Download or read book Liquor and Anti-liquor in Virginia, 1619-1919 written by Charles Chilton Pearson and published by Durham, N.C. : Duke University Press. This book was released on 1967 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The English notion that liquor was a part of man's natural food and drink, and therefore good, informed the attitude of the early colonial legislators and was clearly expressed in the laws which were in effect until long after the Civil War. Statutes against drunkenness reflected a concern with the morals and welfare of the lower classes. After the Civil War, with the coming of an increasingly urbanized and industrialized society, the temperance movement grew stronger. Its leaders began to turn to the masses of the people for support, and laws regulating the ordinary consumption of liquor were enacted. The hostility to liquor among the middle classes was as constant as was the determination of all other groups to drink. As part of a great national movement regulaulation was abandoned for state-wide prohibition, which subsequently gave way to local regulation once more. --