834 ^^^ POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



into and reporting " on the subject of raising by taxation such revenue 

 as may be necessary in order to supply the wants of the Government, 

 having regard to and including the sources from which such revenue 

 should be drawn, and the best and most effectual mode of raising the 

 same.'* Of this commission, Mr. Wells was appointed chairman by 

 the then Secretary of the Treasury, Hon. Hugh McCulloch ; and its re- 

 port in 1806, which was mainly the work of Mr. Wells, presented for 

 the first time a full and exact statement of the curious and complex 

 system of internal and customs revenue which had grown up during 

 the war, when the necessities for raising immense sums of money with 

 the utmost promptness and regularity were so great as to transcend all 

 ordinary considerations, and justify the maxim, " Whenever you find 

 an article, a product, a trade, a profession, or a source of income, tax 

 it.'" How wonderfully successful this system of taxation proved, is 

 shown by the circumstance, that for the last year of its full operation 

 — 18G5-'6G — it yielded from internal-revenue sources alone $310,000,- 

 000, and from internal revenue, customs, and other sources, the aggre- 

 gate sum of $559,000,000, drawn from a tax-paying population not 

 much in excess of twenty-two millions. In addition to this feature of 

 the Revenue Commission Report in 1866, it also contained elaborate 

 reports on sugars, tea, coffee, cotton, spices, proprietary articles — pat- 

 ent medicines and the like — petroleum, fermented liquors, and distilled 

 spirits as sources of revenue, with estimates as to the amount of reve- 

 nue which the Treasury might expect if taxation on them, at various 

 rates, was to be continued ; the whole being really the first practical 

 attempt in the United States to gather and use national statistics for 

 great national purposes. 



On the termination of the Revenue Commission in January, 1866, 

 by limitation of service. Congress was so well satisfied with the work 

 that Mr. Wells had performed, that he was immediately appointed, for 

 a term of four years, to an office created for him, under the title of 

 " Special Commissioner of the Revenue," the duties of which were thus 

 defined by the enacting statute : " He shall from time to time report, 

 through the Secretary of the Treasury, to Congress, either in the form 

 of bill, or otherwise, such modifications of the rates of taxation, or of the 

 methods of collecting the revenues, and such other facts pertaining to 

 the trade, industry, commerce, or taxation of the country as he may 

 find by actual observation of the operation of the law to be conducive 

 to the public interest." 



In this office, and invested with large powers, Mr. Wells entered 

 with ardor upon the work of reconstructing and repealing the com- 

 plex system of internal taxation, which had become terribly oppressive, 

 and the longer continuance of which had become unnecessary ; and, 

 under his initiation and supervision were originated nearly all the re- 

 forms of importance in our national-revenue system — internal and cus- 

 toms — that were adopted by Congress betw'een the close of the war in 



