Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol III).djvu/35

 CH. XVIII.] for the conveyance of the mail, and to keep them in due repair for such purpose.

§ 1124. The grounds of the former opinion seem to be as follows. The power given under the confederation never practically received any other construction. Congress never undertook to make any roads, but merely designated those existing roads, on which the mail should pass. At the adoption of the constitution there is not the slightest evidence, that a different arrangement, as to the limits of the power, was contemplated. On the contrary, it was treated by the Federalist, as a harmless power, and not requiring any comment. The practice of the government, since the adoption of the constitution, has conformed to this view. The first act passed by congress, in 1792, is entitled "an act to establish post-offices and post-roads." The first section of this act established many post-offices as well as post-roads. It was continued, amended, and finally repealed, by a series of acts from 1792 to 1810; all of which acts have the same title, and the same provisions declaring certain roads to be post-roads. From all of which it is manifest, that the legislature supposed, that they had established post-roads in the sense of the constitution, when they declared certain roads, then in existence, to be post-roads, and designated the routes, along which the mails were to pass. As a farther proof upon this subject, the statute book contains many acts passed at various times, during a period of more than twenty years, discontinuing certain post-roads. A strong argument is also derivable from the practice of continental Europe, which must be presumed to have been known to the framers of the constitution. Different