h Carolina
and at least one well-authenticated case exists of a colored voter in
Virginia prior to 1830. A native of Virginia long a resident of
Massachusetts is an authority for the statement that the facilities
for higher education of the Negro were quite as good in Richmond as in
Boston at that time. There was published in a paper of the time an
account of the celebration of the anniversary of the Declaration of
Independence, July 4, 1827, by the free people of color of the city of
Fredericksburg, Virginia. The orator of the day was Isaac N. Carey.

In North Carolina John Chavis, a Negro, rose to such excellence as a
teacher of white youth that he is pronounced in a biographical sketch,
contained in a history of education in that State, published by the
United States Bureau of Education, as one of the most eminent men
produced by that State. Though an unmistakable Negro, as a preacher he
acceptably filled many a white pulpit and was welcomed as a social
guest at many a fireside. Such was the bitterness against the race
growing out of Nat Turner's Insurrection, however, that even such a
man fell under the ban of proscription.

One of the preachers to whom Governor Floyd had reference quietly
ignored the suggestion in the message of his Excellency and kept up
his work. He was a Baptist preacher, William Carney, the grandfather
of the famous Sergeant William H. Carney, of the 54th Massachusetts
Regiment. At the same time a daughter of his and a Methodist in a
neighboring town "bearded the lion in his den" by actually collaring
and driving out the leader of a party of white men who broke into a
Negro religious meeting.

[35] _The Richmond Enquirer_, Jan. 11, 1839.

[36] _Ibid._, Jan. 11, 1839.

[37] _Ibid._, Jan. 19, 1832.

[38] _Ibid._, Jan. 24, 1832.

[39] _The Richmond Enquirer_, Jan. 25, 1832.

[40] _Ibid._, Jan. 26, 1832.

[41] _The Richmond Enquirer_, Jan. 27, 1832.

[42] _Ibid._, Nov. 18, 1831.

[43] _The Journal of the House of Delegates_, 1831, p. 10.

[44] _Ibid._, p. 112.

[45] _Ibid._, 1831, p. 125.

[46] _Ibid._, 1831, p. 131.

[47] _The Richmond Enquirer_, Jan. and Feb., 1832.

[48] _The Journal of the House of Delegates_, 1831, Appendix, Bill No.
7.

[49] _Ibid._, Bill No. 13.

[50] Hurd, _Law of Freedom and Bondage_, II, 9.

[51] _The Laws of Maryland_, 1831-32, c. 281.

[52] _Ibid._, c. 328.

[53] See Article IV, Sec. 1.

[54] Revised Code of Maryland, Chap. 52 and 237.7