In 1838, the mass working class movement for universal suffrage for men, Chartism, included a current called "temperance chartism". Faced with the refusal of the Parliament of the time to give the right to vote to working people, the temperance chartists saw the campaign against alcohol as a way of proving to the elites that working-class people were responsible enough to be granted the vote. In short, the 1830s was mostly characterized by moral persuasion of workers. Growing radicalism and influence (1840s–1850s) The Washingtonian movement In 1840, a group of artisans in Baltimore, Maryland created their own temperance society that could appeal to hard-drinking men like themselves. Calling themselves the Washingtonians, they pledged complete abstinence, attempting to persuade others through their own experience with alcohol rather than relying on preaching and religious lectures. They argued that sympathy was an overlooked method for helping people with alcohol addictions, citing coercion as an ineffective method. For that reason, they did not support prohibitive legislation of alcohol. They were suspicious of the divisiveness of denominational religion and did not use religion in their discussions, emphasizing personal abstinence. They never set up national organizations, believing that concentration of power and distance from citizens causes corruption. Meetings were public and they encouraged equal participation, appealing to both men and women and northerners and southerners. Unlike early temperance reformers, the Washingtonians did not believe that intemperance destroyed a drinker's morality. They worked on the platform that abstinence communities could be created through sympathizing with drunkards rather than ostracizing them through the belief that they are sinners or diseased. On February 22, 1842 in Springfield, Illinois, while a member of the Illinois Legislature, Abraham Lincoln gave an address to the Springfield Washington Temperance Society on the 110th anniversary of the birth of George Washington. In the speech, Lincoln criticized early methods of the temperance movement as overly forceful and advocated reason as the solution to the problem of intemperance, praising the current temperance movement methods of the Washingtonian movement. By 1845, the Washingtonian movement was no longer as prominent for three reasons. Firstly, the evangelist reformers attacked them for refusing to admit alcoholism was a sin. Secondly, the movement was criticized as unsuccessful due to the number of men who would go back to drinking. Finally, the movement was internally divided by differing views on prohibition legislation. Temperance fraternal societies such as the Sons of Temperance and