eration of the laws interferes with religious privileges._

No places of public worship are prepared for the negro; and churches
are so scarce in the slaveholding States, compared with the number of
_white_ inhabitants, that it is not to be supposed great numbers of them
follow their masters to such places; and if they did, what could their
rude, and merely sensual minds comprehend of a discourse addressed to
educated men? In Georgia, there is a law which forbids any congregation
or company of negroes to assemble themselves contrary to the act
regulating patrols. Every justice of the peace may go in person, or send
a constable, to disperse any assembly or meeting of slaves, which _may_
disturb the peace, endanger the safety, &c., and every slave taken at
such meetings may, by order of the justice, _without trial_, receive on
the bare back twenty-five stripes with whip, switch, or cowskin. In
South Carolina, an act forbids the police officers to break into any
place of religious meeting before nine o'clock, provided a _majority_ of
the assembly are _white persons_; but if the quorum of white people
should happen to be wanting, every slave would be liable to twenty-five
lashes of the cowskin.

These, and various similar regulations, are obviously made to prevent
insurrections; but it is plain that they must materially interfere with
the slave's opportunities for religious instruction. The fact is, there
are _inconveniences_ attending a general diffusion of Christianity in a
slaveholding State--light must follow its path, and that light would
reveal the surrounding darkness,--slaves might begin to think whether
slavery could be reconciled with religious precepts,--and then the
system is quite too republican--it teaches that all men are children
of the same heavenly Father, who careth alike for all.

The West India planters boldly and openly declared, that slavery and
Christianity could not exist together; in their minds the immediate
inference was, that Christianity must be put down; and very consistently
they began to fine and imprison Methodist missionaries, burn
chapels,[P] &c.

[Footnote P: The slaves of any one owner may meet together for religious
purposes, if authorized by their master, and private chaplains may be
hired to preach to them. The domestic slaves, who are entirely employed
in the family, no doubt fare much better in this respect, than the
plantation slaves; but this, and all other negro privileges, d