Year: 1869

Gov. Wise OH Emancipation,


a late number of the Atlanta (Ga)
Christian Adyocate contains letter from
Henry A Wise, out of which are taken
the following remarkable passages


"The long agitation of the subject
of slavery, its history before the war,
and the war itself, convinced mo that
an exodus from African bondage was
obliged to be by the Almighty hand of
Providence God knew what poor
finite minds, north and south, did not
foresee, that nothing short of fire and
sword, Of war and its blood and violence
could emancpate negro slaves on this
continent, in country governed as are
the United States in the form Of con-
stitutional republics, bound togetherby
a constitutional Union. The


war was a national necessity, permitted
by Divine Providence to prevent in the
end, hope, greater evils than the war
itself " E" Slavery was its cause.
was our weakness, if not our wicked
ness, and God has purged out its sin
and satanic influence by fire and blood"


Here are strange confessions, but not
much apparent contrition. Why was
"the exodus of slavery obliged to be by
the Almighty hand of Providencefb
Why could nothing short of fire and
sword, of blood and violence" accom-,
plish it ! 1t is not true that the terrible
end was not foreseen and foretold by
many finite minds" long before It
came. And of all the daring defers of
the authority of God, the despisers of
the lessons of history and philosophy,
and reyilers Of the anti-slavery prophets
and prophetesses, for there were many
Of both, there were few that should be
compared with this same Henry A.
Wise. He was in the full vigor of his
manhood when the anti-slavery enter.
prise was inaugurated in 1881, and he
armed himself with whatever weapons
the diabolical system had stored in its
magazines. He invoked all the terrors
of Lynch law, of riot, rapine and mur.
der against the abolitionists. In the
seven years Seminole Indian war for
the conquest Of their lands in behalf Of
slavery, no more blood-thirsty monster
was found than he. And the same
terocity characterized bis every word
and action in the subsequent Texas and
Mexican outrages and murders (for they
had no right to be called by so gooda
name as war;, the Border Rufian pil.
lage and massacre in Kansas, the trial
and hanging of John Brown, and the
atrocious rebellion of the SHAREHOLDERS
until they were vanquished 1t would
be interesting to know precisely at
what period in this remarkable history,
he began to be convinced "that an ex-
odus out Of slavery was obliged to be
by the Almighty hand of Providence
He surely showed no sign of such wise
estimate of the case, before the surren-
der of his fellow-contederate and COM
mander, General Lee, and slavery was
dead as it is to-day, long before that.
Of "its sin and satanic influence, which
God had to purge out by fire and
blood" no one can speak more expert
mentally, as we'll as truly, than Henry
A. Wise. 1t is a good deal that he is
willing to admit that Hslaray uas tie
cause Of the ear !" and that God had to
resort to it to break down its power,s
But little of the spirit of peniteuce
and humility towards God, on the part
of the like of him and of the rebels gen.
orally, would, no doubt, be more pleas
ing to God, land at the same time greatly
facilitate the work of construction.
Revolution. f- .r