Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs Volume I Part 22

The events of that day made a lasting impression upon my mind. The city was filled with troops, the hospitals, churches and other buildings were crowded with the wounded; the streets were stuffed with ambulances, baggage wagons, artillery, and material of war. The hills were dotted with tents, and the officers and men were discontented and almost in a state of mutiny. The demand for the restoration of McClellan was almost universal. There can be no doubt that he was then adored by the troops. In six months that feeling had given place to a feeling of indifference or positive distrust as to his capacity of integrity of purpose.

During the preceding week, I had made many attempts to secure an interview with the President in regard to the appointment of collectors and a.s.sessors, as they were to commence their duties under the law September 1. Finally he gave me Sunday at 11 o'clock. He canva.s.sed the papers and considered the merits of the candidates with as much coolness and care apparently, as he would have exhibited in a condition of profound peace. When the business was ended, he asked me what I thought about the command of the army. I said unhesitatingly that the restoration of McClellan seemed the only safe policy. I had seen and heard so much, that I was apprehensive of serious trouble in the army if he should again be superseded. I then said that emanc.i.p.ation seemed the only way out of our troubles. He said in reply:

"Must we not wait for something that looks like a victory? Would not a proclamation now appear as _brutum fulmen?"_--the only Latin I ever heard from the President.

In Gorham's Life of Stanton, it appears that the Cabinet advised against the restoration of McClellan, and that a vigorous protest was signed by three members, which, however, was not presented.

During the autumn and winter of 1862-3, I was in the habit of calling at the War Office for news, when I left the Treasury--usually between nine and eleven o'clock. Not infrequently I met Mr. Lincoln on the way or at the department. When the weather was cold he wore a gray shawl, m.u.f.fled closely around his neck and shoulders. There was great anxiety for General Grant in 1863, when he was engaged in the movement across the Mississippi. At that time I went to the War Office daily. One evening I met the President in front of the Executive Mansion, on his way back from the War Department. I said:

"Any news, Mr. President?"

"Come in and I will tell you!"

I knew from the tones of his voice that he had good news. He read the dispatch, and then by the maps followed the course that Grant had taken. The news he had received was from Grant himself. From the 4th of March, 1861, I had not seen Mr. Lincoln as cheerful as he was when he read the dispatch, and traced the campaign on the map. He felt, evidently, that the end was approaching--although it was nearly two years away.

As I had been elected to the House of Representatives in November, 1862, I resigned my office of commissioner of internal revenue March 3, 1863. Mr. Chase was very unwilling to have me leave, and he endeavored to satisfy me that there was neither illegality nor impropriety in my continuing until the meeting of Congress. I did not agree to his view of the law, and moreover, Congress had so changed the law that the commissioner was required to give bonds. In presence of that requirement I should have left the place. By the same act a cas.h.i.+er was authorized, and thus it happened that when the commissioner was actually in receipt of the moneys the Government had no security and yet security was required when he was deprived of the power to touch one cent of the receipts. I remained at Was.h.i.+ngton from March 3 to August, engaged in the preparation of a work upon the Revenue System. This volume contains the rulings and decisions by me most of which have been sustained by the courts or justified by experience.*

My successor was Joseph J. Lewis, a country lawyer from Pennsylvania.

He had written a biography of Mr. Lincoln, and he had been the President's choice at the outset. When I resigned, the President had his way. Whether Mr. Chase presented any other person I cannot say.

Mr. Lewis had no idea of the work of administration. When questions were submitted to the office, he proceeded to prepare an answer which he wrote with a quill pen in his own hand. At the beginning he sent off his answers without the knowledge of the chiefs of division, and in some instances a newspaper report was the first information that the subordinates obtained that a decision had been made. In some instances he pa.s.sed upon old questions, without any inquiry or examination, until it was discovered that the head of a division was ruling one way and Mr. Lewis was ruling another way at the same time.

When I left the office in March, 1863, Mr. Chase said to me that it exceeded in magnitude the entire Treasury Department, March 1861. It was in fact the largest Government department ever organized in historical times, and it was organized without a precedent. By its machinery, it became finally so vast, that three hundred and fifty million dollars were a.s.sessed and collected in a single year. In the thirty-eight years of its existence, the gross collections have amounted to $5,524,363,255.89. It has existed eight and thirty years with no other changes than such as have been required by the change of laws. The frame work, including the system of bookkeeping with its checks and tests, remains.

When I entered upon the work in July, I examined the records of the Excise Bureau established during the War of 1812, but they furnished no aid whatever in the execution of the work that was before me. I had neither time nor opportunity to study the excise system of Great Britain; and hence the organization of the system of the United States was based upon, and grew out of, the requirements of the law. I do not deem this a misfortune. The public anxiety in regard to the construction of the law induced a large amount of correspondence with persons in various parts of the country, and in the month of October the letters sent numbered occasionally eight hundred per day. Many of these letters were formal, and others were repet.i.tions of those previously given; but each day compelled attention to a large number of new questions.

The practice of our office in the construction of the law was controlled by a few leading principles.

First: to levy a tax in those cases only which were clearly provided for by the statute and, consequently, whenever a reasonable doubt existed, the decision was against the Government and in favor of the contestant.

Second: In deciding whether an article was or was not a manufacture, it was the practice to ascertain how it was regarded by business men at the time the excise law was pa.s.sed; in all cases abstaining from inquiry as to the mode of preparation, or the nature or extent of the change produced. If the article in question was regarded by the makers and by business men as an article of commerce, and it was produced by hand or machinery, it was the practice to treat it as a manufacture under the law, unless specially exempt.

Third: Upon articles manufactured and removed for consumption by the manufacturer, the tax was a.s.sessed precisely as it would have been a.s.sessed if the articles had been removed for sale.

Fourth: In considering the law relating to the use of stamps, it was the rule of the office to give that signification to the name used in the statute descriptive of various instruments subject to stamp tax, which was ordinarily given to such descriptive terms by business and professional men. In the year 1901 it may be a.s.sumed that the Internal Revenue Office will exist while the Government shall exist, although it came into being as a war measure and as a temporary policy.

[* In the early sixties I was a.s.sociated in the profession with a man eight years my junior, John Quincy Adams Griffin. He was a man of infinite jest, but lacking in fancy. His letters and other writings would make a volume of no mean quality. His death came too early for an extended and lasting reputation. In his sallies he did not spare his friends, and he wounded his opponents. On one occasion as we were upon the street I was induced to buy a paper by a boy's cry "Great battle!" When I opened the paper the sheet was a blank. I said:

"What do you suppose will become of that wretch?"

Alluding to the fact that I was about forty years of age when I was admitted to the bar, Griffin said:

"I think he will study law and enter the profession rather late in life."

His last letter to me was as solemn as death itself, but he could not omit an instance of his habit:

"The doctors tell me that I have water around my heart, but I know it isn't so, for I have drank nothing but beer for six months."

This paragraph was commenced for the purpose of citing another instance of his quality. In our office was a volume of my treatise on the Excise and Internal Revenue Laws of the United States. Many years after Griffin's death I found this entry on the fly-leaf of the volume:

"DEDICATION "To the memory of Caesar Augustus in whose reign there went forth the decree that all the world should be taxed, this book is respectfully dedicated by the AUTHOR."]

END OF VOL. I.