In 1833 this law was put into the penal code, with additional penalties for using slaves in printing offices to set type. These laws were violated sometimes by individual masters, and clandestine schools were opened for Negroes in some of the cities before the war. In 1850 and thereafter there was some agitation to repeal these laws and a bill to that effect failed in the Senate of Georgia by two or three votes.
Louisiana, in 1830, declared that "All persons who shall teach or permit or cause to be taught any slave to read or write shall be imprisoned not less than one month nor more than twelve months."
Missouri, in 1847, passed an act saying that "No person shall keep or teach any school for the instruction of Negroes or mulattoes in reading or writing in this state."
North Carolina had schools supported by free Negroes up until 1835, when they were abolished by law.
South Carolina, in 1740, declared: "Whereas, the having of slaves taught to write or suffering them to be employed in writing may be attended with inconveniences, be it enacted, that all and every person and persons whatsoever who shall hereafter teach or cause any slave or slaves to be taught, or shall use or employ any slave as a scribe in any manner of writing whatever, hereafter taught to write, every such person or persons shall for every such offense forfeit the sum of £100 current money."
In 1800 and 1833 the teaching of free Negroes was restricted: "And if any free person of color or slave shall keep any school or other places of instruction for teaching any slave or free person of color to read or write, such free person of color or slave shall be liable to the same fine, imprisonment and corporal punishment as by this act are imposed and inflicted on free persons of color and slaves for teaching slaves to write." Other sections prohibited white persons from teaching slaves. Apparently whites might teach free Negroes to some extent.
Virginia, in 1819, forbade "all meetings or assemblages of slaves or free Negroes or mulattoes mixing and associating with such slaves, ... at any school or schools for teaching them reading and writing, either in the day or night." Nevertheless free Negroes kept schools for themselves until the Nat Turner Insurrection, when it was enacted, 1831, that "all meetings of free Negroes or mulattoes at any school-house, church, meeting-house or other place, for teaching them reading and writing, either in the day or night, under whatsoever pretext, shall be deemed and considered an unlawful assembly." This law was carefully enforced.
In the Northern States few actual prohibitory laws were enacted, but in Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio and elsewhere, mob violence frequently arose against Negro schools, and in Connecticut the teaching of Negroes was restricted as follows in 1833: "No person shall set up or establish in this state any school, academy or other literary institution for the instruction or education of colored persons who are not inhabitants of this State, or harbor or board, for the purpose of attending or being taught or instructed in any such school, academy or literary institution any colored person who is not an inhabitant of any town in this State, without the consent, in writing, first obtained, of a majority of the civil authority, and also of the select-men of the town in which each school, academy or literary institution is situated." This was especially directed against the famous Prudence Crandall school, and was repeated in 1838.
Ohio decreed, in 1829, that "the attendance of black or mulatto persons be specifically prohibited, but all taxes assessed upon the property of colored persons for school purposes should be appropriated to their instruction and no other purpose." This prohibition was enforced, but the second clause was a dead letter for twenty years. Cf. Atlanta University Publications, No. 6.