“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:—