Letter from James A. Lyons to Mississippi Governor Charles Clark; February 10, 1865

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Letter from James A. Lyons to Mississippi Governor Charles Clark; February 10, 1865

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People

Clark, Charles, 1811-1877 Clayton, George R.Lyon, James A.

Events

Crime Crime--Assault and battery Crime--Murder Criminal Procedure Criminal Procedure--Convicted Criminal Procedure--Trial Emancipation and self emancipation

Organizations

Courts and Judicial Systems Mississippi--Legislature

Places

Mississippi--Lowndes County. Columbus

Social Identifiers

African Americans African Americans--Enslaved people Enslavers

Vital Statistics

Marriage

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Columbus Miss
Feb: 10. 1865.

To His Excellency
Gov^r Clark.

My dear sir,

your reply of the 21^st ult came duly to hand. In it you state that my pamph-let on "Slavery & the Duties growing out of the relation," had not yet come to hand. Lest it should fail to reach you, I herewith send you another copy—as I am very anxious that you should read it. From what you say in your letter of the 21^st ult, I am encouraged to hope that you will favor a reform on that subject.

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I am clearly satisfied that Reformation, and not Emancipation is the duty of the South—A judicious reform of the [?] of slavery is due alike to our-selves, the slave, and the world.

I propose to procure the preparation of a Bill on that subject with the aid of the Hon. Geo. R. Clayton & others, and would be very much encouraged in the under-taking, if it should accord with your judgment to in-troduce the subject in yr message to the Legislature. I propose that the Bill shall embrace four items, viz

1^st A repeal of all preceeding

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enactments prohibiting the owner of slaves from teaching his servants to read—(please note what I say on this sub-ject in my "Report")

2^d The legalizing the marriage of slaves.

3. The legal recognition of the parental relation so that children shall not be sep-arated from their mothers short of 12 yrs of age.

4. The better guarding the life of the slave against the wanton assaults of low, vicious, white men, by rendering slave testimony in courts of law as equiv-alent to circumstantial evidence—that is, it shall be valid testimony when

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its truth is made manifest by other corroborating evidence. This would subject the slayer of a slave to a trial at least, if not conviction—and thus afford some safe guard to the life of the slave.

With these reforms, together with religious instruction, which must be enforced by moral, not legal means, slavery would be what the Bible recognizes—and would be divested of its obnoxious features.

I should consider it a great honor for Mississippi to lead off in this reformation. And in my opinion it would be the greatest of all peace measures.

I am very respectfully yr obt sert.

James A. Lyon