Vol. III—April, 1918—No. 2
BENJAMIN BANNEKER, THE NEGRO MATHEMATICIAN AND ASTRONOMER
The city of Washington very recently celebrated the 125th anniversary of the completion of the survey and laying out of the Federal Territory constituting the District of Columbia. This was executed under the supervision of the famous French civil engineer, Major Pierre Charles L'Enfant, as the head of a commission appointed by George Washington, then president of the United States. Serving as one of the commissioners, sitting in conference with them and performing an important part in the mathematical calculations involved in the survey, was the Negro mathematician and astronomer, Benjamin Banneker. As there did not appear to be during this celebration any disposition to give proper recognition to the scientific work done by Banneker, the writer has thought it opportune to present in this form a brief review of Banneker's life so as to revive an interest in him and point out some of this useful man's important achievements.
On a previous occasion the writer undertook to collect some data with the same object in view, and at that time he addressed a letter to the postmaster at Ellicott City, Maryland, asking to be put in touch with some one of the Ellicott family, who might furnish reliable data on the subject. In this way, correspondence was established with the family of Mrs. Martha Ellicott Tyson, of Baltimore. One of her descendants, Mrs. Tyson Manly, kindly came over from Baltimore, and, calling on the writer at the United States Patent Office, presented him with a copy of the life of Banneker, published in Philadelphia in 1884, and compiled from the papers of Martha Ellicott Tyson, who was the daughter of George Ellicott, a member of the noted Maryland family, who established the business that developed the town of Ellicott City.
Between George Ellicott and Benjamin Banneker, Mrs. Tyson says, there existed "a special sympathy,"[144] and she further refers to her father as "the warmest friend of that extraordinary man."[145] Her father had many of Banneker's manuscripts, from which he intended to compile a biography of his friend, but his unusually busy commercial life afforded him no leisure in which to carry out this much cherished plan. Mrs. Tyson's account, therefore, can be relied upon as coming directly from those who, personally knowing Banneker, and living in the same community in frequent contact with him, had preserved accurate data from which to publish the true record of his life.
On a farm located near the Patapsco Eiver, within about ten miles of the city of Baltimore, in the State of Maryland, on the 9th day of November, 1731, Benjamin Banneker was born. Various accounts are given of his ancestry. One of his biographers states that "there was not a drop of white blood in his veins," another asserts with positiveness that his parents and grandparents were all native Africans.[146] In still another sketch of Banneker's life, read before the Maryland Historical Society, on May 1, 1845, it is stated that "Banneker's mother was the child of natives of Africa so that to no admixture of the blood of the white man was he indebted for his peculiar and extraordinary abilities."[147] Thomas Jefferson said that Banneker was the "son of a black man born in Africa and a black woman born in the United States."[148]
According to Mrs. Tyson's account Banneker's mother and father were Negroes, but his maternal grandmother was a white woman of English birth, who had been legally married to a native African. The antecedent circumstances of this marriage were so unusual as to justify special mention. Mollie Welsh was an English woman of the servant class, employed on a cattle farm in England where a part of her daily duty was the milking of the cows. She was one day charged with having stolen a pail of milk that had, in fact, been kicked over by a cow. The charge seems to have been taken as proved, and in lieu of a severer punishment she was sentenced to be shipped to America. Being unable to pay for her passage she was sold, on her arrival in America, to a tobacco planter on the Patapsco Eiver to serve a term of seven years to pay the cost of her passage from England. At the end of her period of service, this Mollie Welsh, who is described as "a person of exceedingly fair complexion and moderate mental powers," was able to buy a portion of the farm on which she had worked.[149] In 1692, she purchased two African slaves from a ship in the Chesapeake Bay near Annapolis. One of these slaves named Bannaky, subsequently Anglicized as Banneker, was the son of an African king, and was stolen by slave dealers on the coast of Africa.[150] With these two slaves as her assistants, Mollie Welsh industriously cultivated her farm for a number of years with such gratifying success that she felt impelled afterwards to release her two slaves from bondage. The slave Banneker had gained such favor in the eyes of his owner that she married him directly after releasing him from bondage, notwithstanding the fact that his record for sustained industry had not equalled that of his fellow slave, while serving their owner on her farm—a fact that was perhaps due to Banneker's natural inclination to indulge his royal prerogatives. This Banneker is described as "a man of much intelligence and fine temper, with a very agreeable presence, dignified manner and contemplative habits."[151]
There were born of this marriage four children of whom the eldest daughter, Mary, married a native African who had been purchased from a slave ship by another planter in her neighborhood. This slave was of a devout nature, and early became a member of the Church of England, receiving at his baptism the name of Robert. After baptism, Robert's master set him free. It was, therefore, as a free man that he became the husband of Mary Banneker, whose surname he adopted for his own. Four children were born to Robert and Mary Banneker, one boy and three girls, the eldest being Benjamin, the subject of this sketch.
Robert Banneker had evidently formed some of the habits of thrift evinced by his mother-in-law, Mollie Welsh, for it is on record that in 1737 within a few years after receiving his freedom he purchased a farm of 120 acres from Richard Gist, paying for it 17,000[152] pounds of tobacco, which in those days served as a legal medium of exchange. This farm, located on the Patapsco Eiver, within about ten miles of the town of Baltimore, thus became the Banneker homestead. Here it was that young Benjamin spent his early years and grew to manhood, assisting his father with the general work of the farm.
Banneker very early showed signs of precocity, which made him the special favorite of his maternal grandmother who took delight in teaching him to the extent of her own limited mental endowment. She taught him to study the Bible, and had him read it to her at regular intervals for the purpose of training him along religious lines of thought. He attended a small school in his neighborhood where a few white and colored children were taught by the same white schoolmaster. Until the cotton gin and other mechanical appliances made Negroes too valuable as tools of exploitation to be allowed anything so dangerous as education, there were to be found here and there in the South pioneer educators at the feet of whom even Negroes might sit and learn.[153]
As a boy at school young Banneker is said to have spent very little, if any, of his time in the games and frolics that constitute so large a part of the school life of the average youth. He was unusually fond of study, devoting by far the larger part of his time to reading, so that it was said of him that "all his delight was to dive into his books." His reading, however, did not take a wide range. His limited resources did not permit him to purchase the many works he desired. What Banneker lost through the lack of a variety of books, however, he tried to make up for in being a close observer of everything around him. He turned everything that he could into a channel of information and drew upon all possible sources to keep himself posted on the general activities of his community and beyond. In this way, "he became gradually possessed of a fund of general knowledge which it was difficult to find even among those who were far more favored by opportunity than he was."[154]
Although Banneker had by this time begun to ingratiate himself into the favor of the very best element in his community solely through his demonstration of mental superiority, he did not permit his unusual popularity and his love of study to render him any less helpful to his father in the cultivation of the farm. He proved himself to be just as industrious in farming as he was diligent in studying. When his father died in 1759, leaving to Benjamin and his mother, as joint heirs, the dwelling in which they lived, together with 72 acres of land,[155] Benjamin was fully prepared to assume control of affairs on the estate, and make it yield a comfortable living for him and his mother. His father had divided the remaining 28 acres of the original farm among the three daughters who also survived him. His farm was said to be one of the best kept farms in his neighborhood. It was well stocked, containing a select assortment of fruit trees, a fine lot of cattle, and a specially successful apiary.
Young Banneker's diligent reading of the books at his command served to develop his mental powers rapidly, giving him a retentive memory, correct forms of speech and a keen power of analysis. This faculty grew largely out of his special fondness for the study of mathematics, by which he acquired unusual facility in solving difficult problems. He early won the reputation of being the smartest mathematician not only in his immediate neighborhood but for miles around. He was often seen in the midst of a group of neighbors whom he constantly astounded by the rapidity and accuracy with which he would solve the mathematical puzzles put to him. This caused such widespread comment that he frequently received from scholars in different parts of the country, desiring to test his capacity, mathematical questions, to all of which, it is said, he responded promptly and correctly.[156]
His close attention to the study of mathematics led him easily into the quest of some practical form by which to give tangible expression to his thought. It is highly probable that this fact can explain the facility with which he planned and completed at the age of thirty a clock which stands as one of the wonders of his day.[157] "It is probable," says one, "that this was the first clock of which every portion was made in America; it is certain that it was as purely his own invention as if none had ever been before. He had seen a watch, but never a clock, such an article not being within fifty miles of him."[158] He completed this clock with no other tools than a pocket knife, and using only wood as his material. It stood as a perfect piece of machinery, and struck the hours with faultless precision for a period of 20 years.
The successful completion of this clock attracted to Banneker the attention of his entire community, serving as the starting point of a more brilliant career. It was this display of mechanical genius which engaged the attention of the Ellicotts, who had lately moved into his neighborhood from Pennsylvania. They had already heard of the unusual accomplishments of this gifted Negro and lost no time in getting in touch with him, especially since one of the Ellicotts was himself a mathematician and astronomer of marked ability.[159]
The meeting with the Ellicotts was of signal advantage to Banneker, and ultimately proved the turning point in his career. They were of Quaker origin and had gone down to Maryland in 1772 in search of a desirable location for the establishment of flour mills. They were evidently persons of foresight. Being progressive, open-minded and comparatively free from the prejudices that were then mostly native to the section into which they had moved, they cordially received Banneker and frankly proclaimed his talents.[160] They did not seem to permit the differences of race to erect a single barrier between Banneker and themselves in the ordinary run of their frequent business intercourse. When the Ellicotts were erecting their mills, the foundation of Ellicott City, they purchased from Banneker's farm a large portion of the provisions needed for the workmen. His mother, Mary Banneker, attended to the marketing, bringing poultry, vegetables, fruit and honey to the Ellicott workmen.[161]
Banneker's mechanical inclination led him to take unusual interest in the building of the Ellicott Mills, and to make frequent visits there to watch the operation of the machinery. In the course of time a store was built near the mills, and it became the meeting place of nearly all the wide-awake and worth while people in the community, who would linger together to talk of the news of the day. This was the ordinary means of news exchanging in those days when there were no dailies nor bulletins nor hourly extras. Banneker was always a welcome participant in these gatherings although he was a man of modest demeanor, never injecting himself into the conversation in an unseemly manner. When, however, he permitted himself to be drawn into discussions, he always expressed his views with such clearness and intelligence that he won the respect of his hearers.[162]
The friendship between George Ellicott and Banneker grew stronger as the years went by, and their common interests in mathematics and natural science led to a fellowship which often brought them together. This interest led George Ellicott to lend Banneker a number of mathematical books and instruments. Among these books were Mayer's Tables, Ferguson's Astronomy and Leadbetter's Lunar Tables. When these books and instruments were handed to Banneker it was Ellicott's intention to remain there a while to give Banneker some personal instruction in the use of them, but he was prevented by lack of time from carrying out this intention. On calling again on Banneker shortly afterward, to offer him this instruction, Ellicott was surprised to find that Banneker had already discovered for himself the key to the use of both and was "already absorbed in the contemplation of the new world which was thus opened to his view."[163] They had literally made him fix his gaze on the stars, for the study of astronomy thus became his one absorbing passion.
He had now nearly covered his three score years, and it was no little tribute to his mental vigor that he should have determined at that age to master so abstruse a science as astronomy. But by degrees he gave himself up to its study with unusual zeal. His favorite method of studying this science was to lie out on the ground at night, gazing up at the heavens till the early hours of the morning. He then tried to restore his tired mind and body by sleeping nearly all the next day. This habit nearly caused him to fall into disrepute among his neighbors, who, ignorant of his plans, accused him of becoming lazy in his old days.
In 1789 he had advanced so far with his plan as to project a solar eclipse, the calculation of which he submitted to his friend George Ellicott. In the study of these books Banneker detected several errors of calculation, and, writing to his friend Ellicott, he made mention of two of them. On one occasion he wrote:
"It appears to me that the wisest men may at times be in error; for instance, Dr. Ferguson informs us that, when the sun is within 12° of either node at the time of full, the moon will be eclipsed; but I find that, according to his method of projecting a lunar eclipse, there will be none by the above elements, and yet the sun is within 11° 46' 11" of the moon's ascending node. But the moon, being in her apogee, prevents the appearance of this eclipse."
And again he wrote Ellicott:
"Errors that ought to be corrected in my astronomical tables are these: 2d vol. Leadbetter, p. 204, when anomaly is 4s 30° the equation 3° 30' 4" ought to have been 3° 28' 41". In ♂ equation, p. 155, the logarithm of his distance from ☉ ought to have been 6 in the second place from the index, instead of 7, that is, from the time that its anomaly is 3s 24° until it is 4s O°."
Acting upon the suggestion of one of his educated friends, Banneker now undertook to extend his calculations so as to make an Almanac, then the most comprehensive medium of scientific information. Banneker continued the work required to complete his almanac, and finished the first one to cover the year 1792, when he was sixty-one years old. This attracted to him a number of prominent men, among whom was Mr. James McHenry, of Baltimore, a member of John Adams's cabinet. This gentleman, through his high regard for Banneker's achievements, had his almanac published by the firm of Goddard and Angell of Baltimore. In his letter to this firm McHenry paid a fine tribute to the character of the author, although some of his statements as to Banneker's parentage do not harmonize with what appears to the writer as more reliable information from another source. McHenry laid special stress upon the fact that Banneker's work, in the preparation of his almanac, "was begun and finished without the least information or assistance from any person, or from any other books," than those he had obtained from Mr. Ellicott, "so that whatever merit is attached to his present performance is exclusively and peculiarly his own."[164]
That Mr. McHenry attached a wider significance to Banneker's attainments than is implied in a merely personal achievement is shown in his statement that he considered "this negro as a fresh proof that the powers of the mind are disconnected with the color of the skin, or, in other words, a striking contradiction to Mr. Hume's doctrine, that the negroes are naturally inferior to the whites, and unsusceptible of attainments in arts and sciences?" "In every civilized country," said he, "we shall find thousands of whites, liberally educated and who have enjoyed greater opportunities for instruction than this negro, (who are) his inferiors in those intellectual acquirements and capacities that form the most characteristic features in the human race.[165] But the system that would assign to these degraded blacks an origin different from the whites, if it is not ready to be deserted by philosophers, must be relinquished as similar instances multiply; and that such must frequently happen, cannot be doubted, should no check impede the progress of humanity, which, ameliorating the conditions of slavery, necessarily leads to its final extinction."[166]
Referring to their attitude, the publishers said in their editorial notice that "they felt gratified in the opportunity of presenting to the public, through their press, an accurate Ephemeris for the year 1792, calculated by a sable descendant of Africa." They flatter themselves "that a philanthropic public, in this enlightened era, will be induced to give their patronage and support to this work, not only on account of its intrinsic merit (it having met the approbation of several of the most distinguished astronomers of America, particularly the celebrated Mr. Rittenhouse), but from similar motives to those which induced the editors to give this calculation the preference, the ardent desire of drawing modest merit from obscurity and controverting the long established illiberal prejudice against the blacks."[167]
Banneker had himself not lost sight of the probable effect of his work in reshaping to some extent the public estimate concerning the intellectual capacity of his race. And this was the thought that prompted him to send a manuscript copy of his first almanac to Thomas Jefferson, then Secretary of State in Washington's cabinet. In his letter to Jefferson, dated August 19, 1791, Banneker made, with characteristic modesty, a polite apology for the "liberty" he took in addressing one of such "distinguished and dignified station," and then proceeded to make a strong appeal for the exercise of a more liberal attitude towards his downtrodden race, using his own achievements as a proof that the "train of absurd and false ideas and opinions which so generally prevails with respect to the Negro should now be eradicated."[168]
Thomas Jefferson took note of the moral courage and the loyalty to race evident throughout the whole of Banneker's remarkable letter and he honored it with the most courteous reply, under date of August 30, 1791. After thanking Banneker for the letter and the almanac accompanying it, Jefferson expressed the pleasure it afforded him to see such proofs "that nature has given to our black brethren talents equal to those of the other colors of men, and that the appearance of a want of them is owing only to the degraded condition of their existence both in Africa and America." He also added that he desired "ardently to see a good system commenced for raising the condition both of their body and mind to what it ought to be." The copy sent to Jefferson was formally transmitted to M. de Condorcet, secretary of the Academy of Sciences at Paris, and member of the Philanthropic Society because, as he said, he "considered it a document to which your whole race had a right for its justification against the doubts which have been entertained of them." This recognition of Banneker's merit very naturally added greatly to his rapidly growing reputation at home, and brought to him hundreds of letters of congratulation from scholarly men throughout the civilized world.
The most distinguished honor that came to him from his own countrymen was the invitation to serve with the commission appointed by President Washington to define the boundary line and lay out the streets of the Federal Territory, later called the District of Columbia. This commission, was appointed by Washington, in 1789, and was composed of David Stuart, Daniel Carroll, Thomas Johnson, Andrew Ellicott and Major Pierre Charles L'Enfant, a famous French engineer. This personnel was given in the article on Benjamin Banneker by John R. Slattery in the Catholic World in 1883,[169] but in the Washington Evening Star of October 15, 1916, reporting an address by Fred Woodward, the commission was said to consist of "Major L'Enfant, Andrew Ellicott, Count de Graff, Isaac Roberdeau, William King, Nicholas King, and Benjamin Banneker, a free Negro."[170] It is on record that it was at the suggestion of his friend, Major Andrew Ellicott, who so thoroughly appreciated the value of his scientific attainments, that Thomas Jefferson nominated Banneker and Washington appointed him a member of the commission. In the Georgetown Weekly Ledger, of March 12, 1791, reference is made to the arrival at that port of Ellicott and L'Enfant, who were accompanied by "Benjamin Banneker, an Ethiopian whose abilities as surveyor and astronomer already prove that Mr. Jefferson's concluding that that race of men were void of mental endowment was without foundation."[171]
Speaking afterwards of his work with this commission, Banneker referred to the unfailing kindness and courtesy of the distinguished company in which he found himself. One of his biographers says that the deportment of the mathematician during this engagement was such as to secure for him the respect and admiration of the commissioners. His striking superiority over all other men of his race whom they had met led them to disregard all prejudices of caste.[172] During the stay of the commissioners at their official quarters, Banneker was invited, of course, to eat at the same table with them just as he sat with them during the conferences. This invitation, however, he declined, and provision was then, at his request, made for serving his meals at a separate table but in the same dining room and at the same hour as the others were served.
The reasons for Banneker's refusal to accept this invitation, however, are not so clear. Various of his biographers have attributed his action on this occasion to what they seemed pleased to term his "native modesty." Judging it at this distance from the time of its occurrence, it is perhaps difficult to understand fully his motive. But if we view it in the light of the consistent wisdom and high-mindedness that seemed to guide his whole life we can hope that his reasons for the self-imposed coventry on that occasion were sufficient unto himself, and that they fully excluded every element of servility.
Banneker's work with this commission was undertaken while he was still engaged in astronomical investigation, and after his services in Washington were concluded he returned to his home and resumed his work on his almanacs, which regularly appeared until 1802. He was now living alone in the home left him by his parents, and performed for himself nearly all the domestic services required for his health and comfort. Still obliged to rely mainly upon his farm for his livelihood, he tried various expedients with different tenants to rid himself of the necessity for giving so much of his time to the farm. In these efforts he was wholly unsuccessful. He finally decided, therefore, to enter into such an arrangement in the disposition of his effects as would provide him an annuity, relieving himself of all anxiety for his maintenance and at the same time affording him the leisure he wanted for study. This he was enabled to do through a contract with one of the Ellicotts, by the terms of which his friend was to take the title to Banneker's property, making the latter an annual allowance of 12 pounds for a given period of time calculated by Banneker to be the span of years he could reasonably be expected to live. Banneker was to continue to occupy and use the property during his life, after which the possession was to go to Ellicott.[173] Banneker lived, however, eight years longer than he thought he would, but Ellicott faithfully lived up to this contract. This miscalculation is said to have been the only mistake in mathematics Banneker ever made. With his domestic affairs settled to his satisfaction, and having now the desired leisure to continue his studies, he gave himself up wholly to that object.
His active mind now found time also for occasional diversion to other lines than mathematics. It was about this time that he made the calculations showing that the locust plague was recurrent in cycles of 17 years each. He also wrote a dissertation on bees which has been favorably compared with a similar contribution by Pliny on the same subject written nearly 1800 years earlier. Banneker's nature seemed tuned also to the softer notes in the song of life. He loved music, and often, as a relaxation, he would sit beneath a huge chestnut tree near his house and beguile the hours by playing on his flute or violin.[174]
The disastrous war waged in 1793 so disturbed Banneker that he devoted much time to the study of the best methods to promote peace. To this end he suggested that the United States Government establish a department in the President's cabinet to be in charge of a Secretary of Peace. He then made a strong appeal to the authorities of his government to take a broad stand based on humanity and justice and in that spirit to formulate a comprehensive plan by which A Lasting Peace[175] might be substituted for the wars that were then disturbing the world.
During these years his home was frequently visited by people who sought him because of his intellectual gifts, and who were in no wise abashed by the fact of his racial connection. To them he was merely an honored citizen in the field of achievement.[176] "During the whole of his long life," says Benjamin Ellicott, "he lived respectably and much esteemed by all who became acquainted with him, but more especially by those who could fully appreciate his genius and the extent of his acquirements. Although his mode of life was regular and extremely retired,—living alone, having never married, cooking his own victuals and washing his own clothes, and scarcely ever being absent from home,—yet there was nothing misanthropic in his character; for a gentleman who knew him thus speaks of him: 'I recollect him well. He was a brave-looking pleasant man, with something very noble in his appearance.' His mind was evidently much engrossed in his calculations; but he was glad to receive the visits which we often paid him."
Another writes: "When I was a boy I became very much interested in him, as his manners were those of a perfect gentleman: kind, generous, hospitable, humane, dignified, and pleasing, abounding in information on all the various subjects and incidents of the day, very modest and unassuming, and delighting in society at his own house. I have seen him frequently. His head was covered with a thick suit of white hair, which gave him a very dignified and venerable appearance. His dress was uniformly of superfine broadcloth, made in the old style of a plain coat, with straight collar and long waistcoat, and a broad-brimmed hat. His color was not jet-black, but decidedly negro. In size and personal appearance, the statue of Franklin at the Library of Philadelphia, as seen from the street, is a perfect likeness of him. Go to his house when you would, either by day or night, there was constantly standing in the middle of the floor a large table covered with books and papers. As he was an eminent mathematician, he was constantly in correspondence with other mathematicians in this country, with whom there was an interchange of questions of difficult solution."[177]
Mrs. Tyson describes the courtliness of his manner when receiving friendly visits from the ladies of his community, who delighted to call on him in his neat cottage, to have the pleasure of his rare conversation. On these occasions he would sometimes allude to his love of the study of astronomy as quite unsuited to a man of his class.[178]
In the earlier years of his life Banneker is said to have formed the "social drink" habit, which we can imagine was all the easier for a man of his agreeable manners, in an environment where hospitality was general, and in a day when cordiality usually expressed itself in that way. But to the credit of his strength of mind and will, it is also said that he actually overcame that habit by the mere determination that he would do it, and that on his return from his stay with the commission at Washington he is said to have declared rather proudly that he never partook once of the wines that were so freely offered him.[179]
Banneker was not a professing Christian and not an adherent of any church, but "he loved the doctrines and mode of worship of the Society of Friends, and was frequently at their meetings." A contemporary says: "We have seen Banneker in Elkridge meeting house, where he always sat on the form nearest the door, his head uncovered. His ample forehead, white hair and reverent deportment gave him a very venerable appearance, as he leaned on the long staff (which he always carried with him) in quiet contemplation."[180]
There was no blemish in the entire record of his singularly active and useful life. His whole span of years appears to have been spent with a conscience void of offense, and he approached the end with a sereneness of mind well befitting the high ideals set before him. Although his body never wandered far from the place of his birth, his mind was permitted to soar through all space and to dwell in the regions of the stars and the planets. We can never know how sorely his finer spirit grieved over the tribulations that beset his blood kinsmen in the days of their bondage in this land of their birth, but we can well believe that in the loftiness of his soul he dreamed the dream of their ultimate release.
As the shadows gathered about him towards the evening of his life he abandoned those pursuits that had brought him merited distinction, and had gained for him the admiration of a host of friends chiefly among people that the world called superior. One beautiful Sabbath afternoon, in the month of October, 1806,[181] while quietly resting in the shade of a tree beside his cottage on the brow of a hill that overlooked the Patapsco Valley he seemed to hear the voices that beckoned him to the other world. And as if stirred by some sudden impulse he rose and made an effort to walk once more along the paths that had so often been his quiet retreat in the moments of his deep reflections. He had not gone far, when his strength gave way, and he sank helpless to the ground. He was assisted back to his home by a friendly neighbor, but the noon of his day having fully merged into the evening, the dark shadows of Eternal Night settled over him.
Directly after Banneker's death, in fact, on that very day, his sisters, Minta Black and Mollie Morton, undertook to carry out his wishes with respect to the disposition to be made of his personal effects. Banneker had, a few years before, directed that "all the articles which had been presented to him by George Ellicott, consisting of his books and mathematical instruments, and the table on which he made his calculations should be returned as soon as he should die."[182] He also requested that "as an acknowledgment of a debt of gratitude for Ellicott's long-continued kindness he should be given a volume of the manuscripts containing all his almanacs, his observations on various subjects, his letter to Thomas Jefferson, and the reply of that statesman." All the rest that he possessed was left to the two sisters. It was due to the faithful execution of his wishes on the very day of his death that his valuable manuscripts were preserved at all. They were all carried to George Ellicott, and this circumstance was the first notice that Ellicott received of the passing away of his friend. "Banneker's funeral took place two days afterward, and while the ceremonies were in progress at his grave, his home took fire and burned so rapidly that nothing could be saved."[183]
Some time before his death Banneker gave to one of his sisters the feather bed on which he usually slept, and this she preserved as her only keepsake of him. Years after wards she had occasion to open the bed and, feeling something hard among the feathers, she discovered that it was a purse of money. This circumstance shows that Banneker was not "in the evening of his life overshadowed by extreme poverty."[184]
In an excellent paper read on April 18, 1916, before the Columbia Historical Society of Washington, by Mr. P. Lee Phillips, of the Library of Congress, Banneker's Almanac was compared with Benjamin Franklin's Poor Richard's Almanac. Mr. Phillips also referred to his efforts in behalf of peace and to the friendship that existed between Banneker and such distinguished men of his time as Washington and Jefferson. He closed his article on Banneker with the broad-minded declaration that "Maryland should in some manner honor the memory of this distinguished citizen, who, notwithstanding the race prejudice of the time, rose to eminence in scientific attainments, the study of which at that early date was almost unknown."[185] The recognition of Douglass in Rochester and Boston, Pushkin in Petrograd and Moscow and Dumas in Paris, affords splendid suggestions of what we hope to see of Banneker in Baltimore. It is a sad reflection on the people of this country that practically nothing has been done to honor this distinguished man.
Henry E. Baker
Assistant Examiner, United States Patent Office.
FOOTNOTES:
[144] The Leisure Hour, 1853, II, p. 54.
[145] Tyson, Banneker, The Afric-American Astronomer, p. 10.
[146] The Atlantic Monthly, XI, p. 80
[147] In another particular this same sketch differs from several others, namely, in locating young Banneker at "an obscure and distant country school" with no mention of the oft-repeated assertion that the school was one attended by both white and colored children. The author of the last-mentioned sketch was evidently not sure of these two statements, and therefore did not include them. In fact, he appears not to have been quite sure of the propriety of submitting any sketch at all of this "free man of color" to the distinguished body constituting the Maryland Historical Society, for there was a clear note of apology in his opening declaration that "A few words may be necessary to explain why a memoir of a free man of color, formerly a resident of Maryland, is deemed of sufficient interest to be presented to the Historical Society." But he justified his effort on the grounds that "no questions relating to our country (are) of more interest than those connected with her colored population"; that that interest had "acquired an absorbing character"; that the presence of the colored population in States where slavery existed "modified their institutions in important particulars," and effected "in a greater or less degree the character of the dominant race"; and "for this reason alone," he said, "the memoir of a colored man, who had distinguished himself in an abstruse science, by birth a Marylander, claims consideration from those who have associated to collect and preserve facts and records relating to the men and deeds of the past."—J. H. B. Latrobe in Maryland Historical Society Publications, I, p. 8.
[148] Ford edition of Jefferson's Writings, V, p. 379.
[149] In the memoir of Banneker, above mentioned, read before the Maryland Historical Society in 1845, and in another memoir of Banneker, read before the same Society by Mr. J. Saurin Norris, in 1854, the estate purchased by Mollie Welsh is referred to as "a small farm near the present site of Baltimore," and "purchased at a merely nominal price." See Norris's Memoir, p. 3.
[150] Norris Memoir, p. 4; Williams's History of the Negro Race, p. 386.
[151] Tyson, Banneker, p. 10.
[152] It is elsewhere given as 7,000, but the earlier record seems to be the correct one.
[153] Atlantic Monthly, XI, p. 81.
[154] Latrobe, Memoir, Maryland Historical Society Publications, I, p. 7.
[155] Ibid., I, p. 7.
[156] Banneker would frequently, in answering questions submitted to him, accompany the answers with questions of his own in rhyme. The following is an example of such a question submitted by him to another noted mathematician, his friend and neighbor, Mr. George Ellicott:
A cooper and Vintner sat down for a talk,
Both being so groggy, that neither could walk,
Says Cooper to Vintner, "I'm the first of my trade,
There's no kind of vessel, but what I have made,
And of any shape, Sir,—just what you will,—
And of any size, Sir,—from a ton to a gill!"
"Then," says the Vintner, "you're the man for me,—
Make me a vessel, if we can agree.
The top and the bottom diameter define,
To bear that proportion as fifteen to nine,
Thirty-five inches are just what I crave,
No more and no less, in the depth, will I have;
Just thirty-nine gallons this vessel must hold,—
Then I will reward you with silver or gold,—
Give me your promise, my honest old friend?"
"I'll make it tomorrow, that you may depend!"
So the next day the Cooper his work to discharge,
Soon made the new vessel, but made it too large;—
He took out some staves, which made it too small,
And then cursed the vessel, the Vintner and all.
He beat on his breast, "By the Powers!"—he swore,
He never would work at his trade any more.
Now my worthy friend, find out, if you can,
The vessel's dimensions and comfort the man!
Benjamin Banneker.
We are indebted to Benjamin Hallowell, of Alexandria, for the solution of this problem. The greater diameter of Banneker's tub must be 24.745 inches; the less diameter 14.8476 inches. See Maryland Historical Society Publications, I, p. 20.
[157] The Atlantic Monthly, XI, p. 81.
[158] The Atlantic Monthly, XI, p. 81.
[159] Atlantic Monthly, XI, p. 82.
[160] Southern Literary Messenger, XXIII, p. 65.
[161] Tyson's Banneker, p. 24.
[162] Tyson, Banneker, p. 26.
[163] J. H. B. Latrobe's Memoir, Maryland Historical Society Publications, I, p. 8.
[164] Atlantic Monthly, XI, p. 82.
[165] Tyson, Banneker, p. 51.
[166] Mr. McHenry was not only one of the most prominent men of Baltimore, but was several times honored with positions of trust. He was Senator from Maryland in 1781; and as one of the Commissioners to frame the Constitution of the United States, he signed that instrument in 1787. He was also a member of the cabinet of President John Adams as Secretary of War in 1797.—Tyson, Banneker, pp. 50, 51, 52.
[167] Maryland Historical Society Publications, I, 1844-48, I, p. 79.
[168] A copy of Banneker's letter to Thomas Jefferson and the statesman's reply were published in the Journal of Negro History, III, p. 69.
[169] Catholic World, XXXVIII, December, 1883.
[170] Washington Star, October 15, 1916.
[171] Georgetown Weekly Ledger, March 12, 1791.
[172] Tyson, Banneker, p. 37.
[173] Tyson, Banneker, pp. 70-71.
[174] Tyson, Banneker, pp. 35-60.
[175] Records of the Columbia Historical Society, XX, pp. 117-119.
[176] The Atlantic Monthly, XI, p. 84.
[177] Tyson, Banneker, p. 31.
[178] Ibid., p. 31.
[179] Catholic World, XVIII, p. 354.
[180] Norris's Memoir, Maryland Historical Society Publications, II, p. 75.
[181] Federal Gazette and Baltimore Daily Advertiser, October 28, 1806.
[182] Norris's Memoir, Maryland Historical Society Publications, II, p. 64.
[183] Ibid., II, p. 73.
[184] Tyson, Banneker, p. 72.
[185] Records of the Columbia Historical Society, XX, pp. 119-120.
GEORGE LIELE AND ANDREW BRYAN, PIONEER NEGRO BAPTIST PREACHERS
Without any consideration of the merits or demerits of what is called the exceptional man theory, perhaps no two men stand out more prominently in the early history of the Negro church than George Liele and Andrew Bryan. In the days of darkest forebodings and of the greatest human sufferings these two pioneers of religion went forth to disseminate ideas and mold sentiments which were to shape the inner springs of conduct of their fellow-slaves. Sketches of these heroes must claim the attention of seekers for the truth as to this important phase of our history.
A letter dated September 15, 1790, from the late Reverend Mr. Joseph Cook of Euhaw, upper Indian Land, South Carolina, says: "A poor Negro, commonly called, among his friends, Brother George,[186] has been so highly favored of God, as to plant the first Baptist Church in Savannah, and another in Jamaica." This man was George Liele. He was born in Virginia about 1751. He knew very little of his mother, Nancy, but was informed by white and black that his father was a very devout man. The family moved much during the youth of George, but finally settled in Georgia.
As a youth George Liele had a natural fear of God, holding constantly in mind His condemnation of sin. Liele was converted through the preaching of the Reverend Matthew Moore,[188] who later baptized him. Desiring then to prove the sense of his obligations to God, Liele began to instruct his own people. Crude but firm in purpose, he soon showed ministerial gifts and after a trial sermon before a quarterly meeting of white ministers was licensed as a local preacher. He practiced preaching on different plantations, and in the church to which he belonged, on evenings when there was no regular service. After a short period he began his regular ministerial work, serving about three years at Brunton Land, and at Yamacraw, where developed a number of useful communicants.[189]
Among these early members of the Yamacraw church were Reverend David George, who later labored, with permission from the Governor, in the ministry at Nova Scotia, with sixty communicants, white and black; Reverend Amos, who preached with good results at New Providence, one of the Bahama Islands, to about three hundred members; and Reverend Jesse Gaulsing, who preached near Augusta, in South Carolina to sixty members. Preaching later from Chapter III Saint John, and the clause of verse 7, "Ye must be born again," George Liele moved to repentance a more useful man, Andrew Bryan, and a noted woman named Hagar.[190] After Liele organized this influential church at Yamacraw, then a suburb of Savannah, Mr. Henry Sharp, his master, encouraged this pioneer by giving him his freedom.
Mr. Sharp was an officer in the war and died from wounds received in the King's service.[191] Soon after the death of Mr. Sharp there arose those who were dissatisfied with George's liberation. He was taken and thrown into prison, but by producing his manumission papers was released. To extricate himself from this unpleasant situation Liele became obligated to a Colonel Kirkland. At the evacuation of Savannah by the British he was partly obliged to come to Jamaica, as an indentured servant for money he owed Colonel Kirkland, who promised to be his friend in that country. Upon landing at Kingston he was upon the recommendation of the Colonel to General Campbell, the Governor of Jamaica, employed by him two years, and, on leaving the island, the governor gave Liele a certificate of his good behavior. As soon as Liele had paid his debt to Colonel Kirkland, he obtained for himself and family a certificate of freedom from the vestry and governor, according to the law of this Island.[192] Thus by force of circumstances George Liele was compelled to leave those among whom he had labored so effectively and thrown into another field where he had opportunity for further service.
Liele's work in Jamaica began in September, 1784. He started in Kingston by preaching in a private house to a small congregation. Next, he organized a church with four other men who had come from America. His message had a telling effect especially on the slaves. The effectiveness of his work is also seen from the fact that persecutions at baptisms and meetings which were, at first, frequent, later became a less serious hindrance. Upon frequent petitions, however, the Jamaica Assembly finally granted free worship of God to all those desiring it. So successfully did Liele work that in a short while he had in the country together with well wishers and followers about fifteen hundred communicants, to whom he preached twice on each Sunday, in the morning and afternoon, and twice in the week.[193]
The work of the church was extended by a few deacons and elders, and by teachers of small congregations in the town and country. Thomas Nichols Swigle became Liele's chief assistant. His particular work was to regulate church matters, serve as deacon, and also to teach a free school opened for the instruction of free and slave children. The work continued to spread through Swigle, who became a minister after the order of Liele. He said: "About two months ago, I paid my first visit to a part of our church held at Clinton Mount, Coffee Plantation, in the Parish of Saint Andrew, about sixteen miles distance from Kingston, in the High mountains, where we have a chapel and 254 brethren." About his work in general he said: "I preach, baptize, marry, attend funerals, and go through every work of the ministry without fee or reward."[194]
It was soon evident that there must be some definite place of worship. To this end a piece of land about three acres at the east end of Kingston was purchased for the sum of about 155 pounds and on it a church building fifty-seven by thirty-seven feet was begun. Because the congregation was poor and gifts were small, Liele had a struggle to complete his building. He interested in his cause several gentlemen of influence, among whom was a Mr. Stephen Cooke, a member of the Assembly, who in turn asked help of friends in England. By January 12, 1793, he was able to say that not only was the Kingston church completed but that in Spanish Town also he had purchased land for a cemetery with a house on it which served as a church building. The Kingston church, the first of its kind in Jamaica, under the leadership of Liele had twelve trustees, all of whom were members of the congregation, whose names were specified in the title recorded in the office of the secretary of the island.[195]
While establishing the churches at Savannah and at Jamaica, Liele received nothing for his services. He was on a mission and without charge preached, baptized, administered the Lord's Supper, and travelled from one place to another to settle church affairs. He did this so as not to be misunderstood and not to hinder the progress of the church of Christ. Mr. Stephen Cooke, in giving his opinion of Liele, said that he was "a very industrious man, decent and humble in his manners, and, I think, a good man." His family life was pleasant. He had a wife and four children, three boys and a girl. Liele followed farming for a regular occupation, but because of the uncertain seasons in Jamaica, kept horses and wagons for employment in local transportation for the government by contract. He was business-like and kept the good will of the public. Although busy, Liele found time to read some of the good books which he had in his meager collection and also to write letters explaining the growth of his work in Jamaica and inquiring after the progress of the church at Savannah, then pastored by Andrew Bryan.[196]
In building up the membership of his churches Liele showed great tact. Unlike the Methodists who were rapidly coming forward at this time, he would not receive any slaves who had not permission of their owners. This not only increased the membership of the church but it made friends for their cause among the masters and overseers. So careful was Liele to get the confidence of the masters and overseers that he ordered a bell for his church just a mile and a half out of Spanish Town in Jamaica, not particularly to give warning to the slaves about the time of meeting, but to the owners of slaves that they might know the time when their slaves should return to the plantations. The church covenant, a collection of certain passages of Scripture, which was used once a month, was shown to members of the legislature, the magistrates and justices to secure their approval that they might give their slaves permission to become members of the congregation.[197]
The effect of the work of Liele is well narrated in a statement of an overseer who sat at breakfast with Swigle at Clinton Mount, sixteen miles from Kingston. He said that he did not need an assistant nor did he make use of the whip, for whether he was at home or away, everything was conducted as it should have been. The slaves were industrious, with a plenty of provision in their ground and a plenty of live stock in their barns; and they, one and all, lived together in unity, brotherly love and peace. With a mission to serve, this man then made his way into the hearts of his fellows.
Andrew Bryan, the other pioneer, was born in 1737 at Goose Creek, South Carolina, about sixteen miles from Charleston. His mother was a slave and died in the service of her master. His father, also a slave, became infirm with years, dying at the age of one hundred and five. Andrew became converted under the preaching of George Liele when the latter served the church in Savannah. Bryan married a woman named Hannah about nine years after his conversion. His wife remained a slave in the service of Jonathan Bryan for a long time after her marriage, but was finally purchased by her husband.[198]
Andrew Bryan began to preach to congregations of black and a few white people at Savannah just eight or nine months after Liele's departure for Jamaica. Edward Davis encouraged Bryan and his followers to erect a building on his land in Yamacraw for a place of worship, of which they were later artfully dispossessed. In the beginning of their worship, frequent interruptions came from the whites. It was at a time when many Negro slaves had absconded, and some had been taken away by the British. This was an excuse for the wickedness of the whites, who then became more cruel in whipping and imprisoning the worshipers, undertaking to justify their action before the magistrates. When George Liele was preaching in and near Savannah, he did not suffer from such molestation, because the British then ruled the country, but Andrew Bryan began his work under different conditions about the time when Georgia became independent.
For refusing to discontinue his work Andrew Bryan was twice imprisoned. Sampson, his brother, who was converted about one year after Andrew was, remained with him, however, in all of his hard trials. On one occasion about fifty slaves were severely whipped. Among these was Andrew, who was cut and bled abundantly. While he was yet under their lashes, Hambleton says he rejoiced, not only to be scourged but would freely suffer death for the cause of Jesus Christ. Jonathan Bryan, their kind master, was much affected and grieved over their punishment and interceded for them. George Walton said "that such treatment would be condemned even among barbarians."
They were brought before chief justices Henry Osborne, James Habersham and David Montague, who released them. Chief Justice Osborne then gave them liberty to continue their worship "between sunrising and sun set."[200] Their master told the magistrate that he would give them the liberty of his own house or barn, at a place called Brampton, about three miles from town, and that they should not be interrupted in their worship. They accepted the offer of Jonathan Bryan and worshipped with little or no interruption at Brampton for about two years. Many slaves thereafter attended the services held in the barn at Brampton.
White preachers often visited his congregation. Lorenzo Dow, perhaps the foremost white itinerant preacher of his time, on one occasion preached to Bryan's congregation, while he was imprisoned, feeling that in their hour of trial these Negroes especially needed his encouragement. The whites to whom Dow preached offered him money, but he did not take it as he did not wish the wrong construction put upon his efforts nor to be deemed an impostor. As he was once leaving Savannah, however, after he had been entertained largely by Negroes, Andrew Bryan met him and, on shaking hands, gave him eleven and a half dollars which the Negroes presented him as a donation. By these visits of Dow and other preachers, Bryan and his followers were greatly helped.[201] Among others who visited Bryan's church were Abraham Marshall and Thomas Burton who examined and baptized about sixty in this connection.
Reverend Mr. Marshall gave this congregation over his signature two important certificates which follow:
This is to certify that upon examination into the experiences and characters of a number of Ethiopians, and adjacent to Savannah, it appears that God has brought them out of darkness into the light of the Gospel, and given them fellowship one with the other; believing it is the will of Christ, we have constituted them a church of Jesus Christ.
On January 19, 1788, he sent Bryan the following:
This is to certify, that the Ethiopian church of Jesus Christ at Savannah, have-called their beloved Andrew to the work of the ministry. We have examined into his qualifications, and believing it to be the will of the great head of the church, we have appointed him to preach the Gospel, and to administer the ordinances, as God in his providence may call.[202]
Out of the midst then of great persecutions Andrew Bryan became the official head of an established church.
The death of Jonathan Bryan, the master of Andrew Bryan, marked an epoch in the useful career of this pioneer preacher. By consent of the parties concerned, he purchased his freedom for the sum of fifty pounds. He then bought a lot in Yamacraw and built on it a residence near the rough building Sampson Bryan had built some time before. When the Bryan estate was finally divided, the lot on which Sampson had been permitted to build became the property of an attorney, who married a daughter of the deceased Mr. Bryan and received 12 pounds a year for it. In these readjustments there were no serious interruptions to the worship of Andrew Bryan's congregation. The seven hundred members worshiped not only without molestation, but in the presence, and with the approbation and encouragement of many of the white people.[203]
With this large membership Bryan needed but did not have a regular assistant. In his absence his brother Sampson preached for him. Bryan's plan was to divide his church when the membership became too large for him to serve it efficiently. This finally had to be done. This branch of the church was organized as the Second African Baptist Church of Savannah with Henry Francis, a slave of Colonel Leroy Hammond, as pastor. Francis showed such remarkable ability that some white men, who considered him unusual, purchased his freedom that he might devote all of his time to his chosen work. Not many years thereafter Bryan's church again reached the stage of having an unwieldy number and it was further divided by organizing in another part of the city the Third African Baptist Church.
Bryan exercised the greatest of care in his public and private obligations and manifested much interest in his family. In 1800 he wrote Dr. Rippon: "With much pleasure, I inform you, dear Sir, that I enjoy good health, and am strong in body, at the age of sixty-three years, and am blessed with a pious wife, whose freedom I have obtained, and an only daughter and child who is married to a free man, tho' she, and consequently under our laws, her seven children, five sons and two daughters, are slaves. By a kind Providence I am well provided for, as to worldly comforts, (tho' I have had very little given me as a minister) having a house and lot in this city, besides the land on which several buildings stand, for which I receive a small rent, and a fifty-six acre tract of land, with all necessary buildings, four miles in the country, and eight slaves; for whose education and happiness, I am enabled thro' mercy to provide."[204]
His church became in the course of time the beacon light in the Negro religious life of Georgia. From this center went other workers into the inviting fields of that State, until the Negro preacher became circumscribed during the thirties and forties by laws intended to prevent such disturbances as were caused by Nat Turner in starting an insurrection in Virginia. Andrew Bryan, however, did not live to see this. He passed away in 1812, respected by all who knew him and loved by his numerous followers.[205] He was succeeded by his nephew, Andrew Marshall, who served that church so long that former slaves still living have a recollection of his work among these people. In keeping with its loyalty to its ministers, this congregation boasts even today that in its long history it has had only a few ministers to serve it.
John W. Davis.
FOOTNOTES:
[186] He was sometimes called George Sharp.—See Benedict, History of the Baptists, etc., p. 189.
[187] The facts of this article for the most part are taken from letters written about the work of Liele and Bryan and from correspondence concerning them published in London in the Baptist Annual Register.
[188] Mr. Moore was an ordained Baptist minister, of Brooke County, Georgia.
[189] The Journal of Negro History, I, p. 71.
[190] Under the influence of his preaching Liele's wife was converted and baptized at Brunton Land.
[191] Ibid., p. 336.
[192] The Baptist Annual Register, 1790-93, p. 334.
[193] The Journal of Negro History, I, pp. 71-72.
[194] The Journal of Negro History, I, p. 72.
[195] The Baptist Annual Register, 1790-1793, p. 335.
[196] Benedict, History of the Baptists, p. 189.
[197] The Baptist Annual Register, 1798-1801, p. 368.
[198] The Baptist Annual Register, 1798-1801, p. 366.
[199] Dow, History of the Cosmopolite, p. 124.
[200] The Baptist Annual Register, 1790-1793, p. 339.
[201] Dow, Experience and Travels, p. 125.
[202] The Baptist Annual Register, 1790-1793, p. 340.
[203] Ibid., 1798-1800, p. 367.
[204] The Baptist Annual Register, 1798-1801, p. 368. Ibid., 1790-1793, p. 339.
[205] Benedict, History of the Baptists, pp. 790-791.
FIFTY YEARS OF HOWARD UNIVERSITY
Part I[206]
Howard University, in common with nearly all the larger private institutions of learning in the southern and border States devoted to the education of the Negro, was founded shortly after the Civil War.[207] These institutions with a few exceptions were originally supported by northern philanthropy, and their courses of study were determined by the zealous missionaries from the North, who successfully attempted to transplant among the freedmen the pedagogic traditions of New England. That such a procedure, so vigorously condemned on many sides when initiated but so gloriously justified in its results, could have been possible may well prove a cause of wonder to the student of education a century hence. And indeed, under ordinary circumstances, the establishment of classical colleges and schools of law, medicine and theology for a primitive people, unable to read or write, would seem the height of folly. But the circumstances were not ordinary. The situation was critical and unusual remedies were required.
The close of the War of the Rebellion in 1865 witnessed something new in the field of educational problems. A group numbering nearly four millions was presented to the American nation for training in the essentials of manhood and the duties of citizenship. The apprenticeship which this group had served had been spent under a system that did little more than acquaint them with the cruder tools of industry and an imperfect use of a modern language. And while it is true that many individual slaves acquired considerable skill in industrial pursuits and a few became artisans of a rather high order, the great mass of Negroes were laborers of the lowest class, requiring the exercise of an intelligence but little above that of the beasts of burden. On the side of the mastery of letters the best that can be said by even the most generous students of this subject is that, at the beginning of the year 1861, about ten per cent. of the adult Negroes in the United States could read and write.[208]
From the standpoint of the white South the liberation of the slaves had let loose upon the land what they considered a horde of half-savage blacks, descendants of jungle tribes, inferior in every respect to the white man and incapable of assimilating the knowledge of the dominant race or of becoming citizens except in name only. In addition to this attitude there remained in the South the traditional idea that education was the peculiar privilege of the favored few of the white race, and, except in its lowest reaches, a non-essential in the life of the masses. At the close of the Civil War free public schools were unknown in that section.[209] When it came to the question of educating the Negro, all of the teachings and practice of the South stamped it as a dangerous risk. To offer him the higher courses of college and university grade was indeed an absurdity.
The North, on the other hand, looked upon the slave as a sufferer released from an earthly torment and, because of his long period of involuntary servitude, deserving of recompense of every kind that the nation could bestow. As to his mental capacity, the North believed that in order to rise from his degraded state and to take his place among the races of civilized men the freedman awaited only the same means of education that the Anglo-Saxon for centuries had enjoyed. Whatever may be the judgment of history concerning these two conflicting views, it is clear that the South had neither the inclination nor the means to enter upon the task of educating the Negro whereas the North was abundantly supplied with both.
Here, at any rate, was a situation offering the greatest opportunity for the exercise of philanthropic zeal, both in the way of financial aid and personal service. And to this call the North responded, pouring out treasure, labor and love in a way that stamps the whole movement of educating the Negro in America during the first half century of his freedom as one of the most heroic examples of true missionary zeal of all times. Those who took an active part in the movement, including founders and teachers, seemed imbued with no other idea than that of giving the best and in the largest measure. They went to their tasks and took with them their ideals of human equality and brotherhood. Every effort was bent toward raising the unfortunate race to the level of their own standards of intellect, of society and of morals. They, therefore, applied to the solution of the problem the only educational machinery that they knew. Experiments in education would not supply the immediate need. No man was to be limited in his opportunities for intellectual development. Only his own desire and capacities were to determine his limitations. Besides, such opportunity was necessary for the training of leaders and must not be denied. Howard University was a child of this movement and the greatest embodiment of this idea.
The situation out of which this institution evolved requires some comment. The abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia and later throughout the South resulted in a large influx of freedmen into the National Capital until they formed one third of its population, thus constituting the largest urban group of Negroes in the world. The educational problem presented by this group was quickly realized by various freedmen's aid organizations and philanthropic individuals with the result that day and night schools were immediately established for persons of all ages, providing instruction in the elementary studies.[210] In the opinion of many the situation had been fully met by the establishment of these elementary schools. The task had been difficult and attended with much opposition and even open violence. The problem of the future was the maintenance and extension of such schools at their present grade. Others, on the other hand, considering the task only half done, believed that their duty would be fully discharged only when an institution of higher learning had been established at the capital of the nation, where Negro youth could be trained for positions of leadership.
"Such an Institution," said one of the founders of Howard University, "was demanded by the necessities of the great educational movement which was inaugurated among the freed people at the close of the late war. When primary, secondary and grammar schools were being opened throughout the South, for the benefit of a class hitherto wholly deprived of educational advantages, it became evident that institutions of a higher grade were needed for the training of the teachers and ministers who were to labor in this field. It was with a view of supplying this need that Howard University was founded."[211] On November 17, 1866, at the Columbia Law Building opposite Judiciary Square in Washington, was uttered the first word from which the idea of Howard University evolved. Using this building as a temporary house of worship, members of the First Congregational Church[212] were on that date holding a meeting on missions with Dr. C. B. Boynton, the pastor of the church. After remarks by several persons concerning various phases of the duty of the country towards the freedmen, Reverend Benjamin F. Morris, a son of former Senator Thomas A. Morris, of Ohio, arose to speak. He referred to his surprise and gratification at the remarkable showing made in theological studies, by half a dozen young colored men in an examination which he had recently witnessed. These were students in what was then known as Wayland Institute, which had at that time only one teacher. In this enthusiasm he expressed the wish that the Congregational Church might some day establish a theological school at the capital of the nation.[213]
The seed thus sown found such fruitful soil in the minds of the pastor and Reverend Danforth B. Nichols that they, with Mr. Morris, resolved to see the plan carried out at a subsequent meeting to be held at the residence of Mr. Henry H. Brewster for the purpose of establishing a New Missionary Society. At this meeting there prevailed the idea that such a society was not needed for the reason that the American Missionary Association was already occupying this field. Mr. Morris thereupon took the floor and advocated the establishment of a theological school for the preparation of colored men for the ministry to work in the South and to go as missionaries to Africa. Dr. Boynton supported the plan and urged immediate action; Dr. Nichols, in answering objections raised concerning the financing of the project, suggested the possibility of aid from the Freedmen's Bureau, an idea which marked the beginning of the relationship of the University with the Federal Government.
At the next meeting, a committee appointed to bring in a plan of organization, recommended that a night school be
opened at first; that application be made to the Commissioner of the Freedmen's Bureau for quarters, fuel and light for the school; and that three chairs of instruction be established. These recommendations were adopted and the first faculty appointed comprised the following: Evidences and Biblical Interpretation, Reverend E. W. Robinson; Biblical History and Geography, Reverend D. B. Nichols; Anatomy and Physiology, Dr. Silas Loomis. Thus was the University born with neither a local habitation nor a name. It was styled a Theological Institute and its aim was "the education of the colored youth for the ministry."[214]
The development of plans for this new educational center was rapid. Senator Pomeroy, of Kansas, who had become greatly interested in the movement, suggested at first an extension of the original idea so as to include the training of teachers. Later he made a motion that the doors be thrown open to all who wished to enter. This proposition was heartily agreed to, and Howard was given the distinction of being the first University in America to be established without some restriction based on race, sex, creed or color.[215] At a later meeting held to consider the charter, it was decided to embrace in that instrument university privileges and to provide for the departments of theology, law and medicine.
When the question of a name was reached several were suggested and rejected. Finally Dr. Nichols proposed that the University bear the name of "The American Philanthropist, the Commissioner of the Freedmen's Bureau, the true friend of the downtrodden and oppressed of every color and nation of the Earth," General Oliver Otis Howard.[216] This was enthusiastically adopted with but one dissenting vote, that of General Howard himself, who felt that his usefulness to the new institution would be greater under another name than his.
The act of incorporation was drawn by Senator Pomeroy, of Kansas, and presented to the Senate by Henry Wilson, of Massachusetts, afterwards Vice-President of the United States under Grant. Senator Pomeroy was one of the incorporators and a member of the first board of trustees. Senator Wilson had attended several of the organization meetings and was an enthusiastic supporter of the plan. The bill passed both houses of Congress and became a law when President Andrew Johnson affixed his signature, March 2, 1867. The first meeting of the corporation was held at the residence of Mr. Brewster for the purpose of organizing the board of trustees. This board was made to include the seventeen incorporators with the addition of General G. W. Balloch who was elected treasurer.
The preliminaries disposed of, the University began its work by opening classes in the Normal and Preparatory Departments united on the first of the following May. The first student body consisting of five pupils were altogether young white women, the daughters of trustees Robinson and Nichols.[217] The recitations were held in a rented frame building, previously used as a German dance hall and saloon, which stood on the east side of what is now Georgia Avenue, a short distance south of W Street.[218] The building and lot were later purchased by the University but finally sold when the classes were removed to their permanent home.
The selection of the permanent site for the University is due largely to the fortunate combination of judgment, persistence and faith characteristic of General Howard. He, with General E. Whittlesey, acting as a committee on the selection of a site, wished to procure the commanding elevation in the northern part of the city where the University now stands. This was part of the tract of 150 acres known as Effingham and owned by John A. Smith. On the plea that the location of a Negro school would depreciate the remainder of his property, the owner refused to sell any part of it. After much argument, General Howard asked him to state his price for the whole farm. The rate given was one thousand dollars an acre, making a total valuation of $150,000, a staggering sum under the circumstances. Undaunted, however, General Howard closed the bargain, although the treasury of the University was without a single dollar. Adjustments brought the final purchase price for the property down to $147,500, for which the corporation made itself responsible.[219]
With the exception of about thirty acres, the land was divided into lots and sold at a price averaging about four times its original cost.[220] The part reserved consisted of the main campus now occupied by the academic building, dormitories and residences; the site of the Medical School and the old Freedmen's Hospital; and a park between the two covering four city blocks.[221]
The main part of the purchase price for the property was supplied by the Freedmen's Bureau. The funds from the sale of the property not needed for University purposes were placed in the treasury to be used for the construction of buildings.[222] The corporation received additional grants from the Freedmen's Bureau, bringing the sum obtained from this source to about $500,000.[223] With these funds several residences for professors and four large buildings were erected; namely University Hall, Miner Hall, Clark Hall and the Medical Building. Clark Hall, the boys' dormitory, was named in honor of David Clark, of Hartford, Connecticut, who contributed $25,000 toward the support of the University. Miner Hall, the dormitory for girls, was named in honor of Miss Myrtilla Miner, one of the pioneers in the education of colored girls in the District of Columbia.[224]
The early financial management of the University soon brought it into difficulties. The hopeful spirit of the times and the enthusiasm and faith of those in charge of the enterprise were responsible for the too rapid expansion of the first few years of the existence of the institution which resulted in a constantly growing deficit. A financial statement for the first eight years up to June 30, 1875, leaving out of account the value of lands and buildings given by the Government and of borrowed funds, shows receipts of $645,067.30 and expenditures of $744,914.56, leaving a deficit of nearly $100,000. At the annual meeting of the trustees, May 31, 1873, it was decided that a retrenchment of one half the current expenses would be necessary in order to avert disaster. To effect this the management had to make radical readjustment in the faculties and in the salary schedule. To this end every salaried officer in the University resigned upon the request of the trustees.
In reestablishing the faculties the basis was one of rigid economy and the only way by which the situation could be saved; for the nation-wide financial crisis of 1873 and the lean years that followed precluded the possibility of any increase in the income. The success of this measure[225] is indicated by the fact that the immediate expenses of the University were reduced from $57,160.40 in 1872 to $9,446.19 in 1877. "This heroic treatment," says former President Patton, "far too long delayed, saved the institution, but it cost it much in professors, in students and in prestige." The vessel escaped shipwreck with loss of many of the crew and passengers and a lot of her cargo. The professional departments were cut off from any support from the general funds, and remanded to receipts from tuition fees and special donations. College professorships were reduced from $2,500 to $1,200 and a residence worth $300; and the salaries of other officers were similarly reduced. Incidentals were brought down to the lowest living figure, and finally, with half the main building and a large part of the dormitories closed, the point was reached at which the income covered expenses.[226]
Dwight O. W. Holmes.
FOOTNOTES:
[206] The most easily available information concerning the history of Howard University is contained in a number of short sketches, speeches, reports, announcements, and the like, in pamphlet form, and a well-prepared volume of three hundred pages by Dr. Daniel S. Lamb giving the history of the Medical Department up to 1900. These with the files and annual catalogs have been freely used in the preparation of this sketch.
[207] William M. Patton, The History of Howard University, 1896.
[208] Woodson, The Education of the Negro Prior to 1861, p. 228.
[209] Albert Bushnell Hart, The Southern South, pp. 289-291.
[210] Probably the most famous of these early schools was the normal school for girls opened by Miss Myrtilla Miner, December 3, 1851, and chartered under the name "Institution for the Education of Colored Youth," under the Miner Board. In 1879 it was taken over by the public school system of the District as the Myrtilla Miner Normal School. From 1871 to 1876 it worked cooperatively with the Normal Department of Howard University.
[211] Annual Report of the President of Howard University, September 2, 1869.
[212] The relationship between the First Congregational Church and Howard University has been very close from the first. Three of its pastors have become presidents of the University, Doctors Rankin, Boynton and Newman. The church building at the corner of Tenth and G Streets has always been available for use for University exercises when needed. For many years the commencement exercises of various departments were held regularly in that auditorium.
[213] Danforth B. Nichols, The Genesis of Howard University, 1892, p. 4.
[214] Nichols, The Genesis of Howard University, 1892, pp. 5, 6.
[215] Dean Robert Reyburn, Address at the Inauguration of President John Gordon, 1904, p. 9.
[216] "Oliver Otis Howard, the founder of the University, and the one whose name it bears, and who was president from April 5, 1869, to December 1, 1873, was born in Leeds, Maine, November 8, 1830. He was graduated at Bowdoin, 1850, and at West Point in 1854. He was instructor in mathematics at West Point in 1854 and resigned in 1861 to take command of the Third Maine Regiment in the War of the Rebellion, in which he served with distinction. For gallantry at the first battle of Bull Run he was made Brigadier-General, September 3. He lost his arm at Fair Oaks, June 1, 1862, and was in the battle of Antietam. In November, 1863, he was made General of Volunteers. He commanded the Eleventh Corps under General Hooker, served at Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge, and was assigned to the Army of the Tennessee. In the march to the sea he commanded the right wing of Sherman's army, and was brevetted Major-General in the regular army for gallant conduct in the campaign of Atlanta. He was Commissioner of the Freedmen's Bureau from March, 1865, to July, 1864, when he was assigned to the command of the Department of the Columbia. In 1877 he led the expedition against the Nez Perces Indians and in 1878 against the Bannocks and Piutes. In 1881-1882 he was Superintendent of the United States Military Academy at West Point. In 1886 he was commissioned Major-General in the regular army.
"In 1863 he was made A.M. by Bowdoin College, and LL.D. in 1865 by Watervelt College. The same degree was given him by Shurtliff College and Gettysburg University. He was made Chevalier of the Legion of Honor of France in 1884. He published war articles in the Century and some stories that are partly autobiographical; also Chief Joseph and the Life of Count Gasparin. In 1892 he was commander of the Department of the Atlantic, and the second in command of the United States Army. Major-General Howard died at Burlington, Vermont, October 26, 1909."—J. E. Rankin, Presidents of Howard University, pp. 11-12.
[217] James B. Johnson, Address at the Twenty-fifth Anniversary of Howard University, 1892, p. 18.
[218] William M. Patton, The History of Howard University, 1896, p. 30.
[219] The tract as originally purchased may be approximately described as extending eastward to the Soldiers' Home grounds and including almost the entire present site of the reservoir (not including the extreme eastward projection) and running south on its eastern boundary to V Street. Its southern boundary was an irregular line passing south of the Medical School building and including a small part of the ground now occupied by the American League baseball park. Its northern boundary toward the east extended up to and at one point a little beyond what is now Hobart Street, tapering toward the west and meeting Georgia Avenue at Fairmount Street. The western, boundary followed Georgia Avenue to Howard Place, whence it followed Sixth Street to the southern boundary.
[220] Daniel S. Lamb, Howard University Medical Department, 1900, p. 2.
[221] This park was at one time surrendered to the Federal government for the remission of back taxes and exemption from further taxation. Later, when the new Freedmen's Hospital was about to be erected on that site the ground was transferred back to the University. The ground is now leased by the government from Howard University for a rental of one dollar a year.
[222] William M. Patton, The History of Howard University, p. 17.
[223] The Freedmen's Bureau was established in 1866 by the Federal government for the purpose of promoting the general welfare of the freedmen. General Howard was made commissioner of the organization and held this office until 1872, when it was discontinued. It was through this relation with the Freedmen's Bureau that the University became the creature and ward of the Federal Government, a relation that has been maintained continuously ever since.
The commissioner of the bureau was granted large powers, including the control of all subjects relating to refugees and freedmen from slave States or from any district or county within the territory embraced in the operations of the army, under such rules and regulations as might be prescribed by the head of the bureau and the President.
General Howard during the existence of the bureau disbursed approximately $13,000,000 in various ways. Much of this was used for educational purposes, including all grades of work. Among some of the beneficiaries of this fund were Lincoln University, Wilberforce University, Berea College, Fisk University, Biddle University, Straight University and Lincoln Institute. In his efforts to enable the people of the District of Columbia to share the benefits of this fund the commissioner offered to erect a building for a certain denominational institution located in Washington at that time, on the condition that it become undenominational. The offer was declined, whereupon the trustees of Howard University immediately made application to receive this Federal aid. Because of the location of the proposed institution at the nation's capital the application was favorably acted upon and liberal appropriations made so that the institution might stand as a monument to the nation's philanthropy.
As these large expenditures for Howard University with the other operations of the bureau brought upon General Howard charges of malfeasance, which led to two investigations, it should be said here that both of the official investigations, one civil, the other military, completely exonerated him.—See Report of Special Committee of the Trustees of Howard University upon Certain Charges, etc., 1873, and Act of March 3, 1865, establishing the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands.
[224] It is worthy of note that the magnificent new home of the Myrtilla Miner Normal School of Washington is named in honor of the same noble woman. It stands on a site formerly owned by the University and looks upon Miner Hall several hundred yards away across the campus.
[225] Much credit for the skillful financial management of the institution during these critical times is due to the secretary and treasurer, Mr. James B. Johnson, who was a potent factor in the early struggles of the institution. He was secretary and treasurer for many years, dying while still in service in 1898.
[226] William M. Patton, The History of Howard University, 1896, pp. 21, 22.
MORE ABOUT THE HISTORICAL ERRORS OF JAMES FORD RHODES
In its issue of October, 1917, The Journal of Negro History published an article of which I am the author, pointing out some of the historical errors made by Mr. Rhodes in his "History of the United States from the Compromise of 1850 to the Final Restoration of Home Rule at the South in 1877." Since it appears that Mr. Rhodes has no personal knowledge of the important historical events referred to, he sent a copy of the journal containing the article to a friend who was presumed to be better informed along those lines. Mr. Rhodes referred to him as an expert, with the request that he make a careful examination of the article and write a reply to the same, or perhaps to make such comments as would furnish Mr. Rhodes with the information desired. I have been favored, through a mutual friend, with a copy of that reply, which is now before me and to which I shall now proceed to make a reply.
In a labored effort to weaken the force of what I have written, this expert in his opening generalization made several observations which may be classed under three different heads: first, if the white men referred to by me were of such a high character, why should the acts accredited to them have been of such a low character? second, that I am influenced in what I write about that period by racial bias and the fact that I was an active participant in the events referred to; third, that what I write is based upon my own experience and memory, much of which is liable to be inaccurate through the treachery of memory, the same not being fortified by references to other historical works.
This expert says:
An obvious general comment on the article is that if the Reconstruction period throughout the South and in Mississippi in particular was engineered and controlled by men of such high character as Mr. Lynch records, why should the acts accredited to them have been of such a low character? It is not enough to say that there were "mistakes"; the measures were too numerous and systematic for this. It is to be noticed that Mr. Lynch does not attempt to controvert statements of events in Mississippi, with one or two exceptions to be considered below. To attempt to review the conclusions to which Mr. Lynch takes exception would involve a review of too great a mass of evidence. The web of Reconstruction is such a tangled one, that even if one has carefully considered a large part of the great bulk of primary material on the subject, generalizations on the period must still be accepted cautiously. This much may be said: Mr. Rhodes's conclusions are in harmony with those of the other trained historical students who have devoted time to a careful study of this period. Mr. Lynch's racial bias, the fact that he was an active participant in the events, and finally that his judgments are based on his own experiences and not on a closer study of a far wider field of material, make whatever he writes of value as source material, but at the same time mitigate against its value as an impartial opinion. This is especially evident from the fact that he makes no attempt either in the article or in his book to substantiate his statements by such references to his authorities as modern historiography demands. His authority is of course, himself and his recollections, and the recognition of the treachery of the memory is a first fundamental in historical work.
Referring to my contention that thousands of white men were identified with the Republican party during the Reconstruction period he further says:
A comparison of census and election statistics do not give support to this fact; and tho such figures are far from exact, they give a basis for generalizing superior to that of any personal recollection, or, indeed, of anything short of a general agreement of contemporary statements to the contrary. No such agreement exists so far as I have been able to search. In Tennessee, North Carolina, Arkansas, and to less extent in Virginia and Texas, there were a considerable number of white Republicans; but in the other southern states in no election between 1868 and 1872 did the Republican vote equal the census figures for Negroes of voting age in 1870. The nearest approach to this was in South Carolina in 1870, when the Republican vote for governor was 85,000 and the Negroes of voting age 85,400. In Mississippi the nearest approach was in the vote for Grant in 1872, when there were 82,000 votes against the census figures of 90,000. The machinery for getting out the Negro vote, and it was Republican machinery, was such as to permit the assumption that an unusually large percentage of the Negroes voted at the elections.
Undertaking to prove that Dent was not a carpet-bagger, he says:
Tho supported by the Democrats he was nominated by a faction of Republicans; moreover, he was a Missourian by birth, had family connections in Mississippi, and had, while living in California married the daughter of a prominent Mississippian. He was scarcely a typical carpet-bagger. That there should have been a split in the Republican party of the state so early is not a very good argument for the character of the leaders or of the measures they endorsed.
Of the high hopes of such men as Alcorn there can be no doubt; but scarcely less doubtful was the failure to realize their hopes. Alcorn himself favored Negro disfranchisement in 1890.
Referring to others, the expert continues:
Judges Peyton was a Republican, Tarbell a carpet-bagger, but Simrall is generally classed as a Democrat. He was chairman of the state legislative committee that reported in favor of rejecting the 14th Amendment. Riley classes him as a Democrat, as does Garner, tho Mayes calls him a moderate Republican, of the same class as Dent. Tarbell seems to have been a good judge. Garner is lukewarm in his appreciation, but Lamar said that "his decisions attest his extraordinary ability and industry." All commend his uprightness. Tarbell in 1887 called himself a conservative carpetbagger, one who found himself in the minority. He said that the Republican party in Mississippi collapsed through its own weakness; having devised a constitution in which "there was much to praise and to be proud of, and little to condemn," the party gave birth to legislation of which "the criticism is, in a measure, reversed."[227] The judiciary was the best department of government under Reconstruction in Mississippi.
Taking up the question of ignorant Negro office holders, he says:
All that I find as to Evans, except Garner's statement of "it was alleged," is in an account of Reconstruction in De Soto County, written by I. C. Nichols in the publication of the Miss. Hist. Soc., XI, 307. He does not say that Evans could not read or write, but that his "bondsmen really administered his affairs and ran his office." At one time there was a charge of defalcation against him, but nothing specific, and Nichols concludes that nothing really was wrong. After this some changes were made in his bondsmen and "R. R. West was put in charge of the office and became Sheriff in all but name." West was, perhaps, one of the "honest, efficient, and capable assistants." Evans had been a slave. In Washington County there was also a negro sheriff, Winslow by name. Mr. Lynch does not mention him, but according to the testimony of H. B. Putnam, a carpet-bagger, Winslow was "nominally" sheriff, but his bondsmen ran the office; the sheriff, tho he could read and write, was "incompetent to take charge of his office," which was worth $10,000 or $15,000 a year legitimately, and, according to a white Democrat, about $100,000 by other means.[228] Scott of Issaquena, whom Mr. Lynch mentions, testified before the Boutwell committee, and so far as can be judged by that testimony he was a man of fair intelligence, tho according to the testimony of one of his own race, not endowed with rash courage.[229] The testimony of another carpet-bagger, with reference to Holmes County, is interesting, tho it does not show whether the sheriff-elect was white or black. He was probably not Sumner, as this man never served in the office. This carpet-bagger said that the sheriff of the county having died and this man elected to fill the vacancy the successor arranged to have the witness assist in making the bond. "Other gentlemen hesitated to go on the bond unless I would go there and be responsible for the running of the office." The man was prevented from taking office so nothing came of the arrangement. On the whole such first-hand material as I have been able to find does not uphold Garner entirely in his estimate of this class of officials, especially as to his footnote statement about their dishonesty; neither does it give the impression that they were worthy, as a whole, of the important positions they occupied. If Evans, as described by Rhodes, following Garner, was not typical, neither was Bruce.
Mr. Lynch gives figures for 1875 and 1907 on financial matters and on the basis of these claims that the profligacy of Reconstruction finances is not proven. The manifest unfairness of taking figures for 1907 may be passed over; but the necessary basis of comparison must be wider than this. Nor do his conclusions agree with any others that I have seen, nor, which is more important, with other statistics. Both those of the census or those given annually by Appletons' Annual Cyclopædia lead to other conclusions. Just as an illustration of what is said on the other side take this statement, which seems to be that of the land tax. This was 1 mill in 1869, 5 mills in 1870, 4 mills in 1871, 8½ mills in 1872, 12½ mills in 1873, 14 mills in 1874, 9¼ mills in 1875, 6½ mills in 1876, 6-1/5 mills in 1877, 3½ mills in 1878. Another point that should be considered is that Mr. Lynch confines his figures to state finances; while it is for local finances that the Reconstruction government of Mississippi is most severely condemned.
Conceding a point in this case, he says:
Mr. Lynch is correct in saying that the Mississippi senators at the time of the state election of 1875 were Alcorn and Bruce. Pease had been succeeded by Bruce on March 4 of that year. Pease opposed Ames but he was no longer senator.
Mr. Lynch, in upholding the Reconstruction policy of Stevens and Sumner and what he calls their desire to delay restoration, seems to have overlooked the fact that the wisest of all the Civil War statesmen desired to get the states back into the Union before Congress should meet in December, 1865. Mr. Lynch is right in thinking that the 14th Amendment was essentially a correct measure, but so also does Mr. Rhodes. The 15th Amendment is quite a different proposition, however. Nor does it follow, because legislation of some sort might have been necessary to enforce the 14th Amendment or to take its place when the South refused to adopt it, that the Reconstruction Acts were the legitimate offspring of that necessity. That the negro soldiers helped to win the war is not proof that the war would have failed without them, or that the necessary price of their valor was suffrage for all the men of their race, the bulk of whom were not capable of understanding it; or that such suffrage was necessary to the preservation of the Union. Oratory, inside or outside of Congress, is not historical proof.
Directing attention to my idea of the undoing of Reconstruction he maintains:
Mr. Lynch's statement that the failure of Reconstruction was due to unwise judicial interpretation need not be considered. It is anachronistic and does not agree with the views now generally accepted by historical students. But what he says of the infidelity of Waite and Bradley can be refuted directly from the Supreme Court Reports. As to the appointment of these justices, there is no evidence that it was because of any specially strong nationalistic position on their part. Bradley, if chosen for any particular views, got the justiceship because of his attitude on legal tender; and the conditions under which Waite was appointed do not show up any such bias on his part. In U. S. v. Reese the court stood seven to two; and the dissentients were Clifford, a Democrat, and Hunt, appointed by Grant.
In U. S. v. Harris (the Ku Klux decision) Woods delivered the decision. Harlan alone dissented and only on the question of jurisdiction. The bench at that time held two judges appointed by Lincoln, two by Grant, two by Hayes, one by Garfield, and two by Arthur. The Civil Rights Cases decision was delivered by Bradley. Harlan was the only dissenter. These were the three important Reconstruction decisions during the term of Waite and Bradley. All of them were delivered after Reconstruction had failed. On the other hand, Bradley delivered the opinion in Ex parte Siebold, in which the federal election laws were upheld, and Field and Clifford were the only ones who disagreed with it.
In the first place, I frankly confess that what I have written and shall write in defense of the reconstructed governments at the South has been and will be of very little value if it were conceded that the acts accredited to the men to whom I have referred were of a low character. This is the very point upon which the public has been misinformed, misled and deceived. I do not hesitate to assert that the Southern Reconstructed Governments were the best governments those States ever had before or have ever had since, statements and allegations made by Mr. Rhodes and some other historical writers to the contrary notwithstanding. It is not claimed that they were perfect, but they were a decided improvement on those they succeeded and they were superior in every way to those which are representative of what Mr. Rhodes is pleased to term the restoration of home rule. They were the first and only governments in that section that were based upon the consent of the governed. If Mr. Rhodes honestly believed that what he wrote in condemnation and denunciation of those governments was based upon authenticated facts, then the most charitable view that can be taken in his case is that he, like thousands of others, is simply an innocent victim of a gross deception.
In the second place, whether or not I am influenced by racial ties or partisan bias in what I have written and may hereafter write, I am willing to allow the readers to decide. I am sure that they have not failed to see from what I have thus far written, that the controlling purpose with me is to give actual facts, free from racial partiality or partisan bias. If some of the things I have written appear otherwise, it is due to the fact that the misrepresentations I am pointing out and correcting have been in the opposite direction. The idea that I have endeavored to keep in mind is, that what the readers and students of American history desire to know is the unbiased truth about the important events of the period in question and not the judgment and opinions of the person or persons by whom they are recorded.
In the third place, the statement that the value of what I have written is impaired because what is said about the important events of the period in question is based in the main upon my own knowledge and experience, must impress the intelligent reader as being strange and unusual. He discredits what I say too because I do not make reference to source materials. What this expert himself has to say is, like most studies of Reconstruction, based on ex-parte evidence which is in violation of all rules governing modern historical writing. No just judge would rely altogether on the testimony of one's enemies to determine the truth.
With reference to the period under consideration, the difference between what I have written and what has been written by Mr. Rhodes and some other historical writers is what the lawyers would call the difference between primary and secondary evidence. The primary is always considered the best evidence, the secondary to be used only when the primary can not be obtained. And yet what I have written is not based wholly upon memory. It is only so with reference to distinguished persons and important events and tendencies, which are not likely to be inaccurate through the treachery of memory. The statistical information I have given is not from memory, but from the files of the official records which are accessible to the public. But it appears that Mr. Rhodes and some other historical writers used only such parts of the official records as answered the purpose they seemed to have in view, which evidently was to mislead and deceive the public. This is virtually admitted by Mr. Rhodes's expert, in stating that "the point Mr. Lynch makes about the defalcation of Hemingway is an interesting one, and one that is evidently carefully kept in the background by the local writers." Yes, they not only kept that point in the background, but all other points that were not in harmony with the purpose they seemed to have in mind, which was evidently one of deception and misrepresentation.
The reader will not fail to see that Mr. Rhodes's nameless expert passed over in silence a number of important points in my article. Some of those alluded to by him he frankly admitted to be right, as in the case of Treasurer Hemingway. In the case of Mr. Evans, the Negro sheriff of De Soto County, he relies upon a statement written by a Mr. Nichols of that county who was evidently a partisan, who makes an effort to paint Mr. Evans in as unfavorable a light as possible, and yet he fails to confirm the allegation that Mr. Evans could neither read nor write, but concludes his communication with the declaration "that nothing really was wrong." Judging from what is written by Mr. Rhodes's expert I conclude that Garner is the one from whom Mr. Rhodes obtained most of his misinformation. Yet in speaking of the Negro sheriffs in a general way Mr. Rhodes's expert was frank enough to say: "On the whole such first-hand material as I have been able to find does not uphold Garner entirely in his estimate of this class of officials, especially as to his footnote statement about their dishonesty." This bears out the statement made by me that if Mr. Rhodes had desired to be fair and impartial he would have taken all the colored sheriffs into consideration and would have drawn an average, which would have shown that in point of intelligence, capacity and honesty they would have compared favorably with the whites.
The assertion made by me that the Republican party in the State of Mississippi included in its membership many of the best and most substantial white men in that State is disputed because the Republican vote in the State at the Presidential election of 1872 happened to be only a few thousand less than the number of Negroes in the State of voting age, as shown by the census of 1870. It is, therefore, assumed that very few if any white men voted the Republican ticket at that election. To ascertain the voting strength of a political party census figures cannot be relied upon with any degree of certainty, but since Mr. Rhodes's expert seems to think otherwise I am perfectly willing to accept them in this instance for what they may be worth. The number of Negroes of voting age in the State at that time, as shown by the census of 1870, was 88,850; whites 76,909, colored majority, 11,941, and yet the Republican majority in 1872 was 34,887. If the voting strength of the two parties were in proportion to the number of blacks and whites in the State, as this expert would have the public believe, and the percentage of blacks and whites who voted were about the same, which can be safely assumed, the Republican majority in that case could not have been more than 12,000, whereas it was nearly three times that number. Assuming that the Republican and Democratic vote combined comprised the whole number that voted at that election, the total number of votes polled was 129,463, which was 36,296 less than the number of voters in the State. Of the 36,296 that did not vote I estimate that at least 16,000 of them were white men. Subtract the 16,000 from the 76,909 white voters and it will be seen that the number of white men that voted at that election was 60,909, and yet the Democratic vote was 47,288, which was 13,621 less than the number of white men that voted. My own estimate is that of the 82,175 Republican votes, 61,266 were cast by the blacks and 20,909 by the whites. Of the 47,288 Democratic votes, 40,000 were cast by the whites and 7,288 by the blacks.
From the above estimate it will be seen that more than one third of the white men that voted at that election voted the Republican ticket. This estimate is strengthened when the result of the election in the different counties is taken into consideration. The Republicans not only carried every county in which the Negro voters had a majority, but also a number of counties in which the whites were in the majority. The majority by which the State was carried by Alcorn in 1869 was about the same as that by which it was carried by Grant in 1872. Alcorn not only carried a number of white counties, but ten of them elected Republicans to the Legislature, two of them, Lawrence and Marion, elected each a Negro member. The ten counties were Pike, Lawrence, Marion, Jackson, Jasper, Clark, Lee, Leak, Lafayette and Attala. Judge Green C. Chandler, afterwards a judge of the Circuit Court and later U. S. District Attorney, was elected from Clark. Hon. H. W. Warren, who succeeded Judge Franklin as Speaker of the House, was elected from Leak, Judge Jason Niles and Hon. E. Boyd, both able and brilliant lawyers, were elected from Attala. Judge Niles was afterwards appointed a Judge of the Circuit Court and later served as a Republican member of Congress.
In the opinion of this expert Judge Dent, the Democratic candidate for Governor in 1869, was scarcely a typical carpet-bagger because he was born in Missouri and had family connections in Mississippi. Still if he were not a typical carpet-bagger, then we had none in the State, because the designation included all those that settled in the State after the war was over. Judge Dent was one of that number. But I may be able to give Mr. Rhodes what was believed to be the principal reason that influenced the Democrats to support Judge Dent. He was President Grant's brother-in-law. Hence it was hoped and believed that in this case family ties would prove to be stronger than party ties and that the national administration would support Dent instead of Alcorn, the Ex-Confederate. But in this case they were mistaken. Grant had been elected as a Republican, and he could not be induced to throw the weight of his influence against his own party, even in a State election, merely to contribute to the realization of the personal ambition of his wife's brother. It is true that a few men who called themselves Republicans also supported Judge Dent, but the result of the election was conclusive evidence that the so-called split in the party was not at all serious.
Speaking of the three Supreme Court Judges, the expert admits that Peyton and Tarbell were Republicans, but Simrall, he claims, is generally classed as a Democrat. In support of this assertion attention is called to the fact, among others, that he was chairman of the State legislative committee that reported in favor of rejecting the 14th Amendment. But that was before the passage of the Reconstruction Acts and before the Republican party in the State was organized. Judge Simrall joined the Republican party in 1868 or 1869. What I asserted and now repeat is that he was a Republican when he was made a Justice of the State Supreme Court in 1870. Even if he, like thousands of others, rejoined the Democratic party, that would not disprove my assertion that he was a Republican while he was on the bench. But it appears that he was not one of those that rejoined the Democrats, but remained a Republican to the day of his death. In 1884, nine years after the Redemption, he canvassed the State for Blaine and Logan, Republican candidates for President and Vice-President. In 1890 the Democrats of Warren County in selecting suitable persons to represent them in the State Constitutional Convention to be held in the fall of that year were anxious to have the benefit of the knowledge, ability and experience of Judge Simrall. They took the liberty of placing his name on their ticket to which it appears he made no objection, and in that way he was elected a delegate to that convention. But did that make him a Democrat? I am sure both Mr. Rhodes and his expert will allow Judge Sim rail to answer that question for himself and that they will accept his answer as conclusive on that point. For his answer to that question they are respectfully referred to page 704 of the official journal of the Constitutional Convention of 1890. They will see that the members of the convention were politically classified. Each member, of course, furnished the information about his own party affiliations. It will be seen that Judge Sim rail is classified as a "National Republican." Ex-Governor Alcorn was also a member of that convention, having been elected from Coahoma County in the same way. His political classification is that of a "Conservative." So it seems that neither Sim rail nor Alcorn rejoined the Democratic party. Instead, therefore, of Republicans being obliged to utilize Democratic material in the selection of Judges, as erroneously stated by Mr. Rhodes, it seems that the Democrats were obliged to utilize Republican talent, experience and ability to assist them in framing a new constitution. I am sure the assertion can be safely made that Sim rail and Alcorn were not among the "lovers of good government" who rejoiced "at the redemption of Mississippi" through the employment of means that Mr. Rhodes so much regretted.
"The judiciary," the expert asserts, "was the best department of government under Reconstruction in Mississippi," and yet the Judges were all appointed by the Governor, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate. It goes without saying that if the Governor's appointees were good, the appointing power was equally as good. The expert virtually admits that there was no justification for the declaration that "all lovers of good government must rejoice at the redemption of Mississippi," when he used the following language: "Mr. Lynch confines his figures to state finances; while it was for local finances that the Reconstruction government of Mississippi is most severely condemned." In other words, there was nothing wrong with the State administration; it was the local county and municipal governments that were bad. And yet, a fair and impartial investigation will reveal the fact that there is no more foundation for this allegation than for those about the State government. It is admitted that during the early part of Reconstruction the local tax rate was high, the reasons for which are fully explained in The Facts of Reconstruction. Such an investigation would show that the charges of extravagance, recklessness and maladministration so generally made about the administration of county and municipal affairs were grossly exaggerated and nearly, if not all of them wholly untrue. In fact, the expert flatly contradicts himself on this point, because he admits that the evidence does not support the charge of dishonesty in the case of the Negro sheriffs, and yet the sheriff is the principal officer in the administration of the county government.
With reference to the financial affairs of the State the expert makes no effort to disprove a single statement I have made. He simply makes the broad statement that my conclusions do not agree with other statistics, and yet he fails to produce the statistics with which they do not agree. To illustrate his point he calls attention to the different rates of taxation covering a period of about ten years, which if true is of no importance in this connection because the same has no bearing upon the material point now under consideration. The tax rate is always determined by the amount of money needed to meet the obligations of the State, predicated upon the assessed value of taxable property. Changes in the tax rate, therefore, are liable to be of frequent occurrence. The material point at issue is the volume of money paid into the treasury and the disposition made of it. In this connection a slight amplification of the figures already given will not be inappropriate. In 1875, the last year of Republican rule and the year the State was redeemed, the total receipts from all sources amounted to $1,801,129.12. The disbursements, same year, were $1,430,192.83, or $370,936.29 less than was received. In 1907 the receipts from all sources amounted to $3,391,127.15. The disbursements, same year, were $3,730,343.29 or $339,216.14 more than was received, and $2,300,150.46 more than was paid out in 1875. In fact, the financial condition of the State during several years was such that the Legislature was obliged to authorize the issuance of bonds upon which to borrow money to meet current demands, thus adding materially to the bonded debt of the State. Can any thing more inexcusable and indefensible than this be imagined? That any one of the Reconstructed governments could possibly have been guilty of such maladministration as this is inconceivable. And yet, this administration typifies what Mr. Rhodes is pleased to term the restoration of home rule at the South, for which all lovers of good government should rejoice.
The expert admits that I am right in what was said about Senators Alcorn and Bruce, but asserts that Senator Pease, Mr. Brace's immediate predecessor, was opposed to Ames. This is another assertion that is not in harmony with the truth. Ames was a United States Senator when he was elected Governor. When he resigned the Senatorship to become Governor there remained about fourteen months of his term. There devolved, therefore, upon the Legislature that was elected in 1873, the same time Senator Ames was elected Governor, the duty of electing a Senator for the full term and also for the unexpired term. Bruce, an Ames man, was elected for the full term and Pease, also an Ames man, was elected for the unexpired term. If Pease had been opposed to Ames he could not have been elected to the Senate by that Legislature for that was unquestionably an Ames Legislature. It is true Pease was defeated for renomination for State Superintendent of Education by the Convention that nominated Ames, still he loyally supported the ticket and after the election he was looked upon as one of the friends and supporters of the Ames Administration. As such and for that reason he was elected as one of the administration Senators. I was a member of Congress at that time and, therefore, had occasion frequently to confer with Senator Pease. If he were opposed to Ames, I am sure that both Mr. Rhodes and his expert will admit that I would have known it; and yet I do not hesitate to say that Senator Pease never did by word, act or deed cause me to entertain the slightest suspicion that he was not a loyal friend and supporter of the Ames Administration.
In regard to the decisions of the Supreme Court, the expert simply makes the declaration that the statement made by me that the failure of Reconstruction was due to unwise judicial interpretation need not be considered. In the first place, it is not true that I admitted that Reconstruction was a failure. On the contrary, those who will carefully read what I wrote will not fail to see that my contention is that in its important and essential particulars that policy was a grand and brilliant success and I instanced the ratification of the 14th and 15th Amendments, neither of which could have otherwise been ratified, as a vindication of the wisdom of that legislation even if nothing else had resulted from it. It is admitted that some of the friends and supporters of the Congressional plan of Reconstruction have been disappointed because those governments did not and could not stand the test of time. To this extent and for this reason some persons claim that the policy was a failure. I am not one of that number, the reasons for which the readers of the article referred to will see. But the inability of those governments to stand the test of time I accounted for under three heads, one of which was several unfortunate decisions rendered by the Supreme Court, the result, in my opinion, of two unwise appointments made by President Grant in the persons of Chief Justice Waite and Associate Justice Bradley. I do not assert that those two judges, or any others, for that matter, were appointed with reference to their attitude upon any public question, still I am satisfied that they were believed to be in accord with the other leaders and constitutional lawyers in the Republican party in their construction of the 14th Amendment. The constitutional warrant for the Civil Rights Bill is the clause which declares that "no state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States." It was therefore held that any law or ordinance which provided for, recognized or sanctioned separate facilities for the two races in the exercise and enjoyment of the rights and privileges that are supposed to be common to all classes of persons, would be a violation of this provision of the 14th Amendment; and since Congress was authorized to enforce the Amendment, affirmative legislation for the enforcement of that provision was held to be thus warranted. This view was held by such able and brilliant constitutional lawyers as Edmunds and Conkling in the Senate, and Butler, George F. and E. Rockwood Hoar, Lyman Tremaine, Garfield and Wilson in the House. Senator Carpenter was the only Republican lawyer of any note that took a different view of the matter. While he believed the whole bill was unconstitutional, the section prohibiting race discrimination in the selection of jurors in State courts he believed to be especially obnoxious to the constitution. He declared that if that section could stand the test of a judicial decision all the others could and should. And yet the court, through a decision handed down by Mr. Justice Strong, affirmed the constitutionality of that section, but in a decision delivered by Mr. Justice Bradley the section providing for equal accommodations in hotels, inns and places of amusement was declared unconstitutional except in the District of Columbia and the territories. In several subsequent decisions, giving in the main the opinion of Chief Justice Waite, some of the most vital and important sections of the enforcement acts, especially those having for their object the protection of individual citizens, through federal machinery, when necessary, against domestic violence, were also declared to be unconstitutional and void.
I am of the opinion, shared in by many others, that if men of the type of Edmunds and Conkling had been appointed Supreme Court Justices instead of Waite and Bradley, the rulings of the court in the important cases referred to might have been, and I think would have been, different. The unfortunate thing about those decisions is the wide scope of authority thus conceded to the States. In other words, they amount to a judicial recognition of the dangerous doctrine of States Rights—a doctrine which has been the source and the cause of most of our domestic troubles and misfortunes since those decisions were rendered. But for those unfortunate decisions our country would not be cursed and disgraced today by lynch law and other forms of lawlessness and racial proscription and discrimination. But for those unfortunate decisions lynchings could have been and I am sure would have been held to be an offense against the peace and dignity of the United States as well as the State in which the crime is committed. Consequently, the criminals could be, and in most cases would be, prosecuted in the United States courts, as was done in the case of many of the leaders of that secret criminal organization called the Ku Klux Klan. But this took place before the decisions referred to were rendered. The court has also decided that a State law providing separate accommodations for white and colored people on railroad trains, at least for a passenger whose journey begins and ends in the same state, is not an abridgment in violation of the constitution, provided the accommodations for the two races are exactly equal. This means that the validity even of those laws will not be affirmed whenever it can be shown that the accommodations are not equal, which can be very easily done. Equal separate accommodations are both a physical and a financial impossibility. It is simply impossible for a railroad company to provide the same accommodations for one colored passenger that it provides for one hundred whites. If, then, a colored passenger cannot occupy a seat or a sleeping berth in a car in which white persons may be passengers, this will not only be an abridgment, but in some cases, an absolute denial of such accommodations. The ultimate nullification of such unfair, unjust and unreasonable laws must necessarily follow.
In spite of the unfavorable rulings of the court, as above noted, that tribunal, as at present constituted, has rendered several very important decisions which have given the friends of national supremacy and equal rights much hope and encouragement, the most important of which is the one declaring unconstitutional and void the ordinances providing for the segregation of the races in the purchase and occupation of property for residential purposes in several cities. The decision in this case was broad, comprehensive and far-reaching. This important, fair and equitable decision has given the colored American new hope and new inspiration. It has strengthened and intensified his loyalty and devotion to his country, his government, its flag and its institutions. It makes him feel that with all of its faults and shortcomings, our form of government is superior to, and better than that of any other, and that by a few more decisions along the line of this one, which I hope and believe may be safely anticipated, every justifiable cause of complaint on the part of the Negro will have been removed, because the evils resulting from the unfavorable and unfortunate rulings above noted will have been remedied and cured. Our type of democracy will then be what it now purports to be, pure and genuine. It will then be in truth and in fact the land of the free and the home of the brave. It will then be a typical representative of that form of democracy under which there can be no slave, no vassal and no peon, but every one will be an equal before the law in the exercise and enjoyment of life, liberty and property and in the exercise and enjoyment of such public rights and privileges as are, or should be, common to all citizens alike, without distinction or discrimination based upon differences of race, color, nationality or religion. These were the aims the framers of the Fourteenth Amendment had in view when that Amendment was drawn, and from present indications it seems to be clear that the highest court in the land will not allow the same to be defeated.
But the most significant point about the segregation decision grows out of the fact that the fair, reasonable, sound and equitable principles therein set forth and clearly enunciated received the approbation and endorsement of a unanimous court consisting of nine Judges in which conflicting and antagonistic political views are presumed to be represented. This indicates that the day is not far off when the so-called race question will cease to be a political factor, and that all political parties will recognize merit and not race, fitness and not color, experience and not religion, ability and not nationality as the tests by which persons must be judged, not only in the administration of the government but in the industrial field as well. For the accomplishment of these desirable purposes, men of the type of James Ford Rhodes should give their support instead of allowing the same to be used in the interest of that small class of unpatriotic Americans who seek political distinction and official recognition at the expense of racial harmony and brotherly love.
John B. Lynch
4352 Forestville Avenue,
Chicago, Illinois.
FOOTNOTES:
[227] Mag. of Am. History, XVIII, 424.
[228] Boutwell, Report, 1446, 1470.
[229] Ibid., 608.
DOCUMENTS.
LETTERS OF GOVERNOR EDWARD COLES BEARING ON THE STRUGGLE OF FREEDOM AND SLAVERY IN ILLINOIS[230]
Edward Coles was born of distinguished parentage in Albemarle County, Virginia, December 15, 1786. He was educated at Hampden-Sidney and William and Mary College, having as classmates Lieutenant-General Scott, President John Tyler, Senator William S. Archer and Mr. Justice Baldwin, of the Supreme Court of the United States. At the age of twenty-three his father had bequeathed him a large plantation with a number of slaves. "Of a polished education, fine personal appearance, good manners and irreproachable character,"[231] he so impressed President Madison that he made him his private secretary in 1809. In this position he became well informed in public affairs and useful to the President.
Early in Coles' college days he discussed with himself the question as to whether the declaration that "all men are born free and equal" could be harmonized with slavery. He reached the conclusion that the institution should not exist in a country claiming to be a democracy. He, therefore, resolved that he would not hold slaves and would not live in a slave-holding State.
Enjoying the confidence of Jefferson, Coles took up with him the important question of emancipating his slaves in the year 1814. The letter follows:
Edward Coles To Thomas Jefferson
Washington, July 31, 1814.
Dear Sir:—I never took up my pen with more hesitation, or felt more embarrassment than I now do in addressing you on the subject of this letter. The fear of appearing presumptuous distresses me, and would deter me from venturing thus to call your attention to a subject of such magnitude, and so beset with difficulties as that of a general emancipation of the slaves of Virginia, had I not the highest opinion of your goodness and liberality, in not only excusing me for the liberty I take, but in justly appreciating my motives in doing so.
I will not enter on the right which man has to enslave his brother man, nor upon the moral and political effects of slavery on individuals or on society; because these things are better understood by you than by me. My object is to entreat and beseech you to exert your knowledge and influence in devising and getting into operation some plan for the gradual emancipation of slavery. This difficult task could be less exceptionally and more successfully performed by the revered fathers of all our political and social blessings than by any succeeding statesmen; and would seem to come with peculiar propriety and force from those whose valor, wisdom and virtue have done so much in ameliorating the condition of mankind. And it is a duty, as I conceive, that devolves particularly on you, from your known philosophical and enlarged view of subjects, and from the principles you have professed and practiced through a long and useful life, pre-eminently distinguished as well by being foremost in establishing on the broadest basis the rights of man, and the liberty and independence of your country, as in being throughout honored with the most important trusts of your fellow citizens, whose confidence and love you have carried with you into the shades of old age and retirement. In the calm of this retirement you might, most beneficially to society, and with much addition to your own fame, avail yourself of that love and confidence to put into complete practice those hallowed principles contained in that renowned Declaration, of which you were the immortal author, and on which we founded our right to resist oppression and establish our freedom and independence.
I hope the fear of failing, at this time, will have no influence in preventing you from employing your pen to eradicate this most degrading feature of British Colonial policy, which is still permitted to exist, notwithstanding its repugnance as well to the principles of our revolution as to our free institutions. For however prized and influential your opinions may now be, they will still be much more so when you shall have been taken from us by the course of nature. If, therefore, your attempt should now fail to rectify this unfortunate evil—an evil most injurious both to the oppressed and to the oppressor—at some future day when your memory will be consecrated by a grateful posterity, what influence, irresistible influence will the opinions and writings of Thomas Jefferson have in all questions connected with the rights of man, and of that policy which will be the creed of your disciples. Permit men then, my dear Sir, again to entreat your great powers of mind and influence, and to employ some of your present leisure, in devising a mode to liberate one-half of our fellow beings from an ignominious bondage to the other, either by making an immediate attempt to put in train a plan to commence this goodly work, or to leave human nature the invaluable Testament—which you are so capable of doing—how best to establish its rights; so that the weight of your opinion may be on the side of emancipation when that question shall be agitated, and that it will be sooner or later is most certain. That it may be soon is my most ardent prayer—that it will be, rests with you.
I will only add as an excuse for the liberty I take in addressing you on this subject which is so particularly interesting to me, that from the time I was capable of reflecting on the nature of political society, and of the rights appertaining to man, I have not only been principled against slavery, but have had feelings so repugnant to it as to decide me not to hold them; which decision has forced me to leave my native State, and with it all my relations and friends. This, I hope, will be deemed by you some excuse for the liberty of this intrusion, of which I gladly avail myself to assure you of the very great respect and esteem with which I am, my dear Sir, your very sincere and devoted friend,[232]
Edward Coles.
He wrote Jefferson the following concerning the same question about two months later:
Washington, Sep. 26th, '14.
I must be permitted again to trouble you, my dear Sir, to return my grateful thanks for the respectful and friendly attention shown to my letter in your answer of the 25th ult. Your favorable reception of sentiments not generally avowed, if felt, by our countrymen, but which have ever been so inseparably interwoven with my opinions and feelings as to become, as it were, the rudder that shapes my course, even against a strong tide of interest and of local partialities, could not but be in the highest degree gratifying to me. And your interesting and highly prized letter conveying them to me in such flattering terms, would have called forth my acknowledgments before this but for its having been forwarded to me to the Springs, and from thence it was again returned here before I received it, which was only a few days since.
Your indulgent treatment encourages me to add that I feel very sensibly the force of your remarks on the impropriety of yielding to my repugnancies in abandoning my property in slaves and my native State. I certainly should never have been inclined to yield to them if I had supposed myself capable of being instrumental in bringing about a liberation, or that I could by my example ameliorate the condition of these oppressed people. If I could be convinced of being in the slightest degree useful in doing either, it would afford me very great happiness, and the more so as it would enable me to gratify many partialities by remaining in Virginia. But never having flattered myself with the hope of being able to contribute to either, I have long since determined, and should but for my bad health ere this, have removed, carrying along with me those who had been my slaves, to the country north-west of the river Ohio.
Your prayers I trust will not only be heard with indulgence in Heaven, but with influence on Earth. But I cannot agree with you that they are the only weapons of one at your age; nor that the difficult work of cleansing the escutcheon of Virginia of the foul stain of slavery can best be done by the young. To expect so great and difficult an object, great and extensive powers, both of mind and influence, are required, which can never be possessed in so great a degree by the young as by the old. And among the few of the former who might unite the disposition with the requisite capacity, they are too often led by ambitious views to go with the current of popular feeling rather than to mark out a course for themselves, where they might be buffeted by the waves of opposition; and indeed it is feared that these waves would in this case be too strong to be effectually resisted by any but those who had gained by a previous course of useful employment the firmest footing in the confidence and attachment of their country. It is with them, therefore, I am persuaded, that the subject of emancipation must originate; for they are the only persons who have it in their power effectually to arouse and enlighten the public sentiment, which in matters of this kind ought not to be expected to lead, but to be led; nor ought it to be wondered at that there should prevail a degree of apathy with the general mass of mankind, where a mere passive principle of right has to contend against the weighty influence of habit and interest. On such a question there will always exist in society a kind of vis inertia, to arouse and overcome, which requires a strong impulse, which can only be given by those who have acquired a great weight of character, and on whom there devolves in this case a most solemn obligation. It was under these impressions that I looked to you, my dear Sir, as the first of our aged worthies to awaken our fellow-citizens from their infatuation to a proper sense of justice, and to the true interest of their country; and by proposing a system for the gradual emancipation of our slaves, at once to form a rallying point for its friends, who, enlightened by your wisdom and experience, and supported and encouraged by your sanction and patronage, might look forward to a propitious and happy result. Your time of life I had not considered as an obstacle to the undertaking. Doctor Franklin, to whom, by the way, Pennsylvania owes her early riddance of the evils of slavery, was as actively and as usefully employed on as arduous duties after he had past your age as he had ever been at any period of his life.
With apologizing for having given you so much trouble on this subject, and again repeating my thanks for the respectful and flattering attention you have been pleased to pay to it, I renew the assurances of the great respect and regard which makes me most sincerely yours
Edward Coles.
Coles went west to find a suitable location for settlement but was delayed in carrying out the enterprise by serving on a special mission to Russia in 1816. He then moved in 1819 to Edwardsville, Illinois, where he emancipated his slaves. Arriving in that State just at the time its citizens were trying to decide whether or not that commonwealth should be a slave or free State, this anti-slavery man turned the tide in favor of freedom. He had been in the State only three years when he was nominated by the anti-slavery party for governor. He received a minority of the votes cast at the election in 1822; but owing to a split in the pro-slavery party which divided its votes between two candidates, Coles was elected, although the friends of slavery elected their candidate for lieutenant-governor and a majority of the members of both branches of the legislature. There ensued then a struggle to have a convention called so to change the constitution as to make Illinois a slave State.
Judge Gillespie, a contemporary, described the situation as follows:
It was conceded in those days that a State formed out of the "North West Territory" could not be admitted into the Union contrary to the provisions of the ordinance of 1787, which prohibited slavery, but the slavery propagandists contended that you could, the next day after being admitted under an anti-slavery constitution, change the constitution so as to admit slavery, and in that way, "whip the devil around the stump." It was likewise contended that slavery existed in Illinois beyond Congressional interference, by virtue of the treaty (of 1763) between France and England, and that between England and the United States at the close of the Revolutionary War, in both of which the rights of the French inhabitants were guaranteed. One of these rights was that of holding slaves, which, it was contended, was protected by treaty stipulation, and was equal in binding effect, to the Constitution (of the United States) itself. Besides, it was maintained, that by the conquest of George Rogers Clark, this country became a part of Virginia, and that Congress had no more power to abolish slavery in Illinois, than it had in Virginia. The logic of the times was that the French inhabitants had the right to hold slaves, and that the other inhabitants had equal rights with the French—ergo: they all had the right to hold slaves. This was the argument of the celebrated constitutional expounder—John Grammar, of Union county—in the Legislature in reply to an intimation questioning the validity of the title of slaves in Illinois. The old gentleman instantly arose and remarked "that fittener men" than he was "mout hev been found to defend the masters agin the sneakin' ways of the infernal abolitioners; but havin' rights on my side, I don't fear, Sir. I will show that are proposition is unconstitutionable, inlegal, and fornenst the compact. Don't every one know, or leastwise had ought to know, that the Congress that sot at Post Vinsan, garnisheed to the old French inhabitants the right to their niggers, and haint I got as much rights as any Frenchman in this State? Answer me that, Sir." Notwithstanding this seeming confidence, these men were exceedingly desirous of reinforcing their rights. They resorted to the indenturing method, by which they got their servant to go before some officer and bind himself to serve the master, generally for ninety-nine years, for which he was to receive a slight equivalent at the end of each year.
As the "Yankees" increased in numbers, confidence (on the part of the pro-slavery men) in the titles to their negroes, diminished, and they finally concluded that there was no assurance for them, except in changing the constitution so as to sanction slaveholding and thus the contest commenced, which for fierceness and rancor excelled anything ever before witnessed. The people were at the point of going to war with each other. The pro-slavery men were, as they have always been ready to resort to violence wherever they dared, unwilling to listen to, or incapable of comprehending arguments. Their method of overcoming opposition was by "buldozing"; but on this occasion they had to encounter men of invincible courage, who were eager and willing to 'beard the lion in his den,' and defend their rights at all hazards. Many of these men had removed to Illinois to get rid of the curse of slavery.
This scheme, however, was with much difficulty defeated and the State was saved for freedom. The intensity of this struggle has been well described by Governor Reynolds in his My Own Times. He says:
The convention question gave rise to two years of the most furious and boisterous excitement and contest that ever was visited on Illinois. Men, women and children entered the arena of party warfare and strife, and the families and neighborhoods were so divided and furious and bitter against one another, that it seemed a regular civil war might be the result. Many personal combats were indulged in on the question, and the whole country seemed, at times, to be ready and willing to resort to physical force to decide the contest. All the means known to man to convey ideas to one another were resorted to, and practised with energy. The press teemed with publications on the subject. The stump-orators were invoked, and the pulpit thundered anathemas against the introduction of slavery. The religious community coupled freedom and Christianity together, which was one of the most powerful levers used in the content. At one meeting of the friends of freedom in St. Clair county, more than thirty preachers of the gospel attended and opposed the introduction of slavery into the State.
This contest has been further described by W. H. Brown. He says:
The struggle which now commenced, and was continued through the succeeding eighteen months, was one of no ordinary character. Our previous elections had been conducted with warmth and zeal; but into this canvass was infused a bitterness and malignity which the agitation of the Slavery question only engenders. Why it always produces this result, is worthy of the investigation of the moralist and philosopher. Other great evils, political or moral, are discussed with freedom, and measures for their amelioration or prevention meet with no outward opposition; but call in question the right of one man to enslave another, or even make an effort to confine this gigantic sin to the territory in which it exists, and the fiercest passions are aroused in the hearts of its advocates, and the lack of power alone, saves their opponents from utter destruction.
In this spirit was the contest of 1823-4 waged. Old friendships were sundered, families divided and neighborhoods arrayed in opposition to each other. Threats of personal violence were frequent, and personal collisions a frequent occurrence. As in times of warfare, every man expected an attack, and was prepared to meet it. Pistols and dirks were in great demand, and formed a part of the personal habiliments of all those conspicuous for their opposition to the Convention measure. Even the gentler sex came within the vortex of this whirlwind of passion; and many were the angry disputations of those whose cares and interests were usually confined to their household duties.
It will doubtless be profitable, therefore, to study the following letters showing Governor Coles' connection with the anti-slavery movement during the early history of Illinois.
Governor Coles To Richard Flowers
Dear Sir:—I would have made my acknowledgments to you long since for your kind letter of 13th of February, but for my having been prevented from writing by the bearer of it, from the haste with which he took his departure hence, and for my being much harassed by the business attendant on the approaching adjournment of the Legislature; and for my having gone soon after the adjournment to Edwardsville, where I was detained until a few days since by torrents of rain which have deluged the country and rendered the streams and roads impassable. The perusal of your letter afforded me particular pleasure. It breathes the genuine sentiments of a Republican and of a philanthropist; and produced an emotion which was "pleasing though mournful to the soul." Pleasing that an adopted citizen should possess principles so entirely accordant with our free institutions; and as it held out encouragement that the people would not sanction the late conduct and measures of their Representatives—mournful, that if the slave faction should succeed, how unpleasant and truly unfortunate the situation of many of us, who have removed from a great distance and invested our all in property which we shall be compelled to abandon or to sacrifice, to seek new homes we know not where; or remain in a community whose principles and practice are not only entirely at variance with our own, but of a character calculated daily to harrow up our feelings in the most painful way. I was born in the very bosom of negro slavery; have seen it in all its bearings; reflected well upon the nature of it, and having found it impossible to reconcile it either with my political or religious creed, I abandoned my native State, my aged parents and relations, to seek in this State a community whose principles and practice I presumed were in unison with my own. Judge, then, of my feelings at the efforts which have been made and are now making to change this free community of ours into a truly odious one, consisting of masters and slaves—and you can judge the better as your situation and principles are very similar with mine. The great inducement with us both to emigrate to this State was the firm belief that we should not be disturbed by the clanking of the fetters of Slavery; that tyranny would not be given a legal sanction, nor afforded the food on which it could prey. But the majority of the people's representatives, having by the most violent and unprecedented measure, taken a step with the view of breaking down those barriers to oppression, which had been erected by the wisdom and virtue of those who framed the fundamental law of the State, and which you and many of us considered, if not sacred, at least to have been permanently settled, it becomes us to be on the alert to defeat a measure, which if it should succeed, will not only be ruinous, and in the highest degree unjust to many of us who have emigrated here under the most solemn assurance that "neither slavery nor involuntary servitude" should exist; but it will be of incalculable injury to the interest of the State, of the Union, and of the extension and advancement of freedom, and the amelioration of the human race.
You reside in a favorable situation to aid with effect this great question. The county just below you forms the dividing line between the sections of country in which the free and slave parties predominate. It has occurred to me that the friends of freedom would give ample support, and that the good cause would be greatly promoted by establishing a printing press on the Eastern side of the State. And I know of no place where it could be established to so much advantage, as at Albion. Besides the advantage it has in locality, there are in Albion, and its vicinity, many persons who wield chaste and powerful pens, and who have the means, and, I trust, the disposition of patronizing an establishment of the kind. Pardon me for asking it as a favor to me personally, and as a sacrifice to the furtherance of the best and most virtuous of causes, that all personal, sectional, national, county or town feelings, and all other unkind feelings, let them originate from what cause they may, shall be buried, at least while the great question is pending. I will write and ask the same favor of Mr. Birkbeck. I have but little news. From all I can learn a considerable majority of the people of the counties situated in the north-west part of the State, as far south as Monroe, St. Clair and Washington, are opposed to a call of a convention, but great and extraordinary efforts are already making to induce the people to vote for it.
Present my respectful compliments to Mrs. F. and family, and to your son and his lady, and be assured of my respect and esteem.
Edward Coles.
Governor Coles To Nicholas Biddle
Dear Sir:—It has been a long time since I either wrote to you or heard from you. I made a visit last summer to my relations in Virginia, and intended to have extended my tour as far as Philadelphia, which I should certainly have done, for I am still more attached to Philadelphia than any other city in the Union, but for my trip having been delayed by a severe attack of bilious fever, and having been prolonged in Virginia beyond the time I expected, and the necessity I was under to be back here by the meeting of the Legislature, to enter on the duties of the office to which I had been recently elected. I assure you, when about to leave Washington (where I staid only four or five days) and to turn my face to the west, there was a great struggle between a sense of duty which dragged me here, and my inclinations and many strong attractions which drew me to your charming city. There has long existed in this State a strong party in favor of altering the constitution and making it a slave-holding State; while there is another party in favor of a convention to alter the constitution, but deny that Slavery is their object. These two parties have finally, by the most unprecedented and unwarrantable proceedings (an account of which you have no doubt seen in the newspapers), succeeded in passing a resolution requiring the sense of the people to be taken at the next general election (August, 1824), on the propriety of calling a convention for the purpose of altering the constitution. Knowing that this measure would be strenuously urged during the late session of the Legislature, and that many who professed to be hostile to the further introduction of Slavery, would advocate it, and believing that it would have a salutary effect to furnish them an opportunity of evincing the sincerity of their professions; and being also urged by a strong sense of the obligations imposed on me, by my principles and feelings, to take notice of the subject, I called the attention of the Legislature in a speech I delivered on being sworn into office (a printed copy of which I sent you by mail) to the existence of Slavery in the State, in violation of the great fundamental principles of the ordinance, and recommended that just and equitable provision be made for its abrogation. As I anticipated, this part of my speech created a considerable excitement with those who were openly or secretly in favor of making Illinois a slave-holding, rather than making it really as well as nominally, a free State—who wished to fill it rather than empty it of slaves. Never did I see or hear in America of party spirit going to such lengths, as well officially as privately, as it did here on this question. Indeed, it seems to me that Slavery is so poisonous as to produce a kind of delirium in those minds who are excited by it. This question, and the manner of carrying it, is exciting great interest throughout the State, and has already kindled an extraordinary degree of excitement and warmth of feeling, which will no doubt continue to increase until the question is decided. I assure you, I never before felt so deep an interest in any political question. It preys upon me to such a degree, that I shall not be happy or feel at ease until it is settled. It is impossible to foresee the injurious effects resulting to this State of the unhappy consequences which may arise to the Union, from the success of the slave party in this State. Many of us who immigrated to this State under the solemn assurance that there should exist here "neither slavery nor involuntary servitude," will, if the slave faction succeeds, be compelled to sacrifice or abandon our property and seek new homes, we know not where, or remain in a community whose principles we shall disapprove of, and whose practice will be abhorrent to our feelings. And already we hear disputed the binding effect of the ordinance—the power of Congress to restrict a State, etc., etc., from which I fear, if the introduction of Slavery should be tolerated here, the discussions on the expediency and unconstitutionality of the measure will not in all probability be confined to the citizens of this State. But this is a part of the question too painful for me to dwell on. I trust the good sense and virtue of the citizens of Illinois will never sanction a measure so well calculated to disturb the harmony of the Union and so injurious to its own prosperity and happiness, as well as so directly opposite to the progress of those enlightened and liberal principles which do honor to the age. But to insure this it is necessary that the public mind should be enlightened on the moral and political effects of Slavery. You will confer a particular favor on me and promote the virtuous cause in which I am enlisted, by giving me information, or referring me to the sources from whence I can draw it, calculated to elucidate the general character and effects of Slavery—its moral, political and social effects—facts showing its effects on the price of lands, and general improvement and appearance of a country—of labor both as it respects agriculture and manufactures, etc., etc. The State of Pennsylvania having been long distinguished for its attachment to free principles, there is no doubt but what you can procure in Philadelphia many valuable pamphlets and publications which would throw light on this question. Any which you may have it in your power to procure and forward, will be most thankfully received, and the amount of the expense repaid as soon as it is known. Your old and truly sincere friend,
Edward Coles.
To Nicholas Biddle, Esq.,
President of the Bank of the United States,
Philadelphia.
Mr. Biddle To Governor Coles
Philadelphia, May 20, 1823.
Dear Sir: I have just received your friendly letter of the 22nd ult., to which I shall take the first moment of leisure to give a more detailed answer. In the meantime I can only say that I feel most sincerely the embarrassment of your situation, and hope that you may be able to triumph in the good cause. That no effort may be wanting, you shall have all the assistance which I can give or procure. My occupations necessarily absorb so much of my time that I can promise you little on my part, personally, but I have already engaged two of our most active gentlemen familiar with that subject, who will cheerfully and zealously contribute to your support. The first fruit of their labor is the pamphlet accompanying this letter. I have not had time to read it, as I am anxious to forward it without delay, but I understand that it is the latest and best work on the subject, and goes directly to the question of the superiority of free over slave labor. Mrs. B. and Mr. Craig are glad to hear of your prosperity, and desire to be particularly remembered to you.
With great sincerity of regard,
yrs.,N. Biddle.
Edward Coles, Esq.,
Vandalia.
Mr. Biddle To Governor Coles
Philadelphia, May 26, 1823.
My Dear Sir: My present occupations necessarily engross so much of my time that I can scarcely contribute more than my good wishes to the great cause which so naturally and deeply interests you. It gives me peculiar satisfaction, therefore, to procure for you the correspondence of my friend, Mr. Roberts Vaux, to whom this note is intended to serve as an introduction. Mr. Vaux is a gentleman of education, talents, fortune, leisure and high standing in the community. He feels sensibly all the embarrassments of your situation; he perceives the deep importance of defeating this first effort to extend to the north-western country the misfortunes of the slave population and he is disposed to co-operate warmly and zealously with you. I know of no individual more calculated to render you the most efficient service. He is worthy of all your confidence, and I recommend to you to yield it to him implicitly, as I am sure it will be repaid by every kindness and every service in his power.
With great esteem and regard,
yrs.,N. Biddle.
Edward Coles, Esq.,
Vandalia,
Illinois.
Mr. Biddle To Governor Coles
Philadelphia, May 26, 1823.
My Dear Sir: I have put into the hands of my friend, Mr. Vaux, a note for you which he will accompany with a communication on the subject which now occupies you. Mr. Vaux will be hearty and zealous in the cause, and I really deem it a subject of congratulation to you, to procure the assistance of one who is more able and willing than any individual of my acquaintance to assist you. There is one thing which I wish to add. The Abolition Society of this city, has been the subject, whether justly or not I am unable to determine, of much hostility at a distance, and it would be rather injurious than beneficial to have it supposed that the society was active in the cause which you are supporting. You will therefore understand that neither the Abolition Society nor any other society has the least concern in this matter. The simple fact is that Mr. Vaux, and two or three of his friends, have been so much pleased with your past conduct in relation to Slavery, and have so deep a sense of their duty to resist the extension of that system, that they mean to volunteer in assisting you, without any connections with any set of men, and without any motives which the most honorable might not be proud to avow.
Very sincerely,
yrs.,N. Biddle.
Edward Coles, Esq.,
Vandalia,
Illinois.
Philadelphia, 5 Mo. 27, 1823.
To Edward Coles, Esq.:
Esteemed Friend:—My friend, Nicholas Biddle, has kindly furnished me with a note of introduction to thy correspondence, which is transmitted by the mail that conveys this letter. I have been induced thus to solicit access to thy notice, because thy conduct in relation to the emancipation of thy slaves could not fail to beget great respect for an individual whose noble, and generous example displayed so much practical wisdom, and Christian benevolence. Nor has it been less gratifying to be informed of thy official efforts to prevent the overthrow of those constitutional barriers, which were erected to protect the State of Illinois, from the moral, and political evils inseparable from domestic slavery.
It is really astonishing, that any part of the inhabitants of your State should wish to introduce a system which is generally reprobated where its effects have been longest known, and from the dominion of which, such of our fellow citizens of the South as are disposed to examine the subject with the gravity which it certainly merits, most anxiously desire to be redeemed.
Notwithstanding, however, the lessons which experience has taught in this respect, it is likely that Illinois will be agitated by the exertions of unreflecting men, and possibly without timely and energetic efforts to counteract their schemes, they may be enabled to persuade a majority of her people to violate their early vows on this subject, and pollute your soil with the blood and tears of slaves.
Feeling as I do, a deep sympathy for thyself, thus threatened with the most unhappy consequences, and desirous that miseries and mischiefs, the amount of which no mind can fully calculate, may be averted from the extensive and fair region of which Illinois forms a part, I would willingly contribute anything in my power, and with these views I offer my own, and the services of a few of my friends, in this interesting cause.
We have thought that benefit might result from making judicious selections from writers whose purpose is to show the iniquity, and impolicy of slavery—these selections to be printed in the Tract form (at our own expense) and forwarded to Illinois for gratuitous distribution. If this plan should meet thy approbation, I should be glad to receive an early intimation to that effect, but should thy official station, or duties, render it either improper or inconvenient for thee to take an active part in this business, perhaps it will be in thy power to select a few individuals who may be disposed to aid us, and in that event, I shall be obliged by thy introduction of such persons to my correspondence.
Accept the salutation of my respect,
Roberts Vaux.
Edwardsville, Illinois, June 27, 1823.
Esteemed Friend:
Your kind and highly interesting letter of the 27th ult. was rec'd by the last mail, and has been perused with very great pleasure. The benevolent sentiments you express, and the correct views you take of the great question which is now unfortunately agitating this State, and the deep interest you evince for the prosperity and happiness of Illinois, and the preservation of the rights and liberty of its inhabitants, do credit alike to the native benevolence of your heart and to those divine and political principles which distinguish the real Christian and Republican, and cannot fail to present a contrast, which, however mortifying it may be to me as an Illinoisan, cannot but be highly gratifying to me as a man, to see one so far removed from the scene, and without any other interest except that which he feels in the general happiness of his species, nobly and generously volunteering his services to assist in promoting the cause of humanity, whilst there are thousands here strenuously advocating the giving a legal sanction to the oppression and abject slavery of their fellow-creatures. Such noble, generous, and fervid benevolence as yours, is highly honorable even to a Friend; and is a new and striking proof of that extended philanthropy, and pure and heaven-born spirit of Brotherly love, by which that denomination of Christians have ever been distinguished, and cannot fail to excite the admiration and win the confidence and attachment of all—especially of those like myself, who daily experience pain and mortification in hearing doctrines advanced which are directly in opposition to the great fundamental truths of our religious and political creeds.
In behalf of the friends of freedom in this State, I give you sincere and grateful thanks for the offer of your services to assist us to enlighten the minds of our fellow citizens, by publishing judicious selections and observations on the iniquity and impolicy of Slavery, in tract form, and distributing them gratuitously through the State. It may be proper, however, to remark that distant friends should be cautious in the manner of making their benevolent exertions, as there is danger that designing partisans here may not only paralyze the effort, but turn it against the cause it was intended to promote, by representing it to be the interference of other States for the purpose of influencing the opinion of the people of this. An ingenious pen could dress up this subject in a manner to give it great effect in this country. Would it not, therefore, be best not to state on the face of the publications where they were printed? They could be printed in Philadelphia, and sent with the goods of some merchant of St. Louis at a much less expense than by mail.
Not being aware of any consideration which should restrain me, but on the contrary believing that my present office increases the obligations I am under, as a good citizen, to exert myself to enlighten the minds of my fellow citizens, and strenuously to oppose every measure which I am convinced is unjust in principle or injurious in its effects, and believing Slavery to be both iniquitous and impolitic, I conceive myself bound, both as a citizen and as an officer, to do all in my power to prevent its introduction into this State. I will therefore cheerfully render you assistance in distributing any publications you may forward, or give you any information you may desire.
The friends of freedom here propose making publication similar to those you suggest, but they will not have the same means of doing justice to the subject that you will have in Philadelphia. We are particularly anxious, not only to present to the people proper views of the immoral and anti-christian, unjust and anti-republican character of Slavery, but also facts showing its impolicy and injurious effects in retarding the settlement and prosperity of the State, by checking emigration to it, and paralyzing the enterprise and activity of its citizens—that it would impede the progress of manufactures, be prejudicial to agriculture, and in one word, to the future prosperity, as well as to the immediate interest of the State. The great argument here in favor of the introduction and toleration of Slavery, is that it would have the immediate effect of raising the price of lands, and adding to the population and wealth of the country. We want facts to disprove these assertions, and also to show that Slavery would operate to the injury of the poor or laboring classes of society. Strange as it may appear, it is nevertheless true, that there are many persons who are in principle opposed to Slavery who will yet vote for making this a slaveholding State, under the belief that by so doing they will be enabled to make an immediate and advantageous sale of their lands, and thus gratify that restless and rambling disposition which is so common with frontier settlers.
Pardon this long and hasty letter. Give my regards to our mutual friend Biddle, and be assured that your generous benevolence has inspired me with great respect and sincere regard for you.
Edward Coles.
Roberts Vaux,
Philadelphia.
Roberts Vaux to Governor Coles
Birwood Lodge (near Phil'a), 7 Mo. 24, 1823.
Esteemed Friend:—I cannot delay an immediate acknowledgment of thy letter of the 27th ultimo, which reached me at my summer residence today.
It affords me unfeigned satisfaction to learn from it that thee approves the plan which I submitted for thy consideration. Anticipating a favorable notice of the suggestion, by a mind so devoted as thine to the promotion of the great ends of humanity, of justice, and of National honor, three pamphlets were prepared, which will be immediately printed, and transmitted to thy address at St. Louis. One of these tracts is designed to show the impolicy and unprofitableness of Slave Labor, etc., and some arguments are drawn from the published opinions of several distinguished citizens of the slave-holding States; among which Col. Taylor's are not the least authoritative and cogent. Another essay exhibits a succinct account of the cruelties of the Slave Trade, derived from authentic sources; and a third pamphlet is intended to show that the interminable bondage of any portion of the human race is, on the part of the oppressors, a flagrant violation of natural and Divine Justice, and utterly inconsistent with the doctrines of our Holy Redeemer.
Aware of the unpopularity of Philadelphia, and especially of Quaker sentiments on this particular topic, with all those who attempt to justify slavery, it was originally determined to avoid giving any complexion whatever to these publications which might induce the belief that they proceeded from this State, or that individuals of the Society of Friends had any agency in the preparation of them. The coincidence of our judgment in regard to the manner of treating the subject is worthy of remark.
If the least benefit results from this humble effort, it will administer to my happiness, which will be augmented by the reflection, that it owes its origin to thy own emphatic summons for aid, in a cause which demands the exercise of every generous and patriotic feeling.
That indulgent Heaven may crown thy labors with success, is the sincere desire of thy friend.
With great truth and respect,
Roberts Vaux.
To Edward Coles, Esquire,
Governor of Illinois,
Edwardsville, Illinois.P. S.—On my next visit to the city, I intend to communicate thy message to our friend Nicholas Biddle.
R. V.
Governor Coles to Mr. Biddle
Edwardsville, Sept. 18, 1823.
Dear Sir:—I have been long anxious to return you my thanks for your kind letter of May 20th and 26th, and also for the acceptable service you rendered me in making me known to Mr. Vaux, from whom I have had the pleasure of receiving two letters, and a promise of his assistance in preventing our soil from being polluted with the foul and disgraceful stain of slavery. The disinterested and praiseworthy zeal he evinces is as honorable to him, as it is gratifying to me, and is well calculated not only to give me an exalted opinion of his character, but to awaken the most lively feelings of regard and friendship for him. I wish, when you see him, you would tender him my kind regards and thanks for his letter of July 24, and say to him, I hope soon to receive the packages promised. The propriety of calling a convention, or more properly speaking, of making this a slave-holding State, is still discussed with considerable warmth, and continues to engage the undivided attention of the people, being the constant theme of conversation in every circle, and every newspaper teems with no other subject. Unfortunately for the friends of freedom, four out of five of the newspapers printed in this State are opposed to them; and the only press whose editor is in favor of freedom, although a pretty smart editor, has rendered himself unpopular with many by his foolish and passionate attacks upon many of the prominent men on his side of the question. If, however, the advocates of Slavery have the advantage of us in printing presses, we have greatly the advantage of them in possessing men of the most talents, and most able to wield the pen and use the press, with effect; and as three out of four of their presses have professed a willingness to admit well-written original essays on both sides of the question, we shall have not only the best of the argument, but be able, I trust, to present it in the best dress to the public. I am happy in telling you that the advocates of a convention have been losing ground ever since the adjournment of the Legislature; and there is no doubt with me if the question were now to be decided, that a majority of the people would be opposed to it. But what will be the state of the parties next August is another question. Many of the people in this State are very fickle and credulous, and much can be done by designing and unprincipled partisans, and that everything which can possibly be done will be done, we cannot but infer from the extraordinary and unwarrantable measures resorted to last winter in the Legislature in getting up the question, and the great anxiety evinced, and exertions which have been made and are still making to prevail on the people to sanction it. But as the friends of freedom are aware of this, they will watch the movements of their opponents, and be on the alert to counteract their intrigues and machinations. The object for which a convention is wanted is so justly odious, and the conduct of the friends of the measure so disgraceful, that I cannot bring myself to believe they will succeed. But I regret to state that the advocates of Slavery in this State are gaining strength, from the indiscretion of the advocates of freedom out of the State. Certain leading newspapers in the Atlantic cities have taken a stand, and held language which is used here in a way calculated to do much mischief. Whether we have the constitutional right to make this a slave-holding State, or not, or whether the opponents of the extension of Slavery, here or elsewhere, may think proper hereafter to call for the interposition of the Federal Gov't to restrain the people of this State, it is certainly bad policy at this time very strongly to urge it, and especially in what may be considered dictatorial language; as it is of all other questions the best calculated to arouse the feelings of State pride, and State rights, and that natural love of unrestrained liberty and independence which is common to our countrymen, and especially to our frontier settlers, who of all men in the world have the strongest jealousy of authority and aversion to restraint.
I wish, my friend, you would use your influence to prevail on the newspaper writers to let this question alone for the present. If they are sincere in their opposition to the further extension of Slavery, they will not prematurely urge it, when they are assured that by so doing they can do no good, but much harm.
I shall go to St. Louis in a day or two, when I hope to have the pleasure of seeing and congratulating your brother on his late marriage, and becoming acquainted with his lady. This has been the most cool and agreeable, and by far the most healthful summer I have ever seen in this country. The spring was too wet and we were apprehensive of an unfavorable season both for health and vegetation, but we have been most agreeably disappointed. My health was never better. I beg you to present my kind regards to Mrs. B., and to Mr. Craig, and to be assured of my sincere regard.
Edward Coles.
Nicholas Biddle, Esq.,
President of the Bank of the U. S.—Philadelphia.P. S.—Could you or Mr. Vaux furnish me with an assessment of lands in the different counties of Pennsylvania? I want to show that lands are higher in price in free than slave States.
Governor Coles to Roberts Vaux
Vandalia, Illinois, December 11, 1823.
Esteemed Friend:—I received some time since your letter of the 11th of Oct., and by the last mail yours of the 4th ulto. An unusual press of public business prevented my sooner acknowledging the former, and will now prevent my making as long an answer to the two as I desire. For the last four weeks there has been a great crowd of persons here, attending the Circuit and Supreme Court of the State, and the U. S. and District Court and the sale at auction for taxes of about 7,000 tracts of land, belonging to non-resident proprietors. This has necessarily given me much to do; but it has at the same time afforded me an excellent opportunity of collecting the sense of the people on the great question which is now agitating the State. And I am happy in assuring you, from the best information I have been able to collect from all parts of the State, I am more confirmed in my belief that a majority of the people will be opposed to calling a convention for the purpose of altering the Constitution so as to make this a slave-holding State. But the extraordinary efforts that have been made here during the last three or four weeks by the friends of Slavery, in organizing their party, and enabling its leaders to act with the most concert and effect, convince the friends of freedom that their opponents are yet in the field, and that they should be on the alert, for fear by some ruse de guerre, at which their opponents are known from sad experience to be great adepts, the advocates of oppression should triumph. Nearly all the leading friends of a convention have been assembled here, and held caucuses for the purpose of deliberating upon the best means of promoting the success of their favorite measure; have adopted sundry resolutions, and made many arrangements; among others have appointed committees for each county in the State, and requested that the county committees appoint a committee in each township, for the purpose of corresponding with each other, and of influencing by every possible means the public opinion.
With respect to your inquiry whether there is not some more expeditious and safe mode of sending out the pamphlets than through a commercial house at St. Louis, I can think of no other, except to forward them, as pamphlets, by mail to me to this place, which is at this season of the year slow and precarious.
The pamphlet you forwarded me by mail, along with your last letter, I received safe; but have been so busy as not yet to have had time to read it. Two thousand of each kind, will, I presume, be enough, and as many as I shall be able conveniently to distribute. There will be for the next six months, so few persons visiting this place, that I shall be compelled to rely chiefly on the mails, as the means of distributing pamphlets, or other information to the public. If possible, I intend to have all the pamphlets published in one or more of our weekly newspapers.
Accompanying this I send you a pamphlet, which has been lately published by my old friend Birkbeck, which is by far the best publication which has been yet given to the public. After you have perused it, you will confer a favor on me to loan it for the perusal of our mutual friend Biddle, to whom I beg you to present my kind regards.
With great respect and sincere regards, your friend,
Edward Coles.
To Roberts Vaux,
Philadelphia.We have had the misfortune (two days since) to lose our State House by fire. This accident will operate in favor of a convention. Many profess to be opposed to slavery but in favor of a convention to remove the seat of Government. There is now of course less inducement for keeping it here. I still, however, hope and believe we shall have no convention.
Morris Birkbeck to Governor Coles
Wanborough, Dec. 6, 1823.
Dear Sir: * * * * * * * * * *
I take the liberty by this mail to send you half a dozen; and if, on reading a copy, you should think it may be useful to any of the unconverted Conventionists, you may put it in their way. I am glad you think favorably of the course the question is taking. I believe the advocates of a Convention are not so numerous as they have been on this side of the State. The leaders do not seem to be so sanguine. This may, however, be a ruse de guerre preparatory to a grand push in the spring. I am rejoiced that you have escaped from sickness this summer. My family has enjoyed excellent health, and the neighborhood—as heretofore. We should be glad to see you amongst us; and a friendly visit from you would give me peculiar pleasure. I have not seen Mr. Pell since the morning, when I received your letter. I shall deliver your message to him, and I beg you to believe me your sincere friend,
M. Birkbeck.
To Governor Coles,
Vandalia.
Governor Coles to Morris Birkbeck
Vandalia, January 29, 1824.
My Dear Sir:—I had the pleasure to receive, in due course of mail, your letter of the 6th ulto., together with six of your pamphlets, which you were so good as to send me, for which I return you my thanks. I had previously seen republished in a newspaper your pamphlet, and had read it with great pleasure. I could not but wish every Conventionist in the State had it and was compelled to read it with attention. Our society at Edwardsville intends having another and large edition of it reprinted for the purpose of having it extensively circulated. I took the liberty to send one or two of your pamphlets to some distant and particular friends, who take a deep interest in the Slave question in this State. By the by, should not the review of your pamphlet, which appeared first in the Illinois Gazette, and since republished in all the Convention papers of the State, be noticed? It is very ingeniously written, but what more particularly requires correction is the fabrications and misrepresentations of facts. One or two of these were hastily noticed and sent to be inserted last week in the paper published here; but no paper has since issued from the press.
During the setting of the Courts, and the sale of the lands of non-residents for taxes, we had a considerable number of persons assembled here from almost every part of the State; and a pretty good opportunity was afforded of collecting the public sentiment in relation to the great question which is now convulsing the State. The friends of a Convention pretended to be pleased; but it was very apparent they were not; and the more honest and liberal among them acknowledged that they thought their prospects bad. Our friends on the other hand were much pleased, and rendered much more sanguine of success from the information they received. The friends of Slavery, however, were caucusing nearly every night, and made many arrangements for their electioneering campaign. Among others, it is said, they have appointed five persons in each county, with a request that these five appoint three in each election precinct, for the purpose of diffusing their doctrines, embodying their forces, and acting with the greatest concert and effort. This is well calculated to bring their strength to bear in the best possible manner, and should, as far as possible, be counteracted. When bad men conspire, good men should be watchful.
The friends of a Convention appear to become more and more bitter and virulent in their enmity to me, and seem determined not only to injure my standing with the people, but to break down my pecuniary resources. A suit has been lately instituted at Edwardsville against me for the recovery of the sum of $200 for each negro emancipated by me and brought into this State. The suit has been brought under a law passed on the 30th of March, 1819, but which was not printed or promulgated until the October following. In the meantime, that is about the first week of May, my negroes emigrated to and settled in this State. What is truly farcical in this suit is, that a poor worthless fellow, who has no property, and of course pays no tax, has been selected to institute it, from the fear he has of being taxed to support the negroes I emancipated, when they, who are all young and healthy, are so prosperous as to possess comfortable livings, and some of them pay as much as four dollars a year tax on their property. I should indeed, my friend, be unfortunate were I now compelled to pay $200 for each of my negroes, big and little, dead and living (for the suit goes to this) after the sacrifices I have made, and my efforts to befriend and enable them to live comfortably. For I not only emancipated all my negroes, which amounted to one-third of all the property my father bequeathed me, but I removed them out here at an expense of between five and six hundred dollars, and then gave each head of a family, and all others who had passed the age of 24, one hundred and sixty acres of land each, and exerted myself to prevail on them to be honest, industrious and correct in their conduct. This they have done in a remarkable degree, so much so, with all the prejudice against free negroes, there never has been the least ground for charge or censure against any one of them. And now, for the first time in my life, to be sued for what I thought was generous and praiseworthy conduct, creates strange feelings, which, however, cease to give me personal mortification, when I reflect on the character and motives of those who have instituted it.
Just about the time this suit was instituted, I had the misfortune to lose by fire two-thirds of all the buildings and enclosures on my farm, together with about 200 apple trees and as many peach trees—several of each kind large enough to bear fruit. And soon after, the "State House" having been consumed by fire, a project was set on foot to rebuild it by subscription. Not liking the plan and arrangements, I declined subscribing, and proposed others, which I thought would be more for the interest of the State, of the county, and of the town—and which by the way are now generally admitted would have been best. This however was immediately laid hold of by some of the factious Conventionists who being aware that the loss of the State House would operate to the injury of their favorite measure in this county, and being anxious to display great solicitude for the interest of the people here, and that too, as much as possible at the expense of the anti-Conventionists, they busied themselves in misrepresenting to the multitude my reasons and motives for not subscribing my name to their paper, and with the aid of large potions of whiskey, contrived to get up a real vandal mob, who vented their spleen against me, in the most noisy and riotous manner, nearly all night, for my opposition to a convention and for my refusal as they termed it, to rebuild the State House. All this and other instances of defamation and persecution, create in my bosom opposite feelings; one of pain, the other of pleasure. Pain to see my fellow man so ill-natured and vindictive merely because I am the friend of my species, and am opposed to one portion oppressing another—pleasure that I should be in a situation which enables me to render services to the just and good cause in which we are engaged; and so far from repining at these indignities and persecutions, I am thankful to Providence for placing me in the van of this eventful contest, and giving me a temper, zeal, and resolution which I trust will enable me to bear with fortitude the peltings which are inseparable from it. In conclusion, I pray you to do me the justice to believe, that no dread of personal consequences will ever abate my efforts to promote the good of the public, much less to abandon the great fundamental principles of civil and personal liberty—and to be assured of my sincere friendship.
Edward Coles.
Morris Birkbeck, Esq.,
Wanborough, Edwards County.
Mr. Birkbeck to Governor Coles
Wanborough, Feb. 19, 1824.
My Dear Sir:—I have just received your letter of January 29, and I assure you the receiving of it has given me unfeigned pleasure, although its contents, as far as the unworthy conduct of the party is productive of vexation to you, I as sincerely lament. I am sorry that it should be at your expense; but as it tends to expose the badness of the cause and the iniquity of its supporters, the friends of liberty and virtue can hardly regret that they should have thus displayed their true characters.
For myself, my private situation screens me in great measure from persecution, though I presume, not from the honor of their hatred. I am glad, you approve my little pamphlet; if I could afford it I would spare the society at Edwardsville the expense of republishing, &c. I have the satisfaction of knowing that it has done some good, by changing the sentiments of several, who through want of reflection or knowledge, had been advocates of Slavery. And as there are many up and down in all parts of the State, who are in that situation, I trust its general circulation will be useful. I am continually plying the Slave party, through the Illinois Gazette, with popular discussions and sometimes with legal arguments, under the signature of Jonathan Freeman, and some others. You will see, if you read that paper, an ironical proposal of a plan for raising a fund to colonize the negroes as an appendage to limited Slavery, signed J., which I think may show the absurdity of that argument. The Edwardsville Spectator published about a dozen of those short letters, and I suppose that you will see a few more of them shortly. As they present the question in various lights, pointing out the wickedness and folly of the slave scheme, dissected as it were into distinct portions, I imagine they make an impression on some readers more effectually than a continued course of argument. I submit, with great deference, a thought that some of these would be useful if published by way of appendix to the Appeal. Perhaps you will revert to them, and notice a few more which you will soon see; then do as you see good.
As publication is essential to the binding power of a law, in fact to its existence as law, you will of course defeat your persecutors, and put them to shame, on the principle of ex post facto. You could not infringe in May a law promulgated in October following.
The fire at Vandalia is rather against the Conventionists in that quarter. The idea of re-building the State House by subscription, you, as governor, could hardly countenance. What authority have individuals to act in this case, even at their own expense? And what claim have they on your private purse? I am only sorry for your personal vexation under these attacks. They discover the weakness and folly of the party, and I am in hopes they are losing ground. They have great zeal and activity and no delicacy about the means; there is considerable zeal and activity on our side; and setting the good principles of our cause against their total want of principle, I trust we are a match for them, provided we do not relax in our efforts. The attack on my pamphlet by Americanus (who is Mr. Webb of Bonpas), seems to the Illinois Gazette a short reply to the personalities; further I thought needless, and have just written another to the same effect, which I shall send to the Vandalia paper. Not being presumed to know the author, some severity of retort seems allowable.
You have a circle at Vandalia chiefly, I fear, of the wrong sort in regard to the vital question, which circumstance must detract from your social enjoyment, where at best it could ill be spared. The cause in which you are engaged so heartily is so thoroughly good that it will bear you up through many sacrifices and privations. Your sentiments on the subject rejoice and encourage me, and in return (pedantry as it may seem) I shall give you a sentiment from Horace for your encouragement.[233]
Justum et tenacem propositi virum,
Non civium ardor prava jubentium,
Non vultus instantis tyranni,
Mente quatit solida.I remain, with great esteem, yours,
M. Birkbeck.
Morris Birkbeck, Esq.,
Wanborough.I had hoped after the great and decided majority which was given at the late election against a Convention, my political enemies would have ceased to persecute me. But in this I was mistaken. It would seem I must be sacrificed. Nothing short of my entire ruin will satisfy my enemies, and they seem determined to effect it without regard to the means. Yesterday the suit which has been instituted against me for freeing my negroes was called up for trial. Judge Reynolds not only decided several points of law against me, in opposition to the opinion of several of the best lawyers in the State, but he and Mr. Turney rejected all my testimony as illegal, and would not permit a solitary word to be uttered by a witness of mine. Under such circumstances the jury found a verdict of $2,000 against me, which, with the cost, will be a difficult sum for me to raise, these hard times. I shall ask for a new trial. If this application should share the fate of all others I have made, it is to be hoped he will not assume the power to prevent my taking an appeal to the Supreme Court.
In haste, your friend,
Ed. Coles.
Governor Coles To Roberts Vaux
Vandalia, Jan'y 21, 1824.
My Friend:—While at Edwardsville a few days since, I received a letter from D. B. Smith, notifying me that he had forwarded to the care of I. I. Smith & Co., of St. Louis, certain pamphlets; previous to which, however, I had been informed by one of that company that he expected them, and had requested him to notify me so soon as they should be received, and to forward them to me to this place by the first safe opportunity. I also had the pleasure to receive at Edwardsville the pamphlet you were so good as to enclose me by mail. The information contained in this pamphlet in relation to the foreign slave trade, is highly interesting. I must, however, be allowed to express my regret that it does not bear more directly on the question, which is now agitating us here, by showing the resemblance between the foreign and domestic slave trade, and the inevitable effect of the extension of Slavery into new regions, to continue and increase this odious traffic. To add to the circulation of this, as well as the pamphlet I had previously the pleasure to receive from you, I shall, if possible, prevail on some of the editors to publish them in their newspapers. But unfortunately for our cause, of the five newspapers printed in this State, four are the avowed advocates of Slavery (in other words for a Convention) and but one of Freedom, and that one not friendly to me and other opponents of the Convention. This division among us arises from factions, personal and local feelings, and from the circumstance that we have many avowed friends of freedom, who are themselves the masters of slaves; and who, while they unite with us in opposing the means of the further introduction of Slavery, are at the same time violently opposed to our efforts to abolish the remnant of Slavery which is still allowed to stain our soil. There is also another class among us who profess to be opposed to Slavery and who rail much against it, but yet who are friendly to it, as is fully evinced by their advocating every measure calculated to introduce and tolerate it here. The character and feelings of these several classes of our citizens were strongly exemplified last winter, when, on entering into office, I called the attention of the Legislature to the existence of Slavery among us, and urged its abolition. As it may be the means of throwing some light on the slave question in this State, I will send you, accompanying this letter, a printed copy of my speech, and a report made by a committee of the Legislature on a part of it.
My remarks and recommendation on the subject of Slavery produced a great excitement among those who held slaves, or were desirous of holding them, particularly among those advocates of a Convention who were professedly the opponents of Slavery, but secretly its friends, and who hoped under the fair mask of freedom, to deceive the people and to smuggle in the monster Slavery. Bringing forward the measure of abolition at the same time they brought forward the Convention question, placed these professed friends to the rights of man in an awkward situation, for it was apparent if they voted agreeable to their declarations, they, together with the real and genuine friends of freedom, would constitute a majority of the Legislature, and of course pass the abolition Bill. This state of things had the effect of unmasking their true opinions and views, and of clearly exhibiting to the public the real object for which a convention was to be called—that of making this a Slave-holding State....
Having had the good fortune, through every period of my life, to live in great harmony with my fellow man, the enmity and persecution I have lately had to encounter, have created a new state of feeling, and caused me to look into my own conduct to see whether it has been correct. In this review I have been gratified to find I have not given just cause of offense to any one; but I have been grieved to perceive with what virulence I have been pelted, when the only complaint against me is, that I am a friend to the equal rights of man, and am considered a barrier to my opponents acquiring the power of oppressing their fellow man. Under this view of my situation, I am gratified that Providence has placed me in the van of this great contest; and I am truly thankful that my system is so organized as to leave no room for doubt, fear or hesitation. My opinions have long since been maturely formed, and my course deliberately taken, and is not now to be changed by detraction, prosecutions, or threats of "Convention or death."
I beg you excuse my troubling you with the perusal of so long a letter, and that you will pardon me for having said so much of myself, in consideration of its connection with the great question now agitating this State, by interesting yourself in which you have displayed so signal and praiseworthy an instance of your benevolence—for which I pray you to accept the grateful thanks of your friend,
Edward Coles.
Answering this January 21, 1824, Mr. Vaux said:
The part which thee has been called to act, privately as well as publicly and officially, in regard to the rights of mankind, and for the upholding of the principles of justice and mercy toward a degraded and oppressed portion of our fellow beings, ought to be regarded as a manifestation of Providential power, concerning which we must always believe the same Divine interposition will be extended in every exigency. I am altogether satisfied that it is reserved for thee to witness the triumph of truth and beneficence in the struggle to which thee has been exposed; and, what is of infinitely greater value, as it respects thyself, to reap a plentiful harvest in the most precious of all rewards, the approbation of Heaven!
I feel a deep interest in thy character, and a lively gratitude for thy service, and it will always be among the purest consolations of my mind to be assured of thy welfare and happiness.
Roberts Vaux To Governor Coles
Esteemed Friend:—My delay in the acknowledgment of the receipt of thy truly interesting letter of Jan'y 21, last, will not, I trust, be attributed to any want of respect and kindness, but to the real causes, which were, first, an unusual press of business relative to several public institutions, which at the season of the receipt of that communication demanded my attention; and secondly, to the expectation subsequently entertained here, that thy presence might be expected at Washington as successor in the Senate of the United States to N. Edwards, appointed on a foreign mission. The likelihood that the latter event might bring us to a personal acquaintance in this city, when the session of Congress should terminate, was contemplated with pleasure, since a direct interchange of opinion would be preferred to epistolary correspondence. Time, however, has served to show that this prospect, with many others upon which we dwell with satisfaction, failed of realization, and I therefore avail myself of the only means which are left to renew the assurance of my remembrance, of my undissembled regard, and of my sincere sympathy. The part which thee has been called to act privately as well as publicly, and officially, in regard to the rights of mankind, and for the upholding of the principles of justice, and mercy toward a degraded and oppressed portion of our fellow beings, ought to be regarded as a manifestation of Providential power, concerning which we must always believe the same Divine interposition will be extended in every exigency. I am altogether satisfied that it is reserved for thee to witness the triumph of truth and beneficence in the struggle to which thee has been exposed; and, what is of infinitely greater value, as it respects thyself, to reap a plenteous harvest in the most precious of all rewards, the approbation of Heaven!
I feel a deep interest in thy character, and a lively gratitude for thy services, and it will always be among the purest consolations of my mind to be assured of thy welfare and happiness; with these impressions I salute thee, and remain faithfully,
Thy Friend,
Roberts Vaux
To Edward Coles,
Governor of Illinois.P. S.—I yesterday passed half and hour with our friend, N. Biddle; he is well, but very much occupied with official duties at the bank.
Roberts Vaux To Governor Coles
Dear Friend: The last intelligence from Philadelphia is, that the great question which has so long agitated your State, and which had a bearing so important upon the common interests of humanity, and justice, has been determined. Happy for your commonwealth! Creditable for our country! Slavery will not be permitted to overrun Illinois! The result of the conflict is truly joyous; you have said to the moral plague, "Thus far, but no farther, shalt thou come."
My warmest congratulations are tendered on this great event, though I know how inferior all exterior circumstances must be in comparison with the heart-solacing reward which is reaped by thy devotedness in this noble cause.
Since I have been at my summer residence, I have received several numbers of an Illinois newspaper, and a pamphlet from the same quarter, all which contained highly interesting matter relative to the question then undecided in your State; I presume I am indebted to thy kindness for those documents, for which I feel greatly obliged. The letter of Thos. Jefferson addressed to thyself, is very interesting, and I have it in contemplation to cause it to be printed in a tract form, for general distribution, provided such use of it, may be altogether agreeable to thee.
I have indulged myself with a hope that it may be within the range of probability, that thee will make a visit to Philadelphia ere long. Not anything would give me more pleasure than thy presence in our city, and that gratification would be increased by thy making my house thy home. I have much more to communicate than I have leisure now to put on paper, as we are today preparing to return, on the morrow, to our house in town.
With sincere regard I remain thy friend,
Roberts Vaux.
Governor Coles to Roberts Vaux
My Dear Sir:—When I had the happiness to enjoy your society last summer in Philadelphia, you were so kind as to express a wish to hear from me on my return to this State. I should long since have fulfilled the promise then made you to comply with this request which I felt was as flattering to me, as it was kind in you; but for a mass of business which had accumulated during my absence, the preparation for the meeting, and the labor and interruption attendant on the session of the Legislature, which adjourned a few days since; and the novel and extraordinary efforts made by some of my old political opponents to supplant me in the office of Governor, by thrusting in my place the Lieutenant-Governor a zealous and thorough-going advocate of Slavery. I had heard nothing of this intention (for although many letters were written to me, it so happened not one ever came to hand, or has since been heard of) until I reached Louisville on my way home, when I was told by a friend that he had been informed by a distinguished opponent of mine that it had been determined that I should not be permitted to resume the office of Governor. On my arriving in the State, I found that there had been several caucuses held in different places, by what are called the knowing ones, for the purpose of devising the best mode of proceeding, and of organizing their forces to act against me. All the Executive officers of the State recognizing me as Governor, I found no difficulty in entering at once on the duties of the office. The Lieutenant-Governor, however, still remained at the seat of Gov't, contending that I had vacated the office by my absence from the State, and that he was, under the constitution, the acting Governor. On the meeting of the Supreme Court, he applied for a mandamus against the Secretary of State. The court refused the mandamus on an incidental point, and got rid of the main question without deciding it. Soon after this the General Assembly met, and efforts were made to induce it to recognize the Lieutenant as the acting Governor; but these efforts having failed, he made a communication to both Houses, setting forth his claims to the office of Governor, and asking to be heard by himself or counsel in support of them. Nothing was done with this communication, there being only one member in each House openly in favor of the Lieutenant-Governor's pretensions. There would doubtless have been more if there had been any prospect of ousting me. I attribute the unexpected unanimity to the circumstance of the question having been stirred in time to afford the people an opportunity of making known their opinions and feelings to their Representatives previous to their leaving home to take their seats in the Legislature. The current of public opinion on this question was too strong in my favor to be resisted by any but a most desperate antagonist. This effort of my opponents has recoiled very much to my advantage, in weakening their popularity, and adding to the strength of mine.
You will recollect my having shown you last summer some strictures, which I had been induced to publish on the judge's opinion in the malicious suit which had been instituted against me for freeing my negroes, in consequence of several extraordinary errors of fact, as well as of law, which it contained, and the unusual pains taken by the judge to publish and circulate these errors to my injury. Two actions have been instituted against me for this publication—one by the court—the other in the name of the judge as an individual, in which he has laid his damages at $5,000. The former is to be tried at Edwardsville next month—the latter at this place in April. The original suit, or mother of the judge's twin-suits, is still pending in our Supreme Court, and is expected will be decided at the June term. I trust I shall get rid of all of these suits in the course of the spring and summer. I feel the more anxious to do so as they are the first suits, that ever were instituted against me.
I have not heard anything of the pamphlets which you were so good as to promise to send me. I shall go to St. Louis in about a month, when I hope to receive them. I see noticed in the public prints a new pamphlet, published by G. and C. Carville, at New York, on the emancipation and removal of the slaves of the U. S. If you could conveniently lay your hands on this pamphlet, you would confer a favor on me by sending it to me by mail. May I ask the favor of you to hand to Mr. Fry the enclosed five dollar note, and request him to forward the National Gazette to William Wilson (Chief Justice of the State), Carmi, White county, Illinois.
I beg you to present my kind regards to Mrs. Vaux, and to accept my grateful acknowledgments for your very kind and truly friendly attentions to me while in Philadelphia; and permit me again to renew to you the assurance of my obligations to you for the services rendered to humanity and to Illinois during the late vile effort to prostitute their rights and character and to repeat that the virtuous and benevolent interest you evinced on that occasion will ever endear you to
Edward Coles.
Governor Coles to A. Cowles
Dear Sir:—Believing that I should have been able to prove that I had not libeled Judge McRoberts, and explain how the Grand Jury had been induced to present me for so doing, it was with great regret that I heard you had thought proper to dismiss the prosecution. Fearing that some malicious person may misrepresent this transaction at some future day, when those who now understand it may have forgotten many of the details in relation to it, or perhaps be dead, or have removed from the country, I have determined to ask the favor of you to give me a written answer to the following questions:
Did you summon or request Judge McRoberts to appear before the Grand Jury, which presented me for libeling him?
Did not Judge McRoberts request to see the indictment before it was delivered to the Grand Jury, and did he not examine and alter it, and if so what were the alterations made by him?
Did you ask Mr. Blackwell to aid you in the prosecution of me, and do you know whether he was employed by Judge McRoberts to do so?
As you have expressed the opinion verbally to several persons, that I had not libeled Judge McRoberts, I ask the favor of you to give me your opinion in writing, whether the matter contained in the indictment was a libel?
With great respect, I am &c., &c.,
Edward Coles.
A. Cowles, Esq.,
Circuit Attorney,
Edwardsville.P. S.—Why was not Judge McRoberts returned as a witness, on the back of the indictment?
Extract from a Letter from Governor Coles to John
RutherfordI give you many thanks, my dear Sir, for your long and truly affectionate letter of February, and assure you, I feel great contrition for having so long delayed the expression of them, and of saying how much gratified I was at perusing your kind letter, and the glad tidings it gave me of the health and happiness of our dear Emily and her little ones; and also the pleasure I have since derived at finding from the newspapers in what a flattering manner your fellow citizens have elected you to represent them in the Legislature.
I am greatly gratified at your election, not only from the regard I have for you as a man, etc., and the consequent interest I take in, and the pleasure I derive from your success; but I am particularly so in seeing men of your principles in relation to negro Slavery in the Councils of Virginia, as it cheers me with the hope that something will soon be done to repudiate the unnatural connection which has there so long existed between the freest of the free and the most slavish of slaves.
Even if it were feasible, from the extraordinary apathy in the great mass of the people, and the zeal displayed by many to perpetuate the evil, I could not hope for speedy emancipation, but I do trust for the honor as well as interest of the State that ameliorating laws will be speedily passed, which will gradually have the effect of reconciling and habituating the masters, and preparing the slaves for a change which, as Mr. Jefferson says, must sooner or later take place with or without the consent of the masters. It behooves Virginia to move in this great question; and it is a solemn duty which her politicians owe to their country, to themselves, and to their posterity, to look ahead and make provision for the future, and secure the peace, prosperity and glory of their country.
The policy of Virginia for some years past has been most unfortunate. So far from acting as if Slavery were an evil which ought to be gotten rid of, every measure which could be taken has been taken to perpetuate it, as if it were a blessing. Her political pilots have acted like the inexperienced navigator, who, to get rid of the slight inconvenience of the safety-valves have hermetically sealed them, not foreseeing that the inevitable consequence will be the bursting of the boiler, and dreadful havoc among all on board. No law has been passed under the commonwealth to ameliorate the black code of the colony of Virginia; on the contrary, new laws have been passed, adding to the oppression of the unfortunate negroes, and which have not only abridged the rights of humanity, but of the citizen. Such is the character of the law which restricts and to a great degree prohibits the master from manumitting his slave. The idea should be ever present to the politicians of Virginia, that the state of Slavery is an unnatural state, and cannot exist forever; it must come to an end by consent or by force; and if by consent, it must from all experience, as from the nature of things, be preceded by ameliorating laws, which will have the effect of gradually and imperceptibly loosening the bonds of servitude.
Nothing is more erroneous than the idea which is entertained by many, that ameliorating laws, and especially manumissions, are productions of insurrections among the slaves. The history of the British and Spanish West Indies shows that in those Islands where they have prevailed most, the slaves have behaved best, and insurrections have occurred oftenest where the slaves have been most oppressed and manumissions most restricted. Indeed, we never hear of insurrections in the Spanish Islands, where the slaves are most under the protection of the law, and where there are no restrictions on manumissions. Virginia should repeal the law against emancipation, prohibit the domestic slave-trade—which is nearly allied in all its odious features to the African slave trade—restrict the power of the master in disposing of his slaves, by preventing him from separating the child from its parent, the husband from his wife, etc., and if possible, connect the slave under proper modifications to the soil, or at least to the vicinity of his birth; instruct the slaves especially in the duties of Religion; extend to them the protection of the laws, and punish severity in the master, and when cruelly exercised by him, it should vest the right in the slave to his freedom; or to be sold at an assessed valuation. These and many other provisions might be adopted which would have a most salutary effect, and especially the Spanish provision, which gives the right to the slave to buy a portion of his time as soon as he can procure the means, either by his own labor or by the bounty of others; thus, for instance, suppose a negro worth $600 on paying $100, he is entitled to one day in each week, and so on. In connection with the emancipation of slaves, I should provide for the removal by bounty and otherwise, of free negroes from the country, as the natural difference, and unfortunate prejudice existing between the whites and blacks would make it the interest of both to be separated. This subject, is too big for a letter, and I can only add, that if I could see ameliorating laws adopted, if I did not live to see the emancipation, I should at least die with the happy consolation of believing that measures were in progress for the consummation of ultimate justice to the descendants of the unfortunate African; and that my country, and the descendants of my family, if not my nephews and nieces, would lie down in peace and safety, and would not have entailed on them an unnatural and odious system, productive of strife, enmity and war, between themselves and their domestics. I was in hopes to have been able by this time to have informed you and my other friends of the result of the malicious suit instituted against me for freeing my negroes, and which is pending in our Supreme Court. The case was argued last week, but the court has adjourned to the 1st Monday of January, next, without deciding it. I was much disappointed in not getting a decision; I have however but little fear as to the result.
FOOTNOTES:
[230] These letters are taken from E. B. Washburne's Sketch of Edward Coles, Second Governor of Illinois, and of the Slavery Struggle of 1823-1824.
[231] Ibid., p. 18.
[232] Jefferson's reply was published in The Journal Op Negro History, Vol. III, p. 83.
[233] The last paragraph of Mr. Birkbeck's letter cannot but excite admiration. The quotation from Horace applied with great force to the case of Governor Coles:
"Neither the ardor of citizens ordering base things, nor the face of the threatening tyrant shakes a man just and tenacious of principle from his firm intentions."
SOME UNDISTINGUISHED NEGROES
Solomon Humphries. Traveling through this country in 1833 at the very time when free Negroes were being denounced as an evil of which this country should by all means rid itself, C. D. Arfwedson found in Macon, Georgia a thrifty free Negro named Solomon Humphries, well known by all classes including local officials and even the governor of the State. Humphries had by dint of energy acquired his freedom and had made himself an asset in his community. He was then keeping a large grocery store and had more credit than many other merchants in the town, for he had accumulated about $20,000 worth of property. He had a neat and comfortably furnished home, presided over by his wife, an intelligent woman of color, who was often seen driving with him in his own unostentatious carriage. He was sought by the wealthiest people of the city whom he lavishly entertained at his home, doing them the honor of waiting on them in person himself, although he had a number of slaves who could have rendered this service. Making it a rule to be especially hospitable to strangers, he invited Arfwedson to be his guest while in the city; but on account of having planned to go to Columbus that day, Arfwedson could not accept his invitation.—Arfwedson's United States and Canada in 1833 and 1834, I, p. 425.
A Negro Colonizationist. While the American Colonization Society was being denounced by the free Negroes of the North, many blacks of the same status in the South had a different attitude toward the movement, especially during the twenties before it had been discovered that Liberia was not suitable for a civilized people. One of the Negroes of the South to be won to this movement was a free man of color named Creighton, a slave owner of Charleston, South Carolina. He had accumulated considerable wealth and had begun to feel that it would be better for him to spend his remaining days in a land of freedom. Several other free blacks were induced to go with him. In disposing of his property he offered his slaves, the alternative of being liberated on the condition of accompanying him on his expedition or of remaining in this country to be sold as other property. Only one of his slaves 3could be prevailed upon to accept freedom on these terms and go with him to Liberia. Creighton then closed up his business in Charleston, purchased for the enterprise a schooner The Calypso and set sail for Africa, October 17, 1821.—Niles Register, XXI, p. 163; taken from The New York Commercial Advertiser.
A Moralist. A white cooper called upon a Negro who owned a fine farm near Cincinnati and expressed a desire to purchase some stave timber from him. The Negro inquired as to what use the cooper would make of it. The latter replied that he had a contract to make some whisky barrels.
"Well, Sir," was the prompt reply, "I have the timber and want the money, but no man can purchase a single stave or hoop pole, or a particle of grain from me for that purpose."
The cooper, of course, became unusually angry on receiving such a stern reproof and contemptuously addressed this man of color, calling him a "Nigger."
"That is very true," mildly replied the Negro. "I can't help that, but I can help selling my timber to make whisky barrels, and I mean to do it."—The Weekly Herald and Philanthropist, May 13, 1846.
A Benevolent Negro. Before the Northwest Territory became disturbed by the influx of free Negroes and fugitives running away from persecution in the South, there had been enough trouble with white vagrants to lead to drastic laws for the protection of certain communities. Michigan, which did not until 1827 pass a measure dealing especially with undesirable Negroes, had prior to this time a law providing for selling idle and dissolute persons at auction. At one of the sales in 1821 a Negro bought a white man and ordered him to follow his master, and the order was obeyed. But the benevolent black took his servant to the steamboat, paid his passage and restored him his freedom, making himself satisfied with sending the white vagrant out of the territory.—Niles Register, XXI, p. 214.
BOOK REVIEWS
Harvard Studies. I. Varia Africana. I. Oric Bates, Editor, F. H. Sterns, Asst. Editor. Introduction by Theodore Roosevelt. The African Department of the Peabody Museum of Harvard University, Cambridge, 1917. Quarto. Pp. 292.
In the introduction to the Harvard African studies ex-President Roosevelt describes the enterprise which this volume represents as "the first serious attempt by Americans to contribute to the real study of the African." He might have added, with almost equal truth, that it is the first serious attempt by Americans to study the Negro.
Books have been written by Americans about the black man. Howard University, Washington, D. C., has a library of such books. There are other private collections, some of them running into several thousand volumes. Most of them are written in a controversial spirit. Many of them are theological, seeking to show, on the basis of scriptural quotations, that the social status of the black man is pre-ordained and eternally fixed. Others are pseudo-scientific attempts to solve the race problem by showing that the black man is not quite human. Some of them seek to prove, on the basis of anthropological data, that the Negro has no soul, hence efforts to Christianize him are hopeless.—Many more are written by Negroes to preserve some record of their meager history, or to defend the race against the monstrous attacks upon its humanity.
Such books are interesting and valuable as records of the sentiments and attitudes which the racial struggle has called forth in the black man and in the white. The strange distortions of fact and opinion which they record are significant, not so much for what they tell us of the Negro, as for what they reveal of the intensity of the racial conflict, and of the nature of the passions involved. Most books on the Negro in America published prior to 1900, and some books written since that time, are mainly valuable as source books for the social psychologist and the students of human nature. As literature they represent a melancholy anthology. As records of human nature, under the strains and stresses of a tragic although peaceful conflict, they have a new and fascinating interest. It is in this sense that we can say, spite of all that has been written, that there are no scientific studies of the American Negro, there are only materials awaiting scientific interpretation.
It must be regarded as an event of the first importance, therefore, that an institution of the authority of Harvard University and the Peabody Museum proposes to publish a series of studies intended to cover the whole wide range of native African life and to extend these studies eventually to the descendants of the African peoples in America. No study of the Negro in America will be complete which does not take account of the African background of the race. On the other hand, no attempt to assess the qualities and capacities of the native African, living in his isolated and primitive environment, will be adequate which does not take account of the Negro's progress under the conditions of a civilized environment. As a matter of fact the Africans are the only contemporaneous primitive people who have anywhere achieved race consciousness and civilization without losing their racial identity. As a consequence almost every fundamental process and stage of civilization, from the most primitive to the most cosmopolitan man, is somewhere represented in the contemporary life of the Negro in Africa and America. It is this fact which lends significance to the present volume, since these studies propose to cover eventually the whole range of Negro life in Africa and America, so far as that can be done within the limits of the anthropological sciences. An editorial note at the end of this first volume describes the plan and scope of the proposed series of publications.
The Harvard African Studies is designed to consist of annual volumes—under the title of Varia Africana—made up of miscellaneous papers, and of occasional monographs presenting the results of original field or laboratory research.
The scope of the volumes may be defined as African anthropology in the widest sense. Only original papers are desired, but these may be of any length compatible with their presentation in a volume which is essentially in the nature of a journal, and may deal with any of the following subjects: psychology, archæology, ethnography, linguistics, sociology, ethno-geography, religion, folklore, or technology. A range so wide must perforce be limited in some directions, and the editors have therefore decided upon the exclusion of purely historical papers, even when the latter embody the political records of native tribes. As an exception to this rule, the editors may be willing, under certain circumstances, to accept historical material which, by establishing the presence of this or that group of people in a certain locality, or by throwing light on the nature or date of a migration, bears on racial questions and problems of primitive culture.
The series is open to papers of a non-controversial character dealing with a topic sadly in need of more scientific treatment—we refer to the question of the American Negro. The anthropometrist, the sociologist, and the folklorist have in this direction a field of research which, if approached with adequate knowledge, can be made to yield invaluable results. As these results cannot but be of practical importance, the editors are particularly anxious to have an opportunity of presenting them.
As a further indication of the method and purpose of these studies the editors emphasize that an effort will be made not only to add to the mass of information already extant in the writings of explorers, traders, and missionaries, but to correlate and organize the information already existing.
Travelers, missionaries, administrators, and scientists have published a vast amount of valuable information regarding the various peoples and regions in Africa. As yet, however, there has been comparatively little correlation of this evidence. Now that the day of the reconnaissance explorer is essentially past, and we begin to receive accurate and detailed studies of single tribes, it is highly desirable to have the great mass of published material carefully sifted, so that the future student and investigator may be able to make his efforts as productive as possible.
From even a few such documents, it might be possible to plot cultural areas, as has been done for North America—the areas in question being regions of fairly uniform culture, marked off with some sharpness from other such areas. It would then appear whether the African areas depended on geographic conditions, on plant or animal distributions, or on the superior inventive genius of certain tribes or races. On the other hand, it might appear that the whole culture area hypothesis was untenable, and that within any given geographic area, or within any given tribe, there would exist elements of culture which were adopted at widely differing times and belonged to different culture levels. Thus, a true stratification of cultures might be exposed. Yet again, it might be found that people living in similar environments tended to develop a like culture regardless of any contact or close ethnic affinities.
At the present moment the task of correlating existing material in such a way as to test the validity of current theories and presuppositions of the anthropological sciences is quite as important as that of adding to existing collections of information. In this way only can the mass of information now extant be made available for the use of students in the secondary social sciences, like sociology and political science, which are dealing with immediate and practical problems. It is only in this way, for example, that the knowledge we have gained of the Negro in Africa will contribute to the solution of the race problem in America.
Interesting as is the prospect which opens with the first volume of the African Studies, the untechnical reader will probably be more impressed with imposing appearance of the volume, with the character of its illustration and its general typographical appearance than with its contents. These consist of twelve articles of an average length of 23 pages dealing with the following types: Siwan customs, Oral surgery in Egypt during the Old Empire, Worship of the Dead as practiced by some African Tribes, The Paleoliths of the Eastern Desert, Notes on the Nungu Tribe, Nassawara Province, A study of the Ancient Speech of the Canary Islands, Benin Antiquities in the Peabody Museum, The Utendi of Mwana Kupon, Notes on Egyptian Saints, Dafûr Gourds, An Inscription from Gebel Barkal, and Ancient Egyptian Fishing.
Perhaps the most interesting of these articles, for the sociologist, is that of R. H. Blanchard entitled Notes an Egyptian Saints. Sainthood, as the author remarks, "is not a difficulty of achievement in the Islamic world." Every hamlet has its shrine and in the larger villages there will usually be found two or three such sanctuaries. Once a year, on his birthday, a festival and religious fair in honor of the saint is held. The primitive character of these religious celebrations is attested by the orgiastic and often licentious performances that accompany them. For example on the occasion of the festival of el-Hamâl et-Rayah, a purely local celebrity, "the whole adult male population of the town, in defiance of all orthodox Moslem sentiment, intoxicated themselves with whatever alcoholic beverages they could procure. Half a dozen prostitutes, hired for the occasion, set up their booths or tents in the town, and received all comers. There was among the revelers a great deal of horseplay of the most licentious character, particularly in the vicinity of the booths if the sharamît. Drunken men were dragged into the lanes by their friends, and there left lying, exposed to the village wags and wits. In 1914 this festival was modified by Government, which suppressed the more offensive features of the celebration."
One of the most interesting of these saints referred to was "an old Negro slave well known for his long, harmless, pious life." It is generally held that the body of a man who has during his life attained an unusual degree of sanctity is gifted with a supernatural power which is often exerted on those who carry his bier to the grave. The supernatural power of this old Negro saint was attested to in the following peculiar way: "Having died toward evening, he would not, on any account, have himself buried the same evening, and the bearers, in spite of all their shouting of la ilah ill Alllah (sic), could not bring the corpse to the graveyard. It remained therefore, all night in the house (though the people do not like to keep a corpse at night), watched by a multitude of people praying. Next morning also it could not be buried for a long time, the blessed dead compelled the bearers to go through all the streets of the town, till at last, on the recommendations of the governor, the higher officials carried the bier to the grave, even the Turkish soldiers could not accomplish it. The whole town was in uproar. The Mohammadans say the angels exercise this coercive power. The Christians believe it is the devil."
It seems probable, as the author suggests, that we have in these religious festivals in honor of a local celebrity surviving examples of localized and more primitive type of religious cult which has not yet been wholly superseded by the religion of Islam, with its wider outlook and more rational conceptions of life. The notes here recorded suggest at once questions which can only be answered by further investigation and by comparison of the materials gathered in this region with those that are now being brought to light in other fields. It is the purpose of the Harvard African studies to answer these questions, so far as they can be answered by a study of African life.
Interesting from other points of view are the reproductions of the remarkable collection of Benin antiquities at the Peabody Museum, of the celebrated Vai syllabary, and of an interesting poem of 100 lines in the Suaheli language said to have been dictated by a dying mother to her daughter. Transliteration and translation accompany the reproduction in the original script.
Robert E. Park.
Fifty Years and Other Poems. By James Weldon Johnson. With an Introduction by Brander Matthews. The Cornhill Co., Boston, 1917. Pp. xiv, 92.
From time to time for the last fifteen years Mr. James Weldon Johnson has been remarked as one of the literary men of the race. He has now brought together his verses in a little volume, Fifty Years and Other Poems, an introduction to which has been written by Professor Brander Matthews, of Columbia University. The task was eminently worth while.
The book falls into two parts. The first is made up of poems in the commonly accepted forms, though there are one or two examples of vers libre; and the second is entitled Jingles and Croons. This second division consists of dialect verses, especially the songs that have been set to music, most frequently by the poet's brother, Mr. J. Rosamond Johnson. Outstanding are the very first lines, Since you went away. It is well that these pieces have been brought together. For artistic achievement, however, attention will naturally be fixed upon the first division. Fifty Years was written in honor of the fiftieth anniversary of the emancipation of the race. Professor Matthews speaks of it as "one of the noblest commemorative poems yet written by any American—a poem sonorous in its diction, vigorous in its workmanship, elevated in its imagination, and sincere in its emotion." This is high praise, and yet it may reasonably be asked if there are not in the book at least four pieces of finer poetic quality. These are, first of all, the two poems that originally appeared in the Century, Mother Night and O Black and Unknown Bards, and The White Witch and The Young Warrior. The first of these four poems is a sonnet well rounded out. The second gains merit by reason of its strong first and last two stanzas. The White Witch chooses a delicate and difficult theme, but contains some very strong stanzas. The Young Warrior is a poem of rugged strength and one that deserves all the popularity it has achieved with Mr. Burleigh's musical setting. Mr. Johnson is strongest in the simple, direct, and sometimes sensuous expression that characterizes these latter poems, and it is to be hoped that he may have the time and the inclination to write many more like them.
Benjamin Brawley.
Battles and Victories of Allen Allensworth. By Charles Alexander. Sherman, French and Company, Boston, 1914. Pp. 429.
Here we have the story of a successful Negro born a slave in Kentucky but who, determined to succeed, rose to the distinction of a teacher and preacher and finally to that of a chaplain in the United States army with the rank of lieutenant-colonel. The value of this book to the historian, however, is not the mere sketch of Colonel Allensworth but the valuable facts bearing on the history of the Negroes in various parts of the United States. The philanthropic attitude of the Quakers toward Negroes, the life of the slave on the Mississippi, the relations between the poor whites and the slaves, the escape of fugitives to Canada, and the work of the abolitionists are all mentioned from page to page.
The larger portion of the book, however, gives details of the life of Allensworth, which would interest only those who knew him personally. But his founding a town in California inhabited altogether by Negroes stamps him as a pioneer whose achievements in this field must engage the attention of the historian. The detailed accounts of his service as a chaplain in the United States army in the Spanish-American War and later in the Philippines add other valuable experiences which the public should know. The book contains also references to the work of Frederick Douglass, Judge William Jay and John Brown. The author mentions also scores of other persons who have in various ways helped to make the history of the Negro in the United States and especially those who were effective in bringing about the emancipation of the race.
The style of this book is decidedly rough. The work does not show organization. It is written in such a way as to indicate that the writer recorded his facts as they came to him at random without regard as to the principles of composition. It was wholly unnecessary for him to wander astray, discussing in detail the careers of almost every man of that time influencing the life of the Negro, without showing the connection between those facts and the life of the subject of this sketch. The chief value of this work, therefore, is that of a source book.
The Negro Migrant in Pittsburgh, A study in Social Economics. By Abraham Epstein. Published under the supervision of the School of Economics, University of Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh, Pa., 1918.
The movement of the Negroes from the South to the North during the present world war bids fair to be recorded as the most significant event of our local history during this decade. In about two years a million Negroes have gone North to take the places of those immigrants who annually sought our shores prior to this upheaval. To show the significance of the exodus a number of writers have sketched it in newspapers and magazines. Books bearing on the subject are forthcoming. The first scientific study of the transplanted southern Negroes to appear in print, however, is Epstein's interesting and valuable work.
Departing from the newspaper Pullman-palace-car method of studying social conditions, Mr. Epstein assiduously applied himself to the task of making a house-to-house investigation of the home life of this large and typical community of Negroes recently brought to the North. He learned whence they came, their antecedent circumstances, why they abandoned their old homes, what they seek in the North and to what extent they are realizing their dreams. The various factors contributing to the solution of their local problems in Pittsburgh and those effective in confusing the situation are well treated.
This work is especially valuable in its portrayal of home conditions. The author directed his attention to what these migrants do, where they live, how they spend their earnings and how they amuse themselves. In this treatment, therefore, appears a discussion of health, disease and crime as influenced by the presence of these newcomers from a section in which their condition differed materially from what they find in the North. Whether or not we agree with him in his conclusions, therefore, this treatise must claim the attention of students of present-day problems, desiring to deal with facts rather than theories.
On the whole, Mr. Epstein does not find the Negro an exception to any other migrant. Most of the facts which he sets forth are after all favorable to blacks when one considers that their peculiar circumstances are due to race prejudice and the proscription of trades unions. The author did not find them unusually afflicted with disease, as was predicted, and he saw no evidence of a wave of crime. Most of the offenses charged to the account of the migrants are of the petty sort which arise from the stimulus given such by the denizens of vice tolerated by the community. Students of Negro life and history, therefore, should read this dissertation.
C. G. Woodson.
NOTES
Mr. Oswald Garrison Villard who was kind enough to call our attention to the misprint of Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton Hart, for Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton, Bart., on page 20 of the January number of The Journal of Negro History, has sent us the following note in William Lloyd Garrison's own words concerning his relations with this distinguished friend of the Negro in England:
"On arriving in London I received a polite invitation by letter from Mr. Buxton to take breakfast with him. Presenting myself at the appointed time, when my name was announced, instead of coming forward promptly to take me by the hand, he scrutinized me from head to foot, and then inquired, somewhat dubiously, 'Have I the pleasure of addressing Mr. Garrison, of Boston, in the United States?' 'Yes, sir,' I replied, 'I am he; and I am here in accordance with your invitation.' Lifting up his hands he exclaimed, 'Why, my dear sir, I thought you were a black man! And I have consequently invited this company of ladies and gentlemen to be present to welcome Mr. Garrison, the black advocate of emancipation from the United States of America!' I have often said that that is the only compliment I have ever had paid to me that I care to remember, or to tell of! For Mr. Buxton had somehow or other supposed that no white American could plead for those in bondage as I had done, and therefore I must be black!"
"The worthy successor of Wilberforce, our esteemed friend and coadjutor, Thomas Fowell Buxton," had this picture drawn of him by his guest (Mr. Garrison) on his return to America:
"Buxton has sufficient fleshly timber to make two or three Wilberforces. He is six feet and a half in height, though rather slender than robust. What a formidable leader of the anti-slavery cause in appearance! We always felt delighted to see him rise in his seat in Parliament to address the House, for his towering form literally caused his pro-slavery opponents to 'hide their diminished heads.' He is a very good speaker, but not an orator: his manner is dignified, sincere, and conciliating, and his language without pretence. But he has hardly decision, energy, and boldness enough for a leader. His benevolent desires for the emancipation of the colonial slaves led him to accede to a sordid compromise with the planters, and he advocated the proposition to remunerate these enemies of the human race, and to buy up wholesale robbery and oppression, in opposition to the remonstrances of the great body of English abolitionists, and it furnishes a dangerous precedent in the overthrow of established iniquity and crime throughout the world. The results of the bargain do not (January, 1836) reach Mr. Buxton's anticipations.... Still, aside from this false step, Mr. Buxton deserves universal admiration and gratitude for his long-continued, able and disinterested efforts, amidst severe ridicule and malignant opposition, to break every yoke and set the oppressed free."
President Nathan B. Young, of the Florida Agricultural and Mechanical College, has kindly directed our attention to the following facts which appeared in an article in the Tampa Tribune, showing how adoption of the Thirteenth Amendment was effected:
"How the vote that made the Federal amendment abolishing slavery was polled in the house of representatives on January 26, 1863, was told to a representative of The Tribune yesterday by the reading clerk of that congress—now a Florida winter resident and nearing ninety years of age.
"A change of two votes would have defeated the amendment; and urgent business kept one man from being present to cast his vote against the measure, so it is seen that history came near being made another way that memorable day.
"The story was told, with all the vigor and freshness of a man just from the existing scenes and actions, by E. W. Barber, editor of the Jackson (Mich.) Daily Patriot, now at Crooked Lake, happy in the summer of Florida's winter. Mr. Barber was reading clerk for the thirty-eighth, thirty-ninth and fortieth congresses, from December, 1863 to 1869; and he is today the only official of that body who is living. He will be ninety years old on the third of July, coming, and is wonderfully preserved, all except his leg. Indeed he laughingly declared that he would have been a dead tree if he had not been pruned of a dead limb!
Tells of Memorable Day
"On the morning of December 26, 1863, said Mr. Barber, there was a stillness in the house that betokened doubt even then of the passage of the amendment, for but four men in the world knew that it was a matter of accomplishment before the roll was called.
"The senate had already passed the amendment, he said, and the house had defeated it in the first session of the congress; and there was a doubt of its passage over in the lower body.
"After its defeat in the house, the party machinery was put in motion to bring into line sufficient votes to make the necessary three-fourths required. J. M. Ashley of Toledo and Augustus Frank of Warsaw, N. Y., were appointed a committee of two to see if votes enough could be secured at the short session to pass the bill through the house.
"Edward W. Barber, the reading clerk, and Richard U. Sherman, the tally clerk, kept a secret rollcall under lock and key in their desk, and on this was marked the name of every man who had voted against the amendment. As a man was changed or converted, his name was reported to these two and his name added to those already secured for the amendment. One by one the change came, and at last one day when a name was added—the member from the Gettysburg district—Ashley exclaimed "There, by God. We've got enough."
"That day in the house Ashley, who had changed his vote to "nay" after the defeat of the bill earlier so he could move its reconsideration, and had complied with that parliamentary condition, gave notice that on January 26 he would call up the bill for a vote.
Measure Sways in Balance
"Betting ran high for and against the passage of the amendment, says Mr. Barber. The odds were that it would not be passed because of the violent opposition which it had evoked at the former attempt. There were but four men who knew how the matter would go, and those were E. W. Barber, reading clerk; Richard U. Sherman, tally clerk; J. M. Ashley, and Augustus Frank, the committee of two named to get the proper number of votes for the bill.
"The margin was close, two changes would have defeated it; and one member opposed to the amendment was absent, so he said afterward, because a large number of soldiers from his state were at Aquia Creek, and he felt he must pay them some attention. The name of this member was not given.
"Mr. Barber is still editing his paper, sending some fourteen editorials a week to Jackson, Mich., for publication in The Daily Patriot, from his Florida home, five miles south of Lake Wales.
"He has been coming to Florida for forty-five years and, while he has been delaying his coming until well into December, he said yesterday that from now on he expects to come early in November and stay until well into spring.
"He is a most entertaining and interesting speaker and is full of enthusiasm for his adopted home and his future prospects here."
A group of Southern folks have organized a Southern Publicity Committee to advertise among themselves some of the South's constructive work in racial matters. They propose to furnish Southern daily papers with brief and accurate accounts of things actually being done in definite places by given persons or groups or States in the South, for or in cooperation with Negroes for Negro betterment, and to make the South a better place, morally and economically, for both races to live in.
The chairman of the committee is Dr. J. H. Dillard, director of the Jeanes and Slater Funds, a Virginian, and an LL.D. of three Southern universities, including his alma mater, Washington and Lee. The other members are Dr. Thomas Jesse Jones, specialist of the U. S. Bureau of Education; Mrs. Percy V. Pennypacker, of the National Federation of Women's Clubs; the Rt. Rev. Theodore D. Bratton, D.D., of the Diocese of Mississippi; Messrs. Clark Howell of the Atlanta Constitution; Arthur B. Krock, of the Louisville Courier-Journal; D. P. Toomey, of the Dallas News; C. P. J. Mooney of the Memphis Commercial-Appeal; E. E. Britton, formerly of the Raleigh Observer, private secretary to Secretary Daniels; Jackson Davis of Richmond, general field agent of the General Education Board; Walter Parker, general manager of the New Orleans Association of Commerce; the Rev. J. W. Lee, D.D., of St. Louis, the well-known Southern Methodist minister, author and lecturer; Dr. W. S. Currell, president of the South Carolina State University; Dr. Chas. L. Crow, of the State university of Florida; Dr. W. D. Weatherford, of Nashville, Tenn., secretary of the International Y. M. C. A.; and Mrs. John D. Hammond of Georgia, who will act as secretary for the committee.
The Committee will undertake publicity work in behalf of the best aspects of our inter-racial relations in no spirit of boastfulness or of self-satisfaction as Southerners. They are aware of the shadows, the back eddies, the sinister influences in the lives of both races. But they believe the good outweighs the evil, and deserves at least as wide a hearing; and that to give publicity to successful constructive work done by their own people will encourage others to similar efforts, and will further the interests of both races. They ask a hearing from the Southern public for these aspects of Southern life.
Dean Benjamin P. Brawley, of Morehouse College, has brought out a new work entitled The Negro in Literature and Art, published by Duffield and Company, New York City. It was incorrectly reported in our last issue that this work was to be published by Dodd, Mead and Company.
Dean Brawley contributed to the Sewanee Review for January an article entitled Richard le Gallienne and the Tradition of Beauty. This is a literary study of merit.
Dr. James H. Dillard contributed to School and Society an article entitled County Machinery for Colored Schools in the South. It contains information both helpful and valuable to persons interested in the education of the Negro.
M. M. Ponton's Life and Times of Henry M. Turner has come from the press of A. B. Caldwell Publishing Company, Atlanta, Georgia.
G. P. Putnam's Sons have announced the publication of Ella Loun's Reconstruction in Louisiana.
J. E. Semmes has published John H. B. Latrobe and His Times, 1803-1891, through the Norman Remington Company, Baltimore.