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0491 but they can have no weight with me, for my duty is to execute the law; and it makes negroes competent witnesses, in such cases, and in its view, the life of a negro is as sacred as that of a white person; and in both respects, I think the law is right. The latter is not a new feature in our jurisprudence, for when negroes were slaves, the law protected their lives in the same manner as it did the lives of whites; but it is a new thing in our law to allow negroes to testify against whites in cases when the alleged offence is upon the person or property of a negro; but it is a just and necessary consequence of their new condition, without which that protection which our law provides for them would be nugatory. The true test of the value of all testimony is its sufficiency to convince the judgement and satisfy the conscience; and when it does this, and generates full belief, it accomplishes the object of the testimony, and it matters not whether it comes from white or black where it effects this object—— The idea that it is dangerous to admit the testimony of negroes against whites, and that combinations among them to fabricate false testimony will result in unjust convictions will be dissipated in the mind of every sensible man who calmly reflects on the fact that it is usually difficult to convict of crime even on the testimony of whites, and that a jury of white men, with all their knowledge of negro character, with all the jealousy of castes, and prejudice against this innovation in the law of evidence, and a white judge, with a court-house crowded by white spectators, with white men as attorneys on both sides, will not likely to be deceived and duped into improper convictions. The danger is that too little value will be attached to negro testimony; and the fact that a jury of good men, acceptable to yourself, had all their prejudices removed and all their doubts and scruples overcome, and after long and anxious deliberation, were unable to doubt your guilt, though attested by negroes alone, should satisfy you and your friends of the propriety of your conviction on this testimony. It is urged in your behalf, by the accomplished District Attorney, who has magnanimously interposed a plea for mercy to you, that your conviction has demonstrated the power of the law, and has admonished the community of the sufficiency of negro testimony to convict a white man in a proper case, and of the sanctity, in the eye of the law, of the life of a negro, and that a very moderate punishment should therefore be inflicted on you as the first victim. I yield much to the force of this view; for, while in the discharge of my duty, I would extend full protection to the negro, and will as readily act on the testimony of negroes as of whites, where it is competent by the law I am sworn to execute, and where it generates full belief in my mind, I yet recognize the propriety of making all great changes affecting the whole communities, gradually, so as not to shock men's sensibilities by the suddenness and violence of the change, lest thereby all future attempts to execute the law be rendered vain. I am admonished of the propriety of this view by a recurrence to the fact that during this trial, I was painfully impressed with the conviction that yourself and family and friends, together with the public, were not suitably impressed with the danger of the situation, and I could account for it only by the supposition that it was not deemed possible that conviction could be had on the testimony of negroes alone; but, happily for society, this popular error has been dispelled by the virtue and manly courage of an honest jury, sworn to make a true response to the evidence according to their convictions, and I feel that great good has been done by it; and in this view I feel warranted in showing some leniency to you in this case. I am mercifully inclined towards AILY RNING, SEPTEMB Real Estate. _____ Southern Land Agency. _____ FLOREY & DeFRANCE, (Established in 1860.) 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