He said: "We have as far as possible closed every avenue by which light may enter their [the slaves'] minds.

If we could extinguish the capacity to see the light, our work would be completed; they would then be on a level with the beasts of the field and we should be safe! I am not certain that we would not do it, if we could find out the process, and that on the plea of necessity."[1] [Footnote 1: Coffin, _Slave Insurrections_, p.

23; and Goodell, _Slave Code_, p.

323.] It had then come to pass that in the South, where once were found a considerable number of intelligent Negroes, they had become exceedingly scarce or disappeared from certain sections altogether.

On plantations of hundreds of slaves it was common to discover that not one of them had the mere rudiments of education.