Sewanee's On-Line History Museum Welcomes You to the Bishop-General Leonidas Polk Memorial Web Site

The Sewanee Quattuor #1 of 4:

"The conception of the University, as set forth in Bishop Polk's letter, and in the address of the bishops, was so entirely accepted by this convention of delegates on Lookout Mountain, that they proceeded at once to the question of organization; appointed committees on location; to obtain a charter; of ways and means; of organization; program and working of machinery, and of constitution and buildings. -George R. Fairbanks, HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF THE SOUTH at SEWANEE, TENNESSEE, 1905

The precursory chronology of the New Orleans Letter (i.e. how the Kansas-Nebraska Act created THE UNIVERSITY OF THE SOUTH):

On May 30, 1854: An Act to Organize the Territories of Nebraska and Kansas: "... but to leave the people thereof perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic institutions in their own way, subject only to the Constitution of the United States." -Section 32

On May 19-20, 1856: "The Crime Against Kansas: The Apologies for the Crime; The True Remedy:" "Even now, while I speak, portents hang on all the arches of the horizon, threatening to darken the broad land, which already yawns with the musterings of civil war. ..The senator from South Carolina has read many books of chivalry, and believes himself a chivalrous knight with sentiments of honor and courage.." -Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner, to the United States Senate

On May 22, 1856: The Caning of Sumner meted out by Representative Preston S. Brooks, of South Carolina: "SUMNER was well and elegantly whipped, and he richly deserved it. Senator TOOMBS, of Georgia, who was in the midst of it, said, 'BROOKS, you have done the right thing, and in the right place.' " -Editorial by Palmetto, Mercury, Charleston, South Carolina, May 28, 1856

On May 24, 1856: The Pottawatomie Massacre: abolitionist John Brown and sons killed five settlers at Pottawatomie Creek in Kansas.

On July 1, 1856: Rt. Rev. Leonidas Polk sent the New Orleans Letter: "I believe now is the time at which we may found such an institution as we need.” -Bishop Polk

"Bishop Polk's Letter to the Southern Bishops- Bishop Polk is shown seated at his writing desk in New Orleans. For twenty years he had been accumulating data about European and American universities. He wrote a 4000 word letter dated July 1, 1856, to his fellow bishops in the South, telling them that the time had come to build an Episcopal educational center." -Narthex window descriptions, All Saints' Chapel, THE UNIVERISTY OF THE SOUTH, Sewanee, Tennessee
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Above Bishop Polk is the Cross of St. George in the shield of the Protestant Episcopal Church, a device he later used in his Confederate battleflag for his army corps. To the right are together his Episcopal Bishop's crozier and his Confederate General's sword, thus the first of the Narthex windows displaying the history of
THE UNIVERSITY OF THE SOUTH becomes the emblem of Sewanee's enduringly affectionate contemplations of Leonidas Polk, its noble "Churchman-Warrior."

BISHOP

EDUCATOR

GENERAL

Bishop Polk's 1856 Letter to the Southern Bishops: (excerpts)

The New Orleans Letter.

"Right Reverend and Dear Brethren:"

“…and our children are expatriated or sent off to an inconvenient distance; beyond the reach of our supervision or parental influence, exposed to the rigors of an unfriendly climate, to say nothing of other influences not calculated, it is to be feared, to promote their happiness or ours.”

“I believe now is the time at which we may found such an institution as we need.”

“An institution to be our common property, under our joint control, of a clear and distinctly recognized Church character, upon a scale of such breadth and comprehensiveness, as shall be equal in the liberality of its provisions for intellectual cultivation to those of the highest class at home or abroad, and which shall full meet the demands of those our people, who require for their children the highest educational advantages, under the supervision of the Church.”

“…while they required the highest standard of intellectual development, breathe that spirit of chastened and dignified conservatism for which the Church is so confessedly distinguished.”

“The result of all which is, that nothing is done. We are losing time, and a large part of the most valuable and available work of our mission is left unprepared.”

“The population of our dioceses is homogeneous. The people are substantially the same, their pursuits, their institutions, their sympathies, are one.” -A Letter to the Right Reverend Bishops of Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, Arkansas, Texas, Mississippi, Florida, South Carolina, and North Carolina, from the Bishop of Louisiana, New Orleans, Louisiana, July 1, 1856, The University of the South Papers, Series A, No. 1, REPRINTS OF THE DOCUMENTS AND PROCEEDINGS OF THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE UNIVERSITY OF THE SOUTH, PRIOR TO 1860, edited by the Rev. Telfair Hodgson, D.D., Vice-Chancellor

"Educate them at home; if necessary, build Southern universities to keep alive the pure flame of truth, an idea that eventually led to the founding of the University of the South at Sewanee, Tennessee. -Ludwell Johnson, NORTH AGAINST SOUTH, The American Iliad 1848 - 1877, 1993

"A correspondent for the pro-Northern Macmillan Magazine, in December 1863, wrote, 'How can you subjugate such a people as this? And even supposing that their extermination were a feasible plan, as some Northerners suggested, I never can believe that in the nineteenth century the civilized world will be condemned to witness the destruction of such a gallant race.' ... Another radical editor noted that the New York Herald called 'for the punishment of all individuals in the South by hanging, and the confiscation of everybody's property in the seceding States.' ... The editor responded, 'Submission on the part of the South would not satisfy theses bloody journalists of the Republican party. Far from it The cry out: 'We mean not to merely conquer, but to subjugate.' ' " -Charles Adams, WHEN IN THE COURSE OF HUMAN EVENTS: Arguing the Case for Southern Secession, 2000

"The summer after my marriage, 1860, I spent in the East, and until then I had no idea of the feeling in the North against the South." -Mary Polk Branch, MEMOIRS OF A SOUTHERN WOMAN, 1912