Newspaper postage continued as before, except that the postage was reduced to one cent, though conveyed more than one hundred miles, if delivered in the same State in which it was printed. In 1825 the law was revised, but the rates of postage were confirmed, as in 1816, above. Under these circumstances, I was warranted in the conclusion that the rates of postage were so far settled, as that no important difference in their aggregate amount was to be contemplated. An experience of forty years, without producing an opposite conviction in the public mind, was deemed sufficient to justify the conclusion that the principle was settled. On this principle all the existing contracts for transporting the mails have been predicated. A reduction of the rates will, of course, require a very important reduction in the mail facilities of the country. In relation to postage on newspapers, the consequence will be no less embarrassing. The expense of their transportation is very great, and their numbers are continually multiplying. It is an occurrence of almost every day, that more than a ton weight of newspapers is carried in one mail for hundreds of miles together, and at the rate of from eighty to upwards of a hundred miles a day; and if the postage on them shall be abolished, the number will be multiplied, and the expense of their transportation increased. It will probably be the means of superseding many of our village newspapers, by supplying their place with papers from the cities, which will render it difficult to provide for their rapid transportation at any expense. The postages returned on newspapers for the year ending the 30th of June last amounted to $254,796 64. If this sum shall be abstracted from the revenues of the Department, and the same or increased services still performed, it must be obvious that its present operations cannot be continued upon its own resources. The conveyance of letters by mail affords a considerable revenue, with but little weight to transport. That revenue is the principal support of the Department. The conveyance of newspapers by mail gives a heavy weight to transport, with but a light revenue compared with their weight. If the revenue arising from letter postage shall be materially diminished, or if that arising from newspapers shall be abolished, it will be necessary so to abridge the mail facilities of the country, as that daily mails cannot be carried except between the principal commercial cities on the seaboard. The frequency and celerity of mail intercourse must almost every where be diminished; horse transportation must be substituted for that of mail coaches on many important routes; and distinct and more tardy methods must be adopted for transporting newspapers than letters. Such will be the inevitable consequences, unless provision shall be made to defray the expense from the treasury-a resort never solicited, never desired, and never given. With these views, which are the result of certain calculation, the course which it will be most eligible to adopt is respectfully submitted to the wisdom of the committee. I have the honor to be, very respectfully, your obedient servant, Hon. FELIX GRUNDY, Chairman of the Committee on the Post Offices and Post Roads, U. S. Senate. W. T. BARRY 22d Congress.] No. 125. [2d SESSION. INDEMNITY ASKED BY MAIL CONTRACTORS FOR THE LOSS OF A STAGE AND HORSES. COMMUNICATED TO THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, FEBRUARY 6, 1833. Mr. CONNOR, from the Committee on the Post Offices and Post Roads, to whom was referred the petition of Reeside and Robinson, reported: That the petitioners set forth that they were contractors for carrying the mail from Montgomery Court-house, in Virginia, to Blountsville, in Tennessee; that, in January, 1829, in attempting to cross Reed creek, near Wythe Court-house, in Virginia, the waters being up, their horses were drowned, and stage and harness injured; for which loss and damage they ask of Congress remuneration. The committee view it, when an individual or individuals make a contract with the Post Office Department for the transportation of the mail, that they are to run the risk of loss and damage in stock, stages, &c.; the annual compensation given for the performance of the service is deemed to be satisfactory to the person or persons thus engaging. Your committee, therefore, believe it inexpedient, and Resolve, That the prayer of the petitioners be not granted. 22d CONGRESS.] No. 126. [2d SESSION. APPLICATION FOR CARRYING THE MAIL ON THE OHIO AND MISSISSIPPI RIVERS IN STEAMBOATS. COMMUNICATEd to the senATE, FEBRUARY 20, 1833. To the honorable the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States in Congress assembled: Your memorialists, citizens of the town of Louisville, and commonwealth of Kentucky, respectfully represent: 66 That an association or company has lately been formed by citizens of Louisville, Cincinnati, New Orleans, Pittsburg, and other places, composed of a number of their most wealthy, enterprising, and meritorious merchants and traders, under the name of the Ohio and Mississippi Mail Line;" and, with a view to promote the best interests of commerce and navigation on the western waters, it has succeeded in establishing, at great expense, a line of packets between the cities of Cincinnati and New Orleans, consisting of a number of the largest and most commodious steamboats. The number of vessels necessarily employed in the carrying trade on the Mississippi and its tributaries; the loose and irregular manner of conducting, heretofore, this business; the many disastrous and fatal accidents which have occurred from their coming in contact and the bursting of boilers, in most cases the result of carelessness or reckless competition, having impaired the public confidence in this mode of transportation, induced the persons composing said association to embark in that enterprise. When your memorialists take into consideration the rapid improvement of the western country, the amount and value of its products, and the great extent of its inland navigation, they hesitate not to say, that any scheme which promises security to life and property embarked in commerce is worthy of public patronage. Your memorialists beg leave to represent, that they have been informed that a proposition has been made by said company to the Post Office Department to carry a mail in said line of packets from the city of Louisville to the city of New Orleans, three times a week for six months in the year; and that the Postmaster General, though convinced of its utility, has not the power, under the law regulating his duties, to enter into the contract upon fair and equitable terms. It is true that the law referred to provides that all waters on which steamboats regularly ply between port and port shall be regarded as post roads; but it also provides that the Postmaster General shall only have power to contract with any person or company to carry the mail in steamboats on such waters where the expense does not exceed three cents for each letter, and a half cent for each newspaper; and this compensation for carrying the mail, as above proposed, would be inadequate. The fact, well known to your honorable bodies, that New Orleans is the depot of the marketable productions of this immense valley, will show the great importance of facilitating intercourse between it and the principal towns on the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. At present, there are three mails a week between Louisville and New Orleans, conveyed by land, a distance of about a thousand miles, and each is fourteen days in the transit, when it may be carried by steampackets, in perfect security, in about half that time. Most of the business correspondence is now conveyed by steamboats, post free, which must, from the best estimate that can be made, occasion an annual loss to the Post Office Department of from $15,000 to $20,000. It is believed by your memorialists, that, should the mail be sent from this place as proposed, every other day, in steampackets, to New Orleans, the mail from Baltimore would reach that city in about eleven days; and, upon this plan, the Ohio and Mississippi would become the great mail artery for the western and southwestern regions, diverging, as it conveniently might, into the interior, from prominent points on said rivers. Your memorialists respectfully represent, that, during the steamboat season, (say from the 1st of January to the 1st of July,) the roads are bad, the streams high, the mails heavy and often detained, and packages much injured. Consequently, the river route is not only the most expeditious, but likewise the safest. The balance of the year, the navigation is uncertain, the roads good, and the mails comparatively light. Hence it is not desirable that the mails should be carried by steam longer than the period above stated. Wherefore, your memorialists humbly pray that a law may be passed to authorize the Postmaster General to contract for the transportation of said mail from Louisville to New Orleans by water, &c. And your memorialists, as in duty bound, will ever pray. 22d CONGRESS.] No. 127. [2d SESSION. COST OF TRANSPORTING THE MAIL IN EACH STATE, INCLUDING THE EXPENSES OF POST OFFICES AND EXTRA ALLOWANCES MADE TO CONTRACTORS. SIR: COMMUNICATED TO THE SENATE, FEBRUARY 21, 1833. POST OFFICE DEPARTMENT, February 19, 1833. In obedience to the resolution of the Senate, dated June 9, 1832, I have the honor to submit the following report: The resolution calls for a report of "the amount of expense of transporting the mail, and all the contingent and other expenses attending the post offices in each State, so far as the same can be ascertained, with the amount of extra allowances made to contractors since the 1st of January, 1830." Not having received official information of the passage of the resolution, I was not apprized of its existence till some time after the commencement of the present session; when, being advised of it through the honorable mover of the resolution, the journals of the last session were searched, where it was, for the first time, discovered by me. This will account for the delay to furnish the answer. The accounts of postmasters, with their compensation, and the contingent expenses of their several offices, are kept in alphabetical order, and not separately, by States; and the separation of the various items of charge in the whole number of nine thousand accounts for each quarter of a year, amounting to about seventy thousand for the whole time embraced in the resolution, and exhibiting the amount in each State separately, would occupy a greater length of time than the period of any one session would admit, and an amount of labor far beyond what is allotted to the business of the Department. The incidental expenses of the Department consist principally in the disbursements made for mail bags, mail locks and keys, blanks for postmasters' accounts, post bills, wrapping paper for putting up mails, agencies, &c. The mail bags and locks are sent indiscriminately through all the States; and agencies are common to different States. Blanks are furnished to each postmaster according to the magnitude of his office, without any account of the exact expense of the amount sent to each. It is, therefore, not possible to specify the amount of expense in each State. In the transportation of the mail, a very considerable proportion of the routes run partly into one State and partly into another; and, in some instances, the same route runs into three or four different States. In these cases it is impossible to determine what proportion of the expense is incurred for the transportation in each State. Mail routes also frequently pass through a State for the benefit of other States, rather than for the benefit of the State through which they pass. Such is the great mail route between Philadelphia and New York. It is placed under the head of New Jersey. Thirty miles of it are in the State of Pennsylvania, fifty-nine in New Jersey, and one mile in New York; yet it is principally for the benefit of the two cities which constitute its extreme points; and more than five times the benefit of it results to New York above that of New Jersey. This principle is still more strikingly illustrated in the mail route between Mobile and New Orleans. It runs into the three States of Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana. More than half of the whole route is in Mississippi, and, of course, more than half its expense is incurred for transporting the mail in Mississippi; yet the State of Mississippi derives no immediate benefit from it, except the supply of the little isolated office of Pascagoula, which does not yield $100 a year nett revenue to the Department. It must, therefore, be obvious that, if the exact amount expended for transporting the mail in each State could be given, it would but very imperfectly exhibit the amount of expenditure for the benefit of each State, or the comparative view of mail accommodation which each State enjoys. But another difficulty presents itself, which cannot well be obviated. It oftens happens, and in the most important mail routes, that one person or company contracts for a gross sum for carrying the mail on several routes lying in different States. In such cases, there is no rule by which it can be ascertained what proportion of that sum is applicable to the transportation in each State. If the division should be estimated in the exact proportion to the number of miles travelled in each State, it would be exceedingly incorrect, because the transportation of the mail, owing to the difference in roads, the different degrees of weight and celerity, and the difference in number of passengers, costs four times as much per mile on some routes as upon others in the same vicinity. The mail routes in the United States are divided into four sections, viz: The northeastern, comprising the States of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and New York; the middle, comprising the States of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Ohio, and Kentucky, and the Territory of Michigan; the southern, comprising the States of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, and the Territory of Florida; the southwestern, comprising the States of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, Missouri, Illinois, and Indiana, and the Territory of Arkansas. Without a greater amount of labor than can be given to it during the present session, the division of the expense for transportation cannot be made beyond that of the four divisions. The amount of expense for transporting the mail from the 1st of January, 1830, to the 1st January, 1832, was— For the northeastern section, For the middle section, For the southern section, For the southwestern section, $640,024 29. 780,976 41 The amount of extra allowances made to contractors during the same period was There was a saving during the same time in renewing the contracts in two divisions, viz: $19,195 37 25,047 87 $44,243 24 Leaving the amount of extra allowances from January 1, 1830, to January 1, 1832, beyond the amount curtailed in the same period, $74,828 63. The amount of expenses for transporting the mail for the year 1831 was $1,320,097 56; the amount of expenses for transporting the mail for the year 1829 was $1,245,268 93; the difference, agreeing with the above statement of increase, is $74,828 63; the amount paid for compensation to postmasters, including the contingent expenses of their offices, from January 1, 1830, to January 1, 1832, was $1,278,963 60; the incidental expenses of the Department were, from January 1, 1830, to January 1, 1832, $135,837 32. The foregoing statements exhibit the whole expenses of the Department for the two years from January 1, 1830, to January 1, 1832,.viz: For transportation of the mails, Compensation to postmasters, including the contingent expenses of their offices, $2,592,253 54 1,278,963 60 135,837 32 $4,007,054 46 I have the honor to be, very respectfully, sir, your obedient servant, To the Hon. HUGH L. WHITE, President of the Senate pro tem. W. T. BARRY. The committee, to whom were referred sundry petitions, from different parts of the United States, praying that Congress would prohibit, by law, the transportation and opening of the mail on the Sabbath, ask leave to report: That they have devoted that attention to the said petitions which the importance of the subject, and the motives which actuated so respectable a portion of their fellow-citizens, seemed to require. To enable them to decide with more correctness, the committee addressed a note to the Postmaster General, requesting of him information upon the following points, viz: 1. "What instructions, if any, have been given by your Department to the deputy postmasters of the United States, in regard to the arrival and departure, opening and distribution of the mail on the Sabbath?" 2. "Is the mail now transported on the Sabbath over any route where it is not transported every day in the week? If so, please to state over what route, and for what reasons, it is thus transported." 3. "Would the prohibition of the transportation and opening of the mail on the Sabbath essentially impede the arrangements of your Department, or injure the public interest?" To these inquiries, the Postmaster General returned the following answer, which the committee make a part of their report: 1 GENERAL POST OFFICE, February 20, 1817. To the honorable the Committee to whom were referred sundry petitions, from different parts of the United States, praying that Congress would prohibit, by law, the transportation and opening the mail on the Sabbath day. The first point of your inquiry is, "what instructions, if any, have been given by your Department to the postmasters of the United States, in regard to the arrival and departure of the inails at their respective offices on the Sabbath?" To which I observe, that the ninth section of the "act regulating the Post Office establishment" directs that postmasters shall attend, every day on which a mail shall arrive at their offices, and at all reasonable hours, on every day in the week. To regulate the operations of postmasters, under the above-quoted section, and to prevent unnecessary intrusion on the Sabbath, the following instructions were prescribed, to wit: "At post offices where the mail arrives on Sunday, the office is to be kept open for the delivery of letters, &c. for one hour after the arrival and assorting of the mail; but, in case that would interfere with the hours of public worship, then the office is to be kept open for one hour after the usual time of dissolving the meeting, for that pur pose. I will further state that, when a mail is conveyed on the Sabbath, it is to be opened and exchanged, at those offices which it may reach, in the course of the day. This operation (at the smaller offices) occupies not more than ten or twelve minutes; in some of the larger offices, it occupies one hour; and, it is believed, does not considerably interfere with religious exercises, as relating to the postmasters themselves. Another instruction prescribes. “That if a mail arrives at an office too late for the delivery of letters on Saturday night, the postmaster shall deliver them on Sunday morning, at such early hour as shall not intrench upon the hours devoted to public religious services." No complaint has reached this Department against postmasters for non-observance of those instructions; which, if not strictly adhered to, must be imputable to the urgency of applications, or the complaisance of the postmasters. The usage of transporting the mail on the Sabbath is coeval with the Government under the present constitution of the United States; though the practice of delivering letters on the Sabbath is of more recent origin, and commenced in 1810, by virtue of the aforesaid ninth section, and the above-recited instructions emanating therefrom. The second point of inquiry is, whether "is the mail transported on the Sabbath along any route where it is not transported every day in the week? if so, which are those routes, and for what reasons is it thus transported? To which it is replied, that in forming arrangements, and fixing the times for the arrivals and departures of mails on lesser and cross routes, care is taken to avoid the transport of the mail on the Sabbath, except where the omission to transport on that day would break chains of communications, producing great delays to public and private intercourse: and it is the mutual desire of the contractor and the Department to avoid running the mail on the Sabbath. The third point of your inquiry is, "would the prohibition of the transportation and opening the mail on the Sabbath essentially impede the arrangements of your Department, or injure the interests of the public?" As precursory to my reply to the third point, it is to be considered that the mail now passes every day in the week from Portsmouth, New Hampshire, to Savannah, in Georgia, without resting on the Sabbath; and the same practice prevails on the two great routes from Washington city to Ohio, Kentucky, Illinois Territory, and Missouri Territory; from this city to Tennessee, Mississippi, and Kentucky, to New Orleans; from Charleston to Tennessee and Kentucky; and on several other great chains of communication. If the mail were not to move on the Sabbath, on the first-mentioned route, it would be delayed from three to four days in passing from one end of the route to the other: From Washington city to New Orleans, three days; from Boston to New Orleans, four and five days; and, generally, the mails on the great route would (on an average) be detained one-seventh part of the time now employed. The following will serve as an example of delay to the weekly mails carried on horseback: The mail is carried from Baltimore to Washington city in a stage; thence, to the mouth of the Potomac, on horseback. By travelling on Sunday, there is half a day allowed in Baltimore for answering letters; but, if the horse-mail did not travel on Sunday, an answer to letters would be delayed a whole week. The compensation for carrying the mail in stages is but a partial benefit to contractors; the principal one arises from the transport of passengers. If the stages which carry the mail cannot proceed on the Sabbath, passengers will not enter those stages; of course, the stage proprietors, who offer for the carriage of the mail, will rise in their demands, according to the deduction of receipts which shall be occasioned by loss of passengers: for those rival stages which run every day will be resorted to. Even foreign agents would outspeed the Government, and obtain advantages beyond its own establishments of communication. Added to this enhanced expense of transport, would be the loss of postage that would occur from a practice (which would inevitably follow) of sending letters by passengers in those stages which run daily. This practice of sending by passengers prevailed, in a considerable degree, during the existence of the law which added fifty per cent. on former postages. A prohibition to transport the mail on the Sabbath would disorder the whole system of transportation on more than seven hundred routes. The population of the United States is widely extended. The greater the territorial extent of any Government, the greater must be the necessity for celerity and frequency of its intercourse. If it be considered necessary that governmental despatches be transmitted on the Sabbath, it may then be observed that, as far as such transmission is beneficial to the nation, by preserving or improving its condition, so far has it a tendency to the conservation and the protection of the great community, in the enjoyment of religious as well as civil liberty; and enabling it to enjoy, in safety and in quietude, the benefits diffused from a due observance of the Sabbath. The contents of mails are not confined to public despatches, nor to subjects of private business or pleasure. The same mail which transports such, equally accelerates supplies to want, consolation to affliction, and to piety evangelical correspondence; and thus, performing works of charity, it may be considered as doing good on the Sabbath day. In addition to the foregoing letter, the committee beg leave to observe, that they cordially agree with the petitioners in the importance of a religious observance of the Christian Sabbath-an institution calculated to afford an opportunity for relaxation from labor and worldly cares; for reflection upon serious and moral subjects; for devout adoration of the Creator and Governor of the world; for acts of charity and benevolence; and for the exercise and improvement of all those virtues which adorn the nature and contribute to the happiness of man. To the State Governments, however, and not to the Government of the United States, belongs the power, as far as the rights of conscience and the provisions of their respective constitutions will permit, of establishing and supporting such institutions as are calculated to enlighten the understanding and correct the heart, by inculcating and diffusing among the people the great principles of piety, religion, and morality, and of passing and enforcing laws to prevent the profanation of the Sabbath. The power to establish post offices and post roads" is, by the constitution of the United States, exclusively vested in Congress; and the transportation and distribution of the mail, at such times and under such circumstances as the public interest may require, are necessarily incident to that power. In regulating an establishment of so much importance to the country, Congress have, by law, enjoined it upon the Postmaster General "to provide for the carriage of the mail on all post roads that are, or may be, established by law; and as often as he, having regard to the productiveness thereof, and other circumstances, shall think proper." In pursuance of this authority, it has been the invariable practice of that Department, ever since the establishment of the General Government, to provide for the transportation of the mail, upon every day of the week, along the great and important routes through and across the country. If, in the early period of our political existence, such an arrangement was found necessary, the great increase of wealth, population, and territory, which has since taken place, in the opinion of the committee, demands its continuance. In a country so extensive, and whose citizens are united by so many ties of friendship and consanguinity, as well as of business and policy, the convenience of the people and the exigencies of Government alike require that every reasonable facility should be furnished for the intercourse and communication of its different parts. Under some circumstances, the petitioners themselves must admit that travelling upon the Sabbath is not only excusable, but an act of duty; and the committee cannot doubt that, along the chain of communication from one extremity of the Union to the other, through places of great wealth and business, and a dense population, the facility of communication furnished by the mail prevents, in numerous instances, the doing of that which, without such facility, would be a "work of necessity or charity." Many of the evils stated by the petitioners are not necessarily incident to the practice of which they complain. The transportation of the mail upon the Sabbath, by the agent of the Government, furnishes no justification to the traveller who unnecessarily fixes upon that day to perform his journey in the public stage; nor does the delivery of letters at the respective post offices justify the assemblage of a concourse of people at such offices on that day. These evils, if they exist, it is perfectly within the power of the several State Governments to correct. But, as the practice of travelling on the Sabbath is tolerated by the State Governments, in at least three-fourths of the Union, the prohibition of the transportation of the mail on that day would have no other effect than to transfer to private hands that communication from place to place which is now performed by the Government. Stage coaches and expresses would supply the place of the mail. If, for example, the mail should not pass on the Sabbath between New York and Philadelphia, or between Philadelphia and Baltimore, there being no law to prohibit any other communication between those places on that day, the citizens of those large commercial cities would still maintain their daily intercourse with each other, by such private conveyance as they could employ. This would put upon the road, as agents, expresses, and private contractors, many more persons and carriages than are now employed in the transportation of the mail. Until, therefore, the prohibition of travelling on the Sabbath, by the several State Governments, shall have become, in some degree, general, a law to stop the mail on that day would rather increase than diminish the evil of which the petitioners complain. In the opinion which the committee have formed upon this subject, they have not been influenced by any considerations of economy in the transportation of the mail, though that is alluded to in the letter of the Postmaster General; but by a sincere belief that, in the present situation of the State laws, and under proper regulations, the practice is as consistent with the requirements of the moral law as it is with a sound and enlightened policy. But, although the committee believe it necessary to continue the transportation of the mail, they do not perceive that the same necessity exists for the delivery of letters at the respective post offices on the Sabbath. They, therefore report the following resolutions: Resolved, That it is inexpedient, at this time, to pass any law respecting the transportation of the mail. Resolved, That provision be made, by law, to prohibit the delivery of letters at the respective post offices of the United States on the Sabbath. In obedience to your request, I have the honor to submit the following statement respecting the affairs of this Department. There are established by law 88,600 miles of post roads in the United States; and, at this time, the mail is transported 85,700 miles on these roads, leaving 2,900 miles not yet carried into operation. The mail is transported in stages on 20,943 miles of post roads. At the commencement of the next year the mail will be conveyed on all the routes established, with perhaps one or two exceptions, for which contracts have not yet been made. The following statement will show the increase of post roads in the years specified: In the year 1819 there were established of post roads, 9,113 miles. In the year 1820 In the year 1821 do. do. In the year 1822 do. do. 5,746 In the year 1823 do. do. 2,800 29,127 Making a total increase, in the five years stated, of twenty-nine thousand one hundred and twenty-seven miles. As near as can be known from the records of this Department, there are about 5,242 post offices established: means have been taken to ascertain the exact number. The following will show the increase and diminution of the amount due to the Department by postmasters, late postmasters, and contractors: |