498.] [Footnote 2: Tate, _Digest of the Laws of Virginia_, pp.

849-850.] [Footnote 3: Poindexter, _Revised Code of the Laws of Mississippi_, p.
390.] [Footnote 4: _Ibid_., p.

390.] The problem in Louisiana was first to keep out intelligent persons who might so inform the slaves as to cause them to rise.

Accordingly in 1814[1] the State passed a law prohibiting the immigration of free persons of color into that commonwealth.

This precaution, however, was not deemed sufficient after the insurrectionary Negroes of New Berne, Tarborough, and Hillsborough, North Carolina,[2] had risen, and David Walker of Massachusetts had published to the slaves his fiery appeal to arms.[3] In 1830, therefore, Louisiana enacted another measure, providing that whoever should write, print, publish, or distribute anything having the tendency to produce discontent among the slaves, should on conviction thereof be imprisoned at hard labor for life or suffer death at the discretion of the court.