MR. PRESIDENT,--It may be well, as the Senate is called to enact
a new national statute, to glance back at an early landmark, and
contemplate the principles declared by our fathers. I hold in my hand
the Declaration of Independence, with these words at the beginning: “We
hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,”
&c. Now, Sir, the Senator from Connecticut [Mr. FOSTER], representing
the Judiciary Committee, proposes to establish as a rule of evidence in
the national courts that men are not equal.
Mr. Foster here interrupted to say that he proposed “no such
rule of evidence”; that he simply proposed “to allow the laws
of the several States of this Union to operate as rules to
control the courts of the United States sitting within those
several States, as it regards the competency of witnesses: that
is all.”