2d Session.

No. 59.

POSTAL RIGHTS OF INMATES OF INSANE ASYLUMS.

MEMORIAL

IN SUPPORT OF

THE BILL FOR THE PROTECTION OF THE POSTAL RIGHTS OF THE INMATES OF INSANE ASYLUMS.

FEBRUARY 1, 1875.-Referred to the Committee on the Post-Office and Post-Roads and ordered to be printed.

Mr. Chairman and Honorable Gentlemen of the Postal Committee: As men of intelligence, you cannot be ignorant of the fact that these humanitarian institutions are sometimes perverted from their avowed use as curative homes for the insane, and are sometimes made horrible prisons, where the innocent sane victims of cupidity and malice are hidden, where they are rendered almost as powerless to thwart base designs as if they were in their graves. And you are also aware that the public confidence in these institutions is sometimes shaken by reports of abuse and outrage inflicted upon the inmates while confined in these institutions, and as there now exist no specific and definite means of substantiating the validity of these reports, the innocent are liable to suffer and the guilty to be exonerated, until an adequate remedy is found for existing evils.

Aud, gentlemen, the governments of England, Belgium, and Germany have long since applied the remedy which this bill proposes to their insane asylums, and they have found it appropriate and adequate to meet the evils which an autocratic power almost invariably generates. And to a limited extent their noble example has been followed by the American Republic, in the State of Iowa, by a bill approved April 23, 1872; in Maine March 4, 1874; in Massachusetts June 25, 1874; in Connecticut July 1, 1873; and New Hampshire July 10, 1874; and this establishment of postal communications between the inmates of their insane asylums and an outside independent board, has been found to be the very key by which these American bastiles have been unlocked and transmuted into republican institutions by holding this before-autocratic power amenable to the laws when abused. And by so doing, they have been simply just to their inmates, by placing them under the protection of the same laws as shield all other citizens; and this board constitutes the link between them and the laws.

Yes, gentlemen; the test of this law for nearly three years in Iowa, and for a lesser time in the other named States, has demonstrated the utility of such a law as a potent remedy for the evils of false imprisonment, unreasonably long detention, and abuse of patients. And since common justice demands that every citizen of the United States should

be under the protection of the laws, and have access to the laws when needed in defense of his rights; and since, under existing laws in most of the States of the Union, there is no direct communication between the inmates of asylums and any responsible party outside, whereby grievances, if any exist, may be redressed; and since the present custom of intrusting the censorship of the letters of the inmates to the officers of the institution renders the mailing of their letters of dissatisfaction or complaint, whether reasonable or unreasonable, exceedingly doubtful; and since it is the acknowledged practice of the officers to burn many of their patients' letters, (as, for example, the superintendent of Brattleborough Asylum, in Vermont, remarked to an official visitor when passing through the asylum, as he pointed to an open-burning grate, "There is our post-office,") there is sad reason to fear that the postal rights of thousands of American citizens have thus been ruthlessly ignored, and will thus continue to be unless the Government do enact laws to secure the postal rights of this unfortunate class of American citizens from evasion; and since the present State boxes have not been found to be sufficiently secure to prevent interference; therefore, we would kindly ask Congress to direct the Postmaster-General to put up post-office boxes upon the insane asylums of such States as desire to place the inmates of their insane asylums under the protection of their laws, and whose legislature pass a bill defining its use, and thereby place the mail-matter of this class of American citizens under the protection of the same laws as those of other citizens.

And we would claim that it is especially due the inmates of insane asylums that their postal rights be protected to them, for the following reasons: A free and unrestricted communication between the inmates of insane ayslums and the outside world through their own body-guard will be a restraint upon the exercise of tyranny, and will be to the in mates of insane asylums what a police force is to a city-a means of preventing crime.

It will afford them an innocent gratification.

It will cultivate their affection for their relatives, which, under the present censorship, is most cruelly shaken, if not destroyed.

It will mitigate their mental torture by allowing it a natural vent, or expression.

As the present censorship is regarded by them as an outrage upon their rights, its removal will help to re-instate in their minds the principle of justice.

It will give their friends a test of their mental condition.

They now have no opportunity for self-defense, and this will afford them this reasonable right.

It might prevent the culmination of evils developed in Illinois, New York, and Vermont by their investigating committees, by affording each case a chance for settlement when the charges were reported.

If the complaints are delusive, it could hurt no one; if true, they could be corrected without public exposure.

Now, the inmates of those insane asylums, who have not their postal rights protected to them, are under an autocratic government entirely. They are outside the pale of justice, and beyond the reach of the laws of the American Republic; even more so than if they were under the control of the autocratic czar of Russia; for there, an American citizen can appeal to an embassador of our Government, if necessary, in defense of his reasonable rights; but from this American autocracy there is no appeal-not even to an embassador of the American Gov

ernment-since their postal rights, in common with every other right, are entirely subject to this autocrat's control, they cannot reach the laws-they have no means of access to the law, however much they may need its protection.

Now, gentlemen, by Congress passing this bill, you kindly offer to co-operate with the States in establishing a link of communication between the inmates of insane asylums and the laws of the United States, and thus encourage this humane legislation; and by thus giving them access to the law, you simply and justly place them under the protection of the same laws which shield every other citizen of the American Republic.

Honorable gentlemen, to the Christian philanthropy, which I believe is the controlling element of your deliberations as Congressmen of these United States, do I cheerfully intrust the disposal of this bill, trusting that the Christ within you will compel each of you to do for this unfortunate class as you would wish to be done by were you in their circumstances and condition.

And, gentlemen, I trust you will pardon me for adding that I am a self-moved and self-appointed defender of the rights of this most defenseless class of human beings. I work under no organization or party. I receive no remuneration, for services rendered, from any organization or individual. I work without money and without price, and bear my own expenses, which I defray by the sale of my own books. For ten years I have thus la bored, and have already secured legislation in seven States in their behalf; and it is my purpose to pursue this work until every State has been appealed to to place the inmates of their insane asylums under the protection of their laws.

And I do now kindly ask you to please grant me your aid and assistance in prosecuting this philanthropic work, by recommending the passage of this bill as a potent agency in accelerating this good work to its completion.

Honorable gentlemen, I am confident you would not condemn me for this persistency of effort, did you but know the sad experiences through which the providence of God has taken me, to capacitate me for this work, and I have no hesitancy in giving you an outline of this sad drama, if you desire it, as it furnishes, in itself, a strong argument in support of this bill. And it may be your duty as Congressmen to know how a citizen of the United States could be legally imprisoned under the American flag of religious toleration, as I have been, for three years, simply for exercising the right of private judgment in religious belief, that you may enact such laws as may remove the legal liability of its being done in future, and thus do all that lies in your power to do, to erase this foul stain from your national escutcheon.

A statement of the facts, as requested by the committee.

I am a native of Massachusetts, the only daughter of an orthodox clergyman of the Congregational denomination, and wife of a Congregational clergyman of Massachusetts, who was preaching to a Presbyterian church in Manteno, Kankakee County, Illinois, when this legal persecution commenced. Mr. Packard, my husband, was at that time a member of the Chicago presbytery.

I have been educated a Calvinist after the strictest sect, but as my reasoning faculties have been developed by my education, I have been led by the simple exercise of my own reason and common sense to endorse theological views in conflict with my educated belief and the creed of the

church with which I am connected. In short, from my present standpoint I cannot but believe that the doctrine of total depravity, which implies the loss of infants, conflicts with the dictates of reason, common sense, and the Bible. And, gentlemen, the only crime I have committed is to dare to be true to these, my honest convictious, and to give my argument in support of these views in a Bible class in Manteno, at the special request of the teacher of that class, and with the full and free consent of my husband.

But the popular indorsement of these new views by the class, and the community generally, led my husband and his Calvinistic church to fear lest their church-creed might suffer serious detriment by this license of private judgment and free inquiry, and as these liberal views emanated from his own family, and he, declining to meet me on the open arena of argument and free discussion, chose rather to use the marital power which common law unmodified, as it then was, by statute law in Illinois, licensed him to use, over my identity, and under a very unjust statute law of Illinois then in force, he got me legally imprisoned in Jacksonville insane asylum without evidence of insanity, and without trial, hoping, as he told me, that by so doing he could destroy my moral influence, and thereby defend the cause of Christ, as he felt bound to do.

The first intimation I had of this legal exposure was by two men entering my room on the morning of the 18th of June, 1860, and kidnaping me. Two of his church-members, attended by Sheriff Burgess, of Kankakee, took me up in their arms and carried me to the wagon and thence to the cars in spite of my lady-like protests, and regardless of all my entreaties for some sort of a trial before impris onment.

My husband replied, "I am doing as the laws of Illinois allow me to do. You have no protector in law but myself, and I am protecting you now. It is for your good I am doing this. I want to save your soul. You don't believe in total depravity, and I want to make you right." "Husband,” said I, "have I not a right to my opinions?"

"You have a right to right opinions, but no right to wrong opinions." "But does not the Constitution of the American Government defend the right of private judgment to all citizens ?"

zen.

"Yes, to all citizens it does defend this right; but you are not a citi While a married woman you are a legal nonentity, without even a soul in law, for your individual rights are all suspended during coverture; therefore the exercise of them depends upon my will or dictation."

Here I was, taken from my little family of six children, while my babe was only eighteen months old, while in the faithful discharge of all my duties as wife, mother, and housekeeper, in perfect health and sound mind, and forced into an imprisonment of indefinite length without the mere form of a trial, and with no chance for self-defense.

But the community outside the church were stanch defenders of the rights of free thought and free speech, and they determined to defend me in my quiet and reasonable exercise of the rights of private judg ment. They accordingly met at the Manteno depot in a large crowd to rescue me from the hands of my legal kidnapers; but, to their surprise, the sheriff was there claiming that Mr. Packard had this legal right thus to control the identity of his wife.

The crowd were taken aback, but instead of resisting this officer by a mob defense-the only alternative left them-they volunteered my