This statement was read.
The motion for the committee's rising was put and lost.
The question on Mr. Jackson's motion for striking out the clause was put, and negatived by a great majority.
Thursday, January 6.
Duties on Spirits.
The House again resolved itself into a Committee of the Whole on the bill repealing after the last day of —— next, the act laying duties on distilled spirits, &c., and imposing others in their stead. Mr. Boudinot in the chair.
The twelfth section, which specifies the rates of duties, being read,
Mr. Parker moved that it should be struck out, in order to admit a substitute which should provide for a different mode of raising the requisite additional revenue; the proposition he had in view, he said, was a duty on molasses. This, he observed, would answer every purpose, without being liable to the objections which had been offered against the plan of the bill.
Mr. Madison observed, that he had felt the force of the objections which had been urged against the bill. He was in general principled against excises, but of all excises, that on ardent spirits he considered the least exceptionable. The question now to be determined, he conceived, was this—is an addition to the present amount of the revenue necessary? It had appeared that an addition is necessary; for his own part, he should prefer direct taxation to any excises whatever; but he conceived this would be contrary to the sentiments of a majority of the people of the United States; and he was fully convinced that it was contrary to the opinion of a great majority of the House. If, said he, any mode could be adopted, without having recourse to excises, he would be the last that would give them support; but he conceived there was none, and the plan proposed was divested of the most exceptionable provisions usually connected with an excise system.
Mr. Jackson observed, that his defeat yesterday should not deter him, while he had a monitor within, from rising in his place to do his duty, in opposition to a system unfriendly to the liberties of the people. He said, he was not the first on this floor who had been outvoted by silent majorities; gentlemen of superior abilities had met with similar treatment. He, however, felt so much respect for himself as to suppose that this silence proceeded from an inability to answer the arguments which he had the honor to offer against what he considered a most ruinous and mischievous system of taxation.