[Footnote 1: Meade, _Sermons of Thomas Bacon_, appendix.]

The chief objection of these reformers to slavery was that its victims
had no opportunity for mental improvement. "Othello," a free person
of color, contributing to the _American Museum_ in 1788, made the
institution responsible for the intellectual rudeness of the Negroes
who, though "naturally possessed of strong sagacity and lively parts,"
were by law and custom prohibited from being instructed in any kind
of learning.[1] He styled this policy an effort to bolster up an
institution that extinguished the "divine spark of the slave, crushed
the bud of his genius, and kept him unacquainted with the world." Dr.
McLeod denounced slavery because it "debases a part of the human race"
and tends "to destroy their intellectual powers."[2] "The slave from
his infancy," continued he, "is obliged implicitly to obey the will of
another. There is no circumstance which can stimulate him to exercise
his intellectual powers." In his arraignment of this system Rev. David
Rice complained that it was in the power of the master to deprive
the slaves of all education, that they had not the opportunity for
instructing conversation, that it was put out of their power to
learn to read, and that their masters kept them from other means of
information.[3] Slavery, therefore, must be abolished because it
infringes upon the natural right of men to be enlightened.

[Footnote 1: _The American Museum_, vol. iv., pp. 415 and 511.]


[Footnote 2: McLeod, _Negro Slavery_, p. 16.]

[Footnote 3: Rice, Speech in the Constitutional Convention of
Kentucky, p. 5.]