The supposed tendency of the act to injure morals seems to have relation to the oaths, which are, in a variety of cases, required, and which are liable to the objection that they give occasion to perjuries.
The necessity of requiring oaths is, whenever it occurs, matter of regret. It is certainly desirable to avoid them as often and as far as possible; but it is more easy to desire than to find a substitute. The requiring of them is not peculiar to the act in question; they are a common appendage of revenue laws, and are among the usual guards of those laws, as they are of public and private rights in courts of justice. They constantly occur in jury trials, to which the citizens of the United States are so much and so justly attached. The same objection, in different degrees, lies against them in both cases, yet it is not perceivable how they can be dispensed with in either.
It is remarkable that both the kinds of security to the revenue, which are to be found in the act, the oaths of parties and the inspection of officers are objected to. If they are both to be abandoned, it is not easy to imagine what security there can be for any species of revenue, which is to be collected from articles of consumption.
If precautions of this nature are inconsistent with liberty, and immoral, as there are very few indirect taxes which can be collected without them, the consequence must be that the entire or almost entire weight of the public burthens must, in the first instance, fall upon fixed and visible property, houses, and lands—a consequence which would be found, in experiment, productive of great injustice and inequality, and ruinous to agriculture.
It has been suggested by some distillers, that both the topics of complaint which have been mentioned, might be obviated by a fixed rate of duty, adjusted according to a ratio compounded of the capacity of each still, and the number and capacities of the cisterns employed with it; but this, and every similar method, are objected to by other distillers, as tending to great inequality, arising from unequal supplies of the material at different times, and at different places, from the different methods of distillation practised by different distillers, and from the different degrees of activity in the business, which arise from capitals more or less adequate.
The result of an examination of this point appears to be, that every such mode, in cases in which the business is carried on upon an extensive scale, would, necessarily, be attended with considerable inequalities; and, upon the whole, would be less satisfactory than the plan which has been adopted.
It is proved by the fullest information, that, in regard to distillers which are rated in the law, according to the capacity of each still, the alternative of paying according to the quantity actually distilled, is received in many parts of the United States as essential to the equitable operation of the duty. And it is evident, that such an alternative could not be allowed but upon the condition of the party rendering upon oath an account of the quantity of spirits distilled by him, without entirely defeating the duty.
As to the charge, that the penalties of the act are too severe and oppressive, it is made in such general terms, and so absolutely without the specification of a single particular, that it is difficult to imagine where it points.
The Secretary, however, has carefully reviewed the provisions of the act, in this respect, and he is not able to discover any foundation for the charge.
The penalties it inflicts are in their nature the same with those which are common in revenue laws, and, in their degree, comparatively moderate.
Pecuniary fines, from fifty to five hundred dollars, and forfeiture of the article in respect to which there has been a failure to comply with the law, are the severest penalties inflicted upon delinquent parties, except in a very few cases: In two, a forfeiture of the value of the article is added to that of the article itself, and in some others, a forfeiture of the ship or vessel, and of the wagon or other instrument of conveyance, assistant in a breach of law, is likewise involved.
Penalties like these, for wilful and fraudulent breaches of an important law, cannot, truly, be deemed either unusual or excessive. They are less than those which secure the laws of impost, and as moderate as can promise security to any object of revenue which is capable of being evaded.
There appears to be but one provision in the law, which admits of a question whether the penalty prescribed may not partake of severity. It is that which inflicts the pains of perjury on any person who shall be convicted of “wilfully taking a false oath or affirmation in any of the cases in which oaths or affirmations are required by the act.”
Precedents in relation to this particular, vary. In many of them, the penalties are less severe than for perjury, in courts of justice; in others, they are the same. The latter are, generally, of the latest date, and seem to have been the result of experience.
The United States have, in other cases, pursued the same principle as in the law in question. And the practice is certainly founded on strong reasons.
1st. The additional security which it gives to the revenue cannot be doubted. Many who would risk pecuniary forfeitures and penalties would not encounter the more disgraceful punishment annexed to perjury.
2d. There seems to be no solid distinction between one false oath in violation of law and right and another false oath in violation of law and right. A distinction in the punishments of different species of false swearing is calculated to beget false opinions concerning the sanctity of an oath; and by countenancing an impression, that a violation of it is less heinous in the cases in which it is less punished, it tends to impair in the mind that scrupulous veneration for the obligation of an oath which ought always to prevail, and not only to facilitate a breach of it in the cases which the laws have marked with less odium, but to prepare the mind for committing the crime in other cases.
So far is the law under consideration from being chargeable with particular severity, that there are to be found in it marks of more than common attention to prevent its operating severely or oppressively.
The 43d section of the act contains a special provision (and one which, it is believed, is not to be found in any law enacted in this country, prior to the present constitution of the United States), by which forfeitures and penalties incurred, without an intention of fraud or wilful negligence, may be mitigated or remitted.
This mild and equitable provision is an effectual guard against suffering or inconvenience, in consequence of undesigned transgressions of the law.
The 30th section contains a provision in favor of persons, who, though innocent, may accidently suffer by seizures of their property (as in the execution of the revenue laws sometimes unavoidably happens), which is, perhaps, entirely peculiar to the law under consideration. Where there has even been a probable cause of seizure, sufficient to acquit an officer, the jury are to assess whatever damages may have accrued from an injury to the article seized, with an allowance for the detention of it, at the rate of six per centum per annum of the value, which damages are to be paid out of the public treasury.
There are other provisions of the act which mark the scrupulous attention of the Government to protect the parties concerned from inconvenience and injury, and which conspire to vindicate the law from imputations of severity or oppression.
The supposed tendency of the act to injure industry, and to interfere with the business of distilling, is endeavored to be supported by some general and some special reasons, both having relation to the effect of the duty upon the manufacture.
Those of the first kind affirm generally, that duties on home manufactures are impolitic, because they tend to discourage them; that they are particularly so, when they are laid on articles manufactured from the produce of the country, because they have, then, the additional effect of injuring agriculture; that it is the general policy of nations to protect and promote
