The Winton M. Blount Postal History Symposia - Smithsonian ...

n u m b e r 5 5 • 1 1 3while purely passenger stage lines continued, and privateexpresses could be used, the Department could lose between50,000 and 100,000 dollars annually.Outlined also were all the specific delays that wouldoccur if the transportation of the mail were interrupted onSundays, and the possible consequences of that—primarilythe possibility of private expresses delivering sensitivemarket information ahead of the mails so that there couldbe an uneven speculative advantage.Although he did not use the terms, Bradley showed thata regular interruption of the mails would cause a systematicbreakdown, and expediency would be compromised.An 1832 compilation represents the post office immediatelyafter a fifty percent increase in mail transportation,inaugurated not only upon a manifold of new post roadsbut also in terms of facilities (mode and frequency) on postroads already in operation. This report was made in anticipationof lettings in New England and New York for thenext year which would, altogether, practically double thepostal establishment in miles of mail transportation sinceHobbie took over from Bradley. (The implication is thatHobbie completed the system reforms begun by Bradley;certainly he was, by 1832, in command of more ways tomeasure the system. 32 )With respect to Bradley’s compilation in 1811, notonly is there a new mode of transportation—steamboats—but also a geographic distribution state by state. In thesouthern section the stage and horse mails serve equally,while in the northeastern section the stage mails range betweenthree and ten times the horse mails. This inequalityis paralleled by an average weekly frequency in the southernsection of 1.4 mails per week to 2.6 mails per week inthe northeastern section. The picture in the south in 1832looks very much like the system as a whole in 1811. Systematicprogress in terms of frequency and mode favoredthe northeast.Moreover, in respect to the steamboats, a high proportionserve in the south and southeast although New Yorkhas the largest steamboat service over all, even consideringthat such contracts were made in conjunction with stagemails because of seasonal navigation.The rapid expansion of the system was expensive in theshort term but eventually demonstrated that postal revenuesare an elastic function of transportation expenditures.Postal Reform and BeyondThe above picture of the system in 1832 (Figure 7)was the climax of a postal design serviced by stage coachesas the principal vehicle. Railroads immediately thereafterdominated contract negotiations. They were larger corporationswhose refuge was within the states and whoselocal capital and clientele resisted blandishments to servepostal schedules. Nonetheless, they had been brought toserve postal design (Figure 8). Postal reform regularizedrailroad contract protocol.What did the system look like in the period after postalreform? In 1860, in addition to the statistics by state, themodes are now designated: “not specified”—which are theStar Routes; “in coach;” “in steamboat;” and “by railroad.”33 Beginning in 1852, not only are statistics givenfor the length of postal routes but also their allocation tothe various modes of transportation, by state—modal frequenciesthat provide a nuanced view of postal design.In 1860 the south and west show a ‘primitive’ organizationof the posts, represented by a frequency ofabout 1.5 mails per week, dominated by the Star Routeswhich serve most of their post route miles. In New Yorkand New England, the average weekly transportationfrequency is 6.1, almost double the modal frequency ofcoaching system- wide.Railroads now constitute the majority of transportationdollars and miles of transportation by mode, averagingalmost ten trips per week, but operate only the trunklines on not a very high proportion of miles of routesserved. In some cases, as in Ohio and Illinois where thereare practically no miles of transportation by rail or steamboat,the coach miles are high with respect to the unspecifiedmodes. In Massachusetts, however, the majority of thepost route miles are by railroad.Fifteen years after postal reform, thirty years afterJohnson’s report, and after sixty years of networking,the postal system is still fitted to the exigent means oftransportation.ConclusionWhat happened to Johnson at that 1835 Democraticconvention in Baltimore? Well, he was nominated to theJacksonian ticket of Martin Van Buren. He faced competitionfrom three other candidates in the 1836 election anddid not receive a majority of the electoral college votes—so that he was our nation’s first, and only, vice president tohave been elected by the senate. He was also the first vicepresidentialcandidate to use broad- based and inventivecanvassing—elevating ‘pamphleteering’ to a new level. Hewas wise to capitalize on the national exposure of his rolein defending Sunday Mails.