During the war the adequacy of the postal facilities was often before Congress. Committees were appointed to investigate conditions; Congress by resolution appreciated the fact that the “communication of intelligence with frequency and despatch from one part to another of this extensive continent, is essentially requisite to its safety.” The postmaster general was therefore requested to exercise care in the selection of riders and to discharge dilatory ones when discovered. Deputy postmasters were excused “from those public duties which may call them from attendance at their offices;” admonitory resolutions directed ferry keepers to expedite the passage of postriders, and a public monopoly was aimed at through the indirect method of reducing the wages of government messengers who carried private packages.[17]
On November 7, 1776, Richard Bache was appointed postmaster general vice Franklin who had gone on the mission to France, and after this change the attempts of Congress to improve the service seem to be more frequent.[18] In January of the next year, Bache was requested to furnish a list of those in the service, it having been reported that “persons disaffected to the American cause” had been employed “with the most mischievous effects” and he was further requested to “assign reasons why the late resolves of Congress for regulating the postoffice are not carried into execution.”[19] In February a committee was appointed to revise the regulations; it recommended extensions and suggested that all employees be required to take an “oath of fidelity to the United States and also an oath of office,” and urged that once in six months the postmaster general be required to transmit to Congress a list of those in the service.[20] The legislatures of the states were asked to exempt from all military duties “persons immediately concerned in conducting the business of the postoffice,” but still the establishment did not work to the satisfaction of Congress, and other committees were appointed to make recommendations and the rates of postage were several times increased. One new step was taken when an inspector of dead letters was appointed to “examine all dead letters at the expiration of each quarter; to communicate to Congress such letters as contain inimical schemes or intelligence; to preserve carefully all money, loan office certificates, lottery tickets, notes of hand, and other valuable papers enclosed in any of them, and be accountable” for their safekeeping, subject to the restriction that he take “no copy of any letter whatever,” and refuse “to divulge their contents to any but Congress or those whom they may appoint for the purpose.”[21]
Meanwhile the Articles of Confederation had been agreed upon and submitted to the states. There was no objection to a grant of the postal power, but the terms in which it was made limited its extent. Part of Article XVIII in the first draft gave the United States “the sole and exclusive right and power of ... establishing and regulating postoffices throughout all the United Colonies, on lines of communication from one colony to another,” and later on in the same article, it was provided that the United States “shall never impose or levy any taxes or duties except in managing the postoffice.”[22] In the second draft, the grant was made more limited; it gave Congress “the sole and exclusive right and power ... of establishing and regulating postoffices from one state to another throughout all the United States and exacting such postage on the papers passing through the same as may be requisite to defray the expenses of said office.” In this form the clause became part of the Articles of Confederation as adopted by the states,[23] and there was no further discussion of the power, negative action being taken on the motion of the Pennsylvania delegates (June 25, 1778) “that such part of the 9th article as respects the postoffice, be altered or amended so as that Congress be obliged to lay the accounts annually before the legislatures of the several states.”[24]
The Articles of Confederation gave the limited power of establishing and regulating postoffices “from one state to another.” Thus, intrastate postal facilities were beyond the purview of Congress; nothing was said, moreover, about the establishment of postroads, or the opening up of new routes, and the sole power of taxation granted to Congress was confined to an amount sufficient to defray the expenses of the system. Nevertheless, the inadequacy of the grant was theoretical rather than real, since Congress was so occupied with other more pressing affairs, that it was content with a limited communication of intelligence, desiring solely that this be as speedy and secure as possible.
From this time on references to the postal establishment in the congressional journals are of frequent occurrence; additional investigating committees were established and the personnel of the standing committee was changed. Expenses grew apace while the revenues diminished and this called for measures of retrenchment. A resolution of December 27, 1779, contained the regulation that “the post shall set out and arrive at the place where Congress shall be sitting twice in every week,” and it was at the same time urged that “the whole expensive system of express riding be totally abolished except by the particular order of Congress upon very special occasions.”[25]
On October 18, 1782, under the power granted by the Articles of Confederation, there was passed “An Ordinance for Regulating the Post-Office of the United States of America.” For the period it was a most elaborate statute and marks the birth of a real postal establishment. Of such comprehensiveness was the act that when, ten years later, Congress passed legislation under the authority delegated by the Constitution, the Ordinance was merely amplified. Its preamble recited:
“Whereas the communication of intelligence with regularity and dispatch from one part to another of these United States is essentially requisite to the safety as well as the commercial interest thereof; and the United States in Congress assembled being by the Articles of Confederation vested with the sole and exclusive right and power of establishing and regulating postoffices throughout all these United States; and whereas it is become necessary to revise the several regulations heretofore made relating to the postoffice and reduce to one act:
“Be it therefore ordained by the United States in Congress assembled, and it is hereby ordained by the authority of the same, that a continued communication of posts throughout these United States shall be established and maintained by and under the direction of the postmaster general of these United States to extend to and from the state of New Hampshire to the state of Georgia inclusive, and to and from such other parts of the United States as from time to time he shall judge necessary or Congress shall direct.”[26]
The duties of the postmaster general were “to superintend and direct the postoffice in all its various departments and services ... agreeably to the rules and regulations” of the ordinance. He was given the power to appoint an assistant and deputies, for whom he should be responsible; to station them, and to fix their commissions, with a maximum limit of 20 per cent. on money “to arise from postage in their respective departments.” He was given the further power of appointing postriders, messengers and expresses.
In this ordinance, moreover, Congress attempted to lay down certain regulations, infraction of which would be punishable, although not criminally or in an efficient manner. All persons in the service were forbidden knowingly or wilfully “to open, detain, delay, secrete, embezzle, or destroy, or cause, procure, permit, or suffer to be opened, detained, delayed, secreted, embezzled or destroyed, any letter or letters, packet or packets, or other dispatch or dispatches, which shall come into his power, hands, or custody, by reason of his employment in, or relation to, the postoffice, except by the consent of the person or persons by or to whom the same shall be delivered or directed, or by an express warrant under the hand of the president of the Congress of these United States or in time of war, of the commander in chief of the armies of these United States, or of the chief executive officer of one of the said states, for that purpose, or except in such other cases wherein he shall be authorized to do so by this ordinance.”