Was Drinking Alcohol Considered Wicked Behavior During the Time of Jonathan Edwards?

Jonathan Edwards writes about himself going through times of wickedness. When I read this, I pictured him doing many deviant things including going to the bar and drinking whiskey which I assumed would have been unacceptable with the strict religious society in which he lived. In today's American society, if people would look at the culture of Jonathan Edwards' time, they would probably be afraid they couldn't conform to the strict religious ways of life. After reading the writings of Edwards, I would be fearful to do anything that seemed frowned upon and especially the consumption of alcohol due to the pressures of the society and the fear of going to Hell. But after doing some research on the topic, it appears even the religious people of early America had a very different perspective of alcohol than I had previously imagined. They didn't think of alcohol consumption as a horrible sin. When I think about mixing religion and alcohol today, it generally doesn't happen. In many places in America, alcohol sales are banned on Sundays because many people believe that to be the holy day and the consumption of alcohol would be a sin. Our country even went through a time of prohibition in the twentieth century because of reasons including religious pressures throughout the Bible Belt region and the bad reputation given to saloons (http://www.blurtit.com/q858001.html).

When the Pilgrims came over on the Mayflower, I was surprised to learn they had actually brought more beer with them than water and they even landed in a different destination than they had planned because they ran out of beer (http://www.hoboes.com/Politics/Prohibition/Notes/Drinking/). In 1612, the Dutch started the first American brewery in New Amsterdam. By 1770, there were over 140 rum distilleries in the Northeast that produced about 4.8 million gallons a year (http://www.history.org/foundation/journal/holiday07/drink.cfm). One argument for defending the use of alcohol for the early Americans could be they used it for medical purposes. They thought it could heal many illnesses. Another could be perhaps the water was bad to drink and alcohol was their only option. Both reasons are true but I'm more interested in the recreational use the people of that time had in mind.

Many early Americans began their day with a "pick-me-up" drink. They would go to their work with a drink at their side and enjoy another drink in the middle of the day. In the evenings, they would go to the tavern and have several more rounds before going home and pouring a glass before they went to sleep. Weddings, funerals, trials, and basically any social event was accompanied with drinking. Militia training had the drinking of liquor as the central priority rather than the practicing of drills. The Puritans used wine for their communions instead of the grape juice many churches use today (http://www.hoboes.com/Politics/Prohibition/Notes/Drinking/). On election day, candidates would attempt to entice voters with free drinks and in hopes to perhaps skew a voter's distinction of who the better candidate really was. With no surprise, even college students in early America drank malted beverages which brought about Harvard's own brewery. People were not ashamed of drinking nor did they hide it like many people in today's society. Because their society accepted the constant use of alcohol, "problem drinkers" did not exist. One early American wrote, "If I take a settler after my coffee, a cooler at nine, a bracer at ten, a whetter at eleven and two or three stiffners during the forenoon, who has any right to complain?" (http://www.history.org/foundation/journal/holiday07/drink.cfm)

“While precise consumption figures are lacking, informed estimates suggest that by the 1790s an average American over fifteen years old drank just under six gallons of absolute alcohol each year. That represented some thirty-four gallons of beer and cider (about 3.4 gallons of absolute alcohol), slightly over five gallons of distilled liquors (2.3 gallons of absolute alcohol), and under a gallon of wine (possibly .10 gallons absolute). Because this is an average figure…, the level of consumption probably was much higher for actual drinkers. But even six gallons is a formidable amount. The comparable modern average is less than 2.9 gallons per capita." (http://www.hoboes.com/Politics/Prohibition/Notes/Drinking/)