[Callender, James T.]:

$2,250 · Offered by William Reese Company

A SHORT HISTORY OF THE NATURE AND CONSEQUENCES OF EXCISE LAWS; INCLUDING SOME ACCOUNT OF THE RECENT INTERRUPTION TO THE MANUFACTORIES OF SNUFF AND REFINED ... An early Callender pamphlet on taxation. The author is famous for his scandal mongering, two of his favorite targets being Hamilton and Jefferson. Callender's unscrupulous behavior was halted one day when, supposedly in a drunken stupor, he drowned in three feet of water in the James River. In this volume he opposes recently passed Congressional taxes on sugar and snuff as "ruinous to manufacture, and of consequence, unproductive to the revenue." He reviews the history of British and American excise laws, and sees only harm to American manufacturers, large and small: "The nation that, for eight years, bled in every vein to buy its freedom, will gaze on with criminal apathy while the brewer, the tanner, the tallow chandler, the soapboiler, the paper maker, the nailer, the hatter, and the newsprinter ascend in succession the scaffold of excise....A standing army will soon become requisite for supporting a system universally detested." A powerful anti-tax statement, rather scarce in the market.

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