The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. 09 (of 12): Dresden Edition—PoliticalIngersoll, Robert Green
History
The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. 09 (of 12): Dresden Edition—Political
Ingersoll, Robert Green
Free thought
I am not only in favor of free speech and an honest ballot, but I am in
favor of collecting and disbursing the revenues of the United States. I
want plenty of money to collect and pay the interest on our debt. I want
plenty of money to pay our debt and to preserve the financial honor of
the United States. I want money enough to be collected to pay pensions
to widows and orphans and to wounded soldiers. And the question is,
which section in this country can you trust to collect and disburse that
revenue? Let us be honest about it. Which section can you trust? In the
last four years we have collected four hundred and sixty-eight million
dollars of the internal revenue taxes. We have collected principally
from taxes upon high wines and tobacco, four hundred and sixty-eight
million dollars, and in those four years we have seized, libeled and
destroyed in the Southern States three thousand eight hundred and
seventy-four illicit distilleries. And during the same time the Southern
people have shot to death twenty-five revenue officers and wounded
fifty-five others, and the only offence that the wounded and dead
committed was an honest effort to collect the revenues of this country.
Recollect it--don't you forget it. And in several Southern States
to-day every revenue collector or officer connected with the revenue is
furnished by the Internal Revenue Department with a breech-loading
rifle and a pair of revolvers, simply for the purpose of collecting the
revenue.
I don't feel like trusting such people to collect the revenue of my
Government.
During the same four years we have arrested and have indicted seven
thousand and eighty-four Southern Democrats for endeavoring to defraud
the revenue of the United States. Recollect--three thousand eight
hundred and seventy-four distilleries seized. Twenty-five revenue
officers killed, fifty-five wounded, and seven thousand and eighty-four
Democrats arrested. Can we trust them?
The State of Alabama in its last Democratic convention passed a
resolution that no man should be tried in a Federal Court for a
violation of the revenue laws--that he should be tried in a State Court.
Think of it--he should be tried in a State Court! Let me tell you how it
will come out if we trust the Southern States to collect this revenue. A
couple of Methodist ministers had been holding a revival for a week, and
at the end of the week one said to the other that he thought it time to
take up a collection. When the hat was returned he found in it pieces of
slate-pencils and nails and buttons, but not a single solitary cent--not
one--and his brother minister got up and looked at the contribution, and
said, "Let us thank God!" And the owner of the hat said, "What for?" And
the brother replied, "Because you got your hat back." If we trust the
South we shan't get our hats back.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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