Papers Of Abraham Lincoln

25th Congress,
2d Session. (Rep. No. 988.) Ho. OF Reps.

JOSEPH F. CALDWELL.
(To accompany bill H. R. No. 850.)
June 27, 1838.
Mr. Briggs, from the Committee on the Post Office and Post Roads, submitted the following
REPORT:
The Committee on the Post Office and Post Roads, to whom was referred the petition of Joseph F. Caldwell, report:

That said Caldwell claims to be paid by the Government for certain losses which he says he sustained by reason of material alterations being made by the Postmaster General in contracts which had been made between him and the memorialist, for the transportation of the mail of the United States, in the State of Virginia, and for damages which he sustained by the Post Office Department not paying at maturity, according to agreement, certain drafts which he had made upon the Department for services rendered.

It appears that on the 20th October, 1830, said Caldwell entered into a written contract with the Postmaster General, to carry the mail from Lewisburg to Salt, White Sulphur, and Sweet Springs, three times a week, in four-horse post-coaches, for which he was to be paid $1,400 a year; the contract to commence on the 1st January, 1831, and end the 31st December, 1834. On the 20th November, 1832, he entered into another contract in writing with the Postmaster General to carry the mail from Salt Sulphur Springs by Red Sulphur Springs, Peterstown, Giles court-house, and Poplar Hill, to Newbern, and back, three times a week, in four-horse post-coaches, at the rate of $525 a quarter, or $2,100 a year.

In each of said contracts there was the following article: "It is mutually understood by the contracting parties, that if the route, or any part of the route, herein mentioned, shall be discontinued, by act of Congress, or in the opinion of the Postmaster General becomes useless, or if a line of stages or steamboats shall be established on the whole or any part of it when the mail is not so carried under this contract, then this contract or such part of it shall cease to be binding on the Postmaster General, he giving notice of such event, and making allowance of one month's pay."

The said Caldwell purchased all the horses, coaches, and harness, and other property necessary to put these contracts into operation, and continued to perform the services required by them until the 14th No-

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vember, 1833, when he received the following order from the Post Office Department, signed by C. K. Gardner, Assistant Postmaster General: “Post Office Department, Southern Division, 14th November, 1833. Sir: The Postmaster General has decided to alter contracts No. 2080, from Salt Sulphur Springs to Newbern, and No. 1984, from Lewisburg to Giles court-house, Virginia, so that the mail shall be transported from and after the 1st December next, four months in the year on both those routes in four-horse post-coaches, three times a week, and during the remainder of the year twice a week on horse-back. In consequence of this alteration and reduction of service, the Postmaster General directs that one-third of the original amount of each contract be deducted therefrom, viz: $700 from No. 2080, and $467 from No. 1984. One month's extra pay will be allowed you on the amount deducted.”

This alteration was made without the consent of the contractor, and the order gives no reason for making it. A certificate from the Auditor of the Post Office Department, bearing date June 13, 1838, proves that the memorialist fully performed all the stipulations in his part of the contract, as well down to the time the alteration aforesaid was made, as what remained of them after that time to the end of the period for which they were made.

If the Postmaster General had a right by the terms of the contract to make the alterations which he did make by the order aforesaid, it is very clear the contractor has no legal cause to complain on account of any loss he may have sustained by such alterations; for no one can reasonably complain of that which has been done by his agreement. Had the Postmaster General that right? By the terms of the above-cited article in the contract, which authorizes the Posmaster General on certain contingencies to discontinue the whole or any part of a route, or to take the whole or any part of the route from the contractor, it is made his duty to notify the other party of the happening of the event upon which the alteration is made. In this case the happening of no event was communicated, nor was any reason given to the contractor for the alterations which were made.

If the route or any part of it had been discontinued by act of Congress, or if, in the opinion of the Postmaster General, it had become useless, or if a line of steamboats had been established on the whole or any part of it, he would have been authorized by the contract to alter the relations existing by it between him and the other party. The above are the only three contingencies named in the contract, the happening of which would give him that power. When either of those events should have occurred, and Caldwell had been notified of it, that part of the contract affected by it would have been no longer binding on the Postmaster General. In the order directing the alterations in the case in question, it is not intimated that either of the above-named contingencies had occurred. Indeed, the alterations directed are different in their nature and character from any named in the contract. The two first named in that instrument contemplate a discontinuance of the route itself, or a part of it, and not an alteration in the mode of carrying the mail over it.

The third was intended to provide for an improved method of carrying the mail over the route, if a better mode should be established than that for which the contract stipulated; but it seems to confer no power upon the Postmaster General to derange or break up the contract by directing

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the mail to be carried by poorer means, such as reducing a steamboat to a stage, or a stage to a horse mail, or that when by the contract it was to be carried three times a week by stage, it should be carried twice a week only, and that on horseback. The alterations made in this case by order of the Postmaster General being entirely of a different character from those named in the contract, the committee are brought to the conclusion that he made the alterations without authority, and in derogation of the rights of the contractor under that contract. The contract was alike binding and obligatory upon both parties who executed it, and neither had any right more than the other to alter, abridge, or extend it, unless authorized so to do by its provisions. The committee ought here to state, in justice to themselves, that a former report made by them, with a different conclusion as to the power of the Postmaster General to make the alterations which he did make, was made without a perfect knowledge of the specific provisions in the contracts, and under the belief that the article giving the power of the Postmaster General to make alterations, was identical with the provision in the present contracts between him and the mail contractors, which the committee now understand are broad enough to cover such alterations as were made in the case of Mr. Caldwell. ^Griffith^

If the contract made by the memorialists with the Postmaster General, on behalf of the Government, has been materially varied and changed by the agent of the Government, without authority and against the consent of the other party, so as deeply to affect his interest, and to his pecuniary loss, it would seem unnecessary to go into an argument to show that he has a legal as well as an equitable claim upon the Government for relief. As between individuals, if A contract with B to perform service for him, for which B stipulates to pay him a sum of money, if A performs the service according to his contract, or is prevented from doing it, or any part of it, by the interference of B, without fault on his part, it is clear that, by law, he is entitled to the whole consideration, as though he had actually performed the whole service, without proving that he had been damaged by the interference of B to forbid or prevent him from, doing the service. This law is designed to prevent a man from taking advantage of his own wrong. It is founded in justice, and the liabilities of the parties in the case put are reciprocal; for if A, having performed a part of his stipulated service, refuses, without the fault of the other party, to complete it, he can recover no pay for what he has done. In the case now under consideration, if Mr. Caldwell had carried the mail one year, according to his contract, and had then refused to complete his agreement, and abandoned the road, the Government would have been under no obligation, in law or in equity, to have paid him a dollar for his year's service.

When the Government, by its own appointed agent, is a party to a contract with one of its citizens, is it entitled to any exceptions or privileges that would not belong to another of its citizens if he was the other party to the contract? The committee think not. If they are right in this view of the subject, Mr. Caldwell has a fair legal claim for relief.

What damages then has he sustained by the unauthorized alterations made by the Government, without his consent, in the contract which it had entered into with him, and which he, on his part, had performed to the letter. The contracts were for carrying the mail on two important

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routes, in four-horse post-coaches, three times a week for a specified time. All the teams, carriages, and attendants, which were required to carry into operation the stipulations for both routes, had been purchased and procured at great expense by him, and they were in full operation. Whilst he was thus prepared, and thus engaged in fulfilling his obligations solemnly entered into with the Government, the Postmaster General, by an official order, which he could not resist, directed that the services described in the contract should be performed but four months of the year for the residue of the time, which was one year and one month, and that, for the other eight months of the year, the mail should be carried on horseback twice a week; that he should be allowed one month's extra pay on the amount deducted, and that one-third of the whole consideration which he by the contract was entitled to receive for his services, should be withheld from him. The memorialist says, that by this change, forced upon him in violation of his contract, seventy horses were left on his hands, for which he had no use during eight months in the year, whilst the expense and hazard of keeping them were about the same as if they had been in service; that to prepare himself for the fulfilment of his agreement with the Government, he had necessarily contracted many debts for horses and carriages, and other attendant expenses, such as keeping his teams in stables along the routes over which he carried the mail; and when they were left without employment, that this interruption of his service for the public was unlooked for by himself and those to whom he was indebted, caused a general derangement in his affairs, which were in a prosperous condition before; his creditors began to press him for security or pay, and that ultimately, as the result of this breaking up of his contract, his stage property, consisting of horses, carriages, harness, &c. which cost him many thousand dollars, was sold under the hammer for about as many hundred.

The account which the memorialist gives of the ruinous effects upon himself, by the interruption of his contracts with the Government, is substantially sustained by the written statement of Mr. McPherson, the sheriff of the county where the petitioner resided at the time; and by the statement of the honorable Mr. Beirne, of the House of Representatives, who, as well as Mr. McPherson, had a personal knowledge of many of the facts. Should the memorialist be allowed the full amount of the damages which he alleges he sustained by the Postmaster General breaking up his contract with him, and which the committee think to a great extent is supported by the statements of the above-named gentlemen, it would be a very large sum.

But whilst objections might be raised against such a measure of damages, either in principle or as to the mode or fulness of the proof to substantiate the amount, the committee are of opinion that, upon the most familiar principles of law applicable to man in the business transactions of life, and the principles of common right and justice, the memorialist is entitled to receive from the Government the amount stipulated to be paid him for services which he faithfully performed, down to the moment that the Government interfered to prevent him, and which he would have performed to the end of the time named in the contract, but for that interference of the Government.

And when the fact is in full view that this very interference of the

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Government, as they think they have shown, without right under the contract, was, to say the least, highly instrumental, if it was not, as the memorialist alleges, the actual cause of his pecuniary embarrassment and ruin, they can find no satisfactory reason for withholding from him the amount which they believe he is by law entitled to receive. This is a right which, if the case was between him and another citizen, he could cause to be enforced by appealing to the judicial tribunals of the country. It should be borne along all through the consideration of the case of the memorialist, that he asks from the Government only what he has done for it, a fair and exact fulfilment of the terms of the contract which they mutually entered into. Can this with reason or justice be refused? The committee think not. The order of the Postmaster General went into effect on the 1st day of December, 1833, one year and one month before the expiration of the contract. A month's extra allowance out of the sum deducted from the contract was paid to the contractor, so that at the end of the contract, on the 31st December, 1834, one-third of one year's pay, according to the stipulation of the contract, was withheld from him. On route No. 2080, this was $700, and on route No. 1984, $467, making together $1,167; for which the committee report a bill.

To support other claims mentioned in the petition, no satisfactory evidence has been produced.

^All^