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The Instruments of Providence: Slavery, Civil War and the American Churches

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

Peter J. Parish
Peter J. Parish*
Affiliation:
University of Dundee
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Extract

On 13 September 1862, when Abraham Lincoln was awaiting an opportune moment to issue his Emancipation Proclamation, he received at the White House a delegation from a meeting of Chicago Christians of all denominations. In pressing hard the case for immediate emancipation of the slaves, they assured the president that such action would be in accordance with the will of God. In a characteristically wry, tongue-in-cheek reply, Lincoln observed that:

I hope it will not be irreverent for me to say that if it is probable that God would reveal his will to others, on a point so connected with my duty, it might be supposed he would reveal it directly to me; for, unless I am more deceived in myself than I often am, it is my earnest desire to know the will of Providence in this matter. And if I can learn what it is I will do it! These are not, however, the days of miracles, and I suppose it will be granted that I am not to expect a direct revelation.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History , Volume 20: The Church and War , 1983 , pp. 291 - 320
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1983

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References

1 Lincoln, [Abraham], [Collected Works ed Basler, Roy P. 8 vols (New Brunswick, New Jersey 1953) 5, p 420 Google Scholar.

2 Quoted in Benjamin Quarles, Lincoln and the Negro (New York 1962) p 86.

3 Lincoln 8 pp 332-3; 5 pp 403-4. For a wider discussion of Lincoln’s religious beliefs, particularly in relation to the Civil War, see Wolf, William J., The Almost Chosen People: a Study of the Religion of Abraham Lincoln (Garden City, New York 1959) especially pp 145–8, 153-6Google Scholar.

4 Ide, [George B.], [Battle Echoes, or Lessons from the War] (Boston 1866) pp 137-8, 41-2Google Scholar.

5 ‘The Government of Nations; or, When is God on our Side’ Observer (New York) 2 October 1862.

6 Smith, Timothy L., Revivalism and Social Reform: American Protestantism on the eve of the Civil War (Baltimore, repr 1980) p 7 Google Scholar.

7 Crooks, [George R.], [The Life of Bishop Matthew] Simpson [of the Methodist Episcopal Church] (New York 1891) pp 381-5Google Scholar. See also Kirby, James E., ’Matthew Simpson and the Mission of America‘ Church History 36 (Chicago 1967) pp 299–307 Google Scholar.

8 Moorhead, James H., American Apocalypse: Yankee Protestants and the Civil War, 1860-1869 (New Haven 1978) p x.Google Scholar

9 Jones, [D. G.], [The Sectional Crisis and] Northern Methodism: [a Study in Piety, Political Ethics and Political Religion] (Metuchen, New Jersey 1979) pp 80–96 Google Scholar; Gravely, [William], [Gilbert] Haven, [Methodist Abolitionist: a Study in Race, Religion and Reform, 1850-1880] (Nashville, Tennessee 1973) pp 74–90, 94-102Google Scholar.

10 Vander Velde, [Lewis G.], [The Presbyterian Churches and the Federal Union, 1861-1869] (Harvard Historical Studies 33, Cambridge, Mass. 1932) pp 15–73 Google Scholar.

11 Charles Hodge, [’The General Assembly’] Biblical Repertory [and Princeton Review] 33 (Philadelphia 1861) pp 556-567; [’The War’] ibid (1863) pp 150-5.

12 Peabody and Child are both quoted in Brock, Peter, Pacifism in the United States from the Colonial Era to the First World War (Princeton, New Jersey 1968) pp 692, 696-7Google Scholar.

13 Garrison, W.L., The Letters of William Lloyd Garrison ed Merrill, W.M. 6 vols (Cambridge, Mass. 1971-81) 5 p 164 Google Scholar.

14 ‘Per se, per saltum’ Independent (New York) 6 June 1861; ‘The War’ Christian Examiner 71 (New York 1861) pp 98-9; Sturtevant, [J. M.], [’The Lessons of our National Conflict‘ New Englander 19] (New Haven 1861) pp 895-8Google Scholar.

15 Premiss, George L., The Free Christian State and the Present Struggle: an Address Delivered before the Association of the Alumni ofBowdoin College (New York 1861) p 35 Google Scholar.

16 Hodge, , Biblical Repertory 35 (1863) pp 155-7Google Scholar.

17 Quoted in Dunham, [Chester F.], [The Attitude of the Northern Clergy toward the South, 1860- 1865] (Toledo, Ohio 1942) p 111 Google Scholar.

18 Quoted in Swaney, Charles B., Episcopal Methodism and Slavery (Boston 1926) pp 300–301.Google Scholar

19 Thompson, [Joseph P.], Peace through Victory, [a Thanksgiving Sermon] (New York 1864) p 4 Google Scholar.

20 ‘Christianity and the War’, Universalist Quarterly [and General Review] 18 (Boston 1861) pp 373-95.

21 See for example ‘The War’ Christian Examiner 71 (1861) pp 99-102.

22 On the closing of Northern clerical ranks in support of the war in the spring of 1861, see Moorhead pp 47-51 and Dunahm pp 71-80 and 110.

23 These examples are taken from Dunham pp 136, 139.

24 Crooks, Simpson pp 381-5.

25 Ide pp 125-6.

26 ‘Our Civil War’ Universalist Quarterly 18 (1861) pp 264-9, 275-6.

27 Independent 25 April 1861, 2 May 1861, 27 June 1861, 13 September 1862.

28 Religion Rebuking Sedition: Christianity versus Slavery and Treason (Philadelphia 1864).

29 Thompson, Peace through Victory pp 9-13, 16.

30 Quoted in Moorhead p 157.

31 Observer 7 February 1861, 16 May 1861, 22 August 1861, 7 November 1861, 2 October 1862, 19 February 1863, 2 July 1863, 31 December 1863.

32 Christian Advocate [and Journal] (New York) 25 April 1861.

33 Hopkins, John H., A Scriptural, Ecclesiastical and Historical View of Slavery (New York 1864) pp 16–17, 48-9, 53-4, 346-7Google Scholar; Van Dyke, Henry J., The Character and Influence of Abolitionism (New York 1860) pp 25–31 Google Scholar.

34 Vander Velde pp 280-333, and especially pp 295-9.

35 Robinson, John Bell, Pictures of Slavery and Antislavery (Philadelphia 1863) pp 261-75Google Scholar.

36 Barrows, William, The War and Slavery, and their Relations to Each Other (Boston 1863) pp 10–18 Google Scholar.

37 See, for examples, Observer 2 October 1862, 21 May 1863, 4 June 1863, and 8 December 1864.

38 ‘The War’ Christian Examiner 71 (1861) p 100.

39 Jones, Northern Methodism p 82.

40 Observer 4 June 1863; ‘A Month of Victory and its Results’ Christian Examiner 75 (1863) pp 277-8.

41 Crooks, Simpson p 384.

42 Hodge, Biblical Repertory 35 (1863) p 152.

43 For the evolution of Hodge’s views, see Ibid 34 (1862) pp 519-22; 35 (1863) pp 150-5; 36 (1864) pp 541-551; 37 (1865) pp 436-40.

44 Beecher, [Henry Ward], ’The Church’s Duty to Slavery‘ [Freedom and War: Discourses on Topics suggested by the Times] (Boston 1863) pp 211-Google Scholar; Eggleston, N.H., ’Emancipation‘ New Englander 21 (1862) pp 785-6Google Scholar; Gravely, Haven pp 88-90; ‘God’s Hand in War’ Independent 18 April 1861.

45 ‘The War and Slavery’ Independent 9 May 1861.

46 ‘The War Policy and the Future of the South’ Christian Examiner 73 (1862) pp 440-1. See also Haven, [Gilbert], [National Sermons] (Boston 1869) pp 266-8Google Scholar.

47 Bushneil, [Horace], [’The Doctrine of Loyalty‘ New Englander 22 (1863)] pp 579-80Google Scholar; Beecher pp 337-9; Haven pp 266-7. See also 1de pp 140-2

48 The Extinction of Slavery a National Necessity before the Present Conflict can he Ended (n.p., n.d.) p 6.

49 Ware, John F.W., Our Duty under Reverse (Boston 1861) pp 9, 10Google Scholar; independent 1 January 1863; Haven pp 435-6.

50 Christian Advocate 17 October 1861, 21 November 1861, 23 January 1862, 2 and 9 October 1862.

51 Ide pp 153-4, 155,239-40.

52 Haven p 383.

53 Ibid p 384.

54 Bushneil p 581. See also Fredrickson, George M., The Inner Civil War. Northern Intellectuals and the Crisis of the Union (New York 1965) pp 25-6, 137-44Google Scholar.

55 For statements of the punishment theme, and comprehensive lists of punishable sins, see Gannett, Ezra S., Repentance amidst Deliverance (Boston 1863) pp 7–15 Google Scholar, and Sturtevant pp 895-6, 899-912.

56 Haven pp 382, 423; S.W.S. Dutton, ‘Home Duties during the War’ New Englander 19 (1861) p 681; ‘The History and Theory of Revolutions’ Biblical Repertory 34 (1862) p 273.

57 Ide p 228.

58 For examples of the purification theme, see Christian Examiner 71 (1861) pp 109-115; Independent 27 November 1862, 1 January 1863; Jones, Northern Methodism pp 88-9; West, N., Establishment in National Righteousness and Present Causes of Thanksgiving (New York 1861) pp 36-7Google Scholar. West, incidentally, moves straight from this passage to a much more dramatic, millennial interpretation of the Civil War. Ibid pp 37-9.

59 See for example Crooks, Simpson pp 381-2; Thompson, Joseph P., ’The Advancement of Christ’s Kingdom by War‘ Nav Englander 24 (1865) pp 316-8Google Scholar; Hodge, Biblical Repertory 35 (1863) pp 167-8.

60 Moorhead passim; Hofstadter, Richard The American Political Tradition and the Men who made it (New York 1948) v–vii Google Scholar.

61 Observer 16 May 1861.