The enlarged receipts of the Post-Office Department, as shown by the accompanying report of the Postmaster-General, exhibit a gratifying increase in that branch of the public service.  It is the index of the growth of education and of the prosperity of the people, two elements highly conducive to the vigor and stability of republics.  With a vast territory like ours, much of it sparsely populated, but all requiring the services of the mail, it is not at present to be expected that this Department can be made self-sustaining.  But a gradual approach to this end from year to year is confidently relied on, and the day is not far distant when the Post-Office Department of the Government will prove a much greater blessing to the whole people than it is now.

The suggestions of the Postmaster-General for improvements in the Department presided over by him are earnestly recommended to you, special attention.  Especially do I recommend favorable consideration of the plan for uniting the telegraphic system of the United States with the postal system.  It is believed that by such a course the cost of telegraphing could be much reduced, and the service as well, if not better, rendered.  It would secure the further advantage of extending the telegraph through portions of the country where private enterprise will not construct it.  Commerce, trade, and, above all, the efforts to bring a people widely separated into a community of interest are always benefited by a rapid intercommunication.  Education, the groundwork of republican institutions, is encouraged by increasing the facilities to gather speedy news from all parts of the country.  The desire to reap the benefit of such improvements will stimulate education.  I refer you to the report of the Postmaster-General for full details of the operations of last year and for comparative statements of results with former years.

There has been imposed upon the executive branch of the Government the execution of the act of Congress approved April 20, 1871, and commonly known as the Kuklux law, in a portion of the State of South Carolina.  The necessity of the course pursued will be demonstrated by the report of the Committee to Investigate Southern Outrages.  Under the provisions of the above act I issued a proclamation calling the attention of the people of the United States to the same, and declaring my reluctance to exercise any of the extraordinary powers thereby conferred upon me, except in case of imperative necessity, but making known my purpose to exercise such powers whenever it should become necessary to do so for the purpose of securing to all citizens of the United States the peaceful enjoyment of the rights guaranteed to them by the Constitution and the laws.

After the passage of this law information was received from time to time that combinations of the character referred to in this law existed and were powerful in many parts of the Southern States, particularly in certain counties in the State of South Carolina.