9154. WINES, Tax on.—[continued].
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 and lower
conditions of society to the poison of 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 and oppressive
abuses of the English government. It
is one which, I hope, we shall never copy.—
To William H. Crawford.
Ford ed., x, 112.
(M.
1818)
See Life, Jefferson's Habits of.
