In 1832 this commonwealth enacted a law imposing a fine of from $250 to $500 on persons who should attempt to educate any Negro whatsoever.

The act also prohibited the usual unlawful assemblies and the preaching or exhorting of Negroes except in the presence of five "respectable slaveholders" or unless the officiating minister was licensed by some regular church of which the persons thus exhorted were members.[1] It soon developed that the State had gone too far.

It had infringed upon the rights and privileges of certain creoles, who, being residents of the Louisiana Territory when it was purchased in 1803, had been guaranteed the rights of citizens of the United States.

Accordingly in 1833 the Mayor and the Aldermen of Mobile were authorized by law to grant licenses to such persons as they might deem suitable to instruct for limited periods, in that city and the counties of Mobile and Baldwin, the free colored children, who were descendants of colored creoles residing in the district in 1803.[2] [Footnote 1: Clay, _Digest of the Laws of the State of Alabama_, p.
543.] [Footnote 2: _Special Report of the U.S.Com.

of Ed_., 1871, p.