Post Office.
The greatest opposition to cheap postage is from the South. The reason is obvious. As multitudes of their Post-routes do not pay for themselves, they must be paid for, through a system of high postage, by the North, or be given up. Thus in 1842, the deficit in the Post Office department from the slave States was $571,000, while the excess over the expenditures in the free States was $600,000. This went of course to make up the deficiency of the South. So that in 1842 alone the North paid all its own postage, and $571,000 of postage for the South. Nor was this all. The whole number of miles of mail transportation for 1842, was 34,835,991, at an expense of $3,087,796. Of these miles, the mail was carried 20,331,461, at a cost of $1,508,413, in the free States; and 14,504,530 miles, at a cost of $1,579,383 in the slave States; that is, it cost $70,970 more to carry the mail in the slave States than in the free, while it ran 5,826,931 miles less. Under the new system, from official returns, presenting a comparative view of the postage received at forty-two offices, North and South, during the third quarter of 1844 and 1845, it appears that while the falling off at the offices in the free States has not been one third, that at the offices in the slave States has been more than one half.
Civil, Diplomatic and Consular Agencies.
That most of the “spoils” of office, in these departments go to the slaveholders is well known. The following is the Diplomatic Agency of 1846.
Full Ministers. To Great Britain, Louis McLane; France, William R. King; Spain, Romulus M. Saunders; Turkey, Dabney S. Carr; Mexico, John Slidell; Brazil, Henry A. Wise;—all from slave States; and Russia, R. I. Ingersoll from Connecticut.
Charges. Austria, William A. Stiles; Holland, Auguste Davezac; Belgium, Thomas G. Glenson; The two Sicilies, William H. Polk; Sardinia, Robert Wickliffe; Portugal, Abraham Rencher; Venezuela, Benjamin G. Shields; Buenos Ayres, George Harris; Chili, William Crump, all from the slave states, and from the free States only Denmark, William W. Irwin; Sweden, H. W. Ellsworth; Central America, B. W. Bidlack; and Peru, A. G. Jewett.
Thus, of the seven full ministers six are from the slave States; and of the thirteen Charges, nine are from the same; and the four given to Northern men are among the most insignificant governments in the world. And this favoritism of the South has been the policy for years. The civil and consular agencies are dispensed with a like injustice to the free States. The following, prepared by Prof. Cleveland, gives the number of persons employed in 1845, in these several agencies, from a few States, with their salaries, and the number of free white inhabitants in the same.
| Free States. | Free Pop. | Persons | Salaries | Slave States | Free Pop. | Persons | Salaries |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| New York, | 2,378,890 | 37 | $ 63,250 | Virginia, | 740,968 | 114 | $200,395 |
| Pennsylvania, | 1,676,115 | 90 | 123,790 | Maryland, | 318,204 | 133 | 170,305 |
| Massachusetts, | 729,030 | 43 | 86,215 | Dist. Colum., | 30,657 | 99 | 77,455 |
| Ohio, | 1,502,122 | 6 | 4,400 | Kentucky, | 590,253 | 7 | 34,150 |
Presidential Electors.
During the twenty years, ending in 1832, there were six presidential elections. In these, the South cast 608 electoral votes, but only 41 of them for Northern candidates. During the twenty years, ending in 1835, there were five presidential elections, in which the South cast 515 electoral votes, only 11 of which were for Northern candidates.