he 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