But if slaves generally have a sufficient amount of religious belief to supply the sanction of an oath, it is clear that they are not so degraded as to justify their exclusion as sworn witnesses. And the Slave States, while excluding them, have practically recognized their fitness. Not only is the oath of a slave received in all the Slave States except South Carolina, but he is liable to punishment for perjury,[98] and sometimes the punishment inflicted is diabolic. In Virginia,[99] and also in Maryland,[100] the punishment formerly was “cropping.” In Florida, the statute appoints that the offender “shall have his or her ears nailed to posts, and there to stand for one hour, and, moreover, receive thirty-nine lashes on his or _her bare back_.”[101] In Mississippi, if a colored person is found to have given false testimony, he is “to have one ear nailed to the pillory, and there to stand for the space of one hour, and then the said ear to be cut off, and thereafter the other ear nailed in like manner, and cut off at the expiration of one other hour; and, moreover, to receive thirty-nine lashes on his or _her bare back_, well laid on, at the public whipping-post, or such other punishment as the court shall think proper, not extending to life or limb.”[102] But every recognition of the oath of a slave on any occasion, and especially every punishment of a slave for perjury, testifies to his capacity as a witness. The barbarism of the punishment testifies also against Slavery. It is vain to say that a slave is incompetent, when, in certain cases, he is already accepted as witness, and visited with fiendish punishment, if he violates his oath. The absurdity of this pretension is illustrated by a provision in the statutes of Kentucky, by which a slave in the penitentiary may be a competent witness against a white convict.[103] Such was early the law of Virginia, and even now he is competent for the white convict. Thus, so long as a slave commits no crime, his oath is not received in court to affect a white person even with the smallest pecuniary liability; but let him be sent to the penitentiary as a convict for crime, and forthwith his capacity as a witness is enlarged, and on his testimony a white convict may be deprived of life! But, obviously, the commission of a crime carrying with it the doom of the penitentiary must impair rather than increase confidence in the veracity of the criminal. Such is the absurd inconsistency in the application of this rule.