THAT THE POST-OFFICE MUST SUPPORT ITSELF A FALLACY.
Custom makes us insensible to folly, and even to injustice. Thus the tax on letters has gained an undeserved immunity, which is augmented by a prevailing notion, sometimes supposed to find authority even in the Constitution, that the Post-Office must support itself. Whether regarded as rule or maxim or provision of the Constitution, it is without foundation, and sooner or later will be classed with those “vulgar errors” which are as disturbing in government as in science. There is nothing in the Constitution or in reason to distinguish the Post-Office in this respect from the Army, the Navy, or the Judiciary. The Constitution confers upon Congress the power “to establish post-offices and post-roads,” precisely as it confers upon Congress the power “to raise and support armies,” the power “to provide and maintain a navy,” and the power “to constitute tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court”; and in each of these cases it is empowered “to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers.” Nobody suggests that now in peace our armies shall amplify their commissariat by enforced contributions, that our navy shall redouble its economies by supplementary piracy, or that our tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court shall eke out a salary by requisitions on the suitors, to the end that each of these departments may be in some measure “self-supporting.” Why, then, should the Post-Office be subjected to a different rule? Not, surely, because it is less beneficent; not because it is the youngest child of Government, a very Benjamin, coming into being long after the others. But such is the case. The rule for the others is discarded when we come to the Post-Office, and here for the first time we hear that a Department of Government must be “self-supporting.”
As there is no ground in the Constitution for this pretension, so is there none in reason. Of all existing departments, the Post-Office is most entitled to consideration, for it is most universal in its beneficence. That public welfare which is the declared object of all the departments appears here in its most attractive form. There is nothing which is not helped by the Post-Office. Is business in question? The Post-Office is at hand with invaluable aid, quickening and multiplying all its activities. Is it charity? The Post-Office is the good Samaritan, omnipresent on all the highways of the land. Is it the precious intercourse of family or friends? The Post-Office is carrier, interpreter, and handmaid. Is it education? The Post-Office is schoolmaster, with school for all and with scholars counted by the million. Is it the service of Government? The Post-Office lends itself so completely to this essential work, that the national will is conveyed without noise or effort to the most remote corners, and the Republic becomes one and indivisible. Without the Post-Office where would be that national unity, with irresistible guaranty of Equal Rights to All, which is now the glory of the Republic? Impossible! absolutely impossible! Therefore, in the name of all these, do I insist that now, in these days of equality, the Post-Office shall be admitted to equality with all other departments of Government, so that it may discharge its own peculiar and many-sided duties, without being compelled to find in itself the means of support. It has enough to do without taking thought of the morrow. On every side and in every direction it is the beneficent helper. To the Army it is a staff; to the Navy it is a tender; to the Treasury it is a support; to the Judiciary it is a police; to President and Congress it is an adjunct; and to all else, public or private, whatever the interest, aspiration, or sentiment, it is an incomparable ally. Better than two blades of grass are two letters where was only one before; and when the precious product is measured by millions, you see the vastness of the beneficence.