Post Office Act of 1791

This document records "An Act to continue to force for a limited time, an Act, intituled 'An Act for the temporary Establishment of the Post-Office'" passed by the Senate and House of Representatives in the third session, begun on December 6, 1790. Between 1789 and 1792, Congress passed such temporary measures on three occasions. The Post Office Act of 1792 finally outlined and instituted postal operations as run by the federal government. Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution states: "The Congress shall have the Power . . . to Establish Post Offices and post Roads."

This act, approved on March 3, 1791, carried the signature of Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson and bore the names of Speaker of the House of Representatives Frederick Augustus Muhlenberg, Vice President of the US and President of the Senate John Adams, and President George Washington.

References:

Fuller, Wayne. The American Mail: Enlarger of the Common Life. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1972.

John, Richard. Spreading the News: The American Postal System from Franklin to Morse. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995.

Where this page came from

This page was imported from Smithsonian National Postal Museum. Released by the Smithsonian Institution under CC0 through Smithsonian Open Access.

Nobody has written it yet — it is the source material at a new address, which is why search engines are asked to skip it and why no one earns from it. It is up for grabs: take it on, and it is yours to rewrite and to earn from.