United States v. Hemani · ¶33

There was, in short, a “culture of copious drinking” in early America. D. Korostyshevsky, Incapable of Managing His Estate: Habitual Drunkards and the Expansion of Guardianship in the Nineteenth-Century United States, 43 Law & Hist. Rev. 795, 800 (2025). Indeed, in 1829 the “secretary of war estimated that three-quarters of the nation's laborers drank . . . at least 4 ounces of distilled spirits” every day. Rorabaugh 15. Even the American Temperance Society called those who drank 12 ounces of hard liquor daily mere “ `occasional drunkards.' ” Id., at 11. As the Society saw things, it took 24 ounces to qualify as a “ `confirmed drunkar[d].' ” Ibid.

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