Of course, Senator Joseph McCarthy (1950s) was first an alcoholic and, 
toward the end of his political career, almost certainly a heroin addict 
(with Henry Anslinger supplying the drug, in order to protect him from 
exposure).

                               Mark Haller

>___________________________
>
>From: Alcohol and Drugs History Society on behalf of Jon Miller
>Sent: Wed 10/4/2006 12:20 PM
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: alcoholism in US Congress
>
>
>
>Thomas F. Marshall, a Whig from Kentucky, may have been the first
>degenerate Congressman to blame alcohol. He served in the
>Twenty-Seventh Congress (1841-1843). Does anyone know of an earlier
>example?
>
>His sympathetic biographer, surveying the whole of Marshall's life,
>began: "Character, I may say at once, was Tom Marshall's weak point."
>(See the March, 1874 number of the Galaxy magazine, which contains
>Paul R. Shipman's long article republished later as A Handful of
>Bitter Herbs).
>
>Marshall was a heavy drinker; he described himself as "one of your
>spreeing gentry." His drinking habits were described and attacked in
>the press; he was accused of being drunk on the House floor. In May
>1842, he gave a pair of famous temperance speeches announcing his
>(short-lived) conversion to Washingtonian teetotalism. Marshall was
>not re-elected.
>
>Here are a few quotes from a speech he gave to the Great Temperance
>Meeting of May, 1842 in New York. They are remarkable, in part, for
>the way he brags and jokes about his drinking. He also concedes that
>yes, he was drunk on the House floor. The quotes are copied from a
>pamphlet I read at the Library Company of Philadelphia.
>
>"Well, then, gentlemen, within all the broad territory of of the
>Union, there does not breathe a man who knew less or cared less about
>temperance societies, or the progress of the temperance cause than
>your humble servant did some four months ago.  I had never been in a
>temperance meeting in my life, and I make the acknowledgement with
>shame and contrition.  I never had been in a Temperance meeting in my
>life, and if I picked up a Temperance paper, or a political paper
>with anything about Temperance in it, I threw it to one side as
>smacking of fanaticism and as altogether beneath the attention of a
>gentleman of my vast ambition and extraordinary talents! (Loud
>laughter and applause.) (page 2)
>
>. . .
>
>"There is one point, however, that it may not be improper to touch
>upon.  With regard to this subject I have necessarily had to speak of
>myself.  I have said more on this subject perhaps than I ought to
>have said (cries of "no, no,") and certainly more than I should have
>said, had I not heard that I was expected to allude somewhat to my
>own case, and from what has been said in the public prints.  I found
>from them that some little portion of my private history, which I had
>hoped would ever have been private, was known to you.  A good deal
>has been said that is the truth in this matter (here he paused, and
>continued in a solemn tone,) and far more than the truth was told
>about me.  And that, too, is one of the evils of intemperance.
>(Cheers and laughter.)  Bad as it is, in its best estate, and bad
>enough that is, God knows, a man has always friends or enemies enough
>to make it a great deal worse. (Cheers and laughter.) In my case, I
>am modest enough to admit--my case was bad enough, but it was'nt
>[sic] so bad as was stated. (Cheers.)  But oh, if my example could
>bring back to this cause any one who has now commenced the career of
>intemperance--if it could only bring back one human being who has
>commenced such a career, he is perfectly welcome to the benefit of
>all my experience. (Terrific cheering.)  (page 5)
>
>. . .
>
>"The papers . . . say that when I made a speech [to the House of
>Representatives] I was pretty comfortably and most considerably
>inebriated. (Cheers and laughter.) And, in all those five or six
>speeches, except one, I give you my honor as a gentleman, I was as
>sober as a judge. (Loud cheers and laughter.) And some of those
>speeches cost me a good deal of time and considerable mental labor
>and activity." (page 10)
>
>(Citation: Thomas F. Marshall, Two Speeches of the Hon. Thomas F.
>Marshall, of Kentucky, before the Great Temperance Meeting, held in
>the City of New York, on the 5th and 6th of May, 1842.  Louisville,
>Ky.: W. N. Haldeman, 1842.)
>
>-- Jon Miller, Dept. of English, Univ. of Akron, Akron OH 44325-1906
>  
>