Negroes by making it impossible for them to assemble.  It was not until 1863 that the State of Delaware finally passed a positive measure to prevent the assemblages of colored persons for instruction and all other meetings except for religious worship and the burial of the dead.[3] Following the example of Delaware in 1832, Florida passed a law prohibiting all meetings of Negroes except those for divine worship at a church or place attended by white persons.[4] Florida made the same regulations more stringent in 1846 when she enjoyed the freedom of a State.[5]

[Footnote 1] Hutchinson, Code of Mississippi, p. 533.

[Footnote 2] Laws of Delaware, 1832, pp. 181-182.

[Footnote 3] Ibid., 1863, p. 330 et seq.

[Footnote 4:  Acts of the Legislative Council of the Territory of Florida, 1832, p. 145.]

[Footnote 5:  Acts of Florida, 1846, ch. 87, sec. 9.]

Alabama had some difficulty in getting a satisfactory law.  In 1832 this commonwealth enacted a law imposing a fine of from $250 to $500 on persons who should attempt to educate any Negro whatsoever.  The act also prohibited the usual unlawful assemblies and the preaching or exhorting of Negroes except in the presence of five “respectable slaveholders” or unless the officiating minister was licensed by some regular church of which the persons thus exhorted were members.[1] It soon developed that the State had gone too far.  It had infringed upon the rights and privileges of certain creoles, who, being residents of the Louisiana Territory when it was purchased in 1803, had been guaranteed the rights of citizens of the United States.  Accordingly in 1833 the Mayor and the Aldermen of Mobile were authorized by law to grant licenses to such persons as they might deem suitable to instruct for limited periods, in that city and the counties of Mobile and Baldwin, the free colored children, who were descendants of colored creoles residing in the district in 1803.[2]

[Footnote 1:  Clay, Digest of the Laws of the State of Alabama, p. 543.]

[Footnote 2:  Special Report of the U.S.  Com. of Ed., 1871, p. 323.]

Another difficulty of certain commonwealths had to be overcome.  Apparently Georgia had already incorporated into its laws provisions adequate to the prevention of the mental improvement of Negroes.  But it was discovered that employed as they had been in various positions either requiring knowledge, or affording its acquirement, Negroes would pick up the rudiments of education, despite the fact that they had no access to schools.  The State then passed a law imposing a penalty not exceeding one hundred dollars for the employment of any slave or free person of color “in setting up type or other labor about a printing office requiring a knowledge of reading and writing."[1] In 1834 South Carolina saw the same danger.  In addition to enacting a more stringent law for the prevention of the teaching of Negroes by white or colored friends, and for the destruction of their schools, it provided that persons of African blood should not be employed as clerks or salesmen in or about any shop or store or house used for trading.[2]