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EXTRACTS from SPEECHES and LETTERS


From an Address on Temperance

Delivered Before the Washington Society at Springfield, Ill., February 22, 1842.

"And what a noble ally this to the cause of political freedom; with such an aid its march cannot fail to be on and on, till every son of earth shall drink in rich fruition the sorrow-quenching draughts of perfect liberty. 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!

And when the victory shall be complete — when there shall be neither a slave nor a drunkard on the earth — how proud the title of that land which may truly claim to be the birthplace and the cradle of both those revolutions that shall have ended in that victory. How nobly distinguished that people who shall have planted and nurtured to maturity both the political and moral freedom of their species."

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