The abolition of the franking privilege was more than Rowland Hill had proposed. In his testimony before the Parliamentary Committee he undertook to account for the anticipated increase of letters “in some measure from the partial voluntary disuse of the franking privilege,”[65]—thus mildly forecasting, not its abolition, but its voluntary renunciation. And the Committee, in their recommendations, treated its abolition as incident to cheap postage. This is their language:—

Thus was the abolition of the franking privilege announced as subordinate to the reduction of the postage rates, which was the main object.

Thus, after inquiry and debate lasting for three years, this great reform was accomplished, and the English Post-Office assumed an unprecedented character. The new system was founded on a uniform rate for uniform weight without regard to distance, and this rate the lowest unit of coin,—with prepaid stamps, and the abolition of the franking privilege. The experiment was a prodigious success, although the first results showed a falling off financially. The Post-Office authorities had predicted that it would not pay expenses; but the diminished receipts were more than enough for the expenses, while the number of letters was more than doubled.[67] There was a smaller net revenue for the National Treasury, but an infinite benefit to the people. The surplus of the first year was £500,789, against £1,633,764 of the previous year.[68] But the improvement financially was constant, so that here Rowland Hill became a prophet. He had predicted that the increase of correspondence and the economy of management would in a reasonable time afford a probable net revenue of £1,278,000.[69] In 1856 the net revenue had reached £1,207,725,—while at the same time the letters were 478,393,803 in number, with 6,178,982 money orders, against 75,907,572 letters, with 188,921 money orders, in the last year of the old system.[70]

The smallest part of the result was in the revenue,—except so far as this was advanced by the increased activity of the country, represented by the added millions of correspondence. Commerce and business were quickened infinitely, while the ties of social life were brightened and the heart was rejoiced. Here the testimony is complete. Tradesmen wrote to Rowland Hill, their benefactor, saying how their business had increased. Charles Knight, the eminent publisher, who did so much for the literature of the people, wrote that every branch of bookselling was stimulated, while the country seller was brought into almost daily communication with the London houses. The publisher of the Polyglot Bible in twenty-four languages, requiring a peculiar revision, declared that it could not have been printed but for penny postage. The Secretary of the Parker Society, composed of Church dignitaries and influential laymen, which has done so much for ecclesiastical literature by reprinting the works of the early English Reformers, stated that without penny postage the Society could not have come into existence. Secretaries of other societies, literary and benevolent, wrote how their machinery had been improved; conductors of educational establishments testified that people were everywhere learning to write for the first time, in order to enjoy the benefits of untaxed correspondence, and that night classes of adults for this purpose were springing up in all large towns. A leading advocate for the repeal of the Corn Laws gave it as his opinion that this reform must have waited but for penny postage,—that through this ally it reached its triumph two years earlier than it otherwise could have done. All this is easy to believe; for penny postage lends itself to all knowledge and to every reform. Others wrote with rapture of its operations. The accomplished naturalist, Professor Henslow, of Cambridge, rejoiced over its “importance to those who cultivate science,” and pictured the satisfaction of the humble people about his country parsonage “at the facility they enjoy of now corresponding with distant relatives,” together with what he calls “the vast domestic comfort which the penny postage has added to homes like my own, situate in retired villages.” Miss Martineau described its social benefits. Rowland Hill himself, showing how much it had done for the poor, said, “The postman has now to make long rounds through humble districts where heretofore his knock was rarely heard.”[71] And from the outlying Shetland Islands a visitor in May, 1842, reported: “The Zetlanders are delighted with penny postage. The postmaster told me that the number of letters was astonishing.”[72] But perhaps the heartfelt exultation was never better expressed than by the accomplished traveller, Mr. Laing, when, after describing the Prussian system of education, and giving the palm to penny postage as “a much wiser and more effective educational measure,” destined to be “the great historical distinction of the reign of Victoria I.,” he proceeds to say, that “every mother in the kingdom, who has children earning their bread at a distance, lays her head upon her pillow at night with a feeling of gratitude for this blessing.”[73] Such was the unbought tribute from all quarters,—alike the cottage of the lowly and the home of the professor, the counting-house of the merchant and the activities of benevolence, business in its various forms, and the commanding efforts of the political reformer, all, all confessing their debt to penny postage.[74]

The benefactor was honored in no common way, but not without tasting the lot of others who have served Humanity. At first assigned to a position in the Treasury connected with the Post-Office, then dismissed, and then, with a change of Administration, not only restored to the service, but appointed to a high position in the Post-Office itself, he had the inexpressible satisfaction of witnessing the triumph of his efforts and receiving the grateful regard of a happy people. He was not rich, and the considerable sum of £13,000 was presented to him by a public subscription throughout the country, with an address declaring the reform he had accomplished “the greatest boon conferred in modern times on all the social interests of the civilized world.” The knighthood bestowed by his sovereign was another attestation of his prevailing merit, destined to be followed by a further gift from Parliament itself of £20,000.[75] This episode of honor and gratitude to the benefactor has a peculiar interest for us, as furnishing new testimony to the cause with which the name of Rowland Hill is forever associated.

THE SAME VICTORY MAY BE OURS.

Such was the great reform by which the Post-Office became an evangel of civilization; but all this may be ours. The impediments overcome were greater than any we are called to encounter, while the object proposed is in undoubted accord with republican institutions, where simplicity, harmony, and adaptation to popular needs are acknowledged principles. This renovation prevailed in England: how can it fail in the United States? The Republic is the most advanced type of government, as the human form is the most advanced type of the animal world; but the Republic is nothing else than an organization to promote the welfare of men. Whatever makes for human welfare is essentially republican. Nor can any loss of revenue be set against this transcendent opportunity. Show me how to promote the welfare of men, and I show you an economy beyond any revenue; more still, I show you a duty not to be postponed.

The ruling principle in England, from the beginning down to the triumph of penny postage, was revenue; and this is still the ruling principle with us, to which all else is subordinated. England was accustomed to say, and the United States now say, with Shylock, “We would have moneys.” The abolition of the franking system is proposed on this ground,—not to lighten the existing burden of correspondence, not to cheapen postage, not to simplify the postal service, not to provide the American equivalent of the English penny postage, but simply to increase the revenue. We are summoned to give up a long-tried system, educational in its influence, merely for the sake of the Treasury. This is the object perpetually in view. Even the Postmaster-General, who is so liberal in all his ideas, says, in words which hardly do justice to the times, “As far as lay in my power, during my short administration, I have reduced the expenditures and increased the revenues of the Department.”[76] Something better than this remains to be done.

COMPLEXITY AND MULTIFARIOUSNESS IN OUR SYSTEM.

The postal system of the United States was kindred in character to that of England until the latter was transfigured by the felicitous genius of Rowland Hill. Both had the same incongruities and incumbrances. The rates in both were complex instead of uniform, and dear instead of cheap. The Act of Congress, February 20, 1792, establishing the Post-Office, provided for no less than nine different rates of postage, viz.,—six, eight, ten, twelve and a half, fifteen, seventeen, twenty, twenty-two, and twenty-five cents,—according to distance. In 1799 the number of rates was reduced to six, viz.,—eight, ten, twelve and a half, seventeen, twenty, and twenty-five cents. In 1816 the number was further reduced to five, viz.,—six, ten, twelve and a half, eighteen and a half, (in 1825 changed to eighteen and three fourths,) and twenty-five cents,—and so continued until 1845, when, yielding partially to the English example, the rates were established at five and ten cents, with two cents for drop letters; then, in 1851, at three and six cents for prepaid and five and ten cents for unpaid letters, with one cent for drop letters; then, in 1855, at three and ten cents prepaid, and one cent for drop letters; then, in 1863, at three cents, or, failing prepayment, six cents, with two cents for drop letters; and finally, in 1865, at three cents prepaid in all cases, with two cents for drop letters delivered by carriers, or one cent where there is no delivery.[77]

The difference between a drop letter and what is called a mailed letter, or letter from post-office to post-office, causes frequent confusion, as is seen here in Washington, where letters for Georgetown often have the two-cent stamp, when they should have that of three cents. The same confusion exists in other places. But this ridiculous division and subdivision are peculiar to the United States. It is not known that they are to be found in any other postal service.

The rates on foreign letters were, if possible, more chaotic. It was different with different countries, according to existing treaties; and this difference prevailed not only in the rate, but also in the unit of weight. As late as 1849 the rate on letters to England and Ireland was twenty-four cents, and was then changed to sixteen cents, and in 1868 to twelve cents; it is now six cents, being two cents for the sea postage and two cents for the inland postage of each country, allowing half an ounce of weight.[78] The treaty rate with France is fifteen cents on one quarter of an ounce.[79] Letters to Canada and other British North American provinces, when not over three thousand miles, are six cents for each half-ounce, if prepaid, and ten cents, if not prepaid; when over three thousand miles, ten cents; to Newfoundland, ten cents.[80] Then, in the absence of postal international convention, there is a general provision by Act of Congress establishing the rate of ten cents for each half-ounce carried to or received from foreign countries “by steamships or other vessels regularly employed in the transportation of the mails.”[81]

Such are the complexity and multifariousness of our postal service,—at least three different rates on inland letters, with an unknown variety on foreign letters. Here is discord where there should be uniformity, and out of this discord springs necessarily embarrassment with untold expense. True, much has been done; but much remains to be done before the service will have that simplicity without which it is vain to expect the desired combination of utility and economy. Every departure from uniformity is an impediment and an expense. It is with the postal service as with all else in Nature and Art: it is efficient and economical in proportion as it is simple. The rates of postage should be uniform. Borrowing a phrase from our political victories, all letters should be equal before the law.

Take by way of illustration the increased perplexity from two rates: and here I follow an old official of the Post-Office, Pliny Miles, who puts this very case. “Suppose,” says he, “city or local letters were two cents, and letters for a distance three or four cents. What a vast amount of labor and inconvenience in the work of rating and sorting in the Post-Office, and how perplexing to the citizen!”[82] By the existing system there is a double perplexity,—first, for the citizen, and, secondly, for the postal service. Each rate is like an additional language to be learned, while the unknown rates on foreign letters are like the confusion of Babel.

UNIFORM RATE AT ONE CENT.

In the process of simplification the uniform rate should be the lowest unit of coin. Beyond the sufficiency of this rate as a protection of the Post-Office against abuse, and also its obvious convenience, is its cheapness, reducing the tax on correspondence to its practical minimum. In England the penny was the lowest unit of coin, being in the English currency what the cent is in ours. The success of the English experiment is our best encouragement. There is better reason for the cent as a proper rate in our country than there was for the penny as a proper rate in England.

Such a rate will be so near to free postage for all, that it may be considered such practically. Let it be adopted, and free postage will become the companion of free school, free lecture, and free library, constituting the mighty group of republican civilization. The existing franking system will naturally disappear in this new franking system for all.

Here we encounter the financial question, What will be the effect on the Treasury? Will it pay? These are the potential words. This is the touchstone. That it will pay in beneficent influence tenfold, ay, Sir, a hundred-fold,—that it will make the Post-Office more than ever the powerful agent of human improvement, I cannot doubt. What is a little revenue, compared with such a result? What, even, is a deficit, with such a compensation? But looking at the financial question, and forgetting for a moment the incalculable good, it will be found that there are general laws of profit on small prices applicable to this proposed reduction, reinforced also by the example of England, and even of our own country.

REDUCTION OF PRICE INCREASES CONSUMPTION.

Nothing is plainer, as a general rule, than that the reduction of price tends to increase of consumption. This is illustrated by a thousand instances. Thus, at one time in England the fall in the price of soap one eighth increased the consumption one third; the fall of tea one sixth increased consumption one half; the fall of silks one fifth doubled the consumption; the fall of coffee one fourth trebled it; and the fall of cotton goods one half quadrupled it.[83] The circulation of newspapers and the number of advertisements are governed by the same law. There is another English instance, not within the range of ordinary business, which is not without historic interest. Formerly the admission fee to the famous sights of the Tower of London was two shillings, at which rate there were, during the year ending April 30, 1838, 11,104 visitors, paying £1110 8s. The fee was then reduced to one shilling, and during the twelve months following (1838-9) there were 42,212 visitors, paying £2110 12s. On the first of May, 1839, the fee was again reduced to sixpence, and during the ensuing year (1839-40) there were 84,872 visitors, paying £2121 16s.,—and the next year (1840-41) 94,973 visitors, paying £2374 6s. 6d.[84] Thus at the Tower more people were gratified by the sights and more money was taken,—so that there was at the same time a larger accommodation and a larger revenue. A reduction of the fee in the ratio of four to one was followed by an increase of visitors in the ratio of more than eight to one. According to a familiar story in our own country, the exhibitor of a panorama reported to the proprietor that the proceeds at twenty-five cents a ticket did not pay expenses. “Put it down to ten cents,” was the reply. This was done, and immediately the receipts rose so as to give a profit of one hundred dollars a week.

Such instances as these occurring in business and in life led Rowland Hill to assert that “the increase in consumption is inversely as the squares of the prices”; and this rule justified the expectation, that, with the proposed reduction of letter postage from the average of sixpence to a penny, the number of letters would increase thirty-six fold.[85] If the number did not increase in this remarkable ratio, yet it was such as to disappoint the enemies of reform. It appears that the estimated number of chargeable letters delivered in the United Kingdom of England, Scotland, and Ireland in 1839, the year immediately preceding the first general reduction of postage, was 75,907,572, and in 1840, the first year of penny postage, 168,768,344, showing an increase in one year of more than 122 per cent. Since then this large number has dilated year by year, until in 1867 it amounted to 774,831,000.[86]

Postal facilities have from the beginning promoted correspondence, and this was recognized even before the appearance of Rowland Hill. An old account of the English Post-Office, after describing certain improvements, exults “that there is no considerable market-town but hath an easy and certain conveyance for the letters thereof to and from the Grand Office in the City of London, in the due course of the mails every post”; and then adds, that, “though the number of letters missive in England were not at all considerable in our ancestors’ days, yet it is now prodigiously great, since the meanest people have generally learnt to write.”[87] This is the language of another age; but it attests the stimulation which letters receive from opportunity, and illustrates the value of cheap postage.

CHEAP POSTAGE MULTIPLIES LETTERS.

The experience of England is reproduced in the United States, so far as we have ventured upon postage reform. Every reduction of rate has been followed by a corresponding increase in the number of letters. There was the law of 1845, by which postage was reduced to two principal rates of five and ten cents. At this proposition, which erred only in its feebleness, there was the gloomiest foreboding of utter loss to the Post-Office. The raven did not croak more hoarsely at the entrance of Duncan under the battlements of Macbeth. Mr. McDuffie, the excitable Senator from South Carolina, always sensitive for Slavery, after expressing regret that bodily infirmity disabled him from declaring the strength of his convictions in regard to the evils which would flow from this measure, protested against its adoption as “more radical and revolutionary than anything ever done in Congress.” The Senator denounced it as most unjust, and predicted that in ten years the Post-Office would cost the Treasury $10,000,000.[88] The newspaper press, though not so fervid, was as skeptical as the South Carolina Senator; and the Postmaster-General showed the very disposition which had given to his brother officials in England the designation of “unwilling horses.” In his first Report after the passage of the law, he announced a prospective deficiency for the current year exceeding $1,250,000, and, unless there should be some amendment of the law, another deficiency the next year of little short of $1,000,000.[89] Now mark the result of even this too slight reduction. The actual deficiency for 1845-6 was only $597,097,[90] and for 1846-7 it was but $33,677,[91] while in 1848-9 there was a surplus revenue of $226,127.[92] The letters in 1845 were estimated at 39,958,978; and in 1849 at 60,159,862,[93] showing an increase in four years of more than fifty per cent.

Every reduction of postage in our country exhibits similar results. According to the ratio of reduction has been the ratio of increase in the number of letters. It may surprise Senators to know, that, while the estimated number in 1852 was 95,790,524,[94] it reached in 1868 to 488,000,000, in the estimate of the Post-Office.[95] But this is only according to the prevailing impulsion from a reduction in price. In England, where the rate was smaller, the number of letters was much larger, being in 1867, as estimated, no less than 774,831,000.[96] This becomes more remarkable, when it is considered that the estimated population of the United States at the time was more than forty millions, while that of the United Kingdom was thirty millions,—making twelve letters annually for each person in the United States, and twenty-six letters annually for each person in the United Kingdom.

ILLEGITIMATE BURDENS ON CORRESPONDENCE.

To understand the justice of the proposed reduction in our country, we must analyze and consider existing obligations of the postal service. I mention two, through which we may see the unjust operation of the present tax on correspondence: first, the well-known franking system, and, secondly, the millions of newspapers, by which an inconceivable amount of mail matter is made a burden on the Post-Office, tasking its transportation and its means of delivery. Although printed matter, unfranked, is charged with postage, it is not in proportion to its burden on the postal service; so that the letter not only pays for itself, but contributes to the other. The letter, so small in dimension and weight, but with its own unseen freight of business or friendship, is made to carry an additional load. Every letter is a dwarf shouldering a giant; or stating the case with absolute literalness, it is a sheet of paper compelled to bear free matter and printed matter measured by the ton. This little messenger, whose single function necessarily requires dispatch, is charged with this intolerable mass. No wonder that it staggers under the load heaped upon it. No wonder that the people are obliged to pay high postage; for, on receiving a letter, they not only pay the price of its transportation and delivery, but they contribute to the transportation and delivery of everything else carried by the mails.

But even this burden could be borne, if the whole service were not charged with the cost of transportation and postal facilities in distant parts of the country, where there is necessarily a disproportionate expense,—so that a letter in certain States, after paying for its own transportation and delivery, and contributing to the transportation and delivery of free matter and printed matter, contributes still further to those long lines of service by which the most remote places are supplied and the post-office follows close in the footsteps of the pioneer. This is beautiful, but it is not just; in other words, it is beautiful that these opportunities should be afforded, but it is not just that the correspondence of others should pay for them. Nor should these extraordinary expenses be charged on these remote places, or on the pioneer. They belong properly to the necessary outlay in opening the country, by which the nation, the great untaxed proprietor, finds a market for its land and new scope for its growing empire. Obviously this outlay should be charged to the Treasury, rather than saddled upon the postal service, as it is now.

EXPENSE OF OUTLYING ROUTES.

The last Report of the Postmaster-General shows the operation of the existing system in this respect. By the Statement of Receipts and Expenditures for 1868-9, it appears that in no less than sixteen States and Territories, including the District of Columbia, the Post-Office was more than self-supporting, there being an excess of receipts over expenditures of $3,571,315; while in the other States and Territories there was an excess of expenditures over receipts amounting to $4,727,175.[97] The self-supporting list, with each surplus, is as follows:—

Here I ask confidently, considering the nature of the Post-Office and the unquestionable importance of encouraging correspondence, if it is just that the letter-writers in one part of the country should be constrained to make the large contribution attested by this table, for the benefit especially of those at a distance, and also of the country at large. Rejecting again all idea of casting this expenditure upon the distant places and the pioneer, I insist that it should be borne by the Treasury rather than by remote letter-writers.

It is easy to exhibit the extent of this charge, and its palpable injustice. Begin with an illustration. Suppose a common carrier, with an interest beyond his business in an undeveloped part of the country at some distance from his daily line, makes a deviation to this outlying settlement at a daily loss, but looking to the growth of his interest there for ultimate remuneration. It would not be just for him to levy on all his customers along the main line for the expense of this deviation,—making them not only pay for their parcels, but contribute to the development of the outlying settlement. Nor would this enforced contribution commend itself, if urged in the name of charity or as a patriotic service to an infant community. The customers would insist that their parcels should pay only the legitimate cost of transportation and delivery; or they would soon find another carrier, who would charge them simply for their parcels, without adding the cost of opening new settlements. But the National Government is our common carrier, turning aside at great expense to develop and supply new places, to its great ultimate advantage in the sale of public lands, the growth of population, and increase of the revenue; but it is not justified in casting this large expense on the correspondence of the people.

Already the Nation assumes the expenses of the Territories before their admission as States, paying the salaries of their various officers and the cost of administration. For equal reason the Nation should assume the expenses of these outlying post-routes.

By the kindness of the Postmaster-General I am enabled to present from the records of the Department two authentic testimonies. There is the post-route from San Antonio to El Paso, a distance of seven hundred and four miles, with the annual cost of service, $126,601, and the annual receipts from offices on the route, $3,137. There is also the post-route from Kelton, Utah, to the Dalles, Oregon, seven hundred and sixty-five miles, with the annual cost of service, $130,278, and the annual receipts from offices on the route, $3,822. Other instances might be adduced, but these are enough to show how seriously the postal service is burdened by obligations which plainly belong to the Treasury.

In former debates of the Senate, an incident was mentioned by Mr. Crittenden, of Kentucky,[98] which illustrates the character of these unproductive lines. During a journey in Tennessee in the summer of 1844, the Senator had occasion to go to an outlying post-office in the interior of the State, on reaching which, late at night, he found the postmaster had gone to bed, leaving the mail-bags in the wagons. To his inquiries concerning this singular circumstance, “Why, Sir,” responded the official, “we don’t take the bags out at all; we don’t even look into them; it is so seldom we receive anything, we don’t think it worth while.” And upon investigation it in fact appeared that there was not a letter in any one of these bags, and had not been for a month. But this costly mail-service was at the expense of the correspondence elsewhere. The letter of the distant seaboard was a contributor.

DISTANCE ALONE DOES NOT CAUSE EXPENSE.

Sometimes it is supposed that the great distances of our country cause the large expense; but this is a mistake, founded on superficial observation. The large expense proceeds from something besides distance. Here I quote the words of Rowland Hill:—

I have already mentioned that the actual cost of transportation from London to Edinburgh was only one thirty-sixth of a penny, and this was the average for all letters throughout the United Kingdom. With so small a fraction of a penny representing the cost of the longest line, it was apparent that the element of distance must be eliminated from the question. A recent writer thus strongly testifies to this rule:—

But this rule is as applicable in our country as in the United Kingdom, always provided the lines are productive.

This rule, first enunciated by Rowland Hill, was substantially adopted by the Parliamentary Committee, when they say,—

All this is plainly reasonable, whether in the United Kingdom or the United States.

The actual cost of each letter is inversely as the number of letters, irrespective of distance. The weight enters very little into the question. Take, for instance, a route of ten miles, at ten cents a mile, and another of one hundred miles at the same rate. If on the route of ten miles there is an average of only one letter, as is the case on some routes, this one letter would cost one dollar, while ten thousand letters on the route of one hundred miles would cost only one mill a letter. The Post-Office pays a fixed compensation for the daily transportation of its mails between certain places, and this compensation is not varied by any addition to the number of letters. Therefore on all productive or paying lines, as between Washington and New York, and then between New York and Buffalo, additional letters may be received for distant places, without adding to the cost, until the letters reach St. Louis or New Orleans, or any other place accessible by a self-supporting line, and the actual cost of a letter for the longest distance will be no more than for the shortest. It will be the same alike to New Orleans and to New York. Thus on the assumption of a continuous self-supporting line the question of distance does not enter into the cost, and thus again we see the injustice of compelling the correspondence on such a line to the contributions it is now obliged to make.

EXISTING RATE NOT OPPRESSIVE A FALLACY.

Here I encounter an old-fashioned objection common in England as well as in the United States, and which has shown itself at every proposed change in the postal service. It is said that the existing rate is not oppressive, and that there is no need of its reduction. Obviously it is not oppressive to Senators and Representatives, who send and receive unnumbered letters free; nor is it oppressive to their correspondents; nor again is it oppressive to the rich and thriving, for they contribute out of their abundance; but plainly and indubitably it is oppressive to the poor, and it is absurd to say that it is not. Plainly and indubitably it is oppressive to the widowed mother, whose best comfort is correspondence with her absent child; it is oppressive to the child corresponding with mother, sister, or brother; it is oppressive to all whose scanty means supply only the necessaries of life. All these are restrained in the gratification of those affections which contribute so much to human solace and strength.

Do not say that practically there is little difference between three cents and one cent,—that the difference is hardly appreciable. A great mistake. Is it not appreciable in the cost of tea, coffee, and sugar? The reduction of one cent a pound in the tariff on sugar, of two cents on coffee, or of a few cents on tea, is not treated as trivial.

There is the poor pensioner with eight dollars a month. She, too, has family and friends; but the postal tax interferes to arrest the congenial intercourse. Every letter adds to the burden she is obliged to bear. Her fingers forget the pen, and she finds herself alone. Nor is this hardship peculiar to the poor pensioner. An eminent citizen and valued friend, who has given much attention to this subject, states the case thus: “When one of my children is absent, I write a line every day. Suppose I were a poor widow, earning barely enough to make the two ends meet, and had children in the West, to each of whom I should want to write at least once a week, making in all several dollars a year; then the cost would be oppressive.” This simple illustration brings home the operation of the postal tax now imposed by law, and shows how it troubles those who most need the care and tenderness of the world. The tax on letters is like the tax on salt. If it must exist, it must be small, very small.

There are some who think that no existing institution is oppressive. According to them, Slavery was not oppressive. In the same mood, the law of 1845, with its two rates of five cents and ten cents, and then again the law of 1855, by which the rate of five cents was reduced to three cents, were pronounced unnecessary. The multifarious rates anterior to 1845 were not oppressive, and in 1855 there was no call for the reduction of the rate from five cents to three cents. Such was the argument then, precisely as now. So in the days of Slavery it was argued that the slaves did not desire freedom, and that their condition was not oppressive. The great reform of Rowland Hill encountered the same objection. Even Lord Ashburton, while favoring a change, was content with twopence or threepence, and, in his testimony, settled down upon threepence as satisfactory. He shrank from the penny rate.[102] This question was treated with excellent sense by Mr. Jones Loyd, whom I have already quoted, whose testimony bears strongly on this very objection. After saying “that the present rate of postage does in point of fact produce a prohibition of the use of the Post-Office to all classes that may be considered as below the higher classes,”[103] the attention of the witness was called by the Committee to the allegation “that the laboring classes do not feel the oppressive rate of postage.” He replied in words of wisdom worthy of memory now, and completely applicable to the very question now before the Senate:—