Fifty volumes of copies of Letters Sent by the Postmaster General between October 3, 1789, and December 31, 1836, are here reproduced. Each volume is assigned an alphabetical designation and contains an index of names of correspondents. The letters are arranged chronologically. The volumes reproduced on rolls 28, 38, and 46 are letters to members of Congress.
The letters, written by the Postmaster General, deal with activities of the Post Office Department and relate chiefly to post offices, postmasters, mail transportation, mail contracts, departmental organizations, appropriations, legislation, postal laws and regulations, budget, international mail service, international postal conventions, postage stamps, departmental employees, mail fraud, lottery cases, and claims against the Post Office Department and postmasters.
The Postmasters General holding office during the time these letters were written were: Samuel Osgood, beginning September 26, 1789; Timothy Pickering, beginning August 12, 1791; Joseph Habersham, beginning February 25, 1795; Gideon Granger, beginning November 28, 1801; Return J. Meigs, Jr., beginning April 11, 1814; John McLean, beginning December 9, 1823; William T. Barry, beginning March 9, 1829; and Amos Kendall, beginning April 11, 1835.
The Office of the Postmaster-General originated on July 26, 1775, with the selection by the Continental Congress of Benjamin Franklin as Postmaster General for a term of one year. The position of Postmaster General was continued by the Congress of the Confederation.
An act of September 22, 1789 (1 Stat. 70), under the Federal Government provided for the temporary establishment of a general post office and authorized the appointment of a Postmaster General who was subject to the direction of the President. It also provided that the duties, salaries, and regulations of the Department should be the same as those under the Congress of the Confederation. An act of February 20, 1792 (1 Stat. 232), later provided in detail for the Post Office Department and the postal service generally. Subsequent acts made the Post Office a permanent agency and enlarged its duties.
The Post Office operated as a single, undifferentiated unit until the appointment of a chief clerk on April 1, 1818. This officer was assigned supervision of the field operations of the Post Office, including mail contracts, inspections, activities of special agents, disbursements, and measures to deal with mail depredations. As the Post Office came to perform more services, other functions of the Postmaster General were delegated to the Chief Clerk and the Assistant Postmaster General. (The First Assistant Postmaster General was authorized on January 28, 1792; the Second Assistant Postmaster General on April 30, 1810; the Third Assistant Postmasters General on July 2, 1836; and the Fourth Assistant Postmaster General on March 3, 1891.) The salary of the Postmaster General was placed on an equal basis with that of other Department heads on March 2, 1827, and in 1830 the Postmaster General became a regular Member of the Cabinet.
The records reproduced in this microcopy are part of Record Group 28, Records of the Post Office Department. Related records are among Records of the Bureaus of Assistant Postmasters General, the Bureau Accounts, and the Bureau of the Chief Inspector of the Post Office Department also in Record Group 28.
September 21, 1955 Moses Wright, Emmett Till’s great uncle, does the unthinkable — he accuses two white men in open court. While on the witness stand, he stands up and points his finger at Milam and Bryant, and accuses them of coming to his house and kidnapping Emmett
A documentary about the life and sociocultural contributions of James Meredith will be screened next week at the University of Mississippi. “Mississippi Messiah” provides a comprehensive biography of Meredith, who integrated the university in 1962.
The screening, at 6 p.m. Tuesday (Sept. 20) in Fulton Chapel, is among a series of events commemorating the university’s 60th anniversary of integration. The event is free and open to the public.
Kathleen Wickham, professor of journalism, proposed the film’s screening after viewing it at the 2022 Oxford Film Festival.
“When we talk about James Meredith, so much of it is about politics and strategy,” Wickham said. “There is less known about him as a man and his impact on the Black community. That’s one of the threads that I saw in the documentary that made it stand out from other documentaries that I’ve seen about him.
On September 17, 1787, members of the Constitutional Convention signed the final draft of the Constitution. Two days earlier, when a final vote was called, Edmund Randolph called for another convention to carefully review the Constitution as it stood. This motion, supported by George Mason and Elbridge Gerry, was voted down and the Constitution was adopted.
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
The product of four months of secret debate, the Constitution replaced the Articles of Confederation and proposed an entirely new form of government.
Adopted by the Continental Congress in 1777, but not ratified by the states until 1781, the Articles of Confederation created a loose confederation of sovereign states and a weak central government. With the passage of time, the defects in the Articles of Confederation became apparent. The Continental Congress commanded little respect and no support from state governments anxious to maintain their power. Congress could not raise funds, regulate trade, or conduct foreign policy without the voluntary agreement of the states.
Events such as Shays’ Rebellion, an armed uprising by debt-ridden farmers in western Massachusetts in 1786 and early 1787, exposed the weaknesses of the federal government and galvanized calls for revising the Articles of Confederation.
In an effort to deal with problems of interstate commerce, a convention in Annapolis was held in September 1786. Led by James Madison and Alexander Hamilton, the delegates at the Annapolis Convention issued a proposal for a new convention to revise the Articles of Confederation.
On February 21, 1787, the Continental Congress called for a national convention to meet in Philadelphia to revise the Articles of Confederation. By May 25, the state delegates had reached a quorum and the Constitutional Convention officially began. George Washington was selected unanimously as president of the Convention.
From the outset, delegates clashed over issues of state sovereignty while small and large states battled over the distribution of power. Fears of creating a too powerful central authority ran high. The Convention tackled basic issues including the essential structure of the government, the basis of representation, and the regulation of interstate trade. As he submitted the Constitution to the Continental Congress, George Washington acknowledged the difficult task the Convention faced:
It is at all times difficult to draw with precision the line between those rights which must be surrendered, and those which may be preserved; and, on the present occasion, the difficulty was increased by a difference among the several States as to their situation, extent, habits, and particular interests…thus, the Constitution which we now present is the result of a spirit of amity, and of that mutual deference and concession, which the peculiarity of our political situation rendered indispensable.
Although the Constitutional Convention met for the last time on September 17, 1787, public debate over the Constitution was just beginning. The Constitution specified that at least nine states ratify the new form of government, but everyone hoped for nearly unanimous approval. As the states called their own ratifying conventions, arguments for and against the document resurfaced. Writing under the pseudonym Publius, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay defended the proposed plan in a series of newspaper articles, later collected as the Federalist Papers.
The Constitution was officially adopted by the United States when it was ratified by New Hampshire on June 21, 1788, the ninth state to do so. The first Congress under the new Constitution convened in New York City on March 4, 1789, although a quorum was not achieved until early April. On April 30, 1789, President George Washington delivered the first inaugural address, and within his initial term the first ten amendments—known as the Bill of Rights—were adopted, establishing the fundamental rights of U.S. citizens and assuaging many fears associated with the relatively strong central government the Constitution provides.
Visit the Library of Congress online exhibition Religion and the Founding of the American Republic to learn how the framers of the Constitution viewed the relationship between religion and government.
The James Madison Papers, 1723 to 1859 consists of approximately 12,000 items that document the life of the man who came to be known as the “Father of the Constitution” and includes an essay on Madison’s role in the Constitutional Convention.
In the days leading up to the Battle of Antietam, Confederate General Robert E. Lee concentrated his invading army outside Sharpsburg, Maryland. Victorious at Manassas in August, Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia hoped to garner new recruits and supplies in Maryland, a slave-holding state that remained in the Union. However, Union General George B. McClellan who closely pursued his rival enjoyed a strategic advantage. A scout had discovered a copy of the Confederate battle plan and the contents of Lee’s Special Order Number 191 were well known to his rival.
At dawn on September 17, 1862 the hills of Sharpsburg thundered with artillery and musket fire as the Northern and Southern armies struggled for possession of the Miller farm cornfield. For three hours, the battle lines swept back and forth across the field.
Of all the days on all the fields where American soldiers have fought, the most terrible by almost any measure was September 17, 1862. The battle waged on that date, close by Antietam Creek at Sharpsburg in western Maryland, took a human toll never exceeded on any other single day in the nation’s history. So intense and sustained was the violence, a man recalled, that for a moment in his mind’s eye the very landscape around him turned red.
Stephen W. Sears. Landscape Turned Red: The Battle of Antietam. New Haven: Ticknor & Fields, 1983
By mid-morning, the Confederate line was established along a country lane called Sunken Road. The soldiers crouched behind its high banks, unleashing heavy fire upon advancing Union troops. Eventually, the overwhelming number of Northerners broke the Confederate line. As the Southerners spun to defend their position, Union troops rained bullets lengthwise down the lane onto them. The road came to be known as Bloody Lane because of the tragic toll of death suffered there.
The Southerners retreated towards Sharpsburg, covered by cannon fire from General Stonewall Jackson’s artillery. The Union troops fell back in the face of the cannon fire and failed to pursue the Confederates.
Cautious to a fault, McClellan failed to advance quickly on the Confederates who had reached the town. Eventually, General Ambrose Burnside attacked, but was repelled by the ragged Southerners and newly arrived troops under Major General A. P. Hill.
Your name is on every lip and many prayers and good wishes are hourly sent up for your welfare — and McClellan and his slowness are as vehemently discussed…All the distinguished in the land…would almost worship you if you would put a fighting general in the place of McClellan…
By nightfall, Confederates occupied the town of Sharpsburg ending the single bloodiest day in American history. More than 23,000 men were killed, wounded, or missing in action. The next day, Lee began his retreat across the Potomac River.
![Letter, Mary Todd Lincoln to Abraham Lincoln advising her husband to remove the hesitant Gen. George B. McClellan from command, 2 November [1862]. Page 1 of letter.](https://www.loc.gov/static/managed-content/uploads/sites/10/1862/09/sep17-letter.jpg)
Be a Seed for Change 
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