officers who have an agency in originating accounts should have none in their settlement. The War and Navy Departments are, in general, organized upon this principle. In the orders, contracts, and regulations of the heads of those departments, or their ministerial subordinates, issued and made in conformity with law, accounts originate. The moneys are generally paid by another set of agents, but partially dependent on the heads of the departments; and the accounts are finally settled by a third set, who are wholly independent of them. If, from any cause, an illegal expenditure be directed by the head of a department, it is the duty of the disbursing agent not to pay the money; and if he does pay it, it is the duty of the auditors and comptrollers to reject the item in the settlement of his account. But the Postmaster General practically unites these three functions in his own person. He issues orders, and makes contracts and regulations, producing the expenditure of money, settles the accounts, and pays the money. Although he is required to render. a quarterly account to the Treasury, to be settled as other public accounts aré, this requisition has long ceased to constitute any practical check upon him, nor can it ever be otherwise under the existing system. "The most important improvement required is to separate the settlement of accounts entirely from the Post Office Department, and vest it in an Auditor, appointed by the President, with the advice and consent of the Senate, whose duties shall in general correspond with those assigned to the accountant under the present organization. "The Postmaster General would then be placed on a similar footing with the other heads of Departments. His power over the funds of the Department should extend only to a superintendence over the rendition of accounts, to prescribing the manner in which postmasters shall pay over their balances, to making drafts for the collection and transfer of Post Office funds, to issuing warrants on the Treasury for the purpose of paying the balances reported to be due by the auditor, and making advances in special cases. The remaining portion of his duties would be those of a ministerial character, now performed upon his responsibility, modified by salutary restrictions upon his discretion." These ideas were afterwards carried out, and a law was passed by Congress in 1836, in conformity with them. A question of much public importance respecting the functions of the Post Office arose in the summer of 1835, which for a time produced much excitement. The Society for the Abolition of Slavery having completed an extensive organization, fully supplied with funds, undertook to distribute by the mails an immense number of their publications. These were refused delivery by the postmaster at Charleston, and were afterwards burnt by the mob, and the postmaster of New York upon another occasion refused to forward them. Great commotion was occasioned in the public mind by these circumstances, and the Postmaster General, on being appealed to, justified the course of the postmasters in both instances, which occasioned severe condemnation of his opinions at the North. The means of the Department no sooner placed it in his power than it became an object with Mr. Kendall to increase the mail facilities, both as to speed and extension to distant places, to the utmost possible extent. The annual transportation of the mails had been increased under Major Barry's administration to above twenty-five millions of miles, and this immense amount, which excited the utmost wonder and admiration, even under the aggravated censures of the Congressional committees, was vastly extended by Mr. Kendall, while the pervading economy of his management kept the Department not only free from debt, but with its funds always largely in advance of all demands. In the course of two years the contrast is so amazing as to be scarcely In 1835 the Department was staggering under an extraordinary debt of six hundred thousand dollars. In 1837 it had achieved the brighter wonder of a clear surplus of eight hundred thousand dollars. This improvement of the revenue was steady, and kept paee with the prodigious operations of the Department, as the whole expenses of 1838 were three millions, three hundred and three thousand, four hundred and twenty-eight dollars, leaving an excess of revenue of seven hundred and ninety-seven thousand one hundred and seventy-seven dollars and forty-seven cents, and proving a condition of this most important branch of the public service, of itself the greatest eulogy ever won by a public servant. Mr. Kendall, in his first report, foreseeing, with the clearness which his perfect mastery of the system enabled him to attain, the large surplus which under his management actually accrued, recommended Congress to reduce the postage on letters. As that body did not act upon his suggestions, he resolved in 1837 to expedite the mails all over the country to a speed proportioned to the increased resources of the Department. Express mails were therefore established on all the leading post routes for letters and newspaper slips, which introduced an unexampled speed of communication into the country. By these routes treble postage was charged, but so effectual was the speed, that the expresses which the leading journals of New York and Boston were wont annually to establish for the conveyance of the President's message were suspended, from the impossibility of surpassing in quickness the daily mail of the country. The experiment was necessarily costly, but so valuable did it prove to the mercantile interests, that notwithstanding its expense and a regulation requiring payment of express postage in advance, the income in January 1838 was found to exceed the expenses above three thousand dollars. The speed of communication achieved by the express mail will complete the striking contrast with the year 1835, though the latter year was deemed, even by the censurers of the Department, almost the acme of mail improvement. To the remotest section of the Union was this magic speed commu nicated,-&c. 1835. 1837. From New Orleans to Montgomery, Ala., 3 days, 21 hrs. 2 days, 00 hrs. These were the express mail rates-but the celerity of the regular mails was increased in a similar ratio, and it became an object of the Department to bring these up, whenever it was possible, to the express maximum of speed. In the course of 1838 this object was accomplished in nearly all the northern routes, and in the present year the improvement has been so general as to render the express line no longer an object. These are, indeed, astonishing results, and no one can deny that we are mainly indebted for them to the energy, industry, and genius of Mr. Kendall. Like the touch of the magician's wand, his mind brought order from confusion, and restored the accumulated derangement of years to systematic regularity. Like Franklin, he commenced and worked in detail in season and out of season, he considered what was not wanted, dear at any price; he divided responsibility, and worked the true magic of division of labor. The distant wilds felt the force of his power; he seemed intuitively to send his agents into the neighbourhood of the delinquents, till at last the lagging stage-driver peeped into the face of every stranger on his route, expecting to see an emissary of the Department in his person. In fact, horses seemed to quicken their paces, the old coaches began to grow brighter; -complaints had only to be made, and redress was administered, and the censure of the Postmaster General came upon the faulty. The late mail was hardly assorted, before down upon the contractor came the fine: and the whole of the United States in less than one year became aware that a strong man was at the helm. The old rusty consciences were brightened up,-the defaulter found no mercy, the tardy postmaster, who neglected to make his quarterly returns, was directed by the next mail to hand over his keys of office to a successor,bonds were put in suit, -fines were made fines; no prayer could ward off the penalty decreed for neglect or wilful mismanagement. There was no coming to Washington to see the Department, and settle old. balances of fines by hard begging and harder swearing. The swarm of drones were started from their snuggeries, and in a few months the monstrous debt, that awful burden under which the Ajax of the Senate trembled, and from which the Whigs had drawn new hopes of political ascendancy, and which seemed to promise an inexhaustible supply of unanswerable accusation, was wiped away; the incredulous swore the statement recording the fact was a fable, but the bond was there in black and white; the debts were paid, and the mail was carried, and carried with a speed and safety without a parallel. Mr. Kendall is a man of discretion, with great decision of character; he thinks deeply, and when he brings his mind to bear upon any thing, he sees through the most intricate windings; sophistry is lost upon him-flattery and fawning are of little avail; he directs his attention steadily to the object in view, and never fails to carry successfully out the plans he has matured. The Mississippi river has now become a permanent post-route, and a mail costing one hundred and eighty thousand dollars per annum is borne upon its bosom-a sum in itself treble the amount of the receipts of the General Post Office in 1790. And now, in 1839, forty postmasters are appointed in a week a number equal to two-thirds of all in the United States from the Declaration of Independence to the year 1780. New routes for the nett proceeds of new offices are daily put in operation, and great improvements are constantly being made in the great arteries of the country. From a stout heart, the pulsations go forth like the ebbing tide of the ocean, and swiftly return laden with the tidings of new sources of revenue, and of new conveniences to the public. To give some idea of the increase of the revenue and labor of the Department, the following comparison of a few offices is offered in round numbers: But the annexed Table, which, through the politeness of Col. C. K. Gardner, we have been able to complete to the present time, will give the clearest and most interesting view of the progress of the Department. |
