Bishop Polk's Letter to Bishop Stephen Elliott of Georgia: (excerpts)
"Here
stands out potent upon the face of things, in bold and startling
relief, a map of facts, touching the present and future of our Southern
Church, which demand to be seen, and considered, and dealt with,
if we mean to meet what the times exact, and keep the Church for
whose successes we are committed from being swamped. I think,
my dear Elliott, I cannot be mistaken in the signs of the times.
A few years more are all that are wanted to make what now is only
a shadowy phantom, an embodied and living and impressive reality.
And we shall have nothing left us but bitter and unavailing reproaches,
if we do not wake up to the necessity, -the stern necessity,
of providing amply for the emergency that is at the door."
|
 Bishop Stephen Elliott |
"It is not to be supposed in Northern Churchmen and everybody else gives way, that these states can continue united. If they separate, can the dioceses maintain their union? The thing is impossible. Impossible, because they of the North will not desire it, because, to say nothing else, our laity, of the South would not tolerate it. "
"But besides we are afraid of the Northern domination in our schools and pulpits... We are afraid of this influence of Northern seminaries [and] colleges on the minds of Southern youth... And in short we see no way in which relief is to be had, but by rising right up and meeting this emergency. We must shake off our lethargy, awake to the actual posture of affairs, and ourselves set about providing for our own wants."
"We must either
receive or make impressions. And the time has fully come when we
should enter upon the work of making. Aggression is of the very
essence of our commission. Educational establishments, in all departments,
are the universally recognized arsenals from whence available armour is
to be drawn for that sort of campaigning. And a sorry plight shall
we find ourselves in, presently, cut off from those whence we have been
accustomed to draw, with no alternative resources of our own. No,
my dear Elliott, I see nothing left us, but to unite at once, for the
common defense."
 Bishop Leonidas Polk |
"...we should find our Churchmen -they surely have the ability -willing to come up to such a work as is now indicated and lay the foundations of such institutions of learning as are indispensable for our security, our protection, to say nothing of prosperity.... But, my dear Sir, we are, as I think, fortunate in our surroundings, in the condition of the whole atmosphere, at the present moment. The temper of the outside public is ripe for just such a movement. It is the thing of all others they are best prepared for. The events now ripe and current, have forced the Southern mind back upon itself. It has been, and is being, driven from the North in spite of itself. A large number of young people will be forced back from the other side of the Masons and Dixons line. Right or wrong, their parents are in their own language 'done with Northern colleges.' " |
"But they would
still better propose, they should, while being protected from the taint
of Northern fanaticism have access to the highest educational advantages.
How is this to be affected? If it is to be done, it is to be done
by themselves and their fellow citizens of the South. It is their
work for the benefit of themselves and their section."
-New Orleans, Louisiana, August 20, 1856, Archives of THE
UNIVERSITY OF THE SOUTH
| "I hold that the South is to be annihilated. I mean the intellectual, social, aristocratic South- that South- is to be annihilated!" Wendell Phillips, 1862, quoted in The Great Civil War Debate by Rev. Steve Wilkins, American Vision VHS |
"...Many southerners openly criticized their hosts. South Carolinian William Martin found New Englanders 'industrious & parsimonious in the extreme... [and] almost invariably homely.'... 'Yankees sometimes cheat you if they can, and they will try to get as much out of you as they can' (Virginian Edmund Ruffin, Jr.)... By and large southerners prided themselves on their superior wealth, attractiveness, and gentility... Whether they praised or condemned their northern counterparts, southern students clearly acknowledged regional distinctiveness...'Pleasure becomes in great measure their study.... Accustomed to have every thing done from them they cannot or will not do anything for themsleves...' Southern gentry encouraged this growing regionalism among boys, for they feared that young men might form allegiances with northerners or adopt their values... It should come as no surprise that these boys, schooled in self-reliance backed up by violence, believing themselves the guardians of family as well as regional wealth and power, and nearly obsessed with self-mastery and social reputation would, given the events that unfolded in the antebellum era, become the architects of southern nationalism and instigators of civil war. -Lorri Glover, " 'Let Us Manufacture Men': Educating Elite Boys in the Early National South," SOUTHERN MANHOOD, Perspectives on Masculinity in the Old South, Edited by Craig Thompson and Lorri Glover, 2004
| __________________________
Submit your
own photographs and scans to the museum- |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Menu: (In order to view this site in proper sequence, start at Home, and then go to Biography, etc., continuing left to right across each row. If images at first do not load, hit Refresh on your browser.)
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
This
is a non-profit educational fair use web site- images and citations
reproduced herein are intended solely for scholarship and research- Copyright©2003-2005 by The Leonidas Polk Registry Research Project and www.leonidaspolk.org. All rights reserved. |
