"contrabands" in and around Washington by General James Wadsworth, then Military Governor of the District. In July, 1862, the freedmen, by an order of the Government, were transferred to "McClellan's Barracks," known afterwards as Camp Barker, in the northwestern part of the city. Owing to the frequent visits from slave owners in Maryland, hunting for their escaped slaves, in June 1863, these colored people were removed to Arlington Heights, one hundred persons forming the colony.

The present village, under the superintendence of Mr. Nichols, was selected and laid out, and on the 4th of December, 1863, was dedicated by appropriate religious services; and a school-house, used also as a place of worship, and a hospital for the aged and infirm, were built. A school had been previously organized by Mr. Sperry, of the American Tract Society, under a majestic oak, near to a fine spring of pure water. Under the earnest and faithful labors of the superintendent and others, hundreds of children and adults received the rudiments of education, and were instructed in religious knowledge. The village contained at one time fifteen hundred souls, and since its location several thousand have been under its religious and educational influences. A Methodist church was formed, and subsequently one by the Baptists, the latter of which is now in a flourishing condition, and under the pastoral care of Rev. Mr. Laws, (colored,) who has received during the last year ninety persons into church fellowship. A large Sabbathschool is also in a flourishing condition.

In May, 1865, the village came under the care of the Freedmen's Bureau, whose Commissioner is Major Gen O. O. Howard, the Christian, hero and philanthropist, who has administered this important branch of the Government with great success and integrity, and labored assiduously and earnestly to protect the rights and elevate and bless the colored race.

The village was visited at different times, in the years of 1863-4-5, by Hon. Hannibal Hamlin, Vice President of the United States; Hon. William H. Seward, Secretary of State; Hon. Salmon P. Chase, Secretary of the Treasury; Hon. Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy; Hon. Charles H. Dana, Assistant Secretary of War; Generals Meigs, Auger, and Doubleday; Lord Lyons, the English Minister, attended by Admiral Milne, of the Royal Navy; the Russian admiral and his suite, and other notables. Secretary Seward had visited the village thirteen times, and his wife and daughter, both deceased, who were distinguished for their practical sympathy for the oppressed and the poor, and around whose memories cling precious recollections, had frequently visited the village, and manifested the deepest interest and Christian sympathy in their physical comfort and in their intellectual and religious culture and elevation.

On Saturday, the 5th of January, 1867, the friends of the freedmen met in the church of the village to engage in the ceremonies of the day. It had been tastefully decorated with evergreens and beautiful banners by the colored people, and over the pulpit was wreathed in letters of evergreen the name of "ABRAHAM LINCOLN."

THE CEREMONIES

were commenced by an impressive and fervent prayer by the Rev. Mr. Johnson, of the United Presbyterian church.

8. V. Boyd, Esq., who had been active and liberal in getting up the first colored regiment in the District of Columbia, and is an earnest friend of the colored people, was appointed to preside. He introduced the first speaker as follows:

On such a happy occasion as the present, it is eminently proper that the first address should be from the distinguished Representative in Congress at large from the State of Illinois, the home of ABRAHAM LINCOLN, who issued the immortal Proclamation of Free

dom to four millions of slaves, and who, in yonder capital, on the 14th of April, 1865, fell a martyr to his country and to the fredom of an oppressed race. I have the honor to introduce Hon. S. W. MOULTON, of Illinois.

ADDRESS OF HON. S. W. MOULTON, OF ILLINOIS.

MY FELLOW-COUNTRYMEN: I am rejoiced to have the opportunity of meeting with you to-day under these happy auspices.

I am an entire stranger to you, living a thousand miles away, in the great State of Illinois, the former home of the great Lincoln. I am here by accident, not expecting to address you; but I esteem it a privilege and pleasure to speak to you a few earnest words of congratulation and encouragement on this to you deeply interesting and happy occasion.

This is the anniversary of your emancipation. It is your jubilee.

For hundreds of years your race has been kept in chains and slavery of the most revolting and degrading character. All generous impulses, hopes, and ambition were crushed out, and you were simply machines, operatives, at the will of a tyrant master. Such is your past history.

But thanks be to an allwise Providence and the disinterested patriotism and humanity of your great friend, the lamented Lincoln, your chains have been broken, slavery forever destroyed within this Union, and all the responsibilities of American citizenship have devolved upon you.

My friends, do you understand fully the import of freedom, liberty, and citizenship? By being free, you are not thereby discharged from the obligations of citizens—from responsibilities and from labor to support yourselves and families. With citizenship your responsibilities begin; you stand erect before the world as men and women. Have you the mental and moral qualities to enable you to take care of yourselves in the race of life, is one of the questions that you alone can solve.

Your friends believe that you possess the elements to make good citizens and to enable you to discharge all your obligations to society, if you are permitted to have a fair and equal chance in the world

All you ask is that the laws of the country shall operate equally upon all, without regard to race or color. With this you are content to take your chances. This is reasonable and just, and no vote of mine shall ever be given to deprive your race of perfect equality before the law.

You, as a people, have given the most indisputable evidence of your love of this Union and hatred of treason by watering with your blood an hundred battle-fields. Your black hands have carried aloft triumphantly the old flag, through fields of blood, carnage, and death. In the great struggle through which we have just passed you have helped to keep the jewel of liberty for those who are to come after us. You have been true to every duty, and all you ask now, in return, is equality before the law.

My friends, this you are entitled to, and this will be guaranteed you by the legislation of the country.

Already you have been enfranchised in this District, and a bill is now pending before Congress for the establishment of a free-school system, under which every child will be entitled to a common-school education. This is legislation in the right direction, and indicates progress.

But, my friends, if equal and just laws are afforded you, if you are permitted to fully enjoy the fruits of your own labor and to stand upon an equality with all others, this is all you have a right to expect.

You must exert your own energies, you must put forth your own hands and labor; and unless you do this, freedom and equality will not aid you in the hard struggle of life; you will fail in all the objects of life, and will become a burden to yourselves and society. Then your first duty is to seek employment. Don't crowd into the cities; go into the country, where labor is scarce and in demand. Work honestly and faithfully; acquire homes for yourselves and children; and show to the world that if you have a chance, you can maintain your relative position in society. This I believe you can and will do. You have much to contend with; you have prejudices against you to overcome; you have inveterate enemies to conquer; and, strangely enough at this time, many of those whom you had a right to expect to be your friends, have now become your enemies. They have coldly turned their backs upon you, and would leave you to the tender mercies of your former master.

But, my friends, you can survive this treachery.

The good and the true everywhere are your friends. The Thirty-Ninth Congress will do you, I hope, full justice.

Up to this time you have done better than your friends expected. You have everywhere evinced a desire for education, and you have, under the circumstances, made wonderful improvement, developing mental powers of a superior order in the acquisition of elementary education.

My friends, there is one in the clear, blue, upper sky who looks down upon us here to day and rejoices with us at your happy prospects, and the results of his labors on this earth.

The great name of the martyred Lincoln you never can forget. He was your friend, and the friend of humanity. He always faithfully kept and performed his promises to your race. Your faithful hearts overflow with gratitude towards him. His memory will always be sweet to you.

Emulate his great qualities: his truth, his simplicity, his honesty, his benevolence, love of freedom, and liberty.

There are four millions of your race among us; our destinies, hopes, and aspirations are the same.

We have the same country and flag. Let there be no strife between us. Let harmony, fraternity, liberty, and equality everywhere prevail.

If you, my fellow-countrymen, discharge all your duties as citizens to the extent of your abilities, the expectation and hopes of your friends will be more than realized. Prosperity and .ppiness will be yours; and you can forgot the chains that have so recently bound you in your improved and happier condition.

ADDRESS OF HON. R. W. CLARKE, M. C. FROM OHIO.

Mr. CLARKE said: The colored race in our country had suffered long and patiently. Two hundred and fifty years of servitude had laid heavy and bitter burdens upon them, and had borne them down to the very earth; but the day of deliverance had come to them; and although they were poor, uneducated, houseless, and homeless, still they were blessed with one happy attribute of humanity that they had not enjoyed heretofore-the right of personal liberty, the right to assert a claim to humanity, and to ask of the nation the protection it demands. The Government has done a good thing for the colored people of the country; it has moved slowly, indeed, but it has advanced as rapidly as the interests of the oppressed and the prejudices of the people would admit. Many of us have had to combat those prejudices even where slavery never existed; even in free States, where only free people live, there are those who, being free themselves, think it no hardship if all

others are slaves, especially if they have a skin darker than their own. With such we have had to contend, and many and bitter the conflicts we have had in maintaining the right of the negro to claim with all men a share in a common humanity. The battle has been fought, well fought, and victory has declared for the right. You are sharers with the white man and all races of men in a common humanity; you are, as all men in this Government are, and of right ought to be, free! To-day our law pronounces you men and women, endowed with certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And the boon of freedom once bestowed, is not easily taken away. No force will dare to wrench it from you. Take care that, by your own improvidence, you do not give it back to your masters, who, while there is the faintest hope of recovering their lost estate, will not cease to watch with eager eyes, and seize upon the earliest occasion that may promise them success.

Let me encourage you so to live that you may fully meet public expectation, and justify the efforts that good men have made in your behalf. Be sober, industrious, and moral; educate yourselves as far as practicable; educate your children by all means; do not become idle or profligate, that your enemies may thereby assume to prove your incapacity for the condition of freemen; rely upon your own exertions for a livelihood; do not look to the Freedmen's Bureau or public charities for support, but go forth in the world with freemen's privileges, and like freemen live upon the fruits of your own labor. Do this, and you cannot fail; do this, and you will make a generous return to those who, for long years, have struggled in your behalf, some of whom have given their lives to your cause; do this, and God will follow you with his mercies, and in his own good time and way open to you new views in the future that shall rejoice your hearts, and make you realize that on earth even the down-trodden black man may look up towards Heaven, and smile as he feels its blessings descending upon him.

ADDRESS OF GENERAL C. H. HOWARD, ASS'T COMMISSIONER BUREAU R., F., AND A. L. FRIENDS AND FELLOW-CITIZENS: I gladly avail myself of this opportunity to greet you early in this meeting and upon this festival day. I do not feel that I am a stranger here; you have probably all heard my voice before, as I have more than once addressed you from this platform. Hitherto I have spoken to you of my official work, so closely connected with your interests; sometimes have said that which to some was not palatable, and am well aware have advocated measures which bore harshly upon some, though intended for the general good. But I come to-day to offer congratulation. It is a fit day of rejoicing for you. This festival celebrates the anniversary of your freedom. Those who were born free can never fully appreciate the deep meaning of your joy on this anniversary. It is a privilege for me to be present, to show that I can rejoice with you when you rejoice. It seems but half-hearted sympathy that merely pities those who are in want and suffering, but turns coldly away when the tears of joy begin to flow.

Arriving in Washington this morning from a brief absence in the North, (where, bythe-way, I met some of your number who have found good homes there, of whom I will endeavor to tell you more, if there is time, as well as of the provision made for others of you who will go.) I saw by the newspapers that you were to have a grand dinner given by your friends and a general day of rejoicing, and I determined that nothing should prevent me from being present.

I have called you fellow-citizens, and this anniversary celebrates the birth of your citizenship. Since that memorable day of 1863, you have had the indisputable right to the name. But no name, no words of mine, can give more than a faint semblance either of the meaning of that day to you, or of the emotions of your hearts as you recollect the

boon it brought. I have not failed to see that revered and loved name of Lincoln intertwined there in your decorations of this chapel, as it is indissolubly knit with your fondest affections and most cherished memories.

On the return of this anniversary you will speak of him to one another; you will talk of him to your children, and a cloud will cover for the time the sunshine of your rejoicing. All of our hearts beat in sympathy with yours when we recall our great loss and the sad day of his removal. But among the many, many wholesome lessons of his life was that of a prevailing cheerfulness of spirit. Could he visit you to-day from his bright sphere of glory, would he not bid you be glad and be thankful, and take new courage in remembering what Providence has already wrought out in your behalf.

Yes, the right to call you citizens must, I suppose, date from that day of emancipation. But I claim to be of those who go back of that in deriving for you the right itself; yea, more than that, the full rights of manhood. I find them in the teachings of our divine Lord and Saviour. I long ago learned there that you are more than fellow-citizens; that you are my brethren; and if I refuse to acknowledge and treat you as such, I am recreant to those teachings, and the Spirit of the divine Master is not enthroned in my heart. Some there are who cannot see that this relationship of Christian brotherhood necessitates for you a common citizenship in our land, or that it enjoins upon them the duty of making you equal with themselves before the law. Our Lord has left a test for such: "All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them."

I congratulate you to-day that in the fullness of time a Chief Magistrate was raised up for us who dared to act in the spirit of these words; that after stern chastisement there are millions now who are willing to apply them in determining what shall be your rights before the law and your political privileges. You have friends here to-day who will, doubtless, give you information upon this subject, both as to what has already been done and what are their hopes for you in the future.

I congratulate you upon the great work of education among you, of which Doctor Turney has just been speaking. As an officer of the Freedmen's Bureau, I have endeavored to stand shoulder to shoulder with him and all like him engaged in this important work. You are doubtless aware that the officers of the Bureau meet your teachers upon common ground, being enabled by the bounty of the Government to provide school-rooms often, school furniture, transportation for teachers, and protection. Military protection has been more needed in some other States than in this department, but is by no means an empty sound here, where in a neighboring county one school-house has been burned, and two schools violently broken up within three months. I agree particularly with Dr. Turney in his plan of fitting teachers of your own color to go forth to aid in educating your people. It is a credit to you that so many are aspiring to do this.

To-day is a good day to cultivate independence and self-reliance. I see before me faces lighted up with intelligence, and in many of them I read also a resolute purpose to do and dare in the battle of life before them. I shall have more to say to such (as I have addressed them here before) upon a subject of vital practical moment; but, first, a few words to another class who are represented here. I mean those who have spent their strength and have become old in the service of others, and can no longer work. The profits of their labor has enriched others than themselves. They were not permitted to lay by a competence for old age. It is right and fitting that they should receive their support now, and the Government has made some provision for such at this village. Then there are those not old in years, but who have worn out their physical constitutions or otherwise become permanently disabled in that unrequited service. You, too, have a claim to be cared for. All your toil and hardship and suffering in those long years of