Riotous Representatives: Alcohol and Tobacco Usage in Congress before the Civil War

Alcohol and tobacco suffused the culture of Congress in the first half of the nineteenth century. Before their arrival in the capital, many owed their election to the distribution of free plugs of tobacco and slugs of whiskey to voters on election day. From there, most congressmen did not bring their wives or families with them to Washington, such that a homosocial culture of youthful “spreeing” ensued. Congressmen commonly appeared intoxicated to sessions and drank while in the Capitol. From the bar-rooms on the grounds of the Capitol to the members of “spreeing gentry” of Virginia, the use of alcohol defined an important aspect of the quasi-bachelor existence many congressmen lived while in Washington. Although deemed less problematic than alcohol, tobacco similarly raised health concerns among legislators and provoked evoked sectional tension. Northern legislators, tended more so than their Southern counterparts to condemn the use of a product grown predominantly south of the Mason Dixon Line.

This paper will explore both the cultural and political implications of alcohol and tobacco usage in the capital before the Civil War. Using newspaper accounts, contemporary journals, fictional accounts, and manuscript papers drawn from a wide range of political figures, the paper will argue that alcohol and tobacco emerged as yet another critical fault line of growing sectional division in the years before the Civil War.