In short, if the merchant had to correspond with neighbouring places he was compelled to employ the post office. With a country so extended and so highly civilized as the American colonies were at that day, a postal system was an absolute necessity; and if the system maintained by the government were protected by a monopoly, its charges were a tax on the users of the system in so far as those charges exceeded the strict cost of carrying on the service.
Furthermore, since the post office act of 1710 was imposed on the colonies without their consent, and since Franklin's good management had enabled him to pay all the expenses of the service and send a considerable surplus to England for some years past, it is plain that to the extent of the yearly surplus the colonies had been subject to a tax laid on them without their consent, and that Franklin himself was the tax gatherer. This was undoubtedly where the point lay in the question which was asked of Franklin.
Franklin's views on the constitutionality of the post office charges were part and parcel of his views on taxation generally. For instance, he drew a clear line of distinction between a tax on imported goods and an internal tax such as the stamp act. A duty on imported goods it was permissible for parliament to impose on the colonies, while an internal tax could not properly be levied without consent.
The stamp act required that all commercial and legal documents and newspapers should be written or printed upon stamped paper which was sold by agents of the government at varying prices prescribed by the law. As this was a tax which could not be avoided so long as men carried on their business in the ordinary way and by the ordinary means, it was one for which the consent of the colonies was necessary.
An import tax stood on a different footing. It was simply one of the elements entering into the price of the goods imported. If people objected to the price as enhanced by the tax, it was open to them to decline to buy the goods. A tax of this sort was in Franklin's view quite within the powers of the sovereign state.
The ultimate test applied by Franklin to determine whether a tax could in a given case be constitutionally imposed, was whether or not there was a legal mode of escape from the tax. If the tax were an avoidable one, it was constitutional, since submission to it implied consent. If, on the other hand, the tax were one which from the necessities of the case could not be avoided, it ought not to be imposed until it had been assented to by the people.
Opinions may differ as to which of the two classes the application of the test would place postal charges in. They constituted a tax beyond any question since they turned into the government a surplus of revenue after all expenses had been met. Whether they were to be regarded as an avoidable tax to be paid or not as one cared to employ the services of a post office or not, or whether as a tax which the circumstances of the community made it necessary to accept, will depend on one's views as to whether a post office is indispensable to the community.
It is difficult to see how Franklin, who of all men of his generation knew best the requirements of a highly developed industrial community, could believe that the necessities for the interchange of correspondence on the part of a people like the American colonists could be satisfied by private messengers, or travelling friends, or indeed by any agency less comprehensive than a national postal system.
FOOTNOTES:
[66] Can. Arch.. C. 11, LXIV. 110 (Report of progress by grand voyer).