The Continental Congress made Franklin postmaster general in 1775, but he wasn’t the founder of the Postal Service as we know it today. He had been Philadelphia’s postmaster and America’s co-postmaster general under the British Crown, and in 1775 he inherited an existing organization that retained some of its colonial trappings. Athat Franklin issued after he took office, for instance, was substantially similar to one he had issued under colonial rule.
In 1788, the ratified Constitution gave Congress the power “To establish Post Offices and post Roads.” President George Washington sought a postal service that could logistically bind western territories with the Eastern Seaboard. In, he urged Congress’s “establishment of the militia, of a mint, of standards of weights and measures, of the post office and post roads.” James Madison, then a congressman, wanted to ensure the flow of information from citizens to their representatives.