Kentucky Gazette

Few who had read an account of the rude, intemperate and disgraceful course of Mr. Wise, during the last session of Congress, but believed that course to have been caused by the too free use of the intoxicating cup. In a letter, however, from that gentleman to a temperance society he declares, that "for the last eight years and some months of his life, he has not tasted a table spoonful of ardent spirits, or drank one half of a gallon of wine." We extract the following from Mr. Wise's letter. We do not recollect that the facts there detailed formed any part of the testimony before his celebrated committee. Those who have full faith in Mr. W., must, of course believe his statements. Our faith is not as large as a grain of mustard seed. "I state the fact, then, to the nation, that some of the higher Executive officers at Washington are and have been notorious drunkards in my sense of the term, habitually affected by ardent spirits—drunk at least once a week; and I further state, that I have often heard the reason assigned, and believed it was a valid one, for the House of Representatives of the Congress of the United States not sitting in the evening after dinner, when the public business required it, that many of the members were so much in the habit of intoxication, that they were not only unfit themselves for public duty after a certain hour in the day, but were likely to prevent others in discharging their duty by interrupting the order of proceeding. During the latter part of the session of Congress, when the two Houses were compelled to sit late, members too drunk for the decency of a tavern bar room, were not uncommon sights in the Senate Chamber, and in the Hall of the House of Representatives of a Republic. whose fathers handed down to it the hallowed and immutable truth, "that no free government or the blessing of liberty can be preserved to any people but by firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality and virtue!"