Trump's Postal Service Voter-Suppression Order Echoes Jackson's Abolitionist Mail Censorship
Source: Steven Lubet. "Trump’s favorite president also attacked the Postal Service.." September 4, 2026. slate.com
The Gist
The author argues that Trump's order to have the Postal Service block mail-in voting isn't actually a new kind of abuse of power—it's strikingly similar to what Andrew Jackson did in the 1830s, when his administration let Southern postmasters illegally block abolitionist mail based on racist lies. The author says both cases involve presidents twisting the mail system to silence political opponents using false justifications, and hopes the Supreme Court will stop Trump's version faster than it took the Civil War to stop Jackson's.
Conclusion
Trump's executive order directing the Postal Service to suppress mail voting is not unprecedented but instead echoes a historical, deeply shameful precedent set by Andrew Jackson (Trump's self-professed favorite president), who used the Postal Service to suppress abolitionist mail based on a fabricated pretext.
Premises
- In 1835, Andrew Jackson's administration—through Postmaster General Amos Kendall—effectively sanctioned Southern postmasters' refusal to deliver abolitionist literature, despite lacking legal authority to do so.
- Jackson personally endorsed suppressing abolitionist mail, instructing postmasters to publicize subscriber names to enable intimidation, and asked Congress to criminalize circulation of such 'incendiary' materials.
- This censorship was justified by a fabricated premise: the racist myth that enslaved people were content and would only be provoked to insurrection by outside abolitionist agitation.
- Trump's mail-voting suppression order similarly rests on a fabricated premise: the false claim that mail-in ballots constitute election rigging, despite Trump himself voting by mail.
- Both cases involve the President attempting to weaponize the Postal Service against a disfavored political group under false pretenses, despite lacking clear legal authority.
- Historically, this Jacksonian mail censorship persisted for decades until the Civil War forcibly ended it, suggesting such abuses can be dangerously durable once entrenched.
- The Supreme Court now has the power to end Trump's scheme far more quickly than the Civil War ended Jackson's.
Assumptions
- That the moral and legal illegitimacy of suppressing abolitionist mail is analogous in kind (not just superficially similar) to suppressing mail-in ballots.
- That Trump's stated admiration for Jackson makes the historical parallel especially fitting or ironic, rather than coincidental.
- That mail-in voting suppression, like abolitionist mail suppression, is motivated by an illegitimate political goal (suppressing opposition) rather than a genuine, defensible policy concern.
- That the Supreme Court will recognize and act to stop the Trump administration's postal order, similar to how the Civil War eventually ended Jacksonian-era mail censorship.
- That readers will accept the characterization of Trump's mail-fraud claims as fabricated without extensive independent argument, since the author largely asserts this rather than rebutting mail-voting fraud claims in depth.