ies. But one
class of men have dissented from this view--the slave-holders of all
ages. A justification of slavery has been sought in the alleged belief
of the inferiority of the persons enslaved; while the broad truism of
the possibilities of the human mind was confessed in all legislation
that sought to prevent slaves from acquiring knowledge. So the
slave-holder asserted his belief in the mental inferiority of the
Negro, and then advertised his lack of faith in his assertion by
making laws to prevent the Negro intellect from receiving those truths
which would render him valueless as a slave, but equal to the duties
of a freeman.

ALABAMA

had an act in 1832 which declared that "Any person or persons who
shall attempt to teach any free person of color or slave to spell,
read, or write, shall, upon conviction thereof by indictment, be fined
in a sum not less than $250, nor more than $500." This act also
prohibited with severe penalties, by flogging, "any free negro or
person of color" from being in company with any slaves without written
permission from the owner or overseer of such slaves; it also
prohibited the assembling of more than five male slaves at any place
off the plantation to which they belonged; but nothing in the act was
to be considered as forbidding attendance at places of public worship
held by white persons. No slave or free person of color was permitted
to "preach, exhort, or harangue any slave or slaves, or free persons
of color, except in the presence of five respectable slave-holders, or
unless the person preaching was licensed by some regular body of
professing Christians in the neighborhood, to whose society or church
the negroes addressed properly belonged."

In 1833, the mayor and aldermen of the city of Mobile were authorized
by an act of the Legislature to grant licenses to such persons as they
deemed suitable to give instruction to the children of free Colored
Creoles. This applied only to those who resided in the city of Mobile
and county of Baldwin. The instruction was to be given at brief
periods, and the children had to secure a certificate from the mayor
and aldermen. The ground of this action was the treaty between France
and the United States in 1803, by which the rights and privileges of
citizens had been secured to the Creoles residing in the above places
at the time of the treaty.

ARKANSAS,

so far as her laws appear, did not prohibit the education of Negroes;
but a s