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Peter D. Verheyen, Project Manager
Debra G. Olson, Digital Project Assistant
Special Collections Research Center
Syracuse University Library
© 2003 This work is the property of the Syracuse University Library. It may be used freely by individuals for research, teaching and personal use as long as this statement of availability is included in the text.
DEAR SIR,
Permit me to request you to read the accompanying pamphlet; and to remind you, that the cause of Temperance will need your help on Tuesday, the 19th instant. On that day, the voters of our town will have the opportunity of saying, at the polls of the Election in Peterboro, whether they do, or do not, wish intoxicating liquors to be sold in their town, for a drink. On that day the voters of this State will say, whether they are for, or against, the continuance of those drinking usages, which cost this Nation a hundred millions of dollars a year: which mortgage every man's farm: and which make up two thirds of the taxes paid to the Town Collector. On that day the voters of this State will say, whether the wretched drunkards in it shall be delivered from the presence of their overpowering temptation, and restored to sobriety. On that day they will say, whether our beloved youth, exposed by the drinking usages of our country to the danger of becoming drunkards, shall remain sober. On that day the voters of this State will say, whether the vice of intemperance shall continue to make miserable tens of thousands of families, which it has already made miserable, and shall extend its horrors over innumerable families, not yet cursed with those horrors: or whether this most fruitful source of misery within our State shall be dried up. On that clay the voters of this State will say, whether the greatest enemy of our peace and purity and safety shall be slain, or whether he shall be clothed with new strength and energy for his work of destruction.
I intended to go, at this time, into different parts of our town, and, indeed, County also, for the purpose of pleading the cause of Temperance: but my bodily infirmities require me to remain at home. Let me, however, beseech you, on paper, by all, that is precious in the temporal and eternal interests of man; by all the strongest loves and deepest sensibilities of a wife's heart and a mother's heart; by all the unutterable woes of the drunkard and his family; and by all the immeasurable importance of keeping him sober, who is yet sober, to come to the polls on the 19th instant, and vote "NO LICENSE."
It will not be enough, if three fourths, or even seven eighths, of the men of Smithfield vote "NO LICENSE." The honor and happiness of the town; the interests of the cause of Temperance; the good of man; and the glory of God, all strongly claim, that not one inhabitant of a town, so conspicuous for its devotion to the principles of Temperance, should be guilty of the disgrace and crime of voting against those principles. Oh, what joy there would be on earth - and what joy in Heaven also - should the town of Smithfield be permitted to wave, at sunset on the 19th May, a banner purely white and unsullied! Have I a townsman so callous to every just appeal, as to prevent that joy? - so degraded, as to consent to stain that banner with a filthy, rum-vote? I will not believe it, 'till I see it.Respectfully yours,
GERRIT SMITH.
Peterboro, May 1, 1846.
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URL: http://libwww.syr.edu/digital/collections/g/GerritSmith/439.htm Last modified: January 21, 2003 11:18 AM |
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