Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 19.djvu/415

Rh intended for the Government business to which they relate, at all times and under all circumstances." It was impossible for the men who framed the Constitution to foresee the wonderful improvements in the means of rapid intercommunication which have since taken place. At that time there were only a few post-roads in the United States, and over these the mails were conveyed on horseback or in the stagecoach, consuming a fortnight in the trip from Boston to Philadelphia, that is now made by the fast mail in a few hours. In the progress of events, the people demanded a quicker means of communication, and the Government did not hesitate to place the mails upon the railroads as fast as they were constructed. Now, in many instances, the railroads are too slow to meet the demands of business communication, and the telegraph is freely used in all important commercial transactions. The business-man who does not use the telegraph each day for information as to markets abroad, to make contracts with distant customers, to transmit money, and in various other ways, is counted slow indeed in this age of progress. From these facts, is there not the more reason for making this wonderful and powerful agency subservient to the general postal system of this great and growing country than there was for providing for the carriage of the mails by steam?

Further, it is not only a constitutional privilege, but it is also a constitutional duty; and it is susceptible of the strongest proof that, in neglecting to make the telegraph a part of the postal system, the Government has failed of its constitutional duty toward its citizens. Such powers as are granted to the General Government are granted absolutely, and are lodged nowhere else. In the language of the tenth amendment, "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." It may not be improper to observe here that only such powers were granted to the General Government as could not properly be exercised by the States. For instance, the right to declare war was granted to the General Government, and wisely, else New York might declare war against some foreign power, while the remaining States might be strongly in favor of peace. It is, therefore, fair to infer that such powers as were granted to the General Government were not "reserved to the States respectively, or to the people"; and in this class, as we have seen, is the power to regulate and control the transmission of intelligence. In the language of Mr. Justice Field, in ex parte Jackson (6 Otto), "The power possessed by Congress embraces the regulation of the entire postal system of the country." It extends to the telegraph as well as to the railroad, and the conveyance of letters and packets by regular trips over railroads by private parties is prohibited by law (Revised Statutes, sections 3,982, 3,983), yet we permit a private monopoly to convey our messages the quicker way by telegraph. The Government enforces a monopoly of the transmission of intelligence by the slower methods,