postage?

The matter may be presented in still another view. The government
establishes a mail between two cities, say Boston and New York, which is
supported by the avails of postage on letters. Then it proceeds to
establish a mail between New York and Philadelphia, which is supported by
the postage between those places. Now, how much will it cost the
government to carry in addition, all the letters that go from Boston to
Philadelphia, and from Philadelphia to Boston? Nothing. The contracts will
not vary a dollar. In this manner, you may extend your mails from any
point, wherever you find a route which will support itself, until you
reach New Orleans or Little Rock, and it is as plain as the multiplication
table, that it will cost the government no more to take an individual
letter from Boston to Little Rock than it would to take the same letter
from Boston to New York. The government is quite indifferent to what place
you mail your letter, provided it be to a place which has a mail regularly
running to it.

This brings us to the unproductive routes. An act was passed by the last
Congress to establish mail routes in Oregon territory. An agent is
appointed to superintend the business, at a salary of $1000 a year and his
travelling expenses; contracts are made or to be made, mails carried,
postmasters appointed and paid. This is doubtless a very proper and
necessary thing, one which the government could not have omitted without a
plain dereliction of duty. The honor and interest of the nation required
that as soon as the title to the country was settled, our citizens who
were resident there, and those who shall go to settle there, should enjoy
the benefits of the mail. And as it was the nation's business to establish
the mail, it was equally the nation's business to pay the expense. No man
can show how it is just or reasonable, that the letters passing between
Boston and New York should be taxed 150 per cent. to pay the expense of a
mail to Oregon, on the pretext that the post-office must support itself.

A mail is run at regular periods to Eagle River, Wisconsin, for the
accommodation of the persons employed about the copper mines on Lake
Superior. Without questioning the certainty of the great things that are
to be done there hereafter, it is no presumption to express the belief
that the expenses of that mail are hardly paid by the postage on the
letters now carried to and from Lake Superior. Nor, after making all due