You might as well try to regulate the Asiatic
cholera, or the small-pox, by taxation. The men who distil liquors
are, for the most part, unscrupulous; and the higher the tax, the more
inducement to illicit distillation. New York produces forty thousand
gallons of whiskey every twenty-four hours; and the most of it escapes
the tax. The most vigilant officials fail to discover the cellars, and
vaults, and sheds where this work is done.
Oh, the folly of trying to restrain an evil by government tariffs! If
every gallon of whiskey made, if every flask of wine produced, should
be taxed a thousand dollars, it would not be enough to pay for the
tears it has wrung out of the eyes of widows and orphans, nor for the
blood it has dashed on the altars of the Christian Church, nor for the
catastrophe of the millions it has destroyed forever.
Oh! we are a Christian people! From Boston a ship sailed for
Africa, with three missionaries, and twenty-two thousand gallons
of New-England rum on board. Which will have the most effect: the
missionaries, or the rum?
Rum is victor.
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