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On 10/4/06, Jon Miller <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

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