Barbara Holland gives an account of the heavy drinking that went on in the evenings of the Constitutional Convention.

[A]djourned to a tavern for some rest, and according to the bill they drank 54 bottles of Madeira, 60 bottles of claret, 8 of whiskey, 22 of port, 8 of hard cider and 7 bowls of punch so large that, it was said, ducks could swim around in them. Then they went back to work and finished founding the new Republic.

At 55 delegates, that’s at least two bottles of wine each. Quite impressive. Our founding fathers could sure drink.

Now, of course, this would be almost unheard of. Due to ethics legislation. For instance, in the California Assembly, due to Proposition 9, no one can buy anyone anything that costs more than $10. That wouldn’t have even bought our founding fathers a single bottle of Maderia.

There was recently an article in the Sacramento Bee about the effects:

Wilson, a two-term Republican governor from 1991 to 1999, said the Legislature is dysfunctional when it gets too partisan. He blamed discord on a lack of the kind of collegiality that existed when he was in the Assembly in the late 1960s.

“It may have something to do with the fact that when John, Willie and I were all in the Assembly, there was a great deal more drinking in the Legislature,” Wilson said to laughter and applause. “These guys, the teetotalers, need to lighten up a bit.”

Burton, a liberal Democrat termed out of the Senate in 2004, likewise attributed problems to a lack of relationships among lawmakers. He recounted how legislators connected over daily lunches and dinners sponsored by lobbyists until post-Watergate political reform efforts limited meal contributions to $10 per legislator per month.

In one case, Burton said, he and Cusanovich, a Republican, bonded while eating dinner at an establishment where there was a topless dancer.

“You find out your kid plays Little League baseball, you find out that your daughter’s in ballet, you find out you have things in common,” Burton said. “But then something called Proposition 9 came in and said nobody could buy anybody anything more than $10 per month per person.”

A friend of mine, Stan Christenson, worked for the Harvard Negotiation Project, traveling around the world engaging in the most contentious negotiations between people that hated each other. He told me an amazing story once about two leaders in Latin America that wouldn’t even begin negotiations. They could barely stand to be in the same room as each other. So, Stan told them not to talk about politics, just to talk about their lives, get to know each other. An hour later, they were ready to talk. What happened? On of the leaders had found out that the other leader also had a handicapped daughter. That bond connected them more than their politics divided them.

Politics depends on us seeing the human in those that believe in very different things than we do, in an environment that’s set up to have us make them into enemies, into scapegoats. It’s true that alcohol, the Great Social Lubricant, can help break down those barriers. No political debates have been as contentious as the ones our founding fathers had, and no politicians have ever had such a large bar bill.