The Arkansas banner., 1846-04-01
SENATE CHAMBER. .Wafch 6, l846
Hon. Cure Johnson, ?. .M Gen.

Hon. Cdre Johnson, P. .M. Gea.-
 SIR :-I regret to find, by my converse ton yesterday, with YOU, iu relation to the transportation of the United States mail from the Mississippi river, to the capitol oi the Slate, that you did not feel yourself author ised to make special contract under the ex- stng laws; and also regret to find an ob- jection on your part, 10 provide daily malls to our seat of government, on the ground that the expense of transporting the mails, m Arkansas, exceeds the amount received from
 postage in that State. l trust this will not, on reflection, be deemed conclusive objec- ton. As one of the sovereign States of this great Republic, we were admitted into the Union, upon an equal footing with our sister Republics; and surely we are not practically so, If we were only to have the same advan- tages and privileges, not when admitted, but after years should have elapsed and we should have become equal in population and wealth with the other States, If so, the terms Of our admission should have been changed, and we should have been admitted to equal rights and equal privileges, so soon as we should have attained equal population and equal wealth. refer you to this, as an eXpres- sion of my judgment, trusting we have c right to mail accommodations equal to that of other States, even admitting our popula- ton and comparative wealth was less, and altho' the expenditure might exceed the re- ceipts from that branch of the public revenue. am sensible of the provision of law, that formerly required the Postmaster General 10 discontinue the least profitable routes; but submit whether the provision of the act of the last session of Congress, making a con- tingent appropriation, if necessary, 10 give to the public the same mail facilities they then possessed, and especially the new States and Territories, does not materially vary the principle upon which you bore your objec- tons 10 increased mail facilities in the State of Arkansas believe the capital of Arkan- sas is the only one to which either a daily mail is not sent, or other mails making their mail facilities quite equal or superior to a daily mail. Some State capitals have two or more tri-weekly mails, from points that furnish the earliest and most direct commu- nication with different frontiers of the coun- try that supply the most material commercial and political news and intelligence. The seat of government of Arkansas, and nearly the whole interior of the State, is dependen
 solely on the great tr weekly mail from the Mississippi to Little Rock-the other mail. arriving there bringing no intelligence from abroad ask, then, that we may have ( daily mail from he' Mississippi riuer 10 Lii
 tle Rock, adfhence nest to the acesiern boun
 dary of the State, and north 10 the .Mi$sou
 ri line, and south 10 the toma Of Fulton o1
 Red Rirer, 'chere the ne,c mail route to th, seat of gorernment of Teras commenccs.-
 The route to the west is called for, not onl, for the convenience of the inhabitants of Ar
 kansas, but also by the necessity of the gov
 ernment, of having rapid communication witt
 the military posts of the west The route
 herein deslgnated are deemed Of vast impor
 tance to the people of our State, and all tn subordinate routes could easily be regulate, by them, and thus afford to the people 0
 Arkansas mail facilities in some degree equa ' to that ot other States, and in that respee would place her upon an equal footing wit the original States. Many principal cite receive mail taciee a-day, and surely it can z not be deemed too much to claim that W should ask for one daily mail on the impoI tant routes designated; and in addition, } submit whether the route from the MississiE pi, through Little Rock. to Fulton, on Re
 river, must not eventually form the princip' means of transporting the great mail to tf seat of government of Texas? believe q , examination Of the map will show that it