All this is plain and unanswerable. The oppressiveness of a tax is not to be measured by the insensibility of the people on whose shoulders it is laid. It is a curiosity of despotism that the people are too often unconscious of their slavery, as they are unconscious also of bad laws. A wise and just Government measures its duties not by what the people bear without a murmur, but by what is most for their welfare; and it is to this criterion that I bring the question of cheap postage. Say not that the people are indifferent and do not ask for this reduction. Is it not for their good? Is not the advantage so eminent and unequivocal that the Government can no longer hesitate, especially at this transitional moment, when our country is passing from the Old to the New, and the people more than ever are assured in their rights? JUSTICE AND PRACTICABILITY OF ONE CENT POSTAGE. After this exhibition of existing burdens, so prejudicial to the correspondence of the country, I return again to the main postulate of this argument, that a uniform rate of one cent for a letter of half an ounce is entirely reasonable, and in a short time, with proper relief in other directions, would render the Post-Office self-supporting. Here I introduce the testimony of a gentleman practically conversant with the operations of our Post-Office, who writes to me as follows:-- “Taking the weight of the letter mail-matter and the printed mail-matter, and charging the expense of transportation upon each proportioned to the weight, and one cent is all that would be relatively chargeable upon each half-ounce of letter mail. I speak from close daily observation in a large office, in a region that is a large revenue-paying one to the Department on all mail-matter.” This testimony of an expert is only in harmony with my own conclusion. This injustice becomes more apparent, when we consider the disproportion between the cost of other transportation and letter postage. Take, for instance, the fare of a passenger on a railway in comparison with that of a letter. The average weight of passengers with their baggage is supposed to be 230 pounds, which is the weight of 7,360 half-ounce letters, paying, at the present rate of three cents, $220.80, irrespective of distance. The following table, prepared some time ago, shows the cost of other transportation:--