BELL WORK!!

• What comes to mind when you think of the antebellum era?

• What was the dominant religion in America during the antebellum era?

• Who were some of the most influential people in the antebellum era? Why?

• Who was Harriet Beecher Stowe and what role did she play in the antebellum era?

A QUOTE FROM MITCHELL SNAY- HISTORIANGOSPEL OF DISUNION

• At noon on February 18, 1861, the Rev. Basil Manly, pastor of the Baptist church in Montgomery, road to the capital in a carriage with Jefferson Davis, Alexander H. Stephens, and their military escort. He delivered a prayer later that afternoon that spoke directly to the event-the inauguration of the president and vice president of the Confederate States of America. ‘Thou hast provided us a man,’ Manly proclaimed, ‘to go in and out before us, and to lead thy people.’ He also invoked God’s Blessing for the newborn Southern nation; ‘Put thy good spirit into our whole people, that they may faithfully do all thy fatherly pleasure,…’ Manly called further for truth and peace in the administration of government and righteousness for the people. He concluded, finally, by asking God to ‘Turn the counsel of our enemies into foolishness.’

THE STORM FROM THE PULPIT

THE RHETORIC OF PRO AND ANTI SLAVERY MINISTERS AND PREACHERS (1820-1860)

CHRISTIANITY

• Umbrella analogy

• Catholics why not them?

• Presbyterian, Evangelical, Methodist, Lutheran, Baptist, Calvinist

• Christian Anti-Slavery Convention

WILLIAM LOYD GARRISON

• The Liberator First Issue (1831)

• When he was 25, Garrison joined the Abolition movement. He became associated with the American Colonization Society, an organization that believed free blacks should emigrate to a territory on the west coast of Africa. At first glance the society seemed to promote the freedom and happiness of blacks.

• By 1830 Garrison had rejected the programs of the American Colonization Society. By this time he had worked as co-editor of an antislavery paper started by Benjamin Lundy in Maryland, The Genius of Universal Emancipation. And on January 1, 1831, he published the first issue of his own anti-slavery newspaper, the Liberator

• He believed that the U.S. Constitution was a pro-slavery document.

• In speaking engagements and through the Liberator and other publications, Garrison advocated the immediate emancipation of all slaves.

LOOKING AT THE PREACHERS/ MINISTERS

• Looked to for Spiritual Guidance…. Keys to Salvation???

• Educated and Respected

• Outspoken

• Powerful

QUESTIONS?????

• What Role/ Influence did the Protestant Preachers and Ministers play in the antebellum era in regards to slavery?

• What was there stance on Slavery?

• What Specific Rhetoric was used to prove there case?

KEY PREACHERS THAT LED THE MOVEMENT.• Leonard Bacon-Anti

• Henry Ward Beecher-Anti

• Iveson Brookes-Pro

• Minutes of the Anti-Slavery Convention

• Richard Furman-Pro

• James Lyon-Pro

• G.W. Perkins- Anti

• Lewis Tappan-Anti

• James Thornwell-Pro

SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE

• Mitchel Snay, a professor of History at Denison University, identifies that the ideology of separation of Church and State was one that antebellum Americans had inherited.

• Three turning points in the antebellum era lead to the increasing use of Christian principles arguing for and against slavery.

• US- Mexican American War

• the Fugitive Slave Act

• Kansas –Nebraska act of 1854

• (Timothy Wesley, a History professor at Pennsylvania State University)

HORACE JAMES EVANGELIST CONGREGATIONALIST

• “I am more convinced that this great crime of our country must be expiated mainly through the pulpit and the church. This agency, chiefly must destroy slavery, if it is ever destroyed and establish liberty if it ever be established.”

• The issue of slavery was no longer an issue just for the government, but for the church.

MEXICAN AMERICAN WAR

• The new land conquered from Mexico meant that there was more opportunity for slave states. The government had to decide what to do with this new land in regards to if was to become free or slave land. Thus, this gave pro and anti-slave ministers and preachers more of a motive to debate slavery from the pulpit.

FUGITIVE SLAVE ACT

• The Fugitive Slave Act turned ordinary citizens into slave catchers, which would go against Christian principles of anti-slavery Christians. By turning ordinary citizens into slave catchers, anti-slavery Christians believed that the government would be forcing them to sin. Slavery was a sin according to northern anti-slavery Christians. Thus, if the government forced these Christians to catch run-away slaves, they were being forced to sin. This would encourage anti-slavery ministers and preachers to debate the slavery issue further because they believed that they were being forced to sin.

KANSAS NEBRASKA ACT

• The Kansas Nebraska Act of 1854 allowed for popular sovereignty on the slavery issue, thus giving more motive for debate for and against slavery in Christian churches. The ideology of popular sovereignty gave both anti- and pro-slavery preachers the opportunity to sway the local populations. This would give the preachers more reason to bring religion into the discussion of slavery, in the hopes of swaying the popular vote for or against slavery.

THE NEGROES CHURCH BY BENJAMIN HAYS (1969)

• argues that the African American culture of Christianity in America derived from the Second Great Awakening in the early nineteenth century.

• Although slaves were considered property, they were also still considered human as well. Thus, because they had a soul, slaves were considered to be able to become saved by Christian terms.

• “This controversy found its way into the churches. The reactions of the southern religious bodies were decidedly pro-slavery. The Negros in many of the predominantly white churches withdrew, withdrew or were forced out.”

• Created there own Church.

• Masters responsibility to teach and allow practice of Christianity.

• Hope for African Americans.

AFRICAN AMERICAN CHRISTIANS.

• . Because African Americans slaves were given the ability to practice Christianity by their masters, they were able to discover God, and learn about the Bible. This led many African Americans to turn to Christianity and become devout Christians, thus giving them a sense of hope and meaning in the world, creating a high population of African American Christians who would carry on their Christian roots into the twentieth century. Many churches of the twentieth century that are all black churches, stem from the nineteenth century separate Christian churches used by African Americans.

ANTI VS. PRO SLAVERY MINISTERS/PREACHERS

• Anti Slavery

A more theological Argument

Theme of the Bible

Focus on Sin

Criticize Pro Slavery Ministers for using the pulpit for politics

Attack of credibility

• Pro Slavery

More Biblical Argument

Claiming Anti Slavery Preachers did not understand the Bible

Holier than thou

Criticize Anti- Slavery Ministers for using the pulpit for Politics

Attack of credibility

EXAMPLE OF USING THE BIBLE TO DEFEND SLAVERY• Iveson Brookes attacking Henry Clay

• “He (Clay) will pardon us for showing him Gods method of making slaves. If he will turn to 48 of Genesis, he will see how a very large number of slaves was made without any violence whatever to their persons of their wills.”

• The Egyptians through their improvidence and lack of foresight to take care of their copius product of the seven years of plenty, as did Joseph were forced by want to pay out, and then to sell their lands and themselves into servitude to Pharaoh, and they felt the Spirit of the Gratitude for having their lives preserved on the terms of becoming slaves-This then illustrates Gods benevolent institutions of Slavery.

• “Will Mr. Clay pretend to say that their purchase and shipments to Christian land, to exist in perpetual bondage under the Caucasian race would not have been in every sense to them a most merciful deliverance.”

DEFENDING SLAVERY THROUGH THE BIBLE

• Brookes clearly argues that not only is slavery supported by the Bible, but it is better to be a Christian slave than a non-Christian free man. By having slaves, Brookes argues that slavery is a Christian duty if one has the means to be responsible for ones slaves.

EXAMPLE OF THEOLOGY USED TO CONDEMN SLAVERY• Christian Anti- Slavery convention

• The Christian Anti-Slavery Convention was composed of Christian church leaders (primarily in the North) who opposed slavery.

• “We believe the influence of the Church to be so great, that no earthy power can destroy this sin, while as now, it finds countenance and protection among the professed people of God; that nothing can save it from speedy ruin as soon as the church shall withdraw her support.”

• The Convention takes the rhetoric a step further by arguing that slavery is “divinely revealed” in the Bible as a sin.

• “The guilt of a wrong action is proportioned to the light knowledge against which it is committed; and God, having by his providing fully revealed, through experience and discussions the sinfulness of slaveholding.”

• The northern Christian leaders agree that slavery is a sin, and that the sin will be punished by God, either in this world or the next. The Christian Convention agrees that it is the responsibility of the Christian community to help eradicate slavery throughout the United States.

CONDEMNING SLAVERY HENRY WARD BEECHER

• Randall Miller identifies Henry Ward Beecher as a man who believed that if the Bible was left alone it would interpret itself. Beecher believed that because the Bible would interpret itself, that the end of slavery would come because of the Christian presence in America. The truth, to Beecher, was that God condemned slavery and God’s word, the Bible, confirmed that condemnation.

• “The slightest recognition of religious truth, the remotest observance or religious usages, on the part of political bodies, is as suspiciously pondered as the first coy approach toward an alliance.”

• “Sympathy always increases emotions of devotions, and sometimes produces them. Patriotic ardo, enthusiastic enterprise, political ferver, augment their volume by the concert of many.” ( Condemning Patriotic rhetoric)

LEONARD BACON MINISTER CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH

• “ The moral evil of slavery, and the duty of Christians to let selfish interest prolong the sin and injustice, but, in the fear of God to do all they can in consistency with duty, to fight for and restore freedom those in bondage.”

THESIS STATEMENT

• Preachers of the late Antebellum era ( 1820-1860) changed the debate of Slavery. The pro-slavery preachers used Biblical Rhetoric to justify slavery, while the anti-slavery Preachers used theological rhetoric to argue slavery. By brining religion into the slavery debate, these preachers further split the nation in two based not on political or moral principles, but on religious principles.

SO WHAT????!!!!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

• It enhanced the debate

• Brings religious Ideologies into the slavery issue

• People with similar religious belief were against each other

• Religion moves and entices people in a way politics cannot

• Fighting over God….. Makes things Bloodier

THESIS STATEMENT

Preachers of the late Antebellum era ( 1820-1860) changed the debate of Slavery. The pro-slavery preachers used Biblical Rhetoric to justify slavery, while the anti-slavery Preachers used theological rhetoric to argue slavery. By brining religion into the slavery debate, these preachers further split the nation in two based not on political or moral principles, but on religious principles.