mail may still be brought by the old land route, via Mobile——Florida paying her proportion of the cost.
The detail of the mode and manner in which all this may be done, would be too voluminous for a Report to the Convention, or for an Ordinance to be adopted by that body, and may with more propriety be left either to the action of the General Assembly, or to an officer who shall be hereafter appointed by that body, in the capacity of a Post Master General, as may seem best to the General Assembly.
Under this arrangement for our mail service, however, the Northern States being to us a Foreign Government, there will be on each letter or paper a foreign, as well as domestic postage; and thus the cost or postage will be increased. Indeed, it becomes a question for the consideration of this Convention or of the Legislature of the State, whether even the domestic postage should not be increased, for the purpose of thereby enabling the revenue of this Department to approximate its expenditure.
And whether, in the same connection, in many of the sparsely populated sections of the State, especially in the South and South East, much expense may not, and ought not to be saved, by discontinuing remote routes, now costing each from three to five hundred dollars per annum, and at no time carrying more than six or eight letters and papers.
Your Committee fully appreciate how obnoxious it is to add to the burthens, or lessen the conveniences of the people in this respect. But we are purchasing freedom from Northern tyranny by sacrifices numerous and great, and this must be of the number. Shallow and short-lived indeed must be that patriotism which cannot submit to such trials, and that without a murmur. Such was not the patriotism of our fathers of '76. To them, news of great political events—of battles upon which was suspended the fate of their country—of the welfare of loved ones at home, and on the battle field, was not carried on the lightning's flash. And shall the sons of such sires murmur at such petty privations, as the price of their Liberty?
Should, however, the existing Federal Government, in blind infatuation and hatred, refuse to carry our mails at all, then your Committee can only suggest, that private agencies be appointed at each of the points indicated above, and others on the Southern boundary of the border States, and that all mail matter intended for the South, being pre-paid, should be forwarded under cover to such agents, and thence mailed to their proper destination, the domestic postage to be paid by the parties receiving. So likewise with letters sent North, except that on these the domestic postage must be pre-paid, and also a stamp placed on them for foreign postage. All this will, no doubt, be cumbrous and annoying, but we trust of short duration.
