Addressing ourselves to the first of the questions presented by the record-the question of jurisdiction-it may be remarked that clearly the Circuit Court had no jurisdiction of the crime of murder committed within the district of Kentucky, unless it was conferred by the third section of the act of Congress of April 9th, 1866.
It must be admitted that the crimes and offences of which the District Courts are, by this section, given exclusive jurisdiction, are only those which are against the provisions of the act, or those enumerated in the second and sixth sections, and that the 'causes, civil and criminal,' over which jurisdiction is, by the second clause of the section, conferred upon the District and Circuit Courts of the United States concurrently, are other than those of which exclusive jurisdiction is given to the District Courts. They are described as causes 'affecting persons who are denied, or cannot enforce in the courts of judicial tribunals of the State, or locality, where they may be, any of the rights secured to them by the first section of the act.'
Was, then, the prosecution, or indictment, against these defendants a cause affecting any such person or persons? If it was, then by the provisions of the act it was within the jurisdiction of the court, and if it was not, that court had no jurisdiction.
It was, the record shows, an indictment for the murder of Lucy Armstrong, a citizen of the United States of the African race, and it contained an averment that other citizens of the United States of the same race, witnessed the alleged murder. It contained also an averment that those other persons, namely, Richard Foster and Laura Foster, as well as the deceased Lucy Armstrong, were, on account of their race and color, denied the right to testify against the defendants, or either of them, of and concerning the killing and murder, in the courts and judicial tribunals of the State of Kentucky.