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may testify in all cases save in matters between white person and white person. In such Cases, the exclusion can work no harm or wrong the negro, but in the course of time, doubtless, the Legislation of so enlightened a commonwealth as Virginia, following the almost universal tendency of advancing civilization to allow all persons to take the witness'stand, will extend negro testimony to cases in which white persons are parties. And so if we do not haste too much, and will content ourselves with the progress of quiet instead of forced revolution, we may realise eventually all that the most fanatical friend of the colored people can desire. Existing prejudices forbade the legislature to go farther at present in this matter than it did.

The late Vagrant Act, of which so much has been said, is no adverse exception. It only revived and old Statute, which had been upon the Statute-book for near a century, and which was copied verbatim from the Vagrant law of Pennsylvania, in force there to this day. And I am assured by Judge Joynes, Chairman of the Judiciary over