negroes to instruct them to read or write, and for associating with
them in an unlawful assembly, you were found guilty, and a mere nominal
fine imposed, on the last day of this Court held in the month of
November. At the time the jury came in and rendered their verdict you
were not in Court, and the Court being about to adjourn for the purpose
of attending to other official duties in a distant part of the State,
it was necessary and proper, under the law, to award a _capias_ against
you, returnable to the present adjourned term, so that the judgment and
sentence of the law may be fulfilled. The Court is not called on to
vindicate the policy of the law in question, for so long as it remains
upon the statute book, and unrepealed, public and private justice and
morality require that it should be respected and sustained. There are
persons, I believe, in our community, opposed to the policy of the
law in question. They profess to believe that universal intellectual
culture is necessary to religious instruction and education, and that
such culture is suitable to a state of slavery; and there can be no
misapprehension as to your opinions on this subject, judging from the
indiscreet freedom with which you spoke of your regard for the colored
race in general. Such opinions in the present state of our society I
regard as manifestly mischievous. It is not true that our slaves cannot
be taught religious and moral duty, without being able to read the
Bible and use the pen. Intellectual and religious instruction often
go hand in hand, but the latter may well exist without the former;
and the truth of this is abundantly vindicated by the well-known fact
that in many parts of our own Commonwealth, as in other parts of the
country in which among the whites one-fourth or more are entirely
without a knowledge of letters, respect for the law, and for moral and
religious conduct and behaviour, are justly and properly appreciated
and practised.
“A valuable report or document recently published in the city of
New York, by the Southern Aid Society, sets forth many valuable and
important truths upon the condition of the Southern slaves, and the
utility of moral and religious instruction, apart from a knowledge of
books. I recommend the careful perusal of it to all whose opinions
concur with your own. It shows that a system of catechetical
instruction, with a clear and simple exposition of Scripture, has been
employed with gratifying success; that the slave population of the
South are peculiarly susceptible of good religious influences. Their
mere residence among a Christian people has wrought a great and happy
change in their condition: they have been raised from the night of
heathenism to the light of Christianity, and thousands of them have
been brought to a saving knowledge of the Gospel.
“Of the one hundred millions of the negro race, there cannot be found
another so large a body as the three millions of slaves in the United
States, at once so intelligent, so inclined to the Gospel, and so
blessed by the elevating influence of civilization and Christianity.
Occasional instances of cruelty and oppression, it is true, may
sometimes occur, and probably will ever continue to take place under
any system of laws: but this is not confined to wrongs committed upon
the negro; wrongs are committed and cruelly practised in a like degree
by the lawless white man upon his own color; and while the negroes
of our town and State are known to be surrounded by most of the
substantial comforts of life, and invited both by precept and example
to participate in proper, moral and religious duties, it argues, it
seems to me, a sickly sensibility towards them to say their persons,
and feelings, and interests are not sufficiently respected by our laws,
which, in effect, tend to nullify the act of our Legislature passed for
the security and protection of their masters.
“The law under which you have been tried and found guilty is not
to be found among the original enactments of our Legislature. The
first legislative provision upon this subject was introduced in the
year 1831, immediately succeeding the bloody scenes of the memorable
Southampton insurrection; and that law being found not sufficiently
penal to check the wrongs complained of, was re-enacted with additional
penalties in the year 1848, which last mentioned act, after several
years trial and experience, has been re-affirmed by adoption, and
incorporated into our present code. After these several and repeated
recognitions of the wisdom and propriety of the said act, it may well
be said that bold and open opposition to it is a matter not to be
slightly regarded, especially as we have reason to believe that every
Southern slave State in our country, as a measure of self-preservation
and protection, has deemed it wise and just to adopt laws with similar
provisions.
“There might have been no occasion for such enactments in Virginia,
or elsewhere, on the subject of negro education, but as a matter of
self-defence against the schemes of Northern incendiaries, and the
outcry against holding our slaves in bondage. Many now living well
remember how, and when, and why the anti-slavery fury began, and by
what means its manifestations were made public. Our mails were clogged
with abolition pamphlets and inflammatory documents, to be distributed
among our Southern negroes to induce them to cut our throats.
Sometimes, it may be, these libelous documents were distributed by
Northern citizens professing Southern feelings, and at other times by
Southern people professing Northern feelings. These, however, were
not the only means resorted to by the Northern fanatics to stir up
insubordination among our slaves. They scattered far and near pocket
handkerchiefs, and other similar articles, with frightful engravings,
and printed over with anti-slavery nonsense, with the view to work upon
the feeling and ignorance of our negroes, who otherwise would have
remained comfortable and happy. Under such circumstances there was but
one measure of protection for the South, and that was adopted.
“Teaching the negroes to read and write is made penal by the laws of
our State. The act imposes a fine not exceeding one hundred dollars, to
be ascertained by the jury, and imprisonment not exceeding six months,
to be fixed and ascertained by the Court. And now, since the jury in
your case has in my opinion properly settled the question of guilt,
it devolves on me, under the law, to ascertain and decide upon the
quantum of imprisonment under the circumstances of your trial and I
exceedingly regret, that in being called on _for the first time_ to act
under the law in question, it becomes my duty to impose the required
punishment upon a female, apparently of fair and respectable standing
in the community. The only mitigating circumstance in your case, if in
truth there be any, according to my best reason and understanding of
it, is that to which I have just refered, namely, you being a female.
Under the circumstances of this case, if you were of a different sex,
I should regard the full punishment of six months imprisonment as
eminently just and proper. Had you taken the advice of your friends
and of the Court, and had employed council to defend you, your case
no doubt, would have been presented in a far more favorable light
both to the Court and to the jury. The opinions you advanced, and the
pertinacity and zeal you manifested in behalf of the negroes, while
they indicated perfect candor and sincerity on your part, satisfied
the Court, and must have satisfied all who heard you, that the act
complained of was the settled and deliberate purpose of your mind,
regardless of consequences, however dangerous to our peace.
“In conformity with these views, I am impelled by a feeling of common
honesty, to say that this is not a case in which a mere formal judgment
should be announced as the opinion of the Court. Something more
substantial under the circumstances of this case, I think, is demanded
and required. The discretionary power to imprison for the term of six
months or less, in good sense and sound morality, does not authorise
a mere minimum punishment, such as imprisonment for a day or week, in
a case in which the question of guilt is free from doubt, and there
are many facts and circumstances of aggravation. A judgment of that
sort, therefore, in this case, would doubtless be regarded by all true
advocates of justice and law as mere mockery. It would be no terror to
those who acknowledge no rule of action but their own evil will and
pleasure, but would rather invite to still bolder incendiary movements.
For these reasons, as an example to all others in like cases disposed
to offend, and in vindication of the policy and justness of our laws,
which every individual should be taught to respect, the judgment of
the Court is, in addition to the proper fine and costs, that you be
imprisoned for the period of one month in the jail of this city.”
It is hardly necessary for me to dwell upon my feelings when I received
this unexpected sentence. They were of course more interesting to
me than to my readers. My narrative of the history of the case here
properly terminates, it being only necessary for me to state that I
was immediately incarcerated, and spent the month within the walls of
a prison, one week of which was passed in sickness. I received every
allowable attention from the jailor and his amiable wife, and even
remained with them a day or two after my sentence expired.
All social ties that bound me to the people of Virginia were sundered
by this act; I was free from any obligation due to their laws, and
felt that I could be of no farther service to any one, whether white
or colored. I therefore gathered together my little household goods,
and, in the month of February last, removed with my daughter to the
City of Philadelphia, where we are now quietly residing, happy in the
consciousness that it is here no crime to teach a poor little child, of
any color, to read the Word of God.
My readers will naturally expect from me sundry reflections in
connection with my personal narrative. The subject itself naturally
induces them, and I should be untrue to myself if I, a Southern woman,
did not address the Southern people in terms which the occasion and
circumstances justify. My remarks will be desultory and disconnected,
as I am merely to record such thoughts as have occurred to me not only
during the time that has passed since my conviction, but which had been
previously forced upon me by carefully examining the condition of the
Southern people in all their relations.
Many laws in Virginia, as elsewhere, have become _dead-letters_. Even
in Norfolk itself, as well as generally throughout the State, the
particular law infringed unknowingly by me, had long been held as
such, and was violated daily and hourly by those who were regarded as
leaders in society, in morals and in religion. But the opportunity was
so good a one to make _me_ a victim, a sacrifice in expiation of all
past offences and offenders, that it could not be overlooked. Caught
and bound, I was laid upon the altar of the law, but did not experience
the good fortune of Isaac. There was the fire and the wood--heartless
judge and quibbling lawyers, and I was immolated. Was not such justice
chivalrous? Were not such lawyers magnanimous?
Here is presented a somewhat singular state of things to exist in a
State professing to be the most gallant and dignified of the whole
Confederacy. A large number of negroes, amounting in value to between
fifty and one hundred thousand dollars, have, within a short time, made
their escape from Norfolk to a Northern port. This is a grievously
sore evil, and decidedly practical loss. But what is the plan pursued?
Why, after failing to secure a portion of them, all further efforts to
obtain them are given up, and pure listlessness and indifference take
the place of an active interest in favor of recovering or protecting
their property. A meeting, advertised to call together slave-owners
to suggest some plan of redress, meets with but a meagre and partial
response, and the matter ends by permitting the whole outrage and
grievance to die away among the idlest trifles of the day.
On the other hand, a _lady_ is caught, detected, entrapped, following
in the wake of others, teaching a few free negroes to spell and
read their Sunday lessons, and upon proof thereof, is put into a
felon’s prison, and the ignominy, disgrace, and infamy even of a base
criminal are said to be hers, by the bench and the press. If Northern
vessels bear away the slaves of Norfolk, the height of revenge and
recrimination seem to be found in venting upon a _Southern lady’s_
head the vindictiveness of individuals and the violence of the law.
If Northern marshals refuse to perform their duties as slave-catchers
under the Fugitive law, the whole matter, after a little feeling, is
allowed to be forgotten; but, let a Southern lady presume to obey some
of the gentlest and purest instincts of her nature and the teachings of
charity, by instructing a few free black urchins of both sexes to read
their Bibles, and the penalties of the law are visited upon her head,
without any compunctions of conscience, any attention to the monitions
of gallantry, or any regard to the restraints of a refined delicacy.
Alas! for the boasted honor and honesty of the old Virginia nobility!
Here is a view of the case that may not be unworthy of attention: It
is the energy of the white man that has made this country what it is,
and his _alone_ that will make it what it is to be. To the sinew, the
nerve, the strong arm, the moral and physical courage, and the genius
of the Anglo-Saxon race, is the world indebted for the grand spectacle
we now present as a great, happy and prosperous people; and to the same
ennobling elements and excellencies in the composition of the white
man will the vast republican empire, now spreading its arms over the
whole earth, be indebted for its existence and perpetuation. Holding
this view, it cannot be then said that I was educating negroes as
rivals or competitors of my brothers and sisters of a superior race.
Holding to this opinion, with a tenacity that is as inseparable from my
judgment as is color from the Ethiopian,--knowing, as I do, from all
history as well as all cotemporary observation and record, that the
Caucasian race are the “most godlike,” and the authors of all in the
arts and sciences that contributes most to man’s more refined tastes,
pleasures, and ambition. I am sure that I could not, South nor North,
attempt to change the “Ethiopian’s skin” in the vain endeavor to make
him an equal--socially, politically, or even morally--with my own race.
No such thing, however, was charged upon me. My offence consisted in
teaching a few poor colored children, free by the laws of their own
State, to read the Bible, the very book on which the institutions of
our land are based. Common charity, then, would have attributed to
me only a feeling of sympathy for a lower order of society; common
charity, as had been the case before, in Virginia, would have looked
with a lenient eye upon what _the want of all charity_ construed into a
crime!
I feel impelled here to review briefly the decision of Judge Baker,
in my case, and to make such remarks upon it as may seem pertinent.
It will be seen that the letter requesting a copy of the decision for
publication is signed by a number of the most respectable citizens of
Norfolk, and an attempt has been made to identify them as entertaining
the same opinions, and possessing the same want of sympathy, as the
Judge himself. I am happy, however, to inform my readers that such is
not the case. They, in common with the rest of the sensible portion
of the community, were astounded by the decision, and merely desired
to have on record the exact language and sentiments of this strange
dispenser of justice, in order that they might know henceforth in what
light to regard him. That he insulted the good sense and generous
nature of the community in which he lived by so cowardly and unmanly
a decision, and especially by his needless and uncalled for tirade
addressed to me on passing sentence, he now well knows. The community
have already placed the proper estimate upon him, and he is writhing
under the double infliction of their contempt, and the stings of his
own conscience. I have already stated the sudden and mysterious death
of Mr. Davis, one of my bitterest persecutors, and am also informed
that Judge Baker, since the rendering of his decision in my case, “has
never been of exactly as equable and pleasant a frame of mind, but
much more morose, snarlish, and nervous.” Poor man! He certainly has
sufficient cause to be so.
The Judge admits in his decision, that there are persons in that
community opposed to the policy of the law in question, and who
believe that universal intellectual culture is necessary to religious
instruction and education, and that such culture is suitable to a
state of slavery. He, however, embraces the opportunity to state that
he regards such opinions as “manifestly mischievous.” Hear, oh Earth!
A Judge, in the most enlightened country in the world, and in the
nineteenth century, believes that the intellectual culture of human
beings is a crime! He professes to hold the Bible to be the word of
God, and the very bulwark of our institutions--from it he derives the
right to hold a portion of human beings in bondage--in it he sees the
Divine command to every human soul to “search the Scriptures,” and yet
says that a certain portion of the world must not obey this command,
and that it is a crime to teach them to do so! Admirable logic! Oh,
most righteous Judge! His real character may be better seen revealed
in a subsequent sentence, wherein he argues that there is more respect
for the law and for moral and religious conduct and behavior in those
sections of Virginia, where even among the whites one-fourth or more
are entirely without a knowledge of letters. Why, this man’s avowed
principles would do away with education of any kind for any class of
people! He would see his own State, proud and haughty Virginia, return
to a state of barbarism, and completely shrouded in a pall of mental
darkness! This is the inevitable conclusion from his own words. Is
Norfolk, that little corner of the great Commonwealth, so far behind
the age as to desire a state of things so earnestly deprecated in other
sections of the State? Or is this sapient Judge alone the entertainer
of such sentiments? Does he not know that the people throughout the old
Commonwealth have become alarmed at their rapid degradation, and are
petitioning their Legislature to devise measures to stop the downward
tendency to utter ignorance? Has he never seen this short but momentous
sentence, originally published in the Richmond _Whig_ of April 3d,
1854, viz:
“Every decade exhibits a rapid and fearful increase of this mass of
ignorance. In 1840, the number of the unlettered in Virginia amounted
to sixty thousand. In 1850, it exceeded eighty thousand. At this rate,
it will not require many centuries to extinguish all knowledge of
letters in the State.”
Here is a fact that every Virginian should ponder well. There is no
doubt as to the data, and less as to the result, unless something is
done at once to stay this doward current. Let them study the _real
cause_ of this state of things, and not attribute it to any but
the right one. Is the way to remove the evil properly commenced by
imprisoning a woman for teaching a few little children to read? Again I
say, oh, most righteous Judge!
But the hardihood of Judge Baker was evinced in his using the language
quoted, when he knew that his most intimate friends, and even members
of his own family had been and were engaged in doing with impunity
what in me was a crime. How he can reconcile his treatment of me with
his conscience, when he remembers this fact, is best known to himself.
Probably his usual admirable logic will help him out of the dilemma. I
am sure I cannot.
The learned Judge grows remarkably religious as he proceeds. He admits
that “the slave population of the South are peculiarly susceptible
of good religious influences.” He even dares to say that “their mere
residence among a Christian people has wrought a great and happy change
in their condition: they have been raised from the night of Heathenism
to the light of Christianity, and thousands of them have been brought
to a saving knowledge of the Gospel. Of the one hundred millions of
the negro race, there cannot be found another so large a body as the
three millions of slaves in the United States, at once so intelligent,
so inclined to the Gospel, and so blest by the elevating influences
of civilization and Christianity.” Allow me, oh wonderful judge! to
ask you one simple question, which I much fear even your logic will
be puzzled to answer. If such be the character and condition of the
slave population, and the more, (as by your own showing,) they become
acquainted with the principles of the Gospel, the more they conform
to them, how is it that you regard as a crime, the giving them the
instruction necessary to accomplish this purpose? Which horn of this
dilemma will your Honor choose to be impaled upon? Sorry am I to be
compelled to contradict a professed gentleman, but your Honor knew
that you were telling an untruth when you uttered that sentence, and
you knew also the _cause_ of the misery and degradation among Southern
slaves, producing as it does a state of things which may well lead you
to fear to have them instructed in any thing. I know that cause, also,
and I am going to tell it boldly to my Southern brothers and sisters
before I close my present labor.
You are pleased to term the exercise of the commonest dictates of
humanity in me a “sickly sensibility” towards the colored race. Be it
so. But I require the aid of no physician to heal me, and rather, would
to God that my disease were contagious, and that I could therewith
infect the entire South. A little portion of the _virus_ might perhaps
not be unavailable even in your veins. If it be a “sickly sensibility”
to yearn to impart to immortal souls, that instruction necessary to
guide them through life and upwards towards heaven, I confess that I am
guilty. This is the head and front of my offending--no less--no more.
The decision admits that the enactment under which I suffered was
not to be found in the original code of Virginia, but the result of
the experience and wisdom of the later inhabitants of that State.
Certainly, the framers of the original laws of the old Commonwealth
were men of too much sense and foresight, too Christian, too civilized,
too human, to incorporate such a disgraceful law into their rules
of government. That task was left to their degenerate sons of the
present decade, and even then it could not be accomplished until
eighty thousand of them had returned into that mental obscurity that
characterized the dark ages. The law, on its very face, indicates that
it was not the offspring of men of intelligence or common prudence.
Any law declaring that any portion of human beings shall be denied
the benefits of education, must spring from ignorance and error, and
must inevitably lead to the same results universally. The defender of
such a law voluntarily classes himself with those who made it, and
those against whom it especially operates. Such a man is the Honorable
Richard H. Baker.
The next paragraph of this venerable decision is so strangely
constructed that I hardly know what to say of it. The Judge literally
foams at the mouth and presents sad symptoms of hydrophobia. The
expressions “Northern incendiaries,” “anti-slavery fury,” “inflammatory
documents,” “cut-throats,” “Northern fanatics,” “anti-slavery
nonsense,” &c., make up the entire paragraph. His Honor grows pale
over a poor little inoffensive piece of muslin, with a picture upon it
which he denominates “frightful.” He succeeds in working himself into a
perfect fury, and about what? With nothing that I can see with which I,
or the question before him, had anything to do. _I_ was not a Northern
incendiary or fanatic, nor did I distribute any inflammatory documents
or anti-slavery nonsense. I was a Southern woman, in every sense of the
word, and he knew it. I used no books, except the Bible, or those which
illustrated it, and he knew this also. The only escape for his honor is
that he denounces the Bible as an inflammatory or incendiary document,
and as such must not be taught to the slaves.