“And it shall be lawful for the agents of the post-office, or other officers of the United States government, upon reasonable cause shown, to arrest such person or persons, and seize his or their boxes, bags, or trunks, supposed to contain such mailable matter, and cause the same to be opened and examined before any officer of the United States; and if found to contain such mailable matter, transported in violation of the laws of the United States, shall be held to bail in the sum of five thousand dollars, to appear and answer said charge before the next United States Court to be held in said State, or district of said State; and upon conviction thereof, shall be fined as aforesaid, one hundred dollars for each letter, newspaper, or printed sheet so transported as aforesaid, and shall be held in the custody of the marshal until the fine and costs are paid, or until otherwise discharged by due course of law.”The report of 1845 thinks there is“no just reason why individuals engaged in smuggling letters and robbing the department of its legitimate revenues should not be punished, in the same way and to the same extent, as persons guilty of smuggling goods; nor why the same means of detection should not be given to the Post-office Department which are now given to the Treasury.”That is, the power of detention and search in all cases of suspicion by the agent, that a person is carrying letters. What would be the effect of carrying out this system,[pg 020]in breaking up the practice complained of, or what would be the amount of inconvenience to travellers and to business, of a thorough determination in the department to execute such a law in the spirit of it, all can judge for themselves. The British government, as we have seen, dared not entertain such a proposition. I have no hesitation in saying, that such a system of coercion can never be successfully executed here. It is better to meet the difficulty, as the British government did, in a way to make the post-office at once the most popular vehicle of transmission, and the greatest blessing which the government can bestow upon the people. The New York Evening Post said, years ago:“Congress yields, and passes such a law. What then? Is Hydra dead? By no means, its ninety-nine other heads still rear their crests, and bid defiance to the secretary and his law. In Pearl street, there will yet hang a bag for the deposit of the whole neighborhood's letters,—at Astor House, and at Howard's, at the American, and at the City Hotels, still every day will see the usual accumulation of letters,—all to be taken by some‘private,’trustworthy, obliging wayfarer, and by him be deposited in some office at Boston, Philadelphia, Albany, Baltimore.”I have no doubt that the cheap transmission of letters, out of the mails, is now becoming systematized and extended between our large cities, and an immense amount of correspondence is also carried on between the large cities and the towns around. The Boston Path-Finder contains a list of 240“Expresses,”as they are called, that is, of common carriers, who go regularly from Boston to other towns, distant from three miles to three hundred. Most of these men carry“mailable matter”to a great extent, in their pockets or hats, in the shape of orders, memorandums, receipts, or notes, sometimes on slips of paper, sometimes in letters folded in brown paper and tied with a string, and not unfrequently in the form of regularly sealed letters. If we suppose each one to carry, on an average, ten in a day, a very low estimate, there are 750,000 letters brought to Boston in a year by this channel alone. Everything which calls public attention to the subject of postage, every increase of business causing an increase of correspondence between any two places, every newspaper paragraph describing the wonderful increase of letters in England, will awaken new desires for cheap postage; and these desires will gratify themselves irregularly, unless the only sure remedy is seasonably applied. In the division of labor and the multiplication of competitions, there are many lines of business of which the whole profits are made up of extremely minute savings. In these the cost of postage becomes material; and such concerns will not pay five cents on their letters, when they can get them taken, carried and delivered for two cents. The causes which created illicit penny posts in England are largely at work here, with the growth and systematization of manufactures and trade; and they are producing, and will produce the same results, until, on the best routes, not one-sixth of the letters will be carried in the mail, unless the true system shall be seasonably established. The evils of such a state of things need not be here set forth. One of the greatest, which would not strike every mind, is the demoralization of the public mind, in abating the reverence for law, and the sense of gratitude and honor to the government.[pg 021]In this respect, of bringing all the correspondence into the mails, in furnishing all the facilities and encouragements to correspondence which the duty of the government requires, in superseding the use of unlawful conveyances, and in winning the patriotic regards of the people to the post-office, as to every man's friend, the act of 1845 has entirely failed. It has not only falsified the predictions of us all in regard to its productiveness, on the one hand, but it has even convinced the highest official authority that it has failed to prove itself to betheCHEAP POSTAGE, which the country needs and will support. In his last annual report, the Postmaster-General says:“The favorable operation of the act of 1845, upon the finances of this department, leads to the conclusion that, by the adoption of such modifications as have been suggested by this department for the improvement of its revenues, and the suppression of abuses practised under it, the present low rates of postage will not only produce revenue enough to meet the expenditures, but will leave a considerable surplus annually to be applied to the extension of the mail service to the new and rapidly increasing sections of our country, or would justify a still further reduction of the rates of postage. In the opinion of the undersigned, with such modifications of the act of 1845 as have been suggested, an uniform less rate might, in a few years, be made to cover the expenses of the department; but by its adoption the department would be compelled to rely upon the treasury for a few years. At this time, during the existence of a foreign war, imposing such heavy burdens upon the treasury, it might not be wise or prudent to increase them, or to do anything which would tend to impair the public credit; and,ON THIS ACCOUNTalone, recommendation for such a reduction is not made.“Postage is a tax, not only on the business of the country, but upon the intelligence, knowledge, and the exercise of the friendly and social feelings; and in the opinion of the undersigned, should be reduced to the lowest point which would enable the department to sustain itself. That principle has been uniformly acted on in the United States, as the true standard for the regulation of postage, and the cheaper it can be made, consistently with that rule, the better.“As our country expands, and its circle of business and correspondence enlarges, as civilization progresses, it becomes more important to maintain between the different sections of our country a speedy, safe, and cheap intercourse. By so doing, energy is infused into the trade of the country, the business of the people enlarged, and made more active, and an irresistible impulse given to industry of every kind; by it wealth is created and diffused in numberless ways throughout the community, and the most noble and generous feelings of our nature between distant friends are cherished and preserved, and the Union itself more closely bound together.”Nothing can be more true than the position, that“postage is a tax,”and that it is the duty of the government to make this“tax”as light as possible, consistent with its other and equally binding duties. Nothing more sound than the doctrine that it is utterly wrong to charge postage withanything morethan its own proper expenses. Nothing more just than the estimate here given of the benefits of cheap postage. The blessings he describes are so great, so real, so accordant with the tone and beneficent design of civil government itself, and especially to the functions and duties of a republican government, that I do not think even the existence and embarrassments of a state of war, such as now exists, are any reason at all for postponing the commencement of so glorious a measure. If it could be brought about under the administration of an officer who has expressed himself so cordially and intelligently in favor of cheap postage, and whose ability and fidelity in the economical administration of affairs are so well known, it would be but a fitting response to the statesmanlike sentiments quoted above.[pg 022]I am now to show that, on the strictest principles of justice, on the closest mathematical calculation, on the most enlarged and yet rigid construction of the duty imposed on the federal government by our constitution, two cents per half ounce is the most just and equal rate of postage.IV.What is the just Rule to be observed in settling the Rates of Postage?The posting of letters may be looked at, either as a contract between the government and the individuals who send and receive letters, or as a simple exercise of governmental functions in discharging a governmental duty. The proper measure of the charge to be imposed should be considered in each of these aspects, for the government is bound to do that which is right in both these relations.Viewed simply as a contract, or a service rendered for an equivalent, what would be the rate to be charged? Not, surely, the amount it would cost the individual to send his own particular letter. The saving effected by the division and combination of labor is a public benefit, and not to be appropriated as an exclusive right by one. In this view, the government stands only in the relation of a party to the contract, just as a state or a town would do, or an individual. No right or power of monopoly can enter into the calculation. We can illustrate the question by supposing a case, of a town some thirty miles from Boston, to which there has hitherto been no common-carrier. The inhabitants resolve to establish an express, and for this purpose enter into negotiations with one of their neighbors, in which they agree to give him their business on his agreeing to establish a reasonable tariff of prices for his service. If the number of patrons is very small, they cannot make it an object for the man to run his wagon, unless they will agree to pay a good price for parcels. And the more numerous the parcels are, the lower will be the rate, within certain limits, that is, until the man's wagon is fairly loaded, or he has as much business as he can reasonably attend to. This is on the supposition that all the business is to come from one place. But if there are intermediate or contiguous places whose patronage can be obtained to swell the amount of business, there should be an equitable apportionment of this advantage, a part to go to the carrier for his additional trouble and fair profits, and a part to go towards reducing the general rate of charge. If, however, the carrier has an interest in a place five miles beyond, which he thinks may be built up by having an express running into it from Boston, although the present amount of business is too small to pay the cost, and if, for considerations of his own advantage, he resolves to run his wagon to that place at a constant loss for the present, looking to the rise of his property for ultimate remuneration, it would not be just for him to insist, that the people who intend to establish an express and support it for themselves, shall yet pay an increased or exorbitant price for their own parcels, in order to pay him for an appendage to the enterprise, for which they have no occasion, and as such he himself undertakes for personal considerations of is own.[pg 023]And if he should be obstinate on this point, they would just let him take his own way, and charge prices to suit himself, while they proceeded to make a new bargain with another carrier, who would agree to accommodate them at reasonable prices adjusted on the basis of their patronage. And if an appeal should be made to their sympathy or charity, to help the growing hamlet, they would say, that it was better to give charity out of their pockets than by paying a high price on their parcels; for then those would give who were able and willing, and would know how much they gave. This covers the whole case of arranging postage as a matter of equal contract. The just measure of charge is, the lowest rate at which the work can be afforded by individual enterprise on the best self-supporting routes. Plainly, no other rate can be kept up by open competition on these routes. And if these routes are lost by competition, you must charge proportionably higher on the rest, which will throw the next class of routes into other hands, and so on, until nothing is left for you but the most costly and impracticable portions of the work.The only material exception to this rule would be, where there is an extensive and complicated combination of interests, among which the general convenience and even economy will be promoted by establishing a uniformity of prices, without reference to an exact apportionment of minute differences.It can be easily shown, that all these considerations would be harmonized by no rate of postage on letters, higher than the English 1d., or with us two cents for each half ounce. Considered as a business question, unaffected by the assumed power of monopoly by the government, the reasonings of the parliamentary reports and the results of the British experiment abundantly establish this rate to be the fair average price for the service rendered. A moderate business can live by it, if economically conducted, and a large business will make it vastly profitable, as is seen in the payment of four or five millions of dollars a year into the public treasury of Great Britain, as the net profits of penny postage.If we look at the post-office in the more philosophical and elevated aspect of a grand governmental measure, enjoined by the people for the good of the people, we shall be brought to a similar conclusion. The constitutional rule for the establishment of the post-office, is as follows:“Congress shall have power to—“Establish post-offices and post-roads.”This clause declares plainly the will of the people of the United States, that the federal government should be charged with the responsibility of furnishing the whole Union with convenient and proper mail privileges—according to their reasonable wants, and the reasonable ability of the government. This is one point of the“general welfare,”for which we are to look to congress, just as we look to congress to provide for the general defence by means of the army and navy. It imposes no other restrictions in the one case than the other, as to the extent to which provision shall be made—the reasonable wants of the people, and the reasonable ability of the government. It limits the resources for this object to no particular branch of the[pg 024]revenue. It gives no sort of sanction to the so oft-repeated rule, which many suppose to be a part of the constitution, that the post-office must support itself. Still less, does it authorize congress to throw all manner of burdens upon the mail, and then refuse to increase its usefulness as a public convenience, because it cannot carry all those loads. The people must have mails, and congress must furnish them. To reason for or against any proposed change, on the ground that the alternative may be the discontinuance of public mails, the privation of this privilege to the people, and the winding up of the post-office system, is clearly inadmissible. When the government ceases to give the people the privileges of the mail, the government itself will soon wind up, or rather, will be taken in hand and wound up by the people, and set a-going again on better principles. The sole inquiry for congress is, what is the best way to meet the reasonable wants of the people, by means within the reasonable ability of the government?The objects of the post-office system, which regulate its administration, are well set forth in the Report of the House Committee in 1844:“To content the man, dwelling more remote from town, with his homely lot, by giving him regular and frequent means of intercommunication; to assure the emigrant, who plants his new home on the skirts of the distant wilderness or prairie, that he is not forever severed from the kindred and society that still share his interest and love; to prevent those whom the swelling tide of population is constantly, pressing to the outer verge of civilization from being surrendered to surrounding influences, and sinking into the hunter or savage state; to render the citizen, how far soever from the seat of his government, worthy, by proper knowledge and intelligence, of his important privileges as a sovereign constituent of the government; to diffuse, throughout all parts of the land, enlightenment, social improvement, and national affinities, elevating our people in the scale of civilization, and binding them together in patriotic affection.”These are the objects for which congress is bound to maintain the post-office, and it is impossible that congress should ever seriously consider whether they will not abandon them. The maintenance of convenient mails for these objects is therefore to be regarded as a necessary function of the government of the United States. In the infancy of that government, while the government itself was an experiment, when the country was deeply in debt for the cost of our independence, and when its resources for public expenditure were untried and unknown, there was doubtless a propriety in the adoption of the principle, that the post-office department should support itself. But that state of things has long gone by, and our government now has ample ability to execute any plans of improvement whatever, for the advancement of knowledge, and for binding the Union together, provided such plans come within the acknowledged powers conferred by the constitution.The post-office being, then, like the army and navy, a necessary branch of the government, it follows that the charge of postage for the conveyance of letters and papers is of the nature of a tax, as has been well expressed by the present Postmaster-General, in his last annual[pg 025]report, quoted above.“Postage is a tax, not only on the business of the country, but upon intelligence and knowledge, and the exercise of the friendly and social affections.”The question before us is, How heavy a“tax”ought the government of a federal republic to impose on these interests? Every friend of freedom and of human improvement answers spontaneously, that nothing but a clear necessity can justify any tax at all upon such subjects, and that the tax should be reduced, in all cases, to the very lowest practicable rate. The experience of the British government, the prodigious increase of correspondence produced by cheap postage, and the immense revenue accruing therefrom, demonstrate thatTWO CENTSis not below the rate which the government can afford to receive. Let the people understand that all beyond this is a mere“tax,”not required by any necessity, and they will soon demand that the government look for its resources to some more suitable subjects of taxation than these.Another rule of right in regard to this“tax”is well laid down in the Report of the House Committee, for 1844:“As the post-office is made to sustain itself solely by a tax on correspondence, it should derive aid and support from everything which it conveys. No man's private correspondence should go free, since the expense of so conveying it becomes a charge upon the correspondence of others; and the special favor thus given, and which is much abused by being extended to others not contemplated by law, is unjust and odious. Neither should the public correspondence be carried free of charge where such immunity operates as a burden upon the correspondence of the citizen. There is no reason why the public should not pay its postages as well as citizens—no sufficient reason why this item of public expenses should not be borne, like all others, by the general tax paid into the treasury.”These remarks are made, indeed, with reference to the franking privilege, which the committee properly proposed to abolish on the grounds here set forth. But it is plain that the principle is equally pertinent to the question of taxing the correspondence of the thickly settled parts of the country for the purpose of raising means to defray the expense of sending mails to the new and distant parts of the country. There is no justice in it. The extension of these mails is a duty of the government; and let the government, by the same rule, pay the cost out of its own treasury.“Postage,”says the same report,“in the large towns and contiguous places, is, in part, acontribution.”It is a forced contribution, levied not upon the property of the people, but upon their intelligence and affections.Our letters are taxed to pay the following expenses:1. For the franking of seven millions of free letters.2. For the distribution of an immense mass of congressional documents, which few people read at all, and most of which might as well be sent in some other way—would be seen the moment they should be actually subjected to the payment of postage by those who send or receive them.3. For the extension of mails over numerous and long routes, in the new or thinly settled parts of the country, which do not pay their own expenses. I do not believe these routes are more extensive or numerous than the government ought to establish; but then the government[pg 026]ought to support them out of the general treasury. Many of them are necessary for the convenience of the government itself. For many of them the treasury is amply remunerated, and more, by the increased sale of the public lands, the increase of population, and the consequent increase of the revenue from the custom-house. And the rest are required by the great duty of self-preservation and self-advancement, which is inherent in our institutions.4. For the cost of about two millions of dead letters, and an equal number of dead newspapers and pamphlets, the postage on which, at existing rates, would amount to at least $175,000 a year, and the greater part of which would be saved under the new postal system.Why should these burdens be thrown as a“tax upon correspondence,”or made an apology for the continuance of such a tax? It is unreasonable. All these expenses should be borne,“like all others, by the general tax paid into the treasury.”This would leave letters chargeable only with such a rate of postage as is needed for the prevention of abuses, and to secure the orderly performance of the public duty. And a postage of two cents would amply suffice for this. Some have suggested thatone centis all that ought to be required.There is another view of the matter, which shows still more strongly the injustice of the present tax upon letters.“It is not matter of inference,”says Mr. Rowland Hill,“but matter of fact, that the expense of the post-office is practically the same, whether a letter is going from London to Burnet (11 miles), or from London to Edinburgh (397 miles); the difference is not expressible in the smallest coin we have.”The cost of transit from London to Edinburgh he explained to be only one thirty-sixth of a penny. And the average cost, per letter, of transportation in all the mails of the kingdom, did not differ materially from this. Of course, it was impossible to vary the rates of postage according to distance, when the longest distance was but a little over one-tenth of a farthing. The same reasoning is obviously applicable to all theproductiveroutes in the United States. And we have seen the injustice of taxing the letters on routes that are productive or self-supporting, to defray the expense of the unproductive routes which the government is bound to create and pay for.Another view of the case shows the futility of the attempt to make distance the basis of charge. The actual cost of transit, to each letter, does not vary with the distance, but is inversely as the number of letters, irrespective of distance. The weight of letters hardly enters into the account as a practical consideration. Ten thousand letters, each composed of an ordinary sheet of letter paper, would weigh but one hundred and fifty-six pounds, about the weight of a common sized man, who would be carried from Boston to Albany or New York for five dollars. The average cost of transportation of the mails in this country, is a little over six cents per mile. For convenience of calculation, take a route of ten miles long, which costs ten cents per mile, and another of one hundred miles long at the same rate. There are many routes which do not carry more than one letter on the average. The letter would cost the department one dollar for carrying it ten miles. On the route of one hundred miles we will suppose there are one thousand letters to be carried, which will cost the government for[pg 027]transportation just one mill per letter. How then can we make distance the basis of postage?The matter may be presented in still another view. The government establishes a mail between two cities, say Boston and New York, which is supported by the avails of postage on letters. Then it proceeds to establish a mail between New York and Philadelphia, which is supported by the postage between those places. Now, how much will it cost the government to carry in addition, all the letters that go from Boston to Philadelphia, and from Philadelphia to Boston? Nothing. The contracts will not vary a dollar. In this manner, you may extend your mails from any point, wherever you find a route which will support itself, until you reach New Orleans or Little Rock, and it is as plain as the multiplication table, that it will cost the government no more to take an individual letter from Boston to Little Rock than it would to take the same letter from Boston to New York. The government is quite indifferent to what place you mail your letter, provided it be to a place which has a mail regularly running to it.This brings us to the unproductive routes. An act was passed by the last Congress to establish mail routes in Oregon territory. An agent is appointed to superintend the business, at a salary of $1000 a year and his travelling expenses; contracts are made or to be made, mails carried, postmasters appointed and paid. This is doubtless a very proper and necessary thing, one which the government could not have omitted without a plain dereliction of duty. The honor and interest of the nation required that as soon as the title to the country was settled, our citizens who were resident there, and those who shall go to settle there, should enjoy the benefits of the mail. And as it was the nation's business to establish the mail, it was equally the nation's business to pay the expense. No man can show how it is just or reasonable, that the letters passing between Boston and New York should be taxed 150 per cent. to pay the expense of a mail to Oregon, on the pretext that the post-office must support itself.A mail is run at regular periods to Eagle River, Wisconsin, for the accommodation of the persons employed about the copper mines on Lake Superior. Without questioning the certainty of the great things that are to be done there hereafter, it is no presumption to express the belief that the expenses of that mail are hardly paid by the postage on the letters now carried to and from Lake Superior. Nor, after making all due allowances for the liberal distribution of copper stock at the East, is it rational to believe that all the people who write letters here, are so directly interested as to make a tax upon letters the most equitable mode of assessing the expense.During the debates in Congress on the act of 1844, an incident was related by Senator Crittenden, of Kentucky, to this effect. He said he was travelling in the mail stage somewhere in the State of Tennessee. At a time of day when he was tired and hungry, the stage turned off from the road a number of miles, to carry the mail to a certain post-office; it was night when they reached the office, the postmaster was roused with difficulty, who went through the formality of taking the mail pouch into his hand, and returned it to the driver, saying there was not a letter in it, and had not been for a month. I will[pg 028]not inquire whose letters ought to be taxed to sustain that mail route, but only remark, that whatever consideration caused its establishment, ought to carry the cost to the public treasury, and not throw it as a burden upon our letters.The Postmaster-General, in his late report, says that“the weight and bulk of the mails, which add so greatly to the cost of transportation, and impede the progress of the mail, are attributable to the mass of printed matter daily forwarded from the principal cities in the Union to every part of the country;”and“justice requires that the expense of their transportation should be paid by the postage.”I would add to this the qualifying phrase,“or by the government, out of the public treasury,”and then ask why the same principle of justice is not as applicable to long mail routes as to heavy mail bags. There is and can be no ground of apprehension, that mails will ever be overloaded or retarded by the weight of paid letters they contain. It was found by the parliamentary committee, that the number of letters, which was then nearly fifty per cent. greater than in all our mails, might be increased twenty-four fold, without overloading the mails, and without any material addition to the contracts for carrying the mails. They also found that the whole cost of receiving, transporting and delivering a letter was 76-100ths of a penny, of which the transit cost but 19-100ths, and the receipt and delivery 57-100ths. The cost of transit, per letter, is of course reduced by the increase of correspondence.I have dwelt so long on this part of the subject, because I find that here is the great difficulty in the application of the principles and results of the British system to our own country—ours is such a“great country,”and we have so many“magnificent distances.”But disposing as I have of the unproductive mail routes, and showing as I have, the injustice of taxing letters with the expense of any public burthens, this whole difficulty is removed, and it is made to appear that two cents is the highest proper rate of postage which the government can justly exact for letters, on the score either of a just equivalent for the service rendered, or of a tax imposed for the purposes of the government itself.This is the conclusion to which the parliamentary committee were most intelligently and satisfactorily drawn—that“the principle of a uniform postage is founded on the facts, that the cost of distributing letters in the United Kingdom consists chiefly in the expenses incurred with reference to their receipt at and delivery from the office, and that the cost of transit along the mail roads is comparatively unimportant, and determined rather by the number of letters carried than the distance;”that“as the cost of conveyance per letter depends more on the number of letters carried than on the distance which they are conveyed, (the cost being frequently greater for distances of a few miles, than for distances of hundreds of miles,) the charge, if varied in proportion to the cost, ought to increase in the inverse ratio of the number of letters conveyed,”but it would be impossible to carry such a rule into practice, and therefore the committee were of opinion, that“the easiest practicable approach to a fair system, would be to charge a medium rate of postage between one post-office and another, whatever[pg 029]may be their distance.”And the committee were further of opinion,“that such an arrangement is highly desirable, not only on account of its abstract fairness, but because it would tend in a great degree to simplify and economize the business of the post-office.”Waterston's Cyclopedia of Commerce says,“the fixing ofa low rateflowed almost necessarily from the adoption of auniformrate. It was besides essential to the stoppage of the private conveyance of letters. The post-office was thus to be restored to its ancient footing of an institution, whose primary object was public accommodation, not revenue.”The adoption of this simple principle, of Uniform Cheap Postage, was a revolution in postal affairs. It may almost be called a revolution in the government, for it identified the policy of the government with the happiness of the people, more perfectly than any one measure that was ever adopted. It prepared the way for all other postal reforms, which are chiefly impracticable until this one is carried. We also can have franking abolished, as soon as cheap postage shall have given the franking privilege alike to all. We can have label stamps, and free delivery, and registry of letters, and reduced postage on newspapers, and whatever other improvement our national ingenuity may contrive, to the fullest extent of the people's wants, and the government's ability, just as soon as we can prevail upon the people to ask, and congress to grant, this one boon of Uniform Cheap Postage.V.Franking.The unanimity and readiness with which the franking privilege was surrendered by the members of parliament—men of privilege in a land of privilege—is proof of the strong pressure of necessity under which the measure was carried. It is true, a few members seemed disposed to struggle for the preservation of this much-cherished prerogative. One member complained that the bill would be taxing him as much as £15 per annum. Another defended the franking privilege on account of its benefits to the poor. But the opposition melted away, like an unseasonable frost, as soon as its arguments were placed in the light of cheap postage. And the whole system of franking was swept away, and each department of the government was required to pay its own postage, and report the same among its expenditures. The debates in parliament show something of the reasons which prevailed.July 22, 1848.The postage bill came up on the second reading:Sir Robert H. Inglis, among other things, objected to the abolition of the franking privilege. He could not see why, because a tax was to be taken off others, a tax was to be imposed on members. It would be, to those who had much correspondence, at least £15 a year, at the reduced rate of a penny a letter. To the revenue the saving would be small, and he hoped the house would not consent to rescind that privilege.The Chancellor of the Exchequer said the sacrifice of the franking privilege would be small in amount. But at the same time, be it small or great, he thought there would be not one feature of the new system which would be more palatable to the public, than this practical evidence of the willingness of members of this house,[pg 030]to sacrifice everything personal to themselves, for the advantage of the public revenue.Sir Robert Peel did not think it desirable that members of this house should retain the franking privilege. He thought if this were continued after this bill came into operation, therewould be a degree of odiumattached to it which would greatly diminish its value. He agreed that it would be well to restrict in some way theright of sending by mail the heavy volumes of reports. He said there were many members who would shrink from the exercise of such a privilege, to load the mail with books. He would also require that each department should specially pay the postage incurred for the public service in that department. If every office be called upon to pay its own postage, we shall introduce a useful principle into the public service. There is no habit connected with a public service so inveterate, as the privilege of official franking.On a former day, July 5, the Chancellor of the Exchequer had said concerning the abolition of the franking privilege:Undoubtedly, we may lose the opportunity now and then, of obliging a friend; but on other grounds, I believe there is no member of the house who will not be ready to abandon the privilege. As to any notion that honorable gentlemen should retain their privilege under a penny postage, they must have a more intense appreciation of the value of money, and a greater disregard for the value of time, than I can conceive, if they insist on it.All the peculiarities which distinguish British institutions from our own, might naturally be expected to make public men in that country more tenacious of privilege than our own statesmen. In a land of privilege, we should expect mere privilege to be coveted, because it is privilege. This practical and harmonious decision of British statesmen, of all parties, in favor of abolishing the franking privilege, in order to give strength and consistency to the system of cheap postage, shows in a striking light the sense which they entertained of the greatness of the object of cheap postage. The arguments which convinced them, we should naturally suppose would have tenfold greater force here than there; while the arguments in favor of the privilege would have tenfold greater influence there than here. Can there be a doubt that, when the subject is fairly understood, there will be found as much magnanimity among American as among British legislators?The moral evils of the franking system are far more serious than the pecuniary expense, although that is by no means undeserving of regard. It is not only an ensnaring prerogative to those who enjoy it, and an anomaly and incongruity in our republican institutions, but it is an oppressive burden upon the post-office, which ought to be removed.The parliamentary committee ascertained, by three distinct calculations, (of which all the results so nearly agreed as to strengthen each other,) that, reckoning by numbers, one-ninth of the letters passing through the post-office in a year, were franked. And, reckoning by weight, the proportion was 30 per cent. of the whole. Of seven millions of franked letters and documents, nearly five millions were by members of parliament. If all the franks had been subject to postage, they would have yielded upwards of a million sterling yearly. This was after the parliamentary franks had been restricted to a certain number (ten) daily for each member, and limited in weight to two ounces. The amount of postage on parliamentary franks would be yearly £350,000, averaging about £310 to each member. But there[pg 031]were a number of official persons, whose franks were not limited, either in number or weight. These franks were obtained and used, by those who could get them, without stint or scruple.The celebrated Dr. Dionysius Lardner, who then occupied a prominent place among men of letters in Great Britain, testified before the parliamentary committee in 1838, that he was in the practice of sending and receiving about five thousand letters a year, of which he got four-fifths without postage—chiefly by franks. While he lived in Ireland, his correspondence was so heavy, not only as to the number of letters, but their bulk and weight, that he was obliged to apply to the Postmaster-General of Ireland, Lord Rosse, who allowed them to go under his franks. From the year 1823, or soon after he quitted the university, until the year 1828, his letters went and came under the frank of Lord Rosse, who had the power of franking to any weight. Since he came to England, his facilities of getting franks were very great. Without such means, he would have found it very difficult indeed to send his letters by post. His heavy correspondence was chiefly sent through official persons, who had the power of franking to any weight; and his correspondents knew that they could send their letters under care to these friends; so that he received communications from them in the same way. He endeavored to save as much trouble as he could, by dividing the annoyance among them, and by enclosing a bundle of letters for the same neighborhood under one cover. He said that, to obtain these privileges a man must be connected or known to the aristocratic classes, and that it was certainly unfair, as it gave unfair advantages to those who happened to have friends or connections having that power. His foreign correspondence was carried on through the embassies; and in this way the letters came free. He got his letters from the United States free in that way. Any man who was a Fellow of the Royal Society, or who lived among that class, could avail himself of these means of obtaining scientific communications.The number of franked letters posted, throughout the kingdom, in two weeks in January, 1838, is stated in the following table.Week endingCountry to London.London to country.Country to country.Total15 January,41,19643,34536,361122,90229 January,46,37151,04637,894135,311————————————Total,87,56796,39174,255258,213Proportion,.339.373.2871.It was stated in the debates, that before the franking privilege was limited, it had been worth, to some great commercial houses, who had a seat in parliament, from £300 to £800 a year; and that after the limitation it was worth to some houses as much as £300 a year. The committee spoke of the use of franks for scientific and business correspondence, as“an exemplification of the irregular means by which a scale of postage, too high for the interests and proper management of the affairs of the country, is forced to give way in particular instances. And like all irregular means, it is of most unfair and partial application; the relief depends, not on any general regulation, known to the public, and according to which relief can be obtained, but upon favor and opportunity; and the consequence is, that while the more pressing suitor obtains the benefit he asks, those of a more forbearing disposition pay the penalty of high postage.”It also keeps out of view of the public,“how much the cost of distribution is exceeded by the charge, and to what extent therefore the postage of letters is taxed”to sustain this official privilege. The committee[pg 032]therefore concluded in their report, that“taking into the account the serious loss to the public revenue, which is caused by the privilege of franking, and the inevitable abuse of that privilege in numerous cases where no public business is concerned, it would be politic in a financial point of view, and agreeable to the public sense of justice, if, on effecting the proposed reduction of the postage rates, the privilege of franking were to be abolished.”Only the post-office department now franks its own official correspondence; petitions to parliament are sent free; and parliamentary documents are charged at one-eighth the rate of letters. Letterstothe Queen also go free.In our own country, the congressional franking privilege has long been a subject of complaint, both by the post-office authorities and the public press. There are many discrepancies in the several returns from which the extent of franking is to be gathered.From a return made by the Postmaster General to the Senate, Jan. 16, 1844, the whole number of letters passing through the mails in a year is set at 27,073,144, of which the number franked is 2,815,692, which is a small fraction over 10 per cent.The annual report of the Postmaster-General in 1837, estimates the whole number of letters at 32,360,992, of which 2,100,000, or a little over 6 per cent, were franked.In February, 1844, the Postmaster-General communicated to Congress a statement of an account kept of the free letters and documents mailed at Washington, during three weeks of the sitting of Congress in 1840, of which the results appear in the following table.Week endingLetters.Public Doc.Weight of Doc.May 2,13,67496,5888,042 lbs.June 2,13,955108,9129,076July 7,14,766186,76815,564—————————Total,42,395392,26832,689Average,14,132140,75610,896Session 33 weeks,466,3454,314,948359,579Whole number of Letters and Documents in a session of thirty-three weeks, 4,781,293.Average weight of Public Documents, 1-⅓ oz.Of the 42,375 free letters, 20,362 were congressional, and 22,032, or 52 per cent. were from the Departments.In the month of October, 1843, an account was kept at all the offices in the United States, of the number of letters franked and received in that month by members of Congress. The number was 18,558, which would give 81,370 for 19 weeks of vacation. To these add 223,992 mailed in 33 weeks of session, and four-fifths as many, 179,193, for letters received, and it gives a total of 484,555 letters received and sent free of postage by members of Congress in a year, besides the Public Documents. The postage on the letters, at the old rates, would have been $100,000.From the same return of October, 1843, it appears that the number[pg 033]of letters franked and received by national and state officers, was 1,024,068; and by postmasters, 1,568,928; total, 2,592,998, the postage on which, at 14-½ cents, would amount to $376,073.These calculations would give the loss on free letters, at that time, $476,073. This is besides the postage on the public documents, 359,578 pounds, the postage on which, at 2-½ cents per ounce, would come to $147,581.Total postage lost by franking, $623,654.Document No. 118, printed by the House of Representatives of Massachusetts, 1848, gives $312,500 as the amount of postage on franked letters, and $200,000 for franked documents, making a total of $512,500.The report of the Post-office Committee of the House of Representatives, May 15, 1844, contains a return of the number of free letters mailed and received at the Washington post-office, during the week ending February 20, 1844, with the corresponding annual number, and the amount of postage, at the old rates—allowing the average length of a session of Congress to be six months. From this I have constructed the following table.DepartmentsLettersLettersTotal No.Postage.receivedsentAnnually.House of Representatives1,8821,505Senate7,51010,271————Total of Congress9,39211,776550,368$114,697President U. S.30417424,8564,895Post Office6,0413,615502,112102,474State Department1,9892,253220,58441,600Treasury Department6,8002,405478,660100,949War Department2,5922,626271,33661,475Navy Department1,7092,082197,13239,809Attorney-General5281645,13610,678————————Total2,290,184$476,577Whole number of letters franked at Washington: 2,290,184Add, franked by members at home: 111,348Franked by postmasters: 1,568,928Total of free letters: 3,970,450Add, franked documents: 4,314,948General total number: 8,285,398The postage on all which, at the old rates, would be at least: $1,000,000The annual report of the Postmaster-General, December, 1847, estimates the number of free letters at five millions, the postage on which, at present rates, would be at least $375,000, to which the postage on the documents should be added.The conclusion of the whole matter is, that the postage due on the free letters and documents, if reckoned according to the old rates, would be at least one million, and under the present rates above half a million of dollars annually; equal to 12 per cent of the whole gross income of the department.[pg 034]When our present postage law was under consideration, the committees of both Houses recommended the abolition of the franking privilege, for reasons of justice, as well as to satisfy the public mind. The report of the House Committee has this passage:
“And it shall be lawful for the agents of the post-office, or other officers of the United States government, upon reasonable cause shown, to arrest such person or persons, and seize his or their boxes, bags, or trunks, supposed to contain such mailable matter, and cause the same to be opened and examined before any officer of the United States; and if found to contain such mailable matter, transported in violation of the laws of the United States, shall be held to bail in the sum of five thousand dollars, to appear and answer said charge before the next United States Court to be held in said State, or district of said State; and upon conviction thereof, shall be fined as aforesaid, one hundred dollars for each letter, newspaper, or printed sheet so transported as aforesaid, and shall be held in the custody of the marshal until the fine and costs are paid, or until otherwise discharged by due course of law.”The report of 1845 thinks there is“no just reason why individuals engaged in smuggling letters and robbing the department of its legitimate revenues should not be punished, in the same way and to the same extent, as persons guilty of smuggling goods; nor why the same means of detection should not be given to the Post-office Department which are now given to the Treasury.”That is, the power of detention and search in all cases of suspicion by the agent, that a person is carrying letters. What would be the effect of carrying out this system,[pg 020]in breaking up the practice complained of, or what would be the amount of inconvenience to travellers and to business, of a thorough determination in the department to execute such a law in the spirit of it, all can judge for themselves. The British government, as we have seen, dared not entertain such a proposition. I have no hesitation in saying, that such a system of coercion can never be successfully executed here. It is better to meet the difficulty, as the British government did, in a way to make the post-office at once the most popular vehicle of transmission, and the greatest blessing which the government can bestow upon the people. The New York Evening Post said, years ago:“Congress yields, and passes such a law. What then? Is Hydra dead? By no means, its ninety-nine other heads still rear their crests, and bid defiance to the secretary and his law. In Pearl street, there will yet hang a bag for the deposit of the whole neighborhood's letters,—at Astor House, and at Howard's, at the American, and at the City Hotels, still every day will see the usual accumulation of letters,—all to be taken by some‘private,’trustworthy, obliging wayfarer, and by him be deposited in some office at Boston, Philadelphia, Albany, Baltimore.”I have no doubt that the cheap transmission of letters, out of the mails, is now becoming systematized and extended between our large cities, and an immense amount of correspondence is also carried on between the large cities and the towns around. The Boston Path-Finder contains a list of 240“Expresses,”as they are called, that is, of common carriers, who go regularly from Boston to other towns, distant from three miles to three hundred. Most of these men carry“mailable matter”to a great extent, in their pockets or hats, in the shape of orders, memorandums, receipts, or notes, sometimes on slips of paper, sometimes in letters folded in brown paper and tied with a string, and not unfrequently in the form of regularly sealed letters. If we suppose each one to carry, on an average, ten in a day, a very low estimate, there are 750,000 letters brought to Boston in a year by this channel alone. Everything which calls public attention to the subject of postage, every increase of business causing an increase of correspondence between any two places, every newspaper paragraph describing the wonderful increase of letters in England, will awaken new desires for cheap postage; and these desires will gratify themselves irregularly, unless the only sure remedy is seasonably applied. In the division of labor and the multiplication of competitions, there are many lines of business of which the whole profits are made up of extremely minute savings. In these the cost of postage becomes material; and such concerns will not pay five cents on their letters, when they can get them taken, carried and delivered for two cents. The causes which created illicit penny posts in England are largely at work here, with the growth and systematization of manufactures and trade; and they are producing, and will produce the same results, until, on the best routes, not one-sixth of the letters will be carried in the mail, unless the true system shall be seasonably established. The evils of such a state of things need not be here set forth. One of the greatest, which would not strike every mind, is the demoralization of the public mind, in abating the reverence for law, and the sense of gratitude and honor to the government.[pg 021]In this respect, of bringing all the correspondence into the mails, in furnishing all the facilities and encouragements to correspondence which the duty of the government requires, in superseding the use of unlawful conveyances, and in winning the patriotic regards of the people to the post-office, as to every man's friend, the act of 1845 has entirely failed. It has not only falsified the predictions of us all in regard to its productiveness, on the one hand, but it has even convinced the highest official authority that it has failed to prove itself to betheCHEAP POSTAGE, which the country needs and will support. In his last annual report, the Postmaster-General says:“The favorable operation of the act of 1845, upon the finances of this department, leads to the conclusion that, by the adoption of such modifications as have been suggested by this department for the improvement of its revenues, and the suppression of abuses practised under it, the present low rates of postage will not only produce revenue enough to meet the expenditures, but will leave a considerable surplus annually to be applied to the extension of the mail service to the new and rapidly increasing sections of our country, or would justify a still further reduction of the rates of postage. In the opinion of the undersigned, with such modifications of the act of 1845 as have been suggested, an uniform less rate might, in a few years, be made to cover the expenses of the department; but by its adoption the department would be compelled to rely upon the treasury for a few years. At this time, during the existence of a foreign war, imposing such heavy burdens upon the treasury, it might not be wise or prudent to increase them, or to do anything which would tend to impair the public credit; and,ON THIS ACCOUNTalone, recommendation for such a reduction is not made.“Postage is a tax, not only on the business of the country, but upon the intelligence, knowledge, and the exercise of the friendly and social feelings; and in the opinion of the undersigned, should be reduced to the lowest point which would enable the department to sustain itself. That principle has been uniformly acted on in the United States, as the true standard for the regulation of postage, and the cheaper it can be made, consistently with that rule, the better.“As our country expands, and its circle of business and correspondence enlarges, as civilization progresses, it becomes more important to maintain between the different sections of our country a speedy, safe, and cheap intercourse. By so doing, energy is infused into the trade of the country, the business of the people enlarged, and made more active, and an irresistible impulse given to industry of every kind; by it wealth is created and diffused in numberless ways throughout the community, and the most noble and generous feelings of our nature between distant friends are cherished and preserved, and the Union itself more closely bound together.”Nothing can be more true than the position, that“postage is a tax,”and that it is the duty of the government to make this“tax”as light as possible, consistent with its other and equally binding duties. Nothing more sound than the doctrine that it is utterly wrong to charge postage withanything morethan its own proper expenses. Nothing more just than the estimate here given of the benefits of cheap postage. The blessings he describes are so great, so real, so accordant with the tone and beneficent design of civil government itself, and especially to the functions and duties of a republican government, that I do not think even the existence and embarrassments of a state of war, such as now exists, are any reason at all for postponing the commencement of so glorious a measure. If it could be brought about under the administration of an officer who has expressed himself so cordially and intelligently in favor of cheap postage, and whose ability and fidelity in the economical administration of affairs are so well known, it would be but a fitting response to the statesmanlike sentiments quoted above.[pg 022]I am now to show that, on the strictest principles of justice, on the closest mathematical calculation, on the most enlarged and yet rigid construction of the duty imposed on the federal government by our constitution, two cents per half ounce is the most just and equal rate of postage.IV.What is the just Rule to be observed in settling the Rates of Postage?The posting of letters may be looked at, either as a contract between the government and the individuals who send and receive letters, or as a simple exercise of governmental functions in discharging a governmental duty. The proper measure of the charge to be imposed should be considered in each of these aspects, for the government is bound to do that which is right in both these relations.Viewed simply as a contract, or a service rendered for an equivalent, what would be the rate to be charged? Not, surely, the amount it would cost the individual to send his own particular letter. The saving effected by the division and combination of labor is a public benefit, and not to be appropriated as an exclusive right by one. In this view, the government stands only in the relation of a party to the contract, just as a state or a town would do, or an individual. No right or power of monopoly can enter into the calculation. We can illustrate the question by supposing a case, of a town some thirty miles from Boston, to which there has hitherto been no common-carrier. The inhabitants resolve to establish an express, and for this purpose enter into negotiations with one of their neighbors, in which they agree to give him their business on his agreeing to establish a reasonable tariff of prices for his service. If the number of patrons is very small, they cannot make it an object for the man to run his wagon, unless they will agree to pay a good price for parcels. And the more numerous the parcels are, the lower will be the rate, within certain limits, that is, until the man's wagon is fairly loaded, or he has as much business as he can reasonably attend to. This is on the supposition that all the business is to come from one place. But if there are intermediate or contiguous places whose patronage can be obtained to swell the amount of business, there should be an equitable apportionment of this advantage, a part to go to the carrier for his additional trouble and fair profits, and a part to go towards reducing the general rate of charge. If, however, the carrier has an interest in a place five miles beyond, which he thinks may be built up by having an express running into it from Boston, although the present amount of business is too small to pay the cost, and if, for considerations of his own advantage, he resolves to run his wagon to that place at a constant loss for the present, looking to the rise of his property for ultimate remuneration, it would not be just for him to insist, that the people who intend to establish an express and support it for themselves, shall yet pay an increased or exorbitant price for their own parcels, in order to pay him for an appendage to the enterprise, for which they have no occasion, and as such he himself undertakes for personal considerations of is own.[pg 023]And if he should be obstinate on this point, they would just let him take his own way, and charge prices to suit himself, while they proceeded to make a new bargain with another carrier, who would agree to accommodate them at reasonable prices adjusted on the basis of their patronage. And if an appeal should be made to their sympathy or charity, to help the growing hamlet, they would say, that it was better to give charity out of their pockets than by paying a high price on their parcels; for then those would give who were able and willing, and would know how much they gave. This covers the whole case of arranging postage as a matter of equal contract. The just measure of charge is, the lowest rate at which the work can be afforded by individual enterprise on the best self-supporting routes. Plainly, no other rate can be kept up by open competition on these routes. And if these routes are lost by competition, you must charge proportionably higher on the rest, which will throw the next class of routes into other hands, and so on, until nothing is left for you but the most costly and impracticable portions of the work.The only material exception to this rule would be, where there is an extensive and complicated combination of interests, among which the general convenience and even economy will be promoted by establishing a uniformity of prices, without reference to an exact apportionment of minute differences.It can be easily shown, that all these considerations would be harmonized by no rate of postage on letters, higher than the English 1d., or with us two cents for each half ounce. Considered as a business question, unaffected by the assumed power of monopoly by the government, the reasonings of the parliamentary reports and the results of the British experiment abundantly establish this rate to be the fair average price for the service rendered. A moderate business can live by it, if economically conducted, and a large business will make it vastly profitable, as is seen in the payment of four or five millions of dollars a year into the public treasury of Great Britain, as the net profits of penny postage.If we look at the post-office in the more philosophical and elevated aspect of a grand governmental measure, enjoined by the people for the good of the people, we shall be brought to a similar conclusion. The constitutional rule for the establishment of the post-office, is as follows:“Congress shall have power to—“Establish post-offices and post-roads.”This clause declares plainly the will of the people of the United States, that the federal government should be charged with the responsibility of furnishing the whole Union with convenient and proper mail privileges—according to their reasonable wants, and the reasonable ability of the government. This is one point of the“general welfare,”for which we are to look to congress, just as we look to congress to provide for the general defence by means of the army and navy. It imposes no other restrictions in the one case than the other, as to the extent to which provision shall be made—the reasonable wants of the people, and the reasonable ability of the government. It limits the resources for this object to no particular branch of the[pg 024]revenue. It gives no sort of sanction to the so oft-repeated rule, which many suppose to be a part of the constitution, that the post-office must support itself. Still less, does it authorize congress to throw all manner of burdens upon the mail, and then refuse to increase its usefulness as a public convenience, because it cannot carry all those loads. The people must have mails, and congress must furnish them. To reason for or against any proposed change, on the ground that the alternative may be the discontinuance of public mails, the privation of this privilege to the people, and the winding up of the post-office system, is clearly inadmissible. When the government ceases to give the people the privileges of the mail, the government itself will soon wind up, or rather, will be taken in hand and wound up by the people, and set a-going again on better principles. The sole inquiry for congress is, what is the best way to meet the reasonable wants of the people, by means within the reasonable ability of the government?The objects of the post-office system, which regulate its administration, are well set forth in the Report of the House Committee in 1844:“To content the man, dwelling more remote from town, with his homely lot, by giving him regular and frequent means of intercommunication; to assure the emigrant, who plants his new home on the skirts of the distant wilderness or prairie, that he is not forever severed from the kindred and society that still share his interest and love; to prevent those whom the swelling tide of population is constantly, pressing to the outer verge of civilization from being surrendered to surrounding influences, and sinking into the hunter or savage state; to render the citizen, how far soever from the seat of his government, worthy, by proper knowledge and intelligence, of his important privileges as a sovereign constituent of the government; to diffuse, throughout all parts of the land, enlightenment, social improvement, and national affinities, elevating our people in the scale of civilization, and binding them together in patriotic affection.”These are the objects for which congress is bound to maintain the post-office, and it is impossible that congress should ever seriously consider whether they will not abandon them. The maintenance of convenient mails for these objects is therefore to be regarded as a necessary function of the government of the United States. In the infancy of that government, while the government itself was an experiment, when the country was deeply in debt for the cost of our independence, and when its resources for public expenditure were untried and unknown, there was doubtless a propriety in the adoption of the principle, that the post-office department should support itself. But that state of things has long gone by, and our government now has ample ability to execute any plans of improvement whatever, for the advancement of knowledge, and for binding the Union together, provided such plans come within the acknowledged powers conferred by the constitution.The post-office being, then, like the army and navy, a necessary branch of the government, it follows that the charge of postage for the conveyance of letters and papers is of the nature of a tax, as has been well expressed by the present Postmaster-General, in his last annual[pg 025]report, quoted above.“Postage is a tax, not only on the business of the country, but upon intelligence and knowledge, and the exercise of the friendly and social affections.”The question before us is, How heavy a“tax”ought the government of a federal republic to impose on these interests? Every friend of freedom and of human improvement answers spontaneously, that nothing but a clear necessity can justify any tax at all upon such subjects, and that the tax should be reduced, in all cases, to the very lowest practicable rate. The experience of the British government, the prodigious increase of correspondence produced by cheap postage, and the immense revenue accruing therefrom, demonstrate thatTWO CENTSis not below the rate which the government can afford to receive. Let the people understand that all beyond this is a mere“tax,”not required by any necessity, and they will soon demand that the government look for its resources to some more suitable subjects of taxation than these.Another rule of right in regard to this“tax”is well laid down in the Report of the House Committee, for 1844:“As the post-office is made to sustain itself solely by a tax on correspondence, it should derive aid and support from everything which it conveys. No man's private correspondence should go free, since the expense of so conveying it becomes a charge upon the correspondence of others; and the special favor thus given, and which is much abused by being extended to others not contemplated by law, is unjust and odious. Neither should the public correspondence be carried free of charge where such immunity operates as a burden upon the correspondence of the citizen. There is no reason why the public should not pay its postages as well as citizens—no sufficient reason why this item of public expenses should not be borne, like all others, by the general tax paid into the treasury.”These remarks are made, indeed, with reference to the franking privilege, which the committee properly proposed to abolish on the grounds here set forth. But it is plain that the principle is equally pertinent to the question of taxing the correspondence of the thickly settled parts of the country for the purpose of raising means to defray the expense of sending mails to the new and distant parts of the country. There is no justice in it. The extension of these mails is a duty of the government; and let the government, by the same rule, pay the cost out of its own treasury.“Postage,”says the same report,“in the large towns and contiguous places, is, in part, acontribution.”It is a forced contribution, levied not upon the property of the people, but upon their intelligence and affections.Our letters are taxed to pay the following expenses:1. For the franking of seven millions of free letters.2. For the distribution of an immense mass of congressional documents, which few people read at all, and most of which might as well be sent in some other way—would be seen the moment they should be actually subjected to the payment of postage by those who send or receive them.3. For the extension of mails over numerous and long routes, in the new or thinly settled parts of the country, which do not pay their own expenses. I do not believe these routes are more extensive or numerous than the government ought to establish; but then the government[pg 026]ought to support them out of the general treasury. Many of them are necessary for the convenience of the government itself. For many of them the treasury is amply remunerated, and more, by the increased sale of the public lands, the increase of population, and the consequent increase of the revenue from the custom-house. And the rest are required by the great duty of self-preservation and self-advancement, which is inherent in our institutions.4. For the cost of about two millions of dead letters, and an equal number of dead newspapers and pamphlets, the postage on which, at existing rates, would amount to at least $175,000 a year, and the greater part of which would be saved under the new postal system.Why should these burdens be thrown as a“tax upon correspondence,”or made an apology for the continuance of such a tax? It is unreasonable. All these expenses should be borne,“like all others, by the general tax paid into the treasury.”This would leave letters chargeable only with such a rate of postage as is needed for the prevention of abuses, and to secure the orderly performance of the public duty. And a postage of two cents would amply suffice for this. Some have suggested thatone centis all that ought to be required.There is another view of the matter, which shows still more strongly the injustice of the present tax upon letters.“It is not matter of inference,”says Mr. Rowland Hill,“but matter of fact, that the expense of the post-office is practically the same, whether a letter is going from London to Burnet (11 miles), or from London to Edinburgh (397 miles); the difference is not expressible in the smallest coin we have.”The cost of transit from London to Edinburgh he explained to be only one thirty-sixth of a penny. And the average cost, per letter, of transportation in all the mails of the kingdom, did not differ materially from this. Of course, it was impossible to vary the rates of postage according to distance, when the longest distance was but a little over one-tenth of a farthing. The same reasoning is obviously applicable to all theproductiveroutes in the United States. And we have seen the injustice of taxing the letters on routes that are productive or self-supporting, to defray the expense of the unproductive routes which the government is bound to create and pay for.Another view of the case shows the futility of the attempt to make distance the basis of charge. The actual cost of transit, to each letter, does not vary with the distance, but is inversely as the number of letters, irrespective of distance. The weight of letters hardly enters into the account as a practical consideration. Ten thousand letters, each composed of an ordinary sheet of letter paper, would weigh but one hundred and fifty-six pounds, about the weight of a common sized man, who would be carried from Boston to Albany or New York for five dollars. The average cost of transportation of the mails in this country, is a little over six cents per mile. For convenience of calculation, take a route of ten miles long, which costs ten cents per mile, and another of one hundred miles long at the same rate. There are many routes which do not carry more than one letter on the average. The letter would cost the department one dollar for carrying it ten miles. On the route of one hundred miles we will suppose there are one thousand letters to be carried, which will cost the government for[pg 027]transportation just one mill per letter. How then can we make distance the basis of postage?The matter may be presented in still another view. The government establishes a mail between two cities, say Boston and New York, which is supported by the avails of postage on letters. Then it proceeds to establish a mail between New York and Philadelphia, which is supported by the postage between those places. Now, how much will it cost the government to carry in addition, all the letters that go from Boston to Philadelphia, and from Philadelphia to Boston? Nothing. The contracts will not vary a dollar. In this manner, you may extend your mails from any point, wherever you find a route which will support itself, until you reach New Orleans or Little Rock, and it is as plain as the multiplication table, that it will cost the government no more to take an individual letter from Boston to Little Rock than it would to take the same letter from Boston to New York. The government is quite indifferent to what place you mail your letter, provided it be to a place which has a mail regularly running to it.This brings us to the unproductive routes. An act was passed by the last Congress to establish mail routes in Oregon territory. An agent is appointed to superintend the business, at a salary of $1000 a year and his travelling expenses; contracts are made or to be made, mails carried, postmasters appointed and paid. This is doubtless a very proper and necessary thing, one which the government could not have omitted without a plain dereliction of duty. The honor and interest of the nation required that as soon as the title to the country was settled, our citizens who were resident there, and those who shall go to settle there, should enjoy the benefits of the mail. And as it was the nation's business to establish the mail, it was equally the nation's business to pay the expense. No man can show how it is just or reasonable, that the letters passing between Boston and New York should be taxed 150 per cent. to pay the expense of a mail to Oregon, on the pretext that the post-office must support itself.A mail is run at regular periods to Eagle River, Wisconsin, for the accommodation of the persons employed about the copper mines on Lake Superior. Without questioning the certainty of the great things that are to be done there hereafter, it is no presumption to express the belief that the expenses of that mail are hardly paid by the postage on the letters now carried to and from Lake Superior. Nor, after making all due allowances for the liberal distribution of copper stock at the East, is it rational to believe that all the people who write letters here, are so directly interested as to make a tax upon letters the most equitable mode of assessing the expense.During the debates in Congress on the act of 1844, an incident was related by Senator Crittenden, of Kentucky, to this effect. He said he was travelling in the mail stage somewhere in the State of Tennessee. At a time of day when he was tired and hungry, the stage turned off from the road a number of miles, to carry the mail to a certain post-office; it was night when they reached the office, the postmaster was roused with difficulty, who went through the formality of taking the mail pouch into his hand, and returned it to the driver, saying there was not a letter in it, and had not been for a month. I will[pg 028]not inquire whose letters ought to be taxed to sustain that mail route, but only remark, that whatever consideration caused its establishment, ought to carry the cost to the public treasury, and not throw it as a burden upon our letters.The Postmaster-General, in his late report, says that“the weight and bulk of the mails, which add so greatly to the cost of transportation, and impede the progress of the mail, are attributable to the mass of printed matter daily forwarded from the principal cities in the Union to every part of the country;”and“justice requires that the expense of their transportation should be paid by the postage.”I would add to this the qualifying phrase,“or by the government, out of the public treasury,”and then ask why the same principle of justice is not as applicable to long mail routes as to heavy mail bags. There is and can be no ground of apprehension, that mails will ever be overloaded or retarded by the weight of paid letters they contain. It was found by the parliamentary committee, that the number of letters, which was then nearly fifty per cent. greater than in all our mails, might be increased twenty-four fold, without overloading the mails, and without any material addition to the contracts for carrying the mails. They also found that the whole cost of receiving, transporting and delivering a letter was 76-100ths of a penny, of which the transit cost but 19-100ths, and the receipt and delivery 57-100ths. The cost of transit, per letter, is of course reduced by the increase of correspondence.I have dwelt so long on this part of the subject, because I find that here is the great difficulty in the application of the principles and results of the British system to our own country—ours is such a“great country,”and we have so many“magnificent distances.”But disposing as I have of the unproductive mail routes, and showing as I have, the injustice of taxing letters with the expense of any public burthens, this whole difficulty is removed, and it is made to appear that two cents is the highest proper rate of postage which the government can justly exact for letters, on the score either of a just equivalent for the service rendered, or of a tax imposed for the purposes of the government itself.This is the conclusion to which the parliamentary committee were most intelligently and satisfactorily drawn—that“the principle of a uniform postage is founded on the facts, that the cost of distributing letters in the United Kingdom consists chiefly in the expenses incurred with reference to their receipt at and delivery from the office, and that the cost of transit along the mail roads is comparatively unimportant, and determined rather by the number of letters carried than the distance;”that“as the cost of conveyance per letter depends more on the number of letters carried than on the distance which they are conveyed, (the cost being frequently greater for distances of a few miles, than for distances of hundreds of miles,) the charge, if varied in proportion to the cost, ought to increase in the inverse ratio of the number of letters conveyed,”but it would be impossible to carry such a rule into practice, and therefore the committee were of opinion, that“the easiest practicable approach to a fair system, would be to charge a medium rate of postage between one post-office and another, whatever[pg 029]may be their distance.”And the committee were further of opinion,“that such an arrangement is highly desirable, not only on account of its abstract fairness, but because it would tend in a great degree to simplify and economize the business of the post-office.”Waterston's Cyclopedia of Commerce says,“the fixing ofa low rateflowed almost necessarily from the adoption of auniformrate. It was besides essential to the stoppage of the private conveyance of letters. The post-office was thus to be restored to its ancient footing of an institution, whose primary object was public accommodation, not revenue.”The adoption of this simple principle, of Uniform Cheap Postage, was a revolution in postal affairs. It may almost be called a revolution in the government, for it identified the policy of the government with the happiness of the people, more perfectly than any one measure that was ever adopted. It prepared the way for all other postal reforms, which are chiefly impracticable until this one is carried. We also can have franking abolished, as soon as cheap postage shall have given the franking privilege alike to all. We can have label stamps, and free delivery, and registry of letters, and reduced postage on newspapers, and whatever other improvement our national ingenuity may contrive, to the fullest extent of the people's wants, and the government's ability, just as soon as we can prevail upon the people to ask, and congress to grant, this one boon of Uniform Cheap Postage.V.Franking.The unanimity and readiness with which the franking privilege was surrendered by the members of parliament—men of privilege in a land of privilege—is proof of the strong pressure of necessity under which the measure was carried. It is true, a few members seemed disposed to struggle for the preservation of this much-cherished prerogative. One member complained that the bill would be taxing him as much as £15 per annum. Another defended the franking privilege on account of its benefits to the poor. But the opposition melted away, like an unseasonable frost, as soon as its arguments were placed in the light of cheap postage. And the whole system of franking was swept away, and each department of the government was required to pay its own postage, and report the same among its expenditures. The debates in parliament show something of the reasons which prevailed.July 22, 1848.The postage bill came up on the second reading:Sir Robert H. Inglis, among other things, objected to the abolition of the franking privilege. He could not see why, because a tax was to be taken off others, a tax was to be imposed on members. It would be, to those who had much correspondence, at least £15 a year, at the reduced rate of a penny a letter. To the revenue the saving would be small, and he hoped the house would not consent to rescind that privilege.The Chancellor of the Exchequer said the sacrifice of the franking privilege would be small in amount. But at the same time, be it small or great, he thought there would be not one feature of the new system which would be more palatable to the public, than this practical evidence of the willingness of members of this house,[pg 030]to sacrifice everything personal to themselves, for the advantage of the public revenue.Sir Robert Peel did not think it desirable that members of this house should retain the franking privilege. He thought if this were continued after this bill came into operation, therewould be a degree of odiumattached to it which would greatly diminish its value. He agreed that it would be well to restrict in some way theright of sending by mail the heavy volumes of reports. He said there were many members who would shrink from the exercise of such a privilege, to load the mail with books. He would also require that each department should specially pay the postage incurred for the public service in that department. If every office be called upon to pay its own postage, we shall introduce a useful principle into the public service. There is no habit connected with a public service so inveterate, as the privilege of official franking.On a former day, July 5, the Chancellor of the Exchequer had said concerning the abolition of the franking privilege:Undoubtedly, we may lose the opportunity now and then, of obliging a friend; but on other grounds, I believe there is no member of the house who will not be ready to abandon the privilege. As to any notion that honorable gentlemen should retain their privilege under a penny postage, they must have a more intense appreciation of the value of money, and a greater disregard for the value of time, than I can conceive, if they insist on it.All the peculiarities which distinguish British institutions from our own, might naturally be expected to make public men in that country more tenacious of privilege than our own statesmen. In a land of privilege, we should expect mere privilege to be coveted, because it is privilege. This practical and harmonious decision of British statesmen, of all parties, in favor of abolishing the franking privilege, in order to give strength and consistency to the system of cheap postage, shows in a striking light the sense which they entertained of the greatness of the object of cheap postage. The arguments which convinced them, we should naturally suppose would have tenfold greater force here than there; while the arguments in favor of the privilege would have tenfold greater influence there than here. Can there be a doubt that, when the subject is fairly understood, there will be found as much magnanimity among American as among British legislators?The moral evils of the franking system are far more serious than the pecuniary expense, although that is by no means undeserving of regard. It is not only an ensnaring prerogative to those who enjoy it, and an anomaly and incongruity in our republican institutions, but it is an oppressive burden upon the post-office, which ought to be removed.The parliamentary committee ascertained, by three distinct calculations, (of which all the results so nearly agreed as to strengthen each other,) that, reckoning by numbers, one-ninth of the letters passing through the post-office in a year, were franked. And, reckoning by weight, the proportion was 30 per cent. of the whole. Of seven millions of franked letters and documents, nearly five millions were by members of parliament. If all the franks had been subject to postage, they would have yielded upwards of a million sterling yearly. This was after the parliamentary franks had been restricted to a certain number (ten) daily for each member, and limited in weight to two ounces. The amount of postage on parliamentary franks would be yearly £350,000, averaging about £310 to each member. But there[pg 031]were a number of official persons, whose franks were not limited, either in number or weight. These franks were obtained and used, by those who could get them, without stint or scruple.The celebrated Dr. Dionysius Lardner, who then occupied a prominent place among men of letters in Great Britain, testified before the parliamentary committee in 1838, that he was in the practice of sending and receiving about five thousand letters a year, of which he got four-fifths without postage—chiefly by franks. While he lived in Ireland, his correspondence was so heavy, not only as to the number of letters, but their bulk and weight, that he was obliged to apply to the Postmaster-General of Ireland, Lord Rosse, who allowed them to go under his franks. From the year 1823, or soon after he quitted the university, until the year 1828, his letters went and came under the frank of Lord Rosse, who had the power of franking to any weight. Since he came to England, his facilities of getting franks were very great. Without such means, he would have found it very difficult indeed to send his letters by post. His heavy correspondence was chiefly sent through official persons, who had the power of franking to any weight; and his correspondents knew that they could send their letters under care to these friends; so that he received communications from them in the same way. He endeavored to save as much trouble as he could, by dividing the annoyance among them, and by enclosing a bundle of letters for the same neighborhood under one cover. He said that, to obtain these privileges a man must be connected or known to the aristocratic classes, and that it was certainly unfair, as it gave unfair advantages to those who happened to have friends or connections having that power. His foreign correspondence was carried on through the embassies; and in this way the letters came free. He got his letters from the United States free in that way. Any man who was a Fellow of the Royal Society, or who lived among that class, could avail himself of these means of obtaining scientific communications.The number of franked letters posted, throughout the kingdom, in two weeks in January, 1838, is stated in the following table.Week endingCountry to London.London to country.Country to country.Total15 January,41,19643,34536,361122,90229 January,46,37151,04637,894135,311————————————Total,87,56796,39174,255258,213Proportion,.339.373.2871.It was stated in the debates, that before the franking privilege was limited, it had been worth, to some great commercial houses, who had a seat in parliament, from £300 to £800 a year; and that after the limitation it was worth to some houses as much as £300 a year. The committee spoke of the use of franks for scientific and business correspondence, as“an exemplification of the irregular means by which a scale of postage, too high for the interests and proper management of the affairs of the country, is forced to give way in particular instances. And like all irregular means, it is of most unfair and partial application; the relief depends, not on any general regulation, known to the public, and according to which relief can be obtained, but upon favor and opportunity; and the consequence is, that while the more pressing suitor obtains the benefit he asks, those of a more forbearing disposition pay the penalty of high postage.”It also keeps out of view of the public,“how much the cost of distribution is exceeded by the charge, and to what extent therefore the postage of letters is taxed”to sustain this official privilege. The committee[pg 032]therefore concluded in their report, that“taking into the account the serious loss to the public revenue, which is caused by the privilege of franking, and the inevitable abuse of that privilege in numerous cases where no public business is concerned, it would be politic in a financial point of view, and agreeable to the public sense of justice, if, on effecting the proposed reduction of the postage rates, the privilege of franking were to be abolished.”Only the post-office department now franks its own official correspondence; petitions to parliament are sent free; and parliamentary documents are charged at one-eighth the rate of letters. Letterstothe Queen also go free.In our own country, the congressional franking privilege has long been a subject of complaint, both by the post-office authorities and the public press. There are many discrepancies in the several returns from which the extent of franking is to be gathered.From a return made by the Postmaster General to the Senate, Jan. 16, 1844, the whole number of letters passing through the mails in a year is set at 27,073,144, of which the number franked is 2,815,692, which is a small fraction over 10 per cent.The annual report of the Postmaster-General in 1837, estimates the whole number of letters at 32,360,992, of which 2,100,000, or a little over 6 per cent, were franked.In February, 1844, the Postmaster-General communicated to Congress a statement of an account kept of the free letters and documents mailed at Washington, during three weeks of the sitting of Congress in 1840, of which the results appear in the following table.Week endingLetters.Public Doc.Weight of Doc.May 2,13,67496,5888,042 lbs.June 2,13,955108,9129,076July 7,14,766186,76815,564—————————Total,42,395392,26832,689Average,14,132140,75610,896Session 33 weeks,466,3454,314,948359,579Whole number of Letters and Documents in a session of thirty-three weeks, 4,781,293.Average weight of Public Documents, 1-⅓ oz.Of the 42,375 free letters, 20,362 were congressional, and 22,032, or 52 per cent. were from the Departments.In the month of October, 1843, an account was kept at all the offices in the United States, of the number of letters franked and received in that month by members of Congress. The number was 18,558, which would give 81,370 for 19 weeks of vacation. To these add 223,992 mailed in 33 weeks of session, and four-fifths as many, 179,193, for letters received, and it gives a total of 484,555 letters received and sent free of postage by members of Congress in a year, besides the Public Documents. The postage on the letters, at the old rates, would have been $100,000.From the same return of October, 1843, it appears that the number[pg 033]of letters franked and received by national and state officers, was 1,024,068; and by postmasters, 1,568,928; total, 2,592,998, the postage on which, at 14-½ cents, would amount to $376,073.These calculations would give the loss on free letters, at that time, $476,073. This is besides the postage on the public documents, 359,578 pounds, the postage on which, at 2-½ cents per ounce, would come to $147,581.Total postage lost by franking, $623,654.Document No. 118, printed by the House of Representatives of Massachusetts, 1848, gives $312,500 as the amount of postage on franked letters, and $200,000 for franked documents, making a total of $512,500.The report of the Post-office Committee of the House of Representatives, May 15, 1844, contains a return of the number of free letters mailed and received at the Washington post-office, during the week ending February 20, 1844, with the corresponding annual number, and the amount of postage, at the old rates—allowing the average length of a session of Congress to be six months. From this I have constructed the following table.DepartmentsLettersLettersTotal No.Postage.receivedsentAnnually.House of Representatives1,8821,505Senate7,51010,271————Total of Congress9,39211,776550,368$114,697President U. S.30417424,8564,895Post Office6,0413,615502,112102,474State Department1,9892,253220,58441,600Treasury Department6,8002,405478,660100,949War Department2,5922,626271,33661,475Navy Department1,7092,082197,13239,809Attorney-General5281645,13610,678————————Total2,290,184$476,577Whole number of letters franked at Washington: 2,290,184Add, franked by members at home: 111,348Franked by postmasters: 1,568,928Total of free letters: 3,970,450Add, franked documents: 4,314,948General total number: 8,285,398The postage on all which, at the old rates, would be at least: $1,000,000The annual report of the Postmaster-General, December, 1847, estimates the number of free letters at five millions, the postage on which, at present rates, would be at least $375,000, to which the postage on the documents should be added.The conclusion of the whole matter is, that the postage due on the free letters and documents, if reckoned according to the old rates, would be at least one million, and under the present rates above half a million of dollars annually; equal to 12 per cent of the whole gross income of the department.[pg 034]When our present postage law was under consideration, the committees of both Houses recommended the abolition of the franking privilege, for reasons of justice, as well as to satisfy the public mind. The report of the House Committee has this passage:
“And it shall be lawful for the agents of the post-office, or other officers of the United States government, upon reasonable cause shown, to arrest such person or persons, and seize his or their boxes, bags, or trunks, supposed to contain such mailable matter, and cause the same to be opened and examined before any officer of the United States; and if found to contain such mailable matter, transported in violation of the laws of the United States, shall be held to bail in the sum of five thousand dollars, to appear and answer said charge before the next United States Court to be held in said State, or district of said State; and upon conviction thereof, shall be fined as aforesaid, one hundred dollars for each letter, newspaper, or printed sheet so transported as aforesaid, and shall be held in the custody of the marshal until the fine and costs are paid, or until otherwise discharged by due course of law.”The report of 1845 thinks there is“no just reason why individuals engaged in smuggling letters and robbing the department of its legitimate revenues should not be punished, in the same way and to the same extent, as persons guilty of smuggling goods; nor why the same means of detection should not be given to the Post-office Department which are now given to the Treasury.”That is, the power of detention and search in all cases of suspicion by the agent, that a person is carrying letters. What would be the effect of carrying out this system,[pg 020]in breaking up the practice complained of, or what would be the amount of inconvenience to travellers and to business, of a thorough determination in the department to execute such a law in the spirit of it, all can judge for themselves. The British government, as we have seen, dared not entertain such a proposition. I have no hesitation in saying, that such a system of coercion can never be successfully executed here. It is better to meet the difficulty, as the British government did, in a way to make the post-office at once the most popular vehicle of transmission, and the greatest blessing which the government can bestow upon the people. The New York Evening Post said, years ago:“Congress yields, and passes such a law. What then? Is Hydra dead? By no means, its ninety-nine other heads still rear their crests, and bid defiance to the secretary and his law. In Pearl street, there will yet hang a bag for the deposit of the whole neighborhood's letters,—at Astor House, and at Howard's, at the American, and at the City Hotels, still every day will see the usual accumulation of letters,—all to be taken by some‘private,’trustworthy, obliging wayfarer, and by him be deposited in some office at Boston, Philadelphia, Albany, Baltimore.”I have no doubt that the cheap transmission of letters, out of the mails, is now becoming systematized and extended between our large cities, and an immense amount of correspondence is also carried on between the large cities and the towns around. The Boston Path-Finder contains a list of 240“Expresses,”as they are called, that is, of common carriers, who go regularly from Boston to other towns, distant from three miles to three hundred. Most of these men carry“mailable matter”to a great extent, in their pockets or hats, in the shape of orders, memorandums, receipts, or notes, sometimes on slips of paper, sometimes in letters folded in brown paper and tied with a string, and not unfrequently in the form of regularly sealed letters. If we suppose each one to carry, on an average, ten in a day, a very low estimate, there are 750,000 letters brought to Boston in a year by this channel alone. Everything which calls public attention to the subject of postage, every increase of business causing an increase of correspondence between any two places, every newspaper paragraph describing the wonderful increase of letters in England, will awaken new desires for cheap postage; and these desires will gratify themselves irregularly, unless the only sure remedy is seasonably applied. In the division of labor and the multiplication of competitions, there are many lines of business of which the whole profits are made up of extremely minute savings. In these the cost of postage becomes material; and such concerns will not pay five cents on their letters, when they can get them taken, carried and delivered for two cents. The causes which created illicit penny posts in England are largely at work here, with the growth and systematization of manufactures and trade; and they are producing, and will produce the same results, until, on the best routes, not one-sixth of the letters will be carried in the mail, unless the true system shall be seasonably established. The evils of such a state of things need not be here set forth. One of the greatest, which would not strike every mind, is the demoralization of the public mind, in abating the reverence for law, and the sense of gratitude and honor to the government.[pg 021]In this respect, of bringing all the correspondence into the mails, in furnishing all the facilities and encouragements to correspondence which the duty of the government requires, in superseding the use of unlawful conveyances, and in winning the patriotic regards of the people to the post-office, as to every man's friend, the act of 1845 has entirely failed. It has not only falsified the predictions of us all in regard to its productiveness, on the one hand, but it has even convinced the highest official authority that it has failed to prove itself to betheCHEAP POSTAGE, which the country needs and will support. In his last annual report, the Postmaster-General says:“The favorable operation of the act of 1845, upon the finances of this department, leads to the conclusion that, by the adoption of such modifications as have been suggested by this department for the improvement of its revenues, and the suppression of abuses practised under it, the present low rates of postage will not only produce revenue enough to meet the expenditures, but will leave a considerable surplus annually to be applied to the extension of the mail service to the new and rapidly increasing sections of our country, or would justify a still further reduction of the rates of postage. In the opinion of the undersigned, with such modifications of the act of 1845 as have been suggested, an uniform less rate might, in a few years, be made to cover the expenses of the department; but by its adoption the department would be compelled to rely upon the treasury for a few years. At this time, during the existence of a foreign war, imposing such heavy burdens upon the treasury, it might not be wise or prudent to increase them, or to do anything which would tend to impair the public credit; and,ON THIS ACCOUNTalone, recommendation for such a reduction is not made.“Postage is a tax, not only on the business of the country, but upon the intelligence, knowledge, and the exercise of the friendly and social feelings; and in the opinion of the undersigned, should be reduced to the lowest point which would enable the department to sustain itself. That principle has been uniformly acted on in the United States, as the true standard for the regulation of postage, and the cheaper it can be made, consistently with that rule, the better.“As our country expands, and its circle of business and correspondence enlarges, as civilization progresses, it becomes more important to maintain between the different sections of our country a speedy, safe, and cheap intercourse. By so doing, energy is infused into the trade of the country, the business of the people enlarged, and made more active, and an irresistible impulse given to industry of every kind; by it wealth is created and diffused in numberless ways throughout the community, and the most noble and generous feelings of our nature between distant friends are cherished and preserved, and the Union itself more closely bound together.”Nothing can be more true than the position, that“postage is a tax,”and that it is the duty of the government to make this“tax”as light as possible, consistent with its other and equally binding duties. Nothing more sound than the doctrine that it is utterly wrong to charge postage withanything morethan its own proper expenses. Nothing more just than the estimate here given of the benefits of cheap postage. The blessings he describes are so great, so real, so accordant with the tone and beneficent design of civil government itself, and especially to the functions and duties of a republican government, that I do not think even the existence and embarrassments of a state of war, such as now exists, are any reason at all for postponing the commencement of so glorious a measure. If it could be brought about under the administration of an officer who has expressed himself so cordially and intelligently in favor of cheap postage, and whose ability and fidelity in the economical administration of affairs are so well known, it would be but a fitting response to the statesmanlike sentiments quoted above.[pg 022]I am now to show that, on the strictest principles of justice, on the closest mathematical calculation, on the most enlarged and yet rigid construction of the duty imposed on the federal government by our constitution, two cents per half ounce is the most just and equal rate of postage.IV.What is the just Rule to be observed in settling the Rates of Postage?The posting of letters may be looked at, either as a contract between the government and the individuals who send and receive letters, or as a simple exercise of governmental functions in discharging a governmental duty. The proper measure of the charge to be imposed should be considered in each of these aspects, for the government is bound to do that which is right in both these relations.Viewed simply as a contract, or a service rendered for an equivalent, what would be the rate to be charged? Not, surely, the amount it would cost the individual to send his own particular letter. The saving effected by the division and combination of labor is a public benefit, and not to be appropriated as an exclusive right by one. In this view, the government stands only in the relation of a party to the contract, just as a state or a town would do, or an individual. No right or power of monopoly can enter into the calculation. We can illustrate the question by supposing a case, of a town some thirty miles from Boston, to which there has hitherto been no common-carrier. The inhabitants resolve to establish an express, and for this purpose enter into negotiations with one of their neighbors, in which they agree to give him their business on his agreeing to establish a reasonable tariff of prices for his service. If the number of patrons is very small, they cannot make it an object for the man to run his wagon, unless they will agree to pay a good price for parcels. And the more numerous the parcels are, the lower will be the rate, within certain limits, that is, until the man's wagon is fairly loaded, or he has as much business as he can reasonably attend to. This is on the supposition that all the business is to come from one place. But if there are intermediate or contiguous places whose patronage can be obtained to swell the amount of business, there should be an equitable apportionment of this advantage, a part to go to the carrier for his additional trouble and fair profits, and a part to go towards reducing the general rate of charge. If, however, the carrier has an interest in a place five miles beyond, which he thinks may be built up by having an express running into it from Boston, although the present amount of business is too small to pay the cost, and if, for considerations of his own advantage, he resolves to run his wagon to that place at a constant loss for the present, looking to the rise of his property for ultimate remuneration, it would not be just for him to insist, that the people who intend to establish an express and support it for themselves, shall yet pay an increased or exorbitant price for their own parcels, in order to pay him for an appendage to the enterprise, for which they have no occasion, and as such he himself undertakes for personal considerations of is own.[pg 023]And if he should be obstinate on this point, they would just let him take his own way, and charge prices to suit himself, while they proceeded to make a new bargain with another carrier, who would agree to accommodate them at reasonable prices adjusted on the basis of their patronage. And if an appeal should be made to their sympathy or charity, to help the growing hamlet, they would say, that it was better to give charity out of their pockets than by paying a high price on their parcels; for then those would give who were able and willing, and would know how much they gave. This covers the whole case of arranging postage as a matter of equal contract. The just measure of charge is, the lowest rate at which the work can be afforded by individual enterprise on the best self-supporting routes. Plainly, no other rate can be kept up by open competition on these routes. And if these routes are lost by competition, you must charge proportionably higher on the rest, which will throw the next class of routes into other hands, and so on, until nothing is left for you but the most costly and impracticable portions of the work.The only material exception to this rule would be, where there is an extensive and complicated combination of interests, among which the general convenience and even economy will be promoted by establishing a uniformity of prices, without reference to an exact apportionment of minute differences.It can be easily shown, that all these considerations would be harmonized by no rate of postage on letters, higher than the English 1d., or with us two cents for each half ounce. Considered as a business question, unaffected by the assumed power of monopoly by the government, the reasonings of the parliamentary reports and the results of the British experiment abundantly establish this rate to be the fair average price for the service rendered. A moderate business can live by it, if economically conducted, and a large business will make it vastly profitable, as is seen in the payment of four or five millions of dollars a year into the public treasury of Great Britain, as the net profits of penny postage.If we look at the post-office in the more philosophical and elevated aspect of a grand governmental measure, enjoined by the people for the good of the people, we shall be brought to a similar conclusion. The constitutional rule for the establishment of the post-office, is as follows:“Congress shall have power to—“Establish post-offices and post-roads.”This clause declares plainly the will of the people of the United States, that the federal government should be charged with the responsibility of furnishing the whole Union with convenient and proper mail privileges—according to their reasonable wants, and the reasonable ability of the government. This is one point of the“general welfare,”for which we are to look to congress, just as we look to congress to provide for the general defence by means of the army and navy. It imposes no other restrictions in the one case than the other, as to the extent to which provision shall be made—the reasonable wants of the people, and the reasonable ability of the government. It limits the resources for this object to no particular branch of the[pg 024]revenue. It gives no sort of sanction to the so oft-repeated rule, which many suppose to be a part of the constitution, that the post-office must support itself. Still less, does it authorize congress to throw all manner of burdens upon the mail, and then refuse to increase its usefulness as a public convenience, because it cannot carry all those loads. The people must have mails, and congress must furnish them. To reason for or against any proposed change, on the ground that the alternative may be the discontinuance of public mails, the privation of this privilege to the people, and the winding up of the post-office system, is clearly inadmissible. When the government ceases to give the people the privileges of the mail, the government itself will soon wind up, or rather, will be taken in hand and wound up by the people, and set a-going again on better principles. The sole inquiry for congress is, what is the best way to meet the reasonable wants of the people, by means within the reasonable ability of the government?The objects of the post-office system, which regulate its administration, are well set forth in the Report of the House Committee in 1844:“To content the man, dwelling more remote from town, with his homely lot, by giving him regular and frequent means of intercommunication; to assure the emigrant, who plants his new home on the skirts of the distant wilderness or prairie, that he is not forever severed from the kindred and society that still share his interest and love; to prevent those whom the swelling tide of population is constantly, pressing to the outer verge of civilization from being surrendered to surrounding influences, and sinking into the hunter or savage state; to render the citizen, how far soever from the seat of his government, worthy, by proper knowledge and intelligence, of his important privileges as a sovereign constituent of the government; to diffuse, throughout all parts of the land, enlightenment, social improvement, and national affinities, elevating our people in the scale of civilization, and binding them together in patriotic affection.”These are the objects for which congress is bound to maintain the post-office, and it is impossible that congress should ever seriously consider whether they will not abandon them. The maintenance of convenient mails for these objects is therefore to be regarded as a necessary function of the government of the United States. In the infancy of that government, while the government itself was an experiment, when the country was deeply in debt for the cost of our independence, and when its resources for public expenditure were untried and unknown, there was doubtless a propriety in the adoption of the principle, that the post-office department should support itself. But that state of things has long gone by, and our government now has ample ability to execute any plans of improvement whatever, for the advancement of knowledge, and for binding the Union together, provided such plans come within the acknowledged powers conferred by the constitution.The post-office being, then, like the army and navy, a necessary branch of the government, it follows that the charge of postage for the conveyance of letters and papers is of the nature of a tax, as has been well expressed by the present Postmaster-General, in his last annual[pg 025]report, quoted above.“Postage is a tax, not only on the business of the country, but upon intelligence and knowledge, and the exercise of the friendly and social affections.”The question before us is, How heavy a“tax”ought the government of a federal republic to impose on these interests? Every friend of freedom and of human improvement answers spontaneously, that nothing but a clear necessity can justify any tax at all upon such subjects, and that the tax should be reduced, in all cases, to the very lowest practicable rate. The experience of the British government, the prodigious increase of correspondence produced by cheap postage, and the immense revenue accruing therefrom, demonstrate thatTWO CENTSis not below the rate which the government can afford to receive. Let the people understand that all beyond this is a mere“tax,”not required by any necessity, and they will soon demand that the government look for its resources to some more suitable subjects of taxation than these.Another rule of right in regard to this“tax”is well laid down in the Report of the House Committee, for 1844:“As the post-office is made to sustain itself solely by a tax on correspondence, it should derive aid and support from everything which it conveys. No man's private correspondence should go free, since the expense of so conveying it becomes a charge upon the correspondence of others; and the special favor thus given, and which is much abused by being extended to others not contemplated by law, is unjust and odious. Neither should the public correspondence be carried free of charge where such immunity operates as a burden upon the correspondence of the citizen. There is no reason why the public should not pay its postages as well as citizens—no sufficient reason why this item of public expenses should not be borne, like all others, by the general tax paid into the treasury.”These remarks are made, indeed, with reference to the franking privilege, which the committee properly proposed to abolish on the grounds here set forth. But it is plain that the principle is equally pertinent to the question of taxing the correspondence of the thickly settled parts of the country for the purpose of raising means to defray the expense of sending mails to the new and distant parts of the country. There is no justice in it. The extension of these mails is a duty of the government; and let the government, by the same rule, pay the cost out of its own treasury.“Postage,”says the same report,“in the large towns and contiguous places, is, in part, acontribution.”It is a forced contribution, levied not upon the property of the people, but upon their intelligence and affections.Our letters are taxed to pay the following expenses:1. For the franking of seven millions of free letters.2. For the distribution of an immense mass of congressional documents, which few people read at all, and most of which might as well be sent in some other way—would be seen the moment they should be actually subjected to the payment of postage by those who send or receive them.3. For the extension of mails over numerous and long routes, in the new or thinly settled parts of the country, which do not pay their own expenses. I do not believe these routes are more extensive or numerous than the government ought to establish; but then the government[pg 026]ought to support them out of the general treasury. Many of them are necessary for the convenience of the government itself. For many of them the treasury is amply remunerated, and more, by the increased sale of the public lands, the increase of population, and the consequent increase of the revenue from the custom-house. And the rest are required by the great duty of self-preservation and self-advancement, which is inherent in our institutions.4. For the cost of about two millions of dead letters, and an equal number of dead newspapers and pamphlets, the postage on which, at existing rates, would amount to at least $175,000 a year, and the greater part of which would be saved under the new postal system.Why should these burdens be thrown as a“tax upon correspondence,”or made an apology for the continuance of such a tax? It is unreasonable. All these expenses should be borne,“like all others, by the general tax paid into the treasury.”This would leave letters chargeable only with such a rate of postage as is needed for the prevention of abuses, and to secure the orderly performance of the public duty. And a postage of two cents would amply suffice for this. Some have suggested thatone centis all that ought to be required.There is another view of the matter, which shows still more strongly the injustice of the present tax upon letters.“It is not matter of inference,”says Mr. Rowland Hill,“but matter of fact, that the expense of the post-office is practically the same, whether a letter is going from London to Burnet (11 miles), or from London to Edinburgh (397 miles); the difference is not expressible in the smallest coin we have.”The cost of transit from London to Edinburgh he explained to be only one thirty-sixth of a penny. And the average cost, per letter, of transportation in all the mails of the kingdom, did not differ materially from this. Of course, it was impossible to vary the rates of postage according to distance, when the longest distance was but a little over one-tenth of a farthing. The same reasoning is obviously applicable to all theproductiveroutes in the United States. And we have seen the injustice of taxing the letters on routes that are productive or self-supporting, to defray the expense of the unproductive routes which the government is bound to create and pay for.Another view of the case shows the futility of the attempt to make distance the basis of charge. The actual cost of transit, to each letter, does not vary with the distance, but is inversely as the number of letters, irrespective of distance. The weight of letters hardly enters into the account as a practical consideration. Ten thousand letters, each composed of an ordinary sheet of letter paper, would weigh but one hundred and fifty-six pounds, about the weight of a common sized man, who would be carried from Boston to Albany or New York for five dollars. The average cost of transportation of the mails in this country, is a little over six cents per mile. For convenience of calculation, take a route of ten miles long, which costs ten cents per mile, and another of one hundred miles long at the same rate. There are many routes which do not carry more than one letter on the average. The letter would cost the department one dollar for carrying it ten miles. On the route of one hundred miles we will suppose there are one thousand letters to be carried, which will cost the government for[pg 027]transportation just one mill per letter. How then can we make distance the basis of postage?The matter may be presented in still another view. The government establishes a mail between two cities, say Boston and New York, which is supported by the avails of postage on letters. Then it proceeds to establish a mail between New York and Philadelphia, which is supported by the postage between those places. Now, how much will it cost the government to carry in addition, all the letters that go from Boston to Philadelphia, and from Philadelphia to Boston? Nothing. The contracts will not vary a dollar. In this manner, you may extend your mails from any point, wherever you find a route which will support itself, until you reach New Orleans or Little Rock, and it is as plain as the multiplication table, that it will cost the government no more to take an individual letter from Boston to Little Rock than it would to take the same letter from Boston to New York. The government is quite indifferent to what place you mail your letter, provided it be to a place which has a mail regularly running to it.This brings us to the unproductive routes. An act was passed by the last Congress to establish mail routes in Oregon territory. An agent is appointed to superintend the business, at a salary of $1000 a year and his travelling expenses; contracts are made or to be made, mails carried, postmasters appointed and paid. This is doubtless a very proper and necessary thing, one which the government could not have omitted without a plain dereliction of duty. The honor and interest of the nation required that as soon as the title to the country was settled, our citizens who were resident there, and those who shall go to settle there, should enjoy the benefits of the mail. And as it was the nation's business to establish the mail, it was equally the nation's business to pay the expense. No man can show how it is just or reasonable, that the letters passing between Boston and New York should be taxed 150 per cent. to pay the expense of a mail to Oregon, on the pretext that the post-office must support itself.A mail is run at regular periods to Eagle River, Wisconsin, for the accommodation of the persons employed about the copper mines on Lake Superior. Without questioning the certainty of the great things that are to be done there hereafter, it is no presumption to express the belief that the expenses of that mail are hardly paid by the postage on the letters now carried to and from Lake Superior. Nor, after making all due allowances for the liberal distribution of copper stock at the East, is it rational to believe that all the people who write letters here, are so directly interested as to make a tax upon letters the most equitable mode of assessing the expense.During the debates in Congress on the act of 1844, an incident was related by Senator Crittenden, of Kentucky, to this effect. He said he was travelling in the mail stage somewhere in the State of Tennessee. At a time of day when he was tired and hungry, the stage turned off from the road a number of miles, to carry the mail to a certain post-office; it was night when they reached the office, the postmaster was roused with difficulty, who went through the formality of taking the mail pouch into his hand, and returned it to the driver, saying there was not a letter in it, and had not been for a month. I will[pg 028]not inquire whose letters ought to be taxed to sustain that mail route, but only remark, that whatever consideration caused its establishment, ought to carry the cost to the public treasury, and not throw it as a burden upon our letters.The Postmaster-General, in his late report, says that“the weight and bulk of the mails, which add so greatly to the cost of transportation, and impede the progress of the mail, are attributable to the mass of printed matter daily forwarded from the principal cities in the Union to every part of the country;”and“justice requires that the expense of their transportation should be paid by the postage.”I would add to this the qualifying phrase,“or by the government, out of the public treasury,”and then ask why the same principle of justice is not as applicable to long mail routes as to heavy mail bags. There is and can be no ground of apprehension, that mails will ever be overloaded or retarded by the weight of paid letters they contain. It was found by the parliamentary committee, that the number of letters, which was then nearly fifty per cent. greater than in all our mails, might be increased twenty-four fold, without overloading the mails, and without any material addition to the contracts for carrying the mails. They also found that the whole cost of receiving, transporting and delivering a letter was 76-100ths of a penny, of which the transit cost but 19-100ths, and the receipt and delivery 57-100ths. The cost of transit, per letter, is of course reduced by the increase of correspondence.I have dwelt so long on this part of the subject, because I find that here is the great difficulty in the application of the principles and results of the British system to our own country—ours is such a“great country,”and we have so many“magnificent distances.”But disposing as I have of the unproductive mail routes, and showing as I have, the injustice of taxing letters with the expense of any public burthens, this whole difficulty is removed, and it is made to appear that two cents is the highest proper rate of postage which the government can justly exact for letters, on the score either of a just equivalent for the service rendered, or of a tax imposed for the purposes of the government itself.This is the conclusion to which the parliamentary committee were most intelligently and satisfactorily drawn—that“the principle of a uniform postage is founded on the facts, that the cost of distributing letters in the United Kingdom consists chiefly in the expenses incurred with reference to their receipt at and delivery from the office, and that the cost of transit along the mail roads is comparatively unimportant, and determined rather by the number of letters carried than the distance;”that“as the cost of conveyance per letter depends more on the number of letters carried than on the distance which they are conveyed, (the cost being frequently greater for distances of a few miles, than for distances of hundreds of miles,) the charge, if varied in proportion to the cost, ought to increase in the inverse ratio of the number of letters conveyed,”but it would be impossible to carry such a rule into practice, and therefore the committee were of opinion, that“the easiest practicable approach to a fair system, would be to charge a medium rate of postage between one post-office and another, whatever[pg 029]may be their distance.”And the committee were further of opinion,“that such an arrangement is highly desirable, not only on account of its abstract fairness, but because it would tend in a great degree to simplify and economize the business of the post-office.”Waterston's Cyclopedia of Commerce says,“the fixing ofa low rateflowed almost necessarily from the adoption of auniformrate. It was besides essential to the stoppage of the private conveyance of letters. The post-office was thus to be restored to its ancient footing of an institution, whose primary object was public accommodation, not revenue.”The adoption of this simple principle, of Uniform Cheap Postage, was a revolution in postal affairs. It may almost be called a revolution in the government, for it identified the policy of the government with the happiness of the people, more perfectly than any one measure that was ever adopted. It prepared the way for all other postal reforms, which are chiefly impracticable until this one is carried. We also can have franking abolished, as soon as cheap postage shall have given the franking privilege alike to all. We can have label stamps, and free delivery, and registry of letters, and reduced postage on newspapers, and whatever other improvement our national ingenuity may contrive, to the fullest extent of the people's wants, and the government's ability, just as soon as we can prevail upon the people to ask, and congress to grant, this one boon of Uniform Cheap Postage.V.Franking.The unanimity and readiness with which the franking privilege was surrendered by the members of parliament—men of privilege in a land of privilege—is proof of the strong pressure of necessity under which the measure was carried. It is true, a few members seemed disposed to struggle for the preservation of this much-cherished prerogative. One member complained that the bill would be taxing him as much as £15 per annum. Another defended the franking privilege on account of its benefits to the poor. But the opposition melted away, like an unseasonable frost, as soon as its arguments were placed in the light of cheap postage. And the whole system of franking was swept away, and each department of the government was required to pay its own postage, and report the same among its expenditures. The debates in parliament show something of the reasons which prevailed.July 22, 1848.The postage bill came up on the second reading:Sir Robert H. Inglis, among other things, objected to the abolition of the franking privilege. He could not see why, because a tax was to be taken off others, a tax was to be imposed on members. It would be, to those who had much correspondence, at least £15 a year, at the reduced rate of a penny a letter. To the revenue the saving would be small, and he hoped the house would not consent to rescind that privilege.The Chancellor of the Exchequer said the sacrifice of the franking privilege would be small in amount. But at the same time, be it small or great, he thought there would be not one feature of the new system which would be more palatable to the public, than this practical evidence of the willingness of members of this house,[pg 030]to sacrifice everything personal to themselves, for the advantage of the public revenue.Sir Robert Peel did not think it desirable that members of this house should retain the franking privilege. He thought if this were continued after this bill came into operation, therewould be a degree of odiumattached to it which would greatly diminish its value. He agreed that it would be well to restrict in some way theright of sending by mail the heavy volumes of reports. He said there were many members who would shrink from the exercise of such a privilege, to load the mail with books. He would also require that each department should specially pay the postage incurred for the public service in that department. If every office be called upon to pay its own postage, we shall introduce a useful principle into the public service. There is no habit connected with a public service so inveterate, as the privilege of official franking.On a former day, July 5, the Chancellor of the Exchequer had said concerning the abolition of the franking privilege:Undoubtedly, we may lose the opportunity now and then, of obliging a friend; but on other grounds, I believe there is no member of the house who will not be ready to abandon the privilege. As to any notion that honorable gentlemen should retain their privilege under a penny postage, they must have a more intense appreciation of the value of money, and a greater disregard for the value of time, than I can conceive, if they insist on it.All the peculiarities which distinguish British institutions from our own, might naturally be expected to make public men in that country more tenacious of privilege than our own statesmen. In a land of privilege, we should expect mere privilege to be coveted, because it is privilege. This practical and harmonious decision of British statesmen, of all parties, in favor of abolishing the franking privilege, in order to give strength and consistency to the system of cheap postage, shows in a striking light the sense which they entertained of the greatness of the object of cheap postage. The arguments which convinced them, we should naturally suppose would have tenfold greater force here than there; while the arguments in favor of the privilege would have tenfold greater influence there than here. Can there be a doubt that, when the subject is fairly understood, there will be found as much magnanimity among American as among British legislators?The moral evils of the franking system are far more serious than the pecuniary expense, although that is by no means undeserving of regard. It is not only an ensnaring prerogative to those who enjoy it, and an anomaly and incongruity in our republican institutions, but it is an oppressive burden upon the post-office, which ought to be removed.The parliamentary committee ascertained, by three distinct calculations, (of which all the results so nearly agreed as to strengthen each other,) that, reckoning by numbers, one-ninth of the letters passing through the post-office in a year, were franked. And, reckoning by weight, the proportion was 30 per cent. of the whole. Of seven millions of franked letters and documents, nearly five millions were by members of parliament. If all the franks had been subject to postage, they would have yielded upwards of a million sterling yearly. This was after the parliamentary franks had been restricted to a certain number (ten) daily for each member, and limited in weight to two ounces. The amount of postage on parliamentary franks would be yearly £350,000, averaging about £310 to each member. But there[pg 031]were a number of official persons, whose franks were not limited, either in number or weight. These franks were obtained and used, by those who could get them, without stint or scruple.The celebrated Dr. Dionysius Lardner, who then occupied a prominent place among men of letters in Great Britain, testified before the parliamentary committee in 1838, that he was in the practice of sending and receiving about five thousand letters a year, of which he got four-fifths without postage—chiefly by franks. While he lived in Ireland, his correspondence was so heavy, not only as to the number of letters, but their bulk and weight, that he was obliged to apply to the Postmaster-General of Ireland, Lord Rosse, who allowed them to go under his franks. From the year 1823, or soon after he quitted the university, until the year 1828, his letters went and came under the frank of Lord Rosse, who had the power of franking to any weight. Since he came to England, his facilities of getting franks were very great. Without such means, he would have found it very difficult indeed to send his letters by post. His heavy correspondence was chiefly sent through official persons, who had the power of franking to any weight; and his correspondents knew that they could send their letters under care to these friends; so that he received communications from them in the same way. He endeavored to save as much trouble as he could, by dividing the annoyance among them, and by enclosing a bundle of letters for the same neighborhood under one cover. He said that, to obtain these privileges a man must be connected or known to the aristocratic classes, and that it was certainly unfair, as it gave unfair advantages to those who happened to have friends or connections having that power. His foreign correspondence was carried on through the embassies; and in this way the letters came free. He got his letters from the United States free in that way. Any man who was a Fellow of the Royal Society, or who lived among that class, could avail himself of these means of obtaining scientific communications.The number of franked letters posted, throughout the kingdom, in two weeks in January, 1838, is stated in the following table.Week endingCountry to London.London to country.Country to country.Total15 January,41,19643,34536,361122,90229 January,46,37151,04637,894135,311————————————Total,87,56796,39174,255258,213Proportion,.339.373.2871.It was stated in the debates, that before the franking privilege was limited, it had been worth, to some great commercial houses, who had a seat in parliament, from £300 to £800 a year; and that after the limitation it was worth to some houses as much as £300 a year. The committee spoke of the use of franks for scientific and business correspondence, as“an exemplification of the irregular means by which a scale of postage, too high for the interests and proper management of the affairs of the country, is forced to give way in particular instances. And like all irregular means, it is of most unfair and partial application; the relief depends, not on any general regulation, known to the public, and according to which relief can be obtained, but upon favor and opportunity; and the consequence is, that while the more pressing suitor obtains the benefit he asks, those of a more forbearing disposition pay the penalty of high postage.”It also keeps out of view of the public,“how much the cost of distribution is exceeded by the charge, and to what extent therefore the postage of letters is taxed”to sustain this official privilege. The committee[pg 032]therefore concluded in their report, that“taking into the account the serious loss to the public revenue, which is caused by the privilege of franking, and the inevitable abuse of that privilege in numerous cases where no public business is concerned, it would be politic in a financial point of view, and agreeable to the public sense of justice, if, on effecting the proposed reduction of the postage rates, the privilege of franking were to be abolished.”Only the post-office department now franks its own official correspondence; petitions to parliament are sent free; and parliamentary documents are charged at one-eighth the rate of letters. Letterstothe Queen also go free.In our own country, the congressional franking privilege has long been a subject of complaint, both by the post-office authorities and the public press. There are many discrepancies in the several returns from which the extent of franking is to be gathered.From a return made by the Postmaster General to the Senate, Jan. 16, 1844, the whole number of letters passing through the mails in a year is set at 27,073,144, of which the number franked is 2,815,692, which is a small fraction over 10 per cent.The annual report of the Postmaster-General in 1837, estimates the whole number of letters at 32,360,992, of which 2,100,000, or a little over 6 per cent, were franked.In February, 1844, the Postmaster-General communicated to Congress a statement of an account kept of the free letters and documents mailed at Washington, during three weeks of the sitting of Congress in 1840, of which the results appear in the following table.Week endingLetters.Public Doc.Weight of Doc.May 2,13,67496,5888,042 lbs.June 2,13,955108,9129,076July 7,14,766186,76815,564—————————Total,42,395392,26832,689Average,14,132140,75610,896Session 33 weeks,466,3454,314,948359,579Whole number of Letters and Documents in a session of thirty-three weeks, 4,781,293.Average weight of Public Documents, 1-⅓ oz.Of the 42,375 free letters, 20,362 were congressional, and 22,032, or 52 per cent. were from the Departments.In the month of October, 1843, an account was kept at all the offices in the United States, of the number of letters franked and received in that month by members of Congress. The number was 18,558, which would give 81,370 for 19 weeks of vacation. To these add 223,992 mailed in 33 weeks of session, and four-fifths as many, 179,193, for letters received, and it gives a total of 484,555 letters received and sent free of postage by members of Congress in a year, besides the Public Documents. The postage on the letters, at the old rates, would have been $100,000.From the same return of October, 1843, it appears that the number[pg 033]of letters franked and received by national and state officers, was 1,024,068; and by postmasters, 1,568,928; total, 2,592,998, the postage on which, at 14-½ cents, would amount to $376,073.These calculations would give the loss on free letters, at that time, $476,073. This is besides the postage on the public documents, 359,578 pounds, the postage on which, at 2-½ cents per ounce, would come to $147,581.Total postage lost by franking, $623,654.Document No. 118, printed by the House of Representatives of Massachusetts, 1848, gives $312,500 as the amount of postage on franked letters, and $200,000 for franked documents, making a total of $512,500.The report of the Post-office Committee of the House of Representatives, May 15, 1844, contains a return of the number of free letters mailed and received at the Washington post-office, during the week ending February 20, 1844, with the corresponding annual number, and the amount of postage, at the old rates—allowing the average length of a session of Congress to be six months. From this I have constructed the following table.DepartmentsLettersLettersTotal No.Postage.receivedsentAnnually.House of Representatives1,8821,505Senate7,51010,271————Total of Congress9,39211,776550,368$114,697President U. S.30417424,8564,895Post Office6,0413,615502,112102,474State Department1,9892,253220,58441,600Treasury Department6,8002,405478,660100,949War Department2,5922,626271,33661,475Navy Department1,7092,082197,13239,809Attorney-General5281645,13610,678————————Total2,290,184$476,577Whole number of letters franked at Washington: 2,290,184Add, franked by members at home: 111,348Franked by postmasters: 1,568,928Total of free letters: 3,970,450Add, franked documents: 4,314,948General total number: 8,285,398The postage on all which, at the old rates, would be at least: $1,000,000The annual report of the Postmaster-General, December, 1847, estimates the number of free letters at five millions, the postage on which, at present rates, would be at least $375,000, to which the postage on the documents should be added.The conclusion of the whole matter is, that the postage due on the free letters and documents, if reckoned according to the old rates, would be at least one million, and under the present rates above half a million of dollars annually; equal to 12 per cent of the whole gross income of the department.[pg 034]When our present postage law was under consideration, the committees of both Houses recommended the abolition of the franking privilege, for reasons of justice, as well as to satisfy the public mind. The report of the House Committee has this passage:
“And it shall be lawful for the agents of the post-office, or other officers of the United States government, upon reasonable cause shown, to arrest such person or persons, and seize his or their boxes, bags, or trunks, supposed to contain such mailable matter, and cause the same to be opened and examined before any officer of the United States; and if found to contain such mailable matter, transported in violation of the laws of the United States, shall be held to bail in the sum of five thousand dollars, to appear and answer said charge before the next United States Court to be held in said State, or district of said State; and upon conviction thereof, shall be fined as aforesaid, one hundred dollars for each letter, newspaper, or printed sheet so transported as aforesaid, and shall be held in the custody of the marshal until the fine and costs are paid, or until otherwise discharged by due course of law.”
The report of 1845 thinks there is“no just reason why individuals engaged in smuggling letters and robbing the department of its legitimate revenues should not be punished, in the same way and to the same extent, as persons guilty of smuggling goods; nor why the same means of detection should not be given to the Post-office Department which are now given to the Treasury.”That is, the power of detention and search in all cases of suspicion by the agent, that a person is carrying letters. What would be the effect of carrying out this system,[pg 020]in breaking up the practice complained of, or what would be the amount of inconvenience to travellers and to business, of a thorough determination in the department to execute such a law in the spirit of it, all can judge for themselves. The British government, as we have seen, dared not entertain such a proposition. I have no hesitation in saying, that such a system of coercion can never be successfully executed here. It is better to meet the difficulty, as the British government did, in a way to make the post-office at once the most popular vehicle of transmission, and the greatest blessing which the government can bestow upon the people. The New York Evening Post said, years ago:
“Congress yields, and passes such a law. What then? Is Hydra dead? By no means, its ninety-nine other heads still rear their crests, and bid defiance to the secretary and his law. In Pearl street, there will yet hang a bag for the deposit of the whole neighborhood's letters,—at Astor House, and at Howard's, at the American, and at the City Hotels, still every day will see the usual accumulation of letters,—all to be taken by some‘private,’trustworthy, obliging wayfarer, and by him be deposited in some office at Boston, Philadelphia, Albany, Baltimore.”
I have no doubt that the cheap transmission of letters, out of the mails, is now becoming systematized and extended between our large cities, and an immense amount of correspondence is also carried on between the large cities and the towns around. The Boston Path-Finder contains a list of 240“Expresses,”as they are called, that is, of common carriers, who go regularly from Boston to other towns, distant from three miles to three hundred. Most of these men carry“mailable matter”to a great extent, in their pockets or hats, in the shape of orders, memorandums, receipts, or notes, sometimes on slips of paper, sometimes in letters folded in brown paper and tied with a string, and not unfrequently in the form of regularly sealed letters. If we suppose each one to carry, on an average, ten in a day, a very low estimate, there are 750,000 letters brought to Boston in a year by this channel alone. Everything which calls public attention to the subject of postage, every increase of business causing an increase of correspondence between any two places, every newspaper paragraph describing the wonderful increase of letters in England, will awaken new desires for cheap postage; and these desires will gratify themselves irregularly, unless the only sure remedy is seasonably applied. In the division of labor and the multiplication of competitions, there are many lines of business of which the whole profits are made up of extremely minute savings. In these the cost of postage becomes material; and such concerns will not pay five cents on their letters, when they can get them taken, carried and delivered for two cents. The causes which created illicit penny posts in England are largely at work here, with the growth and systematization of manufactures and trade; and they are producing, and will produce the same results, until, on the best routes, not one-sixth of the letters will be carried in the mail, unless the true system shall be seasonably established. The evils of such a state of things need not be here set forth. One of the greatest, which would not strike every mind, is the demoralization of the public mind, in abating the reverence for law, and the sense of gratitude and honor to the government.
In this respect, of bringing all the correspondence into the mails, in furnishing all the facilities and encouragements to correspondence which the duty of the government requires, in superseding the use of unlawful conveyances, and in winning the patriotic regards of the people to the post-office, as to every man's friend, the act of 1845 has entirely failed. It has not only falsified the predictions of us all in regard to its productiveness, on the one hand, but it has even convinced the highest official authority that it has failed to prove itself to betheCHEAP POSTAGE, which the country needs and will support. In his last annual report, the Postmaster-General says:
“The favorable operation of the act of 1845, upon the finances of this department, leads to the conclusion that, by the adoption of such modifications as have been suggested by this department for the improvement of its revenues, and the suppression of abuses practised under it, the present low rates of postage will not only produce revenue enough to meet the expenditures, but will leave a considerable surplus annually to be applied to the extension of the mail service to the new and rapidly increasing sections of our country, or would justify a still further reduction of the rates of postage. In the opinion of the undersigned, with such modifications of the act of 1845 as have been suggested, an uniform less rate might, in a few years, be made to cover the expenses of the department; but by its adoption the department would be compelled to rely upon the treasury for a few years. At this time, during the existence of a foreign war, imposing such heavy burdens upon the treasury, it might not be wise or prudent to increase them, or to do anything which would tend to impair the public credit; and,ON THIS ACCOUNTalone, recommendation for such a reduction is not made.
“Postage is a tax, not only on the business of the country, but upon the intelligence, knowledge, and the exercise of the friendly and social feelings; and in the opinion of the undersigned, should be reduced to the lowest point which would enable the department to sustain itself. That principle has been uniformly acted on in the United States, as the true standard for the regulation of postage, and the cheaper it can be made, consistently with that rule, the better.
“As our country expands, and its circle of business and correspondence enlarges, as civilization progresses, it becomes more important to maintain between the different sections of our country a speedy, safe, and cheap intercourse. By so doing, energy is infused into the trade of the country, the business of the people enlarged, and made more active, and an irresistible impulse given to industry of every kind; by it wealth is created and diffused in numberless ways throughout the community, and the most noble and generous feelings of our nature between distant friends are cherished and preserved, and the Union itself more closely bound together.”
Nothing can be more true than the position, that“postage is a tax,”and that it is the duty of the government to make this“tax”as light as possible, consistent with its other and equally binding duties. Nothing more sound than the doctrine that it is utterly wrong to charge postage withanything morethan its own proper expenses. Nothing more just than the estimate here given of the benefits of cheap postage. The blessings he describes are so great, so real, so accordant with the tone and beneficent design of civil government itself, and especially to the functions and duties of a republican government, that I do not think even the existence and embarrassments of a state of war, such as now exists, are any reason at all for postponing the commencement of so glorious a measure. If it could be brought about under the administration of an officer who has expressed himself so cordially and intelligently in favor of cheap postage, and whose ability and fidelity in the economical administration of affairs are so well known, it would be but a fitting response to the statesmanlike sentiments quoted above.
I am now to show that, on the strictest principles of justice, on the closest mathematical calculation, on the most enlarged and yet rigid construction of the duty imposed on the federal government by our constitution, two cents per half ounce is the most just and equal rate of postage.
IV.What is the just Rule to be observed in settling the Rates of Postage?
The posting of letters may be looked at, either as a contract between the government and the individuals who send and receive letters, or as a simple exercise of governmental functions in discharging a governmental duty. The proper measure of the charge to be imposed should be considered in each of these aspects, for the government is bound to do that which is right in both these relations.
Viewed simply as a contract, or a service rendered for an equivalent, what would be the rate to be charged? Not, surely, the amount it would cost the individual to send his own particular letter. The saving effected by the division and combination of labor is a public benefit, and not to be appropriated as an exclusive right by one. In this view, the government stands only in the relation of a party to the contract, just as a state or a town would do, or an individual. No right or power of monopoly can enter into the calculation. We can illustrate the question by supposing a case, of a town some thirty miles from Boston, to which there has hitherto been no common-carrier. The inhabitants resolve to establish an express, and for this purpose enter into negotiations with one of their neighbors, in which they agree to give him their business on his agreeing to establish a reasonable tariff of prices for his service. If the number of patrons is very small, they cannot make it an object for the man to run his wagon, unless they will agree to pay a good price for parcels. And the more numerous the parcels are, the lower will be the rate, within certain limits, that is, until the man's wagon is fairly loaded, or he has as much business as he can reasonably attend to. This is on the supposition that all the business is to come from one place. But if there are intermediate or contiguous places whose patronage can be obtained to swell the amount of business, there should be an equitable apportionment of this advantage, a part to go to the carrier for his additional trouble and fair profits, and a part to go towards reducing the general rate of charge. If, however, the carrier has an interest in a place five miles beyond, which he thinks may be built up by having an express running into it from Boston, although the present amount of business is too small to pay the cost, and if, for considerations of his own advantage, he resolves to run his wagon to that place at a constant loss for the present, looking to the rise of his property for ultimate remuneration, it would not be just for him to insist, that the people who intend to establish an express and support it for themselves, shall yet pay an increased or exorbitant price for their own parcels, in order to pay him for an appendage to the enterprise, for which they have no occasion, and as such he himself undertakes for personal considerations of is own.
And if he should be obstinate on this point, they would just let him take his own way, and charge prices to suit himself, while they proceeded to make a new bargain with another carrier, who would agree to accommodate them at reasonable prices adjusted on the basis of their patronage. And if an appeal should be made to their sympathy or charity, to help the growing hamlet, they would say, that it was better to give charity out of their pockets than by paying a high price on their parcels; for then those would give who were able and willing, and would know how much they gave. This covers the whole case of arranging postage as a matter of equal contract. The just measure of charge is, the lowest rate at which the work can be afforded by individual enterprise on the best self-supporting routes. Plainly, no other rate can be kept up by open competition on these routes. And if these routes are lost by competition, you must charge proportionably higher on the rest, which will throw the next class of routes into other hands, and so on, until nothing is left for you but the most costly and impracticable portions of the work.
The only material exception to this rule would be, where there is an extensive and complicated combination of interests, among which the general convenience and even economy will be promoted by establishing a uniformity of prices, without reference to an exact apportionment of minute differences.
It can be easily shown, that all these considerations would be harmonized by no rate of postage on letters, higher than the English 1d., or with us two cents for each half ounce. Considered as a business question, unaffected by the assumed power of monopoly by the government, the reasonings of the parliamentary reports and the results of the British experiment abundantly establish this rate to be the fair average price for the service rendered. A moderate business can live by it, if economically conducted, and a large business will make it vastly profitable, as is seen in the payment of four or five millions of dollars a year into the public treasury of Great Britain, as the net profits of penny postage.
If we look at the post-office in the more philosophical and elevated aspect of a grand governmental measure, enjoined by the people for the good of the people, we shall be brought to a similar conclusion. The constitutional rule for the establishment of the post-office, is as follows:
“Congress shall have power to—
“Establish post-offices and post-roads.”
This clause declares plainly the will of the people of the United States, that the federal government should be charged with the responsibility of furnishing the whole Union with convenient and proper mail privileges—according to their reasonable wants, and the reasonable ability of the government. This is one point of the“general welfare,”for which we are to look to congress, just as we look to congress to provide for the general defence by means of the army and navy. It imposes no other restrictions in the one case than the other, as to the extent to which provision shall be made—the reasonable wants of the people, and the reasonable ability of the government. It limits the resources for this object to no particular branch of the[pg 024]revenue. It gives no sort of sanction to the so oft-repeated rule, which many suppose to be a part of the constitution, that the post-office must support itself. Still less, does it authorize congress to throw all manner of burdens upon the mail, and then refuse to increase its usefulness as a public convenience, because it cannot carry all those loads. The people must have mails, and congress must furnish them. To reason for or against any proposed change, on the ground that the alternative may be the discontinuance of public mails, the privation of this privilege to the people, and the winding up of the post-office system, is clearly inadmissible. When the government ceases to give the people the privileges of the mail, the government itself will soon wind up, or rather, will be taken in hand and wound up by the people, and set a-going again on better principles. The sole inquiry for congress is, what is the best way to meet the reasonable wants of the people, by means within the reasonable ability of the government?
The objects of the post-office system, which regulate its administration, are well set forth in the Report of the House Committee in 1844:“To content the man, dwelling more remote from town, with his homely lot, by giving him regular and frequent means of intercommunication; to assure the emigrant, who plants his new home on the skirts of the distant wilderness or prairie, that he is not forever severed from the kindred and society that still share his interest and love; to prevent those whom the swelling tide of population is constantly, pressing to the outer verge of civilization from being surrendered to surrounding influences, and sinking into the hunter or savage state; to render the citizen, how far soever from the seat of his government, worthy, by proper knowledge and intelligence, of his important privileges as a sovereign constituent of the government; to diffuse, throughout all parts of the land, enlightenment, social improvement, and national affinities, elevating our people in the scale of civilization, and binding them together in patriotic affection.”
These are the objects for which congress is bound to maintain the post-office, and it is impossible that congress should ever seriously consider whether they will not abandon them. The maintenance of convenient mails for these objects is therefore to be regarded as a necessary function of the government of the United States. In the infancy of that government, while the government itself was an experiment, when the country was deeply in debt for the cost of our independence, and when its resources for public expenditure were untried and unknown, there was doubtless a propriety in the adoption of the principle, that the post-office department should support itself. But that state of things has long gone by, and our government now has ample ability to execute any plans of improvement whatever, for the advancement of knowledge, and for binding the Union together, provided such plans come within the acknowledged powers conferred by the constitution.
The post-office being, then, like the army and navy, a necessary branch of the government, it follows that the charge of postage for the conveyance of letters and papers is of the nature of a tax, as has been well expressed by the present Postmaster-General, in his last annual[pg 025]report, quoted above.“Postage is a tax, not only on the business of the country, but upon intelligence and knowledge, and the exercise of the friendly and social affections.”The question before us is, How heavy a“tax”ought the government of a federal republic to impose on these interests? Every friend of freedom and of human improvement answers spontaneously, that nothing but a clear necessity can justify any tax at all upon such subjects, and that the tax should be reduced, in all cases, to the very lowest practicable rate. The experience of the British government, the prodigious increase of correspondence produced by cheap postage, and the immense revenue accruing therefrom, demonstrate thatTWO CENTSis not below the rate which the government can afford to receive. Let the people understand that all beyond this is a mere“tax,”not required by any necessity, and they will soon demand that the government look for its resources to some more suitable subjects of taxation than these.
Another rule of right in regard to this“tax”is well laid down in the Report of the House Committee, for 1844:“As the post-office is made to sustain itself solely by a tax on correspondence, it should derive aid and support from everything which it conveys. No man's private correspondence should go free, since the expense of so conveying it becomes a charge upon the correspondence of others; and the special favor thus given, and which is much abused by being extended to others not contemplated by law, is unjust and odious. Neither should the public correspondence be carried free of charge where such immunity operates as a burden upon the correspondence of the citizen. There is no reason why the public should not pay its postages as well as citizens—no sufficient reason why this item of public expenses should not be borne, like all others, by the general tax paid into the treasury.”These remarks are made, indeed, with reference to the franking privilege, which the committee properly proposed to abolish on the grounds here set forth. But it is plain that the principle is equally pertinent to the question of taxing the correspondence of the thickly settled parts of the country for the purpose of raising means to defray the expense of sending mails to the new and distant parts of the country. There is no justice in it. The extension of these mails is a duty of the government; and let the government, by the same rule, pay the cost out of its own treasury.“Postage,”says the same report,“in the large towns and contiguous places, is, in part, acontribution.”It is a forced contribution, levied not upon the property of the people, but upon their intelligence and affections.
Our letters are taxed to pay the following expenses:
1. For the franking of seven millions of free letters.
2. For the distribution of an immense mass of congressional documents, which few people read at all, and most of which might as well be sent in some other way—would be seen the moment they should be actually subjected to the payment of postage by those who send or receive them.
3. For the extension of mails over numerous and long routes, in the new or thinly settled parts of the country, which do not pay their own expenses. I do not believe these routes are more extensive or numerous than the government ought to establish; but then the government[pg 026]ought to support them out of the general treasury. Many of them are necessary for the convenience of the government itself. For many of them the treasury is amply remunerated, and more, by the increased sale of the public lands, the increase of population, and the consequent increase of the revenue from the custom-house. And the rest are required by the great duty of self-preservation and self-advancement, which is inherent in our institutions.
4. For the cost of about two millions of dead letters, and an equal number of dead newspapers and pamphlets, the postage on which, at existing rates, would amount to at least $175,000 a year, and the greater part of which would be saved under the new postal system.
Why should these burdens be thrown as a“tax upon correspondence,”or made an apology for the continuance of such a tax? It is unreasonable. All these expenses should be borne,“like all others, by the general tax paid into the treasury.”This would leave letters chargeable only with such a rate of postage as is needed for the prevention of abuses, and to secure the orderly performance of the public duty. And a postage of two cents would amply suffice for this. Some have suggested thatone centis all that ought to be required.
There is another view of the matter, which shows still more strongly the injustice of the present tax upon letters.“It is not matter of inference,”says Mr. Rowland Hill,“but matter of fact, that the expense of the post-office is practically the same, whether a letter is going from London to Burnet (11 miles), or from London to Edinburgh (397 miles); the difference is not expressible in the smallest coin we have.”The cost of transit from London to Edinburgh he explained to be only one thirty-sixth of a penny. And the average cost, per letter, of transportation in all the mails of the kingdom, did not differ materially from this. Of course, it was impossible to vary the rates of postage according to distance, when the longest distance was but a little over one-tenth of a farthing. The same reasoning is obviously applicable to all theproductiveroutes in the United States. And we have seen the injustice of taxing the letters on routes that are productive or self-supporting, to defray the expense of the unproductive routes which the government is bound to create and pay for.
Another view of the case shows the futility of the attempt to make distance the basis of charge. The actual cost of transit, to each letter, does not vary with the distance, but is inversely as the number of letters, irrespective of distance. The weight of letters hardly enters into the account as a practical consideration. Ten thousand letters, each composed of an ordinary sheet of letter paper, would weigh but one hundred and fifty-six pounds, about the weight of a common sized man, who would be carried from Boston to Albany or New York for five dollars. The average cost of transportation of the mails in this country, is a little over six cents per mile. For convenience of calculation, take a route of ten miles long, which costs ten cents per mile, and another of one hundred miles long at the same rate. There are many routes which do not carry more than one letter on the average. The letter would cost the department one dollar for carrying it ten miles. On the route of one hundred miles we will suppose there are one thousand letters to be carried, which will cost the government for[pg 027]transportation just one mill per letter. How then can we make distance the basis of postage?
The matter may be presented in still another view. The government establishes a mail between two cities, say Boston and New York, which is supported by the avails of postage on letters. Then it proceeds to establish a mail between New York and Philadelphia, which is supported by the postage between those places. Now, how much will it cost the government to carry in addition, all the letters that go from Boston to Philadelphia, and from Philadelphia to Boston? Nothing. The contracts will not vary a dollar. In this manner, you may extend your mails from any point, wherever you find a route which will support itself, until you reach New Orleans or Little Rock, and it is as plain as the multiplication table, that it will cost the government no more to take an individual letter from Boston to Little Rock than it would to take the same letter from Boston to New York. The government is quite indifferent to what place you mail your letter, provided it be to a place which has a mail regularly running to it.
This brings us to the unproductive routes. An act was passed by the last Congress to establish mail routes in Oregon territory. An agent is appointed to superintend the business, at a salary of $1000 a year and his travelling expenses; contracts are made or to be made, mails carried, postmasters appointed and paid. This is doubtless a very proper and necessary thing, one which the government could not have omitted without a plain dereliction of duty. The honor and interest of the nation required that as soon as the title to the country was settled, our citizens who were resident there, and those who shall go to settle there, should enjoy the benefits of the mail. And as it was the nation's business to establish the mail, it was equally the nation's business to pay the expense. No man can show how it is just or reasonable, that the letters passing between Boston and New York should be taxed 150 per cent. to pay the expense of a mail to Oregon, on the pretext that the post-office must support itself.
A mail is run at regular periods to Eagle River, Wisconsin, for the accommodation of the persons employed about the copper mines on Lake Superior. Without questioning the certainty of the great things that are to be done there hereafter, it is no presumption to express the belief that the expenses of that mail are hardly paid by the postage on the letters now carried to and from Lake Superior. Nor, after making all due allowances for the liberal distribution of copper stock at the East, is it rational to believe that all the people who write letters here, are so directly interested as to make a tax upon letters the most equitable mode of assessing the expense.
During the debates in Congress on the act of 1844, an incident was related by Senator Crittenden, of Kentucky, to this effect. He said he was travelling in the mail stage somewhere in the State of Tennessee. At a time of day when he was tired and hungry, the stage turned off from the road a number of miles, to carry the mail to a certain post-office; it was night when they reached the office, the postmaster was roused with difficulty, who went through the formality of taking the mail pouch into his hand, and returned it to the driver, saying there was not a letter in it, and had not been for a month. I will[pg 028]not inquire whose letters ought to be taxed to sustain that mail route, but only remark, that whatever consideration caused its establishment, ought to carry the cost to the public treasury, and not throw it as a burden upon our letters.
The Postmaster-General, in his late report, says that“the weight and bulk of the mails, which add so greatly to the cost of transportation, and impede the progress of the mail, are attributable to the mass of printed matter daily forwarded from the principal cities in the Union to every part of the country;”and“justice requires that the expense of their transportation should be paid by the postage.”I would add to this the qualifying phrase,“or by the government, out of the public treasury,”and then ask why the same principle of justice is not as applicable to long mail routes as to heavy mail bags. There is and can be no ground of apprehension, that mails will ever be overloaded or retarded by the weight of paid letters they contain. It was found by the parliamentary committee, that the number of letters, which was then nearly fifty per cent. greater than in all our mails, might be increased twenty-four fold, without overloading the mails, and without any material addition to the contracts for carrying the mails. They also found that the whole cost of receiving, transporting and delivering a letter was 76-100ths of a penny, of which the transit cost but 19-100ths, and the receipt and delivery 57-100ths. The cost of transit, per letter, is of course reduced by the increase of correspondence.
I have dwelt so long on this part of the subject, because I find that here is the great difficulty in the application of the principles and results of the British system to our own country—ours is such a“great country,”and we have so many“magnificent distances.”But disposing as I have of the unproductive mail routes, and showing as I have, the injustice of taxing letters with the expense of any public burthens, this whole difficulty is removed, and it is made to appear that two cents is the highest proper rate of postage which the government can justly exact for letters, on the score either of a just equivalent for the service rendered, or of a tax imposed for the purposes of the government itself.
This is the conclusion to which the parliamentary committee were most intelligently and satisfactorily drawn—that“the principle of a uniform postage is founded on the facts, that the cost of distributing letters in the United Kingdom consists chiefly in the expenses incurred with reference to their receipt at and delivery from the office, and that the cost of transit along the mail roads is comparatively unimportant, and determined rather by the number of letters carried than the distance;”that“as the cost of conveyance per letter depends more on the number of letters carried than on the distance which they are conveyed, (the cost being frequently greater for distances of a few miles, than for distances of hundreds of miles,) the charge, if varied in proportion to the cost, ought to increase in the inverse ratio of the number of letters conveyed,”but it would be impossible to carry such a rule into practice, and therefore the committee were of opinion, that“the easiest practicable approach to a fair system, would be to charge a medium rate of postage between one post-office and another, whatever[pg 029]may be their distance.”And the committee were further of opinion,“that such an arrangement is highly desirable, not only on account of its abstract fairness, but because it would tend in a great degree to simplify and economize the business of the post-office.”
Waterston's Cyclopedia of Commerce says,“the fixing ofa low rateflowed almost necessarily from the adoption of auniformrate. It was besides essential to the stoppage of the private conveyance of letters. The post-office was thus to be restored to its ancient footing of an institution, whose primary object was public accommodation, not revenue.”
The adoption of this simple principle, of Uniform Cheap Postage, was a revolution in postal affairs. It may almost be called a revolution in the government, for it identified the policy of the government with the happiness of the people, more perfectly than any one measure that was ever adopted. It prepared the way for all other postal reforms, which are chiefly impracticable until this one is carried. We also can have franking abolished, as soon as cheap postage shall have given the franking privilege alike to all. We can have label stamps, and free delivery, and registry of letters, and reduced postage on newspapers, and whatever other improvement our national ingenuity may contrive, to the fullest extent of the people's wants, and the government's ability, just as soon as we can prevail upon the people to ask, and congress to grant, this one boon of Uniform Cheap Postage.
V.Franking.
The unanimity and readiness with which the franking privilege was surrendered by the members of parliament—men of privilege in a land of privilege—is proof of the strong pressure of necessity under which the measure was carried. It is true, a few members seemed disposed to struggle for the preservation of this much-cherished prerogative. One member complained that the bill would be taxing him as much as £15 per annum. Another defended the franking privilege on account of its benefits to the poor. But the opposition melted away, like an unseasonable frost, as soon as its arguments were placed in the light of cheap postage. And the whole system of franking was swept away, and each department of the government was required to pay its own postage, and report the same among its expenditures. The debates in parliament show something of the reasons which prevailed.
July 22, 1848.The postage bill came up on the second reading:
Sir Robert H. Inglis, among other things, objected to the abolition of the franking privilege. He could not see why, because a tax was to be taken off others, a tax was to be imposed on members. It would be, to those who had much correspondence, at least £15 a year, at the reduced rate of a penny a letter. To the revenue the saving would be small, and he hoped the house would not consent to rescind that privilege.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer said the sacrifice of the franking privilege would be small in amount. But at the same time, be it small or great, he thought there would be not one feature of the new system which would be more palatable to the public, than this practical evidence of the willingness of members of this house,[pg 030]to sacrifice everything personal to themselves, for the advantage of the public revenue.
Sir Robert Peel did not think it desirable that members of this house should retain the franking privilege. He thought if this were continued after this bill came into operation, therewould be a degree of odiumattached to it which would greatly diminish its value. He agreed that it would be well to restrict in some way theright of sending by mail the heavy volumes of reports. He said there were many members who would shrink from the exercise of such a privilege, to load the mail with books. He would also require that each department should specially pay the postage incurred for the public service in that department. If every office be called upon to pay its own postage, we shall introduce a useful principle into the public service. There is no habit connected with a public service so inveterate, as the privilege of official franking.
On a former day, July 5, the Chancellor of the Exchequer had said concerning the abolition of the franking privilege:
Undoubtedly, we may lose the opportunity now and then, of obliging a friend; but on other grounds, I believe there is no member of the house who will not be ready to abandon the privilege. As to any notion that honorable gentlemen should retain their privilege under a penny postage, they must have a more intense appreciation of the value of money, and a greater disregard for the value of time, than I can conceive, if they insist on it.
All the peculiarities which distinguish British institutions from our own, might naturally be expected to make public men in that country more tenacious of privilege than our own statesmen. In a land of privilege, we should expect mere privilege to be coveted, because it is privilege. This practical and harmonious decision of British statesmen, of all parties, in favor of abolishing the franking privilege, in order to give strength and consistency to the system of cheap postage, shows in a striking light the sense which they entertained of the greatness of the object of cheap postage. The arguments which convinced them, we should naturally suppose would have tenfold greater force here than there; while the arguments in favor of the privilege would have tenfold greater influence there than here. Can there be a doubt that, when the subject is fairly understood, there will be found as much magnanimity among American as among British legislators?
The moral evils of the franking system are far more serious than the pecuniary expense, although that is by no means undeserving of regard. It is not only an ensnaring prerogative to those who enjoy it, and an anomaly and incongruity in our republican institutions, but it is an oppressive burden upon the post-office, which ought to be removed.
The parliamentary committee ascertained, by three distinct calculations, (of which all the results so nearly agreed as to strengthen each other,) that, reckoning by numbers, one-ninth of the letters passing through the post-office in a year, were franked. And, reckoning by weight, the proportion was 30 per cent. of the whole. Of seven millions of franked letters and documents, nearly five millions were by members of parliament. If all the franks had been subject to postage, they would have yielded upwards of a million sterling yearly. This was after the parliamentary franks had been restricted to a certain number (ten) daily for each member, and limited in weight to two ounces. The amount of postage on parliamentary franks would be yearly £350,000, averaging about £310 to each member. But there[pg 031]were a number of official persons, whose franks were not limited, either in number or weight. These franks were obtained and used, by those who could get them, without stint or scruple.
The celebrated Dr. Dionysius Lardner, who then occupied a prominent place among men of letters in Great Britain, testified before the parliamentary committee in 1838, that he was in the practice of sending and receiving about five thousand letters a year, of which he got four-fifths without postage—chiefly by franks. While he lived in Ireland, his correspondence was so heavy, not only as to the number of letters, but their bulk and weight, that he was obliged to apply to the Postmaster-General of Ireland, Lord Rosse, who allowed them to go under his franks. From the year 1823, or soon after he quitted the university, until the year 1828, his letters went and came under the frank of Lord Rosse, who had the power of franking to any weight. Since he came to England, his facilities of getting franks were very great. Without such means, he would have found it very difficult indeed to send his letters by post. His heavy correspondence was chiefly sent through official persons, who had the power of franking to any weight; and his correspondents knew that they could send their letters under care to these friends; so that he received communications from them in the same way. He endeavored to save as much trouble as he could, by dividing the annoyance among them, and by enclosing a bundle of letters for the same neighborhood under one cover. He said that, to obtain these privileges a man must be connected or known to the aristocratic classes, and that it was certainly unfair, as it gave unfair advantages to those who happened to have friends or connections having that power. His foreign correspondence was carried on through the embassies; and in this way the letters came free. He got his letters from the United States free in that way. Any man who was a Fellow of the Royal Society, or who lived among that class, could avail himself of these means of obtaining scientific communications.
The number of franked letters posted, throughout the kingdom, in two weeks in January, 1838, is stated in the following table.
It was stated in the debates, that before the franking privilege was limited, it had been worth, to some great commercial houses, who had a seat in parliament, from £300 to £800 a year; and that after the limitation it was worth to some houses as much as £300 a year. The committee spoke of the use of franks for scientific and business correspondence, as“an exemplification of the irregular means by which a scale of postage, too high for the interests and proper management of the affairs of the country, is forced to give way in particular instances. And like all irregular means, it is of most unfair and partial application; the relief depends, not on any general regulation, known to the public, and according to which relief can be obtained, but upon favor and opportunity; and the consequence is, that while the more pressing suitor obtains the benefit he asks, those of a more forbearing disposition pay the penalty of high postage.”It also keeps out of view of the public,“how much the cost of distribution is exceeded by the charge, and to what extent therefore the postage of letters is taxed”to sustain this official privilege. The committee[pg 032]therefore concluded in their report, that“taking into the account the serious loss to the public revenue, which is caused by the privilege of franking, and the inevitable abuse of that privilege in numerous cases where no public business is concerned, it would be politic in a financial point of view, and agreeable to the public sense of justice, if, on effecting the proposed reduction of the postage rates, the privilege of franking were to be abolished.”Only the post-office department now franks its own official correspondence; petitions to parliament are sent free; and parliamentary documents are charged at one-eighth the rate of letters. Letterstothe Queen also go free.
In our own country, the congressional franking privilege has long been a subject of complaint, both by the post-office authorities and the public press. There are many discrepancies in the several returns from which the extent of franking is to be gathered.
From a return made by the Postmaster General to the Senate, Jan. 16, 1844, the whole number of letters passing through the mails in a year is set at 27,073,144, of which the number franked is 2,815,692, which is a small fraction over 10 per cent.
The annual report of the Postmaster-General in 1837, estimates the whole number of letters at 32,360,992, of which 2,100,000, or a little over 6 per cent, were franked.
In February, 1844, the Postmaster-General communicated to Congress a statement of an account kept of the free letters and documents mailed at Washington, during three weeks of the sitting of Congress in 1840, of which the results appear in the following table.
Whole number of Letters and Documents in a session of thirty-three weeks, 4,781,293.
Average weight of Public Documents, 1-⅓ oz.
Of the 42,375 free letters, 20,362 were congressional, and 22,032, or 52 per cent. were from the Departments.
In the month of October, 1843, an account was kept at all the offices in the United States, of the number of letters franked and received in that month by members of Congress. The number was 18,558, which would give 81,370 for 19 weeks of vacation. To these add 223,992 mailed in 33 weeks of session, and four-fifths as many, 179,193, for letters received, and it gives a total of 484,555 letters received and sent free of postage by members of Congress in a year, besides the Public Documents. The postage on the letters, at the old rates, would have been $100,000.
From the same return of October, 1843, it appears that the number[pg 033]of letters franked and received by national and state officers, was 1,024,068; and by postmasters, 1,568,928; total, 2,592,998, the postage on which, at 14-½ cents, would amount to $376,073.
These calculations would give the loss on free letters, at that time, $476,073. This is besides the postage on the public documents, 359,578 pounds, the postage on which, at 2-½ cents per ounce, would come to $147,581.
Total postage lost by franking, $623,654.
Document No. 118, printed by the House of Representatives of Massachusetts, 1848, gives $312,500 as the amount of postage on franked letters, and $200,000 for franked documents, making a total of $512,500.
The report of the Post-office Committee of the House of Representatives, May 15, 1844, contains a return of the number of free letters mailed and received at the Washington post-office, during the week ending February 20, 1844, with the corresponding annual number, and the amount of postage, at the old rates—allowing the average length of a session of Congress to be six months. From this I have constructed the following table.
Whole number of letters franked at Washington: 2,290,184Add, franked by members at home: 111,348Franked by postmasters: 1,568,928Total of free letters: 3,970,450Add, franked documents: 4,314,948General total number: 8,285,398The postage on all which, at the old rates, would be at least: $1,000,000
The annual report of the Postmaster-General, December, 1847, estimates the number of free letters at five millions, the postage on which, at present rates, would be at least $375,000, to which the postage on the documents should be added.
The conclusion of the whole matter is, that the postage due on the free letters and documents, if reckoned according to the old rates, would be at least one million, and under the present rates above half a million of dollars annually; equal to 12 per cent of the whole gross income of the department.
When our present postage law was under consideration, the committees of both Houses recommended the abolition of the franking privilege, for reasons of justice, as well as to satisfy the public mind. The report of the House Committee has this passage: