s, to commence as soon
as they can be established and put in operation.

The measures adopted by the Postmaster-General to bring the means of
the Department into action and to effect a speedy extinguishment of its
debt, as well as to produce an efficient administration of its affairs,
will be found detailed at length in his able and luminous report. Aided
by a reorganization on the principles suggested and such salutary
provisions in the laws regulating its administrative duties as the
wisdom of Congress may devise or approve, that important Department will
soon attain a degree of usefulness proportioned to the increase of our
population and the extension of our settlements.

Particular attention is solicited to that portion of the report of the
Postmaster-General which relates to the carriage of the mails of the
United States upon railroads constructed by private corporations under
the authority of the several States. The reliance which the General
Government can place on those roads as a means of carrying on its
operations and the principles on which the use of them is to be obtained
can not too soon be considered and settled. Already does the spirit of
monopoly begin to exhibit its natural propensities in attempts to exact
from the public, for services which it supposes can not be obtained on
other terms, the most extravagant compensation. If these claims be
persisted in, the question may arise whether a combination of citizens,
acting under charters of incorporation from the States, can, by a direct
refusal or the demand of an exorbitant price, exclude the United States
from the use of the established channels of communication between the
different sections of the country, and whether the United States can
not, without transcending their constitutional powers, secure to the
Post-Office Department the use of those roads by an act of Congress
which shall provide within itself some equitable mode of adjusting the
amount of compensation. To obviate, if possible, the necessity of
considering this question, it is suggested whether it be not expedient
to fix by law the amounts which shall be offered to railroad companies
for the conveyance of the mails, graduated according to their average
weight, to be ascertained and declared by the Postmaster-General. It
is probable that a liberal proposition of that sort would be accepted.

In connection with these provisions in relation to the Post-Office
Department, I must also inv