“The power vested in Congress 'to establish post-offices and post-roads' has been practically construed, since the foundation of the government, to authorize not merely the designation of the routes over which the mail shall be carried, and the offices where letters and other documents shall be received to be distributed or forwarded, but the carriage of the mail, and all measures necessary to secure its safe and speedy transit, and the prompt delivery of its contents….

During this developing stage, the Post Office was to many citizens situated across the country the most visible symbol of national unity.”Ĭongress's broad power over the nation's mail system was recognized in the 1878 Supreme Court decision Ex parte Jackson, according to Rehnquist. Mail contracts were of great assistance to the early development of new means of transportation such as canals, railroads, and eventually airlines. Stagecoach trails which were improved by the Government to become post roads quickly became arteries of commerce. The Post Office played a vital yet largely unappreciated role in the development of our new Nation. I, § 8, provided Congress the power 'To establish Post Offices and post Roads' and 'To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper' for executing this task. “Given the importance of the post to our early Nation, it is not surprising that when the United States Constitution was ratified in 1789, Art. Government without communication is impossible, and until the invention of the telephone and telegraph, the mails were the principal means of communication. “By the early 18th century, the posts were made a sovereign function in almost all nations because they were considered a sovereign necessity. The Greenburgh Civic Associations had a practice of delivering its messages to residents by placing unstamped notices in the residents' home mailboxes.Īfter the local postmaster warned the association it could be fined if it continued its practice, the association filed suit, arguing that enforcement of the law would inhibit communication with local residents and thus deny them their First Amendment speech and press rights.īefore analyzing the challenge, then-Associate Justice William Rehnquist, who wrote for a unanimous court, said the case was a good example of Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes's aphorism that “a page of history is worth a volume of logic.” Rehnquist then proceeded to recount the history of the postal system: Council of Greenburgh Civic Associations took up a constitutional challenge to a federal law prohibiting the placement of unstamped “mailable matter” in a letterbox approved by the United States Postal Service. In 1981, the Supreme Court in United States Postal Service v. When the Constitution was ratified in 1789, the Postal Clause in Article I, Section 8 gave Congress the power 'To establish Post Offices and post Roads' and “To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper” for executing this task. The controversy now engulfing the postal system involves such directives from postal officials as banning postal workers from making extra trips to ensure on-time mail delivery and removal of high-speed mail-sorting machines and public collection boxes in numerous states, all of which portends problems with absentee and mail-in ballots in the November election. Supreme Court recognized Congress's 'broad power' to act in matters concerning posts more than a century ago. The United States Postal Service, now under criticism from President Donald Trump, has its roots in the U.S.

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