The tone in which this was said was so frank and sincere, that Tom was silenced, and could not help a rather sullen acknowledgment.
"I think," said Mr. Jekyl, "that you'll find such a course, however well it may work at first, will fail at last. You begin to let people think, and they won't stop where you want them to; they'll go too far; it's human nature. The more you give, the more you may give. You once get your fellows to thinking, and asking all sorts of questions, and they get discontented at once. I've seen that thing tried in one or two instances, and it didn't turn out well. Fellows got restless and discontented. The more was given to them, the more dissatisfied they grew, till finally they put for the free states."
"Very well," said Clayton; "if that's to be the result, they may all 'put' as soon as they can get ready. If my title to them won't bear an intelligent investigation, I don't wish to keep them. But I never will consent to keep them by making false statements to them in the name of religion, and presuming to put myself as an object of obedience before my Maker."
"I think," said Mr. Carson, "Mr. Clayton shows an excellent spirit—excellent spirit! On my word, I think so. I wish some of our northern agitators, who make such a fuss on the the subject, could hear him. I'm always disgusted with these abolitionists producing such an unpleasantness between the north and the south, interrupting trade, and friendship, and all that sort of thing."
"He shows an excellent spirit," said Mr. Jekyl; "but I must think he is mistaken if he thinks that he can bring up people in that way, under our institutions, and not do them more harm than good. It's a notorious fact that the worst insurrections have arisen from the reading of the Bible by these ignorant fellows. That was the case with Nat Turner, in Virginia. That was the case with Denmark Vesey, and his crew, in South Carolina. I tell you, sir, it will never do, this turning out a set of ignorant people to pasture in the Bible! That blessed book is a savor of life unto life when it's used right; but it's a savor of death unto death when ignorant people take hold of it. The proper way is this: administer such portions only as these creatures are capable of understanding. This admirable system of religious instruction keeps the matter in our own hands, by allowing us to select for them such portions of the word as are best fitted to keep them quiet, dutiful, and obedient; and I venture to predict that whoever undertakes to manage a plantation on any other system will soon find it getting out of his hands."
"So you are afraid to trust the Lord's word without holding the bridle!" said Tom, with a sneer. "That's pretty well for you!"
"I am not!" said Clayton. "I'm willing to resign any rights to any one that I am not able to defend in God's word—any that I cannot make apparent to any man's cultivated reason. I scorn the idea that I must dwarf a man's mind, and keep him ignorant and childish, in order to make him believe any lie I choose to tell him about my rights over him! I intend to have an educated, intelligent people, who shall submit to me because they think it clearly for their best interests to do so; because they shall feel that what I command is right in the sight of God."
"It's my opinion," said Tom, "that both these ways of managing are humbugs. One way makes hypocrites, and the other makes rebels. The best way of educating is, to show folks that they can't help themselves. All the fussing and arguing in the world isn't worth one dose of certainty on that point. Just let them know that there are no two ways about it, and you'll have all still enough."
From this point the conversation was pursued with considerable warmth, till Nina and Aunt Nesbit rose and retired to the drawing-room. Perhaps it did not materially discourage Clayton, in the position he had taken, that Nina, with the frankness usual to her, expressed the most eager and undisguised admiration of all that he said.
"Didn't he talk beautifully? Wasn't it noble?" she said to Aunt Nesbit, as she came in the drawing-room. "And that hateful Jekyl! isn't he mean?"