closing of the African Church,--of which, as has been stated, most of the
leading revolutionists were members,--on the ground that it tended to
spread the dangerous infection of the alphabet. On Jan. 15, 1821, the
city marshal, John J. Lafar, had notified "ministers of the gospel and
others who keep night--and Sunday-schools for slaves, that the education
of such persons is forbidden by law, and that the city government feel
imperiously bound to enforce the penalty." So that there were some
special as well as general grounds for disaffection among these
ungrateful favorites of fortune, the slaves. Then there were fancied
dangers. An absurd report had somehow arisen,--since you cannot keep men
ignorant without making them unreasonable also,--that on the ensuing
Fourth of July the whites were to create a false alarm, and that every
black man coming out was to be killed, "in order to thin them;" this
being done to prevent their joining an imaginary army supposed to be on
its way from Hayti. Others were led to suppose that Congress had ended
the Missouri Compromise discussion by making them all free, and that the
law would protect their liberty if they could only secure it. Others,
again, were threatened with the vengeance of the conspirators, unless
they also joined; on the night of attack, it was said, the initiated
would have a countersign, and all who did not know it would share the
fate of the whites. Add to this the reading of Congressional speeches,
and of the copious magazine of revolution to be found in the Bible,--and
it was no wonder, if they for the first time were roused, under the
energetic leadership of Vesey, to a full consciousness of their own
condition.

"Not only were the leaders of good character, and very much indulged by
their owners; but this was very generally the case with all who were
convicted,--many of them possessing the highest confidence of their
owners, and not one of bad character." In one case it was proved that