_Early Attempts at Regulation by Legislation_
This unrestrained indulgence in liquor, which previous to 1624 had
excited the criticism of the company, called down on the Colony on
several occasions the animadversion of the Royal Governor after he
had taken charge of affairs in Virginia. In 1625 Governor Yeardley
was instructed to suppress drunkenness by severe punishments, and to
dispose of the spirits brought into the Colony in such manner that it
would go to the relief and comfort of the whole plantation instead
of falling into the hands of those who would abuse it. He received
additional orders to return to the importers all liquors shown to be
decayed or unwholesome. The injunction to withhold all liquors imported
into the Colony from persons who were guilty of excess in the use of
them was repeated.
The attempts to prevent drunkenness were not confined to instructions
to the Governors, given by the authorities in England. From the
first session of the first assembly, no legislative means were left
unemployed to accomplish the same object. In 1619 it was provided
that the person guilty in this respect should for the first offense
be privately reproved by his minister; for the second, publicly; for
the third be imprisoned for twelve hours; and if still incorrigible be
punished as the Governor directed.
In March, 1623-4, the church-wardens in every parish were ordered to
present all persons guilty of drunkenness to the commander of the
plantation. In 1631-2 the offender was required to pay five shillings
into the hands of the nearest vestry, and this fine could be made good
by levy on his property. In 1657-8 the person guilty of inebriety was
punished by a very heavy fine, and also rendered incapable of being a
witness in court, or bearing office under the government of the Colony.
In 1691 the penalty for drunkenness was ten shillings, and if unable to
pay the sum, the offender was to be exposed in the stocks for the space
of two hours.
In 1668 there were so many taverns and tippling houses in the Colony
that it was found necessary to reduce the number in each county to one
or two, unless, for the accommodation of travelers, more should be
needed at ports, ferries, and the crossings of great roads, in addition
to that which was erected at the court house.
Drunkards were severely punished and were set in the stocks and
whipped. On September 3, 1633, in Boston one Robert Coles was "fined
ten shillings and enjoined to stand with a white sheet of paper on
his back, whereon _Drunkard_ shall be written in great lynes, and to
stand therewith soe long as the court find meet, for abusing himself
shamefully with drinke." Robert Coles for "drunkenness by him committed
at Rocksbury shall be disfranchised, weare about his neck, and so to
hang upon his outward garment a D made of redd cloth & sett upon white;
to continue this for a yeare, & not to have it off any time hee comes
among company, under the penalty of one shilling for the first offense,
and five pounds for the second, and afterwards to be punished by the
Court as they think meet: _also he is to weare the D outwards_."
Lists of names of common drunkards were given to landlords in some
towns, and landlords were warned not to sell liquor to them. Licenses
were removed and fines imposed on those who did not heed the warning.
The tithing man, that most bumptious public functionary of colonial
times, was at first the official appointed to spy specially on the
ordinaries. He inspected these houses, made complaints of any disorders
he discovered, and gave into the constable the names of idle drinkers
and gamers. He warned the keepers of public houses to sell no more
liquor to any whom he fancied had been tippling too freely.
John Josslyn, an English visitor in Boston in 1663, complained bitterly
thus:
"At houses of entertainment into which a stranger went, he was
presently followed by one appointed to that office, who would thrust
himself into the company uninvited, and if he called for more drink
than the officer thought in his judgment he could soberly bear away,
he would presently countermand it, and appoint the proportion, beyond
which he could not get one drop."
The prisons found little occupation as compared with the pillory and
the whipping post. The latter was the common corrector of drunkenness.
We have an amusing description of what constitutes drunkenness, from
Colonel Dodberry: "Now for to know a drunken man the better, the
Scriptures describes them to stagger and reel to and fro; and so when
the same legs which carry a man into the house can not bring him out
again, it is a sufficient sign of drunkenness."
In 1676, during the supremacy of Nathaniel Bacon, at which time so many
laws were passed for the purpose of suppressing long standing abuses,
a legislative attempt was made to enforce what practically amounted to
general prohibition. The licenses of all inns, alehouses, and tippling
houses, except those at James City, and at the two great ferries of
York River, were revoked. The keepers of the ordinaries which were
permitted to remain open at the latter places were allowed to sell
only beer and cider. This regulation was remarkable in that it was
adopted by the action of the people, who must have been the principal
customers of the tippling houses, if not of the inns. Not content with
putting a stop to sales in public places, the framers of the regulation
further prescribed that "no one should presume to sell any sort of
drink whatsoever, by retail, under any color, pretence, delusion, or
subtle evasion whatsoever, to be drunk or spent in his or their house
or houses, upon his or their plantation or plantations."
The general court of Massachusetts on one occasion required the
proper officers to notice the apparel of the people, especially their
"ribbands and great boots." Drinking of healths in public or private;
funeral badges; celebrating the church festivals of Christmas and
Easter; and many other things that seemed quite improper to magistrates
and legislators, and especially to the Puritan clergy, were forbidden.
In Pennsylvania men were imprisoned in a cage seven feet high, seven
feet wide, and seven feet long, for selling liquor to the Indians and
for watering the white man's rum, both of which offences the law
placed on equal footing.
Virginia and New Jersey declared liquor debts uncollectible by law.
Several of the colonies forbade workmen to be paid in liquor. In
Massachusetts, in 1764, the law required that all who bought liquor
should render an account of it except state officers, professors and
students of Harvard College, and preachers of the gospel.
The law frequently manifested great concern about the clergy. Virginia
had a statute making it an offence for a minister to appear drunk in
his pulpit on Sunday, and in addition the following statute:
"Ministers shall not give themselves to excess in drinking or riot,
spending their time idly by day or by night, playing at dice, cards, or
any unlawful game, but at all times convenient they shall hear or read
some what of the Holy Scriptures."
It is one of the curiosities of old time legislation that the use
of tobacco was in earliest colonial days plainly regarded by the
magistrates and elders as far more sinful, degrading, and harmful
than indulgence in intoxicating liquors. No one could take tobacco
"publicquely" nor in his own house, or anywhere else before strangers.
Two men were forbidden to smoke together. No one could smoke within
two miles of the meeting house on the Sabbath day. There were wicked
backsliders who were caught smoking around the corner of the meeting
house, and others in the street, and they were fined and set in the
stocks and in cages.
_Tariffs_
After the thirteen colonies had formed "a more perfect union" the
question of revenue caused a heated discussion. Of the many ways
through which a sure revenue might flow into the treasury none seemed
as desirable as an impost. Of molasses, two millions of gallons came
into the country each year. A few hundreds of thousands of these were
consumed as food. The remainder were hurried to the Massachusetts
distilleries and there made into the far-famed New England rum, which
by the fishermen at the Grand Banks was thought much finer than the
best that came from Jamaica. All other goods brought into any port in
the country were to be taxed at five per cent of their value.
A long list of articles was given on which special duties were to
be paid. At the head of the list stood Jamaica rum, which on motion
was changed to distilled spirits of Jamaica proof. Two duties were
suggested, one of fifteen cents on the gallon, which speedily divided
the committee. Some thought such rates too high. Some declared they
were much too low. And before the discussion had gone far it turned
into a debate on the good and ill effects of high duties and low
duties. One low tariff member remarked that the first thing to be
considered in laying a tax was the likelihood of gathering it, and that
as taxes increased this likelihood decreased. "I trust," said he, "it
does not need illustration to convince every member of the committee
that a high duty is a very strong temptation to smuggling. Just in the
proportion which a tax bears to the value of an article is the risk
men will run in their attempts to bring in that article in an illegal
way. This impairs the revenue, and in time so much comes in through
the hands of smugglers that no revenue is yielded at all." Boudinot
said "he for one would be glad to see Jamaica rum doing just that very
thing." There were three good results that would come of a high rum
tariff: The treasury wanted money, and surely there was no article on
the lists of taxable goods so likely to furnish a revenue as rum; the
importation would be discouraged, and that was beneficial to the morals
of the people; the West Indian distilleries would have no inducement to
turn their molasses into rum, and as they had no markets for molasses
save those of the United States, the home stills would be set actively
to work.
These remarks on the moral effects of the tax were violently attacked
by two members from the eastward. Fisher Ames quite forgot himself,
and reminded the committee, with great vehemence of gesture and
speech, that they were not in church or at school, to sit listening to
harangues of speculative piety. We are, exclaimed he, to talk of the
political interests committed to our care. When we take up the subject
of morality then let our system look toward morality, and not confound
itself with revenue and the protection of manufactures. If any man
supposes that a mere law can turn the taste of a people from ardent
spirits to malt liquors, he has a most romantic notion of legislative
power. Lawrence, one of the members from New York, took up the attack.
He was for low tariff. "If," said he, "the committee is to reason and
act as moralists, the arguments of the member from New Jersey are
sound. For it must be the wish of every man of sense to discourage the
use of articles so ruinous to health and morals as rum. But we are
to act as politicians, not as moralists. Rum, not morality, is to be
taxed. Money, not sobriety, is the object of the tax."
The justness of this reasoning was lost on the committee, and spirits
of Jamaica proof were taxed at fifteen cents a gallon. The duty finally
levied on all distilled spirits was due to the influence of Hamilton,
whose first tariff bill also imposed a duty on glass, "with the
significant reservation," as Blaine states, "in deference to popular
habits that black quart bottles should be admitted free."
_Internal Revenue Tax_
The system of internal taxation by the federal government began on
that memorable day in 1791 when Washington signed the bill laying a
duty on domestic distilled spirits; a tax which, proving more harsh in
its operations than was expected, was amended in 1792, and after being
denounced by legislatures and by mass meetings as oppressive, unequal,
and unjust, was openly resisted by the people of western Pennsylvania,
who rose in armed rebellion in 1794. In that same year taxes were laid
on licenses for retailing wine and liquor, and on the manufacture
of snuff, tobacco, and refined sugar, on carriages, and on sales at
auction.
In 1801 the taxes on carriages, on licenses for retailing liquor, on
snuff and refined sugar, on sales at auction, when about to expire,
were continued without a time limit; but the next year the republicans
were in control, and every kind of internal tax was abolished with
exultation.
With this record behind them the two parties met in the extra session
of the thirteenth congress and changed places. The federalists became
the enemies of taxation; the republicans became its advocates, and
before the session ended taxed pleasure carriages, sales at auction,
sugar refineries, salt, licenses to sell liquor at retail; laid a stamp
tax on all kinds of legal documents, taxed whiskey stills, imposed a
direct tax of three million dollars and brought back all the machinery
of assessment and collection, and again turned loose in the land the
tax gatherer and what they had once called his minions. As some months
must necessarily pass before any money could be raised from these
sources, another loan of seven million and a half was authorized. From
this time until the present liquor has been constantly taxed both by
state and nation, and has been relied on to furnish a large part of the
public revenue.