The intense feeling against Negroes engendered by the frequency of insurrections, however, sufficed to swing the State into the reactionary column by 1835. An act passed by the Legislature that year prohibited the public instruction of Negroes, making it impossible for youth of African descent to get any more education than what they could in their own family circle.[1] The public school system established thereafter specifically provided that its benefits should not extend to any descendant from Negro ancestors to the fourth generation inclusive.[2] Bearing so grievously this loss of their social status after they had toiled up from poverty, many ambitious free persons of color, left the State for more congenial communities. [Footnote 1: _Revised Statutes of North Carolina_, 578.] [Footnote 2: _Laws of North Carolina, 1835_, C.6, S.2.] The States of the West did not have to deal so severely with their slaves as was deemed necessary in Southern States. Missouri found it advisable in 1833 to amend the law of 1817[1] so as to regulate more rigorously the traveling and the assembling of slaves. It was not until 1847, however, that this commonwealth specifically provided that no one should keep or teach any school for the education of Negroes.[2] Tennessee had as early as 1803 a law governing the movement of slaves but exhibited a little more reactionary spirit in 1836 in providing that there should be no circulation of seditious books or pamphlets which might lead to insurrection or rebellion among Negroes.[3] Tennessee, however, did not positively forbid the education of colored people. Kentucky had a system of regulating the egress and regress of slaves but never passed any law prohibiting their instruction. Yet statistics show that although the education of Negroes was not penalized, it was in many places made impossible by public sentiment. So was it in the State of Maryland, which did not expressly forbid the instruction of anyone. [Footnote 1: _Laws of the Territory of Missouri_, p. 498.] [Footnote 2: _Laws of the State of Missouri_, 1847, pp. 103 and 104.] [Footnote 3: _Public Acts passed at the First Session of the General Assembly of the State of Tennessee_, p. 145, chap. 44.]