TO WILLIAM H. ORAWFORD (SECRETARY of the TREASURY.) J. MSS. MONTICELLO Nov. 10. 18. DEAR SIR,-Totally withdrawn from all attention to public affairs, & void of all anxiety about them as reposing entire confidence in those who administer them, I am led to some remarks on a particular subject by having heretofore taken some concern in it, and I should not do it even now but for information that you had turned your attention to it at the last session of Congress, and meant to do it again at the ensuing one. When Mr. Dallas's Tariff first appeared in the public papers, I observed that among his reforms, none was proposed on the most exceptionable article in Mr. Hamilton's original Tariff, I mean that of wines. I think it a great error to consider a heavy tax on wines, as a tax on luxury. On the contrary it is a tax on the health of our citizens. It is a legislative declaration that none but the richest of them shall be permitted to drink wine, and in effect a condemnation of all the middling & lower conditions of society to the poison of whisky, which is destroying them by wholesale, and ruining their families. Whereas were the duties on the cheap wines proportioned to their first cost the whole middling class of this country could have the gratification of that milder stimulus, and a great proportion of them would go into it's use and banish the baneful whisky. Surely it is not from the necessities of our treasury that we thus undertake to debar the mass of our citizens the use of not only an innocent gratification, but a healthy substitute instead of a bewitching poison. This aggression on the public taste and comfort has been ever deemed among the most arbitrary & oppressive abuses of the English government. It is one which I hope we shall never copy. But the truth is that the treasury would gain in the long run by the vast extension of the use of the article. I should therefore be for encouraging the use of wine by placing it among the articles of lightest duty. But be this as it may, take what rate of duty is thought proper, but carry it evenly thro' the cheap as well as the highest priced wines. If we take the duty on Madeira as the standard, it will be of about 25 per cent on the first cost, and I am sensible it lessens frauds to enumerate the wines known and used here, and to lay a specific duty on them, according to their known cost, but then the unknown and non enumerated should be admitted at the same per cent on their first cost. There are abundance of wines in Europe some weak, some strong, & of good flavor which do not cost there more than 2 cents a quart, and which are dutied here at 15. cents. I have myself imported wines which cost but 4. cents the quart and paid 15 cents duty. But an extraordinary inconsistence is in the following provisions of the Tariff. 'Claret & other wines not enumerated imported in bottles, per gallon..... 70 cents when imported otherwise than in bottles. 25. cents black bottles, glass, quart, per gross...... 144. cents If a cask of wine then is imported, and the bottles brought empty to put it into, the wine pays 64 cents the quart, & the bottles 1. cent, making 7 cents a bottle. But if the same wine is put into the same bottles there it pays 15 cents the quart, which is a tax of 7 cents (more than doubling the duty) for the act of putting it into the bottle there, where it is so much more skilfully done and contributes so much to the preservation of the wine on it's passage, for many of the cheap wines will not bear transportation in the cask which stand it well enough in the bottle. This is a further proscription of the light wines, and giving the monopoly of our tables to the strong & alcoholic, such as are all but equivalent in their effects to whisky. It would certainly be much more for the health & temperance of society to encourage the use of the weak, rather than the strong wines. 2. cents a quart first cost, & a cent duty would give us wine at 2 cents the bottle with the addition of freight & other small charges, which is but half the price of grog. These, dear Sir, are the thoughts which have long dwelt on my mind, and have given me the more concern as I have the more seen of the loathsome and fatal effects of whisky, destroying the fortunes, the bodies, the minds & morals of our citizens. I suggest them only to you, who can turn them to account if just; without meaning to add the trouble of an answer to the overwhelming labors of your office. In all cases accept the assurance of my sincere esteem & high consideration. MONTICELLO, November 13, 1818. The public papers, my dear friend, announce the fatal event of which your letter of October the 20th had given me ominous foreboding. Tried myself in the school of affliction, by the loss of every form of connection which can rive the human heart, I know well, and feel what you have lost, what you have suffered, are suffering, and have yet to endure. The same trials have taught me that for ills so immeasurable, time and silence are the only medicine. I will not, therefore, by useless condolences, open afresh the sluices of your grief, nor, although mingling sincerely my tears with yours, will I say a word more where words are vain, but that it is of some comfort to us both, that the term is not very distant, at which we are to deposit in the same cerement, our sorrows and suffering bodies, and to ascend in essence to an ecstatic meeting with the friends we have loved and lost, and whom we shall still love and never lose again. God bless you and support you under your heavy affliction. TO ALBERT GALLATIN J. MSS. MONTICELLO, November 24, 18. DEAR SIR,-Your letter of July 22 was most acceptable to me, by the distinctness of the view it presented of the state of France. I rejoice in the propsect that that country will so soon recover from the effects of the depression under which it has been laboring; and especially I rejoice in the hope of its enjoying a government as free as perhaps the state of things will yet bear. It appears to me, indeed, that their constitution, as it now is, gives them a legislative branch more equally representative, more independent, and certainly of more integrity, than the corresponding one in England. Time and experience will give what is still wanting, and I hope they will wait patiently for that without hazarding new convulsions. Here all is well. The President's message, delivered a few days ago, will have given you a correct view of the state of our affairs. The capture of Pensacola, which furnished so much speculation for European news-writers (who imagine that our political code, like theirs, had no chapter of morality), was nothing here. In the first moment, indeed, there was a general outcry of condemnation of what appeared to be a wrongful aggression. But this was quieted at once by information that it had been taken without orders and would be instantly restored; and although done without orders, yet not without justifiable cause, as we are assured will be satisfactorily shown. This manifestation of the will of our citizens to countenance no injustice towards a foreign nation filled me with comfort as to our future course. Emigration to the West and South is going on beyond anything imaginable. The President told me lately that the sales of public lands within the last year would amount to ten millions of dollars. There is one only passage in his message which I disapprove, and which I trust will not be approved by our legislature. It is that which proposes to subject the Indians to our laws without their consent. A little patience and a little money are so rapidly producing their voluntary removal across the |