Secondly. In regard to religious privileges:
The State of Georgia has enacted a law, “To protect religious societies in the exercise of their religious duties.” This law, after appointing rigorous penalties for the offence of interrupting or disturbing a congregation of white persons, concludes in the following words:
Stroud, p. 92. Prince’s Digest, p. 342.
No congregation, or company of negroes, shall, under pretence of divine worship, assemble themselves, contrary to the act regulating patrols.
Stroud, p. 93. Prince’s Digest, p. 447.
“The act regulating patrols,” as quoted by the editor of Prince’s Digest, empowers every justice of the peace to disperse ANY assembly or meeting of slaves which may disturb the peace, &c., of his majesty’s subjects, and permits that every slave found at such a meeting shall “immediately be corrected, WITHOUT TRIAL, by receiving on the bare back twenty-five stripes with a whip, switch, or cowskin.”
The history of legislation in South Carolina is significant. An act was passed in 1800, containing the following section:
Stroud, p. 93. 2 Brevard’s Dig. 254, 255.
It shall not be lawful for any number of slaves, free negroes, mulattoes or mestizoes, even in company with white persons, to meet together and assemble for the purpose of mental instruction or religious worship, either before the rising of the sun, or after the going down of the same. And all magistrates, sheriffs, militia officers, &c. &c., are hereby vested with power, &c., for dispersing such assemblies, &c.
The law just quoted seems somehow to have had a prejudicial effect upon the religious interests of the “slaves, free negroes,” &c., specified in it; for, three years afterwards, on the petition of certain religious societies, a “protective act” was passed, which should secure them this great religious privilege; to wit, that it should be unlawful, before nine o’clock, “to break into a place of meeting, wherein shall be assembled the members of any religious society of this state, provided a majority of them shall be white persons, or otherwise to disturb their devotion, unless such person shall have first obtained * * * * a warrant, &c.”