: "Our sole security then consists in their ignorance of this
power (doing us mischief) and their means of using it--a security
which we have lately found is not to be relied on, and which, small as
it is, every day diminishes. Every year adds to the number of those
who can read and write; and the increase in knowledge is the principal
agent in evolving the spirit we have to fear."[6]

[Footnote 1: _The New York Daily Advertiser_, Sept. 22, 1800; and _The
Richmond Enquirer_, Oct. 21, 1831.]

[Footnote 2: _Writings of James Monroe_, vol. iii., p. 217.]

[Footnote 3: Educated Negroes then constituted an alarming element in
Massachusetts, Virginia, and South Carolina. See _The New York Daily
Advertiser_, Sept. 22, 1800.]

[Footnote 4: See _The New York Daily Advertiser_, Sept. 22, 1800.]

[Footnote 5: _Ibid._, Oct. 7, 1800.]

[Footnote 6: Letter of St. George Tucker in Joshua Coffin's _Slave
Insurrections._]

Camden was disturbed by an insurrection in 1816 and Charleston in
1822 by a formidable plot which the officials believed was due to the
"sinister" influences of enlightened Negroes.[1] The moving spirit of
this organization was Denmark Vesey. He had learned to read and write,
had accumulated an estate worth $8000, and had purchased his freedom
in 1800[2] Jack Purcell, an accomplice of Vesey, weakened in the
crisis and confessed. He said that Vesey was in the habit of reading
to him all the passages in the newspapers, that related to Santo
Domingo and apparently every accessible pamphlet that had any
connection with slavery.[3] One day he read to Purcell the speeches of
Mr. King on the subject of slavery and told Purcell how this friend of
the Negro race declared he would continue to speak, write, and publish
pamphlets against slavery "the longest day he lived," until the
Southern States consented to emancipate their slaves.[4]

[Footnote 1: _The City Gazette and Commercial Daily Advertiser_
(Charleston, South Carolina), August 21, 1822.]

[Footnote 2: _Ibid._, August 21, 1822.]

[Footnote 3: _The City Gazette and Commercial Daily Advertiser_,
August 21, 1822.]

[Footnote 4: _Ibid_., August 21, 1822.]

The statement of the Governor of South Carolina also shows the
influence of the educated Negro. This official felt that Monday, the
slave of Mr. Gill, was the most daring conspirator. Being able to read
and write he "attained an extraordinary and dangerous influence over
his fellows." "Permitted by his own