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.