One of the ways the Revenue Act of 1862 provided funds to pay for the Civil War was by various excise and stamp taxes. Here a Richmond newspaper reports on the revenue headed to the U.S. Treasury on the death of a wine mogul.
From the Richmond Daily Dispatch April 6, 1863:
A Dear Stamp.
–Under the U. S. Congressional Stamp act, it cost the executors of Nicholas Longworth, the “Catawba” wine man, $430 to purchase a stamp to put upon his will. Not long ago such a stamp tax would have been considered incredible.
And about 98 years earlier American colonists protested the imposition of a stamp tax by their British rulers. In fact, the Stamp Act Congress is considered ” the first gathering of elected representatives from several of the American colonies to devise a unified protest against new British taxation.” Of course, the 1862 legislation was enacted by elected representatives, so that was a big difference with the colonial taxation.
Nicholas Longworth is considered Father of the American Wine Industry. He developed a market for his wine made with the Catawba by selling it to German immigrants to the Cincinnati area. His business really picked when he developed an excellent sparkling Catawba to compete with European champagnes. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote an “Ode to Catawba Wine”. The Harper’s Weekly of March 7, 1863 (at Son of the South) published a long obituary of the “Western millionaire”.
