EIGHT

“CONFIDENCE IN HIS BRETHREN”: THE ANTISLAVERY MOVEMENT AND

THEOLOGICAL EDUCATION IN THE NORTHWEST, 1848-1859

In 1856 the editors of Virginia’s Central Presbyterian claimed that the Old School had never formally endorsed the act of 1818, which had condemned slavery, arguing that the 1845 statement was the only official Old School position on slavery.[1] Together with the Synod of South Carolina’s formal repudiation of the act of 1818, the increasingly proslavery rhetoric from the south pushed many northwestern Old Schoolers towards a stronger anti-slavery stance. By early 1857 Joseph G. Monfort, editor of the Presbyterian of the West, engaged in a violent dispute over slavery with Nathan L. Rice of the St. Louis Presbyterian.

Some feared that the radicalism of the Presbyterian of the West would rend the church, but William Engles assured his readers from Philadelphia that any agitation would be fruitless: “Old-school Presbyterians . . . have too much good judgment and common sense to entangle themselves in such unprofitable conflicts.”[2] Likewise, when the New School American Presbyterian claimed that the Old School had a large and powerful anti-slavery movement headed by Monfort and the New Albany Seminary faculty, Engles replied that the northwestern men themselves had denied that “the slavery question had any thing to do with that movement.”[3] As this chapter will show, Engles had been deceived. But he reveals the basic confidence in the brethren that characterized the Old School. Presbyterians expected that they could trust each other. As the church grew, it was no longer possible to know all of the other ministers in the denomination personally, placing mutual confidence and trust at a premium. Since the northwestern men had said that slavery was not an issue, Engles believed them.

Monfort’s Presbyterian of the West, however, was a different matter. As he continued to agitate on slavery throughout the summer of 1857, Engles needed to prove that the northwest was not really a hotbed of antislavery sentiment. So he published a letter from a minister in one of the largest presbyteries in Ohio claiming that “not one” of the ministers of that presbytery “approves of the course of the Presbyterian of the West, and all regret it exceedingly. But all love the good old Presbyterian.” Another large presbytery in Ohio was also increasingly dissatisfied with the Presbyterian of the West: “Some of them declare that they will act no longer as agents for that paper, nor would they take it themselves. I have long been a friend of the Presbyterian of the West,. . . but I must drop it; it is becoming such an abolition fire-brand.” Praising the Presbyterian as a major force in the formation of Old School identity, the letter concluded that throughout that portion of Ohio, “We are all satisfied with the Old-school Church as she is.”[4] The same week, J. D. M. wrote from the northwest that while he rejoiced that he was not “immediately connected” with slavery, he still had “confidence in our Southern brethren,” that they would deal properly with the matter. He assured the Presbyterian’s readers that the Northwestern Seminary directors and professors were not interested in establishing an antislavery school, but a “school of the prophets” for the Northwest.[5]

Nonetheless, the Presbyterian of the West continued to insist that a real antislavery movement was afoot in the northwest. In the light of the division of the Methodists, Baptists, and now New School Presbyterians, Engles could only wonder why Monfort desired schism: “Those churches which have entered into the fierce contest, have as the result reaped the bitter fruits of dissension, division, and decay.” Since the southern Presbyterian newspapers were content to leave the matter alone, he encouraged the northern press to do the same. In a parting jab, however, Engles pointed out that the Presbyterian continued to maintain high subscription rates in the northwest, suggesting that the Presbyterian of the West did not speak for the whole region.[6]

The discussion of slavery among Old School Presbyterians in the northwest occurred largely in the context of their debates about theological education. Or was it that their discussion of theological education occurred largely in the context of their debates about slavery? While Old School Presbyterians were generally convinced that the catholicity of the church required them to work with each other across political and social boundaries, they could not ignore matters of conscience. There were very few abolitionists in the Old School churches of the northwest–and virtually none that were proslavery–but the fact that almost all believed in gradual emancipation did not reduce the tensions. All agreed that slavery was a great evil, but there was a huge difference between saying that gradual emancipation should start whenever the south was ready, and saying that it should start now.[7]

The future of the Old School would not be determined by the south, but by the northwest. As the fastest-growing region of the church, the northwest was growing in influence in the church courts. But the definition of the northwest was changing. As late as 1840 the northwest was defined by the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers–ensuring that Kentucky and Missouri, though slave states, were still part of the region. By 1860, however, the railroads and the creation of Chicago had altered the shape of the west. For many, the Ohio River was now the border between the North and the South–and Kentuckians increasingly looked to Tennessee and Missouri for support.[8]

1. A Feud Begins (New Albany Seminary, 1848-1849)

As recounted in chapter six, the Kentuckian Nathan Rice[9] had been instrumental at the General Assembly of 1845 in passing a resolution declaring that slaveholding was not in itself a sin. In the Synod of Cincinnati Erasmus Darwin MacMaster was one of the leading opponents of Rice’s statement. While only nine of the one hundred members at the fall meeting of the 1845 Synod of Cincinnati voted to reject the General Assembly statement Rice had authored, the two names that led the list were Francis Monfort and Erasmus Darwin MacMaster.[10]

The following year Nathan Rice and Samuel Ramsey Wilson became joint editors of Cincinnati’s Presbyterian of the West, which meant that both western newspapers were edited by Kentuckians.[11] While they allowed very little material on the subject of slavery, Rice and Wilson declared their own position very plainly: “We are opposed to slavery. . . But we are no less opposed to the unscriptural and fanatical principles of ultra-abolitionists” who, they claimed, were actually retarding the progress of emancipation.[12] Later that year they published a letter from E. N. Sawtell who gave an account of how some southerners were preparing slaves for freedom through the colonization societies. Rice and Wilson hoped that this would prompt northerners to “aid the efforts of the south to remove from our country this enormous evil.”[13]

In 1848, Rice and MacMaster were the two finalists for the professorship of theology at New Albany Theological Seminary in Indiana. New Albany was designed to be as attractive as possible to the whole West–a seminary on the border between north and south, though on northern soil, with professors from each section. In this manner, it was hoped that the West could be held together.[14] The original faculty consisted of John Matthews (1771-1848), a long-time pastor from Virginia (professor of theology, 1831-48), and James Wood (1799-1867), a pastor from western New York who had carefully documented the congregationalist origins of the Presbyterian churches in western New York in the 1830s (professor of Biblical Criticism and Oriental Literature, 1839-51).[15] The election of Rice would continue the tradition of blending north and south in the seminary for the West, but a vote for MacMaster would mean that both professors would be northerners. The board initially chose Rice, but Rice was not convinced. He believed that New Albany was the wrong location for a seminary, and wanted to see the seminary merged with Western Seminary in Allegheny and moved to Cincinnati to provide a true Princeton of the West. So instead the Board gave the job to MacMaster.

One might think that one who had voted against the 1845 statement on slaveholding would be anathema in Kentucky, but with such a redoubtable champion as R. J. Breckinridge,[16] MacMaster found his chief defenders in Kentucky. Kentucky Presbyterians, after all, were among the leaders of the Kentucky Emancipationists who were attempting to get emancipation written into the state’s constitution that year. R. J.’s brother, William L. Breckinridge, wrote a congratulatory letter to New Albany Seminary which was printed in the Presbyterian Herald, assuring the Board that “a better day is about to rise on the seminary.”[17] In fact the main opposition to MacMaster came from Indiana, where he had previously served as president of Hanover College, and had angered the majority of Indiana Presbyterians through a covert attempt to close down their college and create a new institution, Madison University. Nathan Rice published a letter of complaint from David Monfort of Indiana in the Presbyterian of the West, which asserted that many who had previously supported the Seminary could no longer “conscientiously cooperate with it, under its present administration. . . . Almost all the young men within the bounds of this Synod, who are now pursuing a Theological course of study are at Princeton.”[18] Rice turned down another letter from Monfort’s nephew, J. G. Monfort, who had been a trustee at Hanover College during the Madison University debacle,[19] and for the most part, the Presbyterian of the West maintained a watchful silence with respect to New Albany Seminary. But plainly, slavery was not yet the defining issue in the northwest. At least for Old School Presbyterians in 1848, the Ohio River was still the center of the west–but not for long.

At first, it seemed indeed that a kindly providence was smiling upon New Albany.[20] But as always, wherever MacMaster went, trouble was sure to follow. The finances of the seminary, which had brightened briefly, did not continue to improve. MacMaster had too many enemies. Indiana Presbyterians still mistrusted him due to his leadership in the Madison University fiasco. The Synod of Kentucky had raised a $20,000 endowment for the new professorship, but rather than give the money to the seminary, they chose to keep it under their control and simply use the interest to pay Daniel Stewart, plainly signaling their distrust of the seminary, and suggesting to other southwesterners that New Albany was not a permanent investment.[21] One prominent ruling elder in Kentucky politely stated that there were many who could not support the election of MacMaster and therefore could not provide financial support.[22] The Synod of Nashville decided to support the seminary, but by an 1849 vote of 13-11 urged it to transfer to a more central location (i.e., Kentucky).[23] At the same time, the number of students remained in the low twenties. One writer in the Presbyterian Herald noted that the synods nominally supporting New Albany Theological Seminary had 41 students in Princeton, and another 29 in other seminaries, indicating that confidence in NATS remained low.[24]

2. The Establishment of the Cincinnati Theological Seminary (1849-1853)

At the same time, some Old School Presbyterians were beginning to question the whole seminary system. Back in 1840 Robert J. Breckinridge, while pastoring in Baltimore, had suggested a “radical reform” of the seminary system to provide three major seminaries under the oversight of the General Assembly: one for the East, one for the South, and one for the West. These seminaries would focus on the professional education of ministers–not just their academic training. The present seminaries, Breckinridge claimed, simply teach “our young men to recite , rather than turning them out full of knowledge, thought, and force. . . . The old method of private study with some sensible, pious, and laborious pastor, is. . . much superior to these upstart seminaries.”[25] Breckinridge suggested that the decline of orthodoxy in New England could be attributed, at least in part, to the apostasy of Harvard, Yale and Andover Seminaries from orthodox Calvinism. He pointed out that even Princeton had not stood firm against the New School at first.[26] Therefore, Breckinridge called on the church to elect professors who were theologically orthodox and themselves eminent pastors and fine preachers: “After looking over the long list of professors in the theological seminaries of the United States, do you believe, gentlemen, that the churches ought to be, or would be satisfied with preachers equal to the bulk of these?. . . And we use the word preacher, because very many of the professors never were pastors, and can of course, know nothing and teach nothing practically, about that all important office.”[27] Breckinridge urged the Assembly to elect men like Archibald Alexander and Samuel Miller–who had taught at Princeton since 1812 and 1813, respectively, though he reluctantly admitted that Charles Hodge had been a good choice in spite of his lack of pastoral experience.

Throughout the 1840s little had been done to implement Breckinridge’s ideas. In 1849, however, Nathan Rice thought that the time had come. In August of 1848 Rice had reviewed Gardiner Spring’s The Power of the Pulpit, suggesting that Spring was correct in attributing a certain decline in power and effectiveness in the pulpit to the rise of theological seminaries. Rice also agreed with Spring that the best remedy was to pay more careful attention to the pastoral care of seminarians, and that the best means toward that end was to elect successful pastors as professors in the seminaries, and to orient the curriculum to training pastors who can preach effective doctrinal and practical sermons.[28]

The following year Rice began an independent seminary in Cincinnati. Since all the synods in the region were pledged to support NATS, this was immediately interpreted as a factious attack on the feeble seminary. “It is fraught with evil, and only evil,” a sorrowing W. W. Hill wrote.[29] Rice quickly replied by setting forth his first public accusation that Erasmus Darwin MacMaster had abolitionist sympathies–plainly barring him, in Rice’s view, from any professorship in the merged seminary. In the Synod of Cincinnati MacMaster had “warmly advocated in that body, sentiments on the agitating subject of slavery, at war with the doctrine stated by the General Assembly of 1845.” So long as MacMaster “held views materially different from those held by the Presbyterian Church,” he should not serve as a professor in a Presbyterian institution. Rice declared the 1845 statement on slavery “one of the most important acts ever performed by her, and as constituting her emphatically the bond of Union to these United States. We deem it, therefore, of the first importance that our Professors of Theology take the Scriptural view of this subject. If they do not, we shall soon be again in trouble.[30]

Rice saw this as an opportunity to show how a seminary should be operated, arguing that seminary professors should be active pastors, which would require seminaries to be placed in densely populated areas, to enable such a dual calling.[31] For the next several months the periodical press was filled with commentary on Rice’s plan–though only his own paper supported it.[32] J. G. Monfort, still stung by MacMaster’s betrayal of Hanover College, wrote that he still had hopes that MacMaster’s professorship would fail, but that if Cincinnati Seminary could be “manned and moneyed, I would say, go ahead.” Rice claimed that he received numerous letters from throughout Indiana encouraging the Cincinnati Seminary.[33]

In April of 1850 the Presbytery of Cincinnati supported the creation of the new seminary, with only two dissenting votes.[34] But while Rice’s seminary received little condemnation from the courts of the church, it also received little support. Only the Synod of Cincinnati said anything favorable, but Cincinnati, as one of the original three synods behind New Albany, was almost evenly divided between the two seminaries.[35] In 1851 the synod gave a qualified endorsement, voting 62-19 “rejoice in the measure of [its] success…and hope that…it may prove eminently useful.”[36]

Cincinnati Theological Seminary did not follow the Old School pattern for theological education. Indeed, it was not lost on many critical observers that Cincinnati Seminary had some striking resemblances to New School seminaries: lack of formal ecclesiastical oversight, urban environment, emphasis on professors also serving as pastors,[37] and willingness to work together with Congregationalists.[38] Rice even cited the flagship New School seminary, Union in New York, as an example of a flourishing seminary in an urban environment which reduced costs by having pastors teach (though he pointed out that the more conservative Associate Reformed seminaries also followed the latter practice).[39]

By the fall of 1852, Cincinnati Theological Seminary had more students than New Albany, and was able to force a compromise. Rice proposed that the Synod of Cincinnati recommend the transfer of New Albany to the General Assembly. If the Assembly was given the authority to elect new professors, then Rice was willing to close the Cincinnati Seminary as well.[40] One by one, the seven synods with oversight over New Albany (Cincinnati, Kentucky, Indiana, Northern Indiana, Illinois, Missouri and Nashville) concurred. A Kentucky correspondent noted that the synods of Illinois and Missouri had both urged the GA to move the seminary further west, and pointed out that “there may be prejudices in various parts of the Church against the Seminaries, both at New Albany and Cincinnati. The more independent and free from these former differences, the better.”[41] By January of 1853 Rice gleefully announced that his whole purpose in starting the seminary in Cincinnati was accomplished: the General Assembly would take over theological education in the West.[42] He opposed those who wished to attempt to blend the faculties of New Albany and Cincinnati, decrying any attention to parties or factions within the church. “The men should be chosen, who, after prayerful consideration, shall seem best qualified to fill the important offices--men of well-balanced minds, of decided piety, and of undoubted soundness, and ability to teach theology-to qualify young men for the ministry.” But given his role in the affair, Rice emphatically insisted that he did not want to be considered. He had other plans.

3. A New Seminary for the West? (Danville Theological Seminary, 1853-1856)

Those plans were announced in February of 1853 when Rice declared that he had taken a call to St. Louis. Cincinnati was no longer the center of the West. There had been some effort by Cyrus McCormick and others in Chicago to lure him northwards,[43] but Rice was convinced that the future of the West remained along the Ohio River. Rice noted that the Presbyterian churches in St. Louis were working together to “secure the location of the Seminary in St. Louis, in accordance with the expressed wishes of the Synods of Illinois and Missouri.”[44]

Rice’s sudden removal to St. Louis, even before the end of the term at the Cincinnati Theological Seminary, caused raised eyebrows in several quarters.[45] The sudden removal occurred because Rice had become convinced that Cincinnati could not serve as the center of western Christianity, and that therefore he would be more useful at the front lines—in St. Louis. And since St. Louis was to be the future center of the West, where else should a Presbyterian seminary be located?

On March 14, 1853, just before Rice arrived in St. Louis, Missouri Presbyterians met in St. Louis to prepare their case for the General Assembly. Their rationale fit nicely with Rice’s agenda. The two leading figures in the meeting were ruling elders: the Honorable Hamilton Gamble (presiding judge of the Missouri Supreme Court, and later Governor of Missouri from 1861-1864) chaired the meeting and Charles D. Drake (a prominent St. Louis lawyer) presented the paper which set forth their rationale. The St. Louis vision was that the new seminary should be truly western, and therefore should not conflict with Allegheny Seminary. A St. Louis seminary would be located in the leading city of the West and would provide a light upon the hill to curb the vice, infidelity and false religion that endangered the future of the West. The urban environment would provide abundant opportunities for student preaching, as well as the social benefits of a larger city. Nonetheless, an astute Benjamin Gildersleeve (editor of the Watchman and Observer) noted that if the General Assembly put the seminary in St. Louis, New Albany would likely continue.[46]

Indeed, just before the General Assembly met in May of 1853, the New Albany Seminary directors submitted to the wishes of the overseeing synods and drew up a resolution handing over the control of the seminary to the General Assembly—but with a new condition: the seminary could not be moved from New Albany. The actions of the synods, however, contained no such condition, and the General Assembly had little interest in keeping the seminary in New Albany.

The question of a theological seminary for the West was the prominent item on the General Assembly’s agenda for 1853. The Assembly elected as moderator the Rev. Dr. John Young of Kentucky (president of Centre College in Danville), who promptly appointed his friend and long-time New Albany supporter, Robert J. Breckinridge (also of Kentucky) as the chairman of the committee on seminaries. The committee examined the various locations that had been proposed–St. Louis, New Albany, Nashville, Tennessee, Peoria, Illinois, and Danville, Kentucky–and recommended that the seminary be transferred to Danville.

Once on the floor of General Assembly, Professor James Wood of New Albany was the first to speak. He pled the seminary’s case for retaining the present location, but with little effect. After several speeches supporting different locations, William L. and Robert J. Breckinridge set forth the case for Danville, both because Kentucky was in the best financial position to fund a seminary, and because the General Assembly could show that the Mason-Dixon line did not determine the church’s politics.[47] Breckinridge claimed that Peoria was too little known, and that Nashville was too close to Columbia Seminary in South Carolina.[48] St. Louis had made a liberal offer, but “in view of the condition of the church in the State of Missouri, the efforts to found the Seminary there would tend to paralyze the church in that State for some years.” Although he had previously supported New Albany, he had become convinced that after twenty-five years it was a “dead failure.” As the Richmond correspondent said, “Dr. B spoke upon the question for more than two hours, the effort was a powerful one, and the appeal in behalf of Danville was truly eloquent.” R. J. Breckinridge analyzed the “history, present condition and prospects of the New Albany Seminary. . . in a most ludicrous strain, which excited a considerable degree of mirth in the Assembly.” He then turned to Danville and its advantages, pointing to the considerable financial resources of the Synod ($60,000 had already been pledged by the Synod of Kentucky–including the $20,000 theological fund that had previously been used to support a professor at New Albany), as well as its central location for drawing upon both northern and southern students and support.[49]

Several speakers attempted to contradict this speech, but with little success. Dr. Wood refused to admit that New Albany was a failure. Samuel B. McPheeters defended St. Louis, calling on the Assembly to consider not merely the wants of 1853, but the future when St. Louis would be the population center of the west. He urged that the city would be the best place to learn human nature. But any hope for St. Louis was dashed when Mr. Harbeson, a fellow Missourian defended Danville, by claiming that he did not “believe in students studying human nature in large cities; they were too apt to practise it.” But even as several advocates of St. Louis rose to address the moderator, Judge John Fine of Ogdensburgh Presbytery called for the previous question, and Danville prevailed 122-78-33 over St. Louis and New Albany.[50]

Most observers expected that New Albany Seminary would shut down, as ordered by the Assembly–but on July 7, the Presbyterian of the West printed New Albany’s manifesto declaring their intent to maintain the seminary. The Board claimed that the Synods had never specifically authorized the transfer of the location of the seminary. Editor Thorpe was not convinced. The Synods had plainly intended an unqualified transfer, allowing the Assembly to do whatever it wished with New Albany. Nonetheless, Thorpe was not wholly unsympathetic to the continuing seminary at New Albany. Many understood that many northern students would not cross the Ohio River for theological training, and they were willing to encourage New Albany to continue in order to provide seminary education for them.[51]

On the other hand, the Presbyterian of the West feared that the Danville arrangement would not work. Since New Albany was still in operation (with the support of the majorities of the Cincinnati, Indiana, and Northern Indiana synods), and the far western synods of Illinois and Missouri were upset that the new seminary was so far east, Thorpe and other contributors to the Presbyterian of the West feared that the new seminary would find little support.[52] Just because the Assembly had placed the seminary in Kentucky didn’t mean that northwesterners had to support it! “Hence the demand which Dr. Young and others of the South make upon us of implicit obedience to the act of the Assembly, because it is the act of the Assembly, is anti-Presbyterian and cannot be allowed.”[53] Therefore, many concluded, Danville would be the seminary for the southwest, leaving New Albany free to continue in the northwest.[54]

In October MacMaster and the New Albany directors issued a pamphlet defending their actions against what they considered a Kentucky conspiracy. MacMaster claimed that Robert J. Breckinridge had orchestrated the whole affair. Why was it that Young organized the committee on seminaries “to include no man from all the Northwest, and no man friendly to the New Albany Seminary, while two, including the Chairman, are taken from the vicinity of Danville”? Further, MacMaster claimed that Breckinridge, as chairman, had suppressed and misrepresented the claims of New Albany, then Young, as moderator, had prevented the defenders of New Albany from gaining the floor of the Assembly, and then finally Breckinridge was rewarded for his machinations by being elected professor of theology in the new institution! New Albany, MacMaster argued, was under no obligation whatsoever to disband.[55]

Young replied in a tone of mock sympathy, suggesting that MacMaster should not be held responsible for his false charges, due to “his pedantry, arrogance, and other mental infirmities. . . . We attribute his moral aberrations, in part, to something peculiar in the structure of his mind--and for this, Christian charity ought to make allowance.” After refuting the conspiracy charge, Young gave MacMaster a parting jab: “He has presided over three colleges and a Theological Seminary. All of them have, unfortunately, sunk under his administration; and many of the friends of these various institutions have charged him with being the cause of their ruin.” Young’s point was clear: so long as New Albany stood by MacMaster, Kentucky would have nothing to do with it.[56]

Not surprisingly, the General Assembly of 1854 urged the two seminaries to refrain from interfering with each other.[57] After further debate, Rev. McClung offered a resolution of non-interference. After defending the need for a northwestern seminary, he insisted that abolition was no threat: “When any body brings up abolition in their Synod, they say to him, just show us where Paul turned any body out of the Church for being a slaveholder, and we will turn any Presbyterian out that holds slaves; and then we clap down the trap-door of the previous question upon him. (Laughter).” Using humor to try to defuse a tense situation, he referred to Breckinridge as the barber of the Old School, “New Albany came in his way last year, and I thought when he was done with it, it was the cleanest shaved thing I ever saw (Laughter).” “General Assembly,” Presbyterian 24.22 (June 3, 1854) 85. But even the promise to leave New Albany alone gave little comfort to the seminary’s supporters. From 1853 until 1857, a total of 33 students attended New Albany (mostly born in Ohio and Indiana, and educated at Hanover and Miami). Therefore, not only did Danville draw away the entire southwest (not a single southwesterner attended New Albany during these years), but they also drew half as many northwesterners as New Albany (15 graduates from Hanover and Miami attended Danville from 1853-1857).[58]

Danville’s attempt to reach out to the southwest, however, was challenged by Columbia Theological Seminary. While Columbia was formally under the oversight of the synods of South Carolina and Georgia, it trained many students from Alabama and Mississippi as well. In 1857 Columbia sought to establish a formal relationship with the Synod of Mississippi. The Presbyterian Banner and Advocate of Pittsburgh reported that James Henley Thornwell had presented the case for Columbia “with all his admitted eloquence and his equally well known opposition to the General Assembly.” E. T. Baird responded in favor of Danville, “urging its claims upon the Synod, and forcibly presenting the argument in favor of the Assembly’s control in the case of theological institutions.” When the Synod declined the partnership with Columbia, editor David McKinney rejoiced that “this adherence of the Synod of Mississippi to the Assembly, is an indication that sectionalism is not wholly to triumph at the South.”[59] The Southern Presbyterian protested that this placed both Columbia and Dr. Thornwell in a “false light,” by suggesting that Thornwell was “habitually, and on principle, opposed to the General Assembly.” The editor, H. B. Cunningham, insisted that Thornwell was entirely within his rights to believe that theological education should be conducted at the synodical level. As for the charge of being sectional, the only sectionalism was a question of the south versus the west (not the south versus the General Assembly). Columbia Seminary, he insisted, was only arguing that Mississippi was more naturally connected to South Carolina than to Kentucky. And as for McKinney’s insinuation that Columbia Seminary was opposed to the Assembly’s stance on slavery, he insisted that “Even on the vexed question of the day, ecclesiastically considered, it teaches nothing at variance with what we understand to be the position of the church.”[60]

The New Albany men, however, were not convinced that Columbia understood the position of the church correctly, but they had few resources to communicate their concerns. Their seminary was poorly attended and supported, and since the failure of the Christian Monthly Magazine in 1845, they had no forum for communication. Therefore in the fall of 1854, the Presbytery of New Albany resolved to support a new weekly paper for the northwest. Since the west already had three newspapers (the Presbyterian Herald of Louisville–right across the Ohio River from New Albany–the Presbyterian of the West in Cincinnati, and the St. Louis Presbyterian), Nathan Rice found it preposterous that New Albany Presbytery would seek to create yet another. “Local interests and prejudices have done and are doing more to cripple the energies of the Presbyterian Church in the West, than all other causes. It has been impossible to secure union either in building up institutions or in sustaining newspapers. This is the more remarkable, since there exist amongst us no theological differences.”[61] As far as Rice was concerned, this growing anti-slavery subculture was a threat to the peace of both the church and the nation.

But rather than start a new paper for the northwest, the New Albany men set their sights on taking control of the one western paper north of the Ohio River. While students and funding remained hard to find, New Albany finally gained a new friend in 1854 with the buyout of the Presbyterian of the West. Whereas the editorial staff in 1853, under the influence of Nathan Rice, had signed a protest at synod against the continuing existence of New Albany, by the end of 1854 the Presbyterian of the West had passed into the hands of the Rev. Joseph G. Monfort, who was rapidly becoming the leading voice of the pro-New Albany wing of the northwest.[62]

In many respects, Monfort’s friendship with New Albany was surprising. He had joined the opposition to MacMaster after the Hanover College debacle, and had been one of the leading voices in opposing MacMaster’s election to New Albany Seminary just six years before. Now, however, Monfort found in MacMaster a kindred spirit. Over the next decade Monfort would take on virtually every Old School newspaper in the country in his vigorous (and sometimes vituperative) defense of MacMaster and the principles of the new Northwest. Old controversies were set aside as the anti-slavery cause brought them together.

But even with Monfort’s support, nothing could preserve New Albany as the location for the seminary of the Northwest. For one thing, it was too close to Danville Seminary; for another, it was simply too close to Kentucky. The old ideal of a seminary for the whole west that would unite North and South on northern soil was gone. The old Northwest, of which the Ohio River formed the center–was giving way to the new Northwest, of which the Ohio River formed its southern boundary.

Indicative of this change was the addition of Dr. Thomas E. Thomas to the faculty of New Albany also in 1854. In southern eyes, Thomas (the former editor of the short-lived anti-slavery Christian Monthly Magazine) was “a conspicuous leader of the Abolition party in Ohio.” The Southern Presbyterian feared that with his addition, the “New Albany Seminary may become an engine for the propagation of Abolitionism in the Northwest. Dr. McMaster, another Professor, is not free from the suspicion of a similar taint.”[63] But just as southern writers moved toward a more open pro-slavery stance as the 1850s progressed, so also northwestern writers became more openly anti-slavery.

4. J. G. Monfort, the Presbyterian of the West and the Rise of a Vocal Anti-Slavery Movement in the Northwest

The label of “abolitionist” was not strictly accurate for Thomas, Monfort, or MacMaster. Most anti-slavery Old Schoolers were still hoping that their southern brethren would find a way to end slavery. As southern Presbyterians began to suggest that slavery was a positive good, some northern emancipationists attempted to hold fast to the 1818 deliverance, but with greater emphasis on the conditional aspect of that statement: slaveholding was not sinful–so long as the slaveholder was preparing his slaves for their eventual status as freemen. They could agree with the Assembly’s distinction between the definite evil of slavery and the moral ambiguity of slaveholding–but the Assembly’s refusal to push southerners toward emancipation frustrated them.

By the end of Rice’s editorship in 1853, some anti-slavery material was appearing in the Presbyterian of the West. The Rev. Hugh S. Fullerton, pastor of Chillicothe Presbytery’s Salem Church[64] wrote a defense of Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Rice had scorned Harriet Beecher Stowe’s best-seller as a novel (and in some Old School circles the genre itself was enough to condemn it as worthless without paying attention to its content) that avoided the real evils of slavery and simply sought to raise the passions of northerners. Fullerton argued that the book focused precisely on the real evil: that slavery was a “horrible despotism.” Praising Rice for belaboring “the Catholics most manfully because they are despotic in their principles,” Fullerton asked, “what warrant have you in the word of God for opposing one kind of despotism more than another?” If Stowe had attacked slavery in the wrong way, Fullerton asked, “O! that my brother Rice would attack it in the right way and show us how!” The reason why abolitionism has become infidel is because the “American church as a body has set herself against the movement.” The anti-slavery movement has tried to overthrow domestic despotism “by proclaiming those simple truths set forth in the American declaration of Independence, and showing that those truths are consistent with the word of God.” Unless the church gets on board with this position, “slavery and infidelity will continue to fatten and grow.”[65]

Under Monfort, the Presbyterian of the West regularly published anti-slavery material, becoming the first weekly Old School newspaper to attack the conservative stance of the church. Monfort, though, was no radical abolitionist, and opposed the division of the church. When the Christian church and the Illinois Methodists divided in 1855, he warned Old School Presbyterians against divisive tactics.[66] Nonetheless, when Robert J. Breckinridge attacked Senator Charles Sumner’s speeches on Kansas, Monfort argued that the redoubtable Kentuckian had misunderstood Sumner’s approach. The free soil movement would let the south end slavery by itself–but would resolutely oppose introducing it to the territories. Monfort was troubled that “the conservative party in the South is constantly growing less. Men who have labored for emancipation are yielding to the clamors of proslavery men in favor of the extension of slavery.”[67] The following summer, after the caning of Charles Sumner by Preston Brooks, Monfort published a letter from the “pastor of the largest church in our connection in the Free States of the North-west,” and suggested that this represented the unanimous opinion of northwestern ministers. “L” blamed the north for the caning of Sumner: “How much of the guilt and disgrace of this state of things attaches to men who call themselves anti-slavery, but conservatives, who profess to be opposed to slavery, but yet keep their mouths shut on the question, or open them only to censure the defenders of liberty.” The Kansas disasters as well should be “traced to the silent, speechless acquiescence of thousands of professing Christians who through fear of man, prejudice, or wilful ignorance, have lent their influence in this way to swell the catalogue of enormity and crime!” Slavery must be “confined as a local institution to its own limits,” or else the nation would be judged by God.[68]

Frustrated that so few Old School papers would speak on the Kansas question, Monfort continued to urge Presbyterians to work for a free soil Kansas, and frequently asked his fellow editors why they remained silent on the moral issues surrounding Kansas. If emancipation was a moral question–and Old School papers from Philadelphia to Louisville regularly urged that–why not free soil in Kansas?[69] That fall, when Governor Adams of South Carolina publicly endorsed the reopening of the slave trade, Monfort howled with horror and outrage.[70] Whereas most Old School editors refrained from political commentary almost entirely, Monfort declared only that “we shall not meddle with politics, except when politics shall meddle with us. Upon all subjects bearing upon morals and religion, in Church or State, we will utter our sentiments freely, and we hope prudently, yet none the less fearlessly and independently.”[71]

With bleeding Kansas and the South Carolina discussion of reopening the slave trade in the background, Monfort printed Erasmus Darwin MacMaster’s remarks on slavery at the Miami University literary society: “On slavery, where it already exists, I have seldom publicly spoken or written. . . I have been inclined to be still before God, and patient. . . . Second, because not living among a slaveholding people, I have thought it less my vocation to discuss this subject than evils existing among ourselves.” While generally willing to let southerners work out their own difficulties regarding the elimination of slavery in the South, MacMaster insisted that northerners should speak plainly against the extension of slavery to the territories.[72]

In 1857 Monfort set forth his argument for how the statements on slavery in 1845 and 1818 could be held together. The testimonies of 1787, 1815 and 1818 declare that slavery “is sinful; it can not exist without sin. There is always guilt somewhere, when any one is held under the oppressions and exposures of slavery.” But 1845 does not contradict this. Monfort pointed out that “there is not a word in approbation of slavery to be found it it.” It simply states that slaveholding in the south does not bar one from membership. “Our church does not think, and we do not think that every slaveholder should be excommunicated.” If 1845 is understood in harmony with 1818 (as he suggested that the statement of 1846 required, when it reaffirmed all previous General Assembly statements on slavery), then “in every instance of slavery humanity is outraged, and God's law violated, but men are often so connected with the system, that the guilt of oppression does not rest on them but on others--individual or the commonwealth.” Therefore so long as slaveholders are working towards emancipation, they should not be disciplined.[73]

But even Monfort was considered too soft by some in the Northwest. Veritas wrote that the action of 1845 “is essentially defective on the general subject, and utterly destitute of the decided Anti-slavery tone, style, terms, spirit and aim of the former testimonies of 1787 and 1818.” Its declaration that slaveholding was not sinful retained none of the qualifications of earlier statements. The 1818 statement had called on all Presbyterians to work for the end of slavery. The 1845 statement politely avoided the issue. For Veritas, the very fact that the 1846 General Assembly felt compelled to say that 1845 was not intended to revoke 1818 reveals that it in fact did.[74]

Hugh S. Fullerton agreed. “The injunction of our Assembly urging us to do all we can for the abolition of slavery, is now practically, a dead letter.” Troubled that the Old School had lost fellowship with the Congregational churches over slavery, he pointed out that the only northern church they had fellowship with was the “Reformed Dutch. . . a body as frigidly conservative on the slave question as we are ourselves.” Eschewing radical abolitionism, he agreed that the church could not cut off all slaveholders, because this would be “ultra, unscriptural, and absurd.” But Fullerton suggested that if the New School purged itself of slavery, “we will think it our duty to seek great comfort and usefulness for ourselves and people, by taking our stand with them.”[75]

Fullerton argued that if southerners wanted to change slave laws, they would have by now. He prided himself on being the first to petition the Ohio legislature “for the repeal of our black school laws,” which had forbidden blacks to attend the common schools. His initial petition had been rejected, but over several years, “that unjust law, and many others of the same kind, were repealed. And now colored people have their free schools all over the state, supported from the public treasury, just as other schools are supported, and under the supervision of the same directors.” The continued existence of slavery in the South could only mean that Christians wanted it to continue. And if this was the case, then according to the 1818 statement on slavery, then “in every case of slaveholding in our Church there ought to be a judicial investigation, just as there should be and would be in every case of drunkenness.” If forced to hold slaves, slaveholders should be viewed as innocent–otherwise, Fullerton argued, they should be disciplined.[76]

Monfort replied that while the South was indeed growing worse, he was optimistic regarding the future of anti-slavery in the northern Old School. Further, he suggested that Fullerton did not adequately distinguish between slavery and slaveholding. The former is a sin, the latter not necessarily. “We can not censure all slaveholders.”[77] Clericus agreed, insisting that “slavery” did not exist in the church, only slaveholders.[78] Further, he hesitated to presume guilt. Given that the southerners had voted for the statements of 1818 and generally agreed with the harmonization of 1846, Monfort insisted that northerners were bound to assume that southern Old School Presbyterians “do not approve slavery, that they are not slaveholders by choice, and we must accept the burden of proving the contrary, in every case in which we would exclude them from the Church.”[79]

That fall, as Armstrong and Van Rensselaer began their debate in the Presbyterian Magazine, the presbyteries of Wooster, Marion, and Richland joined Chillicothe in strong anti-slavery statements. When the Presbyterian called them abolitionists, Monfort objected–pointing out that none of these three presbyteries called for the discipline of all slaveholders. Instead, Monfort argued that the northwest was reacting against the southerners’ retreat from the historic testimony of the church–and now, he feared, among northerners, too.[80]

As evidence for the apostasy of the south, Monfort published an article by a member of the 1818 General Assembly, who had served in the South for more than forty years. This elder statesman had tried to get his article published in the Southern Presbyterian Review, but it was refused without comment. He argued that the testimony of the previous sixty years made it clear that the Presbyterian church says that

The author, undoubtedly Aaron Leland of Columbia Theological Seminary, the only living southerner who had been a member of the 1818 General Assembly, pointed to previous articles where the editors of the Southern Presbyterian Review had denied that liberty is the natural and inalienable right of man, and he claimed that the south was clashing directly with the plain testimony of the General Assembly. Arguing that Christ had laid down “great moral, practical principles by which all his people must be governed,” he insisted that slavery fundamentally contradicted those principles.[81]

Such articles continued to encourage northwesterners to think that perhaps a silent majority in the south only awaited assistance from the north to throw off the domination of slavery. James S. Fullerton, wrote from Mount Vernon, Iowa, to encourage speedy action. Complaining of little progress towards the abolition of slavery in the forty years since 1818, Fullerton suggested that the General Assembly should “fix upon some set time, (say January 1864 or 5) on or before which, this work must be accomplished (at least as far as the Church is concerned). If some of our members are too poor to place their slaves beyond the reach of slave laws, let the Church be called upon to raise the funds needed for this purpose, and we hot bloods will be silent.” Denying that General Assembly utterances bound the church, Fullerton openly rejected the statement of 1845.[82]

Monfort resisted such a stance: if northerners rejected 1845, then southerners could reject 1818 with impunity. In fact, within weeks of Fullerton’s article, the New Orleans’ True Witness argued that the 1818 statement “was taken before the question of slavery was properly understood, and at a time when the views there expressed were the sentiments of the country, generally, North and South.” But, as Richmond McInnis argued, “the Old School Presbyterian Church has never reindorsed the action of 1818, and no man, with proper views and feelings, seeing to know the mind of our Church, would ever make this charge. . . . Whatever may be the general language of 1846, it is evident from the above facts that the action of 1818 was never reindorsed by the Old School General Assembly.”[83] With both sides moving quickly in opposing directions, the future looked bleak for conservatives who wished to hold the church and nation together.

5. The Synodical Northwestern Theological Seminary (1856-1859)

Meanwhile, Nathan Rice, now pastor of the Central Presbyterian Church in St. Louis and editor of the St. Louis Presbyterian, kept trying to pacify the West through his conservative anti-slavery stance. Commenting on eastern abolitionist efforts, Rice suggested that most eastern battles were fought where slavery “does not exist, and amongst a people who can do nothing whatever to abolish it.”[84] After a four-month trip to New York City and New England to attend the General Assembly of 1856 and the Rhode Island Evangelical Consociation,[85] Rice reported to his St. Louis readers that while “the great mass of the people” were simply going about their own business, “there is, in every part of the country, excitement enough to call forth demagogues, whose only chance to become famous, is to ride into office upon some hobby.”[86] Nonetheless, Rice took heart from the stand of Old School editors. The Central Presbyterian had written against mob law, and the Presbyterian of the West warned against division. “Whilst Presbyterian ministers have never degraded their sacred office by meddling in party politics, they have ever been found ready to speak out boldly, when the evil passions of men have brought the country into peril.”[87] With the election of the Democrat James Buchanan in 1856, Rice jubilantly declared that “the crisis has passed.”[88] Little did he know that while the national crisis may have passed, an ecclesiastical one was about to explode.

In the fall of 1856 MacMaster, Monfort, and the seminary board announced their intention to move the New Albany seminary to Chicago. MacMaster’s pamphlet pointed out that the northwest alone was nine times the size of Scotland, contained around five million inhabitants, but had only 285 ministers for its 464 churches. With fully one-third of northwestern pulpits vacant, the need for ministers was desperate.[89] The New Albany campus would shut down temporarily in the spring of 1857 until the seminary reopened in Chicago.[90] A new board was organized to include all the interested synods of the northwest, but the exclusion of Missouri (which had formerly been one of New Albany’s controlling synods–although it had not sent anyone to board meetings since 1853) led to a howl of protest from Rice’s St. Louis Presbyterian.[91] “Dr. McMasters, we learn, stated to the Synod of Illinois, that the Synod of Missouri had taken such a position in relation to the Seminary, that it would not have been ‘decent’ to ask its co-operation.” But, Rice complained, Missouri was one of the seven synods united in control, and contributed more to its funds than either of the northwestern synods (likely a reference to Iowa and Wisconsin). While it neglected to appoint directors (as did the Synod of Illinois) it had not given up the right to do so. The Synod had never identified with another seminary but desired to remain in connection with the Northwestern synods. While it is true that the Synod of Missouri had never formally renounced its control, it had passed a resolution questioning the continuation of the seminary after the creation of Danville Seminary, which Monfort interpreted as a hostile gesture.[92] At the Board meeting in November, the Rev. Samuel J. Baird (a New Albany graduate, pastoring in Muscatine, Iowa) recommended that the new board of the North West Theological Seminary allow the Missouri presbyteries to send representatives, but Monfort’s objections prevailed.[93] In the eyes of MacMaster and Monfort, Missouri was no more a part of the northwest than Kentucky.

Therefore, when Monfort began publishing regular anti-slavery statements in the Presbyterian of the West the following year, Rice turned his attention to his former newspaper. He feared that Monfort’s defense was “far more injurious than the charge he repels,” in that it cast doubt on the meaning of the 1845 statement that Rice had so carefully crafted. After defending the 1845 statement, and its consistency with the 1818 declaration, he concluded that “Every one can see, that if the views expressed by Dr. M were to prevail, a renewed agitation would be the inevitable result.” Connecting the anti-slavery discussion with the seminary debates, Rice added that “We feel the more bound to say what we have said because this discussion in the Pres. of the West, stands evidently in close connection with the plan by which the Synod of Missouri has been tricked out of its rights.”[94] Arguing that Monfort was a closet abolitionist, Rice pointed out that Monfort defined slavery as “a heinous and scandalous sin, calling for the discipline of the church upon any of her members who are really chargeable with its guilt.” Ignoring Monfort’s distinction between slavery and slaveholding, Rice feared that Monfort, MacMaster, and Thomas E. Thomas were intent on turning the Northwestern Theological Seminary into “a thoroughly Abolitionist Seminary,” to “train young men to become agitators and destroyers of the peace of the Church. Let those who love the peace and unity of the Presbyterian Church, at once throw their decided influence against this unhallowed attempt to divide its counsels and destroy its efficiency.”[95]

Throughout the spring and summer of 1857 the skirmishes continued between Monfort and Rice. Monfort argued that MacMaster and Thomas had both affirmed the General Assembly’s statements and should not be considered abolitionists. In reply Rice pointed out that Thomas had written in his Review of Junkin, that professed Christians “who hold their fellow-men as slaves,” were “guilty of a sin which demands the cognizance of the Church; and after due admonition, the application of discipline.”[96]

But Rice’s polemics had not yet persuaded the rest of the church. In the east, Presbyterians generally joined Cortlandt Van Rensselaer (editor of the Presbyterian Magazine, and moderator of the General Assembly of 1857) in applauding the decision to move the seminary to Chicago. While Van Rensselaer wished that they had corresponded with Missouri to ensure harmony, and objected to the eagerness of “some of the Western brethren” for a new deliverance on slavery, he did not see “any proof that our respected brethren of the new Seminary have any desire to introduce on our records a contrary testimony.”[97] At this point, most in the east and south were willing to believe the best concerning MacMaster and attributed Rice’s antics to their personal quarrel.

As evidence of this, Van Rensselaer published an open letter from an anonymous western ruling elder assuring the church that the seminary posed no threat. The elder urged the advantages of synodical control, arguing that General Assembly decisions were unduly engineered by a small circle of influential figures. Under the synodical system, even the smallest presbytery in the west would be represented on the board of the seminary. Further, the controlling synods would have personal knowledge of the students that the General Assembly never could. The objections to synodical control, this elder asserted, were really directed against professors MacMaster and Thomas and their “abstract views of slavery.” But have the seventy alumni of New Albany Seminary turned out as agitators of the church on the subject of slavery? And even if the seminary were overtly anti-slavery, the professors of Columbia Theological Seminary in South Carolina had articulated a new “philosophy of human society” promoting slavery (Thornwell) and condemning colonization (Adger). If a synodically-controlled seminary could have pro-slavery professors, in spite of the 1818 testimony against slavery, why could not the church tolerate a synodically-controlled seminary with anti-slavery professors? The elder concluded by pleading for mutual confidence in the brethren, in spite of political differences: