Another pamphlet of the period, also published in Charleston, recommended as a practical cure for insurrection the copious administration of Episcopal Church services, and the prohibition of negroes from attending Fourth-of-July celebrations.  On this last point it is more consistent than most pro-slavery arguments.  “The celebration of the Fourth of July belongs exclusively to the white population of the United States.  The American Revolution was a family-quarrel among equals.  In this the negroes had no concern; their condition remained, and must remain, unchanged.  They have no more to do with the celebration of that day than with the landing of the Pilgrims on the rock at Plymouth.  It therefore seems to me improper to allow these people to be present on these occasions.  In our speeches and orations, much, and sometimes more than is politically necessary, is said about personal liberty, which negro auditors know not how to apply, except by running the parallel with their own condition.  They therefore imbibe false notions of their own personal rights, and give reality in their minds to what has no real existence.  The peculiar state of our community must be steadily kept in view.  This, I am gratified to learn, will in some measure be promoted by the institution of the South Carolina Association.”

On the other hand, more stringent laws became obviously necessary to keep down the advancing intelligence of the Charleston slaves.  Dangerous knowledge must be excluded from without and from within.  For the first end, the South Carolina legislature passed, in December, 1822, the act for the imprisonment of Northern colored seamen, which has since produced so much excitement.  For the second object, the Grand Jury, about the same time, presented as a grievance “the number of schools which are kept within the city by persons of color,” and proposed their prohibition.  This was the encouragement given to the intellectual progress of the slaves; while, as a reward for betraying them, Pensil, the free colored man who advised with Devany, received a present of one thousand dollars, and Devany himself had what was rightly judged to be the higher gift of freedom, and was established in business, with liberal means, as a drayman.  He is still living in Charleston, has thriven greatly in his vocation, and, according to the newspapers, enjoys the privilege of being the only man of property in the State whom a special statute exempts from taxation.  It is something of a privilege, especially with secession impending.  But those whom he betrayed to death have been exempt from taxation longer than be has.