Enough has been said already to show, that though the laws of the slave states profess to grant adequate protection to the life of the slave, such professions are mere empty pretence, no such protection being in reality afforded by them.  But there is still another fact, showing that all laws which profess to protect the slaves from injury by the whites are a mockery.  It is this—­that the testimony, neither of a slave nor of a free colored person, is legal testimony against a white.  To this rule there is no exception in any of the slave states:  and this, were there no other evidence, would be sufficient to stamp, as hypocritical, all the provisions of the codes which profess to protect the slaves.  Professing to grant protection, while, at the same time, it strips them of the only means by which they can make that protection available!  Injuries must be legally proved before they can be legally redressed:  to deprive men of the power of proving their injuries, is itself the greatest of all injuries; for it not only exposes to all, but invites them, by a virtual guarantee of impunity, and is thus the author of all injuries.  It matters not what other laws exist, professing to throw safeguards round the slave—­this makes them blank paper.  How can a slave prove outrages perpetrated upon him by his master or overseer, when his own testimony and that of all his fellow-slaves, his kindred, associates, and acquaintances, is ruled out of court? and when he is entirely in the power of those who injure him, and when the only care necessary, on their part, is, to see that no white witness is looking on.  Ordinarily, but one white man, the overseer, is with the slaves while they are at labor; indeed, on most plantations, to commit an outrage in the presence of a white witness would be more difficult than in their absence.  He who wished to commit an illegal act upon a slave, instead of being obliged to take pains and watch for an opportunity to do it unobserved by a white, would find it difficult to do it in the presence of a white if he wished to do so.  The supreme court of Louisiana, in their decision, in the case of Crawford vs.  Cherry,(15, Martin’s La.  Rep. 112; also “Law of Slavery,” 249,) where the defendant was sued for the value of a slave whom he had shot and killed, say, “The act charged here, is one rarely committed in the presence of witnesses,” (whites).  So in the case of the State vs.  Mann, (Devereux, N.C.  Rep. 263; and "Law of Slavery,” 247;) in which the defendant was charged with shooting a slave girl ‘belonging’ to the plaintiff; the Supreme Court of North Carolina, in their decision, speaking of the provocations of the master by the slave, and ‘the consequent wrath of the master’ prompting him to bloody vengeance, add, ’a vengeance generally practised with impunity, by reason of its privacy.’