As a glimpse at society, it may be added that the _Advice_ itself is an energetic and statistical condemnation of the prevalent use of "Rum," estimated at £90,000 or "ninety-nine hundredths unnecessary expense" in living. "Deny it if you can, good folks. Now say not a word about taxes, Judges, lawyers, courts and women's extravagances. Your government, your courts, your lawyers, your clergymen, your schools and your poor, do not all cost you so much as one paltry article which does you little or no good but is as destructive of your lives as fire and brimstone."--Noah Webster's _Collection of Essays,_ pp. 137-139.
The evil was beginning to be recognized in all its danger. Here and there voluntary temperance clubs were beginning to be formed among the better classes, but it was a time when hardly a contract was closed without a stipulation of a certain quantity of rum for each workman.
POLITICAL PARTIES IN CONNECTICUT AT THE BEGINNING OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
As well dam up the waters of the Nile with Bullrushes as to fetter the steps of Freedom.--L. M. Child.
Leland's attack upon the constitution of Connecticut during the excitement over the Western Land bills called for new tactics on the part of the dissenters. Thus far, in all their antagonism to the union of Church and State, there had been on their part practically no attack upon the constitution itself. Yet even as early as 1786 the Anti-Federalists had proclaimed that the state of Connecticut was without a constitution; that the charter government fell with the Declaration of Independence; and that its adoption by the legislature as a state constitution was an unwarranted excess of authority. The Anti-Federalists maintained also that many of the charter provisions were either outgrown or unsuited to the needs of the state. But the majority of the dissenters, like the Constitutional Reform party of recent date, preferred redress for their grievances through legislation rather than through the uprooting of an ancient and cherished constitution. Accordingly, it was not until the elections of 1804-6 that this question of a new constitution could reasonably be made a campaign issue. But from 1793 the dissenters began to lean towards affiliation with the Democratic-Republican [a] party, the successors to the Anti-Federal; yet it was not until toward the close of the War of 1812 that the Republican party made large gains in Connecticut and the dissenters began to feel sure that the dawn of religious liberty was at hand. But before that time the Republicans made three distinct though abortive attempts to secure the electoral power.