It is common{318} in this country to distinguish every bad thing by the name of slavery.

Intemperance is slavery; to be deprived of the right to vote is slavery, says one; to have to work hard is slavery, says another; and I do not know but that if we should let them go on, they would say that to eat when we are hungry, to walk when we desire to have exercise, or to minister to our necessities, or have necessities at all, is slavery.

I do not wish for a moment to detract from the horror with which the evil of intemperance is contemplated--not at all; nor do I wish to throw the slightest obstruction in the way of any political freedom that any class of persons in this country may desire to obtain.
But I am here to say that I think the term slavery is sometimes abused by identifying it with that which it is not.

Slavery in the United States is the granting of that power by which one man exercises and enforces a right of property in the body and soul of another.

The condition of a slave is simply that of the brute beast.