as a friend of emancipation.  According to a letter from a clergyman of South Carolina, the first slave for this institution went from the York district of that State.  Exactly what these enterprises were, however, it is difficult to determine.  They were not well supported and soon passed from public notice.  Some have said that the Tennessee project was a money-making scheme for the proprietors, and that the Negroes taught there were in reality slaves.  Others have defended the work as a philanthropic effort so characteristic of the friends of freedom in Appalachian America.[52]

The people of Eastern Tennessee were largely in favor of Negro education.  Around Maryville and Knoxville were found a considerable number of white persons who were thus interested in the uplift of the belated race.  Well might such efforts be expected in Maryville, for the school of theology at this place had gradually become so radical that according to the Maryville Intelligencer half of the students by 1841 declared their adherence to the cause of abolition.[53] Consequently, they hoped not only to see such doctrines triumph within the walls of that institution, but were endeavoring to enlighten the Negroes of that community to prepare them for the enjoyment of life as citizens in their own or some other country.[54]

Just as the people of Maryville had expressed themselves through The Intelligencer, so did those of Knoxville find a spokesman in The Presbyterian Witness.  Excoriating those who had for centuries been finding excuses for keeping the slaves in heathenism, the editor of this publication said that there was not a solitary argument that might be urged in favor of teaching a white man that might not be as properly urged in favor of enlightening a man of color.  “If one has a soul that will never die,” said he, “so has the other.  Has one susceptibilities of improvement, mentally, socially, and morally?  So has the other.  Is one bound by the laws of God to improve the talents he has received from the Creator’s hands?  So is the other.  Is one embraced in the commands search the scriptures?  So is the other."[55] He maintained that unless masters could lawfully degrade their slaves to the condition of beasts, they were just as much bound to teach them to read the Bible as to teach any other class of their population.

From a group in Kentucky came another helpful movement.  Desiring to train up white men who would eventually be able to do a work which public sentiment then prevented the anti-slavery minority from carrying on, the liberal element of Kentucky, under the leadership of John G. Fee and his coworkers, established Berea College.  Believing in the brotherhood of man and the fatherhood of God, this institution incorporated into its charter the bold declaration that “God hath made of one blood all nations that dwell upon the face of the earth.”  This profession was not really put to a test until after the Civil War, when the institution courageously met the issue by accepting as students some colored soldiers who were returning home wearing their uniforms.[56] The State has since prohibited the co-education of the races.