Founding-Era Socialism: The Original Meaning of the Constitution's Postal Clause
| Author | Robert G. Natelson |
| Position | Professor of Law (ret.), The University of Montana; Senior Fellow in Constitutional Jurisprudence, the Independence Institute, Denver, Colorado; Senior Fellow in Constitutional Jurisprudence, Montana Policy Institute, Bozeman, Montana |
| Pages | 1-70 |
Founding-Era SocialiSm: ThE original mEaning
oF ThE conSTiTuTion’S PoSTal clauSE
Robert G. Natelson*
ABSTRACT
The Constitution’s Postal Clause granted Congress power to “establish Post Ofces
and post Roads.” This Article examines founding-era legal and historical materials to
determine the original meaning and scope of the Postal Clause. It concludes that the
Clause authorized Congress to pass all legislation necessary to create, operate, and
regulate a unied transportation, freight, and courier system, although it also limited
congressional authority in some respects. The founding-era reasons for the postal system
were revenue, promotion of commerce, and political control. The Article also corrects
some inaccurate claims about the Clause previously advanced by commentators.
KEYWORDS
Postal Clause; Post Roads; Original Meaning U.S. Constitution; Benjamin Franklin;
British Royal Post Ofce.
CONTENTS
Br. J. Am. Leg. Studies 7(1) (2018), DOI: 10.2478/bjals-2018-0001
© 2018 Robert G. Natelson, published by De Gruyter Open.
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 License.
* Professor of Law (ret.), The University of Montana; Senior Fellow in Constitutional
Jurisprudence, the Independence Institute, Denver, Colorado; Senior Fellow in Constitutional
Jurisprudence, Montana Policy Institute, Bozeman, Montana. Some of the author’s
observations about business practices derive from his private sector experience.
The author acknowledges these individuals who helped make this article possible: Jonathan
Miceli, Sturm College of Law, University of Denver (J.D. 2018), for research assistance;
Virginia Dunn, Archives and Library Reference Service Manager, and Cassandra Farrell,
Senior Map Archivist, both at the Library of Virginia; Professor David Kopel, Sturm College
of Law, the University of Denver and Research Director of the Independence Institute, for his
continued support; Dr. Anne Richardson Oakes for helpful editing and support; and Elizabeth
J. Natelson, for her careful editing.
inTroducTion ...................................................................................................... 5
A. The Anomalous Character of the Postal Clause ......................................5
B. This Article’s Structure and Method ....................................................... 6
i. Background hiSTory: ThE BriTiSh imPErial PoSTagE SySTEm ........................7
A. Why British Practice is Relevant ............................................................ 7
B. The English Beginnings .......................................................................... 8
C. Vocabulary and Operations of the British Postal System .........................9
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D. Purposes of the British Postal System ........................................... 14
E. The British Post Ofce Becomes Imperial: The Statute of 1711 ... 18
F. Motifs in the Development of the Imperial Postal System .............20
ii. Background hiSTory: ThE colonial amErican PoSTal SySTEm .......... 24
A. The American Post Ofce as the Successor to the British Imperial
Post Ofce ....................................................................................24
B. American Colonial Operations and Ben Franklin .......................... 26
C. The American Postal System in the Sunset of British Rule ...........27
iii. ThE conTinEnTal PoST oFFicE in ThE SunriSE oF indEPEndEncE ......... 31
A. The Vocabulary of the Continental Post Ofce ............................. 31
B. The Purposes of the Continental Post Ofce ................................. 33
C. Congress Decides to Emulate the British ....................................... 35
D. Regularizing Postal Law Under the Articles of Confederation ..... 36
E. The Woes of a State-Owned Enterprise .......................................... 38
1. Problems Inherited from the British Model .............................. 38
2. Other Problems ......................................................................... 41
iV. ThE draFTing oF ThE PoSTal clauSE ................................................... 43
A. Why Adopt a Postal Clause? ..........................................................43
B. The Constitutional Convention ...................................................... 45
V. ThE raTiFicaTion Era: 1787-90............................................................. 47
A. Ratication-Era Evidence .............................................................. 47
B. The Ratication Debates in State Conventions and in Public ........ 47
C. Ratication-Era Proceedings in the Confederation Congress ........ 52
D. Ratication Era Proceedings in the First Federal Congress .......... 53
Vi. ThE original mEaning oF ThE PoSTal clauSE ....................................55
A. Questions Raised ............................................................................55
B. What Was A “Post Road?” .............................................................56
C. What Did “Establish” Mean, and Did the Power to “Establish”
a Postal System Include Dening and Punishing Postal Crimes? 56
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Founding-Era SocialiSm: ThE original mEaning oF ThE conSTiTuTion’S PoSTal clauSE
D. Did the Postal Clause Permit the Post Ofce to Pursue Entrepre-
neurial Opportunities? If So, Which Ones? ..................................57
E. Did the Clause Authorize Constructing New Roads and Facilities
or Merely Designating Existing Ones? .........................................58
F. Did the Grant of Power to Establish Post Roads Include an
Incidental Grant of Eminent Domain Authority? .........................59
Vii. ThrEE ViEwS Forward ....................................................................... 65
A. Limitations Imposed by the Bill of Rights .....................................65
B. The Federal Congress’s Postal Act of 1792—and Implications for
the Nondelegation Principle .........................................................66
C. The Commendable Future of Ebenezer Hazard1 ............................ 70
1 Bibliographical Footnote. Following are the sources referred to in this article more than
once:
Statutory Material and Primary Sources
1 annalS oF cong. (1789) (Joseph Gales ed., 1834) [hereinafter annalS oF cong.]
documEnTary hiSTory oF ThE FirST FEdEral congrESS oF ThE uniTEd STaTES oF amErica,
march 4, 1789-march 3, 1791 (Charlene Bangs Bickford, Kenneth R. Bowling,
William Charles diGiacomantonio, and Helen E. Veit eds. 1972-2012) [hereinafter FirST
congrESS]
ThE documEnTary hiSTory oF ThE raTiFicaTion oF ThE conSTiTuTion (Merrill Jensen,
John P. Kaminski & Gaspare J. Saladino eds., 1976-2013) [hereinafter documEnTary
hiSTory]
9 EncycloPaEdia BriTannica (J. Balbour & Co., 2d ed. 1778) [hereinafter EncycloPaEdia
BriTannica]
9 EngliSh hiSTorical documEnTS: amErican colonial documEnTS To 1776 (Merrill
Jensen ed. 1955) [hereinafter EHD]
JournalS oF ThE conTinEnTal congrESS 1774-1789 (Government Printing Ofce 1904-
37) [hereinafter J. conT. cong.]
lETTErS oF dElEgaTES To congrESS, 1774-1789 (Library of Congress, 1976-2000),
https://memory.loc.gov/ammem/amlaw/lwdglink.html [hereinafter dElEgaTE lETTErS]
rEcordS oF ThE FEdEral conVEnTion oF 1787 (Max Farrand ed., 2d ed. 1937) [hereinafter
Farrand]
adam SmiTh, an inquiry inTo ThE naTurE and cauSES oF ThE wEalTh oF naTionS (C.J.
Bullock ed., F.P. Collier 1909) (1776) [hereinafter SmiTh, wEalTh]
History, Commentary and Poetry
Joseph M. Adelman, “A Constitutional Conveyance of Intelligence. Public and Private”:
The Post Ofce, the Business of Printing, and the American Revolution., 11 EnTErPriSE
& Soc’y 711 (2010) [hereinafter Adelman]
William Baude, Re-thinking the Federal Eminent Domain Power, 122 yalE l.J. 1738
(2013) [hereinafter Baude]
william BlackSTonE, commEnTariES (1765)
colonial and STaTE rEcordS oF norTh carolina (1895) (multiple volumes) [hereinafter
n.c. rEcordS]
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