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.
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