Christian abolitionism
I was reading this article (http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/tserve/nineteen/nkeyinfo/amabrel.htm) by a former professor emeritus of history (Bertram Wyatt-Brown) and he writes how slavery was supported by northerners on several grounds in opposition to the christian abolitionists but in one particularly that it would "endanger" "secular democracy".
I also read that an approach that was taken was to convert slaveowners. Now I'm not sure if that was to imply that people were generally culturally christian or if the people in question were atheists mostly or of any other religion or if there was an appreciation for conversion to particular christian denominations. For the last part it seems no major christian denomination promoted slavery but some pushed abolition/manumission less so they could convert more.
In any case, after reading the article, I wonder if the whole abolition movement was fundamentally christian and whether there were fundamental grassroots which were either not christian or were secular. If there were, what was their influence and how did christianity come to dominate them?
A second question is it seems as if the republican party was very christian as well in wanting Sunday closures, abolitionism and prohibitionism. It's an obvious fact that abolitionism was a progressive development (even if it didn't get fully solved by christian abolitionism and required war) but prohibition and sunday closures, stemming still from this metaphysical foundation, are deemed as regressive and I wonder why that is and if we didn't leave behind a positive direction.
I also read that an approach that was taken was to convert slaveowners. Now I'm not sure if that was to imply that people were generally culturally christian or if the people in question were atheists mostly or of any other religion or if there was an appreciation for conversion to particular christian denominations. For the last part it seems no major christian denomination promoted slavery but some pushed abolition/manumission less so they could convert more.
In any case, after reading the article, I wonder if the whole abolition movement was fundamentally christian and whether there were fundamental grassroots which were either not christian or were secular. If there were, what was their influence and how did christianity come to dominate them?
A second question is it seems as if the republican party was very christian as well in wanting Sunday closures, abolitionism and prohibitionism. It's an obvious fact that abolitionism was a progressive development (even if it didn't get fully solved by christian abolitionism and required war) but prohibition and sunday closures, stemming still from this metaphysical foundation, are deemed as regressive and I wonder why that is and if we didn't leave behind a positive direction.
Comments (51)
That is not the case. The major denominations divided during the years before the war
Outside of the churches, the intellectual environment of Abolitionists was influenced by the "Transcendentalists" As a development of "enlightenment" thinking, what Jefferson wrote comes from the same sources but revealing clear lines of departure regarding what ought to be done.
I've only seen southern baptists split from baptists. Right now they're a big congregation but baptists were a major congregation then even in the north.
Transcendentalism was influenced by Unitarianism and came after the early abolitionist movements. The northeners banned slavery in states by the late 18th century for some (with future unitarian and future president John Adams writing it in as a clause for Massachusetts' constitution). If I remember correctly, Quakerism had a lot of influence on transcendentalists too.
Methodists divide before the war.
Presbyterians divide before the war.
Calvinists divide before the war.
It is true that the 'Transcendentalists; were influenced by a number of religious groups. That is why I put it as "outside of the churches" rather than describe it as strictly 'secular'. Nonetheless, they were also influenced by thinkers we loosely refer to as writers pursuing the goals of Enlightenment through reason.
It seems there was a divide but I see a lot of political qualifications and less theological ones. In any case christians can be wrong but I don't see any push for getting rid of slavery outside christianity. Even if nominally the enlightenment thinkers were against it (I would say founded in christian ethics), it took christianity to take the charge against secular society on this and it was secular society, through liberal capitalism, that created the issue.
Mercantilism traded slaves but it never allowed the importation of them and were generally against the institutions at home so it was more on the buyers.
There is no doubt that slavery was a successful capital development plan for many investors in it. There were benefactors of the system in both the North and the South. But it is important to remember that the issue of letting the system be established in new states is where the first blood was drawn in the Civil War. There was a competing system of economic expansion that was incompatible with slavery. The private interests of one group came to an existential struggle with other private interests.
It doesn't get more secular than that.
That doesn't seem to square with what actually happened though. The industrial revolution happened later and exacerbated both sides. What language you're using in terms of "private interests of one group" etc is actually rousseauian general will which the lockean north denied in favor of natural rights. The south refused to allow the slaves inside their general will to grant them freedom (except infamously with the 3/5ths compromise where it benefited them and, in any case, not granting them 3/5ths freedoms).
In any case, the main push against slavery was purely christian and not economic (there was a physical war, not an economic one with corporate takeovers/mergers etc) unless you mean economy as a byword for culture or state in which I refer back to the north not participating in general wills but natural rights which were influenced and founded, later, by the christian movements there. The whole thing seems christian and there was a ton of secular reactionism against christian abolitionism even in the north. So again unless you mean economy as not in the north but in the christian community but that would trivially concede your point.
While I am interested in those ideas as my forum name might suggest, I was referring to the specific people In Kansas and Missouri who killed each other over the issue. The Lincoln versus Douglas debates were specifically concerned with whether slavery could be introduced into new states. Lincoln's first iteration of 'Unionism' did not address the status of slaves in the places where the system was already established. The South did not accept that limitation and rejected Lincoln's legitimacy as their President when he was elected because of that nonacceptance.
The agile adoption of pro-slavery Christians to the policy that most benefited them causes me to question the utility of setting the 'Christians' against the 'Secular' as you are suggesting.
Because the abolition movement started with the christians. The enlightenment ideals freed literally nobody by the adoption of the constitution. The distinction were christian puritans/quakers etc who were against slavery and the secular institutions which allowed it for individualism and capitalism.
Also it's not hard to say that people who fought for the south fought for states rights even if they abhorred slavery and even if there was a section of christians who were pro-slavery, that still doesn't imply there was a section of secularists who were anti-slavery even though there were. The logic doesn't imply that and all the early histories of abolitionism, and even later up until near the war when it became political, are completely christian dominated in theology, ethics etc.
Edit: I'd also like to point out that saying "one group vs another group" has zero explanatory power of why it is that one group (which were christians).
Transcendentalism: Transcendentalism became a coherent movement and a sacred organization with the founding of the Transcendental Club in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on September 12, 1836, by prominent New England intellectuals, including George Putnam (Unitarian minister), Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Frederic Henry Hedge.
As I recollect, most transcendentalists were abolitionist, but took several different approaches.
The Methodist Episcopal Church very actively supported the union cause, while the "Methodist Episcopal Church South" split away to follow the Confederacy out of the Union. 75 years after the Civil war (1939) the two parts reunited becoming "the Methodist Church". After the merger with the Evangelical United Brethren, they became "the United Methodist Church".
The United Methodist Church will probably split again over the issue of gay clergy and gay marriage, This split is a multinational issue where the fault line is in the US and in Africa.
I see the split but I was wondering where other sources came from. Transcendentalism came several decades after the heat of the abolitionist movement and transcendentalists grew out of the unitarian movement and some quaker and puritan sensibilities. The only slightly secular sorts of abolitionism that I can see were done by politicians who were raised puritan like John Adams but it seems the push against abolitionism was done by secularists.
In terms of the second question, I wonder if abolitionism got co-opted into the "american secular" side of history simply due to it becoming political in terms of the long split between the north and south on mostly lockean and rousseauian lines. Once it became a war it was deemed a part of secular state's history and the christian basis seems to be completely skipped over. I'm wondering if there's justification for that and, even more, I'm wondering if christianity succeeded before it became a war whether we would have sundays closed and a successful prohibition.
They did not free the slaves at first. The contradictions did lead to a reckoning of the sort Martin Luther King Jr. emphasized.
The constitution did free a whole bunch of people to make their own messes rather than inherent them. A polity of change versus divine authority. As Churchill noted, both suck but one more than the other.
What reckoning did mlk speak about? He used christianity as a basis where malcolm x used politics and divisiveness hidden in Islam (because you need a strong religious basis) but this was well after.
It didn't free women or anybody really. I'm not sure what it did except get rid of the crown. It was noted that for all men to be created equal does not imply revolution but the opposite on the other side of the pond.
In any case the idea seems to be christianity is what had the sole ability to fight for slave freedom from an ethical position that had any decent strength. If that's divine authority then you haven't been able to explain away this purely christian movement.
Self-evident truths do not require faith to be recognized.
And yet they weren't enough. Anyways self-evident truths requires not a general will but something prior to the established polity be it nature or God or something else valid. The prior being nature clearly wasn't enough, even though it has some actionable ethics/ontology, where God and christianity clearly showed what the best of self-evident truths means.
Enough for what? If what Jefferson is saying here is correct, we are not in a condition where any particular solution will suffice for all time.
Quoting Shwah
There has been much ink and blood spilled on this topic. Across many versions of Christianity, however, the notion of what is revealed through faith versus what one might notice even if they were a pagan has been discussed. The language of salvation is not self-evident. One has to confess a belief in order to participate. So, to say that the equality of persons is self-evident is to place the observation outside of faith. Green is green, blue is blue, people are people.
Enough to free anybody and you're conflating general will with natural rights here. Self-evident means prior to man or men like a priori. The distinction is between natural rights (or before man) and general will (or after man). There's nothing self evident in the borders of a state or what basketball team I'll support unless you make the general will in natural law terms which would be appealed to instead.
The question is then what is natural law and we've seen the distinction between the liberal constitution and christianity. Rights coming from God, and not man, puts christianity in that former category of natural or self-evident rights.
Edit: Also christianity has hardly been a violent source otherwise christianity wouldn't ever meaningfully spawn pacifists which it regularly does even as Jehovah's witnesses today. There are other factors in those responses. Pagans were much more violent than christians have ever been.
I took the expression to mean what everybody notices when they go out on walks.
Because that's a valid expression of self-evident truths. Another example that's unrelated are analytic truths like "all bachelors are unmarried men". It was a big issue between rousseau and locke in terms of property rights and was what marx and even the nazis inherited and justified as a means of taking property from the bourgeoisie/Jews. It justified slavery as was said. Lockean liberalism has issues too such as in the Dawes act disenfranchising native Americans so natural or self-evident rights still needs to be defined.
When do you think the the transcendentalist movement began, and when do you think the abolitionist movement peaked? Seems to me they were both in business for a substantial period of time. Quoting Shwah
Quoting Shwah
In the United States (and not only here) religion and secular affairs are not necessarily as separate as one might think. Go back to mid 1800s and this is even more true.
Major social movements (prohibition, abolitionism, women's suffrage, etc. pick up secular and religious strands and braid them together. The 'braiding' is one of the ways the movements gain maximum effectiveness. Same goes for Martin Luther King, Student Non Violent Coordinating Committee, and numerous other groups in the broad civil rights movement.
Christianity isn't dead yet (though it's not the same potent force it was 100 years ago), so other resources are now pressed into service more often.
Sunday closure... you talking about blue laws?
Blue laws are peculiar. just for example, in a recent effort to change the liquor laws in Minneapolis, the small liquor stores were in favor of Sunday closing -- not because they were all in church all day, but because they stood to lose more than they would gain by Sunday opening. Large liquor stores could afford the lower returns on Sunday.
In the small Minnesota town I grew up in 65 years ago) everything in town was closed except 1 small grocery store and a couple of gas stations. There was no competitive issue because other towns around followed the same rules. Now most things are open in this small town -- bars, what few stores there are, etc.
Transcendentalists were around from the late 1820's - 1830's per the wikipedia which was after the second great revival started. The christian abolitionist movement had currency from the late 17th century with the quakers and the other mainstream branches like methodism were against slavery by the mid 18th century. There doesn't really seem to be a lot of secular positions against slavery and in fact slavery became a lot larger around 1700 when the economics for slave-trading and useage became better so a lot of formerly anti slavery states like georgia and rhode island became slave states. So an economic argument was made.
My dad and mom spoke about blue laws and they're in their 60's from Texas. I think a lot is to be gained by taking an ontological approach that isn't secular as that founds better ethics which can create better economic decisions etc.
An explanation: Christians aren't true Christians or the better ethics in modern society isn't Christianity-based.
Christian abolitionists? No, can't be, oui?
Most Americans, North and South, were Christian. Most slave-owners were Christian. Both those who supported slavery and those opposed used the Bible to support their views and believed that God was on their side.
Quoting Civil War and Christianity
The old testament in exodus details what slavery is. One fact is you could sell yourself into slavery (leviticus 25:35/39) and the word used for slave and servant is the same (abed). So we're dealing with a slightly different entity than the economical hell-hole which was chattel slavery.
So how are abed to be treated, it applies talion (eye-for-eye etc) to the slaves in Exodus 21:26-27. Talion is used in a few other verses and it doesn't all have to be stipulated to apply it (Leviticus 24:19-21, Exodus 21:22-25, Deuteronomy 19:16-21 with some of these using just eye for eye, tooth for tooth and some related dyad then saying "no mercy" which shows the sequential dyad is poetic and not literal as a simple map to talion). The middle eastern cultures used talion since hamurrabi and even in roman code but what makes Exodus 21:26-27 special is it says the slave is to go free. Exodus 21:23-25 goes over how extensive talion is and what "no mercy" means, "23 But if there is serious injury, you are to take life for life, 24 eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, 25 burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise." So the application of talion to slaves in the succeeding two verses says to not hurt your abed or they go free.
Slavery is hardly a surprise to anyone in that it happened in history but what is surprising to some are the preceding verses in Exodus 21:20-21 where it says, "20 “Anyone who beats their male or female slave with a rod must be punished if the slave dies as a direct result, 21 but they are not to be punished if the slave recovers after a day or two, since the slave is their property." These verses without the succeeding ones sounds like it allows beating of abed but it simply says the abed owner has no consequence unless they hurt the abed a lot and I'm not entirely sure what the reason was for that but the abed is still let go. I imagine these were applied so talion didn't apply backwards (enslavement-for-enslavement). We see this "owner-does-not-receive-punishment-unless-they-went-too-far" applied to bulls in Exodus 21:28-32 where there is a punishment and line an owner of a bull can't cross otherwise he gets punished. There were also verses about not being cruel to animals as part of the noahide covenant (which influenced the ten commandments).
The basis for all this is in Leviticus 25:42 where he says, "Because the Israelites are my servants, whom I brought out of Egypt, they must not be sold as slaves." It uses the same word abed in the original hebrew (but conjugated/declined differently to represent case and plurality) but the point of this covenant was that they were freed from Egypt by YHWH who they were enslaved to and that was the foundation of their ethics etc.
Christians follow the new covenant as if it was ok it was not always in place
Is a news reporter who provides an unbiased account of Nazism a Nazi? Does the mention of eugenics in a book imply that the author advocates eugenics? :chin:
The old Testament reports a "father" who treats his old Testament children different than the New people. In the OT he had husbands cutting off their wives' hands and being ordered not to feel compassion. Just saying
Leviticus 25:46 "make them slaves for life"
I don't know...I don't know. Something doesn't add up here, oui? Why would an all-loving God command heinous acts like that? Didn't those who were commanded to commit the alleged atrocities realize that God's commands were not making any sense at all? Someone should've gone "hey, look, something's not right here!"
Does this have anything to do with the notorious Milgram experiment? This was genocide akin to the Nazi mass killings of Jews 1939 - 1945. Didn't even one prison guard in the numerous concentration camps around Europe go :chin:
The Old Testament is an Iron Age Milgram experiment and God was Stanley Milgram, but for some reason, the experiment wasn't terminated when things started going sideways, people were!
It says you can but don't enslave your Israeli brethren and then the verse after it says you can sell yourself into slavery if you're poor but other Israelis should help you. On top of that, Leviticus was held to Exodus' rules on not harming your abed. It seems abedness was a widespread practice then and the goal was to establish a way to not get into slavery again.
Another verse that gets used is Exodus 21:7 which says, "7 “If a man sells his daughter as a servant, she is not to go free as male servants do." If one reads from verse 7 to 11 it's actually trying to make life mire stable for the female and not have a huge female slavery market.
An interesting few verses from Leviticus 21:10-14, "10 When you go to war against your enemies and the Lord your God delivers them into your hands and you take captives, 11 if you notice among the captives a beautiful woman and are attracted to her, you may take her as your wife. 12 Bring her into your home and have her shave her head, trim her nails 13 and put aside the clothes she was wearing when captured. After she has lived in your house and mourned her father and mother for a full month, then you may go to her and be her husband and she shall be your wife. 14 If you are not pleased with her, let her go wherever she wishes. You must not sell her or treat her as a slave, since you have dishonored her."
The world didn't seem perfect but it wasn't as bad as the chattel slavery of later and you weren't allowed to be abusive. It was a full market you could sell yourself into apparently for life. There were war captives but that was apparently not a big amount of slaves and you still couldn't mistreat them.
Slavery was the same then as now. Slavery in the South had its apologists too.. Christians say a higher law is now in place but it should have always been in place. And why didn't OT wives have equal rights of as the husband's? You sound like a Muslim apologist
I agree. Deut. 25:12 was the verse I mentioned
Who cares if I am an Islam apologist?
It was not common at all, it may have never happened, the phenomenon of selling yourself into slavery if you're poor in the American south. Chattel slavery seems to make it impossible.
It was also not a trait of slavery in America to free slaves if you hurt them.
I asked a Muslim how talion was applied to them and he said that there's a general funny joke or idea that explains it, "If you unjustly slap your slave then he has a right to slap you back." So they apply talion more literally.
Edit: Now what did happen in America was selling yourself into indentured servitude to either get a ride on a boat there and to get land after x amount of years worked. That's not what we're talking about with chattel slavery and indentured servitude is more in line with abed.
Defend satanic religions all you want, it's a fact that the Bible calls slavery "property". Lev 21 and 25 speak of perpetual slavery and Num. says to enslave the children of enemies you killed
I feel like you've completely ignored what I wrote because I already mentioned Leviticus 21 and you haven't seemed to respond to anything I said just line up more accusations.
P77 (the year was 1860): The whig party had ceased to exist before I had an opportunity of exercising the privilege of casting a ballot; the Know-Nothing party had taken its place, but was on the wane; and the Republican party was in a chaotic state and had not yet received a name. It had no existence in the slave states except at points on the borders next to free states.
Up to the Mexican war there were few out and out abolitionists.......But the great majority of people at the North, where slavery did not exist were opposed to the institution.
P79: For there were people who believed in the 'divinity' of human slavery, as there are now people who believe Mormonism and Polygamy to be ordained by the Most High. We forgive them for entertaining such notions, but forbid their practice.
It's a very good book to read in light of the OP.
Yeah it does look interesting. I would say a history of quakers in general and in America would show a lot more abolitionism. The abolitionist position lost ground once the 18th century started and the markets had the economics for slavery be promoted. I would say the strongest justification for anything is in such a foundation like God. In any case, the primary agitant seems to be secularism, particularly liberal capitalism. The christian perspective came a century and a half later after it was a huge institution and many denominations in the south decided it was bad but so was losing souls. The christian development and intensification was politically drawn afaik.
You admit slavery was part of the law but say it was benign. Why should I trust you when the Bible supports cutting wives hands off and setting people on fire?
To be honest I engaged pretty fruitfully and you haven't really given any concern to anything besides throwing rebuttals everywhere without addressing my points. That and you called me a Muslim apologist for no reason and your accusations aren't biblical except in a cursory reading of verses with a modern bias. Clearly nobody will be up to the task of explaining the bible or history so I'm not sure why you replied here. I mean it's extremely off-topic anyways.
The Bible supports slavery and supports slavery as property ownership
I'm not interested in conversing with you.
At this rate Shwah, you'll have no one to converse with in (say) 2/3 moons! :smile:
We can pin that on Jesus being semiconscious, ethically speaking. I think there's some truth to the resurrection story: X was zombieish compared to fully enlightened beings like the Buddha (Buddhism) and Mahavira (Jainism); his knowledge of ethics was, unfortunately, incomplete or partial. Between something is better than nothing and a little knowledge is dangerous, I'm :confused:
I'll have nobody uninteresting to converse with in 2/3 months hopefully.
You lied about the Muslim thing and are dishonest in general
I did not lie about anything as there was nothing to lie about. I'm not an apologist for Islam but it doesn't matter if I am. If you could stop your bigotry and harassment and stop replying to me I would appreciate it.
I didn't say you were a Muslim apologist
Whatever you said, context and tone matters and you've been nothing but abrasive and throwing in that accusation is not charitable and looks bigotous.
Have a good one.