"In the Spanish colonies, the law is still more liberal. The civil magistrates are empowered to decide upon the just price of a slave, and when the negro is able to offer this sum, his master is compelled to grant his freedom. He may even redeem himself progressively. For instance, by paying a sixth part of his appreciation, he may redeem for his own use one day in the week; by employing this industriously, he will soon be enabled to buy another day; by pursuing the same laudable course, the remainder of his time may be redeemed with continually accelerated progress, till he becomes entitled to entire manumission."
PROP. 11.--_Operation of the laws interferes with religious privileges._
No places of public worship are prepared for the negro; and churches are so scarce in the slaveholding States, compared with the number of _white_ inhabitants, that it is not to be supposed great numbers of them follow their masters to such places; and if they did, what could their rude, and merely sensual minds comprehend of a discourse addressed to educated men? In Georgia, there is a law which forbids any congregation or company of negroes to assemble themselves contrary to the act regulating patrols. Every justice of the peace may go in person, or send a constable, to disperse any assembly or meeting of slaves, which _may_ disturb the peace, endanger the safety, &c., and every slave taken at such meetings may, by order of the justice, _without trial_, receive on the bare back twenty-five stripes with whip, switch, or cowskin. In South Carolina, an act forbids the police officers to break into any place of religious meeting before nine o'clock, provided a _majority_ of the assembly are _white persons_; but if the quorum of white people should happen to be wanting, every slave would be liable to twenty-five lashes of the cowskin.
These, and various similar regulations, are obviously made to prevent insurrections; but it is plain that they must materially interfere with the slave's opportunities for religious instruction. The fact is, there are _inconveniences_ attending a general diffusion of Christianity in a slaveholding State--light must follow its path, and that light would reveal the surrounding darkness,--slaves might begin to think whether slavery could be reconciled with religious precepts,--and then the system is quite too republican--it teaches that all men are children of the same heavenly Father, who careth alike for all.