1872 Mail Fraud

Delving into the 1872 federal mail fraud statute reveals a fascinating and pivotal moment in American legal history, particularly concerning the evolving understanding and prosecution of corruption. This law, enacted to combat “abuse of the post office”, criminalized the use of mail to advance “any scheme or artifice to defraud”.

Initially, the statute aimed at preventing various forms of fraud facilitated through the postal service. This was a critical concern, as abuses of communication systems had a long history; from schemes to send short messages on letter covers that recipients would reject without paying postage, to telegraph operators being bribed for early horse race results. The post office itself had to contend with wholesale fraud, such as crooked direct marketers bribing postal employees to insert truckloads of junk mail without payment, and the forging of meter plates. The Mail Fraud Act was a direct response to such vulnerabilities.

However, the mail fraud statute quickly transcended its initial focus on postal abuse. Its scope expanded significantly, especially after a 1909 amendment that prohibited schemes “for obtaining money or property by means of false or fraudulent pretenses, representations, or promises”. Crucially, federal courts, over the next forty years, broadly interpreted this statute to criminalize the “theft of honest services”. This meant that public officials, who purported to exercise independent discretion, were committing fraud if they accepted bribes or engaged in self-dealing for private gain, even if there was no direct evidence of monetary harm to the city or state. The underlying principle was that the public had a right to the “honest and faithful services” of its employees, and democratic society depended on this obligation.

This interpretation made the mail fraud statute an incredibly potent tool, particularly for prosecuting bribery of state and local officials, which federal bribery laws at the time did not always cover. Prior to this expansion, federal statutory law against bribery was relatively narrow, focusing on specific federal officers like judges, customs, and tax officials, and was rarely enforced against legislators. Even when states had their own bribery laws, they were often a “patchwork” and “rarely used”. The mail fraud statute provided a federal means to address corrupt practices that might otherwise go unpunished, covering not only completed corrupt exchanges but also mere bribe attempts. This effectively granted juries “enormous power to determine what constituted corruption” by applying “normative political standards”.

The enactment and expansive interpretation of the mail fraud statute reflected a growing national concern about corruption, especially during the Gilded Age when the lines between legitimate political money and illicit influence were blurred. This period saw significant financial contributions from burgeoning industries like oil, banking, and railroads, with clear intentions to influence governmental action, yet with little legal distinction between campaign contributions and outright bribes. The mail fraud statute, alongside other reforms like the Pendleton Act of 1883 (which created a merit-based system for federal hiring), represented a shift towards more proactive anticorruption efforts.

By the early 20th century, particularly under President Theodore Roosevelt, there was a concerted push to prosecute corrupt officials, marking a “new era of criminal enforcement”. The mail fraud statute became a key instrument in this drive, even leading to the first-ever convictions of elected federal officials. This aggressive stance contrasted with earlier periods where grand corruption, such as the Credit Mobilier scandal in the 1870s, often resulted in political damage but lacked significant criminal prosecution.

The mail fraud statute, as one of the “major Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Anticorruption Laws,” thus played a critical role in shaping how corruption was defined and prosecuted in America. Its broad application laid the groundwork for a more robust federal approach to public integrity, particularly in the post-Watergate era, where charges of “corruption” became a central part of “prosecutorial post-Watergate culture”.