Part 13 (1/2)

Encouraging as had been the roes, there had always been at work certain reactionary forces which iress of the colored people The effort to enlighten thehts given white men, failed to meet with success in those sections where slaves were found in large nu that the body politic, as conceived by Locke and Montesquieu, did not include the slaves, round that their mental improvement was inconsistent with their position as persons held to service For this reason there was never put forward any systematic effort to elevate the slaves Every ht to deal with the situation as he chose Moreover, even before the policy of iven a trial, soht to obviate theinia,[1] South Carolina,[2] and Georgia[3] To control the assemblies of slaves, North Carolina,[4] Delaware,[5] and Maryland[6] early passed strict regulations for their inspection

[Footnote 1: _Special Report of the US Coest of the Public Statute Law of SC_, vol

ii, p243]

[Footnote 3: Marbury and Crawford, _Digest of Laws of the State of Georgia_, p 438]

[Footnote 4: _Laws of North Carolina_, vol i, pp 126, 563, and 741]

[Footnote 5: _Special Report of the US Com of Ed_, 1871, p 335]

[Footnote 6: _Ibid_, p 352]

The actual opposition of the roes, however, did not assue proportions to prevent the intellectual progress of that race, until two forces then at work had had ti southern planters to the realization of what a danger enlightened colored men would be to the institution of slavery These forces were the industrial revolution and the develop slaves, accelerated by the rapid spreading of the abolition agitation

The industrial revolution was effected by theand weaving which so influenced the institution of slavery as seeroes to heathenis jenny, the steacloth, increased the de it within the reach of the poor The result was that a revolution was brought about not only in Europe, but also in the United States to which the world looked for this larger supply of cotton fiber[1] This deer scale It was unfortunate, however, that htest a slaves to read, impaired their value because it instantly destroyed their contentedness Since they did not conte them an ill service to destroy their acquiescence in it This revolution then had brought it to pass that slaves ere, during the eighteenth century advertised as valuable on account of having been enlightened, were in the nineteenth century considered erous than useful

[Footnote 1: Turner, _The Rise of the New West_, pp 45, 46, 47, 48, and 49; and Hammond, _Cotton Industry_, chaps i and ii]

With the rise of this system, and the attendant increased importation of slaves, came the end of the helpful contact of servants with their ed from a patriarchal to an economic institution Thereafter most owners of extensive estates abandoned the idea that the mental improvement of slaves made them better servants

Doomed then to be half-fed, poorly clad, and driven to death in this cotton kingdom, what need had the slaves for education? Solynewly i another supply rather than attempt to humanize them[1] Deprived thus of helpful advice and instruction, the slaves became the object of pity not only to abolitionists of the North but also to some southerners Not a few of these reformers, therefore, favored the extermination of the institution Others advocated the expansion of slavery not to extend the influence of the South, but to disperse the slaves with a view to bringing about a closer contact between them and theirthe debate on the admission of the State of Missouri

[Footnote 1: Rhodes, _History of the United States_, vol i, p 32; Kemble, Journal, p 28; Martineau, _Society in America_, vol i, p

308; Weld, _Slavery_, etc, p 41]

[Footnote 2: Annals of Congress, First Session, vol i, pp 996 _et seq_ and 1296 _et seq_]

Seeking to direct the attention of the world to the slavery of men's bodies and h the South newspapers, tracts, and pa masters to iroes thehtenment to convince slaves that they would be better off as freemen than as dependents whose very wills were subject to those of their ly even in the seventeenth century there developed in the minds of bondmen the spirit of resistance The white settlers of the colonies held out successfully in putting down the early riots of Negroes When the increasing intelligent Negroes of the South, however, observed in the abolition literature how the condition of the American slaves differed from that of the ancient servants and even from what it once had been in the United States; when they fully realized their intolerable condition co for liberty and equality, there rankled in the bosom of slaves that insurrectionary passion productive of the daring uprisings which htenment of colored people poorer than they had ever been in the history of this country

Theinsurrections of the first quarter of the nineteenth century were the immediate cause of the most reactionary measures

It was easily observed that these movements were due to the le for the rights of roes heard from the lips of their masters ords of praise for the leaders of the French Revolution but had developed sufficient intelligence themselves to read the story of the heroes of the world, ere then emboldened to refresh the tree of liberty ”with the blood of patriots and tyrants”[1] The insurrectionary passion a the colored people was kindled, too, around Baltiroes who to escape the horrors of the political upheaval in Santo Dorated into this country in 1793 The education of the colored race had paved the way for the dissehtened bondmen persistently roes who could not read, learned from others the story of Toussaint L'Ouverture, whose example colored men were then aton, _Works of Jefferson_, vol iv, p 467]

[Footnote 2: Drewery, _Insurrections in Virginia_, p 121]

The insurrection of Gabriel in Virginia and that of South Carolina in the year 1800 are cases in evidence Unwilling to concede that slaves could have so well planned such a daring attack, the press of the time insisted that two Frenchinia[1] James Monroe said there was no evidence that any white eneral tendency of the Negroes toward an uprising had resulted froent colored roes were sufficiently enlightened to see things as otherwith the ”Black Republic” the United States and Great Britain had set the seal of approval upon servile insurrection[4]

Others referred to inflaroes extensively read[5] Discussing the Gabriel plot in 1800, Judge St George Tucker said: ”Our sole security then consists in their ignorance of this power (doing usit--a security which we have lately found is not to be relied on, and which, small as it is, every day diminishes Every year adds to the number of those who can read and write; and the increase in knowledge is the principal agent in evolving the spirit we have to fear”[6]

[Footnote 1: _The New York Daily Advertiser_, Sept 22, 1800; and _The Richs of James Monroe_, vol iii, p 217]

[Footnote 3: Educated Negroes then constituted an alarinia, and South Carolina See _The New York Daily Advertiser_, Sept 22, 1800]

[Footnote 4: See _The New York Daily Advertiser_, Sept 22, 1800]

[Footnote 5: _Ibid_, Oct 7, 1800]