[Footnote 2:  Weeks, Southern Quakers, p. 232.]

[Footnote 3:  Thwaites, Early Travels, vol. ii., p. 66.]

[Footnote 4:  Weeks, Southern Quakers, p. 232.]

[Footnote 5:  Ibid., 232.]

In the course of time, however, these philanthropists met with some discouragement.  In 1821 certain masters were sending their slaves to a Sunday-school opened by Levi Coffin and his son Vestal.  Before the slaves had learned more than to spell words of two or three syllables other masters became unduly alarmed, thinking that such instruction would make the slaves discontented.[1] The timorous element threatened the teachers with the terrors of the law, induced the benevolent slaveholders to prohibit the attendance of their Negroes, and had the school closed.[2] Moreover, it became more difficult to obtain aid for this cause.  Between 1815 and 1825 the North Carolina Manumission Societies were redoubling their efforts to raise funds for this purpose.  By 1819 they had collected $47.00 but had not increased this amount more than $2.62 two years later.[3]

[Footnote 1:  Coffin, Reminiscences, p. 69.]

[Footnote 2:  Ibid., p. 70.]

[Footnote 3:  Weeks, Southern Quakers, p. 241.]

The work done by the various workers in North Carolina did not affect the general improvement of the slaves, but thanks to the humanitarian movement, they were not entirely neglected.  In 1830 the General Association of the Manumission Societies of that commonwealth complained that the laws made no provision for the moral improvement of the slaves.[1] Though learning was in a very small degree diffused among the colored people of a few sections, it was almost unknown to the slaves.  They pointed out, too, that the little instruction some of the slaves had received, and by which a few had been taught to spell, or perhaps to read in “easy places,” was not due to any legal provision, but solely to the charity “which endureth all things” and is willing to suffer reproach for the sake of being instrumental in “delivering the poor that cry” and “directing the wanderer in the right way."[2] To ameliorate these conditions the association recommended among other things the enactment of a law providing for the instruction of slaves in the elementary principles of language at least so far as to enable them to read the Holy Scriptures.[3] The reaction culminated, however, before this plan could be properly presented to the people of that commonwealth.

[Footnote 1:  An Address to the People of North Carolina on the Evils of Slavery by the Friends of Liberty and Equality, passim.]

[Footnote 2:  Ibid.]

[Footnote 3:  Ibid.]