Editing Jacob Collamer (section)

==Postmaster General==
Collamer served as [[US Postmaster General|Postmaster General]] under President [[Zachary Taylor]]. Appointed at the start of the [[Taylor administration|Taylor's administration]] in 1849, he served until resigning in July 1850.<ref>{{cite book |last=Marshall |first=James V. |date=1856 |title=The United States Manual of Biography and History |url=https://archive.org/details/unitedstatesmanu00mars |location=Philadelphia, PA |publisher=James B. Smith & Co. |page=[https://archive.org/details/unitedstatesmanu00mars/page/613 613]}}</ref> Collamer resigned shortly after Taylor's death to enable President [[Millard Fillmore]] to name his own appointee.<ref>{{cite book |last=McCook |first=Anson G. |date=1887 |title=Journal of the Executive Proceedings of the Senate of the United States |volume=VIII |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bseGAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA205 |location=Washington, DC |publisher=US Government Printing Office |page=205}}</ref>

As Postmaster General, Collamer was criticized by Whig partisans of the [[spoils system]] because he was reluctant to remove local [[Democratic Party (United States)|Democratic]] postmasters ''[[en masse]]'' so they could be replaced by Whigs.<ref>K. Jack Bauer, [https://books.google.com/books?id=H42TwTwE1IwC&dq=jacob+collamer+postmaster+general&pg=PA262 Zachary Taylor: Soldier, Planter, Statesman of the Old Southwest], 1993, page 262</ref>  Among his accomplishments was the introduction of a permanent system for using [[Postage stamps and postal history of the United States|postage stamps]]; Collamer sent the first letter using one, a note addressed to his brother in [[Barre (city), Vermont|Barre, Vermont]] in which he recommended saving the stamp because if the system worked, it might be valuable to collectors.{{sfn|''Jacob Collamer: Woodstock's U.S. Senator''|page=4}}