“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.