United States
In the United States, colonial post roads developed as the primary method of transporting information across the original thirteen colonies. Post riders rode horses between towns on the road and milestones marked the distance between cities. Many of these milestones still exist on older highways such as the Boston Post Road. Before the advent of electronic communication, post roads were crucial in spreading news and knowledge across the colonies.
The Articles of Confederation authorized the national government to create post offices but not post roads. Adoption of the U.S. Constitution changed this, as Article I, Section Eight, known as the Postal Clause, specifically authorizes Congress the enumerated power "to establish post offices and post roads." The U.S. Supreme Court later interpreted this clause to allow the creation of postal roads that were used for other concurrent purposes. A law of 1838 designated all existing and future railroads as post roads.
Notable American post roads built for the purpose include:
- Albany Post Road, connects New York City to Albany, the capital of New York state
- Boston Post Road, traverses New England from New York to Boston
Read more about this topic: Post Road
Famous quotes related to united states:
“The Federated Republic of Europe—the United States of Europe—that is what must be. National autonomy no longer suffices. Economic evolution demands the abolition of national frontiers. If Europe is to remain split into national groups, then Imperialism will recommence its work. Only a Federated Republic of Europe can give peace to the world.”
—Leon Trotsky (1879–1940)
“The city of Washington is in some respects self-contained, and it is easy there to forget what the rest of the United States is thinking about. I count it a fortunate circumstance that almost all the windows of the White House and its offices open upon unoccupied spaces that stretch to the banks of the Potomac ... and that as I sit there I can constantly forget Washington and remember the United States.”
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—John Kenneth Galbraith (b. 1908)
“The United States is the only great nation whose government is operated without a budget. The fact is to be the more striking when it is considered that budgets and budget procedures are the outgrowth of democratic doctrines and have an important part in developing the modern constitutional rights.... The constitutional purpose of a budget is to make government responsive to public opinion and responsible for its acts.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)
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—Anna Elizabeth Dickinson (1842–1932)