, most of
the leading revolutionists were members,--on the ground that it tended
to spread the dangerous infection of the alphabet. On January 15th,
1821, the City Marshal, John J. Lafar, had notified "ministers of the
gospel and others who keep night- and Sunday-schools for slaves, that
the education of such persons is forbidden by law, and that the city
government feel imperiously bound to enforce the penalty." So that there
were some special, as well as general grounds for disaffection among
these ungrateful favorites of Fortune, the slaves. Then there were
fancied dangers. An absurd report had somehow arisen--since you cannot
keep men ignorant without making them unreasonable also--that on the
ensuing Fourth of July the whites were to create a false alarm, and that
every black man coming out was to be killed, "in order to thin them";
this being done to prevent their joining an imaginary army supposed to
be on its way from Hayti. Others were led to suppose that Congress had
ended the Missouri Compromise discussion by making them all free, and
that the law would protect their liberty, if they could only secure it.
Others again were threatened with the vengeance of the conspirators,
unless they also joined; on the night of attack, it was said, the
initiated would have a countersign, and all who did not know it would
share the fate of the whites. Add to this the reading of Congressional
speeches, and of the copious magazine of revolution to be found in the
Bible,--and it was no wonder, if they for the first time were roused,
under the energetic leadership of Vesey, to a full consciousness of
their own condition.

"Not only were the leaders of good character and very much indulged by
their owners, but this was very generally the case with all who were
convicted,--many of them possessing the highest confidence of their
owners, and not one of bad character." In one case it was proved that
Vesey had forbidden his followers to trust a certain man, because he had
once been seen intoxicated. In another case it was shown that a slave
named George had made every effort to obtain their confidence, but was
constantly excluded from their meetings as a talkative fellow who could
not be trusted,--a policy which his levity of manner, when examined in
court, fully justified. They took no women into counsel,--not from any
distrust apparently, but in order that their children might not be left
uncared-for, in case of defeat and destructi