average exceeded in any State three per cent. In France they are
estimated to be about fifteen per cent., and in Britain they exceed
this proportion.1 There seems to be nothing to hinder their
being increased in this country to at least treble their present
amount. The single article of ardent spirits, under federal
regulation, might be made to furnish a considerable revenue. Upon a
ratio to the importation into this State, the whole quantity
imported into the United States may be estimated at four millions of
gallons; which, at a shilling per gallon, would produce two hundred
thousand pounds. That article would well bear this rate of duty;
and if it should tend to diminish the consumption of it, such an
effect would be equally favorable to the agriculture, to the
economy, to the morals, and to the health of the society. There is,
perhaps, nothing so much a subject of national extravagance as these
spirits.
What will be the consequence, if we are not able to avail
ourselves of the resource in question in its full extent? A nation
cannot long exist without revenues. Destitute of this essential
support, it must resign its independence, and sink into the degraded
condition of a province. This is an extremity to which no
government will of choice accede. Revenue, therefore, must be had
at all events. In this country, if the principal part be not drawn
from commerce, it must fall with oppressive weight upon land. It
has been already intimated that excises, in their true
signification, are too little in unison with the feelings of the
people, to admit of great use being made of that mode of taxation;
nor, indeed, in the States where almost the sole employment is
agriculture, are the objects proper for excise sufficiently numerous
to permit very ample collections in that way. Personal estate (as
has been before remarked), from the difficulty in tracing it, cannot