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.And a few decades later, a fellow named George D.Prentice wasasked to report on the polls in another southern state for a publicationcalled the New England Weekly Review.It was an assignment he neverforgot. An election in Kentucky lasts three days, Prentice wrote, neverhaving been exposed to such a marathon before, and during that period 24 Chapter 1whiskey and apple toddy flow through our cities and villages like theEuphrates through ancient Babylon. The most prominent foe of campaigning by whiskey and toddy inearly America was James Madison, who, running for reelection to theVirginia Assembly in 1777, decided to take the high road: he would notdebase the electoral process by bribing the voters with alcohol, wouldnot create a carnival atmosphere at a serious venue.He explained that the corrupting influence of spirituous liquors, and other treats was inconsistent with the purity of moral and republican virtues. It was anadmirable position, a principled stand; Madison s reward was a smash-ing defeat at the polls, his first and only.Like Washington, he found abrilliant career in politics delayed by insufficient regard for constituentthirst.Others objected to booze at the polls because it deemphasized thecontent of a candidate s character and granted him office for the contentof his casks. I guess Mr.A.is the fittest man of the two, opined awoman of the time in South Carolina, analyzing the results of a localrace, but t other whiskies the best. It was the latter for whom thewoman voted.With the passage of time, the use of alcoholic beverages to purchaseelective office became less and less common.Existing laws against itcame to be enforced; new laws were passed and taken seriously by au-thorities; dignity and positions on issues began to count more than per-suasion by potables.Yet the tradition persisted in a few races and ina few places, not only through colonial times but into the nineteenthcentury and even, in one comical instance, up to the dawn of the twen-tieth.In his book The Big Spenders, journalist and bon vivant LuciusBeebe tells of a man who went pointlessly, and expensively, overboard.It was Montana s peerless Senator William Andrew Clark who, whenseeking election to the United States Senate at the turn of the [twen-tieth] century, miscalculated by a comma the population of the city ofButte, Montana, and provided the free distribution among 45,000 en-franchised voters sufficient whisky for 450,000. After his years as president, years when an estimated one out of everyfour dollars that Americans spent on household expenses went towardthe purchase of alcohol, George Washington retired to Mount Vernon,settling into a routine to which he had aspired ever since his hiatus dur-ing the French and Indian War.He rose with the sun, ate and drank The First National Pastime 25breakfast, and rode across some of his 8,000 acres to inspect both cropsand men, diligent about it, Cincinnatus in his natural habitat.Eitherbefore or immediately after the ride, he spoke with his gardener, askinghim how the shrubs were doing, what flowers should be planted nextand when, whether patches of the lawn needed to be fertilized or sec-tions of the fence mended.The gardener was a man whom Washingtonrespected greatly, and whom he compensated not only in cash, but with a generous allotment of rum, if not the expensive Barbados variety.Later, perhaps after a nap, Washington took a walk, retracing someof his morning paths.Most days, he followed the walk with a cup of tea.Upon finishing, he might receive visitors; he did so almost daily, andwhen night fell, he wrote letters by candlelight, keeping up as best hecould with the voluminous mail he received himself.He also made his own liquor, not only for personal consumption butfor sale, a decision he owed at least in part to his estate manager, JamesAnderson, who persuaded Washington to turn over one of his unprof-itable small farms to raising rye for whiskey
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