Cleveland daily leader. [volume] ([Cleveland, Ohio]) 1865-1873, 1865-10-14
THE FREEDMEN.
Grand Meeting of the Freedmen's Aid
acknowledgements by Bishop
McuVaine, DIR. Bellows, Beecher
and Garrison.

|
a special dispatch to the Cincinnati Ga
zettc gives the following particulars in re-
gard to the Freedmen's Aid Commission
Meeting in Philadelphia on Wednesday
night:
Three thousand were present at the
meeting of the American Freedmen's Aid
Commission at the Academy of Music.
Bishop McIlvaine was present. Rev. DR..
Yarral, also of the Episcopal Convention,
opened the meeting with prayer, and other
members indicated their sympathy bytheir
presence. The meeting wa the first that
has been held here since the consolidation
! of the local into the national societies.
Bishop McIlvaine made a noble speech
brief, fervent and grateful, for the extinc-
ton of slavery, next to the restoration OF
the Uniof. God had shown usthe way of
national peril and disgrace by removing
the mountain that lay across our path.
The time will come when every n at
the South will say that slavery was always
a curse. as we said II tFas, and emancipa-
| ton a deliverance of liberty-all that we
claim for it. The freedmen were Gods
children in our hands. Good will not
come oft Of IL; but judgment, if We do not
do our duty BY them in their education
and the developing of their manhood.
Bishop Simpson, of the Methodist Epis-
copal Church, referred to what Philadel-
phia had done for this cause. A year ago
there was pledged and raised in the city
one hundred thousand dollars. Other 10
c~alities had worked literally. Now the
effort was made national. The Freed
mems Aid Commission referred to the
wants of five millions Of blacks. He
offered special reasons for the effort. We
were friendly to the South and would fur
nish them with what they cannot furnish
Six hundred and fifty teachers are there
now at an expense ofaye hundred dollars
apiece nearly. We need two hundred
teachers. We are glad to acknowledge
the presence in person and letter of the
great representative head of the Christian
and Sanitary Commission tonight.
A letter from General Howard was
read, and Rev. DR.. Bellows made a power
full address. He said he was an outsider,
but had been busy in another great nation
al organization. He told how the SANTA
ry Commission grew by organization, I'M
til, when IL called, indeed it had to tell the
people to stop giving. Much of the work
| of this Commission was to educate the
North to lose their prejudice against the
blacks. 1t will require faithful, capable,
well paid agents. We should depend on
nothing spontaneous, bnt organize every
where, State, local, country and village
societies.
Henry Ward Beecher made the great
speech of the evening on the nationalnee
of e1eyatihg the colored man, and defend
ing the necessity on national grounds Of
giving him a vote. He reviewed the his
tory Of the slavery agitation and the events
of the past four years, and, with alternate
| ridicule and argument, exposed the wrong
| ofthose who deny the black citizenship.
He showed that there is no place in our
institutions for an intermediate class.
William L. Garrison made the closing
| speech; in the course of which he took oc-
casion to deny the Louisville Democrats
| story that Secretary Seward submitted the
Mississippi Constitution to him and Gov
ernor Andrew. He made a noble argu-
ment on the humanity of the movement,
The meeting was the largest ever held
for the freedmen in the country, and Will
nobly inaugurate the movement called for
to elevate them, to educate public opinion,
and to so impress Government that It
shall not dare to neglect its duties to this
people.