Educational laws of Virginia

by Margaret Crittenden Douglass

“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: