p. 132 | The City of Rebellion

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 28, 1865

The City of Rebellion.

The Union forces are doing strange things in the city of Charleston, S. C., the cradle and hot-bed of secession—at least strange things for that locality. One of the first movements that would naturally follow the re-establishment of the national authority over that city, what there is left of it, would be the establishment of schools. It is stated that "hitherto no schools for colored people, bond or free, have been permitted in Charleston, excepting as special favors to the wealthier class, and then only under the most onerous surveillance and conditions." The schools are now re-organized under the superintendence of James Redpath, writer of the biography of John Brown, and black children are admitted to them on equal terms with the white. "Some of the secesh teachers," says the correspondent of the N. Y. Tribune, "were courteously informed that a new order of things had come; that the old South, with all its prejudices and aristocracies, was done away with forever; that a large majority of the first families, so-called, of South Carolina had already been reduced to beggary, and that before the war ended there would be very few of them who would not be paupers; that a higher social order would be established here, and an entirely different class of people rule; that the Government could only recognize, in its dealings with citizens, one test—loyalty, and (as they know) inasmuch as the colored people, as a class, had been loyal, and the whites as a class, disloyal, there would certainly be nothing done by it, officially, what should discriminate against those who had been true to it and who welcomed the restoration of its authority."

Sunday, Feb. 22, is reported to have been "a day of jubilee at all the colored churches. Gen. Littlefield and Mr. Redpath of Boston, addressed all the congregations on their positions and duties to their race and country. The colored people say that there have been no such scenes witnessed in these churches during living memory. The speakers made very radical anti-Slavery addresses, and were listened to with the utmost eagerness. Bursts of joy, shouts of thanks to God, laughter, tears—every human emotion seemed to be moved to their depths."

A prophecy uttered by Bishop Capers so long ago as 1851, and published in the Sumter Banner at Sumterville, S. C., is proving true to the very letter. He said:

"It (Secession) must prove ruinous; the general Government will put it down; Charleston and the State will be ruined; all will be sacrificed—the green hills, the verdant plains, the crystal streams, the cypress-shaded graves of moldering patriots, the hearth-stone of the wife, the trysting-tree of the daughter, will be bathed in blood."

Some of the relics of the captured city are to be appropriately disposed of. Thus, the bell of the Charleston slave-mart, destined to be used no more by those who traffic in human flesh and blood, is to be sent to Mr. Wendell Phillips. The door-plate of Richard Yeadon, who offered $10,000 for Ben. Butler's head, is to be sent to General B. as a token that Charleston is ours; and the first secession banner ever unfurled in that city is to be sent to the N. Y. Tribune office. With what infinite grief must Rebellion look upon such a distribution of its memorials.