Large and small manufactories of it
were everywhere erected, in which all the earthly goods of their owners
were invested. Wagons drew it from town to town; boats bore it from
clime to clime, and the winds wafted it from nation to nation; and
merchants bought and sold it, by wholesale and retail, with precisely the
same feelings on the part of the seller, buyer, and bystander as are felt
at the selling and buying of ploughs, beef, bacon, or any other of the
real necessaries of life. Universal public opinion not only tolerated
but recognized and adopted its use.
It is true that even then it was known and acknowledged that many were
greatly injured by it; but none seemed to think the injury arose from the
use of a bad thing, but from the abuse of a very good thing. The victims
of it were to be pitied and compassionated, just as are the heirs of
consumption and other hereditary diseases. Their failing was treated as
a misfortune, and not as a crime, or even as a disgrace. If, then, what
I have been saying is true, is it wonderful that some should think and
act now as all thought and acted twenty years ago? and is it just to
assail, condemn, or despise them for doing so? The universal sense of
mankind on any subject is an argument, or at least an influence, not
easily overcome.
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