pal routes necessarily
claims the public attention, and has awakened a corresponding solicitude
on the part of the Government. The transmission of the mail must keep
pace with those facilities of intercommunication which are every day
becoming greater through the building of railroads and the application
of steam power, but it can not be disguised that in order to do so the
Post-Office Department is subjected to heavy exactions. The lines of
communication between distant parts of the Union are to a great extent
occupied by railroads, which, in the nature of things, possess a
complete monopoly, and the Department is therefore liable to heavy and
unreasonable charges. This evil is destined to great increase in future,
and some timely measure may become necessary to guard against it.

I feel it my duty to bring under your consideration a practice which has
grown up in the administration of the Government, and which, I am deeply
convinced, ought to be corrected. I allude to the exercise of the power
which usage rather than reason has vested in the Presidents of removing
incumbents from office in order to substitute others more in favor with
the dominant party. My own conduct in this respect has been governed by
a conscientious purpose to exercise the removing power only in cases of
unfaithfulness or inability, or in those in which its exercise appeared
necessary in order to discountenance and suppress that spirit of active
partisanship on the part of holders of office which not only withdraws
them from the steady and impartial discharge of their official duties,
but exerts an undue and injurious influence over elections and degrades
the character of the Government itself, inasmuch as it exhibits the
Chief Magistrate as being a party through his agents in the secret plots
or open workings of political parties.

In respect to the exercise of this power nothing should be left to
discretion which may safely be regulated by law, and it is of high
importance to restrain as far as possible the stimulus of personal
interests in public elections. Considering the great increase which has
been made in public offices in the last quarter of a century and the
probability of further increase, we incur the hazard of witnessing
violent political contests, directed too often to the single object of
retaining office by those who are in or obtaining it by those who are
out. Under the influence of these convictions I shall cordially concur
in