ABSTRACT
It is interesting to note that The Federalist contains but a single reference to the postage power of Congress. Apparently, it was generally agreed that Congress should possess such power and little opposition was expected. In No. XLII, Madison expressed the opinion:
Seventy years after this was written, J oseph Story remarked in his Commentaries on the Constitution: "One cannot but feel, at the present time, an inclination to smile at the guarded caution of these expressions, and the hesitating avowal of the importance of the power." It would have been impossible, of course, for the framers of our Constitution to have foreseen the expansion of the postal powers of Congress to the extent we now have them, just as they could not have foreseen the development of the railroad, airplane, radio, or television. With travel as difficult and primitive as it was in their day, who can blame even the authors of The Federalist for taking such a narrow and limited view of the possibilities for the future development of the postal power?
