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The district judge, in the legitimate exercise of their judicial powers, as in times of peace, can grant the prayer of the complainant; but should such not be the case, that in view of the rebellion and the exigencies of the country it need not strictly scrutinize its powers or govern its action as in ordinary times, but by declaration, by advice, by obiter dictum, by compulsory action if need be, aid in the reconstruction of the rebellious State of Virginia, and its restoration to the Federal Union, upon the principles of justice, equality and advancing civilization. 

[Also From the N.Y.Tribune of Oct. 22, 1865.]

Opinion of Judge Underwood on the Right of Excluding the Testimony of Colored Men from the Courts of Justice. 

United States District Court, District of Virginia, in the matter of the petition of Israel Dorsey, a citizen of Massachusetts. 

The use of the courts of the country and the right to give testimony in them are privileges so fundamental and important to the security of personal and domestic peace, as to make their denial one of the greatest wrongs, next to slavery itself, which can be inflicted on a human being.

If the denial is permitted, the victim may be robbed upon the highway, his house burned over his head, his wife or child ravished or murdered before his eyes, without remedy or redress, We see therefore that the right to testify in courts of justice is not only essential to personal dignity and safety, but it is the very bulwark of defence of all other individual, domestic and social rights, and that nothing but conviction of a high crime possibly justify its invasion. The clause of the United States constitution on which the petitioner relies is the first of the second section of Article 4, and is in these words: 

"The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States."

Alexander Hamilton, in commenting upon this clause in the 80th number of the Federalis, says:

"It may be esteemed the basis of the Union. And if it be a just principle that every government ought to possess that means of executing its own provisions, by its own authority it will follow that in order to inviolable maintenance of the equality of privileges and immunities to which the citizens of the Union will be entitled, the national judiciary ought to preside, in all cases in which one State or its citizens are opposed to another State or its citizens. To secure the full effect of so fundamental a provision against all evasion and subterfuge, it is necessary that its construction should be committed ti that tribunal, which, having no local attachments, will be likely to be impartial, between the different states and their citizens, and which owing its official existence to the Union, will never be likely to feel any bias inauspicious to the principle on which it is founded."