CH. XVIII.]
POWERS OF CONGRESS—POST-OFFICE.
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cent power, whose operations can scarcely be applied, except for good, and accomplish in an eminent degree some of the high purposes set forth in the preamble of the constitution, forming a more perfect union, providing for the common defence, and promoting the general welfare.
§ 1121. Under the confederation, (art. 9,) congress was invested with the sole and exclusive power of "establishing and regulating post-offices from one state to another throughout the United States, and exacting such postage on the papers passing through the same, as may be requisite to defray the expenses of the said office."[1] How little was accomplished under it will be at once apparent from the fact, that there were but seventy-five post-offices established in all the United States in the year 1789; that the whole amount of postage in 1790 was only $37,935; and the number of miles travelled by the mails only 1875.[2] This may be in part attributable to the state of the country, and the depression of all the commercial and other interests of the country. But the power itself was so crippled by the confederation, that it could accomplish little. The national government did not possess any power, except to establish post-offices from state to state, (leaving perhaps, though not intended, the whole interior post-offices in every state to its own regulation,) and the postage, that could be taken, was not allowed to be be-- ↑ There is, in Bioren and Duane's Edition of the Laws of the United States, (Vol. 1, p. 649, &c.) an account of the post-office establishment, during the revolution and before the constitution was adopted. Dr. Franklin was appointed in July, 1775, the first Postmaster General. The act of 1782 directed, that a mail should be carried at least once in every week to and from each stated post-office.
- ↑ American Almanac, 1830, p. 217; Dr. Lieber's Encyc. Amer. article Posts, ante, vol. iii. p. 24, note.
vol. iii.4
