(8.) In Georgia, as in South Carolina, there is no statute expressly excluding the testimony of a slave where white persons are parties. But they are excluded. The Act of 1770, declaring slaves to be chattels personal to all intents and purposes whatsoever, provides further, “that the evidence of any free Indians, mulattoes, mestizoes, or negroes, or slaves, shall be allowed and admitted in all cases whatsoever for or against another slave accused of any crime or offence whatsoever, the weight of which evidence, being seriously considered and compared with all other circumstances attending the case, shall be left to the justices and jury.”[41] But where white persons are parties, the rule of exclusion seems implied. And the same exclusion seems also implied in the later Act of December 19, 1816, § 5, where the rule, that “any witness shall be sworn who believes in God and a future state of rewards and punishments,” is restricted to “the trial of a slave or free person of color.”[42] (9.) In Alabama the exclusion stands on positive statute. The Code provides that “negroes, mulattoes, Indians, and all persons of mixed blood descended from negro or Indian ancestors to the third generation inclusive, though one ancestor of each generation may have been a white person, whether bond or free, must not be witnesses in any cause, civil or criminal, except for or against each other.”[43] (10.) In Mississippi, the Act of June 28, 1822, is nearly the same in language with the Code of Alabama on this subject.[44] But by Act of January 19, 1830, free Indians are placed on the same footing as white persons, and consequently can testify.[45] (11.) In Florida the law is brief and explicit. The Act of November 21, 1828, § 16, provides that “any negro or mulatto, bond or free, shall be a good witness in the pleas of the State for or against negroes or mulattoes, bond or free, or in civil cases where free negroes or mulattoes shall alone be parties, and in no other cases whatever.”[46] (12.) In Missouri, the Revised Statutes provide that “no negro or mulatto, bond or free, shall be a competent witness, except in pleas of the State against a negro or mulatto, bond or free, or in civil cases in which negroes or mulattoes alone are parties.”[47] But it has been decided, that, if a free negro is party to the record, even though he vouches in a white person to defend his title, colored testimony is admissible.[48] (13.) In Arkansas, the Revised Statutes provide that “no negro or mulatto, bond or free, shall be a competent witness in any case, except in cases in which all the parties are negroes or mulattoes, or in which the State is plaintiff and a negro or mulatto, or negroes or mulattoes, are defendants.”[49]