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TO THE POPLE OF THE NORTHERN STATES.

The Southern Relief Commission, appointed by the large meeting held at the Cooper Institute, on Friday evening last, invite the attention of their fellow citizens to the necessity of immediate, generous and universal effort in behalf of the famine-smitten districts of the South.

[[stamped]] THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES OF THE UNITED STATES [[/stamped]]

The war, of which the Southern States were mainly the theatre, through so many successive years, not only killed and maimed multitudes of husbands and fathers, and thus frightfully added to the number of widows and orphans; but it impoverished the people, taking from them the present means of producing wealth, or, to any considerable extent, the ordinary comforts of life.  Their cattle, horses, fences and implements of husbandry are gone, to a degree of which the agricultural districts of the North know next to nothing; and years of fruitful seasons must come and to before the South has again the power to produce the wealth in which she once luxuriated.

But in the first year after the close of the terrible conflict, while the shadows of her crippled resources rested on every face, and in very heart and home, the floods of the Spring and the scorching drought of the Summer well nigh destroyed, in large parts of the States of Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and South and North Carolina, the great staple crop that gives bread and meat to the people.  Beginning at the Mississippi River and going in a northeasterly direction through these States, from 600 to 700 miles, and including a territory from 150 to 200 miles wide, with a population of perhaps a million and a half souls, it is believed that there are not breadstuffs sufficient to supply the wants of half the people until another harvest is gathered.  Those who have the means will provide themselves with food at any price.  But how, in the midst of a universal scarcity both of provisions and money, are the poor, and the families bereaved of fathers, husbands and sons, to obtain bread?

Of such scarcity, both of bread and money, in the large district referred to there can be no doubt.  The testimony comes from eyewitnesses whose veracity if unquestionable, and from men who could have no motive to overstate the suffering and poverty of the South.  It is incredible that a State, such as Georgia, should vote $20,000 to pay the freight on provisions, contributed to her suffering people, if Want, as the forerunner of Famine, were not at her doors.

What, then, is the present imperative duty of this Northern American people?  It is remembered what they felt it to be their duty to do for Greece, and for Ireland, and for Lancashire, when their necessities cried to them for help.  But if prompt and eager and munificent giving was a duty then, what shall be the measure of their contributions now that the Wail of Distress comes from those of our own household, from men and women and children who are themselves Americans, and are known to be such throughout the world? Can we withhold from them the succor we gave to the suffering poor of other nations?

We earnestly request such cooperation, on the part of philanthropic men and women, in every part of the North, as shall make it possible to do more for the relief of the South than has been done by them in answer to all the other similar calls for relief.  Clergymen are especially desired to bring the subject to the immediate notice of their congregations; women are as earnestly requested to make it one of the objects of their patient and heroic endeavor; and every man, whatever may be his political or religious opinions, is solicited to give his help in providing the needed supplies.

The utmost care will be taken to secure a distribution that shall reach all classes of sufferers, without respect of race or opinion, and it is believed that the States in which the distribution is to be made will pay the expenses of transportation.  But the first necessity is a Treasury kept so full of money that large sums can be drawn from it to purchase supplies.  A million of dollars