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INTRODUCTORY.

HISTORICAL SKETCH OF INTERNAL REVENUE TAXATION UNDER THE GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED STATES.

INTERNAL revenue taxes are coeval with the existence of the government of the United States. As early as 1790, during Washington's first administration, an act imposing an excise tax on distilled spirits was introduced into Congress and was defeated. But before the close of the first Congress, March 3, 1791, an act levying a tax on domestic spirits was passed. This was the first internal revenue measure, as well as the first excise tax on domestic spirits, under the Constitution of 1789, and levied a tax graduated from eleven to thirty cents per gallon, according to the strength of the spirits, and depending also upon whether the materials used in distillation were of foreign or domestic production. At this time, population and civilization were wholly confined between the eastern slope of the Alleghanies and the Atlantic Ocean. At the close of the Revolution,

"Our land was but a shelving strip
Black with the strife that made it free."

The poverty of the people was extreme. The necessaries of life were mostly home-made, and only the rich could afford foreign luxuries. The coarser forms of spirits were, however, cheap and abundant. Molasses, for which the enterprising Yankees traded their lumber and fish in the West Indies, furnished the material from which great quantities of rum were distilled; and that fiery liquor became almost as common in New England as cider, then the common drink of the people, and was on the table of the rich and poor alike. At the close of the Revolution there were said to be a hundred rum distilleries in Massachusetts, most of them in Boston. In the West and South, whiskey made from grain

supplied the place of rum. Neither the temperance nor the total abstinence reform had then been heard of; and spirits were regarded among all classes as one of the necessaries of life. It was only the abuse that was deplored, and not the moderate use.

It was not long after the imposition of the tax on spirits before discontent was strongly manifested, and it became most active among the mountains of western Pennsylvania, where it was fomented by some leading men, among whom, strange to say, was Albert Gallatin, who afterwards rendered illustrious financial service to the young republic. The mountaineers of that region fiercely resented the attempt of the government to tax their stills, and it is a curious fact that this indisposition to pay the tax on whiskey has descended like an inheritance to our own day; and we find that part of the Appalachian chain extending south from Pennsylvania through West Virginia, Old Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama still infested with "moonshiners," with hardly any diminution from year to year.

In September, 1791, they tarred and feathered a revenue officer in Washington County, Pennsylvania. In May, 1792, Congress reduced the tax on spirits from ten to twenty-five per cent., with a view of allaying the discontent, but it seems to have had no effect in removing resistance to the enforcement of the law. The opposition to the excise officers reached such a point that in September, 1792, the President issued his proclamation warning the law-breakers of the consequences of their conduct. Matters continued in this way for a year or two, the tax in the mean while being everywhere very imperfectly collected. One of the hardships complained of by the whiskey insurrectionists was, that the law authorized the revenue officers to swear out warrants against the illict distillers, and arrest and carry them to Philadelphia, several hundred miles distant, for trial, that being the seat of the nearest federal court. To meet this objection Congress, by act of June 5, 1794, gave the state courts concur rent jurisdiction in excise cases. Notwithstanding this law,

and subsequent to it, for some unknown reason, fifty writs were issued in Philadelphia against illict distillers for service in western Pennsylvania, and in July, 1794, the insurrection became serious. On August 7, 1794, President Washington issued a proclamation calling out the militia of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Virginia, and Maryland to suppress the whiskey insurrection. The troops were to march September 1. In the mean time commissioners were sent to treat with the leaders, who were promised amnesty if they would cease their violent opposition to the law. But these negotiations resulted in nothing, and September 25, 1794, another proclamation was issued warning the insurgents of the approach of the troops. These numbered 15,000. Washington accompanied them as far as Carlisle, Pennsylvania, where he turned over the command to Governor Lee of Virginia. These troops were largely composed of the veterans of the Revolution, and officered by soldiers trained in the same patriotic school. The first show of force suppressed the insurrection. It immediately collapsed and disappeared. Its suppression was almost bloodless, only two persons having been killed, and these were in quarrels of citizens with the soldiery, and not in actual collision of hostile forces. This is an interesting episode in our early history as exhibiting the first serious resistance experienced by the federal government in the exercise of its authority and the execution of its laws. Unfortunately it was not to be the last.

Other internal revenue laws were passed in 1794, one laying a duty on carriages used in conveyance of persons; also acts laying duties on licenses for selling wines and foreign distilled spirits by retail, and a duty on snuff of eight cents a pound, and a duty of two cents a pound on sugar refined in this country.

A drawback was also allowed on the exportation of snuff of the amount of tax paid thereon. This drawback was afterwards limited to six cents a pound, and seems to have given our forefathers a great deal of trouble, for numerous acts were passed to regulate it. It was soon found that the amount of drawback allowed on this exported snuff exceeded

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