without it the object of the grant might
be defeated. Whatever is absolutely necessary to the accomplishment of
the object of the grant, though not specified, may fairly be considered
as included in it. Beyond this the doctrine of incidental power can not
be carried.

If we go back to the origin of our settlements and institutions and
trace their progress down to the Revolution, we shall see that it was in
this sense, and in none other, that the power was exercised by all our
colonial governments. Post-offices were made for the country, and not
the country for them. They are the offspring of improvement; they never
go before it. Settlements are first made, after which the progress is
uniform and simple, extending to objects in regular order most necessary
to the comfort of man--schools, places of public worship, court-houses,
and markets; post-offices follow. Roads may, indeed, be said to be
coeval with settlements; they lead to all the places mentioned, and
to every other which the various and complicated interests of society
require.

It is believed that not one example can be given, from the first
settlement of our country to the adoption of this Constitution,
of a post-office being established without a view to existing roads or
of a single road having been made by pavement, turnpike, etc., for the
sole purpose of accommodating a post-office. Such, too, is the uniform
progress of all societies. In granting, then, this power to the United
States it was undoubtedly intended by the framers and ratifiers of the
Constitution to convey it in the sense and extent only in which it had
been understood and exercised by the previous authorities of the
country.

This conclusion is confirmed by the object of the grant and the
manner of its execution. The object is the transportation of the mail
throughout the United States, which may be done on horseback, and was
so done until lately, since the establishment of stages. Between the
great towns and in other places where the population is dense stages are
preferred because they afford an additional opportunity to make a profit
from passengers; but where the population is sparse and on crossroads it
is generally carried on horseback. Unconnected with passengers and other
objects, it can not be doubted that the mail itself may be carried in
every part of our Union with nearly as much economy and greater dispatch
on horseback than in a stage, and in many parts with much greater. I