This clause declares plainly the will of the people of the United States, that the federal government should be charged with the responsibility of furnishing the whole Union with convenient and proper mail privileges—according to their reasonable wants, and the reasonable ability of the government. This is one point of the “general welfare,” for which we are to look to congress, just as we look to congress to provide for the general defence by means of the army and navy. It imposes no other restrictions in the one case than the other, as to the extent to which provision shall be made—the reasonable wants of the people, and the reasonable ability of the government. It limits the resources for this object to no particular branch of the revenue. It gives no sort of sanction to the so oft-repeated rule, which many suppose to be a part of the constitution, that the post-office must support itself. Still less, does it authorize congress to throw all manner of burdens upon the mail, and then refuse to increase its usefulness as a public convenience, because it cannot carry all those loads. The people must have mails, and congress must furnish them. To reason for or against any proposed change, on the ground that the alternative may be the discontinuance of public mails, the privation of this privilege to the people, and the winding up of the post-office system, is clearly inadmissible. When the government ceases to give the people the privileges of the mail, the government itself will soon wind up, or rather, will be taken in hand and wound up by the people, and set a-going again on better principles. The sole inquiry for congress is, what is the best way to meet the reasonable wants of the people, by means within the reasonable ability of the government? The objects of the post-office system, which regulate its administration, are well set forth in the Report of the House Committee in 1844: “To content the man, dwelling more remote from town, with his homely lot, by giving him regular and frequent means of intercommunication; to assure the emigrant, who plants his new home on the skirts of the distant wilderness or prairie, that he is not forever severed from the kindred and society that still share his interest and love; to prevent those whom the swelling tide of population is constantly, pressing to the outer verge of civilization from being surrendered to surrounding influences, and sinking into the hunter or savage state; to render the citizen, how far soever from the seat of his government, worthy, by proper knowledge and intelligence, of his important privileges as a sovereign constituent of the government; to diffuse, throughout all parts of the land, enlightenment, social improvement, and national affinities, elevating our people in the scale of civilization, and binding them together in patriotic affection.”