Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 15.djvu/607

 PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS 593

sented in 1865, following the close of the Civil War and the first assassina- tion of an American President, were more numerous, novel, and difficult than any existing here, since the first great reorganization of work and liberty under Washington, Franklin, and Jefferson from 1776 to 1789, when Wash- ington became our first and most distinguished president, with Jefferson to assist him in the settlement of our difficult foreign affairs, and Hamilton to do the same in the restoration of finances. All three were promoters of what we now call Social Science, and their Republic has been well called the chief practitioner of that science since the Christian era began. The death of Lincoln, greatest of Washington's successors, at the time when his sagacity would have been our guide in meeting the difficulties of 1865, com- plicated the dangers inherent in our situation. A grand political and social revolution had been more than half accomplished by the overthrow of negro slavery and the heresy of secession; but it was still to be maintained in practice, under civil authority.

All minor questions of suffrage, finance, jurisprudence, social economy, and social order came then before the people and before our Association, to be debated and, if possible, settled peaceably, under new institutions built on Freedom's ancient foundations, for state and church, as laid down by Washington and his contemporaries. A new enthusiasm to do this, spring- ing from the accomplished revolution, and the restoration of the Union, was general in the northern states, and prevailed to some extent in the South. In the comment made by me as secretary of the Massachusetts Board which invited the Boston meeting of October 4, 1865, it was said :

On the 2d of August your Board directed me to issue a circular in your name, inviting a conference concerning those questions which, in Europe, have long been classed under the head of "Social Science." Accordingly I sent such circulars to all parts of the Union where it was supposed any interest would be felt in the subject. Many answers were received, all expressing deep inter- est, from gentlemen in Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Kentucky, Missouri, Iowa, Minnesota, and the District of Columbia. Gentlemen from many of these states, and in addition from Michigan and New Brunswick, met at the State House in response to your invitation; and there organized the American Association for the Promotion of Social Science — a society from which we have reason to expect much service to science and humanity.

This expectation has been by no means disappointed during the forty- four years it has since been in active existence. The president of the Boston meeting that created it was the illustrious War-Governor Andrew of Massachusetts, who had during the Civil War promoted social reorgani- zation by inaugurating our Board of Charities, and putting at its head Dr. Howe, the renowned philhellenist and philanthropist. See the Second Annual Report of the Board of State Charities {Public Document No. ig, Boston, 1866, p. 6.). Those who signed the circular were Samuel G. Howe, Nathan Allen, Edward Earle, H. B. Wheelwright, F. B. Sanborn, etc. The