The port of New York collected 75 percent of the customs revenue forwarded to the Treasury annually. The Customs Service, in turn, was the largest contributor to the nation's coffers, so the New York customhouse, which had receipts of $108 million in 1877, was by far the largest single source of revenue for the United States in a given year.

Customs gains power and authority
In 1849, Congress created the position of Commissioner of Customs, with direct responsibility for administrative oversight and enforcing fiscal integrity. Before this legislation was passed, the Customs Service had had to rely solely on the leadership of the Secretary of Treasury, who would correspond daily with the individual collectors to provide policy direction and operational instructions. This line of communication was workable to a limited extent in the 1790s, but it had ceased to work well by the time President Jackson took office.

Treasury Secretary Salmon P. Chase.

There was also a growing need for a corps of special agents within Customs, officers whose mission was to investigate criminal activities inside and outside of the organization. Collecting revenue was a full-time job; going after smuggling rings, slave traders, and criminals intent on circumventing trade laws and regulations was a mission that clearly deserved special attention. The realities of customs enforcement and the increasing complexity of policing the nation's borders made the use of new agents and inspectors inevitable. In 1853, for example, the Customs Service found it necessary to use mounted inspectors along the southwestern border to try to collect duty on cattle crossing from Mexico into the States.

Also in the early 50s, "special examiners" were hired to test various substances to ascertain their properties. For example, C.H. Pinkham, a local apothecary in Salem Massachusetts, was on call to examine and test substances awaiting clearance as either spice or medication.

The position appraiser of merchandise was first introduced in the port of New York in the Jacksonian period. In 1854, the job was expanded and regularized. By 1865 appraisers were at work in all major ports, evaluating ever more complex imports in order to tax a widening range of goods as demanded by far-reaching tariff laws.

Customs and the Civil War 1850-1865
The Civil War tore the nation apart. Despite the appointment of a Commissioner of Customs to manage the agency, neither he nor anyone else could prevent the chaos that affected border customs posts during wartime.

By early 1861, the Customs Service was only one of many Government agencies facing new and difficult duties as southern States began to secede. Customs officials who had previously been tasked with inspecting imports from abroad and collecting tariffs and duties on foreign goods were now involved in inspecting and blocking cargo traveling from northern to southern ports, as well as foreign imports en route to destinations in southern states.

Customs Mounted Inspectors headquartered at El Paso, Texas, circa 1887 (wearing badges) pose formally with their supervisors.

The complexities of enforcement heaped on the Customs Service were graphically brought home by the example of Baltimore, one of the most sensitive of border ports. Even using anonymous tips and the detective work of special agents, the new collector, Henry W. Hoffman, had his hands full. He had replaced John T. Mason, who loyalties were to the Confederacy, on April 15, 1861. Within weeks Hoffman was caught up in the challenges of his post.

On May 3, Treasury Secretary Salmon P. Chase ordered him "to grant no clearance to vessels destined for ports in the States, which have been declared under blockage." Baltimore was, as always, the major transfer point for goods passing from North to South. A few days later Hoffman was warned to watch out for a shipment of "Henderson's Propellers" (ship propellers of northern manufacture which were desperately needed by the Confederacy) being routed through Baltimore. An anonymous tipster had said that a ship carrying the contraband would clear Baltimore for a Chesapeake port under Union control, but would try to put in to one or the other of the small Virginia harbors still in the grip of the Confederacy.

By June, Hoffman's duties went far beyond those of a Customs officer in normal times. "There is reason to believe," Chase wrote, "that there is a large quantity of goods now being shipped from Baltimore on board the schooner Mt. Vernon, ostensibly intended for Fall Pine, St. Mary's County, Maryland, but really en route to Virginia." To find out what was really being shipped and to cut off a nascent smuggling route, "it is thought that you might if practicable without exciting suspicion place on board the vessel as passenger a confidential customs officer with instructions to seize the vessel and cargo."

Both Hoffman and his surveyor on the Potomac, Jonathan Jilton, reported frequently about their attempts to find "the most effectual means of putting an end to the illicit trade which is still said to be carried on across the Potomac, despite all the vigilance and means thus far employed for its complete suppression."

At the same time, the customhouse, as the most secure government establishment in Baltimore, was used as an armory, with stacks of Winchester rifles held under guard on the premises, under the direct supervision of the collector.

Customs and Immigration
In 1882, before the creation of an independent Immigration and Naturalization Service, the specialized immigration officers assigned to ports and border crossings were either part of the Customs Service or under its jurisdiction. Customs was never more challenged than it was when officers were tasked with enforcing the poorly drawn, hostile Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and its subsequent refining amendments.

Before and after the Civil War, Irish and Chinese immigrants were permitted to enter the United States in vast numbers to provide cheap labor required to build the transcontinental railroads. Once the transcontinental railroad was completed, the Chinese were no longer wanted.

The Customs Service was shoved into the breach to enforce the 1882 law and stop the flow of illegal Chinese immigrants, male and female, adults and children, who were smuggled through most West Coast ports including San Francisco and Seattle, and overland from western and eastern Canada and across the Mexican border. Given its limited personnel and resources, Customs did a creditable and humane job.

The act of 1882 excluding all new Chinese immigrants was riddled with loopholes-a problem that compounded the difficulties for Customs. One provision allowed the return of all Chinese persons who had gone to China for a visit. At the time the law passed, the vast majority of Chinese women in the states were married, or they were the daughters of married couples. There were very few single women, and the result of the exclusion act was to leave large populations of unmarried Chinese male laborers with almost no hope of finding female companionship. Into the void stepped unscrupulous men who enticed Chinese women and young girls to come to America with documents falsely identifying them as legally returning U.S. residents.

It is an old story–women lured to this country with promises of marriage or work soon found themselves snared in forced prostitution and slavery. "Returning" wives and daughters abounded, aided by a poorly drawn law that permitted two witnesses to attest to the truth of a re-entry claim. Corrupt lawyers hired by the brothels were always on duty at the docks, and customs agents were hard-pressed to detain women long enough to investigate their claims or to obtain additional documentation. Long before the witness claims and false papers could be exposed, lawyers had transported the unsuspecting women and girls into the bordellos of Chinatown.

Newly arrived women commanded an average price of $400 at the docks. Some women went for as much as $2,900. Given the money involved and the weaknesses in the legislation, special agents charged with stopping the trafficking found it hard-going. But they never stopped or wavered in their commitment, and many took heroic steps to save these women from the horror that awaited them. Customs agents routinely asked their Chinese interpreters to inform detained women of their impending fate and to give them information about a "Rescue Home" in Chinatown. Most women were unable to act on this information, but Customs agents persisted, continuing the campaign against trafficking in Chinese women and girls.

Customs was required to forward suspect paperwork to Washington for testing and examination. By the time the test had substantiated that the documents claiming prior residency were false, the women slipped through Customs hands and disappeared. Nevertheless, with knowledge of their probable destinations, customs agents and others would take part in rescue raids. Particularly notable was John Jackson, the San Francisco customs collector at the turn of the century. Mr. Jackson was frequently an accomplice in rescue efforts. Clearly committed to stopping the enslavement of Chinese women, he also often testified at trials attempting to gain the release of illegally landed prostitutes to the aforementioned Rescue Home.

By 1910, the role of Customs as the de facto immigration agency had ended, but during the time this responsibility was placed on Customs shoulders, officials carried out their duties with compassion and deference to the highest traditions of American civil liberties.

Timeline

1839
- Customs Collections total $23 million

1842
- Customs Service charged with enforcing the first federal pornography law. Tariff Act prohibits import of indecent and obscene material

1845
- The United States Customs Service begins collecting revenue in the newly admitted state of Texas

1846
- The customhouse was immortalized in The Scarlet Letter, written by Nathaniel Hawthorne who was also a Customs surveyor

1849
- The Charleston customhouse is built

1848
- Collectors and Customs officers authorized to prevent importation of adulterated spurious drugs and medicines

1858
- The Galveston customhouse, used from 1858 to 1860, was dedicated. The Treasury's use of wrought iron beams hastened the use of iron in American buildings.

1861
- Southern ports are blockaded, Civil War begins

1865
- Civil War ends

1866
- Herman Melville, author of Moby Dick, sworn in as Customs Inspector in New York City

1869
- Customs Division informally becomes separate branch within Treasury

1870
- Congressional Act establishes a Special Agency Service, forerunner of today's Customs Office of Investigations

1874
- Customs Service was charged with enforcing sections of the first Copyright Act

1882-1910
- Customs regulates Chinese Exclusion Act