The territory it occupied was the whole South, its schools being located in every Southern State. But gradually it withdrew from Delaware, Maryland, and unwisely, as I then thought, and now think, from Florida. At the West it organized a few churches in Kansas, which, however, it at length turned over to the American Home Missionary Society, only resuming limited efforts there when the great exodus of colored people thither took place. In Missouri it never attempted much in church planting. It found that the Home Missionary Society that had done so grand a work from the Atlantic to the Pacific, rearing its monuments of light and piety along the whole line of its march, had entered Missouri so effectually that there was no more call for the Association in those parts, and hence that state was soon and cheerfully surrendered to the occupancy of that Society. In Texas the Association has established one of its chartered institutions at Austin, the Tillotson Collegiate and Normal Institute; it was the earliest Congregational Society to plant churches in the State; its churches there, though few, are more in number than that of any other Congregational Society, and two calls are pressing upon us now for the organization of new churches. Thus its field may be said to be the “Solid South” leaving out Delaware, Maryland, Missouri, Florida and the new State of West Virginia. In this territory it has planted its large and permanent educational institutions; its 89 churches, united in eight conferences, covering nearly the whole South.
The Association has been as much opposed to caste as to slavery, as its early publications abundantly show, and has ever refused to accept the limitation of a color line. Its schools and churches have seemed to be almost wholly confined to the blacks, solely because it allowed them to enter at all. But it has not confined itself entirely to efforts for that race. It has founded schools and churches mainly white. The church in Jacksonville, Fla., was organized under its auspices. Its founders did not ask pecuniary aid, but they did ask one of our District Secretaries to assist in the organization, which he did, and spent nearly a month with them afterward, supplying the pulpit until a permanent pastor could be obtained. In Kentucky, John G. Fee, its first missionary in the South, commissioned in 1848, formed white churches on an anti-slavery basis. The same was done by Daniel Worth in North Carolina. That church planting in Kentucky was followed by Berea College, the most conspicuous example in the South of an anti-caste institution, its pupils being in nearly equal numbers of both races; and now more recently the example of Berea has been followed by a church and school in Williamsburg, Ky., and in Clover Bottom. Other openings of the same sort are presenting themselves in the same region.
The only movement made by Congregationalists to found white churches in the territory occupied by the Association was begun during or soon after the war. At that time the work of the Association was in its infancy, and the broad and permanent foundations which it has since laid were scarcely anticipated. On the other hand, this new movement for white churches was mainly confined to the largest cities and perhaps the thought of possible competition was not entertained. At all events the movement was not very successful and was very nearly abandoned.
Whatever general impressions may have existed at that early day as to the special work of the Association or whatever special designations may since have been used as to the classes for which it was mainly to labor, it never supposed that it was to be confined entirely to those classes; and certainly now, after nearly twenty years of almost exclusive occupancy of the special territory to which it has confined itself, so far as Congregationalists are concerned, it may well be supposed to look with some surprise upon a movement recently inaugurated to enter that same territory with missionary efforts that practically places it on one side of a color line.
An agreement was made between the two societies when this question came before them, which provides temporarily and tentatively against the repetition of any such interferences as that which started this discussion. Both societies have agreed not to enter into any field occupied by the other without mutual consultation. But this agreement provides no permanent basis for a settlement of the question which field each society shall occupy. It only insures Christian co-operation and forbearance until a settlement be made. What that settlement shall be is for the constituency of our societies to determine, and to them we must leave it. The American Board and the Association have made a harmonious arrangement of their respective fields of labor, and it is to be hoped that an adjustment equally satisfactory may be reached with the American Home Missionary Society.
In view of all this several questions ought to be considered.
1. What is the field open before us among the white population of the South?
It is not the extent of the territory, nor the number of millions of white people that are in the South, nor even the number that need our school and Gospel advantages, but it is: How many of them can be reached by an anti-caste Gospel?
It is not enough to say that we are to preach the Gospel, and if people are converted the caste question will take care of itself. Well do I remember when that plea and policy were in vogue in regard to slavery. The Gospel was preached, churches were formed, and the denominations were happy in their enlargement. Slavery also did take care of itself, and good care, too, for it found snug homes in these very churches. And well do I remember when these same denominations cast slavery away from them and the coveted churches along with it!
The American churches cannot afford to repeat that experience in regard to caste. What was done then in comparative innocence, because done in ignorance, cannot now be done without great guilt in the light of that experience. We must remember that it is more important to destroy caste than to found churches that will sustain caste. No work can be done by our churches among the white people of the South that will stand the test, that does not proceed on the avowed and practical repudiation of caste; no school opened that does not welcome the colored child; no church formed that does not present the open door, the open hand and the open heart to “Our Brother in Black.” There are Congregationalists in the South that are ready to welcome again the polity of New England and at the same time welcome among them the colored races, and there are native Southerners ready for our schools and churches, and also ready to make no distinction on account of color, and to all such we ought to carry with joyful hearts and ready hands the institutions we so much cherish. But we ought not to enter upon the effort under a misapprehension. The number of openings for this kind of labor is not great.