If a white person should so offend, he should be punished with a fine not exceeding $500 and with imprisonment in the common jail at the discretion of the committing magistrate.[1] [Footnote 1] Dawson, _A Compilation of the Laws of the State of Georgia_, etc., p.

413.
In Virginia where the prohibition did not then extend to freedmen, there was enacted in 1831 a law providing that any meeting of free Negroes or mulattoes for teaching them reading or writing should be considered an unlawful assembly.

To break up assemblies for this purpose any judge or justice of the peace could issue a warrant to apprehend such persons and inflict corporal punishment not exceeding twenty lashes.

White persons convicted of teaching Negroes to read or write were to be fined fifty dollars and might be imprisoned two months.

For imparting such information to a slave the offender was subject to a fine of not less than ten nor more than one hundred dollars.[1] [Footnote 1]_Laws of Virginia_, 1830-1831, p.