The New Orleans bulletin. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1874-1876, 1876-03-21

not to say the criminal profigacy, of the
Administration.
00L0RED RADICAL AGENTS DIS.
GUISED AS PREACHERS.
Among the pests which aflict the colored
population none are worse than q class Of
negro preachers who, since the close of the
war, have made it their business to promote
antagonism between the whites and blacks.
In the New York Times Of q recent date we
find notice of considerable length of an ad-
dress by one Of this class named James Lee
to meeting of Methodist preachers in New
York city. Lee is Presiding Elder of q negro
Methodist Conference (not of the Methodist
Church South), in the southern part of
Georgia, where he has been engaged for sew
eral years in missionary work. He was vol
unteer in Gen. Sherman's army, and was
necessarily about as thoroughly spoiled as it
is possible for even negro to be. The close
of the war, of course, found him an inso-
lent vagabond, filed with all the false
notions Of negro rights that could be taught
by the fanatics who followed the standard of
the invading army. The negroes who joined
the Federal troops were thoroughly educated
to the belief that there were no rights of
white men which black soldiers were called
upon to respect. Lee was no doubt
among the worst Of these black marauders, as
he has been cunning enough to escape from
military service and to make living by the
vocation Of q missionary preacher. His char
acter is further displayed by his gross and
palpable fabrioations respecting the white
people of Georgia. He accuses them of
making the negroes serfs, and of preventing
their proper education and development. In
the course of his harangue occurs the follow.
ing statement:
IN the sixteen Southern States, the Metho.
dist Episcopal Church had 375. 600 members,
Of whom 10000 were white, and 1856 900
colored. In the border States the majority of
the members were white, and in Georgia and
the cotton States to the southwark the ne
groes largely predominated. In Georgia they
had forty-fve white ministers and sixty-seven
colored ministers. All their efforts to i'm
prove the material and moral state of the
freedmen, save in exceptional instances, were
resisted by the white denominations, and
especially by the Methodist Church South,
which regarded the Northern missionaries as
intruders In Georgia alone the Methodist |
Church South bad nominally some seventy |
thousand colored members. but the policy Of |
the denomination was one of "separatiop," |
and with the poor negroes excluded from all |
the benz fits of their connection with the |
whites, their churches fell into disuse and |
their congregations melted away.
Every one who knows anything Of the
Southern white people we'll kno VS. that no
obstacle whatever is thrown in the way OF
negroes in organizing and maintaining con-
gregasions for religious purposes. Their re.
ligious assemblies. though often SO bolster
GUS as to disturb whole villages, are never
and seldom interfered with, even
by the basest class of whites. They prefer
by themselves for religious pur-
poses, and while they keep aloof there is no
disposition on the part of the whites to con-
troll or restrain them. There is not village
Of 500 population in the Southern country
without its building or rooms owned or
rented by negroes for the purposes of reli.
gious assembly. Their pranks and per.
formances while at their peculiar devo-
lions are often very strange and irrational,
and sometimes hideous and barbarous. But
The influence is conceived to be on the whole
and even those who think it other
wise are not disposed to interfere A. long as
hey keep to themselves they leave US but one
constant to make, which is that their
preachers are political emissaries and leo
urers, the organizers Of political clubs, the
'olporteurs Of political documents and the
nstigators of negro enmities against the
white people. They have been the potent
lilies of Radical tyranny in the South and
hey are responsible for helping to support
he vagabond dy nasty Of fraud, theft and cor
upton, from whose effects the black race
uffer as much as the whites. Lee is
'vidently one of these mischievous
POLITICAL wolves in the meek garb Of mission t
ries. Hundreds like him will be sent
throughout the North this year to Islander /,
he white people of the South for the benefit
( the party of Morton and Blaine.
The black and reverend spy and slanderer
qually bellies the people Of Georgia and the
outh in representing them to be inimical to
be education of negro children. An unal-
srable public sentiment and an inseperable Z
lstinct of race make the whites universally
pposed to the education of colored and white
hildren together in the same schools. To
eneral system Of schools for the common
snefit there is but little opposition, SO little .,
at the new Constitutions of Alabama, Tex -
ID several other Southern States provide
'ch for such system, with the express pro-
sioa that it shall be for the common benef. g