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| 658 THE UNDERGROUND RAIL ROAD. as the harbinger of the slave's deliveranoe, and the country's redemption. " A righteous war," he said, " is better than a corrupt peace. * * * When war can only be averted by consenting to crime, then welcome war •with all its calamities." In the winter of 1862, after the capture of Port Royal, he procured the calling of a public meeting of the citizens of Philadelphia to consider and provide for the wants of the ten thousand slaves who had been suddenly liberated. One of the results of this meeting was the organization of the Philadelphia Port Royal Relief Committee. By request he visited the Sea Islands, accompanied by his daughter, and on his return made a report which served his associates as a basis of operations, and which •was republished extensively in this country and abroad. After the proelamatioh of emancipation, he advocated an early dissolution of the anti-slavery organization, and at the May Meeting of the American Anti-slavery Society, in 1864, introduced a proposition looking to that result. It was favorably received by Mr. Garrison and others, but no action was taken upon it at that time. When the question came up the following year, the proposition to disband was earnestly supported by Mr. Garrison, Mr. Quincy, Mr. May, Mr. Johnson, and others, but was stron^ly opposed by "Wendell Phillips and his friends, among whom from Philadelphia were Mrs. Mott, Miss Grew, and Robert Purvis, and was decided by a vote in the negative. Mr. McKim was an early advocate of colored enlistments, as a moans of lifting up the blacks and putting down the rebellion. In the spring of 186ft, he urged upon the Philadelphia Union League, of which he was a member, the duty of recruiting colored soldiers; as the result, on motion of Thomas "Webster, Esq., a movement was set on foot which led to the organization of the Philadelphia Supervisory Committee, and the subsequent establishment of Camp William Penn, with the addition to the national army, of eleven colored regiments. When, in November, 1863, the Port Royal Relief Committee was enlarged into the Pennsylvania Freedman's Relief Association, Mr. McKirn was made its corresponding secretary. He had previously resigned his place in the Anti-slavery Society, believing that that organization was near the end of its usefulness. In the freedmen's work, he traveled extensively, and worked hard, establishing schools at the South and organizing public sentiment in the free States. In (he spring of 1865, he was made corresponding secretary of the American Freoclman's Commission, which he had helped to establish, and took up his residence in the city of New York. This association was afterwards amplified, in name and scope, into the American Freedman's Union Commission, and Mr. McKim continued with it as corresponding secretary, laboring for reconstruction by means of Freedman's schools, and impartial popular education. On the 1st of July, 1869, the Commission, by unani- |