[1] "It is her being free, not her being established, that
constitutes the real historical and hereditary identity of the
Reformed National Church of Scotland." See _Act and Declaration,
&c._, of Free Assembly, 1851.
[2] In the act _Anent the true and holy Kirk, and of those that are
declared not to be of the same_. This act was supplemented by that of
1579, _Anent the Jurisdiction of the Kirk_.
[3] The Second Book of Discipline was not formally recognized in that
act; but all former acts against "the jurisdiction and discipline of
the true Kirk as the same is used and exercised within the realm"
were abolished; and all "liberties, privileges, immunities and
freedoms whatsoever" previously granted were ratified and approved.
[4] The most important of these had reference to the full right of a
constituted church to the enjoyment of an absolutely unrestricted
freedom in convening Assemblies. This very point on one occasion at
least threatened to be the cause of serious misunderstandings between
William and the people of Scotland. The difficulties were happily
smoothed, however, by the wisdom and tact of William Carstares.
[5] See _Act and Declaration_ of Free Assembly, 1851.
[6] This principle had been asserted even by an Assembly so late as
that of 1736, and had been invariably presupposed in the "call,"
which had never ceased to be regarded as an indispensable
prerequisite for the settlement of a minister.
[7] According to the Free Church "Protest" of 1843 it was in these
cases decided (1) that the courts of the church were liable to be
compelled to intrude ministers on reclaiming congregations; (2) that
the civil courts had power to interfere with and interdict the
preaching of the gospel and administration of ordinances as
authorized and enjoined by the church; (3) that the civil courts had
power to suspend spiritual censures pronounced by the courts of the
church, and to interdict their execution as to spiritual effects,
functions and privileges; (4) that deposed ministers, and
probationers deprived of their licence, could be restored by the
mandate of the civil courts to the spiritual office and status of
which the church courts had deprived them; (5) that the right of
membership in ecclesiastical courts could be determined by the civil
courts; (6) that the civil courts had power to supersede the majority
of a church court of the Establishment in regard to the exercise of
its spiritual functions as a church court, and to authorize the
minority to exercise the said functions in opposition to the court
itself and to the superior judicatories of the church; (7) that
processes of ecclesiastical discipline could be arrested by the civil
courts; and (8) that without the sanction of the civil courts no
increased provision could be made for the spiritual care of a parish,
although such provision left all civil rights and patrimonial
interests untouched.
[8] The narrative and argument of this elaborate and able document
cannot be reproduced here. In substance it is a claim "as of right"
on behalf of the church and of the nation and people of Scotland that
the church shall freely possess and enjoy her liberties, government,
discipline, rights and privileges according to law, and that she
shall be protected therein from the foresaid unconstitutional and
illegal encroachments of the said court of session, and her people
secured in their Christian and constitutional rights and liberties.
This claim is followed by the "declaration" that the Assembly cannot
intrude ministers on reclaiming congregations, or carry on the
government of Christ's church subject to the coercion of the court of
session; and by the "protest" that all acts of the parliament of
Great Britain passed without the consent of the Scottish church and
nation, in alteration or derogation of the government, discipline,
rights and privileges of the church, as also all sentences of courts
in contravention of said government, discipline, rights and
privileges, "are and shall be in themselves void and null, and of no
legal force or effect."
[9] The Scottish members voted with the minority in the proportion of
25 to 12.
[10] The number ultimately rose to 474.
[11] By this formal recognition of the qualifications to the
Confession of Faith made in 1647 the scruples of the majority of the
Associate Synod of Original Seceders were removed, and 27 ministers,
along with a considerable number of their people, joined the Free
Church in the following year.
[12] See Taylor Innes, _Law of Creeds in Scotland_, p. 258 seq.
[13] The language of Dr Buchanan, for example, in 1860 was (_mutatis
mutandis_) the same as that which he had employed in 1838 in moving
the Independence resolution already referred to.
FREEDMEN'S BUREAU (officially the BUREAU OF FREEDMEN, REFUGEES AND
ABANDONED LANDS), a bureau created in the United States war department
by an act of Congress, 3rd of March 1865, to last one year, but
continued until 1872 by later acts passed over the president's veto. Its
establishment was due partly to the fear entertained by the North that
the Southerners if left to deal with the blacks would attempt to
re-establish some form of slavery, partly to the necessity for extending
relief to needy negroes and whites in the lately conquered South, and
partly to the need of creating some commission or bureau to take charge
of lands confiscated in the South. During the Civil War a million
negroes fell into the hands of the Federals and had to be cared for.
Able-bodied blacks were enlisted in the army, and the women, children
and old men were settled in large camps on confiscated Southern
property, where they were cared for alternately by the war department
and by the treasury department until the organization of the Freedmen's
Bureau. At the head of the bureau was a commissioner, General O. O.
Howard, and under him in each Southern state was an assistant
commissioner with a corps of local superintendents, agents and
inspectors. The officials had the broadest possible authority in all
matters that concerned the blacks. The work of the bureau may be
classified as follows: (1) distributing rations and medical supplies
among the blacks; (2) establishing schools for them and aiding
benevolent societies to establish schools and churches; (3) regulating
labour and contracts; (4) taking charge of confiscated lands; and (5)
administering justice in cases in which blacks were concerned. For
several years the ex-slaves were under the almost absolute control of
the bureau. Whether this control had a good or bad effect is still
disputed, the Southern whites and many Northerners holding that the
results of the bureau's work were distinctly bad, while others hold that
much good resulted from its work. There is now no doubt, however, that
while most of the higher officials of the bureau were good men, the
subordinate agents were generally without character or judgment and that
their interference between the races caused permanent discord. Much
necessary relief work was done, but demoralization was also caused by
it, and later the institution was used by its officials as a means of
securing negro votes. In educating the blacks the bureau made some
progress, but the instruction imparted by the missionary teachers
resulted in giving the ex-slaves notions of liberty and racial equality
that led to much trouble, finally resulting in the hostility of the
whites to negro education. The secession of the blacks from the white
churches was aided and encouraged by the bureau. The whole field of
labour and contracts was covered by minute regulations, which, good in
theory, were absurd in practice, and which failed altogether, but not
until labour had been disorganized for several years. The administration
of justice by the bureau agents amounted simply to a ceaseless
persecution of the whites who had dealings with the blacks, and bloody
conflicts sometimes resulted. The law creating the bureau provided for
the division of the confiscated property among the negroes, and though
carried out only in parts of South Carolina, Florida and Georgia, it
caused the negroes to believe that they were to be cared for at the
expense of their former masters. This belief made them subject to
swindling schemes perpetrated by certain bureau agents and others who
promised to secure lands for them. When negro suffrage was imposed by
Congress upon the Southern States, the bureau aided the Union League
(q.v.) in organizing the blacks into a political party opposed to the
whites. A large majority of the bureau officials secured office through
their control of the blacks. The failure of the bureau system and its
discontinuance in the midst of reconstruction without harm to the
blacks, and the intense hostility of the Southern whites to the
institution caused by the irritating conduct of bureau officials, are
indications that the institution was not well conceived nor wisely
administered.
See P. S. Pierce, _The Freedmen's Bureau_ (Iowa City, 1904); _Report
of the Joint Committee on Reconstruction_ (Washington, 1866); W. L.
Fleming (ed.), _Documents relating to Reconstruction_ (Cleveland, O.,
1906); W. L. Fleming, _Civil War and Reconstruction in Alabama_ (New
York, 1905); and James W. Garner, _Reconstruction in Mississippi_ (New
York, 1901). (W. L. F.)
FREEHOLD, a town and the county-seat of Monmouth county, New Jersey,
U.S.A., in the township of Freehold, about 25 m. E. by N. of Trenton.
Pop. (1890) 2932; (1900) 2934, of whom 215 were foreign-born and 126
were negroes; (1905) 3064; (1910) 3233. Freehold is served by the
Pennsylvania and the Central of New Jersey railways. It is the trade
centre of one of the most productive agricultural districts of the state
and has various manufactures, including carriages, carpets and rugs,
files, shirts, underwear, and canned beans and peas. The town is the
seat of two boarding schools for boys: the Freehold Military School and
the New Jersey Military Academy (chartered, 1900; founded in 1844 as the
Freehold Institute). One of the residences in the town dates from 1755.
A settlement was made in the township about 1650, and the township was
incorporated in 1693. In 1715 the town was founded and was made the
county-seat; it was long commonly known (from the county) as Monmouth
Court-House, but afterwards took (from the township) the name Freehold,
and in 1869 it was incorporated as the Town of Freehold. An important
battle of the War of Independence, known as the battle of Monmouth, was
fought near the court-house on the 28th of June 1778. A short distance
N.W. of the court-house is a park in which there is a monument, unveiled
on the 13th of November 1884 in commemoration of the battle; the base is
of Quincy granite and the shaft is of Concord granite. Surmounting the
shaft is a statue representing "Liberty Triumphant" (the height to the
top of which is about 100 ft.). The monument is adorned with five bronze
reliefs, designed and modelled by James E. Kelly (b. 1855); one of these
reliefs represents "Molly Pitcher" (d. 1832), a national heroine, who,
when her husband (John C. Hays), an artillerist, was rendered insensible
during the battle, served the gun in his place and prevented its capture
by the British.[1] Joel Parker (1816-1888), governor of New Jersey in
1863-1866 and 1872-1875, was long a resident of Freehold, and the
erection of the monument was largely due to his efforts. A bronze tablet
on a boulder in front of the present court-house, commemorating the old
court-house, used as a hospital in the battle of Monmouth, was unveiled
in 1907. Freehold was the birthplace and home of Dr Thomas Henderson
(1743-1824), a Whig or Patriot leader in New Jersey, an officer in the
War of Independence, and a member of the Continental Congress in
1779-1780 and of the national House of Representatives in 1795-1797.
The name Freehold was first used of a Presbyterian church established
about 1692 by Scottish exiles who came to East Jersey in 1682-1685 and
built what was called the "Old Scots' Church" near the present railway
station of Wickatunk in Marlboro' township, Monmouth county. In this
church, in December 1706, John Boyd (d. 1709) was ordained--the first
recorded Presbyterian ordination in America. The church was the first
regularly constituted Presbyterian church. No trace of the building now
remains in the burying-ground where Boyd was interred, and where the
Presbyterian Synod of New Jersey in 1900 raised a granite monument to
his memory; his tombstone is preserved by the Presbyterian Historical
Society in Philadelphia. John Tennent (1706-1732) became pastor of the
Freehold church in 1730, when a new church was built by the Old Scots
congregation on White Hill in the present township of Manalapan (then a
part of Freehold township), near the railway station and village called
Tennent; his brother William (1705-1777), whose trance, in which he
thought he saw the glories of heaven, was a matter of much discussion in
his time, was pastor in 1733-1777. In 1751-1753 the present "Old Tennent
Church," then called the Freehold Church, was erected on (or near) the
same site as the building of 1730; in it Whitefield preached and in the
older building David Brainerd and his Indian converts met. In 1859 this
church (whose corporate name is "The First Presbyterian Church of the
County of Monmouth") adopted the name of Tennent, partly to distinguish
it from the Presbyterian church organized at Monmouth Court-House (now
Freehold) in 1838.
See Frank R. Symmes, _History of the Old Tennent Church_ (2nd ed.,
Cranbury, New Jersey, 1904).