Kentucky Gazette

POST OFFICE.

Says a correspondent, the proposal of Mr. Dallas to make permanent, the increased duties on postage, is not more adverse to the genius of our free constitutions, than it is pitiful in itself. It is adverse to the genius of our free constitution, because it operates as a tax on light and knowledge; and it is pitiful in itself, because the revenue thus derived, amounts to but a petty part of the national expenditure, and might easily be supplied from some other productive source of revenue. It moreover tends to the introduction of other measures which may finally destroy even the liberty of the press, which can as easily be put down by excessive taxation, as by the strongest gag laws. Should the price of postage deter people from subscribing for newspapers, printers cannot keep their presses in motion—and if the present duties are made permanent, will they not in all human probability, in worse times, be made the entering wedge of others of the same character?

How very different was the language which democracy spoke and taught through her oracle, Mr. Jefferson, when he first came into power? To diffuse knowledge among the people, that great and enlightened statesman and patriot, proposed, that newspapers should be carried free of postage;—but our present Treasury chief, would sacrifice the interests of knowledge, and retard the march of mind among the people, to bring into the Treasury a petty sum of money, derived from a pitiful system of revenue. Most admirable!!!