For comparison, let us turn to the colony of Virginia. Be it remembered that colonization begun here a considerable time before the Pilgrim Fathers landed on the Rock of Plymouth.

In the early days of the colony, as in every rude and unpolished society, such as the early mining and lumber camps and about the large cattle ranges of the West in modern times, the Virginia colonists were addicted to the immoderate use of alcoholic beverages and drunkenness prevailed to a considerable extent in the colony.

As in other colonies and the countries of northern Europe, laws were passed to punish drunkenness. Very early retail dealers were required to procure a license, the fee to be paid therefor being a few pounds of tobacco, it being the principal medium of exchange. The price at which liquors were to be sold was fixed by the same commodity. Additional laws were enacted to prevent the adulteration of liquors.

In its session of 1661-2 the assembly imposed an import duty of sixpence (about 12 cents) on every gallon of rum brought to Virginia in any ships except those belonging to the inhabitants of the colony. This act remained in force only two years when it was repealed. In 1684 an import duty of threepence per gallon was laid upon liquors, wines, brandy, rum and spirits, except those imported in English vessels and in vessels owned by Virginians. There was little, if any, imported in any other vessels.

The distinguishing features of the Virginia colonial laws were that the license fees and import duties were so small that they added very little to the cost of liquor; and the marked characteristic is that the Virginians never placed an excise or internal tax on alcoholic beverages of any kind, nor sought in any way to raise any considerable part of their public revenues there from nor from the traffic therein. Taxes were levied in a more rational manner and the government of the colony never entered into the liquor business for profit. The price of various kinds of alcoholic liquors was less than that of lemonade, coffee

or tea.

We have it on the authority of Alexander Spotswood, Governor of Virginia from 1710 to 1722, a pioneer of iron-manufacturing in the United States, a major-general placed in command of an expedition to the West Indies in 1740, that there was "less drunkenness and dedauchery in Virginia than in any part of the world where his lot has been."

And its was the Virginia Colony that gave to America and to the world George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, James

Madison and James Monroe, all moderate drinkers-Washington himself, a distiller until the day of his death; a colony where whiskey and rum, wine and beer, was almost as plentiful as the leaves of the forest and as cheap as the most common foods. Can any other country, great or small, in any age or clime, in any generation, show such an array of men as these five Virginians whose names are household words in every civilized country upon earth?

It was in the Virginia Colony that the spirit of freedom and democracy-not only for the inhabitants themselves but for the worldwas born, cultivated, proclaimed and put into practice. Liberty and democracy was the religion of the Virginians, and this new religion spread throughout the other American colonies and into France and Great Britain. The democracy of the world today pays homage to the great Virginia leaders.

"Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty," and it is as true today as when uttered nearly a century and a half ago. It is the purpose of this work to impress these memorable and patriotic words upon the present generation. Many seem either to have forgotten them or fail to see the dangers threatening democracy in America. Let it not be assumed that democracy once established is forever safe. "It took Rome three hundred years to die."

After we shall have related further important facts, later pages will more fully point out existing dangers and the way of avoiding them.

As bearing upon the liquor system of the Virginians, I will quote from that great work that brought the people of England to see the iniquities of the protective system and to a considerable extent abolish it. In the Wealth of Nations, considering different trades, including the traffic in tobacco and alcohol, the workman and his drinks, Adam Smith, the father of political economy, states:

"He may, no doubt, buy too much of either, as he may of any other dealers in his neighborhood, of the butcher, if he is a glutton, of the draper, if he affects to be a beau among his companions. It is advantageous to the great body of workmen, notwithstanding, that all these trades should be free, though this freedom may be abused in all of them, and is more likely to be so, perhaps, in some than in others. Though individuals, besides, may sometimes ruin their fortunes by an excessive consumption of fermented liquors, there seems to be no risk that a nation should do so. Though in every country there are many people who spend upon such liquors more

than they can afford, there are always many more who spend less. It deserves to be remarked, too, if we consult experience, the cheapness of wine seems to be a cause, not of drunkenness, but of sobriety. The inhabitants of the wine countries are in general the soberest people in Europe; witness the Spaniards, the Italians, and the inhabitants of the southern provinces of France. People are seldom guilty of excess in what is their daily fare. Nobody affects the character of liberality and good fellowship, by being profuse of a liquor which is as cheap as small beer. On the contrary, in the countries which, either from excessive heat or cold, produce no grapes, and where wine consequently is dear and a rarity, drunkenness is a common vice, as among the northern nations, and all those who live between the tropics, the negroes, for example, on the coast of Guinea. When a French regiment comes from some of the northern provinces of France, where wine is somewhat dear, to be quartered in the southern, where it is very cheap, the soldiers, I have frequently heard it observed, are at first debauched by the cheapness and novelty of good wine; but after a few months' residence the greater part of them become as sober as the rest of the inhabitants. Were the duties upon foreign wines, and the excises upon malt beer and ale, to be taken away all at once, it might, in the same manner, occasion in Great Britain a pretty general and temporary drunkenness among the middling and inferior ranks of people, which would probably be soon followed by a permanent and almost universal sobriety. At present drunkenness is by no means the vice of the people of fashion, or of those who can easily afford the most expensive liquors. A gentleman drunk with ale has scarce ever been seen among us."

The history of the world, not only before those statements were written, a century and a half ago, by that profound thinker and careful observer, but for all time proves their truth.

CHAPTER IV

FROM 1776 TO 1817

After the formation of the Union and the adoption of the federal Constitution, the several States generally licensed the retail trade in liquors and for more than three-fourths of a century fixed the retail price and forbid the sale or furnishing of intoxicating liquors to the Indians, and to slaves without the consent of their masters.

The license was not directly to the liquor dealers as such, but a license "to keep a tavern," the sale of liquor being incidental thereto; the object being to have a public record of stopping places for travelers in order to oversee and regulate the business and protect the guests from extortion. Often no fee for the license was exacted, simply a bond to obey the laws and keep an orderly house. When a license fee was charged it was sometimes $2.00, more often $5.00 to $15.00 per annum. Abraham Lincoln and his partner, William F. Berry, in 1833 in New Salem, Illinois, paid $7.00 for their tavern license and by its terms were required to charge no more than 122 cents, one "bit", for a half pint of whiskey; lodging per night the same; horse per night 25 cents; breakfast, dinner and supper for stage passengers 371⁄2 cents or three "bits", and peach brandy 1834 cents, a "bit" and a "fip"; the maximum price to be charged for the various kinds of drinks being specifically stated, beer and ale, however, not being mentioned.

Later both Nebraska and Kansas fixed a much higher license fee, the former, in 1858, placing it at $25 to $500 and the latter, in 1859, at $50 to $500, requiring a bond of $2,000.

After the adoption of the Constitution of the United States no State has attempted to place an excise or internal revenue tax on liquors, that being left to the federal government at its discretion.

At the suggestion of Alexander Hamilton, in the early part of 1791, after much debate, Congress placed an internal revenue tax of 13 cents per proof gallon on spirits distilled in the United States from foreign material and on spirits distilled from produce of the United States II cents per proof gallon.

The act met with much opposition among the people and in Congress. Parker of Virginia, during the debate in the House, strenuously opposed the bill. "It will," he said, "convulse the government; it will let loose a swarm of harpies, who, under the denomination of revenue officers, will range through the country, prying into every man's house and affairs, and, like a Macedonian phalanx, bear down all before them."

The bill was carried by the votes from New England, only five Southern votes being cast for it.

The opposition among the people was bitter and violent. Indignation meetings were held and resolutions adopted denouncing the act as "immoral in its effects, dangerous to liberty, and especially oppressive to the inhabitants of the western country.' Revenue officers were seized by indignant citizens and whipped, tarred and feathered, and one man, supposed to be a revenue officer, was repeatedly branded with hot irons. Distillers who sumbitted and paid the tax were denounced at public meetings. Jefferson styled the excise an "infernal error," and held Hamilton's system to be founded on "principles inimical to liberty" and calculated to undermine the Constitution. Most of the distillers resisted and refused the payment of the tax and but comparatively little was collected.

The opposition and resistance being so pronounced, the following year, at the suggestion of Hamilton, Congress reduced the excise on spirits distilled wholly or in part from foreign materials one cent per gallon, and from materials of the growth or produce of the United States two cents, making the excise tax thereon 12 and 9 cents per proof gallon, respectively.

At this time, something more than a year after the first national excise tax was enacted, Hamilton, Secretary of the Treasury, estimated the annual per capita consumption of distilled spirits in the United States at eleven quarts—an average of two and three-fourths gallons for every man, woman and child in the country. This enormous consumption continued for several years and was greater during this period than at any time in the history of the United Statesgreater even than during the past few years. By reason of the crude machinery of the government at that time, but comparatively little of the tax was collected. Men seemed to avoid the tax, and drink greatly to excess, simply to show their contempt for the excise law. Drunkenness, instead of being a disgrace, was looked upon as a patriotic practice in showing contempt for an iniquitous and dangerous tax system.

The opposition was not because of the amount of the tax, but, as a principle, it was directed against any excise tax, however small. If any tax of the kind whatever could be exacted by the government there was no limit to its amount nor to the articles or produce of the country upon which it might be laid. Such tax in Great Britain had become very oppressive and had formerly been imposed upon the American colonies with bitter resistance of the colonists.

This latter act met with no more popular favor than the act which