Nov. 3, 1906.] 
FOREST AND STREAM 
689 
GOVERNOR STONE AT HEARTSEASE CABIN. 
The Mountain Moonshiner. 
IV.—The Revenue. 
The law of 1791, although it imposed a tax 
on whiskey of only 9 to n cents per proof 
gallon, came near bringing on a civil war, which 
was only averted by the leniency of the federal 
government in granting wholesale amnesty. The 
most stubborn malcontents in the mountains 
moved southward along the Alleghanies into 
western Virginia and the Carolinas, where no 
serious attempt was made to collect the excise; 
so they could practice moonshining to their 
heart’s content. 
On the accession of Jefferson, in 1800, the tax 
on spirits was repealed. The war of 1812 com¬ 
pelled the government to tax whiskey again, but 
as this was a war tax, shared by commodities 
generally, it aroused no opposition. In 1817 the 
excise was again repealed; and from that time 
until 1862 no specific tax was levied on liquors. 
During this period of thirty-five years the aver¬ 
age market price of whiskey was 24 cents a 
gallon, sometimes dropping as low as 14 cents. 
Spirits were so cheap that a “burning fluid,” 
consisting of one part spirits of turpentine to 
four or five parts alcohol was used in the lamps 
of nearly every household. Moonshining, of 
course, had ceased to exist. 
Then came the Civil War. In 1862 a tax of 
20 cents a gallon was levied. Early in 1864 it 
rose to 60 cents. This cut off the industrial use 
of spirits, but did not affect its use as a bever¬ 
age. In the latter part of 1864 the tax leaped to 
$1.50 a gallon, and the next year it reached the 
prohibitive figure of $2. The result of such 
excessive taxation was just what it had been in 
the old times, in Great Britain. In and around 
the centers of population there was wholesale 
fraud and collusion. “Efforts made to repiess 
and punish frauds were of absolutely no account 
whatever. * * * The current price at which 
distilled spirits were sold in the markets was 
everywhere recognized and commented on by the 
press as less than the amount of the tax, allow¬ 
ing nothing whatever for the cost of manu¬ 
facture.” 
Seeing that the outcome was disastrous from 
a fiscal point of view—the revenue from this 
source was falling to the vanishing point—Con¬ 
gress. in 1868. cut down the tax to 50 cents a 
gallon. “Illicit distillation practically ceased 
the very hour that the new law came into opera¬ 
tion; * * * the government collected during 
the second year of the continuance of the act 
$3 for every one that was obtained during the 
last year of the $2 rate.” 
In 1869 there came a new administration, with 
frequent removals of revenue officials for 
political pufposes. The revenue fell off. In 
1872 the rate was raised to 70 cents, and in 
1875 to 90 cents. The result is thus summarized 
by David A. Wells: 
“Investigation carefully conducted showed 
that on the average the product of illicit distilla¬ 
tion costs,- through deficient yields, the neces¬ 
sary bribery of attendants, and the expenses of 
secret and unusual methods of transportation, 
from two to three times as much as the product 
of legitimate and legal distillation. So that, 
calling the average cost of spirits in the United 
States 20 cents per gallon, the product of the 
illicit distiller would cost 40 to 60 cents, leaving 
but 10 cents per gallon as the maximum profit 
to be realized from fraud under the most 
favorable conditions—an amount not sufficient 
to offset the possibility of severe penalties of 
fine, imprisonment, and confiscation of property. 
*, * * The rate of 70 cents * * * con¬ 
stituted a moderate temptation to fraud. Its in¬ 
crease to 90 cents constituted a temptation alto¬ 
gether too great for human nature, as employed 
in manufacturing and selling whiskey, to resist. 
* *.During 1875-6, highwines sold openly in 
the Chicago and Cincinnati markets at prices 
less than the average cost of production plus the 
government tax. 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 em¬ 
braced within its sphere of influence and partici¬ 
pation, 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.” 
Such being the condition of affairs in the 
centers of civilization in the latter part of the 
nineteenth century, let 11s now turn to the moun¬ 
tains, and see how matters stood among those 
primitive people who were still tarrying in the 
eighteenth. Their situation at that time is thus 
briefly sketched by a southern historian*: 
“Before the war these'simple folks made their 
apples and peaches into brandy, and their corn 
into whiskey, and these products, with a few 
cattle, some dried fruits, honey, beeswax, nuts, 
wool, hides, fur, herbs, ginseng and other roots, 
and woolen socks knitted by the women in their 
long winter evenings, formed the stock in trade 
which they bartered for their plain necessaries 
and few luxuries, their homespun and cotton 
cloths, sugar, coffee, snuff, and fiddles. * * * 
The raising of a crop of corn in summer, and 
the getting out of tan-bark and lumber in 
winter, were almost their only resources. * * * 
The burden of taxation rested lightly on them. 
For near two generations no excise duties had 
been levied. * * * The war came on. They 
were mostly loyal to the Union. They paid 
the first moderate tax without a murmur.” 
They were willing to pay any tax that they 
were able to pay. But suddenly the tax jumped 
to $1.50, and then to $2 a gallon. The people 
were goaded to open rebellion. Their corn at 
that time brought only from 25 to 40 cents a 
bushel; apples and peaches, rarely more than 
10 cents at the stills. These were the only crops 
that could be grown in their deep and narrow 
valleys. Transportation was so difficult, and 
markets so remote, that there was no way to 
utilize the surplus except to distill it. Their 
stills were tdo small to bear the cost of govern¬ 
ment supervision. The superior officers of the 
revenue department (collectors, marshals, and 
district-attorneys or commissioners) were paid 
only by commissions on collections and by 
*ElIwood Wilson, Sr., in the Sewanee Review. 
fees. Their subordinate agents, whose income 
depended upon the number of stills they cut up 
and upon the arrests made, were, as a class, 
brutal and' desperate characters. Guerilla war¬ 
fare was the natural sequence. 
Little or no attention seems to have been paid 
to the moonshining that was going on in the 
mountains, until about 1876, owing, no doubt, 
to the larger game in the registered distilleries. 
In his report for 1876-7, the new Commissione.r 
of Internal Revenue called attention to the 
illicit manufacture of whiskey in the mountain 
counties of the South, and urged vigorous meas¬ 
ures for its suppression. 
“The extent of these frauds.” said he, “would 
startle belief. I can safely say that during the 
past year not less than 3,000 illicit stills have 
been operated in the districts named. Those 
stills are of a producing capacity of 10 to 50 
gallons a day. They are usually located at in¬ 
accessible points in the mountains, away from 
the ordinary lines of travel, and are generally 
owned by unlettered men of desperate character, 
armed and ready to resist the officers of the law. 
Where occasion requires, they come together 
in companies of from ten to fifty persons, gun 
in hand, to drive the officers out of the country. 
They resist as long as resistance is possible, and 
when their stills are seized, and they themselves 
are arrested, they plead ignorance and poverty, 
and at once crave the pardon of the government. 
"These frauds had become so open and no¬ 
torious * * * that I became satisfied extra¬ 
ordinary measures would be required to break 
them up. Collectors were * * * each author¬ 
ized to employ from five to ten additional 
deputies. * * * Experienced revenue agents 
of perseverance and courage were assigned to 
duty to co-operate with the collectors. United 
States marshals were called upon to co-operate 
with the collectors and to arrest all persons 
known to have violated the laws, and district- 
attorneys were enjoined to prosecute all 
offenders. 
“In certain portions of the country, many 
citizens not guilty of violating the law them¬ 
selves were in strong sympathy with those who 
did violate, and the officers in many instances 
