ELEVEN

These “bishops” (such as Nathan Rice, Charles Hodge, James Henley Thornwell, Thomas Smyth, George Junkin, and, of course, Robert J. Breckinridge) had come into their own as young ministers in the 1830s and 1840s. Now, a quarter of a century later, they wielded a commanding influence. So long as the nation remained united, the Old School would not divide.

But the pockets of opposition to the conservative front identified in chapters 7-8 were growing–especially in the northwest and in the south. J. G. Monfort’s Presbyter continued to press the anti-slavery agenda. Convinced that many southerners wanted to end slavery, Monfort commented after the trial of John Brown that “if the South would allow, on her own soil, liberty of speech, and if the North would only abide by the constitution, there might be hope. We do not, however, expect either section to act again with much wisdom or discretion.” Monfort was convinced that “The South began the difficulty in persecuting unto death men who opposed slavery, and in this she had her Northern allies. The tables are about being turned in the North, and there is reason to fear equal lawlessness here.” Monfort feared that the day was past when the two sides could work together because northern conservatives and southern conservatives were no longer on the same page.[4]

The northwest was the center of Old School political discussion early in 1860. Robert J. Breckinridge wrote an open letter to his nephew, John C. Breckinridge (vice-president of the United States), defending the importance of maintaining the union. As rumors of southern secession came to northern ears, the Danville theologian urged his nephew (and other southern Democrats) to reconsider their rhetoric. In a wide-ranging survey of the issues before the nation, he denounced slavery as “contrary to the spirit of the Gospel and the natural rights of man,” and declared his conviction that the Dred Scott decision was a travesty of justice. If southerners were intent on breaking up “the confederacy, the alleged tenor of the Republican party will answer as pretext.”[5] But Breckinridge was convinced that disunion was not a legitimate option.

J. G. Monfort concurred with the basic point, but was disappointed–and indeed offended, “that he should feel himself called to throw such contempt and odium upon the political party which commands the largest vote in the country, a party to which nine-tenths of the ministers and members of his own church in the North-West belong.” While Monfort was given to exaggeration when identifying the strength of his party, it does appear that a large majority of Old School Presbyterians in the northwest had come to favor the free soil agenda of the Republican party.[6] Monfort, however, was convinced that the Republican party posed no threat to the South or its “peculiar institution.” What Monfort did not know was that Breckinridge himself favored the Republican party.

Southerners could see this, and therefore they replied to Breckinridge with even greater fervor. The North Carolina Presbyterian declared that Breckinridge had practically rejected the United States Constitution by opposing the Dred Scott decision,[7] while the Mississippian (a political paper) asked whether Breckinridge’s statements on slavery were not “perfectly in keeping. . . with the dogmas which emanate from the vilest bigots of the Republican party?” The rhetorical level of the political newspapers went far beyond the normally calm debates of the Old School papers. With an invective simply not found in antebellum Old School papers (except for some of Breckinridge’s own writings), the Mississippian declared: “When the people of the South become so abject as to seek or accept the counsels of one who has by such record vindicated his claim to their unmitigated abhorrence, they will be fit subjects for the yoke which their Northern enemies are preparing for their necks.”[8]

As the election of 1860 drew nearer, Old School Presbyterians could not agree about the prospects for the future. Some still hoped that the Democratic party and the Old School church would prevail. O. S. P. argued that these bodies might offer the best hope for the Union, because they were the “only party and church having strength in both sections of the Union. . . In the light of history and providence, we may learn that great evils are not often speedily removed; nor are great reforms hastily accomplished.” Northern Old Schoolers could pursue their conservative anti-slavery measures with confidence. “The church is safe. The Union will stand. Truth shall prevail.”[9] Nathan Rice’s Presbyterian Expositor refrained from political commentary, but it was widely known that Cyrus McCormick was the money behind the paper (as he was behind the two Democratic political papers in Chicago). In the opinion of the more politically-oriented Presbyter, this was an attempt to use money to sway the minds of the northwest. Indeed, one author thought that McCormick’s influence in both the religious and the political press of Chicago was “surely an anomalous mixing up of the world and the Church-- of politics and Presbyterianism.”[10]

Eastern papers, though, agreed with Rice’s quieter stance. The Presbyterian reminded its readers to approach the election in the light of God’s providence. Engles warned that the masses “can be wrought on to believe that the very existence of our noble union is dependent on the success of a particular candidate, while they spurn as fanatical delusion the much more certain testimony from God, that the life of their immortal souls is dependent on their full belief in Jesus.” Because Christians believed in the sovereign government of God, “we should discard the feeling that the welfare of our country depends on the ascendency of this or that party, For God can confound the counsels of both alike.” Only a religious people, he argued, could withstand the pressures of party passions.[11]

2. The Election of 1860 and Its Aftermath

The election of Lincoln prompted comment from all over the Old School. J. G. Monfort, the Old School’s most politically engaged editor, rejoiced, though with most northerners he remained convinced for several months after the election that the Union would remain intact. While South Carolina and a few other states might temporarily secede, Monfort naively believed that “the ‘poor white folks’ in the South are really deeply interested in the abolition of slavery, and they will all know, in a month after civil war begins, that this is their interest, and that now is their time.” He thought that the south’s peculiar institution “levels them with slaves.” Betraying his ignorance of southern social relations, Monfort claimed that the southern army would consist solely of slaveholders who could not cook their own meals.[12]

Others in the northwest were less sanguine. On Sunday, November 18, 1860, the Rev. Samuel R. Wilson preached a sermon on “The Causes and Remedies of Impending National Calamities.” Convinced that the “Central States, the borders of which are washed by the waters of the Ohio” would determine the future of the United States,[13] Wilson identified three main causes of civil unrest. First he warned that pride, the “sin of the Devil, the sin of Sodom, Egypt and Babylon, the sin of Tyre and Rome, the sin of God’s own chosen Israel, has become our sin already.”[14] Second, he declared that America had become a nation of oppressors, not merely on the plantations of the south, but also in the north. “And if I should confine my remarks to the colored race alone it would be no difficult matter to show that the laws of the free states, and the intense prejudice of the populace are more unreasonable and oppressive than are to be found in most of the slaveholding commonwealths.”[15] In the tradition of the jeremiad, Wilson called his hearers to accept their own responsibility for the national crisis. While the abolitionist’s “taunting finger may point to the slave-mart, the whipping-post, and the loose marriage-tie of the slave,” northern states were guilty of rising rates of “pauperism, prostitution, homicides, and divorces.” Finally, Wilson spoke of the growing prevalence of “lawlessness.” Southern secession aped northern nullification of the fugitive slave law, both equally lawless. In order to avert the impending calamity, Wilson called both north and south to restore the national covenant and obey the law of the land. J. G. Monfort, a Cincinnati colleague of Wilson’s, declared that Wilson was “not only in error, but he has so delivered his views as to do great damage to others, and to the cause of truth and righteousness.” Monfort insisted that there was no “powerful faction in the North who have a settled purpose to trample down the Constitution and break up the national covenant.” A significant portion of the Old School in the northwest refused to acknowledge any complicity in the destruction of the union. [16]

In the east William Engles reminded his readers of his track record repudiating the “higher law,” protesting against radical reformers, and condemning sectional jealousies and divisions. “The recent political canvass which has stirred up the feelings of our country in so unusual a degree, has darkened our firmament, and awakened many fears for the future. . . . Forbearance is essential, and wise counsels requisite to soften the acerbity and compose the differences which may arise.” The only way to save the country was to rally behind the Constitution. The south should not assume that platform speeches by radicals expressed the true sentiments of the north. Engles, a northern Democrat, felt sure that a union based on the constitution could still stand.[17] And Engles still had some hope in the oft-cited dictum of “sagacious politicians, that as long as the Presbyterian Church remained united in its wide ramifications North and South, there was hope for the country amidst the turbulence of political feeling.”[18] But he knew the country needed more than Old School unity. The only solution, he claimed, lay “in the re-awakened good sense of the people, and in their determination to make all necessary concessions for the sake of harmony.” Either the whole nation accepted the provisions of the Constitution, or the Union would be lost.[19] In the worst case, he hoped the church could stay united even if the country split.

A southern Presbyterian concurred: “We of the South will never introduce the vexed question into the General Assembly; I take it for granted that you of the North will not; and if so, there will be no contention, we will still ‘dwell together in unity.’” He insisted, though, that the dissolution of the union was “inevitable” unless the north quickly repealed the anti-constitutional personal liberty laws.[20]

In Pittsburgh, one author noted that James Henley Thornwell had prayed for God’s favor “upon all those States which have a common interest with us,” in his prayer before the Legislature of South Carolina. “Is not this a prayer for the success of the plans of Southern fanatics, in their attempts to break up this great Republic?” Accusing Thornwell of treason, he made it clear that in his view, support for secession was rebellion against God and man.[21] Likewise, when Kentucky’s Presbyterian Herald called on the extreme south not to secede unless the Republicans actually violated the Constitution, the editor of the Presbyterian Banner, David McKinney, replied that “Secession can never be constitutional. There is no provision made for it. It is a violation of the compact, by which the people of these States become one government. . . . Let the laws be executed with promptitude and impartiality, and under the Constitution, and in accordance with law, let the majority rule. Such is Republicanism, and such is Democracy; such is right reason and such is holy Scripture.”[22] Hinting at the policies of the war years, McKinney identified Republicanism with Christianity, thereby transforming political dissent into heresy.

But in early 1861 the Pittsburgh editor was still attempting to find a middle ground. While he insisted that northerners could not yield to “unrighteous demands,” such as the spread of slavery to the territories, he insisted that slavery should be left to the states. All northern Christians could legitimately ask of their southern brethren was “that they regulate slavery by Christianity. . . . If the institution can stand the application of those principles, let it stand forever; if it cannot stand the application of these principles, no wisdom of statesmen can prevent its fall.” Convinced that the preaching of the gospel would eventually eliminate slavery, he advocated a compromise to restore the Union–or even an amicable division. The north would “do justice and even more than justice, to the South. But they are not ready to sacrifice their conscience.”[23]

Southerners now doubted R. J. Breckinridge’s qualifications as a moderate, but his January 4, 1861, sermon in Lexington, Kentucky, still sought a middle ground. He warned that “national judgments never come except by reason of national sins; nor are they ever turned aside except upon condition of repentance for the sins which produced them.”[24] Rejecting both northern nullification of the fugitive slave laws and southern secession, Breckinridge pleaded for moderation. Preaching before a crowd of Kentucky’s political leaders, Breckinridge insisted that only if the border slave states stayed in the Union could reunion work.[25]

In Virginia, Robert L. Dabney also hoped to preserve the Union. In a sermon at Hampden-Sydney College just before the election, Dabney called upon the Church to show a Christ-like love that would put an end to strife.[26] Dabney’s discourse drew praise from Engles as “Conservative in its character.” If such moderate southerners could mediate between north and south, there might still be hope.[27]

Further south, however, moderation was hard to find. South Carolina Presbyterians did not lag behind their fellow citizens in condemning the North. The Rev. A. A. Porter, the new editor of the Southern Presbyterian, declared that “while the infatuated multitude who have chosen Lincoln to the Presidency, thereby inflicting a cruel wound on the people of the South, and placing in imminent peril the most precious interests of the country, are celebrating their triumph with a joy that is indeed crazy, let us bow humbly and calmly at the mercy seat.” The time for discussion had ended: “the South cannot continue to endure the perturbations and harassments of the past.”[28] On December 1 Porter set forth his rationale for secession: 1) Lincoln was pledged to prevent the extension of slavery to the federal territories; 2) the northern states refused to enforce the fugitive slave law; 3) northern attempts at inciting slave revolts went unhindered; 4) the Republican party was pledged to run the country for the benefit of the free states alone; 5) the Republican party had rejected the decisions of the Supreme Court on Dred Scott; and 6) the sections simply differed to widely as to what was right and fair. In sum, he saw “the election of Lincoln as the final and solemn decision of the Northern States and people against the rights which the South claims under the constitution, and in favor of the policy and the principles of her irreconcilable enemies.” The South had no choice but to secede.[29]

When the Synod of South Carolina met in November of 1860, W. B. Yates and William States Lee (members of the former Charleston Union Presbytery who had call for a separate southern Presbyterian church in 1838) “offered a paper stating that the action of 1818 relative to slavery, remained unrepealed by the GA, and that the North had shown its fanaticism in the election of Abraham Lincoln to the Presidency, and that fidelity to the South required a separation from the Northern churches.” John B. Adger called separation premature, and the synod laid the proposal on the table, 72-21. Instead it declared the 1818 action “virtually rescinded” by the statement of 1845. While deploring northern tendencies to get mixed up in political questions, the Synod insisted that the present political crisis had a moral and religious bearing, and declared flatly, “that the people of South Carolina are now solemnly called on to imitate their Revolutionary forefathers, and stand up for their rights.”[30]

Further west, on November 29, 1860, the Rev. Dr. Benjamin Morgan Palmer preached a sermon in New Orleans entitled “Slavery a Divine Trust. Duty of the South to Preserve and Perpetuate It.”[31] Palmer had rarely touched on politics, but when he did he deployed the rhetorical skill that had made him one of the finest pulpit orators in the nation. Palmer believed that the question of slavery “which now places us upon the brink of revolution,” was initially a “question of morals and religion,” debated in the church before it reached the national stage.[32] He insisted on the duty of the south to “conserve and to perpetuate the institution of slavery as now existing.”[33] Although admitting that slavery might one day come to an end, Palmer urged his influential congregation to secede from the Union and establish a slaveholding republic. Declaring that “no despotism is more absolute than that of an unprincipled democracy, and no tyranny more galling than that exercised through constitutional formulas,” Palmer insisted that Lincoln was but the pawn of the Black Republicans, intent on destroying the south.[34] The only way to preserve slavery was to secede.

Two weeks later, the Rev. Dr. Joseph R. Wilson, a native of Ohio and a graduate of Jefferson College (1844), but now a pastor on the South Carolina border at Augusta, Georgia, wrote to the Presbyterian Banner, that northerners were misinformed if they thought South Carolina divided regarding secession. “Never were a united people more immovably resolved to alter their political relations than are the people of South Carolina.” And, Wilson added, within a few weeks Georgia would be as unanimous. “The sole ground of disagreement is upon the question of time.” Some urged delay, to see what the North would do, but none spoke against secession in principle. Wilson insisted that only northern states’ repeal of the “personal liberty bills” could save the Union.[35]

David McKinney replied to the southerners that they were doing precisely what the abolitionists had hoped for. “You are rushing into the very abyss into which William Lloyd Garrison, Wendel Phillips, and men of that class have been long anxious to see you fall. . . . For years they have been wishing you out of the Union.” In contrast, he insisted that the great mass of the North wanted to work with southerners, if only they would be patient and wait.[36]

3. Hodge on the State of the Country

In January of 1861, Charles Hodge weighed in from Princeton. While on purely political matters, Hodge had generally remained silent, this, he argued, was not purely a political matter:

Arguing for the oneness of the nation on the basis of ethnic, linguistic, and geographical unity throughout the United States, Hodge claimed that the union was “determined by the homogeneity of its people, by its history, and by its physical character. It cannot be permanently dissevered.” But even more important was the national covenant–the constitution–which bound the nation together.[38] Hodge insisted that the Republican party “is not an antislavery, much less an abolition party.”[39] Lincoln won in 1860, not because the abolitionists had conquered the hearts of the north, but because the Democrats had utterly failed to provide a workable solution to the slavery crisis of the 1850s and then demonstrated their incompetence by dividing at their 1860 Convention in Charleston.

Hodge then turned to the reasons for southern secession. While he doubted that the south would prosper as a result of secession, he did acknowledge that it had “some just grounds of complaint, and that the existing animosity towards the North is neither unnatural nor unaccountable.” Nonetheless, he argued that “these grievances are greatly exaggerated, and that this animosity arises in a large measure from misapprehension.”[40] Granting the justice of southern complaints against the language and conduct of the abolitionists, Hodge nonetheless argued that abolitionists were a tiny minority. “We do not know of one clergyman among the Roman Catholics, or the Episcopalians, or the Dutch Reformed, belonging to the class of abolitionists. Of the three thousand Old‑school Presbyterian clergymen in the country, we do not believe there are twelve who deserve to be so designated.” While northern Methodists had “more of that spirit,” the northern clergy as a whole had a “strong conservative element.” The election of Lincoln did not indicate the growth of abolitionism, because “the Republican party consists of those who desired to enter their protest against the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, and the attempts to force slavery upon Kansas, joined by thousands who wish for a protective tariff, and thousands more, who, from dislike of one candidate, and distrust of another, preferred to vote for Mr. Lincoln.”[41]

Hodge also acknowledged that the south had good reason to complain about northern attempts to assist fugitive slaves, but he pointed out that the “conduct of a small band of fanatics over which the people have no control, and for which they are not responsible” could not warrant the division of the nation. But Hodge severely strained his credibility when he claimed that not more than one thousand northerners could be found who approved of the violation of the fugitive slave law.[42]

Hodge then turned to the constitutional question. Had the north violated the terms of the national compact? The federal government remained committed to the enforcement of the fugitive slave law, and no southerner could complain of the fidelity of the federal government in the matter. In contrast, Hodge pointed out that the provision of the Constitution, that gave citizens of one state the same privileges in all others had been “formally nullified by law” with respect to free African-Americans who wished to move to the South. A free black citizen was denied his constitutional right to move to another state. If southern states could nullify the federal constitution through their state laws, why did they object when northern states did the same?[43] Moreover, Hodge argued that the so-called “personal liberty laws” were perfectly consistent with the constitution. Even if unconstitutional, the proper remedy was for the Supreme Court to declare the state law unconstitutional. There is no “breach of contract, so long as the Federal Government, the party bound, is faithful to its duty.”[44] The southern complaint was merely a pretext.

The real issue, Hodge believed, was the south’s insistence on keeping control of the national government. As the northern states grew in population and as more free states joined from the west, the south feared losing its veto power in the United States Senate. Southerners insisted that there could be “no law enacted, no measure adopted, without its approbation, and consequently for its benefit.” But, Hodge pointed out, “this supposes that the interest of the slaveholders is antagonistic to all others, and is so important that it may rightfully be dominant, or at least co‑ordinate and limiting.” This insistence, Hodge argued, was contrary to the Constitution, which did not recognize “sections,” but only states.[45]

Finally, Hodge turned to the question of secession. After all, even if all the grievances were imaginary, if states had the right to secede, no one could stop them. But Hodge claimed secession legally impossible because the several states formed one nation, indivisible except by revolution or common consent. The constitution itself declared the union to be “perpetual.” “A perpetual union is one which cannot be dissolved except on the consent of all the parties to that union. Secession is a breach of faith. It is morally a crime, as much as the secession of a regiment from the battle field would be.”[46]

As for a solution, Hodge had little to offer. He suggested that the federal government reimburse southerners for escaped slaves and urged restoration of the Missouri Compromise, “the abrogation of which is the immediate source of all our present troubles. The adoption of these measures, both of which have been repeatedly proposed, would meet the views, as we cannot but believe, of the great body of moderate and good men in every part of the country.”[47]

The response to Hodge was mixed. From his forced retirement in Indiana, Erasmus Darwin MacMaster replied that Hodge’s position at Princeton Seminary gave “his deliverances an influence to which they are not always entitled upon their own merits. This is especially true of all his deliverances in general on the subject of slavery, and in particular of his late article on the state of the country.” Rejecting Hodge’s definition of slavery (involuntary servitude) as “absurd,” he insisted that slavery was in fact “the system which makes the legal status of men, and women, and children to be that of property that is, of real estate, or chattels personal, as the case may be; and slavery is condemned as a sin against God, and the most gross outrage upon man.” MacMaster denied being an abolitionist. He recognized that a Christian could hold slaves–but only for the good of the slaves as he worked diligently to end slavery.[48]

As to the character of the Republican party, MacMaster claimed that Hodge had grossly misrepresented its purpose. The Republican party was an anti-slavery party, and MacMaster believed that the church should be ashamed that rather than inculcating “a right public opinion” regarding the moral outrage of slavery, it had left it to “statesmen and politicians, and subjected herself to be reproached by them, as succumbing to the impudent assumption of the pro-slavery power, and, like the dominant political party, proscribing men who refuse to bow the knee to this Baal.” The great glory of the Republican party was exactly that it was anti-slavery, and Hodge had no business obscuring its true purpose.[49]

MacMaster rejected Hodge’s proposed solution just as firmly. He insisted that the north should only pay the full value of fugitive slaves if the slave states embraced the full “religious and industrial training” of their slaves, along with a system for the “gradual emancipation of those thus prepared for freedom,” along with their colonization, either in the tropical regions of our own continent, or, what would be every way far better, and not impracticable, in Africa.” But if the south would not agree to this, then he insisted that the north should not “pay for their runaway slaves.” As for the restoration of the Missouri Compromise, MacMaster argued that it was so “abhorrent even to an obtuse moral sense, that it was the political death of every man from the Free States who voted for it.” Emancipation or resolute opposition to slavery within the bounds of the constitution were the only two options for MacMaster.[50]

Nonetheless, MacMaster admitted that he was pleased with Hodge’s movement toward the Republican party. While the Princeton Review, in his opinion, had “done ten-fold more than all the other publications together, periodical and occasional, to perplex the minds of the simple, and to pervert the conscience of multitudes in the Church,” now Hodge was moving with the times. In a prescient commentary on the trajectory of his eastern brethren, MacMaster predicted that most of the Old School press would eventually come around. Since they tended to ride the tide of popular opinion, they would now no doubt “fall altogether into the gulph stream, and still going with the stream and the wind, will ride upon the top of the wave with all sails filled.” The time had passed for “another dishonest compromise about slavery in the Confederacy.” The anti-slavery forces would remain silent no longer. “Slavery must fall. Man is against it. God is against it. . . . If the nation and the Church do not bring it to an end, it will bring them to an end.” As to his long silence on the subject, MacMaster admitted he had found his ostracism difficult to bear, but at least it had given him the confidence and the right to speak out boldly.[51]

From the other extreme, the Rev. Dr. Charles Colcock Jones of Liberty County, Georgia, declared Hodge’s article “an unfair, one-sided, and lamentable attack.” Hodge’s logic respecting the unity of the nation would have repudiated the American Revolution, and his geographical argument would bring Canada and Mexico under American rule. Examining the Republican party platform and publications, Jones argued that “they are intensely, thoroughly anti-slavery and abolition, and this is their life-blood, upon which they run their candidates.” Jones insisted that “it is not the opinion of the North in regard to slavery that aggrieves the South, but the acts of the North growing out of that opinion.”[52]

Hodge rarely sought publication in the weeklies, preferring to write for his magisterial Princeton Review; but he sent a reply to Jones. He acknowledged that neither extreme had appreciated his essay, but it wasn’t intended for them. He had hoped to “convince the South that the mass of Northern people are not Abolitionists or hostile to the rights and interests of the South,” and then to convince the North that the abolitionists were wrong.[53] A. A. Porter, the editor, replied that southerners were “well informed as to all the shades and variety of opinion in the North on the different religious, moral and political questions involved in the present controversy.” But, citing the North Carolina Presbyterian, he pointed out that Hodge had reviewed each allegedly just grievance and “each one is in turn frittered away by special pleadings and sophisms, until it appears very manifest that the South has no grievance whatever to complain of.” Hodge had even argued that even the personal liberty laws were not a breach of the Constitution, so long as the Federal Government enforces its own laws. Porter agreed with the North Carolina Presbyterian’s conclusion: “We read attentively, but with increasing sadness of heart, as the truth became more and more apparent, that another strong and venerable oak of the forest had yielded to the storm, and the Princeton Repertory had gone over to the enemy of our country’s peace and happiness.”[54]

Some northerners, though, defended Hodge. The Presbyterian Banner declared it a “noble, patriotic, Christian treatise on the ‘State of the country.”[55] One author reminded his readers of Hodge’s role in the maintenance of the unity of the Old School church: “Some fifteen or twenty years ago, when the anti-slavery feeling ran very high at the North, and many minds in the Presbyterian Church were disposed to either cast off their Southern brethren, or themselves to leave the body, Dr Hodge came out, in the Repertory, with a few powerful and most convincing arguments, showing that he relation of master and servant was Scriptural, and would be blessed of God for good, where the parties faithfully performed their mutual duties.” Hodge’s arguments had convinced the church that just because “a Christian holds bond-servants, and holds them even under oppressive and unjust laws, it does not hence follow that he is actually oppressive and unjust.” We think that Hodge did more to prepare the minds of ministers and people for the resolution of 1845 than anyone else. “For this a debt of gratitude is due; and if our Southern brethren esteem a united ad peaceful Church a blessing, their share in that gratitude should be great.”

But now Hodge had performed another great service. “The peace of the country is in danger. . . . Dr Hodge again takes his pen, and in his own strong, fearless, and even-handed style of treating matters. . . reproves the North for failures of duty under the Constitutional compact, and for aggression on Southern feeling. He shows also that the South is wrong, and wrong especially in the mode adopted for a redress of grievances.” But this time the South turned against him. Of all the southern papers, only the True Witness had treated Hodge with respect. As one correspondent of the Presbyterian Herald had put it, “if I ever saw a man that had the ‘spirit of Christ’ Charles Hodge is that man; and I see nothing in that article to change my views on that subject. The excited people seem to be willing to endure nothing which is not all on their side. Not a syllable must be conceded to the other side. And the very speeches which are made for peace are pressed into war.”[56]

Influential circles of ministers and laymen joined together throughout the country to cool down the heated rhetoric.[57] An honor roll of northern clergy including Episcopal Bishop Charles P. McIlvaine, Methodist Nathan Bangs, Charles Hodge, Gardiner Spring and many others called for all sides to return to the Constitution. Admitting that “too much of this fratricidal work has undeniably been done by the pulpit,” and “far more by the press,” they called for peace and Union. Responding in kind, Robert L. Dabney and his colleagues in Virginia circulated a “Pacific Appeal,” urging the southern states to avoid disunion. At the same time they warned the north that if southern states are “persistently refused their full rights in the confederacy and its common territory and the protection granted by the constitution to their peculiar property, then in our opinion,. . . the catastrophe, however lamentable, must be met, sorrowfully indeed, and yet with the resolution of freemen.” They hoped that patience and discussion could yet resolve the impasse.[58]

As he left office, President James Buchanan, himself a Presbyterian, urged the nation to pray to God “to restore the friendship and good-will which prevailed in former days among the people of the several States; and above all, to save us from the horrors of civil war and ‘blood-guiltiness.’ Let our fervent prayers ascend to His Throne, that He would not desert us in this hour of extreme peril, but remember us as He did our fathers in the darkest days of the Revolution, and preserve our Constitution and our Union, the work of their hands, for ages yet to come. An Omnipotent Providence may overrule existing evils for permanent good. He can make the wrath of man to praise Him, and the remainder of wrath He can restrain.”[59]

4. Fort Sumter and the General Assembly of 1861

The firing on Fort Sumter convinced most that amicable resolution was impossible.[60] J. G. Monfort reported that “The signs of the times indicate that this war is to be made by the South a conflict for the extension or destruction of slavery. We of the North have not so desired, and we still do not wish it to be so. We abhor slavery; we desire its abolition; but we feel ourselves bound by the Constitution to protect it in the slave States.” But if the south went to war for slavery, then slavery would be abolished. Ironically, in Monfort’s perceptive opinion, the only way for the south to preserve slavery was to remain in the Union.[61] By the beginning of May, as reports came from southern presbyteries that they would not attend the Assembly, Monfort became cautiously optimistic as to the possibilities for General Assembly action. Still, he warned that anti-slavery forces must be wary of “Northern pro-slavery opposition to any action of the Assembly on secession and rebellion. . . . If our church stands back at this time, and is dumb, she will be disgraced before the world.”[62]

In Philadelphia, the conservative William Engles mourned that “the war spirit has been widely diffused.” Reluctant as he was to see the disasters of war, he agreed that “the government must and will be sustained, and the issue we must leave with God, who has doubtless some great purposes to be accomplished by this sudden revulsion of all the harmonies of our great confederation.”[63] Noting the sudden “tornado” of war excitement,[64] Engles called on Presbyterians to remember that God would bring justice in the end.[65] On the following page he informed his readers of the secession of Virginia.[66] Still, he hoped that the Old School Presbyterian Church could be a force for mediation and peace-making.

Robert L. Dabney, however, did not see any such hope. In an open letter to Samuel Irenaeus Prime of the New York Observer he reminded him that Virginia had held out the olive branch, “even after it had been spurned again and again.” The north had simply refused to listen. But now Virginia’s “magnanimous, her too generous concessions of right have been met by the insolent demand for unconditional surrender of honor and dignity.” Lincoln’s call for troops to “wage war without the authority of law, and to coerce sovereign states into adhesion, in the utter absence of all powers or intentions of the federal compact to that effect,” would now force Virginia into secession. Dabney reminded his northern brethren that the American union had formed on the “right of freemen to choose their own form of government. This right the North now declares the South shall not enjoy. . . . The North undertakes to compel its equals to abide under a government which they judge ruinous to their rights! Thus this free, Christian, republican North urges on the war, while even despotic Europe cries shame on the fratricidal strife.” Dabney insisted that the Federal Government had initiated the war by seeking to fortify South Carolina’s forts against her. Calling upon like-minded northerners to come to the South, Dabney declared, “For you we have open arms and warm hearts; for our enemies, resistance to the death.”[67]

This was the context in which the General Assembly of 1861 met. As the Assembly approached, Nathan Rice of the Presbyterian Expositor and William W. Hill of the Presbyterian Herald urged presbyteries to send their wisest men to the Assembly to meet the crisis of the country. Monfort, however, urged the church to “Let Caesar alone. He is doing very well.” This was not based on any “spirituality of the church” doctrine. Monfort’s rationale was purely political: “The men who rule the General Assembly–the united South and the great lights of our commercial cities–are not prepared to do anything for freedom.”[68] He was in for the biggest (and most pleasant) surprise of his life.

Three weeks later, William McMillan, pastor of Hamilton, Ohio, disagreed, calling this Assembly the perfect opportunity for anti-slavery action. If it reaffirmed the 1818 deliverance, Thornwell and Palmer would secede from the church, ridding it of “this monster of iniquity, which has for years and years stood in the very gateway of progress.” The 1861 Assembly would be “the very body and meets at a very good time and place, to pronounce authoritatively that we now as heretofore wash our hands of its guilt.”[69]

In South Carolina, Thomas Smyth urged southerners to remain united with the northern Old School. So long as they could hold different political views, the church could remain one. Porter, the Southern Presbyterian’s editor, commented that many southern Presbyterians desired a “separate ecclesiastical organization,” simply due to the awkwardness of crossing national boundaries for church meetings. But acknowledging that northern sentiment would not likely accept the repeal of 1818, he argued that “Our Northern brethren owe it to us to be perfectly candid and explicit on this subject. Let them frankly say whether they regard that act as reversed or not, and whether it is now an exponent of their views.”[70]

The Southern Presbyterian explained the refusal of the Charleston Presbytery to send commissioners to the General Assembly on the ground that “when the Assembly meets at Philadelphia, Northern legions will be mustering for the invasion of our homes, if not actually engaged in the horrid work of slaughtering our families and friends.” They could not sit in deliberations with men whose “mercenaries” were invading the south, when “for all they knew even then the mangled corpses of these loved ones were lying bleeding on the altars of liberty.” David McKinney of the Pittsburgh Presbyterian Banner remarked that “This is about as cool a thing as we have ever known men in an excited condition to perpetrate. The whole world knows this war was altogether brought about by the conduct of the Secession party, South Carolina taking the lead. . . . Well may they be in terror under apprehension of the visitation of God’s providence upon their crimes.”[71]

While Monfort rejoiced that the Presbyterian and the New York Observer had sided with the Union, he complained that they still hoped for peace. Monfort preferred the New School American Presbyterian’s view that “there are times when humanity, Christianity, and the Gospel of Christ join to impel us to war.” But when the Presbyterian Herald commented that its exchanges breathed the spirit of devils on both sides of the borders, Monfort could only ask, “With the Presbyterian Banner, we wonder with what Northern papers the Herald ‘exchanges.’”[72]

5. The Spring Resolutions

With comments like these in view, the General Assembly of 1861 becomes easier to understand. On Saturday, May 18, the third day of the Assembly, the Rev. Dr. Gardiner Spring “offered a resolution, that a Special Committee be appointed to inquire into the expediency of this Assembly making some expression of their devotion to the Union of these States, and their loyalty to the Government.” Before any significant debate occurred, the Rev. James W. Hoyte of Nashville, Tennessee, moved to lay the motion on the table. His motion passed 123-102.[73] A small majority of the Assembly wished to avoid such exciting topics.

But immediately, ruling elder Hovey K. Clarke of Detroit moved to take the resolution up from the table, which produced a long debate, resulting in a determination to consider the matter later. The debate in earnest began on Friday, May 24, when Spring himself proposed a series of pro-Union resolutions, and took the whole of Saturday, and large parts of Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.[74] The entire debate took place in front of a large audience (overwhelmingly in favor of Dr. Spring’s resolutions), which had a significant effect on the debate.

The Spring Resolutions

Gratefully acknowledging the distinguished bounty and care of Almighty God towards this favoured land, and also recognizing our obligations to submit to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake, this General Assembly adopt the following resolutions:

Resolved, 1. That in view of the present agitated and unhappy condition of this country, the fourth day of July next be hereby set apart as a day of prayer throughout our bounds; and that on this day ministers and people are called on humbly to confess and bewail our national sins; to offer our thanks to the Father of light for his abundant and undeserved goodness towards us as a nation; to seek his guidance and blessing upon our rulers, and their counsels, as well as on the Congress of the United States about to assemble; and to implore him, in the name of Jesus Christ, the great High Priest of the Christian profession, to turn away his anger from us, and speedily restore to us the blessings of an honourable peace.

Resolved, 2. That this General Assembly, in the spirit of that Christian patriotism which the Scriptures enjoin, and which has always characterized this Church, do hereby acknowledge and declare our obligations to promote and perpetuate, so far as in us lies, the integrity of these United States, and to strengthen, uphold, and encourage, the Federal Government in the exercise of all its functions under our noble Constitution: and to this Constitution in all its provisions, requirements, and principles, we profess our unabated loyalty.

And to avoid all misconception, the Assembly declare that by the terms “Federal Government,” as here used, is not meant any particular administration, or the peculiar opinions of any particular party, but the central administration, which being at any time appointed and inaugurated according to the forms prescribed in the Constitution of the United States is the visible representative of our national existence.

Source: Minutes (1861) 329-330.

The Rev. Dr. Thomas E. Thomas, pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Dayton, Ohio, and formerly professor at New Albany Theological Seminary, opened the debate, arguing that Caesar deserved the church’s loyalty: “Is it not the duty of ministers and members of churches to promote the interest and integrity of these United States, by a faithful adherence to the laws of our country?” Since the government had protected the church, “now if our blood is demanded, the people of the Presbyterian Church of the United States, should freely pour it out for his support.” At this the gallery broke into loud applause–silenced by the moderator, John C. Backus of Baltimore. Mindful of the audience, Thomas continued, insisting that “public sentiment will condemn that General Assembly which will not sustain the Government.”[75]

The southwest uniformly opposed the resolutions. Rev. James H. Gillespie of Denmark, Tennessee replied that he had come to Philadelphia to save the church. He feared that the North and the South did not understand each other. These resolutions were proof. They would divide the church. He pointed out that southern Presbyterians had been told that if they came to the General Assembly they would be hanged as traitors, and some had believed these lies. The Presbyterian church needed to maintain clear channels of communication.[76]

The northwestern ministers divided. Kentucky-born Charles Lee, pastor in Scipio, Indiana, declared that the church must sustain the government and the army and therefore urged passage of the resolutions. But others, like the Rev. Dr. John G. Bergen, a retired minister in Springfield, Illinois, insisted that while he loved the Union, he would have to vote against the resolutions because they would divide the church.[77]

At this point, the Rev. Dr. Charles Hodge, professor of theology at Princeton Theological Seminary, arose and presented a substitute for Spring’s resolutions. He admitted that he personally had no objections to Spring’s resolution. “It expresses the sentiments of the people of the North.” But, Hodge argued, loyalty to the government required something else: “A Member of the President’s Cabinet on being consulted on the subject, said, ‘the best thing you can do for the Union is to keep unbroken the unity of your Church.’” At this point, the Rev. Dr. J. T. Backus of the First Presbyterian Church of Schenectady, New York, said that he had a telegraph from this cabinet member to prove it, which caused quite a sensation amongst the gallery. Hodge continued that since the Old School was “the most conservative Church in the land,” their action could work to save the Union. By “pleading for the Church we are pleading for the Government, for the entire Church in this land, and for the entire world.”[78]

The Rev. Dr. William C. Anderson, pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of San Francisco (a colleague of Erasmus Darwin MacMaster at the failed Madison University in 1844, and MacMaster’s successor as president of Miami University in Ohio from 1849-1855), objected that “If we desert our national flag, the backbone of our Church, the Scotch Irish element, ‘the blues’ of the West and Northwest, will leave our Church in a body, and join the nineteen hundred ministers of the New School Church, together with the Associate Reformed Church.” Hodge’s resolution offers us “milk and water–mostly water. . . . Shall it be said that we are afraid of offending rebels in arms against us, for this is the whole reason why Dr. Hodge’s paper is offered.”[79] Scorning Philadelphia/Princeton conservatism as mere appeasement of southern interests, Anderson insisted that the church must support the government.

Spring, genuinely taken aback at the opposition to his resolutions, claimed to “mourn over the South, for I have friends there.” But the duty of the hour required the church to “sympathize with the North, to sympathize with the right.” Judge Martin Ryerson of New Jersey agreed that “no such efforts as Dr. Hodge’s resolutions could save the Union against a conspiracy of thirty years’ standing.” The south would leave, regardless of what the Presbyterian church did. Therefore, he argued, the church must sustain the government. Likewise, the Rev. John M. Hastings, pastor at Wilkinsburg, Pennsylvania, insisted that the southern church had already declared for the confederacy. “If so, will the General Assembly, the greater portion of it gathered here from the North, bow in submission to their conspiracy?” To which a loud voice declared, “No, sir.”[80]

The Irish-born Rev. Robert Watts of Westminster Church in Philadelphia reminded the Assembly that they “were indirectly called upon by venerable men to divide the Church.” Watts was convinced that the church might yet succeed. “There had been nothing yet to prove that the Old School Presbyterian Church has not in her ranks a conservative power, which might blend together in one Union the entire States of this Confederacy.” Further, Watts argued that scripture called the church to honor the civil magistrate, but it never required the church to pass resolutions of support. It is interesting to note that the only person to question the constitutionality of the Spring resolutions was an Ulster Presbyterian (who would return to Northern Ireland to teach theology in the Assembly’s College in Belfast from 1866-1895).

The Rev. Dr. George Washington Musgrave, secretary of the Board of Domestic Missions, insisted that this was not a mere sectional controversy. The United States was one nation. “If it be a moral duty to honor our rulers, to be loyal to the lawful Government, if it be a moral duty for us as citizens and as Christians to pray for our rulers, and to encourage and sustain them, my conscience will not allow me to refuse to say that this is right and obligatory.” Southerners had no different obligation. They were required to affirm their loyalty to the Federal Government. Therefore the Assembly should say so.[81]

As the hour was late, the Assembly adjourned until the next morning. That morning (Saturday), the Rev. E. C. Wines, President of the City University of St. Louis, read a telegram from the Hon. Edward Bates, Lincoln’s attorney general, and an Old School Presbyterian ruling elder from Missouri, stating that in his opinion the Presbyterian Church should abstain from deliverances in order to maintain the unity of the church.[82] Wines then offered a substitute:

The Rev. Dr. William C. Matthews, pastor at Shelbyville, Kentucky, objected that the entire discussion had become too political. The church needed some pastoral concern for the flock in the border states. “Do not oppress us! Do not crush us with this burden! (The speaker was here almost in tears.) We feel here too much political spirit; our debate

here is not spiritual enough. Remember the handle our California brother [Anderson] made of Dr. Hodge’s resolutions, to ridicule our Philadelphia brethren and to ridicule Princeton.” Matthews believed that there was too much “passion kindled in the Assembly by the outside pressure, such as crowds, telegraphic dispatches and letters. Why, sir, it is just so at the South.” If only the two sides could calm down long enough to realize their folly: “Oh! If this Church is to be severed in twain I feel like throwing my arms about both divisions and crying, ‘Oh! My mother! Oh! My mother!’” His plea for the Union and the Church was a powerful speech that apparently moved many to tears.[84]

As the debate continued, it became clear that Hodge’s resolution had no real chance. Therefore Hodge withdrew his resolutions and threw his support to Wines. One Ohio minister declared that as an “Old Line Whig” who had voted for Abraham Lincoln, he still could not divide the church. A Wisconsin minister agreed that Wines was the best alternative, but if that failed, he said that he would have to vote for Spring’s resolutions rather than say nothing. The Rev. Henry M. Robertson, pastor at Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, argued that without a declaration of loyalty, the Northwest would not listen to the Presbyterian Church. “It had been asked who doubted the loyalty of the Old School Church? The speaker said that he, for one, doubted its loyalty.” Anything short of Spring’s resolutions would cripple the Presbyterian Church in the Northwest.[85]

On Monday morning, May 29, at least twelve substitutes were proposed, from the Rev. Joseph Glass Monfort’s (editor of the Presbyter, in Cincinnati, Ohio) detailed patriotic declaration of loyalty to the Rev. William M. Stryker’s (pastor at Clarinda, Iowa) acknowledgment of impotence: “that as this Assembly can do nothing, it sit still and see the salvation of God.” As the debate continued to go in circles, the Rev. Dr. John W. Yeomans objected to the development of a “Northwestern sentiment. . . he would have but one sentiment pervading all. And when he saw this North-western sentiment leaping up into the saddle behind Dr. Spring, the connexion with the great question now agitating the civilized world was apparent. Our conservative position must be sustained.”[86]

The Rev. Dr. Willis Lord, who had been associated with Nathan Rice, both at the Cincinnati Theological Seminary, and at the Northwestern Theological Seminary, demonstrated his independence from Rice, by arguing for the Spring resolutions. He rejected Watts’ contention that they were unconstitutional, insisting that this was a “a new doctrine introduced from the region of State rights,” which, he pointed out, even the Synod of South Carolina could not live with–since they had passed resolutions endorsing the formation of the Confederacy.[87]

In the final speech of the night, the Rev. William Baker, pastor at Austin, Texas, revealed that he had spoken and voted against the secession of Texas–“and in my soul I hate secession. Now, if slain, I am likely to have a monument erected neither in the North or the South (Laughter).” But he was beginning to see that division was inevitable. If the Presbyterian Church passed these resolutions they would force southern Presbyterians to identify solely with the Confederacy, “and henceforth her destiny will be our destiny.” After this speech, Charles Hodge thought that the momentum had turned. He moved to postpone the whole subject indefinitely. But he had judged incorrectly, and his motion failed 87-153.[88] While many men had hoped to avoid the subject altogether, now that the debate had progressed this far, they felt that the church must speak.

At this juncture, David McKinney, editor of the Presbyterian Banner, had to send an incomplete record of the debate to his western Pennsylvania audience. He added a comment that the departure of the south would be a comparatively small evil to the departure of the northwest. Therefore, if for no other reason than to keep the northwest, the church must speak.[89]

Tuesday morning, the matter was referred to a committee of ministers George Musgrave of Philadelphia, Charles Hodge of New Jersey, William Anderson of San Francisco, John Yeomans of Pennsylvania, and E. C. Wines of St. Louis, together with ruling elders M. Ryerson of New Jersey, Jackson B. White of Nashville, William Semple of Ohio, and Hovey K. Clarke of Detroit (all judges). While Musgrave, Ryerson, and Clark had all spoken for Spring’s resolutions, they were willing to seek common ground with Hodge, Yeomans and Wines. They reported a compromise document that afternoon that simply softened Spring’s resolutions to avoid the danger of division. They simply altered the words, “this General Assembly,” to “the members of this General Assembly,” which had the effect of making the resolution a mere expression of the opinions of those who happened to be at the Assembly, rather than a statement of the whole church.[90]

But Anderson could not agree with this, and reported as a minority of one, giving Spring’s resolutions in full (except changing the day of prayer from July 4 to July 1). The majority had divested the resolution of all binding authority, rendering it ambiguous–which in Anderson’s view, did not meet the crisis.[91]

The debate resumed in earnest on Wednesday morning. Finally, after three days of debate, the southerners gained the floor. The Rev. Richmond McInnis, editor of the True Witness of New Orleans, realized that the church had already made up its mind, but he wished to remind his brethren that “the Southern churches are. . . perfectly loyal to the Presbyterian Church, and they are loyal to Government. They have in the South a Government which they are as much bound to obey as you in the North are bound to obey your Government. If Dr. Spring’s resolutions are passed, they place us in rebellion to the Government de facto at home.” He argued that the resolutions were unconstitutional because they decided a political question. He could vote for neither set of resolutions.[92] <