. The
States, _as States_, are subordinate; as 'parts,' they are inferior to
the 'whole.' The 'State rights' doctrine is wrong, disorganizing,
destructive of national life, and must be destroyed.

Again, one grand evidence of a nation's or a people's civilization, is
found in the correspondence, written and printed, conducted by the
citizens. Barbarians have and need no correspondence. Civilization needs
it, and can not exist without it. A migratory people like ours have more
correspondence than older and less migratory nations. A citizen
emigrating from Vermont to Illinois must correspond with the friends of
his old home. The old friend in Vermont must know how the absent one
'gets along in the world.' To conduct this correspondence, the postal or
mail service was devised. Before its existence the communication between
separated friends and business people was uncertain, irregular, and mere
matter of chance, to be conveyed by stray travelers, or not interchanged
at all. The _necessities_ of civilization brought the postal or mail
service into action. To conduct this service over a nation, requires the
right of passage through the entire limits of the nation. This right, to
be available, must have power to enforce its own requirements. It must
be _central_, CONTROLLING, SUPREME. Without these, there would be no
safety, no system, no uniformity, no regularity. To insure these to all
the people of the States, the Constitution has wisely placed these
powers in 'THE CONGRESS' of the Union, of the 'NATION.' In accordance
with the powers thus vested in Congress, our present postal or mail
service has been created. No State has a right to set up its own mail or
postal system. No State has a right to interfere with the transportation
of the national mails. 'The UNITED STATES MAIL,' is the term used. If
any State had a right to establish a mail within its own limits, it
would also have the right to prohibit or curtail the transportation of
other States' mails through its limits. This right would destroy the
entire system, and break up the interchange of correspondence so
essential to our civilization. If the States had any such right, they
could affix discriminating tariffs on the correspondence of other States
passing through them. The State of New-York could, if this right
existed, make the letters sent over its roads by the people of
Massachusetts to the people of Ohio, pay just such tariffs for the
'right of passage' as it m