equal
need_."

Our slaveholders, in general, seem desirous to have the slave just
religious enough to know that insurrections and murder are contrary to
the maxims of Christianity; but it is very difficult to have them learn
just so much as this, without learning more. In Georgia, I have been
told, that a very general prejudice prevails against white missionaries.
To avoid this danger, old domestic slaves, who are better informed than
the plantation slaves, are employed to hear sermons and repeat them to
their brethren; and their repetitions are said to be strange samples of
pulpit eloquence. One of these old negroes, as the story goes, told his
hearers that the Bible said slaves ought to get their freedom; and if
they could not do it in any other way, they must murder their masters.
The slaves had never been allowed to learn to read, and of course they
could not dispute that such a doctrine was actually in the Scriptures.
Thus do unjust and absurd laws "return to plague the inventor."

PROP. 12.--_Whole power of the laws exerted to keep negroes in
ignorance._

South Carolina made the first law upon this subject. While yet a
_province_, she laid a penalty of one hundred pounds upon any person who
taught a slave to write, or allowed him to be taught to write.[Q] In
Virginia, any school for teaching reading and writing, either to slaves,
or to free people of color, is considered _an unlawful assembly_, and
may accordingly be dispersed, and punishment administered upon each
pupil, not exceeding twenty lashes.

[Footnote Q: Yet it has been said that these laws are entirely owing
to the rash efforts of the abolitionists.]

In South Carolina, the law is the same.

The city of Savannah, in Georgia, a few years ago, passed an ordinance,
by which "any person that teaches a person of color, slave or free, to
read or write, or causes such persons to be so taught, is subjected to
a fine of thirty dollars for each offence; and every person of color who
shall teach reading or writing, is subject to a fine of thirty dollars,
or to be imprisoned ten days and whipped thirty-nine lashes."

From these facts it is evident that legislative power prevents a master
from giving liberty and instruction to his slave, even when such a
course would be willingly pursued by a benevolent individual. The laws
allow almost unlimited power to do _mischief_; but the power to do
_good_ is effectually restrained.

PROP. 13.--_There is a monst