Cheap postal communication with foreign countries will be of incalculable importance to the commerce of the United States.
By promoting the intercourse of families and friends separated by ocean, cheap postage will add to the sum of human happiness.
The present high rates of ocean postage—namely, twenty-four cents on half an ounce, forty-eight cents on an ounce, and ninety-six cents on a letter which weighs a fraction more than an ounce—are a severe tax upon all, particularly upon the poor, amounting, in many cases, to a complete prohibition of foreign correspondence. This should not be.
It particularly becomes our country, by the removal of all unnecessary burdens upon foreign correspondence, to advance the comfort of European emigrants seeking a home among us, and to destroy, as far as practicable, every barrier to free intercourse between the Old World and the New.
And, lastly, cheap ocean postage will be a bond of peace among the nations of the earth, and will extend good-will among men.
By such reasons this measure is commended. Much as I rejoice in the American steamers, which vindicate a peaceful supremacy of the seas, and help to weave a golden tissue between the two hemispheres, I cannot consider these, with all their unquestionable advantages, an equivalent for cheap ocean postage. I trust that they are not inconsistent with each other, and that both may flourish together.
Objection was made to the resolution, as not being addressed to the proper Committee, and a brief debate ensued, in which Mr. Rusk, Mr. Gwin, Mr. Badger, Mr. Davis, Mr. Seward, Mr. Mason, and Mr. Sumner took part. It was urged by the last, in reply, that the Committee on Naval Affairs was the proper Committee, as at the present moment it is specially charged with a subject intimately connected with the inquiry proposed. At the suggestion of Mr. Badger the matter was allowed to lie over till the next day.
On Tuesday, March 9th, the Senate proceeded to consider the resolution submitted by Mr. Sumner on the 8th, relative to Ocean Steamers and Cheap Ocean Postage. On motion of Mr. Sumner, it was amended, and finally adopted, without opposition, as follows:—
"Resolved, That the Committee on the Post Office and Post Roads be directed to inquire whether the present charges on letters carried by the Ocean Steamers are not unnecessarily large and burdensome to foreign correspondence, and whether something may not be done, and, if so, what, to secure the great boon of Cheap Ocean Postage."