Slike strani
PDF
ePub

“SIR,

"GENERAL POST-OFFICE, March 9th, 1792.

"After much inquiry, I have found a house which would accommodate my numerous family, and at the same time give me office room. The greatly extended business of the department, I think, may be accomplished with the same help which has been used since the time of Mr. Osgood's appointment; to wit, an assistant and clerk. For these, with their necessary writing-desk, table, boxes, cases, and shelves, for a considerable bulk of books and papers, would sufficiently occupy one room; and another room would be convenient for myself. A servant also will be wanted to keep the rooms in order, make fires, and perform other services. These services, however, not being constant, I could employ a domestic servant, but one selected with a reference to such public service. If, for the two rooms for the General Post-office, a cellar for wood, and the necessary attendance of my domestic servant, I might make a charge of about three hundred dollars, I would then engage the house referred to; but, previous to such engagement, I wish to obtain your opinion of the propriety of the charge."

Hamilton replied as follows:

"I have received the communication which you made to me, with respect of the contingent expenses of the General Post-office; and, in comparing the sum you mention with the charges for similar objects, which have been necessarily sustained in this department and in the public service in general, I cannot perceive any thing in the arrangement you propose but what appears consistent with the interests of the United States."

During Mr. Osgood's administration of the General Post-office, he had a room connected with that of the City Post-office in the city of New York. The Boston Post-office was a room in the Postmaster's dwellinghouse. The mail was carried on horseback between New York and Philadelphia. Mr. Jefferson's observing

mind had noticed abroad, that what was regarded as great speed was effected by combining, in the transportation of mails, coaches, where they could be had, with express horses elsewhere; and, thinking it possible that such a system might be introduced in this country, he wrote the following note to Colonel Pickering:

"PHILADELPHIA, March 9th, 1792, Wednesday morning.

"SIR, "The President has desired me to confer with you on the proposition I made the other day of endeavoring to move the posts at the rate of one hundred miles a day. It is believed to be practicable here, because it is practised in every other country. The difference of expense alone appeared to produce doubts with you on the subject. If you have no engagement for dinner to-day, and will do me the favor to come and dine with me, we will be entirely alone, and it will give us time to go over the matter and weigh it thoroughly. I will, in that case, ask the favor of you to furnish yourself with such notes as may ascertain the present expense of the posts, for one day in the week, to Boston and Richmond, and enable us to calculate the savings which may be made by availing ourselves of the stages. Be pleased to observe that the stages travel all the day. There seems nothing necessary for us, then, but to hand the mail along through the night, till it may fall in with another stage the next day, if motives of economy should oblige us to be thus attentive to small savings. If a little latitude of expense can be allowed, I should be for only using the stages the first day, and then have our own riders. I am anxious that the thing should be begun, by way of experiment, for a short distance; because I believe it will so increase the income of the Post-office as to show we may go through with it. I shall hope to see you at three o'clock."

The country at that time felt so poor, and there was such a morbid horror of taxation, that no conferences among the members of the government, like that to which the Secretary of State invited the Postmaster

General, could devise a scheme that would be thought expedient by Congress, or meet with the approbation of the people. In the state of the roads generally, even the most travelled sections, wheel-carriages were irregular and uncertain. The use of a wagon, expressly for the purpose of carrying the mail between New York and Philadelphia, had to be dispensed with and the saddle resorted to. The organization of a universal system of riders, in the pay of the government, was out of the question. It would have required an army of mail-carriers, with relays of horses at every post, and would not have been tolerated on either economical or

political grounds. The department had to get along as it could, extending, as Congress consented, the system of contracts, as is the case to this day.

The postal service of the United States was obstructed and embarrassed at the very beginning, by questions as to the conflicting powers of the general and State governments. Some of the States, particularly Maryland and Virginia, had given exclusive privileges to certain companies to drive stages, with passengers, over particular roads. The first Congresses under the Constitution established these roads as mail routes. It was found expedient, by the Post-office department, to put coaches upon them, in which passengers might be carried. This was strenuously resisted by those enjoying the monopolies under State laws enacted prior to the adoption of the Federal Constitution. On the 3d of January, 1792, in the House of Representatives, Mr. Fitzsimons, of Pennsylvania, introduced a motion to "allow the proprietors of stages, employed in conveying the mail,

to carry passengers also, without being liable to molestation or impediment, on any of the post-roads."

A vehement debate immediately arose. It was maintained that the States would never tolerate, nor the parties concerned tamely suffer, an invasion of those rights which they enjoyed under the State laws. On the other hand, it was contended by the supporters of the motion, that a citizen of the United States, travelling through a particular State, had a right to take passage in a stagewagon, whether the wagon belonged to that State or

not.

Elbridge Gerry, of Massachusetts, earnestly supported the motion, declaring that justice to individuals and to the United States rendered it "absolutely necessary for Congress to exercise the power" inherent in it. He conceded that the States had a right at the time to grant such monopolies, but he contended that, in consequence of the adoption of the Constitution, "all such laws are null and void of course." Robert Barnwell, of South Carolina, said "he had no doubt of the constitutionality of the proposition;" but advised that, instead of exercising the power at that time, Congress should declare "that it would exercise it at the expiration of the contracts which at present exist between particular States and individuals."

The House was not prepared to enter into a controversy on the point at that time, and rejected the motion by a vote of 33 to 25. Among those who voted in favor of Mr. Fitzsimons's motion, besides Mr. Gerry, were Nathaniel Macon, of North Carolina, and William Smith, of South Carolina. The State-rights topic was fully

introduced on this occasion, but men had not begun to range themselves in party lines upon it.

Another instance in which State legislation interfered with the operations of the Post-office department may be given.

Colonel Pickering had contracted to have the mail transported between Philadelphia and New York, at a considerable saving to the United States, by conveying it in stage-wagons, fitted to accommodate four passengers. The State of New Jersey had passed an Act "for raising a revenue from certain stages, ferries, and taverns," by which proprietors of lines of stages were taxed four hundred dollars a year, on each line. This tax was demanded from the United States, for the mail stages provided by the Post-office department, under the contract just mentioned. Colonel Pickering, in view of this demand, addressed a communication to Congress, reciting the facts, and speaking as follows:

"If the sums exacted from the proprietors of the stages were expended in extraordinary reparations of the road, no passengers would complain of paying enhanced prices for safer and easier seats in the stages. But such an appropriation is not even thought of: the avowed design is to increase the revenues of that State; and thus the citizens of the United States have to purchase permission to travel on the highways of New Jersey. At the same time, it is remarkable that the express object of one section of the Act is to prevent imposition on travellers.'

"If no relief can be given in the premises, the United States must henceforward pay to New Jersey an annual tribute of four hundred dollars, or any higher sum, if pleased to impose it, for permission to transport the mail through that State in stage wagons. And, from the example of New Jersey, they may ere long become tributary to all the States,

« PrejšnjaNaprej »