The Temperance movement was a movement against drinking and using alcoholic beverages. This movement was started in 1826 with the foundation of American Temperance Society by two people Lyman Beecher and Dr. Justin Edwards. The society grew very quickly by gaining over 8,000 chapters in just under 1.5 million members. The ATS promoted moderation or completely not using any alcoholic beverages, and was mostly filled with women and children whose lives have been affected by alcohol. The group was lead locally by mostly preachers from the protestant and catholic churches who joined the movement in the late 1830s. There were two types of people that were behind the temperance movement; the one who would be considered radical and the one who calls for moderation. Most would be able to figure out completely outlawing alcohol would be a bad idea, and we can look into the future and see this with Prohibition. Many people were worried about how other people would drink, drink, and drink some more. This was a problem because it is pretty hard to do your job under the influence. It was pretty common for workers to get paid in alcohol and money; the alcohol was also safer to drink in some places over water because the water was contaminated. The first major success in the Temperance movement came in 1851 when Maine passed a law banning the sale and production of alcohol, unless it was used for medical and research purposes. This “started the snowball” and some other states passed similar laws. The passing of the law in 1851 was a massive success for the Temperance movement, but it was short lived because it was appealed following a riot in 1856, but the law would be reenacted later down the road. Every movement has to have a failure too, and it came at the start of the Civil War. This caused the Temperance movement to stall because everyone stopped worrying about alcohol and people started to worry about the war itself. The movement was also a whole lot weaker in the south because, let’s face it, it’s the south. All of the anti-alcohol laws were repealed by the end of the war, some of them did end up being reenacted. In the end when it all comes down to it, I believe that this movement was not successful, and that’s only because of how the laws didn’t stay. Yes this movement was around for a while and a few years later it became a national law banning alcohol, but that didn’t work, and we can look to Maine to see thisl\.