If colored persons cannot testify against white persons, what protection can they have against outrage? The white person may perpetrate any brutality upon colored persons with impunity. There is nothing in the dreary catalogue of crime, from a simple assault to murder itself, which may not be committed with impunity by a white person, if no other white person be present. This bare statement is enough. Surely at this moment there should be no delay in preventing such failure of justice. But the same failure may occur in the case of white persons. Let a white person be assaulted, or murdered, if you please, by another white person, but only in the presence of colored persons, and justice cannot be administered. The criminal will continue at large unpunished. Therefore, for the administration of justice, that it may not fail to the colored person, and then again that it may not fail to the white person, there should be no exclusion of any citizens on account of color. Let the witness always be admitted to testify, leaving the jury to be judges of his credibility. If his story seems improbable, or there be anything in his manner, conduct, or past life to excite distrust, the jury will be able to measure the just weight of his testimony. It is hard to be obliged to argue this question. I do not argue it. I will not argue it. I simply ask for your votes. Surely, Congress will not adjourn without redressing this grievance. The king, in Magna Charta, promised that he would deny justice to no one. Congress has succeeded to this promise and obligation. Mr. Sherman said he “trusted, that, after the experience of last night, when the thermometer here rose to ninety-three degrees, and we were all exhausted by a debate on irrelevant matter, the Senator from Massachusetts would not introduce upon this appropriation bill a topic of this kind.” He thought we had already voted on this amendment on two other bills. Mr. Sumner, after remarking that he had not been able to bring the amendment applicable to the United States courts to a vote by itself, said:--