16-12 49-72 North.

South.

1,956,600 1,000,914

555,463

545,168

Whole expense of transportation, $1,401,037 $1,546,182 Whole receipts for postage, Receipts exceed expenditures, Expenditures exceed receipts, Receipts, north exceeds the south, 955,696 Expenditures, south exceeds north,145,045 "New York," says Mr. Dana, "pays into the treasury $725,187, and receives back for mail transportation $352,329; and the balance of her contributions, amounting to $372,858, is expended to supply the deficiencies of revenue in other states. Massachusetts pays $246,961, and receives for mail transportation $131,749; the balance, $115,212, is expended in other states. Pennsylvania pays $334,846, receives $187,437, and contributes for the use of others $147,409. The northern section contributes $555,463 towards the expense of mail transportation at the south. Every southern state, except Delaware and Louisiana, fails to supply an amount of funds sufficient to meet the expenses of the mail transportation within its own limits. North Carolina is deficient $103,944, Arkansas $41,006, Alabama $128,907 Florida $29,465, Virginia over $50,000, Georgia over $76,000, Kentucky over $52,000, &c. The post VOL. VI.

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age paid at the north averages 28.68 cents per head of the whole population; at the south 19.88 cents. The north pays $2 28 into the common fund, for each dollar paid at the south, and this joint fund is divided almost equally between them. The north are willing to pay as much postage in future as they have done in times past-they ask for no diminutionexpend it where it is most needed, for the benefit of the whole country.”

And yet the whole south went in a body against the reduction of postage, on the pretense that it was a scheme of the north to avoid their share of the public burdens. It was even said by southern statesmen, under the lead of Mr. M'Duffie, that the post-office was the only branch of the government which the south was not overtaxed to support!

The Exclusive Right of the Postoffice. It has been taken for granted, rather than proved, that the right of the federal government to establish mails is an exclusive right. But the public discussions and legal proceedings which took place in the years 1843-5, greatly weakened the public confidence in the infallibility of this axiom. The only argument we have seen in its favor, is that unless the post-office has an exclusive right, it can not support itself. But the constitution contains no intimation that the post-office is bound to support itself, any more than the navy is bound to support itself. Besides, it was proved by our own experience in 1844, that the postoffice could not be made to support itself by the exercise of coercive power against private mails. The department was compelled to underbid the private mails, as they were then managed. And the experiment in Great Britain proves, that the post-office can best be made to support itself by adopting the lowest possible rates of postage. And it has been shown that if no burdens are thrown upon letter postage but those which properly belong to it, the same principles are fully apWhat then becomes plicable here. of the argument for exclusive right?

Does the right given to Congress to levy taxes, deprive the states of the power to levy taxes? The right of Congress to create and sustain an army and navy, did not inhibit the states from doing the same thing, and therefore a clause was inserted in the constitution for this purpose. In the year 1844, a case was argued before the United States District Court at Philadelphia, by the cele brated John Sergeant, and a sketch of his argument was published in the North American.

"He contended that the exclusive power of carrying letters had not been given to the government. He insisted that no evidence of such a power is to be found in the constitution, and that if any law of Congress can be shown clearly to assume such an exclusive right, that law is unconstitutional. He exhibited in a bold and striking manner the despotic character of a power which compels the citizen to send his letters by the government post-office, and pay the government price

or not send at all. He said that such a

monopoly might suit the spirit of Mehemet Ali's government, but could not be compatible with our free system. He compared it to the Spanish monopoly of the tobacco trade-the government for cing all tobacco planters to sell to the monarch, and all tobacco-chewers to buy of the monarch. He showed to what abuses such a monopoly might lead, and maintained that the possible abuses furnished a test of the principle involved in the exclusive claim of the Post-office De

partment. He urged with great emphasis that the very nature of the power claimed, furnished a most violent presumption that no such monopoly had ever

been given by the people to the general

government.

"Mr. Sergeant dwelt for a short time on the remarkable fact, that we have not

been allowed to avail ourselves of the wonderful improvements of the age, for the purpose of correspondence. He expressed his opinion, that letters might be carried from that city to Boston for Two CENTS."

In the case of the United States vs. Adams, of New York, Judge Betts, of the federal District Court, instructed the jury that they could not convict Adams for the act of his agent in carrying letters, unless it was proved to them that he had knowledge of the act. The jury

acquitted Adams. In the numerous prosecutions which were commenced under Mr. Wickliffe's adminis tration, it was generally believed that care was taken not to make a case which would allow the defendants to carry the question up to the Supreme Court for adjudication. All judicious persons agree that the public good requires that the business of establishing post-offices and carrying mails should be conducted under the control of the federal government. And if this control is exercised for the public good, on principles of beneficence and not of exaction, the people will never wish to raise the question, whether the Let us have right is exclusive.

cheap postage, and that question may well rest for ever.

"For preventing the miscarriage of letters,-It is ordered that notice be given, that RICHARD FAIRBANKS, his house in Boston is the place ap pointed for all letters, which are brought from beyond the seas, or brought unto him, and he is to take are to be sent thither ;-are to bee care that they bee delivered, or sent according to their directions, and hee is alowed for every such letter ld. and must answer all miscar riages through his owne neglect in this kind provided that no man shall bee compelled to bring his let ters thither except hee please."

An Act, Jan. 6, 1673-4, allows 3d. per mile to any person that is sent post upon the public service. In 1693, the British government established a post-office for the colonies; and the legislature of Massachusetts passed an "Act encour

aging a post-office, which provides that no other person than the Postmaster General and his deputies shall carry letters, except private friends or special messengers on private business, on penalty of £40. The postage was for each letter by ship, 2d.; from Boston to Rhode Island, 6d.; to Connecticut, 9d.; to New York, 12d.; to Virginia, 2s.; and id. for local delivery. This was a part of the system established for the colonies by the British government, which continued until the revolution. The Postmaster General was appointed by the crown, and he appointed all the local postmasters, who were therefore styled his deputies, as they held their offices under his authority and at his pleasure, and executed them by his directions. The post-office was used as a means of raising revenue from the colonies without their consent, by the power claimed of enhancing the rates of postage at the pleasure of the crown.

In the year 1774, the people resolved to throw off this as well as other oppressions. Public attention was specially aroused by the dismissal of Dr. Franklin from his office of Postmaster General. A letter addressed to Lord North, dated, London, February 5, 1774, calls "the dismissing Dr. Frank. lin from the Postmaster General in North America," at this particular crisis, "one of the most fortunate events that could have happened" to this country. "The people there never liked the institution, and only acquiesced in it out of their unbounded affection for the person that held the office, who had taken infinite pains to render it convenient to the several colonies. But what will follow now, my Lord? I will tell you; the post from Philadelphia to Boston is that alone which produces any profit, and there the Americans will immediately set up a carrier of their own, which you, with all your brethren in power, to

gether with Lord Hillsborough's abilities, can not prevent, and thereby they will entirely starve your post between those capital cities. And thus will happily end your boasted post-office, so often given as a precedent for taxing America."

It is evident that the idea of private mails sustained by the popular will for the purpose of starving the post-office, is not original with this generation. In the same month, Mr. William Goddard, printer of the Maryland Journal, brought forward a project for what he called a "Constitutional Post," that is, a post which should not be the instrument of taxing the people, in other words a free mail. He came through the country as far as Portsmouth, N. H., and was every where treated with cordiality, in Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, Boston, Salem, and Portsmouth. Mr. Goddard had himself suffered from the oppressive dictation of the carriers of the royal post. "The sum of £52 per annum was demanded at the post-office, for the carriage of about three hundred and fifty newspapers one hundred and thirty miles." On the 2d of July, 1774, he advertised that he was ready to commence business, having "been warmly and generously patronized by all the friends of freedom in the eastern colonies, where ample funds are already secured." We see where people used to go for funds to establish free mails.

On the 3d of May, 1775, the "New York committee," then in session, appointed a committee to inquire of the postmaster why the post riders to the eastward had been dismissed. The postmaster assigned as a reason, that "the four last mails between New York and Boston had been stopped, the mails broken open, many of the letters taken out and publicly read, some of which were detained," &c. Thereupon, the committee issued a notice that the postriders had been employed to depart on their usual

days for the eastward, and that Mr. Ebenezer Hazard "has undertaken to receive and forward letters."

On the 4th, it was announced in New York, that "an office for this necessary business will doubtless be put under proper regulations by the Continental Congress, and no more be permitted to return to the rapa cious hands of unauthorized intruders since it would be the most contemptible pusillanimity to suffer a revenue to be raised from our property to defray the expense of cutting our throats," and that "Mr. William Goddard, who has been a great sufferer, with many others, by the malpractices of an illegal holder of this office," was on a journey to the eastward to put the business in train to be laid before Congress.

Congress established the American Continental post-office in July 26, 1775; and thus superseded all the private mails. Congress then

resolved, "That the communication of intelligence with frequency and dispatch, from one part to another of this extensive continent, is essentially requisite to its safety. That is the corner stone of our American post-office, and not the impracticable dogma that the post-office is bound, in any event, to support itself. The old "Articles of Confederation" gave to Congress "the sole and exclusive power" to establish mails. The fact that the words "sole and exclusive" were left out of the new constitution in 1787, is conclusive to show that it was not intended to confer an odious and oppressive monopoly upon the government. They had had enough of such a system under the crown. Depend upon it, unless the reasonable wishes of the people are met by Congress, the means will be found of establishing cheap mails on all the productive routes in the country.

THE diligent student of Nature, particularly in the departments of Chemistry and Natural Philosophy, will feel, as he advances, a constantly increasing conviction of these three great truths: first, that the world we inhabit is stored with riches far beyond what is generally known or conceived of; secondly, that the world was made for man; and thirdly, that it was made for all mankind, for the many in contradistinction to the few.

In the present paper, we propose to offer a few observations on the Riches of the Natural World as exhibited in the powers, in the productions, and in the embellishments of the physical creation. Few of our race, it is believed, are aware how noble and beautiful a heritage our Creator has prepared for us-what great and diversified offices the powers of na

ture stand ready to perform at our bidding-how multiplied are the productions of the natural world, and what a variety of purposes they are severally capable of servingand what costly ornaments the Divine Architect has employed to decorate this fair workmanship of his hands, the great temple of nature. Nor is the student of nature himself always fully sensible of the extent of her treasures. Each one, for the most part, confines his views to some corner or limited portion of the structure, unconscious of the riches that are stored, with no less profusion, in every other part of the vast edifice. So exhaustless seems to him the particular portion of creation, which he has chanced to select as the field of his own study, that he can hardly imagine that other fields, unexplored by him, are equally filled

with riches and beauty. This, indeed, seems the more incredible to him, because the farther he advances, the more impressed he is with the belief that his own department of nature is the peculiar favorite of heaven, since the more he explores the more exhaustless appears the mine. To each one his own art or science seems more admirable, in proportion as his attainments in it grow higher and higher. Thus the charms of music seem most exhaustless to such proficients as Handel and Mozart; the flower most beautiful to the bot anist; the gem most precious to the mineralogist; the bird most interest ing to the ornithologist; earth, sea, and air, to the natural philosopher; the starry heavens to the astronomer. But it is only when the powers and the productions of the natural world are surveyed in all their amplitude, and in all their relations, that any adequate idea can be formed of the riches of the natural world at large. In estimating the treasures of the vegetable kingdom, for example, how many different views of it must be taken, before its value to man can be fully comprehended. Botany, which describes and classifies the ninety thousand different species of plants; Physiology, which investigates the laws of vegetable life; Chemistry, which explores the hidden elements, and discloses the nature and composition of all vegetable products; Architecture, Agriculture, and Gardening, each in their several departments; Political Economy, which investigates the relations this kingdom of nature bears to the sustenance and comfort of the human race; and finally Taste, which contemplates this part of creation in respect to the images it forms of the beautiful and sublime: all these different sciences and arts must be contemplated, in their respective relations to the vegetable kingdom, before any just conception can be formed of the vastness of its treasures. Indeed, when we con

sider how boundless is the field which our subject opens, and compare it with the limited nature of our intellectual powers, and the brevity of our lives, we feel that, before we can rise to the full comprehension of the "Riches of the Natural World," we must be endowed with a nobler nature, and clothed with immortality.

Then shall we see and hear and know, All we desired or wished below. Such a view of creation has, we believe, been adequately taken only by spiritual beings, as when "the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy." But we feel impressed with the solemn thought, that God only has seen even this lower world in the fullness of its treasures; that it formed a part (perhaps but an infinitesimal part) of that first comprehensive view which he took of his new creation, when he saw every thing that he had made, and pronounced it "very good." He looked abroad upon the earth and heavens : then, first, the mountains and the hills broke forth into singing, and all the trees of the field clapped their hands.

With what emotions did the Infinite Mind survey his works, and, for the first time, contemplate the great machine of the Universe! It is not irreverent to suppose that He first surveyed it, not only in its external forms of beauty and grandeur, but also in the laws which govern its operations, or regulate its motions. Under the control of chemical principles which He had ordained, vapors are beginning to ascend and gather on high in majestic clouds to water the earth with showers-springs are gushing from a thousand fountains-rivers commencing their long circuits to the sea, and the sea rolling its waves. Even the dark recesses of the earth were not hidden; but ere Geology had disclosed its wonders, the deep foundations of the earth in their appointed