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"As illustrating the extraordinary resistance which the officers have had on some occasions to encounter, I refer to occurrences in Overton County, Tennessee, in August last, where a posse of eleven internal revenue officers, who had stopped at a farmer's house for the night, were attacked by a band of armed illicit distillers, who kept up a constant fusillade during the whole night, and whose force was augmented during the following day till it numbered nearly two hundred men.
While I was growing up, through boyhood, through my youth and on into manhood, I had the example of whiskey-drinking all about me. Many of our oldest and most respected families owned and operated distilleries. Some of them had been distillers for generations past; they were proud of the purity of their product. Men of all stations in life drank freely and with no sense of shame in their drinking.
As little, my lords, am I affected with the merit of the wonderful skill which the distillers are said to have attained: it is, in my opinion, no faculty of great use to mankind, to prepare palatable poison; nor shall I ever contribute my interest for the reprieve of a murderer, because he has, by long practice, obtained great dexterity in his trade.
Within the last few years pamphlets have been written by prominent clergymen of some of the prevailing denominations advocating the use of fermented wine, especially for sacramental purposes, in strong language, and claiming that it is a good and useful fluid. This seemed to aid and comfort distillers, brewers, and saloonists very much.
Soon afterwards the horror-stricken Jews read in the papers the following imperial order, dated March 28: Jewish mechanics, distillers, brewers, and, in general, master workmen and artisans shall be forbidden to remove from the Jewish Pale of Settlement as well as to come over from other places of the Empire to the City and Government of Moscow.
Investigations showed that the persons mainly concerned in the work of fraud were the Government officials rather than the distillers; and that a so-called 'Whiskey Ring' ... extended to Washington, and embraced within its sphere of influence and participation, not merely local supervisors, collectors, inspectors, and storekeepers of the revenue, but even officers of the Internal Revenue Bureau, and probably, also, persons occupying confidential relations with the Executive of the Nation."
Spencer Vance, although but a young man, had quite a reputation as a detective. He had done some daring work in running down a gang of forgers, and in the employ of a State Government, he had been very successful in breaking up several gangs of illicit whisky distillers.
Their assertion with respect to the coarse kind of barley, called big, was contradicted as a deviation from truth, inasmuch as it was used in making malt, as well as in making bread: and with respect to damaged corn, those who understood the nature of grain affirmed, that it was spoiled to such a degree as to be altogether unfit for either of these purposes, the distillers would not purchase it at such a price as would indemnify the farmer for the charge of threshing and carriage; for the distillers are very sensible, that their great profit is derived from their distilling the malt made from the best barley, so that the increase of the produce far exceeded in proportion the advance of the price.
Bassett had introduced into state politics the bi-partisan alliance, a device by virtue of which members of the assembly representing favored interests cooperated, to the end that no legislation viciously directed against railways, manufacturers, brewers and distillers should succeed through the deplorable violence of reformers and radicals.
If the distillers of Philadelphia, for example, petitioned for a greater discrimination in the duties on rum and on molasses, the citizens of Portland, then in Massachusetts, assured Congress that any duty on the latter commodity would operate injuriously and be attended with pernicious consequences to all the New England States. Once entered upon, this protective policy could not be stopped.
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