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![handle is hein.slavery/ussccases0352 and id is 1 raw text is: BLYEW v. UNITED STATES.
Statement of the case.
BLYEW ET AL. V. UNITED STATES.
Under the act of 9th April, 1866 (14 Stat. at Large, 27), sometimes called
i The Civil :Rights Bill, which gives jurisdiction to the Circuit Court
of all causes, civil and criminal, affecting persons who qre denied or
eannot enforce in the courts of the State or locality where they may be,
any of the rights given by the act (among which is the right to give
evidence, and to have full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings
for the security of person and property as is enjoyed by white citizens),
a criminal prosecution is not to be considered as affecting mere wit-
nesses in the case, nor any person not in existence. United States v.
Ortega (6 Wheaton, 467), affirmed.
ERILoR to the Circuit Court for the District of Kentucky;
the case being this:
By the Revised Statutes of Kentucky, published A.D.
1860,* it is enacted:
That a slave, negro, or Indian, shall be a competent witness
in the case of the commonwealth for or against a slave, negro,
or Indian, or in a civil case to which only negroes or Indians
are parties, but in no other case.
This enactment being in force in Kentucky, the thirteentlh
amendment to the Constitution was proclaimed as having
been duly ratified, and a part of it, December 18th, 1865,t
is in these words:
SEcTIoN 1. INeither slavery nor involuntary servitude, ex-
cept as a punishment for crime, whereof the party shall have
been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or
any place subject to their jurisdiction.
SECTIoN 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article
by appropriate legislation.
In this state of things, Congress on the 9th April, 1866,
passed an act entitled An act to protect all persons in the
United States in their civil rights, and furnish the means of
their vindication.I The first section of that act declared all
* Section 1, chapter 107, vol. 2, p. 470.
- 13 Stat. at Large, 774. : 14 Id. 27.
Dec. 1871.]](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.slavery/ussccases0352&div=1&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)