The Postage Act, passed March 3, 1845, which went into operation on the
1st of July of that year, was called forth by a determination to destroy
the private mails; and this object gave character to the act as a whole.
The reports of the postmaster-general, and of the post-office committees
in both houses of congress, show that the end which was specially aimed at
was to overthrow these mails. The Report of the House Committee, presented
May 15, 1844, says:
“Events are in progress of fatal tendency to the post-office
department, and its decay has commenced. Unless arrested by
vigorous legislation, it must soon cease to exist as a
self-sustaining institution, and either be cast on the treasury
for support, or suffered to decline from year to year, till the
system has become impotent and useless. The last annual report of
the postmaster-general shows that, notwithstanding the heavy
retrenchments he had made, the expenditures of the department for
the year ending June 30, 1843, exceeded its income by the sum of
$78,788. The decline of its revenue during that year was $250,321;
and the investigations made into the operations of the current
year, indicate a further and an increasing decline, at the rate of
about $300,000 a year.”
“This illicit business has been some time struggling through its
incipient stages; for it was not until the year commencing the 1st
July, 1840, that it appears to have made a serious impression upon
the revenues of the department. It has now assumed a bold and
determined front, and dropped its disguises; opened offices for
the reception of letters, and advertised the terms on which they
will be despatched out of the mail.”
“The revenue for the year ending June 30, 1840, was $4,539,265;
for the last year it was $4,295,925; and indications show that for
the present year it will not be more than $3,995,925.”
“The number of chargeable letters in circulation, exclusive of
dead letters, during the year ending June 30, 1840, may be assumed
at 27,535,554. The annual number now reported to be in
circulation, is 24,267,552. Thus, 3,268,000 letters a year and
$543,340 of annual revenue, are the spoils taken from the mails by
cupidity.”
The Report of the Senate Committee has this remark:
“We have seen in the outset that something _must_ be done; that
the revenues of the department are rapidly falling off, and a
remedy must in some way be found for this alarming evil, or the
very consequences so much dreaded by some from the reduction
proposed, will inevitably ensue; namely, a great curtailment of
the service, or a heavy charge upon the national treasury for its
necessary expenses. It is believed that in consequence of the
disfavor with which the present rates and other regulations of
this department are viewed, and the open violations of the laws
before adverted to, that not more than, if as much as one half the
correspondence of the country passes through the mails; the
greater part being carried by private hands, or forwarded by means
of the recently established private expresses, who perform the
same service, at much less cost to the writers and recipients of
letters than the national post-office. It seems to the committee
to be impossible to believe that there are but twenty-four or
twenty-seven millions of letters per year, forwarded to distant
friends and correspondents in the United States, by a population
of twenty millions of souls; whilst, at the same time, there are
_two hundred and four millions_ and upwards of letters passing
annually through the mails of Great Britain and Ireland, with a
population of only about twenty-seven millions.”
The Senate Report recommended the reduction of the rates of postage to
five and ten cents, an average of seven and a half cents, with a very
great restriction of the franking privilege, on which it was confidently
estimated that the revenues of the department, for the first year of the
new system, would be $4,890,500; and that the number of chargeable letters
would be sixty millions. The House Report recommended stringent measures
to suppress the private mails, with the abolition of franking, without any
reduction of postage, except to substitute federal coin for Spanish. It
estimated the increase of letters to be produced by reducing the rates to
five and ten cents, at only thirty per cent. in number, thus reducing the
postage receipts at once to two and a half millions of dollars. It will be
seen that each of these calculations has been proved to be erroneous.
The great postage meeting in New York, held in December, 1843, had asked
for a uniform rate of five cents. After stating the advantages of the
English system, their committee still hung upon the length of the routes
in this country as a reason against the adoption of the low rate of
postage. They said,
“It is plain that a similar system may be introduced with equally
satisfactory results in the United States. On account, however, of
the vast distances to be traversed by the mail-carriers, and the
great difficulties of travel in the unsettled portions of our
country, our petition asks that the rate be reduced to five cents
for each letter not more than half an ounce in weight—which is
more than double the uniform postage in Great Britain. It is a
rate which would not only secure to the post-office the transport
of nearly all the letters which are now forwarded through private
channels, but it would largely increase correspondence, both of
business and affection.
“Above all, the _franking privilege_ should be abolished. Unless
this is done, nothing can be done. It will be impossible, without
drawing largely upon the legitimate sources of the national
revenue, to sustain the post-office by any rates whatsoever, if
this franking privilege shall continue to load the mails with
private letters which everybody writes, and public documents which
nobody reads.”
The bill was passed, but the franking privilege was continued, and yet the
Postmaster-General has told us that the current income of the department
is equal to its expenses. The predictions to the contrary were very
confident. Some of the gloomy forebodings then uttered, are worthy of
being recalled at this time.
“The post-office department estimates that the deficiency in the
revenue of the department, under the new law, will be about
$1,500,000, this year.”—_Boston Post._
“An additional tax of $1,500,000, to be raised to meet the
deficiencies of the department, in a single year, must principally
come from the pockets of farmers, (who write few letters, and are
consequently less benefited by the reduction of postage,) in the
shape of additional tariff duties upon articles which they
consume.”—_New Hampshire Patriot._
“A CAUTION.—Some people may be deceived on the subject of cheap
postage, unless they take a ‘sober second thought.’ A part of
those who are so strenuous for cheap postage are not quite so
disinterested as would at first appear. They are seeking to pay
their postage bills out of other people’s pockets. Look at this
matter. I am an industrious mechanic, for example, and I have
little time to write letters. My neighbor publishes school-books,
and he wishes to be sending off letters, recommendations, puffs,
&c., by the hundred and by the thousand. This is his way of making
money. Now, he wishes the expenses of the post-office department
to be paid out of the treasury, and then I shall have to help him
pay his postage, while he will only pay his national tax,
according to his means, as I do mine. If he is making his money by
sending letters, he should pay the whole cost of carrying those
letters. I ought not to pay any part of it, in the way of duties
on sugar, &c. Let every man pay his own postage. Is not this fair?
But this will not be the case if the post-office department does
not support itself. The cheap postage system may injure the poor
man, instead of helping him.”—_Philad. North American._
“As for the matter of post-office reform, and reduction of the
rates of postage, there are not _one thousand_ considerate and
reflecting people, in the Union, who desire or demand anything of
the kind.
“The commercial and mercantile classes have not desired ‘reform;’
and the rural and agricultural classes, the planters of the South,
and the corn and wheat growers of the West, the mechanics and
laboring classes, are not disposed to be _taxed_ enormously to
support a post-office department to gratify the avarice and
cupidity of a body of sharpers and speculators.”—_Madisonian._
“THE NEW POSTAGE LAW.—The following statement has been furnished
us of the amount of postage chargeable on letters forwarded by the
New York and Albany steamboats:
The last thirteen days of June, $99.66
First thirteen days of July, (same route,) 53.90
Decrease, $45.76.
_Albany Argus._
“I inquired at the post-office to-day for information. One of the
gentlemanly clerks of that establishment said to me, ‘Well, Mr.
Smith, I can’t give you all the information you desire, but I can
say thus much. I this morning made up a mail for Hudson; it
amounted to _seventy cents_; the same letters under the old law,
and in the same mail, would have paid _seven dollars_. Now you can
make your own deductions.’ I then inquired of the same gentleman,
if the increase of letters had been kept up since the 1st of July.
He replied ‘_no_,’ but added, ‘the increase of numbers is somewhat
encouraging, but not sufficiently so to justify the belief that
the new law will realize the hopes of its advocates.’ ”—_N. Y.
Correspondent of Boston Post._
“From the city post-office we learn that the number of letters,
papers, and packages, passing through their hands, unconnected
with the business of the government, has increased about 33 per
cent., when compared with the business of the month of June. The
gross amount of proceeds from postage on these has fallen off
nearly 66 per cent., while the postage charged to the government
for its letters, &c., received and sent, is enormous. For the
post-office department alone, it is said to reach near $40,000 for
the month just past.”—_Washington Union, Aug. 2._
“We observe in the Eastern papers some paragraphs about the
working of the new law, in which they suppose it will work well.
Unquestionably it will work well for those who have to pay the
postage; but as to the _revenue_, it will not yield even as much
as the opponents of the system supposed. We do not believe the
receipts will equal one half received under the old system. We are
told that the experience of the first week in Cincinnati does not
show more than _one quarter_ the receipts.
“Private correspondence is increased a little; but the falling off
in the mercantile increase is immense. It cannot be otherwise; for
many letters now pay 10 cents which formerly paid a dollar. Double
and treble letters pay no more than single letters. In large
cities three-fourths of the postage is paid by _business letters_.
These letters are nearly all double and treble. A double letter
from Cincinnati to New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Baltimore, or
New Orleans, before, paid 50 cents; now it pays 10 cents. The
largest portion of postage is reduced to _one-fifth_ part of the
former postage.
“We are well pleased, however, that it will turn out as it will.
The law will be too popular with the people to be repealed; and it
will oblige Mr. James K. Polk’s administration to provide ways and
means out of the tariff to meet a deficiency of two millions in
the postage. This will work favorably to the tariff.
“All things will come right in the end. The lower the postage the
more economical the post-office department must be, and the more
money the government must raise from the tariff.”—_Cleveland
Herald._
“Mr. McDuffie is reported to have made the following correct and
just remarks, showing he understands well the operations of that
Department. If the bill shall become a law, our word for it, that
in less than six months one-fourth the offices in the Union will
be discontinued, because nobody will be found who will keep them.
But let the bill go into operation, and in less than twelve months
the very clamorers for low rates of postage will become so sick of
it, that they will be the first to unite in demanding its repeal.
If we supposed our advice would have any influence, we would
recommend to the Department and all Postmasters to hold on to the
old books, arrangements and fixtures, even if the bill does pass,
because in two weeks after Congress shall meet next year, it will
be repealed and the old order restored.”—_Kentucky Yeoman._
“ ‘Mr. McDuffie rose, evidently much excited, and after expressing
his regret that bodily infirmity disabled him to give the strength
of his convictions in regard to the evils which would flow from
the bill, he protested against its passage, as a measure more
radical and revolutionary than anything that had ever been done by
Congress. He denounced it as most unjust. It removes the burden
from those who ought to have it, the manufacturers and merchants
of the North, and throws it upon the farmers of the South and
West, who are already oppressed by the tariff, and who will have
to pay the expense by a tax on their necessaries.
“ ‘You will sacrifice the intelligence of the people to the
rapacity of the manufacturers. He could not imagine that the
agriculturist anywhere could feel postage as a burden; it is but a
moderate compensation for services rendered by the government. A
poor man pays $10 duty on his sugar, salt and iron, and now you
make him pay the postage. You will break up one half of the
smaller offices, you will in ten years make the post-office the
greatest organ of corruption the country has ever seen, and the
man who wields its patronage can command the sceptre. By throwing
it on the treasury, you destroy the responsibility of the head of
the department, and in ten years you will have it cost you ten
millions of dollars.’ ”
Instead of a revenue of nearly four millions, it is therefore
probable that the revenue of the first year of the experiment will
not much exceed a million and a half. It will be remembered that
Congress appropriated $750,000 to make up the expected deficiency;
but this will fall far below the necessities of the service; and
it is very probable that this sum will be consumed in the payments
of the contracts for the two first quarters. They are very busy at
the Department sending off letter balances, the postage of which
will of course constitute a charge on the Treasury; and as the
postage on each of these packets will amount to about three times
as much as the first cost of the balances, the Department will
make money out of this transaction.—_Charleston Mercury._
“I voted against this act. It is probable that a reduction might
have been made in the rates of postage which would not have
diminished the amount of revenue; but the reduction made by this
act is too great, and will have the effect of throwing the
Post-Office Department as a heavy charge on the general treasury,
which has not been the case heretofore. The post-office tax was
the only one in which the North and the East bore their share
equally with the South and the West. We would all like to have
cheap postage; and if that were the only consideration involved, I
would have voted for the act; but there were others which
influenced me to oppose it. The reduction of postage will cause a
diminution in the post-office revenue, which must be supplied by
the _general treasury_. The treasury collects the revenue which
must supply this deficiency, by a duty levied on imports; so that
the tax taken off of the _mail correspondence_ will have to be
collected on _salt_, _iron_, _sugar_, _blankets_, and other
articles which we buy from the stores. The manufacturing States
profit by this, because it aids the _protective_ policy. I might
add other objections, but deem it unnecessary at present.”—_Letter
of Hon. D. S. Reid, of ——, to his constituents._
The Postmaster-General, in his report made Dec. 1, 1845, says:
“So far as calculations can be relied on, from the returns to the
department, of the operation of the new postage law, for the
quarter ending 30th September last, the deficiency for the current
year will exceed a million and a quarter of dollars; and there is
no reasonable ground to believe that, without some amendment of
that law, it will fall short of a million of dollars for the next
year.”
The actual deficiency for the year ending June 30, 1846, was only
$589,837; and for the second year above alluded to, ending June 30, 1847,
it was but $33,677. And the Postmaster-General’s report for December,
1847, estimates the resources of the department for the year ending June
30, 1848, at $4,313,157, and the expenditures at $4,099,206, giving an
actual surplus of $213,951. If this expectation should be realized, (and
there is hardly a possibility but that it should be exceeded), the income
will exceed the annual average receipts for the nine years before the
reduction of postage, $51,467. The Postmaster-General ascribes the
increase solely to “the reduction in the rates of postage,” while nearly a
million of dollars are saved in the expenditures by the provision of the
law of 1845, directing the contracts to be let to the lowest bidder,
without reference to the transportation in coaches. So far, therefore, the
triumph of the law of 1845 has been complete. It has proved that the same
economic law exists here as in England, by which reduction of price leads
to increase of consumption.
On the other point, however, of meeting the wants of the people, so as to
bring all the correspondence of the country into the mails, its success is
very far from being equally satisfactory. The five and ten cents’ postage
does not have the effect of suppressing the private mails and illicit
transportation of letters.
The report of the House Committee in 1844, showed beforehand that such a
reduction could not have the effect here, just as the parliamentary report
had shown in 1838, that nothing but an absolute reduction to 1_d._ could
suppress the private mails in England. “Individuals can prosecute on all
the large railroad and steamboat routes between the great towns, as now, a
profitable business in conveying letters at three and five cents, where
the government would ask the five and ten cents postages.” Hill’s New
Hampshire Patriot said, shortly after the act went into operation:
“Private expresses _have not_ been discontinued in this quarter.
Far from it. They are now doing as large a business as ever,
carrying letters at half the government rates. And, strange as it
may appear, they appear to be sustained by public opinion. The new
postage act did not abate what is called ‘private enterprise,’ and
the act itself, it is thought, will soon be found to be
insufficient.”
The report of the Postmaster-General in 1845, speaks of a practice of
enveloping many letters, written on very thin paper, in one enclosure,
paying postage by the half-ounce, and thus reducing the postage on each to
a trifle.
“An incident recently occurred which will forcibly illustrate the
injurious effects of such a practice upon the revenues of the
department. A large bundle of letters was enveloped and sealed,
marked ‘postage paid, $1.60.’ By some accident in the
transportation, the envelope was so much injured as to enable the
postmaster to see that it contained one hundred letters to
different individuals, evidently designed for distribution by the
person to whom directed, and should have been charged ten dollars.
The continuance of this practice would, in a short time, deprive
the department of a large proportion of its legitimate income. The
department has no power to suppress it, further than to direct the
postages to be properly charged, whenever such practices are
detected. This has also introduced a species of thin, light paper,
by which five or six letters may be placed under one cover, and
still be under the half-ounce.”
He adds:
“The practice of sending packages of letters through the mails to
agents, for distribution, has not entirely superseded the
transmission of letters, over post roads, out of the mails, by the
expresses. The character of this offence is such as to render
detection very uncertain, full proof almost impossible, conviction
rare. The penalties are seldom recovered after conviction, and the
department rarely secures enough to meet the expenses of
prosecution. If the officers of the department were authorized in
proper cases to have the persons engaged in these violations of
the law arrested, their packages, trunks, or boxes, seized and
examined before a proper judicial officer, and, when detected in
violating the law, retained for the examination of the court and
jury, it is believed that the practice could be at once
suppressed.”
In his last report, December, 1847, he also says that, “Private expresses
still continue to be run between the principal cities, and seriously
affect the revenues of the department, from the want of adequate powers
for their suppression.” The complaint is continually, of a want of
adequate powers to suppress the practice. The law of 1845 has gone as far
as could be desired in the severity of penalties and the extent of their
application, involving in heavy fines every person who shall send or
receive letters; and every stage-coach, railroad car, steamboat, or other
vehicle or vessel—its owners, conductors and agents, which may knowingly
be employed in the conveyance of letters, or in the conveyance of any
person employed in such conveyance, under penalty of $50 for each letter
transported. What the post-office department would deem “adequate powers”
for the suppression of illicit letter-carrying, may be seen in the
following extract of a bill, which was actually reported by the
post-office committee of the House of Representatives, and “printed by
order of the House:”
“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, 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 be _the_ CHEAP
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 ACCOUNT alone, 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
with _anything more_ than 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 1_d._, 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 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 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 that TWO
CENTS is 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, a
_contribution_.” 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: