Constitution giving the war making power to Congress
was dictated, as I understand it, by the following reasons: kings had
always been involving and impoverishing their people in wars, pretending
generally, if not always, that the good of the people was the object.
This our convention understood to be the most oppressive of all kingly
oppressions, and they resolved to so frame the Constitution that no one
man should hold the power of bringing this oppression upon us. But your
view destroys the whole matter, and places our President where kings have
always stood. Write soon again.

Yours truly,

A. LINCOLN.

REPORT IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

MARCH 9, 1848.

Mr. Lincoln, from the Committee on the Postoffice and Post Roads, made the
following report:

The Committee on the Post-office and Post Roads, to whom was referred the
resolution of the House of Representatives entitled "An Act authorizing
postmasters at county seats of justice to receive subscriptions for
newspapers and periodicals, to be paid through the agency of the
Post-office Department, and for other purposes," beg leave to submit the
following report:

The committee have reason to believe that a general wish pervades the
community at large that some such facility as the proposed measure should
be granted by express law, for subscribing, through the agency of the
Post-office Department, to newspapers and periodicals which diffuse daily,
weekly, or monthly intelligence of passing events. Compliance with
this general wish is deemed to be in accordance with our republican
institutions, which can be best sustained by the diffusion of knowledge
and the due encouragement of a universal, national spirit of inquiry and
discussion of public events through the medium of the public press. The
committee, however, has not been insensible to its duty of guarding the
Post-office Department against injurious sacrifices for the accomplishment
of this object, whereby its ordinary efficacy might be impaired or
embarrassed. It has therefore been a subject of much consideration; but
it is now confidently hoped that the bill herewith submitted effectually
obviates all objections which might exist with regard to a less matured
proposition.

The committee learned, upon inquiry, that the Post-office Department,
in view of meeting the general wish on this subject, made the experiment
through one if its own internal regulations, when the new postage system
went in