Charles William Carter III
April 12, 2003
HIST 4000

Like every other state in antebellum America, Georgia had its share of temperance societies. Anti-alcohol sentiment even spilled over onto the minds of men and women living in Athens. Athenians felt such a strong spirit of temperance sweep their town in the 1830s that they started a local organization called the Clarke County Temperance Society to fight drunkenness. Against a backdrop of economic hardship in the late 1830s, national temperance brotherhoods formed in the North and later spread southward. Two of these organizations, the Washingtonians and the Sons of Temperance, came to Athens in the 1840s and got some men to forswear ardent spirits voluntarily. But temperance was not as successful in Athens as in Northern towns. In an era where Southern planters distributed alcohol to hold political power, the lack of enthusiasm for temperance among Athens' industrialists, as well as anti-temperance sentiment among Athenians, made the movement weak in Athens relative to the North.

A perceived moral and social blight, alcohol abuse heightened in the first two decades of the nineteenth century as the new manufacturing economy in the North made spirits cheap. Drunkenness among men led to fights, fostered low worker output, and bred strife among kin and neighbors. Against this backdrop came temperance drives to check the snowballing growth of alcoholism. Religious people started temperance societies in towns far and wide across America. Many of these organizations were in the North, where the effects of industrialization and urbanization were harshest. But temperance societies took root in the South too, as the history of Athens shows.1

Among the first temperance organizations in Athens was the Clarke County Temperance Society. Having taken shape in the early 1830s, this faith-driven organization held meetings in local Baptist and Presbyterian churches. Industrialist William Dearing headed the group. Though this society allowed alcohol use as medicine, all members pledged to give up all ardent spirits otherwise. This stance was common among organizations that fought drunkenness. Also, like many temperance associations, the Clarke County Temperance Society was set up to put youth on the right moral track. After all, Athens was a college town to which young men from all over the state came for schooling. By portraying alcohol abuse as an ungodly practice, this temperance society thought its anti-alcohol message could improve the moral outlook of youth and thus better the coming generation of leaders.2

Yet the Clarke County Temperance Society did not last long as an organization, perhaps since it held only two meetings each year. This lack of official interaction hints that even antebellum Athens' first temperance promoters did not make curbing drunkenness a high priority. Had temperance weighed heavily on the minds of members, they would have met more often. Also, had stopping drunkenness been so weighty an aim of this organization, Athens' newspapers in the 1830s would have printed a spate of articles about the society's desire for recruits. But the press gave this organization little attention. It seems, then, the Clarke County Temperance Society had little sway on temperance social reform in the end.3

While a lack of interaction was perhaps a drawback to the Clarke County Temperance Society's success, anti-temperance sentiment among Athenians also may have hindered the force of that organization. Many Athenians did not like self-righteous teetotalers. By their nature, faith-driven temperance societies had some self-righteous people among their ranks who frowned on any drinkers of alcohol. Religious temperance associations became targets of men who thought these organizations fostered the character assassination of any alcohol-drinking man. An "anti-semi-temperance society" even took shape in 1831 to counter temperance groups that blackened the reputations of men who drank. But like the Clarke County Temperance Society, the newspaper publishers overlooked this organization too. Still, that such a society took shape at all meant some Athenians were willing to take a stand against the tactics of self-righteous temperance promoters. That Athenians took this stand perhaps contributed in part to the downfall of the faith-driven Clarke County Temperance Society.4

But just because some Athenians opposed the tactics of self-righteous temperance promoters did not mean religious people stopped trying to curb drunkenness. As for Athenian men of temperance in the antebellum era, none stood out more than the religious-minded lawyer Joseph Henry Lumpkin. Having moved to Athens in 1842 and lived there until his death in 1867, Lumpkin was a vice president of the State Temperance Society of Georgia in 1833. By 1839, he joined a rich Methodist planter from Eatonton named Josiah Flourney in spearheading a drive to revoke Georgia's liquor licensing laws. In May 1839, Flourney got Lumpkin to offer a petition against these laws. But the enthusiasm for the campaign never was strong in Georgia. Many men claimed that banning the sale of liquor was unconstitutional and could not be enforced. Flourney's goal did not materialize.5

Yet Lumpkin's outlook would change over time. Having later become the president of the Georgia Temperance Society, Lumpkin no longer favored political action. His words at an 1854 convention bespeak this outlook:

One thing is certain, whatever may be the relative advantages of moral suasion and legal coercion, no law to abolish the traffic [of alcohol] can ever be passed, or passed, permanently sustained, unless the public conscience and judgment are properly instructed. Eschew all connection with politics and parties. Next to the union of Church and State, I know of no alliance more unholy.6

But temperance did thrive for a while in Athens during the l840s. To understand how the movement shaped Athens requires learning how Northern temperance societies bore on the town. After all, the strongest anti-alcohol organizations that Athens had started in the North. Against a backdrop of economic hardship stemming from the Panic of 1837, a strong Northern spirit of temperance in the 1840s took root to help Americans curb heightened drunkenness in this time of need. This spirit of fighting drunkenness bred several national societies that met often and spread throughout the country. Two of these organizations, the Washingtonian Temperance Society and the Sons of Temperance, came to Athens in the 1840s. Though both of these societies frowned on ardent spirits, each sought different kinds of people for recruits. The Washingtonian movement was largely geared toward the working class, while the Sons of Temperance was an elitist brotherhood.7

The Washingtonian Temperance Society, an organization first formed among reformed working-class drunkards in Baltimore, was most powerful in Athens during the early 1840s. Meeting at a local Methodist Church in Athens, this organization let reformed drunkards tell how alcohol abuse had hurt their lives at meetings. Though the Washingtonian movement was nationally oriented to workers, many well-to-do Athenians joined. A Colonel Billups steered the chapter as leader, and Joseph Henry Lumpkin was even known to attend meetings. With the backing of such elites, Athens' chapter of the Washingtonians was successful for a time. By the winter of 1842, over two-hundred people had signed the Washingtonian pledge to forswear ardent spirits. The organization reached its peak around July 4, 1843, when the society paraded through town to the beat of war music, singing temperance songs and feasting in a successful effort to recruit members.8

The students of Franklin College, part of the University of Georgia, even set up a Washingtonian chapter in 1848. This group took one Saturday out of each month to meet and talk about the social and moral ills that alcohol bred. Preachers, local upstanding men, and students made most of the speeches. The students of Franklin College's chapter not only thought alcohol was the bane of man's temporal and spiritual life, but also believed college-aged men should especially take a stand against strong drink. James D. Frederick, a member of the Washingtonians and student at the University of Georgia, thought becoming a drunkard in one's college years meant one would not do well in life. He, along with over one-hundred male students, signed the pledge to forswear alcohol in all cases except those which called for it as a medicine. Since women did not attend college, no females signed the pledge. And unlike Northern towns where women's Martha Washingtonian societies took root, no evidence hints that this female-oriented temperance society— or any other female temperance organizations for that matter— took root in antebellum Athens.9

Though Athens' chapter of the Washingtonians that was not tied to Franklin College strove to spread its views, people did not always welcome its message. By throwing snuff on a crowd and thus causing sneezing outbreaks, students crashed a meeting in 1844 that saw one of the original founders of the society come to Athens to speak. Soon thereafter, the sway of the organization started to dwindle in Athens. After 1844, Athens' newspapers no longer wrote about the Washingtonians. This temperance organization had now seen its best days pass.10

What, then, hindered the charm of the Washingtonians in Athens? To pinpoint the answer first calls for a broad understanding of how people saw alcohol in the antebellum period. Many men and women thought alcohol was a medicine, especially a pain killer. That the pledge to which the Washingtonians bound themselves hints that doctors could prescribe alcohol as medicine shows that even men of temperance thought strong drink was not thoroughly bad. Also, since clean water was hard to come by all across antebellum America, the historian should not find it odd that so many men and women drank alcohol. At least people knew that, so long as they did not go overboard, drinking alcohol would not kill them. The same could not be said about water. Given the lack of scientific technology, antebellum men and women found it hard to know whether water had baneful wastes or critters in it. For these reasons, some men spurned temperance or at least saw the movement as divisive.11

Seeing that temperance was strife-ridden, most Athenian industrialists did not take a strong stand for or against the movement. This stance was in stark contrast to mighty Northern industrialists, who on seeing that alcohol abuse bred ills that hurt worker output and fostered social disorder, pushed for temperance as a way to safeguard their businesses' well-being and to bring order. Temperance was policed in the North because industrialists there called the shots politically and could influence laws to foster the movement. While Athenians had felt the rise of an industrial class in their town since 1830, the city's manufacturers would have found the coercive tactics of their Northern counterparts not decent. As Southern elites, Athenian industrialists thought coercion went against the natural current of order. That fact, coupled with the general divisiveness of temperance, meant Athenian industrialists did not stand together against the ills of alcohol. Among Athenian manufacturers, only William Williams, Asbury Hill, and William Dearing played weighty roles in organizations that fought drunkenness. Since the unity among Northern industrialists was a powerful force driving temperance, and since that togetherness was absent among Athens' manufacturers, temperance societies such as the Washingtonians were vulnerable to attacks from students and others who hated temperance. This vulnerability bred a backdrop hostile to the success of the Washingtonians, as well as to most other temperance groups in the town.12

Yet the decline of the Washingtonians did not mean temperance in Athens was thoroughly fruitless. Athenian elites came to smile on the movement in the late 1840s, perhaps not so much for temperance aims but for the social blessings that brotherhoods brought. This point can be seen most clearly in the waxing success of the Sons of Temperance in Georgia throughout the late 1840s. A fraternal secret society started in New York in 1842, the Sons of Temperance set up a division in Athens in the late 1840s. It was named after an upstanding Northern man of temperance named Father Matthew. 13

Though the Sons of Temperance had a chapter in Athens, no constitution from it has been unearthed. Yet this drawback does not mean knowledge of how this society worked in Athens is unknowable. It turns out that a constitution from Macon's chapter of the Sons of Temperance that likely mirrored the constitution of Athens' chapter has survived. Because of the close proximity of these two towns, the historian can look at the constitution of Macon's chapter to see how the Sons of Temperance worked in Athens.

Macon's chapter of the Sons of Temperance was set up in such a way as to make a man go through many hurdles to become a member. A member, known as a brother, had to nominate a man seeking to join the society before that man could enter the brotherhood. Three other brothers would look into the nominee's lifestyle to see if he was worthy of joining. If the three brothers agreed the man was an upstanding person, he could then enter the brotherhood. Entrance into this fraternal secret society required a two-dollar entry fee.14

Though the Sons of Temperance was established to fight drunkenness, spreading the message of temperance may not have been the only aim of this secret society. Surprisingly, the men who wrote the constitution of Macon's chapter gave the harmful nature of alcohol little attention in that work. But they wrote several pages of rules about the society's role in paying for brothers' funeral expenses. Macon's chapter of the Sons of Temperance called for the brotherhood to pay the sum of thirty dollars to cover the burial costs of any brother. It also required fifteen dollars to be allotted for the funeral costs of a member's dead wife. Caring for sick members was another job of the brotherhood in Macon. Fellow brothers had to visit any sick brother at least once a day. Even one of the orders of business for each meeting was to see if any other members were ill. Since antebellum medical practices were so crude that men and women often died early in life, death did not simply flicker through the minds of Georgians as it does today. Death was instead an everyday event that weighed on the minds of men. By caring for sick brothers, the Sons of Temperance may have stopped some deaths and thus saved money on burial costs. And yet this organization, like many social webs in antebellum Georgia, helped comfort its members so they could come to terms with sickness and death in a time before the blessings of social security and life-saving medical breakthroughs.15

It also seems that Macon's chapter of the Sons of Temperance had much in common with modern insurance agencies. The first fee a man paid to join the organization was not the only cost. Just like one has to pay regular dues to keep life insurance today, members of Macon's chapter of the Sons of Temperance paid weekly fees to keep membership in the brotherhood. The amount was six cents. If a brother fell thirteen weeks behind on dues, the organization drove him away. Like a man who does not reap insurance benefits for not paying, the expelled member did not get goods either.16

Taking for granted that the Sons of Temperance worked the same way in Athens as in Macon, the brotherhood likely carried out weighty social functions and was thus not a failure in Athens. Some minor evidence exists that the organization may have even done well at combating drunkenness. The University of Georgia's chapter of the Demosthenian Society left records bearing witness to the chapter's perceived success in Athens. On August 30, 1851, the Demosthenian Society met to debate the question: "Are the Sons of Temperance the best organization yet devised for putting down the evils of Intemperance?"17 The members decided in the affirmative, suggesting the brotherhood had been successful at curbing drunkenness. These students' outlook may reflect the strength of the Sons of Temperance in the South. The historian cannot deny that the Sons of Temperance was stronger in the South than in the North. Historians claim Antimasonry in the North hindered the flowering of the brotherhood there. But Antimasonry was largely absent in the South. Not surprisingly, then, the South was a place where societies stressing fraternal ties could blossom. If the Demonsthenian students were right, the Sons of Temperance was a successful organization in Athens for a time.18

Still, the power of this outlook may dwindle as one looks at the social background of these students. Most likely, the young men who made up the Demonsthenian Society were children of well-to-do families from all over the state. University schooling cost much money, and poor families were thus unable to send their kids to universities. Since the families of these student debaters knew of and perhaps reaped benefits from the Sons of Temperance, these students might have been apt to say the brotherhood fared well no matter how good a job the organization did at fighting alcoholism.

If curbing drunkenness is the gauge by which the success of any temperance society should be measured, the Sons of Temperance could not have thrived because of the nature of its setup. Being an elitist secret society, the Sons of Temperance overlooked drunkenness among the poor. By requiring background checks into every potential member's moral character, the Sons of Temperance may have excluded the people who needed to hear the temperance message the most. To be sure, the chances that a poor drunkard would pass the background check were slim. Because of the society's exclusionist nature, the Sons of Temperance was not an organization that could have been successful in stopping drunkenness among all segments of the population.

The Sons of Temperance, like other temperance organizations in antebellum Athens, faded in the end. As political strife between the North and the South snowballed over slavery in the 1850s, Athens' newspapers forgot this brotherhood. This fact supports the claim that temperance, along with other kinds of social reform, fared best in times of little strife among regions. That temperance fell by the wayside hints that Athenians saw race as more important than stopping drunkenness. This outlook characterized not only antebellum Athens but also the antebellum South.19

Why, though, was temperance generally a weak movement in the South? The answer perhaps lies in Southern politics. The mighty Southern politicians who came from the planter class were not willing to forgo the custom of passing out strong alcoholic drinks to get votes. Since Northern industrialists had political power and favored temperance to ensure high worker output and thus high profits, they were able to promote the movement by virtue of their power. But the Southern planter class, whose livelihood alcoholism did not threaten as much as that of the discipline-seeking industrialists, was less likely to frown on alcoholism and more apt to smile on alcohol as a means of holding power. This lack of backing from the South's mighty men, coupled with the fear that temperance would hurt the livelihood of farmers who reaped money from the corn used to make certain liquors, may tell why temperance did not generally fare as well in the South as in the North. It may also explain why all the big temperance societies that came to Athens began in the North.20

In short, antebellum Athens had its share of temperance societies. Organizations took root in the town to fight drunkenness that was on the rise thanks to the cheap cost of alcohol. Among Athens' temperance societies were the Clarke County Temperance Society, the Washingtonians, and the Sons of Temperance. These societies had some success in getting people to forswear ardent spirits voluntarily. But that success did not carry on as time passed. Against a backdrop dominated by planter elites in the South, a weak desire for temperance among Athenians, as well as a lack of enthusiasm among the town's industrialists, meant temperance was not a force for social change in the city.

1. W.J. Rorabaugh,The Alcoholic Republic (New York: Oxford University Press, 1979), 89-90, 128-9 &196-7.

2"Preamble and Constitution to the Clarke County Temperance Society," Southern Banner, 8 March 1834.

3. "Preamble and Constitution to the Clarke County Temperance Society,"Southern Banner, 8 March 1834.

4. “Resolutions of the Anti-Semi Temperance Society,” Athenian, 18 January 1831.

5. “Joseph Henry Lumpkin and Evangelical Reform in Georgia: Temperance, Education, and Industrialization, 1830-1860,” Georgia Historical Quarterly 75, (1991): 255-74.

6. Joseph H. Lumpkin to the Georgia Temperance Society, cited in the Georgia Historical Quarterly 75, (1991): 263.

7. Steven Mintz, Moralists and Modernizers: America’s Pre-Civil War Reformers, (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995), 74; Douglas W. Carlson. “Drinks He to His Own Undoing: Temperance Ideology in the Deep South,” Journal of the Early Republic v.18 (Winter 1998): 668

8. Michael J. Gagnon. “Transition to an Industrial South: Athens, Georgia, 1830-1870”Electronic Edition. (Ph.D. diss., Emory University, 1999), 210-214; Southern Banner, 13 July 1843.

9. University of Georgia, Hargrett Library Special Collections, James D. Frederick Collection, James D. Frederick Diary Account 1848, entry for February 22, 1848.

10. Gagnon, 210-214; “Temperance-Mr. Hawkins,” Southern Banner, 8 February 1844.

11. “Resolutions of the Anti-Semi-Temperance Society,” Athenian, 18 January 1831; University of Georgia, Hargrett Library Special Collections, James D. Frederick Collection, James D. Frederick Diary Account 1848, entry for February 22, 1848.

12. Gagnon, 180& 213-214. For an extended discussion, see Ian R. Tyrell, “Drink and Temperance in the Antebellum South: An Overview and Interpretation,” Journal of Southern History 48 (1982), 488-89, &502-508.

13. Carlson, 668;Gagnon, 213-214.

14. Constitution and By-laws of Tomochichi Division, no. 1, Sons of Temperance of Macon, Georgia. Printed at the Macon, Ga. Telegraph Office, 1846, 5-6. To be found at the Hargrett Old Books & Manuscript Library of the University of Georgia.

15. Constitution and By-laws of Tomochichi Division, 4-11.

16. Constitution and By-laws of Tomochichi Division, 6.

17. Demosthenian Literary Society Minutes 1847-1854. (Bound manuscript volume at the University of Georgia Library), 267; Earl Wallace Cory,“Temperance and Prohibition in Antebellum Georgia" (master’s thesis, University of Georgia, 1961), 65.

18. Carlson, 690-1.

19. Gagnon, 213-214.

20. Gagnon, 214. For an extended discussion, see Ian R. Tyrell, “Drink and Temperance in the Antebellum South: An Overview and Interpretation,” Journal of Southern History 48 (1982), 488-89, &502-508.