William Coppinger Quotes

The speech of a Creek—Indian, against the immoderate use of spirituous liquors. Delivered in a national assembly of the Creeks, upon the breaking out of the late war.

I am the sworn, eternal and uncompromising enemy of the liquor traffic.

This day we have held a council, and it is agreed by the Shawnee in general that whatever rum is in our towns shall be broke and split and not drunk; and whosoever shall bring any rum or any sort of strong drink into our towns, Indian or white man, let it be little or much, it shall be broke or split in the presence of the whole town…

[Referring to alcohol:] After the lapse of nearly fifty years of undisputed political freedom, the blood-freezing clank of a cruel bondage is still heard.

Smoking, chewing betel nut, and taking drugs for pleasure are not for Christians. These practices are wrong because (1) they make us their slaves, (2) they harm our bodies, and (3) they are unclean … It can be very hard to give up these habits. But we must do so to please Jehovah.

An American monkey, after getting drunk on brandy, would never touch it again, and thus is much wiser than most men.

The white traders keep these poor Indians continually under the force of liquor. They entirely estrange the affections of the Indians from the English.

But who is it that has made my people drunk? Indians cannot make whiskey. Indians do not sell it. But white people make it and bring it among us. It is they that have brought the evil upon us and we cannot remove it. The white people can remove it and now we call upon them to do it. We ask them to take their whiskey and run away, and leave us sober as they found us.

The white people brought whiskey into our village, made our people drunk, and cheated them out of their horses, guns, and traps!...I visited all the whites and begged them not to sell whiskey to my people. One of them continued the practice openly. I took a party of my young men, went to his house, took his barrel and broke in the head and turned out the whiskey.

Liquor perverts the end of society, and unfits us for all those distinguishing and exquisite Feelings, which are the Cordials of Life, and the noblest Privileges of Humanity.

Asking South American peasants to stop growing coca is like asking the Scots to stop growing barley because people on the other side of the world could not hold their drink.

Liquor traffic is un-American, pro-German, crime-procuring, food-wasting, youth-corrupting, home-wrecking, [and] treasonable.

The temperance movement must include all poisonous substances which create or excite unnatural appetite, and international prohibition is the goal.

Prohibition created more drunks than anything else.

Whether or not the world would be vastly benefitted by a total and final banishment from it of all intoxicating drinks seems to me not now open to question. Three-fourths of mankind confess the affirmative with their tongues, and I believe all the rest acknowledge it in their hearts. Ought any, then, to refuse their aid in doing what good the good of the whole wold demands.

Although Drunkenness be justly termed a vice which the Salvages are ignorant of, yet the benefit is very great that comes to the planters by the sale of strong liquor to the Salvages, who are much taken with the delight of it; for they will pawn their wits, to purchase the acquaintance of it.

Ye Dutch, Swede, and English have by Brandy and Specially Rum, almost Debaucht ye Indians all.

A drunk man is capable of every evil and prone to every temptation… Drinking renders its adherent incapable of any task

If the ancients drank wine as our people drink rum and cider, it is no wonder we hear of so many possessed with devils

Prohibition is the greatest effort for human advancement and betterment ever attempted in history

Home Protection—protection against the tyranny of drink.

This is a war between the rum shops and women…only one can win.

The American who drinks wine is in danger of becoming the victim of drunkenness, licentiousness, and gambling.

Little by little it dawned upon me that this law was not making people drink any less, but it was making hypocrites and law breakers of a great number of people. It seemed to me best to go back to the old situation in which, if a man or woman drank to excess, they were injuring themselves and their immediate family and friends and the act was a violation against their own sense of morality and no violation against the law of the land.

Evidence...proves that prohibition only drives drunkenness behind doors and into dark places, and does not cure it or even diminish it.