pose you conquer the South, what are you going to do with it? This question, impertinent then, has now become pertinent. A considerable part of the South is conquered. The Federal flag floats in triumph over the principal parts of Missouri, Arkansas, Tennessee, and Louisiana. What are we going to do with the conquered territory? To conquer alone is not enough. It is impossible to make the President a permanent autocrat of the subjugated territory. Where the Confederate authority has been destroyed the Federal authority must be restored in its legitimate and constitutional forms. Destruc tion must be followed by reconstruction. Unless liberty is framed into permanent institutions the victory of liberty is vain. This truth is proved by the results of the Revolution in France and of the Cromwellian Revolution in England. The American Revolution might have ended, as did the French, in anarchy but for the wise statesmanship which united the colonies in a strong, central, and free government. Victory in battle is simply preparation for the Nation's work. We must occupy the South not only by bayonets but also by ideas. We must not only destroy slavery, we must also organize freedom. Two conditions are absolutely essential to the perpetuity of the Republic: popular intelligence and' popular morality. Hence two institutions are essential: common schools and Christian churches. "Free institutions without general intelligence can exist only in name. There is no despotism so cruel and remorseless as that of an unreasonable mob. Men who do not know how to govern themselves cannot know how to govern a great country. The ignorance of the masses and the consequent political power of the few made this rebellion possible. The power has been taken from the few, it remains to give knowledge to the masses. But knowledge alone is not enough. For while intelligence tends to make men free, it does not suffice to constitute a free State. And it is not enough to emancipate individuals from iniquitous thraldom. That liberty may be permanent, it must be organic. Heads, legs, arms, trunks, gathered in an indiscriminate pile, cannot make a man. They must be united by sinews and ligaments, inspired with life, and governed by one dominant head. So a mass of individuals, however free, gathered together do not constitute a free Republic. Individualism is the characteristic of 711 simple barbarism, not of republican civilization." How to harmonize individual liberty with the cohesion necessary to secure the preservation of the State is the problem of republicanism. To solve this problem, to constitute a free State, three conditions are necessary. Its citizens must love liberty for themselves. They must know how to submit; for reasonable subordination is essential to organized liberty. And they must know how to cooperate with others; for fraternity is as essential to free institutions as liberty and equality. Thus to constitute permanently a free State men must be taught not only their rights but also their duties. To establish liberty it is not enough to strike asunder with the sword the chains which bind men; they must be bound together by the bonds of duty and of affection. Thus the principles of religion underlie republicanism. Religion teaches man that he is a son of God, and thus makes him unwilling to be the slave of man; teaches him submission to the authority of God, and so renders submission to his earthly superior more easy for him; inspires him with affection for his fellow-men, and so makes co-operation with them in government possible. History attests the truths of this principle. Religious liberty has preceded civil liberty. To establish the safety of the Republic in the South we must organize in the South free schools and free churches. The South now possesses neither. In colonial days the Governor of Connecticut, in answer to questions of the English Government, reported that one-fourth of her income was expended in public schools. The Governor of Virginia replied: "I thank God that there are no free schools nor printing, and I hope we shall not have them these hundred years." As a result, in 1860 three-fourths of the children of Connecticut were attending public schools, while nine-tenths of the children of Virginia were growing up in ignorance. The Census does not show the same disparity in the number of the churches, for the Negroes are naturally religious. But statistics of church property show that Connecticut, with less than half the population of Virginia, has invested in churches nearly three-quarters of a million more. Moreover, in many Southern communities churches flourishing before the war exist no longer. Church organizations are disbanded, congregations are scattered, church edifices are closed or temporarily converted into hospitals, barracks, and Negro schools. Three elements of population in this territory call for aid from the North. An immense Negro population without education cannot know how to use freedom. The poor whites must have free schools and a free Gospel, or the political liberty which they have received will prove only less disastrous than has their political servitude. "To give political power to the ignorant, without also affording them education, is to put the helm of the ship of state in the hands of those who will surely run it on the rocks." Northern immigrants will stand in no less need of educational and religious institutions. "We have need to beware lest the devil, having been cast out of the South, and the territory been swept and garnished, he go and get seven other devils and return, and the last state of that country prove worse than the first." "While society is fermenting, and institutions are being established, and public opinion is forming, and government is in process of organization, is the time to impress upon this new organization its permanent character. While nature was in chaos God fashioned and formed it as it is. While the metal is molten is the time to stamp and mold it." The free polity of the Congregationalists affords some peculiar advantages for this work. For, while the South would give but a surly welcome to Yankee missionaries coming with advertised purpose to plant Yankee churches, it will not refuse the assistance of Northern capital, and even of Northern ministers who shall proffer to the people aid in organizing their own churches upon the broad and catholic basis of a common evangelical faith. I have given this essay at some length because it states not only the principles upon which, and the spirit in which, I believed the work of Reconstruction should be undertaken and carried on, but not less the principles and the spirit which I still believe are essential to all political and social reform. Two of these principles I restate, because they are as applicable to the problems of this beginning of the twentieth century as to those of the middle of the nineteenth century: Men who do not know how to govern themselves cannot know how to govern a great country. Individualism is the characteristic of simple barbarism, not of republican civilization. The first principle should determine the conditions of suffrage both in America and in her dependencies. The second principle should determine the purpose and direction of all social reform. Four months before this essay was published, and probably one or two months before it was written, two Congregational clergymen, Dr. Joseph P. Thompson, of New York, and Dr. William I. Budington, of Brooklyn, had visited Tennessee as delegates of the Christian Commission. Impressed by the desolate condition of the country, they had returned to the East and organized a Union Commission to co-operate with the Government in the work of reconstruction, as the Christian Commission and the Sanitary Commission had been organized to co-operate with the army in the prosecu tion of the war. This Union Commission at once began its philanthropic work, which at first consisted chiefly in providing for the immediate physical necessities of the home less and starving freedmen and refugees. By January, 1865, the work had grown to such dimensions as to require a paid execu tive head, and the support furnished to it by the philanthropic citizens of the North was such as to justify the appointment of one. On the 1st of February my brother Austin wrote me from New York telling me of this Commission and sounding me as to my will ingness to accept an election. Partly to become acquainted with the Commission and its work, partly to attend the wedding of my younger brother, Edward, which was to take place on the 14th of that month, I went to New York. On my arrival there I found that the Commission had already elected me its Corresponding Secretary. With a letter notifying me of my election came a letter from its President urging my acceptance the office and defining in a paragraph the purpose and spirit of the organization. Dr. Thompson wrote: "New York, 22 February, 1863 of "You have already been officially advised of your appointment as Corresponding See retary of the American Union Commission. This appointment was made without consul tation with you, or any intimation of your views and feelings in regard to the Commis sion and its work. It was prompted by our general knowledge of your qualifications for the important and responsible work which this Commission contemplates, and by the One of the organizers of the Union Commission formed to co-operate with the Government in the work of reconstruction. Dr. Thompson was well known as the pastor for many years of the Broadway Tabernacle, of New York City. He was born at Philadelphia in 1819, was pastor of the Tabernacle 1845-1871, and died in Berlin in 1879. See page 712 tone and spirit of your article on 'Southern Evangelization,' published in the New Englander.' "I am loth, at any time, to disturb a pastor in his relations to his church, and particularly when one is so useful, so happy, and so beloved as I know you are in your present charge. But these are times in which our country in its broader interests has claims upon us superior to those of any local field. The work to which you are invited is the practical application of Christianity to the reorganization of society at the South. Beginning with the relief of suffering among the refugees and the restoration of industry in those regions where a loyal and brave people have been made homeless and destitute by the war, we purpose by degrees to further a healthy emigration Southward, to encourage a system of popular education in the States once blighted with the curse of slavery, and to promote the restoration of their social condition, upon the enduring basis of freedom and of Christian morality. "This work is one that must largely engage the Christian patriotism and philanthropy of the Nation for a generation to come; and he who shall give it shape and practical efficiency will fulfill a ministry more important than that of any pastorate in the land. "I cannot doubt that your own enlightened and patriotic people, on being made acquainted with the bearings of this work upon the future of the Nation, will consent to relinquish you for this service to the country, and will find their reward in the cause for which they make the sacrifice of present interests and affections. "Trusting that the great Master and Bishop. of us all will guide and bless both you and them, I am "Your fellow-laborer for Christ and our country, "JOSEPH P. THOMPSON, "Pres. Am. Un. Commission." to my ambition. I found it also appealed to the soberer judgment of both of my olde brothers and of my father. My brother Aus tin had written me: "Father expressed better than I could myself my idea when he said that it seemed to him a work which woul: give scope for the highest qualities of statesmanship for twenty-five years to come." And my brother added: "It seemed to me that the position would be, as compared with that of a pastor, something like that of a general compared to that of a private." My brother Vaughan was of the same opinion An immediate decision was imperative. The work could not be left to go on undirected while I waited. After a week's delay I accepted the call and went back to Terre Haute to hand in my resignation and prepare to return to the East. If I had not done so, I doubt whether I should have had the courage to resign. For when the resignation came, Mr. Ryce told me that, if I would reconsider the question, he would ring the Court-House bell and call a town meeting to protest against my going. And I do not doubt that he would have done so. Truly, love is the greatest thing in the world. It is nearly half a century since I bade my friends in Terre Haute good-by And I can even now lean back in my chair and call those dear friends before me. Then I was sometimes impatient with them; now I wonder that they were so patient with me. I was a Yankee; and there were only two Yankee families in my congregation. I had a New England conscience; and I was pas tor of a church equipped with the Southern conscience. I was a progressive; and I was leader of a church all of whose ideas and ideals on public questions were those of 1 conservative community. I was no orator; and I followed one who had been deemed in the State second in oratory only to Henry Ward Beecher. I was young, inexperienced enthusiastic; and I was made leader of a church which had spent its whole lifetime under one pastor, whose confidence and sup port I had been unable to secure. Neither time, distance, nor deaths have sundered me from my friends of fifty years ago. For over fifteen years my wife exchanged Christmas gifts with some of her Terre Haute friends every year and with other friends less fre quently. Correspondence was kept up with them until one after another had departed into the silent land. As long as I live Terre Haute will be to me a sacred city-sacred with undimmed memories and undying friendships. On Sunday morning, February 27, I announced my resignation to my congregation and stated the reasons which led to it, but postponed a farewell sermon until a later date. For it was desirable for me to know directly the field in which I was to work and to see something of the people to whom my service was to be rendered. Except for my trip to Georgia in 1856 and one brief trip to Kentucky to present a National flag to a Federal regiment, I had never visited the South. Therefore, before leaving for the East to take up my new work, I made a flying visit to Tennessee. What I saw there I can best tell my readers by quotations from letters which I sent almost daily to my wife: Nashville, Tennessee, "29 March, 1865. Wednesday morn. In order to go to Nashville one must have a pass. And in order to put travelers to the greatest possible amount of inconvenience they do not allow them to be granted in Louisville. We must telegraph to Nashville, and wait for a reply before we can leave. But W- has already secured a pass by telegraph from Cincinnati. He bids us good-by and starts away in the seven o'clock morning train. We are to meet at the Commercial House, in Nashville. Whas with him a Miss B 715 gentlemen of his commission. This is a Louisville Refugee Commission. It is not directly connected with ours, though I hope it will become so. Mr. H, its President, is the Unitarian clergyman of the city. "We go up to General Palmer's headquarters, who is in command of Kentucky. Arrangements are in progress by which Government builds a home for the refugees, which is placed under the care of this Commission. I am introduced to General Palmer ; at the close of the interview tell him my business and ask if in any way I can get to Nashville without waiting for a pass. He replies that he has no strict authority to grant them, but does sometimes in special cases; and gives me one. So I am all right. Through Mr. H— and Mr. T——————, chief clerk of Sanitary Commission, whom I find to be an old Brooklyn friend of mine, I get a free pass on the railroad, bid Louisville friends good-by, and make my way to the depot. "There are soldiers at every door of every car. I must carry my bag to the baggage car to be marked, examined if they please, and I must show my railroad military pass before I can enter. Soldier scrutinizes military pass, doubts it, and hands it to a lieutenant, in uniform, standing near. This is the military conductor. Every train has its military -conductor, in command of the guard, one of teacher. We all go in to breakfast together. Then for the telegraph office. A placard hung against the glass door says 'Office closed.' A young man sits tantalizingly near the window. In answer to our inquiries he calls through the window that the office does not open till eight o'clock. . . . I hunt up the Sanitary Store rooms. Nobody there but a burly Irishman sweeping out. Clerk will be down about eight o'clock. He can tell me where to find Mr. H. Back to telegraph office, where I wait till half-past eight; no W— appears. Then I send my request for a pass, receiving from the clerk the cheering intelligence that it is doubtful whether I can get a reply in time for to-day's train, which leaves at one o'clock. Probably must spend the night on expense at Louisville, and travel all the precious hours of Wednesday. Humbug! However, no help for it. Back to Sanitary rooms, and thence to Rev. Mr. H-'s, who receives me cordially, and after half an hour's talk proposes adjournment to military headquarters, where he is to meet some of the whose duties it is to pass through the train Total |
