President-elect Donald Trump has revived talk from his previous term of moving to privatize the United States Postal System. To be sure, such a process would be complicated and would likely require an act of Congress.
The Constitution in Article I, Section 8 grants Congress the ability “to establish Post Offices and post Roads,” including the power to control land for the “post roads” to carry the mail, and the buildings needed to maintain a mail delivery system.
The Postal Clause had its roots in the Articles of Confederation, which preceded the Constitution. That stated that the government “shall also have the sole and exclusive right and power of . . . establishing or regulating post offices from one State to another, throughout all the United States, and exacting such postage on the papers passing through the same as may be requisite to defray the expenses of the said office.”
During the 1787 Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, the Committee of Detail crafted language that gave the federal legislature the right to create post offices. The convention then added the ability to create “post-roads” that had a broader impact on the growing nation by developing early transportation networks that facilitated commerce between the states.
