In melancholy contrast with the monumental judgment of the English Chief-Justice are judicial decisions in our own country, especially that masterpiece of elaborate inhumanity, the judgment of our late Chief-Justice in the Dred Scott case. But it is in the States that the word “white” has been made prominent. Such learned debate on the rights of man dependent on complexion would excite a smile, if it did not awaken indignation. There is Ohio, a much-honored State, rejoicing in prosperity, intelligence, and constant liberty; but even this eminent civilization has not saved its Supreme Court from the subtilties of refinement on different shades of human color. In the case of _Lake_ v. _Baker et al._,[211] this learned tribunal decided that a child of Negro, Indian, and white blood, but of more than one-half white, was entitled to the benefits of the common-school fund; yet in a later case the same court decided that “children of three-eighths African and five-eighths white blood, but who are distinctly colored, and generally treated and regarded as colored children by the community where they reside, are not, _as of right_, entitled to admission into the common schools set apart for the instruction of white youths.”[212] Unhappy children! Even five-eighths white blood could not save them, if in their neighborhood they were known as “colored.” But this magic of color showed itself yet more in the precedent of _Polly Gray_ v. _The State of Ohio_,--a case of robbery, in the Court of Common Pleas, where the prisoner appearing on inspection “to be of a shade of color between the mulatto and white,” a Negro was admitted to testify against her, and she was convicted; but on grave consideration by the Supreme Court, on appeal, it was decided that the witness was wrongly admitted, and the judgment was reversed; and the decision stands on these words: “A Negro is not an admissible witness against a quadroon on trial charged with a crime”![213] Into this absurdity of injustice was an eminent tribunal conducted by the _ignis-fatuus_ of color.