Note 169 — I THE RATE FOR LETTERS (continued 2)

"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.