Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol III).djvu/49

 CH. XVIII.] office might be created, but not the officina, or place, where it could be exercised? There are many places peculiarly fit for local post-offices, where no suitable building might be found. And, if a power to construct post-office buildings exists, where is the restraint upon constructing roads?

§ 1135. It is said, that there is no reason, why congress should be invested with such a power, seeing that the state roads may, and will furnish convenient routes for the mail. When the state-roads do furnish such routes, there can certainly be no sound policy in congress making other routes. But there is a great difference between the policy of exercising a power, and the right of exercising it. But, suppose the state-roads do not furnish (as in point of fact they did not at the time of the adoption of the constitution, and as hereafter, for many exigencies of the government in times of war and otherwise, they may not) suitable routes for the mails, what is then to be done? Is the power of the general government to be paralyzed? Suppose a mail-road is out of repair and founderous, cannot congress authorize the repair of it? If they can, why then not make it originally? Is the one more a means to an end, than the other? If not, then the power to carry the mails may be obstructed; nay, may be annihilated by the neglect of a state. Could it have been the intention of the constitution, in the exercise of this most vital power, to make it dependent upon the will, or the pleasure of the states?

§ 1136. It has been said, that when once a state-road is made a post-road by an act of congress, the national government have acquired such an interest in 6