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New Orleans Advocate.
PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY.
Rev. J. P. NEWMAN, D.D..  .. Editor. 
Rev. W. M. HENRY,.... Asst. Editor.
EDITORIAL CONTRIBUTORS:
REV. A. C. MCDONALD.
REV. N. L. BRAKEMAN
REV. R. K. DIOSSY.
REV. Jos. WELCH.
REV. W. N. DARNELL

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SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 1867. 

The New Orleans ADVOCATE can be obtained at the News Room of A. Simons, 85 Baronne street. 

Dr. Curry and the Southern Press.

Dr. Curry's remarkable editorial of Jan. 24, on "The Church and the Free Negro," is received with evident delight by the religious press of the South.- Our Southern contemporaries quote his article as from one "having authority," and rejoice over it, like those who have found "hidden treasures." They regard it as the end of the argument and as conclusive proof that the North is insincere in its efforts for the freedmen of the South. With more than ordinary confidence, they appeal to their former slaves to abandon their new friends and return to their old ones. All this is not surprising. It is perfectly natural.- And were we as ignorant of the facts as they seem to be, and in all other respects in their place, we also would rejoice. 
   
We read Dr. Curry's article with surprise and grief; surprise at the errors it contains; grief at the injury it does to the church of God. In no gentle manner the Doctor rebukes our church for its neglect of "half a million of Northern Blacks." He declares that so great is this neglect that they are "like dogs in Eastern cities, cast out to care for themselves;" they are like the man who went down to Jericho and "fell among thieves," and in a word, they are religiously the most destitute class in the North. All of the above facts we deny. The number of people of color in the North is overstated by more than one-half. There are not to-day in all the North, States and territories included, a quarter of a million of blacks. According to the census of 1860, the whole number is but 216,918. New York has 49,005; New Jersey, 25,336; Massachusetts, 9,602; Connecticut, 8,623; Illinois, 7,628; Indiana, 11,428; California, 4,086; Iowa, 1,069; Maine, 1,327; Michigan, 6,799; Minnesota, 259; New Hampshire, 494; Ohio, 36,673; Oregon, 128; Pennsylvania, 56,949; Rhode Island, 3,952; Vermont, 709; Wisconsin 1,171; and in all the territories, 302 - making in grand total, 216,918. Where then is the half million of Northern blacks over whom he weeps, and for the neglect of whom he holds up his church to the contempt of her enemies?

Nor is it true that the people of the North are religiously neglected. To illustrate: In New York City there are 12,472 blacks, and for their exclusive accommodation, there are eleven churches - one Baptist, one Congregational, three Presbyterian, three Episcopalian, and three Methodist. Most of these churches will accommodate one thousand persons each; and therefore, after deducting for the children and those who can't attend, there will be more church accommodations than there are blacks to be accommodated. There is no class of persons in the North more amply provided for religiously than those under consideration. It is not Africa, but it is Caucasia, who is "stretching out her hands to God." The whites - Germans, Irish, Welsh, French, - are the "Greeks who are famishing for the bread of life." What are three hundred and three churches in New York for the accommodation of 800,000 white citizens in that great metropolis? And what is true of New York is true of all the larger towns in the great free North.

And it is a magnificent fact, that of all the Northern churches, none has a brighter record for sympathy with the men of color than the Methodist Episcopal Church. When aid was needed aid was extended. At the seat of our annual conferences, our preachers joyfully fill the pulpit; at our last General Conference, a delegation of black men were received with all the courtesy accorded to whit men, and more recently, an African was ordained a bishop in St. Paul's church, N.Y., the wealthiest of all our churches. While in our whole connection there is not a church paper that is not the advocate for the rights of the man of color. Instead, therefore, of "stripping him of his raiment," it is the pious ambition of the Church to clothe him with all the rights of manhood. He is not a "dog cast out," but a brother beloved. It is, therefore, with joy that we vindicate our beloved Church against the indiscreet attacks of one of her sons, whose spleen had gained the mastery of his better judgment.

How they Affiliate.

The Christian Reader of Feb. 2, in referring to the Report on the Religious Condition of the South, adopted at our last Conference, pronounces the statement that the African Methodists were seeking to unite with the Church South to oppose the M.E. Church, a "mischievous falsehood." It then calls on us "to prove it, or take it back," and in default of this, threatens to take us in hand and expose our "misrepresentation." - We think it is fully time that the public should understand the strange movements of the A.M.E. Church, and the unexpected course it has seen fit to pursue in regard to our work here. We affirm the following facts:

1. The A.M.E. Church bitterly opposes the M.E. Church in her work among the colored people. Its determined purpose to do this was announced last April to the General Conference of the M.E. Church South, by three ministers appointed as delegates to that body. In their communication made to the General Conference they argue: "It is not natural that the colored Christians South should desire to unite themselves with the Church North, the main body of which is in the Northern States, while they themselves were born and raised in the South, and especially so when the Northern Church seeks them only to increase their own numbers and to add to their financial interests." - How the gratuitous gift of thousands annually by our church to the Southern work can turn to her financial benefit, or why colored Christians should turn from a church which, comes to them from the same quarter from whence liberty had come, we do not see; and the statement that our Church is here for other than legitimate objects of christian effort, is unwarranted by facts, and utterly unworthy of professed ministers of Christ.

After giving such reasons for uniting the two churches, each of which is intensely Southern, and equally destitute of "financial interests," to oppose the M.E. Church, the committee indulge in the following resolutions:

1. Resolved, That we do most cordially reciprocate the feelings expressed to us by the Bishops and brethren of the M.E. Church South,

2. Resolved, That it shall ever be our most [[?]] endeavor to perpetuate that reciprocity of Christian and fraternal feeling [[?]] begun.

3. Resolved, That we believe it is the manifest design of the agents of the M.E. Church North to absorb the A.M.E. Church in the United States of America, the colored churches under the jurisdiction of the M.E. Church South, and ultimately to annihilate the M.E. Church South as to its distinctive organization. 

4. Resolved, That it is vitally important that we unite in an unbroken phalanx to oppose, by all prudent and Christian means, the aggressions now being made upon us both by the accredited agents of the M.E. Church North.

This offer of alliance, and the pitiable crouching before a slave-driving Southern church did not, after all, secure the financial interests so earnestly sought.- Never were men core cruelly snubbed or more fairly kicked out of doors than these same African ministers. Their temerity in proposing a "transfer o deeds" from the Church South to trustees of those congregations that had joined the A.M.E. Church was withering rebuked, and they were denounced as "intruders" into the South, as "disorganizers" of churches, until even they had manhood enough left to retire from the galleries in which they [[?]] delegates.
But it seems that even this rude repulse did not change their determination to "unite in unbroken phalanx to oppose the M.E. Church." A sort of compromise was ultimately effected, and at the close of the General Conference the chairman of the delegation went to Natchez, Miss., where, in a public address following one delivered by a Dr. Wadkins, he is said to have equaled, if he did not exceed, the denunciations of that fiery divine in his tirade against the Church North." How well the "unbroken phalanx" has been maintained let Galveston, New Orleans, Thibodeaux, Baton Rouge, Natchez, Vicksburg and Yazoo City be witnesses. There is a history connected with these points, which if pressed we may yet give.  At Yazoo City the African minister surreptitiously obtained and tried to hold the deed of a church built by funds appropriated direct from the Missionary Society of the M.E. Church and superintended in its erection by Bro. Brakeman at the peril of his life. In other places they have made persistent efforts to dislodge our societies from churches which they occupy and had built with their own money. The "phalanx" has remained so far "unbroken," and thus it is seen that the A.M.E. Church does unite with the M.E. Church South to oppose the M.E. Church. 

2. Such opposition has been unprovoked on the part of the M.E. Church. Two years ago, in advance of the trouble which has since occurred, we called on Bishop Campbell and proposed that as our work among the colored people was similar, we should be united. He replied that whenever he could come into the M.E. Church in his official character, as the peer, in all respects, of Bishop Ames, he would then enter [[?]]the proposition. Knowing that the General Conference alone had the appointing of our bishops, and not knowing whether that august body would judge that the "gifts, grace and usefulness" of Bishop Campbell would entitle him "in all respects" to be the peer of Bishop Ames, we could give the ambitious Bishop no assurances that he would be thus received.  He was the rub. The Bishop and his equally aspiring brethren who afterward formed the "delegation of three," seemed to regard their ecclesiastical dignity of far more importance than the peace of the Church, and fearing the growing power of the M.E. Church, immediately laid their plans to strike hands with a church leprous with treason to oppose one which has done more for human liberty than any other on the continent. In the last session of the conference of the A.M.E Church, held in this city, their speeches, resolutions, and even pulpit ministrations abounded within denunciations of the Church North, for such they uniformly style the M.E. Church, which the kindest feeling and gratitude eve, was uniformly expressed for the M.E. Church South. And it was seriously attempted by Bishop Campbell, assisted by Dr. Keener, to withdraw our three largest colored societies, with an aggregate membership of over 2,000 souls, from their allegiance to the M.E. Church.

3. These efforts, openly made and the determination publicly expressed, to "unite in unbroken phalanx," has not as yet been authoritatively disavowed either through the press or by the bishops of that church. The Church South publicly asserts that the A.M.E. Church is its faithful ally. The Texas Christian Advocate of Jan. 10, in welcoming Bishop Campbell, says: "The fraternal relations established at the late General Conference, between the Church South and this excellent body of Christians remains undisturbed." The Southern Christian Advocate of a later date, says: "Since the alliance between it (the A.M.E. Church) and the M.E. Church South, the Northern Methodists have found out its worth, and they are now coquetting with it." These public declarations must be held as authoritative till properly denied.

4. We have no inimical feelings to the African Methodists. Our first proposition to them was one of conciliation.- And though they, unwisely as we think, rejected the overture and formed a most unnatural alliance, we still regard them after all, as much "sinned against as sinning." The truth is, they have fallen into the hands of unscrupulous adepts in ecclesiastical strategy, who are using them for most unworthy ends. If the A.M.E Church in the North does not awake it will find that its representatives in the South have irreversibly linked its destiny with the fate of "churches that have been false to civil and religious liberty." 

Editorial Items.
Rev. Dr. Newman will preach in the Representatives' Hall, Sunday morning, at 11 o'clock. 
Several important articles are omitted this week; but will appear in our next issue.
We publish this week a synopsis of the Majority Report of the Congressional Committee on the New Orleans riots, together with a copy of Mr. Elliot's bill, which the House passed by a vote of 113 to 43. 

Correction.
If it is not a thing too small to notice, we take pleasure in informing our worthy contemporary of the Christian Reorder, that Bishop Simpson and the Editor of this paper were in full accord in the action of the M.M. Conference touching to the A.M.E. Church. He should be wary how "we learn."

Information Wanted. 
Andrew Greene, of Donaldsonville La., wishes to gain information concerning relatives Gracie and Charity Ashe, whom he left in the District of Columbia, twenty-seven years ago. 
Also, Margaret Knox, of New Orleans, wishes to gain information of her sisters, Evalind and Maria. Their mother's name was Clarissa, and lived in Brunswick county, Va. 

Freedmen's Savings and Trust Company. 
(Principal office 87 Cedar street, New York.)
STATEMENT FOR THE MONTH OF OCTOBER, 1866.
Alexandria, Va.  $60 00
Augusta, Ga.   1,563 43
Baltimore, Md.   3,017 75
Beaufort, S.C.  17,597 82
Charleston, S.C.   10,818 00
Houston, Texas   1,872 85
Huntsville, Ala.   150 00
Jacksonville, Fla.  1,216 30
Louisville, Ky.   1,032 05
Memphis, Tenn.   188 00
Mobile, Ala.   6,328 00
Nashville, Tenn.   3,049 37
Newbern, N.C.   -----
New Orleans, La.   6,425 02
New York City   4,548 00
Norfolk, Va.   681 55
Richmond, Va.   153 45
Savannah, Ga.   1,224 40
Tallahassee, Fla.   170 82
Vicksburg, Miss.   42 00
Washington, D.C.   751 99
Wilmington, N.C.   703 28
Total  $61,484 08
Total amount of deposits rec'd  $831,774 85
drafts paid  553,053 95
Balance due depositors   $278,720 90

STATEMENT FOR THE MONTH OF NOVEMBER, 1866.
Alexandria, Va.   $57 00
Augusta, Ga.   1,257 88
Baltimore Md.   37,380 51
Beaufort, S.C.   20,698 36
Charleston, S.C.   9,803 02
Houston, Texas   496 00
Huntsville, Ala.   87 00
Jacksonville, Fla.   1,753 32
Louisville, Ky.   8,865 85
Memphis, Tenn.   10 00
Mobile, Ala.   8,025 92
Nashville, Tenn.   4,835 24
Newbern, N.C.   249 00
New Orleans, La.   8,012 16
New York City   2,591 25
Norfolk, Va.   3,009 56
Richmond, Va.   253 13
Savannah, Ga.   2,465 13
Tallahassee, Fla.   944 81
Vicksburg, Miss.   25 00
Washington, D.C.   2,103 97
Wilmington, N.C.   900 00
Total   $113,774 05
The above reports are for the five weeks ending Dec. 1, except Alexandria, Baltimore, Houston, Norfolk and Wilmington, which are to Nov. 24
Balance due depositors, as per las reports  $268,289 22

STATEMENTS FOR THE MONTH OF DECEMBER, 1866.
Augusta, Ga  $1,759 80
Baltimore, Md.   12,309 24
Beaufort, S.C.   18,334 30
Charleston, S.C.   6,470 71
Houston, Texas   435 00
Jacksonville, Fla.   4,635 99
Louisville, Ky.   23,110 06
Memphis, Tenn.   698 65
Mobile, Ala.   9,103 32
Nashville, Tenn.   3,598 92 
Newbern, N.C.   ----
New Orleans, La.   5,089 06
New York City   2,084 00
Norfolk, Va.   17,881 19
Richmond, Va.   7,759 35
Savannah, Ga.   1,732 48
Tallahassee, Fla.   368 23
Vicksburg, Miss.   19 00
Washington, D.C.   3,840 71
Wilmington, N.C.   26 00
Total   $119,251 01
Total drafts for the month   100,808 01
Excess of deposits as per last reports   $304,437 57

Local and Southern News.
U.S. Senator
Hon. George Williamson, has been elected United States Senator for Louisiana. Col. Williamson served with distinction, during the war, on the staff of Gen. Polk, and afterwards with Gen. Smith in the Trans-Mississippi department. On the return of peace, he resumed the practice of law in Shreveport, and now represents the parish of Caddo in the legislature. 
As a lawyer, he is noted for his clearness of argument and precision of statement; and as a politician, for an integrity and consistency which, combined with his native modesty, have gained for him the esteem of a large circle of friends and admirers.- N.O. Crescent. 
There was a light fall of snow in the parish of St. James on Wednesday night last.
A negro who killed another in Memphis a few weeks ago, and fled to this city, has returned to Memphis and surrendered himself to the authorities. He was released on $2000 bail, which was furnished by two responsible individuals of his own color.  

LAFOURCHE.-- An iron bridge is about to be built over Bayou Lafourche at the Thibodeaux, at a cost of $12,000.

BATON ROUGE.-- The U.S Colored Artillery, (heavy,) will at once be mustered out of service at Baton Rouge, as an entire organization, its services being no longer required. 
We learn from the Gazette that the ladies of Liberty, (Tex.) were to give a festival on the night of the 30th, at the court house, for the benefit of the family of Jefferson Davis.

CRIMINAL COURT.--Judge Love, presiding.-- The State vs. Austin Barns, a negro. Indictment theft of chickens from Gen. Jno. W. Harris. Verdict guilty. Fined $100 and fifteen days imprisonment.
The State vs. Austin Barns, a negro. Indictment theft of chickens from Gen. Jno. W. Harris. Verdict guilty. Fined $100 and fifteen days imprisonment.
The State vs. J. Peter Langley. Indictment theft of coal from Messrs. Wolston,Wells & Vidor. No verdict in this case given, the jury not agreeing. 
Galveston News.
SHAMEFUL.-- Two men called at the house of Mr. J. Chambard, who lives some five or six miles down the Island and made inquiries concerning the residents in the neighborhood. Without saying anything more they turned upon the lady of the house, her husband and a hired man, and beat them in a most shameful manner. We, as well as the abused partics, are at a loss to conjecture the cause of the villainous attack. As yet the rascals have not been apprehended.--Ibid

FREEDMEN. -- The Trinity (Tex) News gives the following as the state of the case about Palestine: 
We are pleased to notice, on the part of this portion of our population, as a disposition to work, and we are glad to be able to chronicle the fact, that the most of them have contracted with white men, for the present year, to do farm labor. They seem to recognize the fact that they must "eat bread by the sweat of their brow," and have gone to work in earnest. Let them be treated humanely, and if there is good in them, give them a chance to show it by their labor. 

EXTRAORDINARY ARRIVALS -- The Pensacola Observer of the 9th inst. says:
We have during the year arrivals of foreign vessels from almost every known port, and frequently vessels that have colored crews, but the schooner Fleede, which arrived here this week from Havana and Cuba with a cargo of West India fruit, presents an anomaly in having a colored captain ad crew, who owned the vessel. The schooner had been abandoned at sea, and by their exertions they saved her and fitted her up. She is now in good sailing condition. -- This is an instance of enterprise on the part of Sambo that is rarely met with. 

A MEMORIAL CHURCH -- Mrs. Jefferson Davis, Mrs. Robert E. Lee, Mrs. Frank P. Blair, Mrs. N.B. Forrest, Mrs. L.M. Keitt, Mrs. Andrew Johnson, Mrs. A. Longstreet, Miss Augusta Evans, and others are on the list of honorary members of the association of ladies formed in Memphis for the purpose of raising funds to erect a magnificent church edifice to the memory of the Confederate dead. The mural tablets are to be inscribed with the names of such which may be furnished by societies throughout the Southern States.--Exchange. 

COTTON --  The highest estimate of the cotton crop of 1866 is 1,400,000 bales of 500 pounds per bale, giving a gross weight of 700,000,000 pounds. The tax law of 1866 allows four per centum tare for baling, rope, etc., which leaves a net weight of 672,000,000 pounds. This crop, at 84 cents per pound, will bring nearly $229,000,000--very nearly as much as was brought by the large crop of 1860. The government tax upon it, at 3 cents per pound, will amount to over $20,000,000. A Georgian says his State contributes 164,000 bales to the crop, and will get almost as much for this amount as she received for 701,840 bales in 1860. The government reaps from these 164,000 bales a revenue of nearly two and two-fifths millions of dollars. This will give a fair idea of the taxation of Texas in the same direction. -- Exchange. 
The San Antonio Herald gives the particulars of the killing of Mr. Kennedy by Mr. Wm. Edgar, on the El Paso road a short time since. The case seems to have been one of self-defence. From Kennedy's statements it appears that he came from Enterprise, Miss. He was buried at camp, and his effects consisting of $356 mostly in American gold, a pistol, pair of saddle-bags, etc. were taken charge of by Judge W.H. Bacon, of Franklin, Texas. 
The Henderson Times says, laborers are very scarce in that region. It hears a great many farms will be put partially cultivated this year. 

WORK FOR WHITE MEN.--We copy the following sensible remarks from the Meridian Messenger:
A great many people are greatly exercised about the negroes working. The way the negro works (or don't work) is the topic of conversation everywhere, where two or three are gathered together. The disposition of the negro to labor (or not to labor) is watched with intense interest, by those who seem to take no special interest in anything else. We are sick and disgusted with this everlasting talk about the shortcomings of the colored population. In God's name, can't our people elevate their thoughts above the negro, or bestow them on worthier objects? We claim to feel as kindly towards the negro as he deserves of us, and when we see him about to be engulphed and lost in idleness and vice, we feel, we hope, a rational concern. But, at the same time, we honestly confess to the instincts which give our own race the preference in all our thoughts. If we are concerned about the disposition of the negro, to do or not to do, yet our concern sinks into indifference compared with the concern we fell for the conduct of the white. While some are fretting and fuming about the lazy negroes they see in the towns and villages, who refuse to contract and engage in regular employment, we are immeasurably more distressed at the sight of lazy white men and women. If the negro, as a free man, do all the work and earn all the wages, he will prove himself the better man of the two. We are anxious for the white man to assert his superiority in all things by his work, and therefore our anxiety for the white man to go to work. 

SYNOPSIS
of the
Report of the Investigation Committee of the New Orleans Massacre

WASHINGTON, Feb. 11
The following is a synopsis of the report of Messrs. Eliot and Shellabarger. They were appointed on the 10th of December, and commenced the following day examing citizens of Louisiana here. They commenced their examination in New Orleans on the 22d day of December, and closed on the 3d of January. They resumed here on the 15th and closed their examination on the 2d of February. 
They examined 179 witnesses, 47 of whom were examined at request in New Orleans. Our history shows no riot so destitute of justifiable cause, resulting in a massacre so inhuman and fiend like. 
The direct cause of the riot was the reassembling of the convention of '64, pursuant to a call by Hon. R.K. Howell, acting president. 
The committee gives the history of the convention and riot. Some policemen acted to save, and not destroy life. Several members, including Fish, were saved by being arrested. 
Gov. Hahn was protected in passing from the hall to the prison, though he received many blows from other policemen before falling into the hands that saved him. There were some other instances of kindliness by the police. There were exceptional cases. The police and mob, in bloody emulation, continued their butchery until nearly two hundred were killed and wounded. 
Ten policemen were wounded, none seriously, none were killed. If the conventionists had been armed, or the colored people had been called in advance to protect the convention, this would not have been the case. The riot was not an accident, it was the determined purpose of the Mayor to disperse the convention. The committee proceeds to discuss the question, quoting a telegram from the President to Lieut. Governor Voorhies, which they say assured Voorhies of Presidential support in the proposed action. 
The President is censured for overlooking the Governor, whom he knew to be loyal, in addressing the Lieutenant Governor and Attorney General, known not to be in sympathy with the Governor, and giving directions, which, if carried out as the Lieutenant Governor and Attorney General understood them, would have placed the military with the Mayor in arresting the members of the Convention. 
The President knew the condition of affairs in July, knew that the rebel thugs were disloyal men who controlled Monroe's election, knew such men chiefly composed the police, knew Mayor Monroe, an unpardoned rebel, was suspended by the military. He had subsequently pardoned him, and must have known Voorhies and Herron's rebel antecedents, knew a riot and bloodshed were apprehended, knew that military orders were in force, yet without the knowledge of the Secretary of War or General of the army, gave orders by telegraph to compel the soldiers to aid rebels against men loyal during the war. The committee discussed at length the right of Congress to legislate to place Louisiana within the control of loyal men. The military must control until the people of Louisiana adopt a constitution assuring safety to the republic, and receiving