Francis Cabot Lowell

The Wettes, meanwhile, were never really able to make a coherent or sympathetic argument for the status quo of rampant drunkenness.

Now, going back to the days of Francis Cabot Lowell, the United States was generally not a free trade country, and for the same reason why it was not yet a dry country.

The federal government relied too much on the taxes they raised from tariffs and from the sale of alcohol.

But these were regressive taxes, and there was a progressive solution, the income tax.