went a great way in that direction. There
were to be only two distance charges, viz. for distances not exceeding
300 miles, or greater than 300 miles, respectively. The new rate for
ordinary letters was 5 cents for distances not exceeding 300 miles, and
10 cents for any greater distance. This statute also introduced the
principle of charge by weight instead of by sheets, the half-ounce being
taken as the unit weight.[167]

The reduction resulted in so great a fall in the revenue that in the
first year at the reduced rates there was a deficit of between one and
two million dollars. In calling attention to this deficit, the
President, in his Message to Congress, said that no principle had been
more generally acquiesced in by the people than that the Post Office
should sustain itself, but Congress had "never sought to make it a
source of revenue except for a short period during the last war with
Great Britain." At the same time the service should not become a charge
on the general Treasury, and it would be necessary either to curtail the
existing service or so to modify the Act of the previous March as to
improve the revenue. As curtailment of service was out of the question,
revision of the rates was recommended.[168]

But the rates were not revised. Revision in an upward direction was,
indeed, hardly feasible. The public agitation for low rates continued
after the passing of the Act of 1845. Many citizens were convinced that
the system already adopted in England might be introduced in the United
States. The benefits which had resulted in England in the way of
commercial, social, and moral betterment were largely dwelt upon. The
chief demand was for a uniform rate, which now meant simply the
abolition of the increased charge for distances over 300 miles. There
was, of course, Sir Rowland Hill's calculation in regard to cost of
conveyance, which showed the futility of any attempt to make distance
the basis of charge; and the further consideration that the actual cost
of transit for each letter sent in a mail varies not in accordance with
the distance travelled, but inversely as the number of letters contained
in the mail. Moreover, it was not considered just that the letters of
the people of the populous Eastern States should be taxed in order to
provide unremunerative mail services to the remote and newly settled
Western States.[169]

Under the old high rates the revenue had not increased in proportion to
the increase