Excerpt from A Discourse Delivered Before the State Temperance Society of South Carolina: At Its First Anniversary, in the Representatives Hall, Columbia, Nov, 29, 1838; With an Appendix of the Minutes of the Meeting In surveying human society, whether civilized or barbarous, our attention is arrested by the prevalence of evils, so irrational and revolting, that the inquiry is forced upon us, how they could have been produced, how they can be tolerated. Most of the crimes, whose recorded frequency and enormity stain the annals of our race, can be readily traced to the selfishness and moral corruption which belong to our lapsed nature. But there are some practices equally prevalent and pernicious, so absurd, so barba rous and brutal, as to outrage common sense, and shock every feeling of humanity. Yet even these enormities could not have prevailed at all, and cannot now continue to scourge the earth unless sustained and sanctioned by public approbation. We must therefore find the real cause of popular evils, however vile and degrading, in the corruption and perversity of popular Opinion. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.