One hundred forty-six residents of Chester District seek the revision of a recent law passed "for the better governing of negroes and other persons of color." The petitioners argue that the law infringes "upon the religious rights and privileges of churches and citizens of this state ... by the restrictions it lays on them, respecting the time and manner of giving religious instruction, to the persons whose situation is contemplated in the act." They purport that "there is great reason to fear, that by the aforesaid severe restrictions imposed in this act, it will have a strong indirect tendency to produce the evil it was designed to prevent; by making that class of the negroes who value religious privileges, and are disposed to support good principles, feel unhappy, and consider themselves oppressed;” in addition, it may expose them “to the danger of seduction, from the acts of those who plan schemes of mischief.” The petitioners wish to do nothing that might "destroy the foundations of peace and social order," but they ask that the law be revised "to leave their religious liberties unimpaired."
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Repository: South Carolina Department of Archives and History, Columbia, South Carolina
