January 1845 (_Congressional Globe_).

"And what element but universal enlightenment of the people forms the
chief corner-stone in the temple of our political hopes? and what
instrument so calculated to awaken the ambition of the people to become
educated as the cultivation of the taste for epistolatory
correspondence, calling into action those energies of the mind so
necessary to the intelligent discharge of the high and responsible
duties of freemen, in a country where every man is equal, and the
builder and maker of his Government."--Mr. Paterson in the House of
Representatives, 1st March 1845 (_Congressional Globe_).

[168] "The extension of the mail service and the additional facilities
which will be demanded by the rapid extension and increase of population
on our western frontier will not admit of such curtailment as will
materially reduce the present expenditure."--Message to Congress, 2nd
December 1845.

[169] "The honour and interest of the nation required that as soon as
the title to the country was settled, our citizens who were resident
there, and those who shall go to settle there, should enjoy the benefits
of the mail. And as it was the nation's business to establish the mail,
it was equally the nation's business to pay the expense. No man can show
how it is just and reasonable that the letters passing between Boston
and New York should be taxed 150 per cent. to pay the expenses of a mail
to Oregon on the pretext that the Post Office must support itself."--J.
Leavitt, _Cheap Postage_, Boston, Mass., 1848, p. 27.

[170] Mr. Root (_Congressional Globe, House of Representatives_, 18th
December 1850).

[171] "Sir, I am acquainted with the privations and hardships incident
to the settlement of a new country: and I do not intend that my friends
who are now combating the trials and hardships of California and Oregon
shall be visited by their Government with such injustice. The men who
are settling those countries are sacrificing their lives for a coming
generation. I will not add to their hardships by taxing them four times
as much as a citizen of the old States of the Union for a letter which
shall give them intelligence of their friends left behind them, and
shall chill that gush of feeling which will swell their bosoms, as they
take possession of a letter that comes from their far-distant native
land."--Mr. Sweetser (Ibid., 4th January 1851).

[172] _Congressional Record, Senate_, 17th January 1883.