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Reflections
Post office was at center of 19th century social issue disputes : Reflections : Oswego Ledger-Sentinel : Hometown Newspaper for Oswego and Montgomery, IllinoisPost office was at center of 19th century social issue disputes
| by Roger Matile
| 6/28/2012
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We often seem to think our own times are the most turbulent, and when it comes to social issues it's fair to say that now is certainly unsettled.
But U.S. history is studded with eras when controversy over social issues has driven the nation's political dialog. The 19th century was particularly unsettled, and in its first half, none other than the U.S. Post Office found itself embroiled in two of the hottest button issues of the day: abolitionism and a growing religious evangelical movement.
The postal service didn't seek out these issues, of course. Instead, the issues were thrust upon the service by social and political forces far outside its control. In the end, uneasy compromises were struck that left many far from satisfied.
On the night of July 29, 1835, a small group of men broke into the Charleston, S.C. post office and stole a large pile of anti-slavery tracts, a mass mailing sent by the American Anti-Slavery Society to persuade Southerners to renounce slavery. The next night, the tracts were burned. It was the opening move of an increasingly bitter, and ultimately unsuccessful, campaign for the hearts and minds of the South and the region's dependence on slave labor. The mailing was probably the first use of junk mail, made possible by the combination of new, more efficient papermaking techniques and the perfection of the steam-powered printing press along with the remarkably efficient postal service of the era.
It was already illegal in slave-owning states to circulate abolitionist literature; the gang that stole the tracts in Charleston was convinced they were upholding state's rights. The Anti-Slavery Society had targeted its mass mailing carefully to the 200,000 most distinguished movers and shakers in the South, figuring that mail to important men would at least be delivered. What actually happened was that pro-slavery forces were energized. And it didn't take long for Southern postmasters to simply start interdicting the mail on their own, with no gang of thieves necessary to further the process, with the full cooperation and assistance of the Post Office Department itself. Abolitionist tracts, newspapers, and magazines were simply turned over to local officials for destruction, with First Amendment rights considered inferior to the right of whites to own black slaves. The issue's importance to the South did not wane as years passed either. In 1849, George H. Legg, the postmaster in Spartanburg, S.C., was jailed by local officials for his refusal to turn over a letter for inspection by local pro-slavery groups.
The resulting abridgement of First Amendment rights that prohibited mailing anti-slavery literature to the South was only lifted following the Civil War after the issue of slavery was settled by force of arms.
The case of the Sabbatarians was also a national issue on which the post office found itself on the wrong side thanks to its insistence on delivering the mail as quickly and as efficiently as possible.
In order to make sure the mails reached post offices as quickly as possible, the system operated seven days a week. The arrival of the stagecoach carrying the mail was a major social and economic event, especially for those living in the small towns like the ones that were springing up on the northern Illinois frontier.
When the coaches neared a settlement with a post office, the drivers blew their long tin horns to herald the mail's arrival. The sound of the horn was the signal for anyone who could to get to the post office to see if any letters for them had arrived, and to listen to others read aloud the latest political and social news from the newspapers and magazines the coaches carried. On most days, this rush to the post office-which was often located in the community's local inn or tavern-was eagerly looked forward to by all residents. However, when the coach arrived on a Sunday, ministers quickly saw the male halves of their congregations melt away as they moseyed down to the post office to hear the latest news.
The discontent caused the more religious members of communities by the disruptions created by the arrival of the mails on Sundays resulted in the Sabbatarian movement.
In April 1810, Congress had decreed that postmasters were required to deliver every item they'd received in the mail on every day of the week, including Sunday-the Sabbath-and to open their offices every day the mail arrived. Including Sunday.
The opposition to the new law grew swiftly and its members became known as Sabbatarians. Not only did they want the mandate to open post offices every day of the week eliminated, but they also opposed the mails moving on Sundays. And that threatened to have an economic impact on the private contractors who carried the mails via stagecoaches and wagons. The Sabbatarian campaign grew for the next 20 years, with petition after petition (many at the instigation of the Presbyterian General Assembly) being dispatched to the post office department demanding cessation of Sunday delivery.
But by the late 1820s, the anti-Sabbatarian movement, one of whose leaders was a Wall Street merchant with the marvelous name of Preserved Fish, had begun to grow as well. Fish and his allies organized their own petition drives, helped even by some religious groups, such as the Alabama Baptist Association, that treated Saturday as the Sabbath. Also joining the fray was travel book author Anne Royall, whose books hinted darkly at a conspiracy by Sabbatarian Presbyterian postmasters to destroy the separation of church and state.
Not until 1841 were Sabbatarians able to get the post office to curtail Sunday service on some routes. The invention of the telegraph also helped the Sabbatarian cause as merchants found electronic communication faster than the mails. It wasn't until 1912-a little over a century after the campaign started-that the post office agreed to halt mail delivery and close all offices on Sunday.
Today, the postal service is still struggling to survive, although it no longer has to worry about the combined assaults of pro-slavery forces and the Sabbatarians. Which, I suppose, might be mistaken for progress by some.
Looking for more local history? Visit http://historyonthefox.wordpress.com
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