Thomas Jefferson’s Famous Defense of Wine, Quoted in Many Books and Articles on the Subject

“I observed that among his reforms, none was proposed on the most exceptionable article in Mr. Hamilton’s original Tariff, I mean that of wines… I think it a great error to consider a heavy tax on wines, as a tax on luxury.  On the contrary it is a tax on the health of our citizens.  It is a legislative direction that none but the richest of them shall be permitted to drink wine…”

Thomas Jefferson is said to have quipped that “Good wine is a necessity of life for me.” It was more than his beverage of choice though.  Based on a foundation of love and a refined expertise, wine consciously assumed other diverse functions for him.  Among these, it was a socializing element, an inviting target for scientific inquiry and experimentation, a potential tool to be used in the delicate sphere of foreign affairs with France, and a utility in efforts at social improvement and improved public health.

From all of this Jefferson developed a reputation as a distinguished lover of wine, both among his contemporaries and in the subsequent historical record. Indeed, his image as a wine savant is surpassed only by his fame as a founding father and devoted disciple of the Enlightenment, with full books dedicated exclusively to him and wine. Wine, and Jefferson’s love of it, is a window through which we can better see and understand him in all of his forms: Jefferson the renowned dinner host encouraging scintillating conversation, Jefferson the Englightenment thinker, Jefferson the inventor, Jefferson the scientist, Jefferson the prophet of liberty, Jefferson the diplomat, and many others.  Jefferson unequivocally believed in the natural freedom and rationality of humankind that allowed for an open, free-flowing discourse between people of all nations and creeds.  This state of wide-open discourse, if allowed to exist without the interference of petty monarchs and tyrannical governments, would lead to the accumulation of knowledge and the realization of truth in all manner of intellectual pursuit.  It was Jefferson’s “bedrock belief,” as historian Joseph J. Ellis writes, “that harmony was nature’s way of signaling the arrival of truth.”

Wine was a metaphor for the positive attributes and institutions of human society that Jefferson zealously believed in, essentially standing for everything that he held to be innately good in humankind. Every ideal and noble pursuit that Jefferson cherished in his life was expressed, at one or many points, with and through wine.  At his heart, Jefferson was a romantic and wine was his muse. On the other hand, he saw hard liquor like whiskey as essentially evil, promoting drunkenness, idleness, violence and the breakdown of families.

In 1818 the tranquility of Jefferson’s Monticellan retirement was deeply disturbed when some in the Federal government openly suggested a higher tariff on wine.  He intervened to lobby against it at the highest level. Autograph letter signed, 3 pages, Monticello, November 10, 1818, to Treasury Secretary William H. Crawford, maintaining that wine is not a luxury and should not be taxed as one. “Totally withdrawn from all attention to public affairs, & void of all anxiety about them as reposing entire confidence in those who administer them, I am led to some remarks on a particular subject by having heretofore taken some concern in it, and I should not do it even now but for information that you had turned your attention to it at the last session of Congress, and meant to do it again at the ensuing one.

“When Mr. Dallas’s Tariff first appeared in the public papers, I observed that among his reforms, none was proposed on the most exceptionable article in Mr. Hamilton’s original Tariff, I mean that of wines. I think it a great error to consider a heavy tax on wines, as a tax on luxury. On the contrary it is a tax on the health of our citizens. It is a legislative declaration that none but the richest of them shall be permitted to drink wine, and in effect a condemnation of all the middling & lower conditions of society to the poison of whisky, which is destroying them by wholesale, and ruining their families. Whereas were the duties on the cheap wines proportioned to their first cost the whole middling class of this country could have the gratification of that milder stimulus, and a great proportion of them would go into it’s use and banish the baneful whisky. Surely it is not from the necessities of our treasury that we thus undertake to debar the mass of our citizens the use of not only an innocent gratification, but a healthy substitute instead of a bewitching poison. This aggression on the public taste and comfort has been ever deemed among the most arbitrary & oppressive abuses of the English government. It is one which I hope we shall never copy. But the truth is that the treasury would gain in the long run by the vast extension of the use of the article. I should therefore be for encouraging the use of wine by placing it among the articles of lightest duty. But be this as it may, take what rate of duty is thought proper, but carry it evenly thro’ the cheap as well as the highest priced wines. If we take the duty on Madeira as the standard, it will be of about 25 per cent on the first cost, and I am sensible it lessens frauds to enumerate the wines known and used here, and to lay a specific duty on them, according to their known cost, but then the unknown and non enumerated should be admitted at the same per cent on their first cost. There are abundance of wines in Europe some weak, some strong, & of good flavor which do not cost there more than 2 cents a quart, and which are dutied here at 15. cents. I have myself imported wines which cost but 4. cents the quart and paid 15 cents duty. But an extraordinary inconsistence is in the following provisions of the Tariff. ‘Claret & other wines not enumerated imported in bottles, per gallon
    
70 cents
when imported otherwise than in bottles
    
25. cents
black bottles, glass, quart, per gross
    
144. cents

“If a cask of wine then is imported, and the bottles brought empty to put it into, the wine pays 6¼ cents the quart, & the bottles 1. cent, making 7¼ cents a bottle. But if the same wine is put into the same bottles there it pays 15 cents the quart, which is a tax of 7¾ cents (more than doubling the duty) for the act of putting it into the bottle there, where it is so much more skilfully done and contributes so much to the preservation of the wine on it’s passage, for many of the cheap wines will not bear transportation in the cask which stand it well enough in the bottle. This is a further proscription of the light wines, and giving the monopoly of our tables to the strong & alcoholic, such as are all but equivalent in their effects to whisky. It would certainly be much more for the health & temperance of society to encourage the use of the weak, rather than the strong wines. 2. cents a quart first cost, & ½ a cent duty would give us wine at 2½ cents the bottle with the addition of freight & other small charges, which is but half the price of grog.

“These, dear Sir, are the thoughts which have long dwelt on my mind, and have given me the more concern as I have the more seen of the loathsome and fatal effects of whisky, destroying the fortunes, the bodies, the minds & morals of our citizens. I suggest them only to you, who can turn them to account if just; without meaning to add the trouble of an answer to the overwhelming labors of your office. In all cases accept the assurance of my sincere esteem & high consideration.” This must be Jefferson’s most important letter on wine and its place in his estimation.

We obtained this letter directly from the Crawford descendants, and it has never before been offered for sale. It is well known, and is quoted in books and articles (such as “Thomas Jefferson on Wine” and “Passions: The Wines and Travels of Thomas Jefferson”). Unfortunately, at some point in the past, the signature was clipped off; so this is how we find it.