Tonight I came home from the first meeting of my Religion in America class. In the past I would start to thirst for a beer on the ride home. Preparation for a class usually ended in a crescendo of work, and I felt exhilarated after a couple of hours of mental alertness in front of thirty college students. It gave me a fleeting moment of regret to drink seltzer instead, but it did not diminish my pleasure in a task satisfactorily completed.

The document collection I'm using has some fiery sermons on temperance. Lyman Beecher in 1828 saw it as so fundamental to the survival of the union and alcohol as so corrupting of the nation's character that he hinted darkly that extra-legal means might be necessary to effect this necessary change.

As intemperance increases, the power of taxation will come more and more into the hands of men of intemperate habits and desperate fortunes. . . . [W]hen those who hodl the property of a nation cannot be protected in their rights, they will change the form of government, peaceably if they may, by violence if they must.

Wow! Talk about tea parties!