Resolution Authorizing Inspection of Letters in the Post Office, 23 October 1786

Resolution Authorizing Inspection of Letters in the Post Office

Monday [New York,] October 23. 1786

Present Massachusetts, Rhodeisland, Connecticut New York, New Jersey, Pensylvania, South Carolina and Georgia. & from Maryland Mr Ramsay from Virginia Mr Lee.—

Resolved Unanimously That whenever it shall appear to the Secretary of the United States of America for the department of foreign Affairs that their safety or interest require the inspection of any letters in any of the post Offices he be authorised & empowered to inspect the said letters, excepting from the operation of this resolution all letters franked by or addressed to Members of Congress.—1

D, DNA: PCC, item 3, 237. As noted in JCC, description begins Worthington C. Ford et al., eds., Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774–1789 (34 vols.; Washington, D.C., 1904–37) description ends 31: 909, this resolution is entered by CT only in the Secret Journals, Domestic, No. 3.

1. This resolution renewed and made permanent powers granted JJ under a resolution of 7 Sept. 1785, on which see the Secretary of Congress to JJ, 8 Sept. 1785, above.

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Source Project: Jay Papers
Title: Resolution Authorizing Inspection of Letters in the Post Office, 23 October 1786
Date: 23 October 1786

Reference

Cite as: “Resolution Authorizing Inspection of Letters in the Post Office, 23 October 1786,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jay/01-04-02-0199. [Original source: The Selected Papers of John Jay, vol. 4, 1785–1788, ed. Elizabeth M. Nuxoll. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2015, p. 433.]