For these reasons the antislavery societies had in their constitutions a provision for a committee of education to influence Negroes to attend school, superintend their instruction, and emphasize the cultivation of the mind as the necessary preparation for "that state in society upon which depends our political happiness."[3] Much stress was laid upon this point by the American Convention of Abolition Societies in 1794 and 1795 when the organization expressed the hope that freedmen might participate in civil rights as fast as they qualified by education.[4] [Footnote 1: Washington, _Works of Jefferson_, vol.vi., p.

456; vol.viii., p.

379; Madison, _Works of_, vol.iii., p.

496; Monroe, _Writings of_, vol.iii., pp.

321, 336, 349, 378; Adams, _Works of John Adams_, vol.ix., p.