Editing Temperance movement (section)

==== The Washingtonian movement ====
In 1840, a group of artisans in Baltimore, Maryland<ref>{{Cite web|title=Collection: Maryland Temperance collection {{!}} Archival Collections|url=https://archives.lib.umd.edu/repositories/2/resources/1429|access-date=2020-08-18|website=archives.lib.umd.edu}}</ref> created their own temperance society that could appeal to hard-drinking men like themselves. Calling themselves the [[Washingtonians]], they pledged complete abstinence, attempting to persuade others through their own experience with alcohol rather than relying on preaching and religious lectures. They argued that sympathy was an overlooked method for helping people with alcohol addictions, citing coercion as an ineffective method. For that reason, they did not support prohibitive legislation of alcohol.<ref name="chavigny" />{{rp|110}} They were suspicious of the divisiveness of denominational religion and did not use religion in their discussions, emphasizing personal abstinence. They never set up national organizations, believing that concentration of power and distance from citizens causes corruption. Meetings were public and they encouraged equal participation, appealing to both men and women and northerners and southerners.<ref name="chavigny" />{{rp|111}} Unlike early temperance reformers, the Washingtonians did not believe that intemperance destroyed a drinker's morality.<ref name="chavigny" />{{rp|112}} They worked on the platform that abstinence communities could be created through sympathizing with drunkards rather than ostracizing them through the belief that they are sinners or diseased.<ref name="chavigny" />{{rp|113}}

On February 22, 1842, in Springfield, Illinois, while a member of the Illinois Legislature, [[Abraham Lincoln]] gave an address to the Springfield Washington Temperance Society on the 110th anniversary of the birth of [[George Washington]]. In the speech, Lincoln criticized early methods of the temperance movement as overly forceful and advocated reason as the solution to the problem of intemperance, praising the current temperance movement methods of the Washingtonian movement.<ref name="lincoln">{{cite journal |last1=Morel |first1=Lucas E. |title=Lincoln among the Reformers: Tempering the Temperance Movement |journal=Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association |date=1999 |volume=20 |issue=1 |pages=1–34 |url=https://quod.lib.umich.edu/j/jala/2629860.0020.103/--lincoln-among-the-reformers-tempering-the-temperance?rgn=main;view=fulltext |access-date=29 June 2018}}</ref>

By 1845, the Washingtonian movement was no longer as prominent for three reasons. First, the evangelist reformers attacked them for refusing to admit alcoholism was a sin. Secondly, the movement was criticized as unsuccessful due to the number of men who returned to drinking. Finally, the movement was internally divided by differing views on prohibition legislation.<ref name="chavigny" />{{rp|113}} Temperance fraternal societies such as the Sons of Temperance and the Good Samaritans took the place of the Washingtonian movement with largely similar views relating to helping alcoholics by way of sympathy and philanthropy. They, however, differed from the Washingtonians through their closed rather than public meetings, fines, and membership qualifications, believing their methods were more effective in curbing men's alcohol addictions.<ref name="chavigny" />{{rp|113}} After the 1850s, the temperance movement was characterized more by prevention by means of prohibitions laws than remedial efforts to facilitate the recovery of alcoholics.<ref name="chavigny" />{{rp|113}}