stitution of a suit on behalf of the United States, against the agent of the "American letter Mail Company," for a violation of the laws of the United States, in carrying letters out of the mail, which was tried before the Honourable Judge Story, one of the most eminent of American jurists, and who is reported to have declared on the trial, in interpreting that part of the Federal Constitution bearing on this subject," that there was some doubt whether any mail route existed in the United States, which would come under the legal term 'established by law.' There were mail routes it was true, but there was no law, making one road or another a specific mail route. Mail carriers were not required to carry the mail on particular roads; they were only required to reach particular points, designated > as post offices, within given times. That a still more important question lay behind all these,-and that was, whether the Government had by the Constitution, any exclusive right to set up post offices and post roads, or whether its jurisdiction extended any further, than the right to make laws, regulating the conduct of those actually employed in the service of the United States mail. His own opinions were opposed to any exclusive right on the part of the Government." The consequence of which decision was, the immediate withdrawal of the action, and entire abandonment of the proceedings.

The report of the Post-master General, December 2nd, 1843, submitted to Congress in relation to

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this subject, bears so materially on the question in issue, that we extract the following, wherein he

states:

"It will appear by a reference to the statement of the gross revenue of this department for the years 1841, 1842, and 1843, that while the revenue of 1842 was greater than that of 1841, that of 1843 is less by 250,320 dollars than the revenue of 1842.

"The causes of this declension in the revenue of 1843, may be various; some referring them to the state of the business of the country. I am, however, fully persuaded by facts and testimony, which have been brought to my knowledge, that one cause, if not the principal one, may be ascribed to the operations of the numerous private posts, under the name of expresses, which have sprung into existence within the past few years, extending themselves over the mail roads between the principal cities and towns, by which, and at which, the railroads pass and terminate. That these private posts are engaged in the business of transporting letters and mail matter, for pay, to a great extent, is a fact which will not be seriously controverted. That the revenue of the department has been greatly reduced by their operations, no one will question who will investigate the facts.

"The laws for the punishment of offences for transporting mail matter over post roads, were enacted when the transportation of the United States mail was confined to stages, steamboats, and horses. Railroads were not then in existence in the United States, and the penal sanctions of the law are not adequate to the suppression of the practice.

'Railroads, whilst they are the most extensive mode of transporting the United States mail, furnish to those who choose, the earliest and cheapest mode of violating the laws prohibiting the establishment of private posts. Duty compels me to state it as my opinion, that without further legislation upon this subject by Congress, the revenue of the department will in time be so far affected, by the inroads of private expresses, that the service will either have to be reduced below the just wants of the public,

or appropriations from the General Treasury will be required to meet the current expenditure of the department.

"In the course of the past year I have been called upon to express my opinions upon the subject officially. These opinions have been attacked, and controverted by many; and the question is distinctly presented whether the power granted to Congress to establish post offices and post roads, is plenary and exclusive.

"It is contended by some, that though this power is granted to Congress, individuals and companies have a right to carry on the business of transporting letters, &c. over the post roads of the United States, and all laws which forbid them are void, and usurpations on individual right.

"Others contend, that the Post Office system is an odious monopoly, and ought to be abolished. These are the grave questions urged by a portion of a powerful press, and sustained by the influence of those whose interests are involved. They are questions, which, if they have not been settled by the legislative and judiciary departments of the Government, should now

be settled.

"The power to establish post offices, and post roads, was exercised by Congress under the Articles of Confederation. From the moment Congress thus assumed the power by the sanction of the states, no state, or citizen of a state, presumed to exercise the right. If there be any one subject, concerning the internal interests of the states and the people, which should be regarded as purely national, it is the business of transporting by the authority of law, and of right, letters from one state to, and through another. A uniform, equal, and harmonious system, can only be conducted by a power coextensive with that system. It is absurd, therefore, to contend that the mail system can be left with the states, or to individual enterprise. The members of the convention who formed the Constitution, understood this subject better. They knew that the control of this subject must be confided to a power which pervaded pro hac vice, the whole sphere of its operations: consequently, among the leading prominent grants of power by the states to Congress, is the

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grant over this subject in the following words :-"Congress shall have power to establish post offices and post-roads."

"This grant of power is found in the same clause, and is expressed in the same words and language of the grants of power to coin money, to regulate commerce, to declare war, &c. It is a grant which covers the whole ground; it is ample, full, and consequently, exclusive. If doubt could exist as to the exclusiveness of this grant, that doubt must vanish upon a reference to the 10th Article of the Amendments to the Constitution, which declares," The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people." The power to establish post offices, and post roads, is plainly, and distinctly delegated to the United States. It is, therefore, not a power reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.

"I will not extend, or elaborate an argument upon a proposition so plain, and which, I conceive, has been settled and adjusted by all the departments of the Government and the people themselves."

This controversy between the American people and their Government, or we should, perhaps, with more correctness say, between the people and their own made laws, presents features of no usual or ordinary character, exemplifying as it does, the internal working of a system replete with difficulties to its efficient direction and managementso opposite to the general principle on which European nations are accustomed to be governed, and where the manifest and positive intent and spirit of the laws, as well their actual wording, assist in determining their proper legal import. The Federalism of America is, however, of a very different complexion-is regulated by a more limited or circumscribed principle-directed by the meaning

applicable to the words in their restricted signification, in which its laws are made, under the apprehension, it may be, of overstepping the limits of a compact, by which the machinery of their Government and institutions are held together, or of infringing the asserted rights, that each intersection of this vast confederacy claims to exercise under their peculiar organization.

The recent history of America has familiarised us with the many difficulties proceeding from this source; the want of harmony and general inefficiency of the laws their instability—the uncertainty that every varying interpretation of their more positive meaning so necessarily create, and which has reduced the supreme power of these states to the decrepid state of imbecility and weakness, of which this late instance furnishes us with another and sufficient example.

The reductions made in the charge of letter conveyance by the expresses of private companies, occasioned a general anxiety for a further diminution of this very onerous tax. The example of England, in her late Post-Office reform, and conversion to the penny postage system, excited the people to demand a similar boon from Congress, and to which petitions were presented from all parts of the Republic, calling loudly for the alteration. The law, as it then stood, was, by the result of the legal decisions to which we have referred, no longer able to secure to the general Government the exclusive right of conveyance of the United States