Although the Church of England was united in its denunciation of slavery, the American Anglican (Episcopal) Church showed affability toward slavery interests consistent with its support of existing social and economic conditions. When the British Parliament resisted abolition, the Church of England pressured the government, and slavery was abolished throughout the British Empire in 1833. The French government followed suit in 1848. The American Emancipation Proclamation wasn’t signed until September 22, 1862, one-and-a-half years after the start of the Civil War.
In the American South the religious defense of slavery was vigorous and widespread. What is not generally known is that slavery had many supporters in the North, too. Some Northern religious writers defended slavery, but support for abolition inevitably made it onto the agendas of meetings of most official church bodies. However, antislavery resolutions passed in church assemblies tended to be symbolic and lukewarm.
The strongest religious support for the abolition of slavery was in the Congregational, Methodist, Presbyterian and Quaker churches along with some Baptists – less so in Unitarian, Episcopalian, or Catholic churches. Quakers were the strongest in their support for abolition, but they were torn between their objection to slavery and their pacificism. While they didn't produce firebrand preachers speaking out against slavery, they were active in the Underground Railroad.
In the case of the Baptists and Methodists, the Northern and Southern churches were in opposition about the legitimacy of slavery. In 1844, the Methodist Church passed a resolution requesting Bishop James O. Andrew of Georgia to step down while he remained a slave owner. When he would not, the church split between Northern and Southern conferences. At the 1845 General Conference of the Baptist Church, Northern members opposed the appointment of missionaries who held slaves, which resulted in the formation of the Southern Baptist Convention.
No comments:
Post a Comment