CHAPTER XLV.
REPEAL OF THE SALT TAX
A tax on Salt is an odious measure, hated by all people and in all time, and justly, because being an article of prime necessity, indispensable to man and to beast, and bountifully furnished them by the Giver of all good, the cost should not be burthened, nor the use be stinted by government regulation; and the principles of fair taxation would require it to be spared, because it is an agent, and a great one, in the development of many branches of agricultural and mechanical industry which add to the wealth of the country and produce revenue from the exports and consumption to which they give rise. People hate the salt tax, because they are obliged to have the salt, and cannot evade the tax: governments love the tax for the same reason – because people are obliged to pay it. This would seem to apply to governments despotic or monarchial, and not to those which are representative and popular. But representative governments sometimes have calamities – war for example – when subjects of taxation diminish as need for revenue increases: and then representative governments, like others, must resort to the objects which will supply its necessities. This has twice been the case with the article of salt in the United States. The duty on that article was carried up to a high tax in the quasi war with France (1798), having been small before; and then only imposed as a war measure – to cease as soon as the war was over. But all governments work alike on the imposition and release of taxes – easy to get them on in a time of necessity – hard to get them off when the necessity has passed. So of this first war tax on salt. The "speck of war" with France, visible above the horizon in '98, soon sunk below it; and the sunshine of peace prevailed. In the year 1800 – two years after the duty was raised to its maximum – the countries were on the most friendly terms; but it was not until 1807, and under the whole power of Mr. Jefferson's administration, that this temporary tax was abolished; and with it the whole system of fishing bounties and allowances founded upon it.
In the war of 1812, at the commencement of the war with Great Britain, it was renewed, with its concomitant of fishing bounties and allowances; but still as a temporary measure, limited to the termination of the war which induced it, and one year thereafter. The war terminated in 1815, and the additional year expired in 1816; but before the year was out, the tax was continued, not for a definite period, but without time – on the specious argument that, if a time was fixed, it would be difficult to get it off before the time was out: but if unfixed, it would be easy to get it off at any time: and all agreed that that was to be soon – that a temporary continuance of all the taxes was necessary until the revenue, deranged by the war, should become regular and adequate. It was continued on this specious argument – and remained in full until General Jackson's administration – and, in part, until this day (1850) – the fishing bounties and allowances in full: and that is the working of all governments in the levy and repeal of taxes. I found the salt tax in full force when I came to the Senate in 1820, strengthened by time, sustained by a manufacturing interest, and by the fishing interest (which made the tax a source of profit in the supposed return of the duty in the shape of bounties and allowances): and by the whole American system; which took the tax into its keeping, as a protection to a branch of home industry. I found efforts being made in each House to suppress this burthen upon a prime necessary of life; and, in the session 1829-'30, delivered a speech in support of the laudable endeavor, of which these are some parts:
"Mr. Benton commenced his speech, by saying that he was no advocate for unprofitable debate, and had no ambition to add his name to the catalogue of barren orators; but that there were cases in which speaking did good; cases in which moderate abilities produced great results, and he believed the question of repealing the salt tax to be one of those cases. It had certainly been so in England. There the salt tax had been overthrown by the labors of plain men, under circumstances much more unfavorable to their undertaking than exist here. The English salt tax had continued one hundred and fifty years. It was cherished by the ministry, to whom it yielded a million and a half sterling of revenue; it was defended by the domestic salt makers, to whom it gave a monopoly of the home market; it was consecrated by time, having subsisted for five generations; it was fortified by the habits of the people, who were born, and had grown gray under it; and it was sanctioned by the necessities of the State, which required every resource of rigorous taxation. Yet it was overthrown; and the overthrow was effected by two debates, conducted, not by the orators whose renown has filled the world – not by Sheridan, Burke, Pitt, and Fox – but by plain, business men – Mr. Calcraft, Mr. Curwen, and Mr. Egerton. These patriotic members of the British Parliament commenced the war upon the British salt tax in 1817, and finished it in 1822. They commenced with the omens and auspices all against them, and ended with complete success. They abolished the salt tax in toto. They swept it all off, bravely rejecting all compromises when they had got their adversaries half vanquished, and carrying their appeals home to the people, until they had roused a spirit before which the ministry quailed, the monopolizers trembled, the Parliament gave way, and the tax fell. This example is encouraging; it is full of consolation and of hope; it shows what zeal and perseverance can do in a good cause: it shows that the cause of truth and justice is triumphant when its advocates are bold and faithful. It leads to the conviction that the American salt tax will fall as the British tax did, as soon as the people shall see that its continuance is a burthen to them, without adequate advantage to the government, and that its repeal is in their own hands.
"The enormous amount of the tax was the first point to which Mr. B. would direct his attention. He said it was near three hundred per cent. upon Liverpool blown, and four hundred per cent. upon alum salt; but as the Liverpool was a very inferior salt, and not much used in the West, he would confine his observations to the salt of Portugal and the West Indies, called by the general name of alum. The import price of this salt was from eight to nine cents a bushel of fifty-six pounds each, and the duty upon that bushel was twenty cents. Here was a tax of upwards of two hundred per cent. Then the merchant had his profit upon the duty as well as the cost of the article: and when it went through the hands of several merchants before it got to the consumer, each had his profit upon it; and whenever this profit amounted to fifty per cent. upon the duty, it was upwards of one hundred per cent. upon the salt. Then, the tariff laws have deprived the consumer of thirty-four pounds in the bushel, by substituting weight for measure, and that weight a false one. The true weight of a measured bushel of alum salt is eighty-four pounds; but the British tariff laws, for the sake of multiplying the bushels, and increasing the product of the tax, substituted weight for measure; and our tariff laws copied after them, and adopted their standard of fifty-six pounds to the bushel.
"Mr. B. entered into statistical details, to show the aggregate amount of this tax, which he stated to be enormous, and contrary to every principle of taxation, even if taxes were so necessary as to justify the taxing of salt. He stated the importation of foreign salt, in 1829, at six millions of bushels, round numbers; the value seven hundred and fifteen thousand dollars, and the tax at twenty cents a bushel, one million two hundred thousand dollars, the merchant's profit upon that duty at fifty per cent. is six hundred thousand dollars; and the secret or hidden tax, in the shape of false weight for true measure, at the rate of thirty pounds in the bushel, was four hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Here, then, is taxation to the amount of about two millions and a quarter of dollars, upon an article costing seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars, and that article one of prime necessity and universal use, ranking next after bread, in the catalogue of articles for human subsistence.
"The distribution of this enormous tax upon the different sections of the Union, was the next object of Mr. B.'s inquiry; and, for this purpose, he viewed the Union under three great divisions – the Northeast, the South, and the West. To the northeast, and especially to some parts of it, he considered the salt tax to be no burthen, but rather a benefit and a money-making business.