s which had prepared them for the development of the final
design. There was also some reason to believe," thought he, "those
preachers have a perfect understanding in relation to these plans
throughout the eastern counties; and have been the channels through
which the inflammatory papers and pamphlets, brought here by the
agents and emissaries from other States, have been circulated amongst
our slaves." He considered it a weakness in the laws of the State that
facilities for assembly, to plot, treason, and conspiracy, to revolt
and make insurrection, had been afforded by the lack of legislation to
the contrary to prevent such freedom of movement among the Negroes. He
believed, therefore, the public good required that the Negro preachers
be silenced, "because, full of ignorance, they were incapable of
inculcating anything but notions of the wildest superstition, thus
preparing fit instruments in the hands of crafty agitators, to destroy
the public tranquility."[18]

He, therefore, recommended as a means against the possible repetition
of such sanguinary scenes the revision of the laws to preserve in due
subordination the Negroes of the State. He believed, moreover, that
although this insurrection had been due to the work of slaves, that
the free people of color furnished a much more promising field for the
operations of the abolition element of the North, inasmuch as they had
opened to them more enlarged views and urged the achievement of a
higher destiny by means, "for the present less violent, but not
differing in the end from those presented to the slaves." He referred
to the free Negroes as "that class of the community, which our laws
have hitherto treated with indulgent kindness," and for whom many
instances of solicitude for their welfare have marked the progress of
legislation. If, however, thought he, the slave who is confined by law
to the estate of his master can work such destruction, how much more
easy it would be for the free Negro to afflict the community with a
still greater calamity. The Governor, moreover, referred to the fact
that the free people of color had placed themselves in hostile array
against every measure designed to remove them from the State and
raised the question as to whether the last benefit which the State
might confer upon them might not be to appropriate annually a sum of
money to aid their removal to other soil.[19]

To show how general the excitement was throughout the State one n