lincoln, no one has ever found a document in which it appears. Further, it was so clearly consonant with the anti-Prohibition argument that we suspected it as a “Phantom Quotation” (See http://politicalquotes.org/node/4063). As a result, we did not include this quotation until March of 2014. The reason we changed our mind was a newspaper article that was pointed out to us, and after reading it, we tilted in favor of inclusion. The article is http://druglibrary.org/schaffer/LincolnQuote/lpq0001.jpg
Father of Harriet Beecher Stowe and Henry Ward Beecher. Father of Harriet Beecher Stowe and Henry Ward Beecher
James Madison Jr. was an American statesman, diplomat, expansionist, philosopher, and Founding Father who served as the fourth president of the United States from 1809 to 1817. He is hailed as the "Father of the Constitution" for his pivotal role in drafting and promoting the Constitution of the United States and the United States Bill of Rights. He co-wrote The Federalist Papers, co-founded the Democratic-Republican Party, and served as the fifth United States Secretary of State from 1801 to 1809.
