And you seem to be retconning your understanding of race and the law. Are you seriously saying the laws of the time did not distinguish between white and black people? Surely we agree that Americans in 1862 were obsessed with race and therefore spelled out what each race could do.

That free black people in some states were not allowed to read and write is a point for my side—those laws did not say it was forbidden to teach “other persons” to read.