Although the rule may be properly traced to Slavery, of which it is an important ally, yet, from considerations already presented, it seems to follow that it is founded on a reason broader than Slavery, suggested, however, by Slavery. According to the logic of these considerations, the disqualification of the slave as a witness against white persons is not founded on the fact that he is a slave, because the disqualification, except in Delaware and Louisiana, attaches also to free colored persons; nor is it founded on want of that religious belief required in a sworn witness, nor on any actual disregard of his testimony under oath, because the slave in certain cases is sworn, and his testimony under oath is accepted in the administration of justice, and he is punished for perjury; but it is simply, in the last analysis, _an incapacity attached by law to persons of color_. Indeed, the obvious inference from the remarks of Judge O’Neall[104] is, that, in his opinion, it is not slavery, but color, which is the ground of exclusion. But the Committee have already shown the pernicious consequences of such proscription, and especially that the disfranchisement of the African race operates as a liberty to all white persons, not excepting, in most of the States, even white convicts, to do as they please, and commit any crime in the Decalogue, “unwhipped of justice,” if nobody but a colored person is present. It needs no argument to establish the unreasonableness of a disqualification which, according to the confession of its advocates, attaches to the shading of the human skin, especially in view of the fearful cruelty that is its natural consequence. In Delaware and Louisiana the disqualification rests on the fact of Slavery. In many other States the free colored persons are so few in number that the fact of Slavery seems still to overshadow the whole race. Assuming, then, that the disqualification is traced not merely to the shading of the skin, but to the fact of Slavery, it is none the less to be rejected, not only as part of Slavery, but as essentially irrational and inhuman.