title: Occasional paper.
text: ' o « o - <^' s » • • * :f- ^ or »>t- 1"^ A-^^<. ^ V- '.% V c'V^ .V ,<i .^/ ^0 -r^ A- '*-^. * O H O ' ^^ ,v „ « . -^•. ^'•- %,s^^ /^V/),:^ \,.^" ;^^\ %^^^ ^ /^^^A*' .'--* .^^ ^^. .-N ^^^ ..' N^-n 0-7-^ C 0" 0^ i • '»^- •..^":t« ■O " " " A V .0 ,^ " o > '^ik^ ''^^. </ ^^<? >j^ V C)^ » • • > ^^ :m^^ "•^" ^^' •'^*'^'- ■^- 0^ ,^.: A^ \rt/ ''/>', " o « o ^ ^^ " , ,^' ,0 "V, ■m^/ ,*^ . ,'- ^*<f^ •^^. <• ^ p PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL FREEDMAN'S COMMISSION, OCCASIONAL PAPER. JANUAEY, 1866. BOSTON: Press of Geo. C. Rand & Avery, 3 Cornhill. 1866. Gift t>ouicfl onkiiowu 4 My ^5 ^^ f vottsstant-^pissicoirnl ^vtcdmau'jsi (Sammi^ssian* INTRODUCTION. At a meeting of the Board of" Missions of the Protestant- Episcopal Church, hehl at St. Luke's Church, Philadolpliia, on the e\x^ning of Oct. 5, 1865, it was resolved that so much of the Report of the Domestic Committee as relates to the freedmen of the South be referred to a committee of seven. The following committee was appointed : — The Bishops of North Carolina and Illinois, the Rev. Dr. Wiiarton, Rev. Dr. Quintard, Rev. Dr. Mahan, and Messrs. Churchill and Huntington. At a meeting of the Board held at St. Luke's Church on the evening of Oct. 13, the following resolutions on the report of the Committee were unanimously adopted : — Eesolved (1), That the Constitution of this Society be so amenc^d as to authorize the appointment, during the will of this Board, of a commission, to be called the '' Protes- tant-Episcopal Freedman's Commission," to whom shall be committed the religious and other instruction of the freed- men ; said commission to meet quarterly, a majority to be a quorum, with authority to appoint a secretary, and gen- eral agent, and treasurer ; and to constitute, as its general representative, with full power to act for it during its re- cess, an executive committee, composed of such of its mem- bers as it may prescribe, not to exceed eight ; the members of said executive committee to be ex officio members of the Board of Missions, said commission to be governed in its actions by the principles laid down in the eleventh article of the Constitution of the Board. Besolved (2), Until otherwise ordered, this commission shall consist of the following persons : Rt. Rev. Bishops Williams, Potter, Odeuheimer, Stevens; Rev. Drs, Dix, A. H. Vinton, Hawks, E. Washburne, Littlejohn, Haight, Montgomery, Dyer, Rev. Edward Anthon, Rev. Drs. Diller, Eccleston, 4 INTRODUCTION. ITowland ; Messrs. H. Fish, Ruo;gles, F. S. Winston, John Welsh, John Bohlen, Georp:o D. Alorgan, Robert B. Minturn, George (\ Collins John II. Swift, Stewart Brown, W. H. Aspinwall, John Travers. Signed for Committee: Thomas Atkinson. Francis Wharton. H. J. Whitehouse. a. it. Churchill. C. T. QuiNTAUD. S. U. Huntington. MiLO Mahan. On motion, Rev. Drs. Wharton and Huntington, and the Rev. John A. Aspinwall, were added to the Commission. It was then unanimously Resolved, That the first resolution connected with the re- port be a[)proved by the Boai-d, and transmitted to the Gen- eral Convention lor their action thereon. At a meeting of the General Convention, at St. Andrew's Church, Philadelphia, on Wednesday, Oct. 18, the proposed amendment of the Constitution of the Board of Missions was unanimously passed by each house. ^ At a meeting of the Board of Missions, held at St. Luke's Church, on the evening of the same day, the following pream- ble and resolutions were unanimously adopted : — - Whereas The General Convention has enacted the amendment of the Constitution of this Society in reference to freed- mon proposed by this Board, lieaolved, That the gentlemen heretofore nominated as mem- bers of the Freedmen's Commission be hereby appointed members of said commission. The Commission mot at the rooms of the Domestic Commit- tee, New York, on Friday, Nov. 10. The following mem- bers W(M-e i)rosent : — Rt. Rev. IJishop Potter, Rt. Rev. Bishop Odenheimer, and Rt. Rev. Bishop Stevens. Rev. Drs. i)ix, Dyer, Ecclcston, ITaight, Ilowland, Littlejohn, Montgoniery, A. II. Vinton, Washburne, AVharton ; Rev. Messrs. Anthon and Aspinwall; Messrs. S. Brown, Minturn, Morgan, Welsh, and Winston. Rev. John A. Aspinwall was elected Recording Secretary to the Commission; and Rev. Dr. Wharton, Corresponding Sec- rotary. Robert B. Minturn, Esq., was elected Treasurer. INTRODUCTION. 5 Tho following Executive Committee was appointed : — Rev. Dr. Haiglit, Rev. Dr. A. II. Vinton, Rev. Dr. Little- john, Rev. Dr, Eccleston, IlamiUon Fis1i, E^5q., F. S. Winston, Esq., G. D. Morgan, Esq., and John Welsh, Esq. The following resolutions were adopted : — Resolved, That the Executive Committee be requested to open a correspondence with the Rt. Rev. the Bishops of North Carolina, Tennessee, and the South-west, and with other Southern Bishops, so soon as the way shall he open for such communications, and make of them a respectful request to be favored with such suggestions as they may be inclined to make with regard to the best methods of prosecuting the work for which this Commission was created. Resolved, That the Committee be requested to direct tlieir attention, as their main object, to the religious and secular instruction and physical relief of the fieedmen of the South ; it being within their power incidentally to aid by pecuniary grants such clergymen as are engaged in the teaching of colored persons. At a subsequent meeting of the Executive Committee, it was resolved, — 1. — That the clergy be requested to take up a collection, in aid of the Commission, on the coming day of National Thanksgiving ; or, if this interfere with diocesan regulations, at the earliest period practicable. 2. — That contributions of clothing be earnestly solicited to meet the destitution among the freedmen that now exists. 3. — That this Commission heartily invites the formatitjn of auxiliary societies, diocesan or parochial, to aid in its import- ant work. 4. — That the Corresponding Secretary be requested to is- sue an appeal, stating the nature and objects of the work in which the Committee is engaged. At a meeting of the Executive Committee, lield in New York, on Friday, Dec. 15, the Rev. J. Bcixton S.mitii, D.D., Avas elected General Agent. Hereafter, all applications from teachers, and all communications as to supplies, are to be di- rected to the Rev. J. Brinton SMrra. D.D., at the oflice of the Commission, No. 10, Bible House, N.Y. Goods for Freed- men to be forwarded to the same address. The Rev. Dr. "Wharton was, on the same day, elected a member of the Executive Committee, in place of Rev. Dr. Eccleston, resigned. ADDRESS BY THE REV. PRANCIS WHARTON, LL.D., DELIVTCRED IN DURING TUE MONTH OF DECEJIBEK, 18(55.* _ Br the unanimous action of the Board of Missions, sanc- tioned and authorized by the equally unanimous action of the General Convention, a commission has been instituted for the instruction and relief of the Ireedmen of the South. As this Commission now appeals to our whole Church for sympa- thy and support, it is here proposed to set forth some of the grounds by which its institution is required, and some of the principles by which its action will be governed. EDUCATION OF FREEDMEN NEEDED BY THE WHOLE NATION. First let us view the necessity of such action, as required by the condition of the freedmeu themselves. Never was so largo a body of men placed in a condition so critical, both as to themselves and as to the nation of which thoy are part. They comprise a population of four millions ; for a number of years they have been almost the sole laborers by whom our South- ern fields have been worked. Without them, cotton and su- gar, for iustance, could not have been produced ; if thoy were not the only laborers who could have borne the climate, they were certainly the only laborers on the spot who were at hand to till the soil. No industrial class is now ready to take their place; yet, without some competent industrial class, not ♦ Tliin address, tlioufrli unoflicial, will be of use in giving information on the important subject of wliick it treats. EDUCATION OF FREEDMEN NEEDED BY WHOLE NATION. 7 merely will the South be permanently desolated,* but the prosperity, the peace, the solvency of the Avhole country Avill be seriously shocked. To the full play of business reciprocity between the several distinct staple-growing sections of our diversitied land must we look for the liquidation of our debt, and the restoration of our prosperity ; and, besides this, unless a system of successful labor, with its products of comfort and wealth be inaugurated in the South, that section will be sur- rendered to political discontent and disorder, which will not merely destroy our general commercial well-be ing,-|- but will change the whole character of our political institutions from a federal republic to a military centralization. Yet, in the pres- ent condition of the frecdmen, these dangers are very immi- nent, unless prompt and wise remedial action be taken. They are detached from the ligatures, which, under the old system, kept them at work, and the new motives of inteUigeut percep- tion, of the consciousness of the necessity of labor, and of duty impelling to it, have not yet been formed. By the old system, Southern labor was like oars, b}' which, under the force of a superior will, the boat was clumsily propelled ; the new system is like the steam-engine, which, when once fixed up, will apply vastly greater power, with vastly less supervi- sory effort. But the difficulty is that we have taken out the oars, and not yet put in the engine ; we have removed from negro labor the impetus of compulsion, and not yet applied to it the impetus of intelligence and conscientious motive ; and, unless the last impetus be applied, we can expect nothing but wreck. PERIL OF NON-EDUCATION. Then, again, view the political danger to our land, should they remain freedmen, yet with minds and consciences thus untaught and unilluminated. A free and yet ignorant and debased race cannot exist in the vitals of the body-politic without the most fearful risks. Supposing, — if we dare con- template such a guilty catastrophe as this supposition in- volves, — supposing that like the Indians they are ultimately to perish, under the torture of a civilization which clasps but will not incorporate or elevate. The Indians were a nomadic race, comparatively few in numbers, dwelling on our out- skirts, instinctively wandering forth to die where their deaths wrought no paroxysm in the dominant society, and their corruption spread no infection. But the negro is not nomadic; he refuses to wander from his old homes; there have these four millions of human beings lived, and there will * See appendix A. f See appendix B. 8 KEGRO CAPABLE OP EDUCATION. they die. If they die from demorah'zation and degradation, their death, — the death of this living organism permeating every core and fibre of our land; the very presence of this dying, diseased mass in eacli point and pore of our system, — this cannot but be degradation and debasement, if not death, to ourselves. No nation can be prosperous, or healthy, or free, that palpitates with such death-throes as these, and incor- porates such a polluting, d^-ing presence. Or, take the other alternative, and suppose that they do not die out; but that they continue to live, — live free, with the power of doing what they choose, without the motive or the capacity of self-support. No nation, without social revolutions the most stupendous, can include in its bounds a population which is at once free and yet has nothing to bind it up in social sympathy and business intercommunion with the classes by which the land is controlled, and which is without the ca- pacity of intelligent industry, where intelligent industry alone can secure a support. Such men, brutish through ignorance, and maddened through poverty, would form a constant insur- gent element, as untamable as fire, ready to be kindled by the first frantic impulse within, or the first insidious instiga- tion from without. They must be elevated to self-support and self control, and to a wise, intelligent, and loyal citizenship, if we would protect our country, and especially our Southern country, from the constant danger of revolt. The negro, if free, intelligent, and conscientious, will contribute to restore our country to a prosperity and vigor and moral dignity here- tofore unapproached; free, but uneducated, ho will not only corrupt, but shatter our whole social fabric. NEGRO CAPABLE OF EDUCATION. *"' But is the freedman capable of the cultivation here in- voked? This grave question let us next consideV. And remember, in considering it, that it is not disputed ; that centuries of barbarism, followed by centuries of slavery, have deposited over the intellectual structure of the negro a crust which it may take generations wholly to remove. And it should be remembered, also, that the immcdiat« issue is not their present homogencousncss of intellect with the white race, but simply their capacity to become intelligent, Chris- tian, selfsupporting, and self-directing members of that great industrial community, of which three-fourths of our population are already composed. Nor i« it disputed that there are certain characteristics of barbarism and slavery which will imprint themselves on any people on which they press. Those who are subject to arbi- trary rule, will take to lying; those who have no "right to hold NEGRO CAPABLE OP EDUCATION. 9 property, will not be particular as to property's more refined distinctions; tliosc who cannot turn tiicir labor to their own account, will not trouble themselves by working more than they are actually compelled. Nor is it disputed that it may take time to cflace the characteristics thus stamped ; all that is claimed is, that they are the result of* a peculiar social sys- tem, and that, when that system is removed, they will sooner or later disappear. But wliat is here asserted is, that the negro race has in it, aside from these accidents, the elements which make up an intelligent. Christian, self-directing and self-elev;iting indus- trial class ; and to some of the grounds on which this assertion rests, let us now turn. HIS CAPACITY ORDAINED BY GOD. And first, we all admit tiiat the negro race flows from the same original source as our own; and that, as the several streams which make up human society have, under God's providence, diverged, so they may be made to converge, under the same divine will. Nor can it be denied that it was all mankind which was originally made in the image of God, and that that image is borne by the blacks as well as by ourselves. So, in the next place, must we hold that the temporal as well as the spiritual promises of revelation apply to black as well as to white: ''As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive." Nor is this all. "They," — so the whole body of the redeemed are spoken of, — "they shall not build, and anotjier inhabit; they shall not plant, and another eat ; for as the days of a tree are the days of my people, and mine elect shall long enjoy the work of their hands." We cannot exclude the negro from the range of promises which these represent, without excluding ourselves. AND PROVED BY HISTORY. So, also, we must admit that in the fluctuations of races there have been eras in which the African exhibited, while our own ancestors gave no trace of, those very capacities for intolh'gent, self-supporting industry, to which we now appeal. Thus, among the most stupendous monuments of skilful labor which the earth retains, still reposes the bust of Mcmnon, regally presiding as if among its own creations, yet with its ver}' countenance marked by those African peculiarities which we now associate with brutishness and incapacity. So among the hieroglyphics, which first expressed thought in words, and which taught lessons to Greece and Rome when our ancestors were roaming the forests of Aliddle Europe in a savage ignor- ance as brutish as that of the present African, — intertwined 10 EDUCATION A PACIFIER AND RENOVATOR. inextricably among these hieroglyphics, as if incapable of dis- sociation from them, is the profile of this same African face. And while subsequent centuries have shown that these facul- ties have become largely dormant, it is very clear that they have not become extinct. The New Testament brings to our notice, as if to classify this race among both the subjects and actors of early Christian civilization, an Ethiopian who was possessed not merely of cultivation, but of rank requiring considerable executive gifts; and from time to time men of negro blood have been eminent as bishops, as captains, and as masters both of fiction and of the exact sciences. Even now we have a Liberian republic, wdiich has been governed for the last twenty years with a sagacity and success which at least the South American governments cannot surpass; and we have at this moment a negro bishop of Anglican consecra- tion, presiding with great good sense and energy over an African diocese ; and a negro clergyman, of singular elo- quence and tact, addressing the congregations of our own land. — If we see iron ore yellowing the side of a distant hill ; if by that hill-side we see majestic structures which this very iron served to knit ; if Ave find the same vein running, under- ground though it may be, to the spot where we stand, we cannot doubt that now, with proper care, this same ore can be worked up to the same purposes for which it was for- merly so eifectively employed. And even though now the outcroppings of negro power be but occasional, yet here is the race, and there are its past achievements, and there, at the beginning, was its common origin with ourselves; and here is the very hand of Providence, pointing us to the very work of restoration, for which we thus have both materials and pat- tern.- EDUCATION A PACIFIER AND RENOVATOR. '^ Nor can we examine the condition of the freedman now, without seeing in him a peculiar readiness for that very kind of restoration which would make him our fit co-worker in the building up both of State and Church. In the modulations of races, as of climates, Providence may well be supposed to es- tablish such a diversity in unity as may bring out a more com- plete and healthy interchange and development of labor than identity of occupation and temperament would produce ; and this diversity we perceive here. EDUCATION MUST BE PRACTICAL AND SECULAR. 11 skill in imitation and reproduction from a given tj'po, an over- weening attachment to its old sites, a perfect content in almost monotonous perseverance in application to a particular round of pursuits, and a capacity to labor in climates which white industry cannot endure. And, in the common base from which these diverging types spring, this same feature of variety rising from unity a[)pears. We cannot look at the schools where the children of both races are respectively taught, without seeing that the negro child, so far as concerns the reception of the primary branches of education, is not behind those of our own color, whoso homo advantages have been as slight. The ques- tion of the negro's immediate capacity for high speculative thought does not here arise, and may well be deferred to future experience ; but, as far as concerns his capacity for what is necessary for his own temporal and spiritual welfare, and the temporal and spiritual welfare of our country, the record is clear. Capacity of this kind he has from God in common with ourselves ; capacity of this kind has been abundantly shown in the past ; the susceptibility for the cul- tivation of this capacity he shows now. If there be a diver- sity, as contrasted with ourselves, in the way in which this ca- pacity develops itself, such diversity only tells in favor of future prosperity and peace. It diminishes collision ; it ex- hibits each race as in part the complement of the other ; it gives to each race that in the aid of the other which it itself needs ; it tends the better to energize and refine and elevate them while at the same time strengthening and steadying us ; it is the best restorer of social sympathy and peace.* THE KIND OF EDUCATION NEEDED. What, then, is the education we should seek to impart ? is the next question to which we are to address ourselves. And I need not say that this education must be twofold : it must be secular, so as to stimulate the sclfsupporting and self-elevating powers ; and it must be religious, so as to give resoluteness and enlightenment to conscience, and to extend by the con- version of souls the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ. No education, in the position in which the frcedman now finds himself, would be adequate without embracing the first of these heads. MUST BE PRACTICAL AND SECULAR. We are apt to smile at political economy; but that form of political economy which is instinctive in the Anglo-Amer- ican, — that sort of second nature which teaches us as a * See Appendix D. 12 AND ALSO POSITIVELY CHRISTLUJ. race tliat labor Avill find a market, and a market will find labor ; wliich enables us to seize for ourselves and impart to others that taste for the comforts of civilization wliich makes those couilbrts essential to universal social life, and thus ex- tends the domains of industry, and refines its ingcnuit}'- and in- tensifies its stimulus, — the home political economy which prom[)ts us all to work each day the longer and the more skil- fully, so that a higher degree of education, and an ampler scale of comfort may be ours, — in this Ignd of political economy must the negro be taught. IIo must thus learn the need ol" la- bor to himself, and he must learn the misery which idleness breeds, and he must learn the modes by which labor can be most skilful and most effective, not merel}" in the field or workshoji, but in the extension of the comforts of his own home. And what we would do with our children, did we wish to malvC labor attractive to them, we must do to this, the nation's child, — this child whose welfare is as essential to us as to himself We must create refined tastes and refined intellectual cravings, so that the fruits of knowledge, as well as the burdens and grief of knowledge, may be his ; so that the new cares of labor and self support tlius opened may be bright- ened by recreation and ennobled by intellectual growth. AND MUST ALSO BE POSITIVELY CHRISTIAN. And then, as to the second form which the education of the freednian should assume, as an indispensable need, must the positive truths of the gospel be imparted, and this through conservalive and stable agencies. How, without illuminating the conscience, and, in the thunders of the revealed word, ex- hibiting the retributions of eternity, — how, except by uniting to those thunders the pleadings of Him who died for us on the tree, — how else can you plant among this peojilc, now as it were without law, either within or above themselves, the prin- ciples of morality without which they cannot ever exist? The gospel, besides the day-school, is economically needed to stim- ulate to industry ; to teach that the idler is condemned by God ; but the gospel is needed for something more. Remem- ber, for instance, how essential is the sanctity of marriage to a people's health and integrity and growth ; and remember how imperfectly regarded was this sanctity by this people in days past. Scrutinize the speculative philosophy fioatcd down to them by the present humanitarian propagandism of our own North. Analyze this philosophy ; see whether it is not im- bued not merely with scepticism as to all divine sanctions, but with supercilious contem[)t of the most precious of the institutions by which we hedge in domestic life. Misty as PERIL OF SCEPTICAL TEACUING. 13 this pliilosopliy. is, yet from it drops of poison liquefy and exude, wliicli may corrode and sever the few ligatures of iioinc fidelity by which this unhappy people are ytiU restrained. Add to this the influence of the presence of alternate armies, — that influence which is one of the most fearlul elements of war, — and you can conceive that it needs the full teaching of the revelation of God, — a revelation in the tendeiness of Calvary and the terrors of Sinai, to establish the iinperativc- uess of that marriage sanctity to which, as a single branch of Christian ethics, I now for illustration refer. Yet. it iiomc, if marriage, if the nurture and tutelage of cliildi'en, if the decorousness and forethought which theye involve, — if those principles be not implanted with the most awlul of sanctions in the negro race, what results can we expect but vagrancy, and disease, and pollution, and ruin, and death?* And then, rising from the illustration to the principle, wo ascend to contemplate the full motive power to right action which the gospel of Christ alone can supply. By neither com- pulsion nor prudence can this motive power be produced. Compulsion or prudence may plant a transient and superficial industry on our land, like those canvas villages and trees which were unfurled on the roads over which the Russian empress travelled, and which, when the pageant ])assed on, were removed. But institutions which are real, which have an abiding I)ase, which will remain steadfast while the awful pomp of eternity marches on, — these must be founded on the resolutions of a spiritualized heart, resting on no temporary pressure or transient policy, but on a sincere reverence to an immutable God. Constraint or prudence may coerce, but can- not regenerate ; may push to the temporary effort, but cannot lead to the remote end ; may insert in u& a transient mechanism, but cannot inspire a self-determining soul. But the gospel gives purpose and strength, and in the atonement of the Sa- viour, and in the sureness of his grace, supplies the stimulus and the power of vigorous and holy. life. It nerves the soul, bo its human accidents what they may, with a man's vigor, and graces it with a saint's pardon, and wings it with a seraph's strength, and speeds it to God's own home. It is a gospel which we dare not hold back from this unhappy people, if we value our country's safely, and if we would ourselves hope to stand, without one of the most awful judgments ever pro- nounced upon a church, before the Saviour's bar. Because thy brother was dying, and thou wouldst not relieve ; there- fore is death to come upon thee. There may be a vicarious • See Appendix E. 14 THIS THE WISEST FORM OP AGENCY. spiritual death of the wrong-doer in the place of those whose misery he would not relieve ; there may be prosperity with him here, while in the wronged there may be wretchedness ; but his hereafter may be the desolation they have now. God grant that this vicarious suffering may not l3e ours. Yet how dare we offer this prayer, if we withhold the bread of mercy and the bread of life ? BY WHAT AGENCY ? What, then, is the agency by which our Church is now in- voked to undertake this great work? And it is with no little satisfaction that I recur to the fact that this agency is not merely churchly, and in full accordance with the analogies of an ecclesiastical structure, but that it is in conformity with the principles invoked by the national Government, through the appeals of that wise Christian soldier who now heads the Freedmau's Bureau.* NOT BY ONE OP SOCIAL DISINTEGRATION. No system of instruction, — so he holds, and so hold we, — can be successful, which is based on social distrust or antagonisms between the two races who now occupy the South. Bitter conflicts there may be, and surgings upwards of brute force, and the possible final calamity of a war of races sympathet- ically permeating the whole land, ending in the destruction of the weaker ; but not that equal, quiet, peaceful growth of the industrial and intellectual and spiritual faculties, which Chris- tianity as well as true national policy involves. No system of instruction can be so successful as that which unites the influence of the old religious instructors of the negro with that of those who now proceed thither from our own Northern shores. Nor can I refer to these, the negro's religious in- structors of the past, witliout saying tliat their fidelity then, is the highest pledge of their fidelity now. Among them were some of the most devoted missionaries the Church ever knew ; to them now the heart of the freedman almost exclusively ap- peals wlion seeking consolation in sorrow, or for rites to bless the new-born child, or bury his dead. And this is the influ- ence that seeks to welcome us in our work.f • See Appendix P. f See Appendix G. MISERY AND RUIN APPEALING FOR OUR AID. 15 BUT BY ONE UNITING RELIGIOUS SANCTIONS OF NORTH AND SOUTH. By US, in the North, there is no individuality to be lost. Our teachers go forth as teachers from the North, speaking witli the authority of the North, breathing those principles wliich make hibor honorable, and which associate with it the right of progressive self-elevation. And as such tliose of our own communion in the South receive us, glad, so they tell us, to see thus summoned the several energies needed for the regen- eration of the unhappy race of which they, with us, are the trustees, and with whose welfare their own welfare is so closely combined. And so it will be that, while retaining our own distinctiveness as to the tone and mode of secular teach- ing, we will not proceed to the field as agents of social antago- nism, and of those race animosities which will turn schools into sepulchres, but as men appointed to heal and cement, as well as to instruct. Our mission is thus to teach in the only way in which teaching can be either efficient or salutary; it is, by the very sanction and organism of our teaching, to use, for the elevation of the freedmen, the reliu'ious influence of the whole land ; it is, therefore, while elevating the freed- man, to establish, not distrust and hostility, but confidence and harmony between them and those of our own race with whom they are appointed to dwell. MISERY AND RUIN APPEALING FOR OUR AID. And so it is that our Church as a whole, as well as our na- tion as a whole, sanction us as we undertake this momentous work. We have with us addresses from the clergy of the South breathing the very spirit, and using not a few of the points, on which this argument rests ; but voices come to us still more solemn and vehement. In the trail of armies, it is not merely the stately Southern temple that has been swept down ; the little cabin in which the negro worshipped was regarded with even less reverence; and, in the common ruin, few sanctuaries now remain where this people can assemble to worship the Triune God. No interdict of papal tyranny has been more awful than the spiritual interdict uttered by this war. Bell and book, as it were, forbidden by the trum- pet's peal and the cannon's roar ; the rites of marriage unsol- emnized ; the altar proflxned ; the pulpit silenced ; the child unbaptized ; and unburied the dead. Nor, in the spread of material ruin, is it the once powerful and rich who have suf- 16 MISERY AND RUIN APPEALING FOR OUR AID. fercfl alone. It is on the slaves that the common ruin has fallen in the most devastating and sharpest power.* They have been the spoil of spoils; on them, the waifs of humanity, cast off from the protective care of all, has the full storm been spent. In a single case reported to us, among the children of a plantation, who before this dispersion numbered over hfty, it has now been ascertained that there is not one who has not since died from disease or neglect. By an official report of the Freedinan's Bureau, it is estimated, that, unless adequate relief be supplied, thirty thousand will perish in Georgia, forty thousand in Ala- bama, in the winter that now sets in. Huddled together in camps, or in the unhealthiest recesses of cities ; fevered and prostrated by the delusive expectation of a political millennium in whose solaces their broken hearts may find peace, and their weary limbs rest; exercising no care over themselves or their young, — they are corrupting, they are perishing, they have perished in hundreds of thousands from utter misery and want ; the}'' will so perish still. These, — dying Christiess, we standing by with closed hands, — we must meet before the throne ; and the living, in their wretchedness, plead and wrestle .with us now. Prom these ruined sanctuaries, from these haunts where the race is dying before our eyes, the awful ibrm of Ilim with the eyes of llarae arises to ask us who will go forth on this work of mercy ? who will give them prayers and aid ? Millions went forth at the call of war; and countless was the treasure by which they were supplied. Who will now be ready, by the gospel of peace, to save this per- ishing people? who to save ourselves? ♦ See appendix II. APPENDIX. Appendix A. NECESSITY OF INDUSTRIAL ACTIVITY TO THE SOUTH. Gov. Paesons, at the Cooper Institute, New York, Nov. 13, 18C5. It is difficult with language to portray tlie devastation which war, especially civil war, produces, so as to furnisli an adequate idea of its efl'ccts. To realize them you must witness them ; to comprehend tliem fully, you must live upon tiie theatre, and witness the advance and the retreat of vast armies, listen to tlie roar of battle, and see those who are left upon the field after the retreat; you must see fields laid waste, farm-houses, cotton-presses, and gins in ruins; you must see towns and cities in flames, to form any tiling like an adequate idea of what war in reality is. You, whose fortune it lias been to see only tlie regiment witli colors streaming, tlie recipients of all tlie kindness and watchful care tliat friends could bestow, as they left for the scene of battle, can form no conception of the appearance of tliat regiment after the battle is over, unless, indeed, it has been your fortune to be on the scene of action, or so near it that vour house has been crowded witli tliose wlio have become victims of the strife. It will be in your recollection, ladies and gentlemen, that during tlie last of iVIarch, and in April, tlie Ucbellion suddenly collapsed. At that time public attention in the North was doubtless turned mainly to llie operations around Rich- mond, and to those wliich attended the movements of tlie vast armies of Gen. tjlierman. But it also happened that Gen. Wilson, with a large force of cavalry, some seventeen thousand, I believe, in number, commenced a movement from the Tennessee River, and a point in tlie north-west of tlie State of Alabama, diagonally across tlie 6t-.vte. He pene- trated to the centre, and tlien radiated from Selnia in every direction throug^li one of the most productive regions of the feouth. The defences of tliat little city of about ten thousand inhabitants were carried by assault on one of the first Sunday eveninfj:s iu last April, sun about an liour liigh It was tliought necessary by the com- manding general to reduce and subdue the spirit of Rebellion. For one week the forces under Gen. \Vilson occupied that little town, and night after night, and day after day, one public building after another, first the arsenal, then the foundry, each of wliich covered about eight or nine acres of ground, and was conducted upon a scale commensurate with the demand that military supplies for war created; railroad depots, machine shops con- nected with them, every thing of that description which liad been in any degree subser- vient to the cause of the Rebellion, was laid in ashes. Out of some sixty-odd brick stores in the city, forty-nine, I think, were consumed. On the line of march, you were scarcely out of sight of some indication of its terribleconsequences. Indeed, after three weeks had elaiised, it was with dilliculty you could travel the road from Plantersville to that city, so ofl'cnsive was the atmosphere in consequence of decaying horses and mules that lay along the road-side. Every description of ruin except the interred df'ad of the human family met the eye. 1 witnessed it myself. The fact is that no description can equal the reality. When the Federal forces left that little town, which is built on a blulf on the Alabama River, they crossed on a pontoon bridge, and commenced in the night to cross, and their way was lighted by burniu;; warehouses standing on the shore. All this is a part of war, a part of tliat severe discipline which nations e.Kperience, and must e.vpect to share as the fortunes of war vary, when they lay aside reason and appeal to brute force to settle what reason should settle, among Christian people certainly, and especially those who are born beneath the same flag. [Applause.] At the time of'these great occurrences to which I at first alluded, around Riclimond, and in connection with Gen. Sherman's army, this de- vastatiou was in progress in the State of Alabama. Up to that time, such had been the fortune of war, that our State had exi)ericnced very little of its baleful ell'ects, except the occupancy of about four counties north of the Tennessee Kivcr, and a small skirt of the shore on the (iulf of Mexico. In the South, we knew little of the presence of the army, except as prisoners were brought to us to be provided for, and our own sons and brothers were marshalled and carried ott" to the field. Out of a voting population of ninety thou- sand, Alabama furnished a hundred and twenty-two thousand men for service in the Con- federate army. Thirty-five thousand of these died on the field of battle, from wounds or from disease, and a large proportion of those who returned came back broken in health and constitution, and disabled by wounds from which they had jiartially recovered, but which renilered them unfit for active service. The white population of tli:it State was Sl'SjOUO, according to the census of ISIiO. At the time Gen. Wilson invaded it, the State was supplying with salt and meiil 139,04^ women and children, and otherwise helpless per- 17 18 APPENDIX. sons of the white race. Of the black race, tJiere were 440,000, and they, being the property of those who owned them, were supplied with food mid every tiling necessary for their comfortable subsistence physically by their owners. Hence, there never was any necessity in all the States for ii public assistance of the blacks. IJut this eleemosynary assistance to the white race was absolutely necessary. The State had appropriated, at the previous ses- Bion of the Legislature, seven millions of dollars for the purpose of procuring meal and salt for their relief. Meat was out of the question. Kven those comparatively wealthy pos- sessed but little of it, and that little was generally contributed, for the most part, to the array. That was the condition of things in Alabama at the time the Confederacy collapsed. Now, at that time, the corn crop of the State was just ready to be ploughed and hoed the first time. J5ut the black people, being informed of the presence of the Federal forces, thought the oil-repeated tale of freedom was actually to be verified at last, and concluded they would test the matter, knowintr no way of testing it e.xcept by quitting work, and seeing whether their masters dared order them back a^'ain to the plough-handle and the hoe. That was their onlv mode — simple, direct, efficacious— of testing the great proposi- tion, " Am I free or not ? " [ Applause.] The effect on the crop was, of course, most dis- astrous; but it tended to satisfy those who made the experiment that there was at least some degree of truth in the idea that they were free. The consequence was, that the crop, just at the turning point, vanished for want of cultivation ; besides, a drouth set in of un- paralleled severity, and continued all through the crop season; and the result is, that the State, thus depleted of its working force lor securing means of subsistence in the com- mencement of the season to a degree never before known, is now left with about half a crop of corn and small grain. Cotton has not been planted to any extent, because, as a matter of course, material for bread must be raised before cotton. This is the actual con- dition of all'airs, as given me by the delegates at the recent State Convention which as- sembled in Jlontgoniery in September last. Men of intelligence, candor, fairness in all re- spects, and whose judgment can be relied on, assured me that it is undoubtedly true, that in that State there is not more than one-lifth of a crop of grain for breadstuffs raised. Now, if the same ratio of indigence exists among the black population that e-xists among the white, it is manifest that there are seven Iiundred and fifty thousand people in that State who may sutler for food before the month of IMarch comes round. Our resources were completely exhausted, or nearly so, at the commencement of the last Spring. Remarks of Maj.-Gen. Meade. 