The Glory of a Hated Man

FACE TO FACE

The Glory of a Hated Man

Wallace Alcorn

They came mostly on foot. They came piled onto buckboards and arrived in skiffs, rowboats and barges. Some rode their master’s mules, able to appropriate them because the planters had fled inland upon the Union Army occupation of the Port Royal region. The black folks did. The whites came on horseback and in carriages. They came from the South Carolina mainland and sea islands.

There were free Blacks among them, but most had been enslaved on those plantations. They were slaves—or, to date, had been. The few white people who chose to attend the reading were, for the most part, missionaries from New England. Eastern newspaper reporters would telegraph coverage of this New Year’s Day in 1863 that would become frontpage across the country.

The military governor wanted every slave to hear in person Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. They alone of the thousands enslaved across the southern states could be freed this day.

The all-black Union regiment stood proudly in formation as its colonel presided over the ceremony. On the platform under live oaks were white dignitaries. All were abolitionists to one degree or another, to be sure. But one white, native Carolinian was chosen to read. It was, the colonel said, “an infinitely appropriate thing.” He had been born and reared in the area, owning a nearby plantation and its slaves. But twenty-six years earlier, he had freed them. No theoretical abolitionist, but one who actually freed slaves, the consequence being economic impoverishment as well as suffering personal and political persecution. A modern history of South Carolina finds: “Among the whites, he was the most hated man in the Beauford District.”

The Reverend Doctor William Henry Brisbane (1806-1878) began to read:

“That on the 1st day of January, A.D. 1863, all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free...”

This most hated man in the district preached that the most hated man of all time told his disciples: “Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man!” (Lk 6:22).

W.H. Brisbane was a most hated man, but in this particular hatred, there is an oxymoronic glory. This is the glory of a hated man. It’s Brisbane’s story, of course, but it is also my story.

It began in 1806, and at age four, he was adopted by his wealthy and aristocratic uncle, becoming heir to a plantation on the Ashley River north of Charleston. He received a gentleman’s education at a Vermont military academy. He attended a theological institute, ordained Baptist and earned an M.D. Supported by inheriting the plantation with over 30 slaves, he published a Charleston Baptist newspaper promoting slavery—and then lost it when he became unconvinced and pastored churches.

He divested himself of slaves in 1837 and fled to Cincinnati where he became pastor of First Baptist Church—until he preached against slavery. He founded an abolitionist Baptist church down the street from Jonathan Blanchard’s Presbyterian church, and they became friends and coactivists. There, and later in Philadelphia, he wrote articles for abolitionist newspapers, edited his own and authored anti-slavery novels plus a book against slavery (1847). Active in an “underground railroad,” he counseled fugitive slaves and defended them in court. A founder of a free mission society and becoming its president, Brisbane’s actions forced others to create the then pro-slavery Southern Baptist Convention (1845).

Although no longer owning slaves but deeply troubled that many were still enslaved, he returned south and repurchased at an inflated price what he had divested at a depressed price. He escorted 27-33 slaves to Baltimore and wrote in its newspaper that, although he wanted his slaves to be free, he also wanted himself to be free. He took them across Pennsylvania to Ohio where he freed them. By his example, he effectively caused more slaves to become freed than he had freed directly, becoming a Barnabas to the abolitionists.

Brisbane moved to Wisconsin (1853) and became pastor of Madison’s First Baptist—until he was dismissed for preaching against slavery. At the outbreak of the Civil War, he became a regimental chaplain in the Union Army.

He was appointed U.S. Direct Tax Commission for South Carolina chairman to confiscate abandoned plantations and auction them to collect federal taxes. (These, of course, were owned by his family, former friends, and neighbors.)

Of his service for the United States, the federal attorney for South Carolina wrote as late as 1917:

“….he returned to his native state in the pay of the enemy as one of that confiscatory body created by the conqueror called the direct tax commission, and dressed with a little brief authority used it to oppress and humiliate his former fellow countrymen.

“Whilst time has dulled the memory of much of the bitter pangs of that terrible period yet his name must recall it to all who had to endure the arbitrary insolence of those who then abused the places of authority, and it is with no pleasure the chronicler records him among the South Carolinians who possessed a home upon the Ashley river.”

It was this appointment that put him at Port Royal when the Emancipation Proclamation was to be read. When Brisbane concluded, a voice arose from among the blacks:

My country, ‘tis of thee, Sweet land of liberty,

Our fathers’ God to Thee, Author of liberty, To Thee we sing….

Dr. Brisbane sat silent, but the tears in his eyes said, “Amen.”

After Reconstruction, he returned to Wisconsin, practiced medicine, pastored churches and made political speeches about his experiences as a slaveholder and then abolitionist, dying in 1878. Four years earlier the Reunion of the Abolitionist Old Guard met in Chicago. Dr. Brisbane was a speaker as was his old Cincinnati friend Jonathan Blanchard, now president of Wheaton College. The two slipped away and spent an afternoon together recalling former days, their final meeting.

I learned of William Henry Brisbane when my grandmother sat me down when I was eight for a serious talk: “Wallace, I am praying that you will grow into being as great a man as your grandfather.” He was her grandfather and, so, my great, great grandfather, and his story began to become mine.

I continued to hear of my grandfather from family but failed to catch what his life means for me until I underwent clinical pastoral care training. We were encouraged to consider the impact of family stories, and I began my research. Who is Wallace Alcorn because of who my grandfather was? Grandma was right. Grandfather Brisbane was a great man, but he was great for yet better reasons than she ever learned.

My research brought me into contact with the Penn Center of St. Helena’s Island. When they thought to stage a reenactment of the reading of the Emancipation Proclamation on New Year’s Day 1997, they invited me to play my grandfather and be the reader. This would be on the site under the same live oaks, now on the grounds of the Beaufort Naval Hospital.

Being the first of the family’s northern branch to have contact with the southern in over 125 years, I phoned their spokesperson. “Oh, we know you’re down here and what you’re up to. It’s in all the papers.” His tone, though polite and even warm, alerted me that none would be out.

Even though none came, I joined him for dinner afterwards. He was a direct descendent of my grandfather’s overseer— the one he fired at least once for mistreating his slaves and who cheated him in both purchasing and then selling them. When we met he was unfailingly courteous and sincerely respectful. I liked him. Yet his final words both puzzled and shocked me. Looking me in the eyes, said: “We will forgive you, but we will never, ever forgive your grandfather.” (sigh)

As painful as that was, something else happened that day. At the event, I presented a brief biographical sketch with focus on his transformation from slaveholder to slavefreer to abolitionist leader. I needed to be careful of what and how I put it. I didn’t know what the audience would know or what they would want to know.

The moderator introduced me politely and respectfully. I read: “That on the 1st day of January, A.D. 1863, all persons held as slaves….”

The moderator, a black leader, gasped: “That man did a complete turn-around!” I thought that was what the colonel said—now it is believed.

I was swamped by black people hugging and kissing me. Many named Brisbane had always known their ancestors had taken the name of some man who had freed them and because he did, all slaves were eventually freed. I received hugs that belong to my grandfather, and I accepted them for him.