Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7fkt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-20T09:22:38.679Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Religion, anti-slavery, and identity: Irish Presbyterians, the United States, and transatlantic evangelicalism, c.1820–1914

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 July 2015

A. R. Holmes
A. R. Holmes*
Affiliation:
Queen’s University Belfast
*
School of History and Anthropology, Queen’s University Belfast, [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Scholars have devoted much attention to the causes and consequences of Presbyterian emigration from Ulster to the thirteen colonies before 1776. This article moves beyond the eighteenth century to examine the continued religious links between Presbyterians in Ireland and the United States in the nineteenth century. It begins with an examination of the influence of evangelicalism on both sides of the Atlantic and how this promoted unity in denominational identity, missionary activity to convert Catholics, and revivalist religion during the first half of the century. Though Irish Presbyterians had great affection for their American co-religionists, they were not uncritical, and significant tensions did develop over slavery. The article then examines the religious character of Scotch-Irish or Ulster-Scots identity in the late nineteenth century, which was articulated in response to the alleged demoralising influence of large-scale Irish immigration during and after the Famine of the 1840s, the so-called Romanisation of Catholicism, and the threat of Home Rule in Ireland. The importance of identity politics should not obscure religious developments, and the article ends with a consideration of the origins and character of fundamentalism, perhaps one of the most important cultural connections between Protestants in Northern Ireland and the United States in the twentieth century.

Type
Research Article
Information
Irish Historical Studies , Volume 39 , Issue 155 , May 2015 , pp. 378 - 398
Copyright
© Irish Historical Studies Publications Ltd 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 For example, Bankhurst, Benjamin, Ulster Presbyterians and the Scots Irish diaspora, 1750–1764 (Basingstoke, 2014)Google Scholar; Blethen, H. T. and Wood, C .W., Jr, (eds), Ulster and North America: transatlantic perspectives on the Scotch-Irish (Tuscaloosa, Ala., 1997)Google Scholar; Dickson, R. J., Ulster emigration to colonial America, 1718–1775 (London, 1966)Google Scholar; Griffin, Patrick, The people with no name: Ireland’s Ulster Scots, America’s Scots Irish, and the creation of a British Atlantic world, 1689–1764 (Princeton, 2001)Google Scholar; Jones, M. A., ‘The Scotch Irish in British America’ in Bernard Bailyn and P. D. Morgan (eds), Strangers within the realm: cultural margins of the first British Empire (Chapel Hill, NC, 1991), pp 284–313Google Scholar; Miller, K. A., Schrier, Arnold, Boling, B. D., and Doyle, D. N., Irish immigrants in the land of Canaan: letters and memoirs from colonial and revolutionary America, 1675–1815 (Oxford, 2003)Google Scholar.

2 Schlenther, B. S. (ed.), The life and writings of Francis Makemie, father of American Presbyterianism (c.1658–1708) (Lewiston, ME, 1999)Google Scholar; Kidd, T. S., The Great Awakening: the roots of evangelical Christianity in Colonial America (New Haven, 2007)Google Scholar, passim; Ward, W. R., The protestant evangelical awakening (Cambridge, 1992), pp 265–273CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Westerkamp, M. J., Triumph of the laity: Scots-Irish piety and the Great Awakening (New York, 1988)Google Scholar.

3 Leyburn, J. G., The Scotch-Irish: a social history (Chapel Hill, NC, 1962), p. viGoogle Scholar.

4 For example, Kennedy, Billy, The making of America: how the Scots-Irish shaped a nation (Belfast, 2001)Google Scholar and idem, , Our most priceless heritage: the lasting legacy of the Scots-Irish in America (Belfast, 2005)Google Scholar; McCarthy, K. F., The other Irish: the Scots-Irish rascals who made America (New York, 2011)Google Scholar; Webb, J. H., Born fighting: how the Scots-Irish shaped America (New York, 2005)Google Scholar.

5 Hofstra, W. R., ‘From the North of Ireland to North America: the Scots-Irish and the migration experience’ in W. R. Hofstra (ed.), Ulster to America: the Scots-Irish migration experience, 1680–1830 (Knoxville, TN, 2012), p. xviGoogle Scholar. See also Doyle, D. N., ‘Scots Irish or Scotch Irish’ in J. J. Lee and M. R. Casey (eds), Making the Irish American: history and heritage of the Irish in the United States (New York, 2007), pp 151–170Google Scholar, and Carroll, M. P., ‘How the Irish became protestant in America’ in Religion and American Culture, xvi (2006), pp 25–54CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6 For an earlier date see, Peter Gilmore and K. A. Miller, ‘Searching for “Irish” freedom – settling for “Scotch-Irish” respectability: southwestern Pennsylvania, 1780–1810’ in Hofstra, Ulster to America, pp 165–210.

7 Important exceptions include: Brown, S. J., ‘Presbyterian communities, transatlantic visions and the Ulster revival of 1859’ in J. P. Mackey (ed.), The cultures of Europe: the Irish contribution (Belfast, 1994), pp 87–108Google Scholar; Livingstone, D. N. and Wells, R. A., Ulster-American religion: episodes in the history of a cultural connection (Notre Dame, 1999)Google Scholar; Miller, D. W., ‘Ulster evangelicalism and American culture wars’ in Radharc: a Journal of Irish and Irish-American Studies, v–vii (2004–6), pp 197–215Google Scholar.

8 The best introductions to the transatlantic character of nineteenth-century evangelicalism are Wolffe, John, The expansion of evangelicalism: the age of Wilberforce, More, Chalmers, and Finney (Nottingham, 2006)Google Scholar and Bebbington, D. W., The dominance of evangelicalism: the age of Spurgeon and Moody (Leicester, 2005)Google Scholar.

9 Noll, M. A., The rise of evangelicalism: the age of Edwards, Whitefield and the Wesleys (Leicester, 2004)Google Scholar.

10 Noll, M. A., ‘Revolution and the rise of evangelical social influence in North Atlantic societies’ in M. A. Noll, D. W. Bebbington, and G. A. Rawlyk (eds), Evangelicalism: comparative studies of popular protestantism in North America, the British Isles, and beyond, 1700–1990 (Oxford, 1994), pp 113–136Google Scholar.

11 Holmes, R. F. G., ‘The triumph of evangelicalism in the Synod of Ulster in the early nineteenth century’ in W. D. Patton (ed.), Ebb and flow: essays in church history in honour of R. Finlay G. Holmes (Belfast, 2002), pp 9–19Google Scholar; Holmes, A. R., The shaping of Ulster Presbyterian belief and practice 1770–1840 (Oxford, 2006)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

12 Minutes of a General Synod, held at Coleraine, 1831 (Belfast, 1831), pp 39–40.

13 Minutes of a General Synod, held at Monaghan, 1832 (Belfast, 1832), pp 40, 41.

14 ‘Presbyterian Church, America’ in Orthodox Presbyterian, iii (Aug., 1832), p. 379.

15 Holmes, A. R., ‘The uses and interpretation of prophecy in Irish Presbyterianism, 1850–1930’ in Crawford Gribben and A. R. Holmes (eds), Protestant millennialism, evangelicalism, and Irish society, 1790–2005 (Palgrave, 2006), pp 156–159Google Scholar; Morehead, J. H., ‘Apocalypticism in mainstream protestantism, 1800 to the present’ in B. J. McGinn, J. J. Collins, and S. J. Stein (eds), The Continuum history of apocalypticism (New York, 2003), pp 468–469Google Scholar.

16 Wolffe, , Expansion of evangelicalism, pp 69–76Google Scholar.

17 Longfield, B. J., Presbyterians and American culture: a history (Louisville, KY, 2013), pp 91–96Google Scholar.

18 Holmes, A. R., ‘The experience and understanding of religious revival in Ulster Presbyterianism, c. 1800 to 1930’ in Irish Historical Studies, xxxiv (2005), pp 368–370Google Scholar.

19 Minutes of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland [hereafter M.G.A.], i (1843), p. 347.

20 John Wolffe, ‘Anti-Catholicism and evangelical identity in Britain and the United States, 1830–1860’ in Noll et al., Evangelicalism, pp 179–97; Oxx, Katie, The nativist movement in America: religious conflict in the nineteenth century (London, 2013)Google Scholar.

21 Miller, D. W., ‘Irish Presbyterians and the great famine’ in Jacqueline Hill and Colm Lennon (eds), Luxury and austerity, Historical Studies XXI (Dublin, 1999), pp 169–173Google Scholar, and Miller, ‘Edgar, John (1798–1866)’ in Oxford D.N.B.

22 An appeal on behalf of the Home Mission of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, respectfully addressed to their Christian brethren of all evangelical denominations in America ([Belfast, 1847]), p. 2.

23 ‘Abstract Report of the Deputation to America, on behalf of the Home Mission – July, 1849’ in Missionary Herald of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland [hereafter Missionary Herald] (Aug. 1849), pp 694–5.

24 Simpson, Jonathan, Annals of my life, labours, and travels (Belfast, 1895), p. 304Google Scholar.

25 Bowden, H. W. (ed.), Dictionary of American religious biography (2nd edn, Westport, CN, 1993), pp 528–529Google Scholar.

26 The life of George H. Stuart, written by himself, ed. R. E. Thompson (Philadelphia, 1890), p. 67.

27 ‘Roman Catholic Mission. The late deputation to the United States’ in Missionary Herald (Feb. 1860), pp 484–5, and ‘The late deputation to the United States’ in Missionary Herald (Apr. 1860), pp 524–5.

28 Billington, R. A., The protestant crusade 1800–1860: a study of the origins of American Nativism (New York, 1938), pp 253–255Google Scholar.

29 Homely truth for honest men. Letters to the Right Reverend John Hughes, Roman Catholic Bishop of New York. By Kirwan. With an introductory essay by John Edgar, D.D., and notes by Samuel O. Edgar, D.D. (Belfast, 1850); Letters to the Right Reverend John Hughes, Roman Catholic Bishop of New York. With an introduction by John Edgar, D.D., and notes by the late S. O. Edgar, D.D. (Belfast, 1851).

30 Murray, Nicholas, Men and things as I saw them in Europe. By Kirwan (New York, 1853), pp 253–254Google Scholar.

31 Life of Stuart, pp 120–6.

32 Prime, S. I., Memoirs of the Rev. Nicholas Murray, D.D. (Kirwan) (New York, 1863), pp 331–332Google Scholar.

33 Holmes, A. R., ‘The Ulster revival of 1859: causes, controversies and consequences’ in Journal of Ecclesiastical History, lxiii (2012), pp 488–515CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

34 Pentecost: or, the work of God in Philadelphia, A.D. 1858. Prepared by the Young Men’s Christian Association. With an introductory statement by the Rev. William Gibson (Belfast, 1859), p. ix.

35 Nelson, Isaac, The year of delusion: a review of ‘The Year of Grace’ (Belfast 1862), p. 76Google Scholar.

36 McCosh, James, The Ulster revival and its physiological accidents. A paper read before the Evangelical Alliance, September 22, 1859 (Belfast, 1859), p. 10Google Scholar.

37 For an overview of the theological responses of foreign Protestants see Noll, M. A., The Civil War as a theological crisis (Chapel Hill, NC, 2006), pp 95–123Google Scholar.

38 Pettinger, Alasdair, ‘Send back the money: Douglass and the Free Church of Scotland’ in A. J. Rice and Martin Crawford (eds), Liberating sojourn: Frederick Douglass and transatlantic reform (Athens, GA, 1999), pp 31–55Google Scholar; Daniel Ritchie, ‘Antislavery orthodoxy: Isaac Nelson and the Free Church of Scotland, c.1843–1865’ in Scottish Historical Review (forthcoming).

39 Ritchie, Daniel, ‘Abolitionism and evangelicalism: Isaac Nelson, the Evangelical Alliance, and the transatlantic debate over Christian fellowship with slaveholders’ in Historical Journal, lvii (2014), pp 421–446CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

40 Holmes, R. F. G., Henry Cooke (Belfast, 1981), pp 150–186Google Scholar; Holmes, A. R., ‘Covenanter politics: evangelicalism, political liberalism, and Ulster Presbyterians, 1798 to 1914’ in English Historical Review, cxxv (2010), pp 340–368CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hall, G. R., Ulster liberalism, 1778–1876: the middle path (Dublin, 2011)Google Scholar.

41 M.G.A., i (1843), p. 235.

42 The debate was reported in detail in the Banner of Ulster, 14 July 1843.

43 M.G.A., i (1843), pp 347–8.

44 Wallace, P. J., ‘“The bond of union”: the Old School Presbyterian Church and the American nation, 1837–61’ (3 vols, Ph.D. thesis, University of Notre Dame, 2004), ii, 423–432Google Scholar.

45 M.G.A., i (1846), p. 508.

46 M.G.A., i (1846), pp 510–11.

47 M.G.A., i (1847), pp 622–3.

48 Banner of Ulster, 16 July 1847.

49 M.G.A., i (1847), p. 625.

50 M.G.A., i (1848), pp 866–7; ii (1850), pp 59–60; (1853), pp 216–17; (1854), pp 304–5.

51 For the Free Presbyterian Church, see M.G.A., i (1848), pp 702–6; ii (1855), pp 386–7. For the Associate Reformed Presbyterians, see M.G.A., i (1848), pp 700–2; ii (1852), pp 133–4, 135–6; (1853), pp 217–20; (1854), pp 301–4; (1855), pp 390–4; (1856), pp 478–81. McKivigan, J. R., The war against proslavery religion: abolitionism and the Northern churches, 1830–65 (New York, 1984), pp 28–29Google Scholar, 101–5, 163.

52 Noll, Civil war, p. 104.

53 Gibson, William, ‘The trans-Atlantic struggle’ in Evangelical Witness and Presbyterian Review, i (1862), pp 17–18Google Scholar.

54 Gibson, William, ‘The American Civil War and slavery’ in Evangelical Witness and Presbyterian Review, i (1862), pp 138Google Scholar, 139.

55 Dill, S. M., The American conflict: a lecture (Belfast, 1863), p. 16Google Scholar.

56 Ritchie, Daniel, ‘Transatlantic delusions and pro-slavery religion: Isaac Nelson’s evangelical abolitionist critique of revivalism in America and Ulster’ in Journal of American Studies, xlviii (2014), pp 757–776Google Scholar.

57 Life of Stuart, p. 29; for Stuart’s attitude to slavery, pp 58–65. Shanks, G. H., Freedom and slavery: an explanation of the principles and issues involved in the American conflict; and the duty of the people of Britain in relation to that momentous struggle (Belfast, 1863), p. 12Google Scholar.

58 Ibid., pp 44, 49.

59 Ibid., p. 51.

60 Gibson, William, ‘Events of the year’ in Evangelical Witness and Presbyterian Review, iv (1865), p. 310Google Scholar.

61 Life of Stuart, p. 195.

62 M.G.A., iii (1866), p. 672.

63 Bebbington, , Dominance of evangelicalism, pp 99–102Google Scholar; Holmes, Janice, Religious Revivals in Britain and Ireland 1859–1905 (Dublin, 2000)Google Scholar.

64 Thompson, Joseph, ‘The influence of D. L. Moody on Irish Presbyterianism’ in Patton (ed.), Ebb and flow, pp 119–140Google Scholar.

65 Hall, T. C., John Hall: pastor and preacher. A biography by his son (London, [1901])Google Scholar.

66 Hall, John and Stuart, G. H., The American evangelists, D .L. Moody and Ira D. Sankey, in Great Britain and Ireland (New York, 1875), p. 249Google Scholar.

67 The following paragraph draws upon Holmes, A. R., ‘Revivalism and fundamentalism in Ulster: W. P. Nicholson in context’ in D. W. Bebbington and David Ceri Jones (eds), Evangelicalism and fundamentalism: the experience of the United Kingdom during the twentieth century (Oxford, 2013), pp 256–262Google Scholar.

68 Hoeveler, J. D., James McCosh and the Scottish intellectual tradition from Glasgow to Princeton (Princeton, 1981)Google Scholar; Livingstone, D. N., ‘James McCosh and the Scottish intellectual tradition’ in D. N. Livingstone and Alvin Jackson (eds), Queen’s thinkers: essays on the intellectual heritage of a university (Belfast, 2008), pp 19–30Google Scholar.

69 M.G.A., iii (1868), p. 998.

70 Moorhead, J. H., Princeton Seminary in American religion and culture (Grand Rapids, MI, 2012)Google Scholar.

71 Wallace, Peter, ‘Irish students at Princeton Seminary: an example of the Ulster-American connection’ in Livingstone and Wells, Ulster-American religion, pp 145–154Google Scholar.

72 Prime, , Memoirs of Murray, p. 406Google Scholar.

73 Gibson, James, ‘Princeton Theological Seminary’ in Evangelical Witness and Presbyterian Review, i (1862), pp 59–60Google Scholar.

74 Gutjahr, P. C., Charles Hodge: guardian of American orthodoxy (New York, 2011)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

75 Allen, Robert, The Presbyterian College Belfast 1853–1953 (Belfast, 1954), pp 161–188Google Scholar.

76 Banner of Ulster, 12 July 1862.

77 James Heron, ‘The death of the Rev. Prof. Watts, D.D., LL.D.’ in Witness, 2 Aug. 1895.

78 Robert Watts, ‘The Death of Dr Hodge’ in Witness, 5 July 1878.

79 Magill, William, ‘A peep at America – V’ in Evangelical Witness and Presbyterian Review, x (1871), p. 122Google Scholar.

80 Hoeveler, J. D., ‘Evangelical ecumenism: James McCosh and the intellectual origins of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches’ in Journal of Presbyterian History, lv (Spring, 1977), pp 36–56Google Scholar.

81 M.G.A., iv (1874), p. 700.

82 Hempton, David and Hill, Myrtle, Evangelical Protestantism in Ulster society 1740–1890 (London, 1992), pp 161–187CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

83 Irwin, William, ‘Our own worthies. The Rev. Thomas Croskery, D.D.’ in Presbyterian Churchman (Dec. 1886), pp 313–320Google Scholar.

84 Croskery, Thomas, ‘The Irish abroad’ in Edinburgh Review, cxxvii (1868), pp 502–537Google Scholar, at p. 506.

85 Croskery, Thomas, ‘The Irish in America’ in Evangelical Witness and Presbyterian Review, vii (1868), p. 85Google Scholar.

86 Ibid., pp 86–7.

87 Croskery, Thomas, ‘Romanism in the United States’ in British and Foreign Evangelical Review, xxv (1877), pp 669–682Google Scholar.

88 Croskery, Thomas, Irish Presbyterianism (Belfast, 1884), p. 41Google Scholar.

89 Briggs, C. A., American Presbyterianism: its origin and early history (New York, 1885)Google Scholar.

90 Croskery, Thomas, ‘American Presbyterianism’ in British and Foreign Evangelical Review, xxxiv (1885), pp 401–26 at p. 425Google Scholar.

91 M.G.A., vii (1890), p. 1031.

92 Hall, John, ‘Irish Presbyterianism in other lands’ in Jubilee of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, Belfast, July, 1890 (Belfast, 1890), pp 157Google Scholar, 158.

93 Ibid., p. 160.

94 For example, Hanna, C. A., The Scotch-Irish, or the Scot in North Britain, North Ireland, and North America (2 vols, London and New York, 1902)Google Scholar; Bolton, C. K., Scotch Irish pioneers in Ulster and America (Boston, 1910)Google Scholar; Ford, H. J., The Scotch-Irish in America (Princeton, 1915)Google Scholar.

95 McKee, Matthew, ‘“A peculiar and royal race”: creating a Scotch-Irish identity, 1889–1901’ in Patrick Fitzgerald and Steve Ickringill (eds), Atlantic crossroads: historical connections between Scotland, Ulster and North America (Newtownards, 2001), pp 67–83Google Scholar.

96 Fasti of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland 1840–1910, ed. J. M. Barkley (3 vols, Belfast 1986–7), i, 56.

97 Livingstone, D. N., Darwin’s forgotten defenders: the encounter between evangelical theology and evolutionary thought (Grand Rapids, 1987), pp 92–96Google Scholar.

98 The Scotch-Irish in America. Proceedings and addresses of the second congress at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania May 29 to June 1, 1890 (Cincinnati, 1890), pp 59–60.

99 Glesson, D. T., ‘Smaller differences: “Scotch-Irish” and “Real Irish” in the nineteenth-century American South’ in New Hibernian Review, x, no. 1 (Summer, 2006), pp 87–89Google Scholar.

100 Hall, John, ‘The Ireland of to-day’ in The Scotch-Irish in America. Proceedings and addresses of the fourth congress, at Atlanta, GA., April 28 to May 1, 1892 (Nashville, 1892), p. 156Google Scholar.

101 Macloskie, George, ‘The evolution of the Scotch-Irish’ in The Scotch-Irish … fourth congress, at Atlanta, pp 221Google Scholar, 222.

102 Holmes, A. R., ‘Irish Presbyterian commemorations of their Scottish past, c.1830 to 1914’ in James McConnel and Frank Ferguson (eds), Across the water: Ireland and Scotland in the nineteenth century (Dublin, 2009), pp 59–60Google Scholar; idem, , ‘Presbyterian religion, historiography, and Ulster Scots identity, c. 1800 to 1914’ in Hist. Jn., lii (2009), pp 634–640Google Scholar.

103 Reid, Whitelaw, The Scot in America and the Ulster Scot. Being the substance of addresses before the Edinburgh Philosophical Institution, 1st November 1911, and the Presbyterian Historical Society, Belfast, 28th March 1912 (London, 1912), pp 39Google Scholar, 66.

104 ‘The Ulster Scot’ in Witness, 29 Mar. 1912.

105 Walker, Graham, A history of the Ulster Unionist party: protest, pragmatism and pessimism (Manchester, 2004), pp 32–36Google Scholar.

106 Education in Ulster: narrative of early attempts towards the establishment of a Presbyterian university. Reports of the Presbyterian Historical Society of Ireland, 1912–1914 (Belfast, 1914), p. 5.

107 The following discussion draws upon Holmes, , ‘Revivalism and fundamentalism in Ulster’ and ‘Biblical authority and the impact of higher criticism in Irish Presbyterianism, c.1850–1930’ in Church History, lxxv (2006), esp. pp 359–373Google Scholar. For a different reading see Miller, D. W., ‘Ulster evangelicalism and American culture wars’ and ‘Searching for a New World: the background and baggage of Scots-Irish immigrant’, in Hofstra (ed.), Ulster to America, pp 1–23Google Scholar.