Quote
By Rutherford Birchard Hayes
Personally, I do not resort to force — not even to the force of law — to advance moral reforms. I prefer education, argument, persuasion, and above all the influence of example — of fashion.
- Source
- Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes, Nineteenth President of the United States, Volume 4, 1924 · p. 126
- Read at
- Internet Archive (scan of the original edition, Columbus: Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society, 1924, edited by Charles Richard Williams)
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About this quote
Hayes wrote this in his diary, published as Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes (Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society, edited by Charles Richard Williams). He wrote it on Ohio's election day in 1883, about a prohibition amendment on the ballot, which he did not vote for. He says his own work for temperance is on other lines. The next sentence is: "Until these resources are exhausted I would not think of force."