228.]
Seeing even in the policy of religious instruction nothing but danger
to the position of the slave States, certain southerners opposed it
under all circumstances. Some masters feared that verbal instruction
would increase the desire of slaves to learn. Such teaching might
develop into a progressive system of improvement, which, without any
special effort in that direction, would follow in the natural order of
things.[1] Timorous persons believed that slaves thus favored would
neglect their duties and embrace seasons of religious worship for
originating and executing plans for insubordination and villainy. They
thought, too, that missionaries from the free States would thereby
be afforded an opportunity to come South and inculcate doctrines
subversive of the interests and safety of that section.[2] It would
then be only a matter of time before the movement would receive such
an impetus that it would dissolve the relations of society as then
constituted and revolutionize the civil institutions of the South.
[Footnote 1: Jones, _Religious Instruction_, p. 192; Olmsted, _Back
Country_, pp. 106-108.]
[Footnote 2: _Ibid_., p. 106.
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