mittee 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:

1. For the franking of seven millions of free letters.

2. For the distribution of an immense mass of congressional documents,
which few people read at all, and most of which might as well be sent in
some other way--would be seen the moment they should be actually subjected
to the payment of postage by those who send or receive them.

3. For the extension of mails over numerous and long routes, in the new or
thinly settled parts of the country, which do not pay their own expenses.
I do not believe these routes are more extensive or numerous than the
government ought to establish; but then the government ought to support
them out of the general treasury. Many of them are necessary for the
convenience of the government itself. For many of them the treasury is
amply remunerated, and more, by the increased sale of the public lands,
the increase of population, and the consequent increase of the revenue
from the custom-house. And the rest are required by the great duty of
self-preservation and self-advancement, which is inherent in our
institutions.

4. For the cost of about two millions of dead letters, and an equal number
of dead newspapers and pamphlets, the postage on which, at existing rates,
would amount to at least $175,000 a year, and the greater part of which
would be saved under the new postal system.

Why should these burdens be thrown as a "tax upon correspondence," or made
an apology for the continuance of such a tax? It is unreasonable. All
these expenses should be borne, "like all others, by the general tax paid
into the treasury." This would leave letters chargeable only with such a
rate of postage as is needed for the prevention of abuses, and t