Of course, the race, whether bond or free, which is thus despoiled, suffers. But this is not all. Justice itself also suffers. Crime, even against white persons in the presence of colored persons, must go unpunished. And yet this proscription is adopted and enforced in the courts of the United States. There are other aspects of this subject which invite attention. History has her lessons. Reason also speaks with a voice that must be heard. It becomes important, therefore, to consider this proscription, first, in its origin and the examples of history, and, secondly, in the grounds on which it is founded. EXAMPLES OF HISTORY. This proscription, or its equivalent, is traced to the earliest age. It belongs to the Barbarism of Slavery. Even as applied to free colored persons, it must be considered as a relic of Slavery not yet removed out of sight. The rule may also be treated as belonging to that system of evidence which, in defiance of reason, undertook to declare in advance that certain classes of witnesses were incompetent to testify,--or, in other words, that the court and jury should not be permitted to hear what they had to say on the issue. In the early Common Law numbers were excluded who are now admitted to testify; and the Committee cannot err, when they declare that the plain tendency of recent legislation, and also of judicial decisions, in England and in the United States, has been to limit the exclusion of witnesses, allowing the court and jury, on hearing their testimony, to estimate its weight and value. The whole system of exclusion was covered with ridicule by Jeremy Bentham,[72] who exposed its irrational character. In our own country it has been treated in a similar spirit, in a series of masterly essays on the Rules of Evidence, by the present learned Chief Justice of Maine, Hon. John Appleton.[73] Its origin may be traced to ignorance and prejudice. There was a time, when, in Great Britain, at least on the borders of England and Scotland, “an Englishman could not be a witness against a Scot, nor a Scot against an Englishman, by reason of the enmity between the two nations; … so that, if never so many Englishmen should with their open eyes see a Scot commit murder, their testimony would signify nothing, unless some Scot or other testified the same thing.”[74] But their exclusion in this historic case was identical in principle and consequence with that still receiving the sanction of Congress.