The public flooded Congress with petitions demanding a reduction of and uniformity in postal rates. During Abraham Lincoln’s time in the U.S. House of Representatives, the House referred such petitions to the House Committee on the Post Office and Post Roads, of which Lincoln was a member. Congress and the Post Office Department were slow to respond, but in the middle of the nineteenth century, they began to simplify the complex rate structure. In the Postal Act of 1845, Congress created a rate structure essentially according to weight and distance. For single letters--those weighing a half an ounce or less--conveyed by mail and traveling less than 300 miles, the rate was five cents; for single letters conveyed more than 300 miles, the rate was ten cents. As the weight increased, the rates increased; double letters would be ten cents; triple letters fifteen cents; and so forth. In 1855, Congress reduced the rate to three cents for single letters traveling less than 3,000 miles, and charged ten cents for those traveling a distance further than three thousand miles. Double letters were charged double those rates, triple letters triple, and so forth. Finally, in 1863 Congress set uniform rates based on weight and eliminated all differences based on distance. Congress set the postage for single letters at three cents, with each additional half ounce adding three cents.

Postal authorities labelled newspapers or journals put into the mail by those other than the publishers “transient newspapers.” It was a fairly common practice for people to post local newspapers to friends and relatives, particularly those who had migrated to other parts of the country. Not only did this provide the recipient a source of information without committing to a subscription, it also offered senders an opportunity to evade expensive postal rates for letters by adding personal information to the papers. In 1825, Congress tried to suppress this practice by charging letter postage on papers with personal writing and fining senders for trying to evade the law. The practice continued, nevertheless, throughout the 1830s and 1840s, reaching a crescendo before 1845. Postal rate reductions in 1845 slowed the number of transient newspapers flowing through the mails, and a law in 1847 raised the rates on transient newspapers to three cents, all but ending the practice. Section thirteen of the 1847 law required prepayment for transient newspapers to be forwarded through the mails.