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WHITE v. ILLINOIS Opinion of Thomas, J.

frontation did not originate with the provision in the Sixth Amendment, but was a common-law right having recognized exceptions”). The Court consistently has indicated that the primary purpose of the Clause was to prevent the abuses that had occurred in England. See Mattox v. United States, 156 U. S. 237, 242 (1895) (“The primary object of the [Confrontation Clause] was to prevent depositions or ex parte affidavits, such as were sometimes admitted in civil cases, being used against the prisoner in lieu of a personal examination and cross-examination of the witness. . .”); California v. Green, 399 U. S., at 156 (“It is sufficient to note that the particular vice that gave impetus to the confrontation claim was the practice of trying defendants on ‘evidence’ which consisted solely of ex parte affidavits or depositions secured by the examining magistrates, thus denying the defendant the opportunity to challenge his accuser in a face-to-face encounter in front of the trier of fact”); id., at 179 (Harlan, J., concurring) (“From the scant information available it may tentatively be concluded that the Confrontation Clause was meant to constitutionalize a barrier against flagrant abuses, trials by anonymous accusers, and absentee witnesses”); Dutton v. Evans, 400 U. S., at 94 (Harlan, J., concurring in result) (the “paradigmatic evil the Confrontation Clause was aimed at” was “trial by affidavit”). There appears to be little if any indication in the historical record that the exceptions to the hearsay rule were understood to be limited by the simultaneously evolving commonlaw right of confrontation. The Court has never explored the historical evidence on this point.1 As a matter of plain 1 The only recent decision to address this question explicitly was Ohio v. Roberts, 448 U. S. 56 (1980), in which the Court simply stated that “[t]he historical evidence leaves little doubt, however, that the Clause was intended to exclude some hearsay,” id., at 63 (citing California v. Green, 399 U. S. 149, 156–157 (1970)). The cited passage in Green simply reiterates the previously noted point that the right of confrontation evolved as a response to the problem of trial by affidavit. Thus, the statement in Roberts that “the Clause was intended to exclude some hearsay” is correct as far as it goes (affidavits and depositions are hearsay), but the opinion