the use of it, that it is not competent for the state authorities to obstruct it. But how can this be made out? If the power of congress is merely to select or designate the mail-roads, what interest in the use is acquired by the national government any more, than by any travelers upon the road? Where is the power given to acquire it? Can it be pretended, that a state may not discontinue a road, after it has been once established, as a mail-road? The power has been constantly exercised by the states ever since the adoption of the constitution. The states have altered, and discontinued, and changed such roads at their pleasure. It would be a most truly alarming inroad upon state sovereignty to declare, that a state-road could never be altered or discontinued after it had once become a mail-road. That would be to supersede all state authority over their own roads. If the states can discontinue their roads, why not obstruct them? Who shall compel them to repair them, when discontinued, or to keep them at any time in good repair? No one ever yet contended, that the national government possessed any such compulsive authority. If, then, the states may alter or discontinue their roads, or suffer them to go out of repair, is it not obvious, that the power to carry the mails may be retarded or defeated in a great measure by this constitutional exercise of state power? And, if it be the right and duty of congress to provide adequate means for the transportation of the mails, wherever the public good requires it, what limit is there to these means, other than that they are appropriate to the end?[1]
- ↑ 4 Elliot's Debates, 356.
