(6.) In Tennessee, the Act of 1794, Ch. 1, § 32, provides that “all negroes, Indians, mulattoes, and all persons of mixed blood descended from negro and Indian ancestors to the third generation inclusive, (though one ancestor of each generation may have been a white person,) whether bond or free, shall be taken and deemed to be incapable in law to be witnesses in any case whatever, _except against each other_: _Provided_, That no person of mixed blood in any degree whatsoever, who has been liberated within twelve months previously, shall be admitted as a witness against a white person.” Under this Act, evidently borrowed from the earlier statute of North Carolina, it was decided that a colored person could not be a witness _for_ another colored person. The judge who pronounced the opinion of the court seems to confess the harshness of the rule, when he says: “The cases under this Act in which these disqualified persons can be witnesses for each other are when, plaintiff and defendant both being men of color, the witnesses may at the same time be said to be reciprocally witnesses against each of the parties. Perhaps the practice in Tennessee may have been heretofore much more liberal than the statute. With that we have nothing to do. As the law speaks, so it is our duty to speak.”[30] To remedy this gross injustice, the Act of 1839, Ch. 7, § 1, was passed, providing that such parties, “whether bond or free, shall be taken and deemed to be good witnesses for each other in all cases, where, by the provisions of said Act [viz. Act of 1794], they are made competent witnesses against each other in criminal prosecutions.”[31]