“We look upon the habit of black preaching as a wide-spreading evil; not because a black man cannot be a good one; but . . . because they acquire an influence independent of the owner, and not subject to his control.” For this reason, Pinckney argued, while blacks should receive religious instruction, it should only be administered by white and southern missionaries, and only orally. This latter criteria, of course, reinforced the belief and practice that blacks should not be allowed to read and write. This left them subject not only to white oversight in general, but to a highly selective
...more
