Birmingham age-herald., 1894-10-30
BENNIE KNOCKED OUT. His Dispensary Law Declared Inef-
 fective and Imperative.
ATTORNEY GENERAL OLNEY
Answers Secretary Carlisle'S Query as to Liquor in
 Warehouses.

WASHINGTON, Oct. 29.-Attorney- Gen. eral Olney today sent to Secretary Carlisle the following communication:
 1T have the honor to acknowledge your letter of the 2S instant, enclosing copies of the letter of Governor Tillman of South Carolina to the commissioner of internal revenue and of the letter of the commis- sioner of internal revenue to yourself, aud concluding as follows:
 q have therefore the honor to request that you furnish this department with an opinion as to the course which should be taken by the office of internal revenue in the event that the state officers of South Carolina seize spirits in the bonded ware- houses in that state.'
 'sIf the request thus framed is to be lit- erally construed, 1t is out of my power to comply with it. The course to be pursued by your department in the event specified may involve matters of fact of which have no knowledge and considerations of expe- diency upon which it is not for me to pass judgment. I assume, however, that what IS meant to be inquired into Is a position of law arising or sure to arise in the adminis- traitor of your department, and may thus be stated If the officers of the state of South Carolina undertake to enter United States bonded warehouse in South Carolina and to seize distilled liquors therein under the dispensary law of December, 1893, sim- ultaneously rendering to the collector of internal revenue any tax lawfully due on such liquors, is such action to be acquiesced in as not in conflict with any laws or rights of the United States?
 's1. The legal status of liquor in bonded warehouse of the United States and under the control of the collector of internal rev. enue is definitely stated and settled by sec- tion 924 of the revised statutes ofthe United States, which declaIe es that all property taken or detalned by any officer or other person under authority of any revenue law of the United States shall be irreplevable, and shall be deemed to be in the custody of the law and subject only to the orders and decrees of the courts of the United States having jurisdiction thereof.
 ''2. It need not be held, as has been sug- gested, and perhaps might we'll be, that since the tariff act of August 28, 1894, the taxes due on distilled liquors In a United States bonded warehouse can be paid only by the distiller. Whether that be SO or not, tender of such taxes by a sheriff or other like state officer is necessarily in- effectual as against the statute above quoted, since it is beyond the power of an internal revenue collector to accept it and thus nullfy the provisions and defeat the policy of a statute which aims to absolutely exempt such liquors from the operation of the process of a state court.
 'Such tender, which, for the reason stated, the collector is incompetent to ac- cept, must also be intellectual, because no officer of South Carolina has been given the right or power to make it, the legislation of South Carolina not authorizing any such tender, nor providing any fund which can be used for that purpose.
 ''The result is that the provisions of the South Carolina dispensary law of 1893 must be regarded as ineffective aud inop- erative as against distilled liquors held in g United States bonded warehouse under the control of The collector of internal revenue.
 "RICHARD OLNEY,
 'Attorney- General.p