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September 16, 1963
The Rt. Rev. Daniel Corrigan Episcopal Church Center 815 Second Avenue New York 17, New York
Dear Bishop Corrigan:
Your letter of September 6 is most thoughtful. You credit me with more than I deserve.
It certainly would be a pleasure to talk with you about Leonidas Polk. I don't think I am going to be in New York before your deadline, October 13, but if I am I will certainly look forward to a visit with you, evben a brief one.
By today's standards Polk made two great mistakes. He did not free his slaves (nor did he sell them and use the money to build churches) and he accepted a commision to the Confederate Army. In judging him, we must be disciplined by his alternatives.
To free a large number of slaves, in the period 1835 to 1860 in the deep South, was no favor to the slaves. Among Polk's slaves, probably ten percent were literate. A few others had skills with some economic value. THe great majority of them could do absolutely nothing except hoe cotton under close supervision. We have numerous accounts of slaves pleading not to be freed by their masters, and unless a slave owner were financially prepared to give each of them some sort of dowry for their journey into freedom, they were usually much worse off without a master to whom they could look for protection. Polk's letters and diaries are full of references to his tremendous humanitarian concern for his slaves' welfare. My personal feeling is that he accepted slavery as the least bad of several alternatives.
The matter of selling slaves was even worse. The slave of the deep South had a terrible horror of "being sold down the river" at the New Orleans slave market. It was probably the uncertainty of the future situation which was so appalling to him. If Polk had inherited stocks and bonds instead of slaves, and if his wife's fortune had consist-
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The Rt. Rev. Daniel Corrigan
September 19, 1963 Page 2.
ed in negotiable securities, the Episcopal Church would probably today rank first in membership in the State of Texas. Polk's actions and his letters clearly indicate that he would have bought property for churches, and would have founded schools, and would have paid the salaries of clergymen from his own means. He did not accept a salary for fifteen years after he became bishop. For Polk to have done with his slaves what today seems logical, he would have to be a cruel and heartless man, unconcerned with the fears, apprehensions, and even suffering of his black wards. His great friend Bishop Stephen Elliott, you know, was an advocate of the "exportation" movement to send slaves back to Africa. This movement collapsed not merely because of the excessive cost, but it was virtually impossible to find volunteers for the return voyage. Polk considered forcible deportation to be in human. In this respect I would say that Polk is a man whom history has made to look bad. My private opinion is that Polk today would be a leader in the desegregation movement in the South, just as nearly all of our present bishops are.
Polk's entry into the military service also must be considered in the context of the times. In 1861, when he accepted his commission as major general, the South's cause was a holy war. The history of Western Europe was filled with instances in which both sides were fighting for God. The South, his homeland, was being invaded, and the leader of the invasion, Abraham Lincoln, was not at all the Abraham Lincoln now known to us in history. In 1861 Lincoln was an able man but hardly a great one. His tremendous magnanimity, his courage, and his selfless devotion to the preserving of the nation all emerged in 1862, 1863, and 1864.
When after making allowances for these two "mistakes" one looks at the rest of the life of Leonidas Polk, it is found to be virtually blameless. I would say that Polk's message for us today is simply this. He wanted the very best for the Episcopal Church. With only thirty thousand members in the entire South, distinctly a minor denomination, he was willing to envision, plan, and actually launch an educational institution wich was at least twenty years ahead of its time and possibly
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The Rt. Rev. Daniel Corrigan
September 19, 1963 Page 3.
more. The University of the South, as he conceived it, would have been by a safe margin of two decades the first modern university in America, a title now held by Johns Hopkins with Leland Stanford University in second place. There were, occasionally, Episcopalians in the early nineteenth century who "thought big." There is not one of them however who thought with long perspective and who labored successfully to effectuate his ideas. Polk is not to be blamed for the failure of the University of the South to open as the first modern university in America anymore than the original architect of Coventry Cathedral is to be blamed for its having been leveled during World War II. Circumstances beyond the control of either were responsible for the destruction.
When I give talks on Leonidas Polk, which I do every now and then, I do not dwell on this defensive attitude, but it has been very important for me in my own mind to be able to defend him. He really does not need an apology, but he is, on occasion, attacked by those who do not understand the context of the times and who are not disciplined by his alternatives.
Do come to see us when you can.
With best wishes, I am
Sincerely yours,
Arthur Chitty
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