Volume 8 — REMOVAL OF DISQUALIFICATION OF COLOR IN CARRYING THE MAILS.

Bill in the Senate, March 18, 1862, and Incidents.

March 18, 1862, Mr. Sumner asked, and by unanimous consent obtained, leave to introduce a bill to remove all disqualification of color in carrying the mails, which was read twice by its title and referred to the Committee on Post-Offices and Post-Roads.

The bill in its operative words was as follows.

That, from and after the passage of this Act, no person, by reason of color, shall be disqualified from employment in carrying the mails; and all Acts and parts of Acts establishing such disqualification, including especially the seventh section of the Act of March 3, 1825, are hereby repealed.

March 27th, the bill was reported to the Senate by Mr. Collamer, of Vermont, Chairman of the Committee, without amendment.

The existing law was as follows:—

“That no other than a free white person shall be employed in conveying the mail, and any contractor who shall employ or permit any other than a free white person to convey the mail shall for every such offence incur a penalty of twenty dollars.”[208]

This passed the Senate March 1, 1825, and the House March 2, without a division. The first suggestion of this measure was as early as 1802, by Gideon Granger, Postmaster-General, in a communication addressed to Hon. James Jackson, Senator from Georgia, which, it will be seen, was private in character.

“General Post-Office, March 23, 1802.

“Sir,—An objection exists against employing negroes, or people of color, in transporting the public mails, of a nature too delicate to ingraft into a report which may become public, yet too important to be omitted or passed over without full consideration. I therefore take the liberty of making to the Committee, through you, a private representation on that subject.…

“Everything which tends to increase their knowledge of natural rights, of men and things, or that affords them an opportunity of associating, acquiring, and communicating sentiments, and of establishing a chain or line of intelligence, must increase your hazard, because it increases their means of effecting their object.

“The most active and intelligent are employed as post-riders. These are the most ready to learn and the most able to execute. By travelling from day to day, and hourly mixing with people, they must, they will, acquire information. They will learn that a man’s rights do not depend on his color. They will in time become teachers to their brethren. They become acquainted with each other on the line. Whenever the body, or a portion of them, wish to act, they are an organized corps, circulating our intelligence openly, their own privately.”[209]

This communication, which Mr. Sumner laid before the Committee, was the argument on which he relied.

April 11th, the bill was considered in the Senate, on motion of Mr. Sumner, and passed without amendment or debate: Yeas 24, Nays 11.

A correspondent of the Boston Journal remarked at the time:—

“This is the first time, within the recollection of your correspondent, that any bill having the negro in it, directly or indirectly, has been passed by the Senate without debate. What a good time is coming, when the negro questions shall all have been legislated upon, and when the African race will no longer be a bone of contention in our legislative halls!”

The bill was less fortunate in the House of Representatives, where, May 20th, Mr. Colfax, of Indiana, reported it from the Post-Office Committee with the recommendation that it do not pass. In explaining the reasons for this report, he referred to the original Act of Congress establishing the disqualification, and said:—

“That law has been on the statute-book for more than a third of a century. Among all the petitions presented during that time to this House and the Senate, from people in all sections of the country, there has not been, so far as I have been able to discover, a single petition from any person, white or black, male or female, asking for a repeal or modification of this law. It has remained there by common consent until the present time; and therefore I think it unwise and inexpedient to pass the bill at the present time, not being demanded by public opinion.

“In the second place, the repeal of this bill does not affect exclusively the blacks of the country, as generally supposed. It will throw open the business of mail-contracting, and of thus becoming officers of the Post-Office Department, not only to blacks, but also to the Indian tribes, civilized and uncivilized, and to the Chinese, who have come in such large numbers to the Pacific coast.…

“By this bill, if it is to pass, you would allow all over the South the employment by the slaveholder of his slaves to carry the mail, and to receive compensation for the labor of such slaves out of the Federal Treasury. By the present law not a dollar is ever paid out of the Post-Office Treasury to any slaveholder for the labor of his slave.…

“Mr. Speaker, I am furthermore authorized by the Postmaster-General to say that he has not recommended the passage of this bill, nor does he regard it as promotive of the interests of the Department. I cannot find that it is asked for by any official or private citizen throughout the length and breadth of this land.”

To these objections he added, that it was necessary to have testimony by which you can convict mail depredators; and “in some of the States Indians and negroes, and in California and Oregon the Chinese also, are not allowed by the statutes of the State to give testimony in the courts against white persons.”

Mr. Dawes, of Massachusetts, inquired of Mr. Colfax, “whether he supposes depredators upon the mails are tried in the State courts, or whether they are tried in the United States courts, and if the latter, whether he and I do not make the laws of the United States and the courts of the United States, prescribing who shall testify and who shall not?”

“Mr. Colfax. Not being a lawyer, and not understanding, therefore, all the rules which govern the proceedings of the courts, I, however, say that I am informed by those who are lawyers that the rules of evidence in force in the States respectively are adopted by the United States courts in such States. And the gentleman from Massachusetts, who is a lawyer, ought to have known the fact, and, knowing it, ought not to have asked me such a question.

“Mr. Dawes. The gentleman from Indiana has not quite answered me.”[210]

Mr. Colfax moved to lay the bill on the table, which was ordered, May 21st: Yeas 82, Nays 45. So the bill was lost.

In the next Congress it was again introduced by Mr. Sumner.

A letter from William C. Nell, of Boston, well known for his volume on “The Colored Patriots of the Revolution,” shows how a single individual suffered under this discrimination of color.

“Please accept my sincere thanks for your efforts to remove the disqualification of color in mail-carrying.

“Mr. Phillips conveyed to me the substance of information imparted by you, to wit, the postponement of the bill in the House. To me the disappointment is heavy, presuming said action to be a finality, at least for this session, and the next one is not likely to be as liberal.

“I never had more desire or more need of chances to earn money than now, and never were my opportunities so small.”

The existing law was general, and Mr. Nell could not be a letter-carrier in Boston.