"[1]
[Footnote 1: Coffin, _Slave Insurrections_, p. 23; and Goodell, _Slave
Code_, p. 323.]
It had then come to pass that in the South, where once were found
a considerable number of intelligent Negroes, they had become
exceedingly scarce or disappeared from certain sections altogether. On
plantations of hundreds of slaves it was common to discover that
not one of them had the mere rudiments of education. In some large
districts it was considered almost a phenomenon to find a Negro who
could read the Bible or sign his name.[1]
[Footnote 1:_Ibid._, pp. 323-324.]
The reactionary tendency was in no sense confined to the Southern
States. Laws were passed in the North to prevent the migration of
Negroes to that section. Their education at certain places was
discouraged. In fact, in the proportion that the conditions in the
South made it necessary for free blacks to flee from oppression, the
people of the North grew less tolerant on account of the large number
of those who crowded the towns and cities of the free States near the
border. The antislavery societies at one time found it necessary to
devote their time to the amelioration of the economic condition of the
refugees to make them acceptable to the white people rather than to
direct their attention to mere education.
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