Why can't pieces capture en passant?

If the en passant rule is to prevent pawns from sneaking past a point when they could be captured, wouldn't it make sense for pieces to be able to capture a pawn en passant?  I think the rule is that only pawns can capture en passant?

I was thinking about this yesterday. My conclusion is that the game will lose his simplicity in the rules and mechanics, something that they probally dont wanted to change, because the game would be, not only much quicker, but also different

En passant is an exception to cure another exception: that pawns can advance twice on only their initial move. Since pieces have no such exception, there is no reason to cure the exception.

Or btter yet, why can't a pawn captue a queen en passant?

Or any other piece, for that matter?

Let's just be honest. It's racism.

I'm not following this train of thought.  I'm asking why a piece can't capture a pawn that has moved forward two spaces by moving to the square behind it. 

what I_been_thinking said

I see your point. That gives me a headache to think about, which is probably an indication that creates too many complications to be practical. What if a king wants to capture a pawn e.p. but that sends him over a square in check, for example? What if a bishop wants to capture a pawn e.p. but that puts it on a different color diagonal?

Kings can't move into check and Bishops must stay on their color.  Seems straightforward.

The rule of pawns being able to move 2 squares on their first move is relatively recent, and the en passant rule counters it.  The reasoning being that a player should not be allowed to create passed pawns without a challenge, otherwise everyone would just keep pushing their pawns relentlessly.  Back in the day, like 500 years ago, you could only move your pawn one square on its first move.  Major and minor pieces do not have the same luxury of a special rule since they are free to move around the board at their leisure.

Yes, another straightforward two rules to add to the earlier third rule to cure a single exception.

The reason that pawns can capture en passant and other pieces cannot capture enemy pawns en passant is because the rule was added to preserve theory on pawn structure.  Moving a pawn past enemy pawns is far more significant for the overall structure of the position than moving a pawn forward through the attack line of a minor or major piece.

That's hardly imaginative

a long long time ago in a galaxy far far away pawns could only move one square at a time...but the game was too slow...so they decided to let pawns move 2 squares on the first move to speed up the game...but wait....pawns should always meet in battle after all they are there to protect Jabba the Hutt, so en passant was born!

Don't you know these two rules are already present in chess?

Capturing a pawn en passant is capturing as if he moved only one square.

Pawns are opportunistic little guys; I mean, just look at the lengths they'll go to just to get a promotion!

The rule to allow pawns to move two squares on their first move was introduced in the 15th century. My possibly faulty memory recalls reading that the inability of a pawn to stop a pawn it was guarding against when it swept along side it one a two-square move made the strategies of the day useless, so en passant was introduced by in France or given a French name because they loved the French Lyric Poetry from the time like:

Il pleur dans mon coeur,

Come il pleut sure la ville.

Quel est cet langueur,

Qui penetre mon coeur?

And similar stuff I had to memorize because in the 1970's we didn't have computer translators and America wanted to have chemists who could translate major chemical articles in French, German, or Russian so a requirement of U.S. college chemistry majors was to pass a course or test to prove your fluency in one of them.  I started studying foreign languages with a Catholic elementary school nun who was from Quebec, Canada so, by divine guidance, I learned French.

And I'm still able to use it when I'm in France!

there is only one joker allowed.

 you can capture en passant because without it there is a way for the pawn to pass by another pawn without there ever being tension between them. You don't have to worry about tension with pieces 

Did Rob do a thread on this a long time ago?