INTRODUCTION

“The Bond of Union” is intentionally multivalent. It is taken from an 1849 statement by Nathan Lewis Rice regarding the Old School position on slavery: “We regard the stand taken by our Church in 1845, as one of the most important acts ever performed by her, and as constituting her emphatically the bond of Union to these United States.”[1] A similar sentiment was expressed by an anti-slavery ruling elder who emphasized the need for “the bond of union” to weigh lightly on both church and nation in order to maintain unity in the midst of hotly contested political and social differences.[2] The phrase is also found in the Presbyterian church order, stating that the General Assembly should “constitute the bond of union, peace, correspondence, and mutual confidence, among all our churches.”[3] Samuel Winchester, a leading Old School ruling elder argued at the 1834 General Assembly that “The Constitution of our Church is the bond of its union, and if this be intrenched upon, mutual confidence is destroyed, and that which professes to unite us, becomes itself the subject of protracted and angry discord.”[4] Its covenantal roots (from the German bund) are essential to my usage of it, not to mention its convenient connection to the bonds of slavery as well.

1. Thesis:

This dissertation will not attempt to argue that Nathan Rice was literally correct. The Old School Presbyterian Church was not the bond of union that held the nation together. Unionists came from every religious and irreligious background imaginable. Instead, this dissertation will seek to examine the interplay between the various usages of “the bond of union” outlined above. How did a phrase from the Presbyterian constitution, describing the relationship of the Presbyterian General Assembly to Presbyterian congregations come to play such a central role in how Old Schoolers thought of their role in the civil Union?

The idea of the Union transcended that of government or national state and functioned as “a symbolic source of loyalty and a concrete instrument of political power.”[5] While the “Union” originally had the aspect of an experiment, it gradually developed an absolute character that brooked no talk of dismemberment.[6] Such orators as Daniel Webster declared the United States Constitution “the band which binds together twelve million of brothers.”[7] Virtually all American politicians agreed that the Constitution preserved the Union in true liberty. But even as it attained a mystical status in political rhetoric, it revealed the inherent tensions within the Union. The festering sore of slavery created a fundamental divide between multiple visions of liberty and union. Even John C. Calhoun, the arch-secessionist when history is read backwards, attempted to save the Union through his proposal of concurrent majorities.[8]

Rogan Kersh draws attention to the religious roots of the language of “union” in British American discourse regarding the unity of the church. Pointing to the “considerable influence of religious-union rhetoric on political talk” during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, he argues that denominational conferences “served as an important early foundation of intercolonial unity.”[9] Indeed, Kersh argues that in the 1770s the word union “was used to denote the whole American people in affective ways formerly reserved for religious relations.”[10]

Thirty-four years ago, George Marsden published the first major study of New School Presbyterianism, attempting to illuminate the nineteenth-century roots of the evangelical ethos.[11] While numerous essays and dissertations have covered various aspects of Old School Presbyterian history in the intervening years, no one has ventured a comprehensive interpretation. This dissertation does not claim to cover every aspect of Old School history, but rather attempts to explain the relationship between the Old School’s preoccupation with ecclesiology and its resolute Unionism.[12]

In order to accomplish this task, there are several interwoven questions that this dissertation will seek to answer. One set of questions involves the problem of disestablishment: given that the United States rejected the concept of an established church, what would church/state relations look like? Presbyterian church order had originally been designed for the established Church of Scotland. As the common school movement unfolded, Old School Presbyterians frequently drew on their Scottish heritage to articulate an educational vision that would provide a Christian education in the context of the separation of church and state.[13] Anti-Roman Catholic literature engaged the problem of religious and civil liberty in a disestablishment setting.[14] Most American Presbyterians had come from Scotland through Northern Ireland, where they had experienced the establishment from a dissenter’s point of view.[15] They willingly (and in most cases eagerly) gave up their inherited notions of an established religion by 1776. What were the effects of this transformation upon succeeding generations?

These questions can also be framed as the problem of denominationalism. The older Reformed and Presbyterian churches had all insisted upon the catholicity of the visible church, which usually entailed the organizational unity of the church in a given region. The American modifications to the Westminster Confession in 1789 included the first reference to denominations in any Reformed confession: “it is the duty of civil magistrates to protect the church of our common Lord, without giving the preference to any denomination of Christians above the rest.”[16] The transformation in identity from “church” to “denomination” took time. The older understanding of the unity–or catholicity–of the visible church could not help but be eroded as “liberty of conscience” began to trump catholicity. But the older tradition could not be eliminated completely, and Old School Presbyterians sought to preserve some sense of catholicity even in the midst of the swirling chaos of a democratized conscience.

A second constellation of questions revolves around ethnicity and culture. An overwhelming proportion of Old School Presbyterians were of Scottish and Ulster descent. Virtually every debate spawned numerous appeals to Scottish Presbyterian beliefs and practices.[17] But even non-Scottish Presbyterians seem to have adopted the Scottish heritage of their co-religionists. How much did this “ethnic” background play into the debates? For that matter, how possible is it to isolate the “ethnic” from the “religious,” or vice versa? Presbyterians did relatively little evangelism of non-Scots, but spent most of the antebellum era trying to keep up with the spread of “their own.”[18] But these colonies of Presbyterians were located in larger communities, and outside western Pennsylvania, these communities were not dominated by Presbyterians. While most Scots delighted to be Americans, their ethnicity did not simply evaporate. Instead, Old School Presbyterians maintained a decidedly confessional identity in the midst of an increasingly anti-creedal environment–and a self-conscious appropriation of a sense of Scottish identity aided in maintaining this confessional identity.

Old School Presbyterians generally prided themselves on this insider/outsider status. As William Engles, editor of the largest Old School weekly, put it: “Our theology is ridiculed as antiquated; as a relic of the dark ages. . . . Our attachment to our peculiar Church polity is regarded with affected contempt as at once silly and ridiculous. On these topics the changes are ceaselessly rung, and every method is resorted to to make us thoroughly ashamed of our denominational strictness.” Nonetheless, for Engles this was precisely the reason why “at this present moment, when error is so rife, the Presbyterian Church of the Old-school stands before the world as the noblest witness for the truth, and as most conservative of the precious interests of that religion which Christ taught and his apostles promulgated.” Only through maintaining a distinctively Old School doctrine and polity would the Presbyterian church be of any real use to the American religious world. He warned that if leading ministers or seminary professors “do any thing to lower the tone of denominational feeling in our Church,” it will result in “denominational apostasy.”[19]

But while often mocked for their “antiquated” theology, Old School Presbyterians were not an “outsider” ethnic group, like the German Reformed or Irish Catholics. Old School Presbyterians lived in the mainstream of social, economic, and political power. Living in a social context that was alternately friendly and hostile to the influence of religion, Presbyterians sought to influence the world around them. That world inevitably influenced them as well. As the debates surrounding the place of the ruling elder suggest, democratic pressures were unavoidable.[20] Leo P. Hirrell has shown how the main reform movements of the day (e.g., temperance, anti-Catholicism, anti-slavery) were influenced by New School Calvinism, but Old School Calvinists were also concerned about the same issues.[21] For example, in 1844-1845 Old School Presbyterians were involved in starting the publication of no less than five anti-catholic periodicals.[22] In reform matters, the difference between Old and New School Calvinism was not so much in the goal desired, but in the means utilized to achieve that goal. Hence emancipationist Old School Presbyterians in Kentucky prepared a plan for the gradual emancipation of all slaves in 1849, which was supported by most prominent Kentucky Presbyterians. It failed, according to its proponents, due to the lack of support from other denominations.[23]

A third array of issues probes the intellectual milieu. Several scholars have documented the ascendancy of common sense realism.[24] Antebellum Americans believed that intellectual and moral reasoning should be conducted on the ground of universally accessible intuitive principles, inductively gathered from the data of human consciousness and experience.[25] But still relatively unexplored are the ways in which antebellum Americans utilized texts, both biblical and otherwise, in marshaling their arguments. While the written word had become a chief means of persuasion, the art of rhetoric had not yet departed from oral argumentation. Most general assemblies could expect a handful of one to three hour speeches when crucial issues were debated on the floor. This dissertation will rely upon records of those oral debates more than many previous works.

The issues that prompted the most significant discussion were matters of constitutional theory and practice. As Old School Presbyterians engaged in the constitutional debates of the antebellum era, they also wrestled with their own ecclesiastical constitution. Morton J. Horwitz points to two legal developments in the early republic that are particularly relevant: 1) the dethronement of the common law tradition by 1810, which opened the way for 2) the development of an “instrumental perspective” in American law by which judges could “reason about the social consequences of particular legal rules.”[26] The transformation of the common law tradition resulted in a greater emphasis on codifying statute law, and on allowing considerable judicial discretion.[27] But together with this growing emphasis on constitutional and statute law came the gradual erosion of the older organic model of society. This older model declared that God had given authority to certain institutions (family, church, and state) and that constitutions functioned within that authority. For the newer federal model, authority was itself mediated through the constitution.[28] Many of the constitutional debates within the Old School should be understood in the light of this development.

Orthodoxy was at the heart of the Old School. In the minds of those who organized the excision of the New School synods, traditional Presbyterian orthodoxy was at stake–and indeed, since they considered the opposition to have fallen prey to the ancient Pelagian heresy, Christian orthodoxy itself was on the line. Church polity also played a significant role, because Presbyterians generally considered the doctrine of the church to be an integral part of their theology.[29]

After the excision of the New School synods, the Old School continued its emphasis on orthodoxy. Throughout their debates in the church courts and in the periodical press, Old School ministers and elders recited exegetical, confessional, and historical arguments that were grounded in a long-standing tradition of Presbyterian orthodoxy. Even those that argued for new practices and different ways of thinking attempted to locate their views in previous apostolic, patristic, and/or Presbyterian and Reformed teaching. While innovation was generally deplored, most Old School Presbyterians prized fresh insight–the difference being that the former called orthodoxy into question while the latter sought to build upon it.

Frequently thinking of themselves as the only truly national church after 1846, the Old School Presbyterian church believed that it was a (if not the) bond of union that held the United States together. With Methodists and Baptists divided north and south, and the less numerous Episcopalians largely residing in urban areas, Old School Presbyterians were the only Protestant denomination with significant representation in every region of the nation.[30] This dissertation will explain how this imagined self-concept influenced the Old School’s decision-making process in the major debates of the 1840s and 1850s. It will demonstrate that the constitutional issues underlying the ecclesiological disputes of the Old School are central for understanding why they took the positions that they did with respect to slavery, education and other social issues. At the same time, this dissertation will also demonstrate that Presbyterian polity did not remain the same through its encounters with antebellum culture.

2. The Geography of Old School Presbyterianism

This dissertation relies heavily upon the periodical literature of the Presbyterian Church. While most of the authors wrote anonymously, I have been able to uncover the identity of many authors. There are some non-ordained persons, including a few women, who contributed to the newspapers, but from editorial comments it is clear that most of the authors were ministers or ruling elders.[31]

A second major resource is a database of Old School ministers and congregations that I have compiled over the last decade. It includes not only the biographical details for ministers, and membership statistics for congregations, but also voting patterns at General Assembly (and perhaps eventually at synod as well). While only around 90% complete (due to the time-consuming process of identifying obscure ministers), the statistics complement the anecdotal evidence of the newspapers.

A. The Presbyterian Location in the American Mainstream.

Most historians claim that the antebellum era witnessed the decline of the old established churches–Congregational, Episcopal and Presbyterian–and the rise of their more democratic counterparts–especially the Baptists and Methodists. Most historians acknowledge that Presbyterians were initially involved in the West, but since they were outstripped by the Methodists and Baptists, they are generally portrayed as falling “far behind.”[32] It is certainly true that the Methodists and Baptists grew faster than the Presbyterians did, but Presbyterian growth itself was staggering. The old eighteenth-century colonial establishment (Congregational in New England and Episcopal in New York and the South) still had prestige among the elites in those regions, but found little sympathy in the West. Presbyterians, however, spread throughout the West and had significant influence in every portion of the country save New England.[33] While the official rolls counted only around 200,000 communicants in 1850, one Presbyterian newspaper suggested that the Old School had nearly one million members (e.g., baptized persons under the general influence of the church).[34] Therefore it would be more accurate to say that whereas Presbyterians had played second fiddle to the Congregationalists and Episcopalians in the colonial era, they continued to play second fiddle in the antebellum era–with Baptists and Methodists moving into the first chair–at least numerically.

But in spite of their numerical disadvantage, Old School Presbyterians believed that they were the most influential religious denomination in the country. While this sort of claim would be impossible to prove, it certainly affected the way they talked and acted. While never a majority in any state, Presbyterians had often been among the first settlers in the territories, and so had been able to establish themselves, their churches, and their educational institutions early in the old northwest and southwest. Old School laity (especially their ruling elders) were leaders in politics, business, and law. Old School ministers dominated education–especially in the South and West–even controlling ostensibly state colleges in South Carolina and Ohio. In spite of the fact that the Methodists had three times as many churches, the census of 1850 revealed that the value of their church property was virtually equal.[35]

Any attempt to explain either the success or the failure of Old School Presbyterian growth in the antebellum era must take into account the Old School’s emphasis on doctrinal orthodoxy and its ethnic character (which are woven together). In any chaotic environment, there will be those who desire the rootedness of a traditional religious community. As an example of lay commitment to orthodoxy, the Presbyterian Magazine reported in 1857 the endowment of a scholarship at Princeton Seminary by Robert and Marian Hall (brother and sister), who had been brought up in Scotland under the ministry of John Brown of Haddington. They had immigrated to Orange County, New York, and after decades of teaching school, they said in their bequest:

The lawyer who was drawing up the will was puzzled as to the meaning of the name “ED.” Marian Hall replied, “And dinna ye ken, young mon? E'en go and read your Bible.” “Well, I have read it, and still I do not recollect the meaning or use of ED.” After explaining its significance as the name of a monument in Joshua 22:34, the elderly lady summarized the heart of the issue–as far as she was concerned: “I dinna like your Hopkinsian. I believe in the doctrines of the Bible, as expressed in the Confession of Faith.”[36] Orthodoxy was important not only for the pastors, but also for the laity as it gave them an anchor in the midst of the storm.

B. Presbyterian Ethnicity: From Scots to Americans (and back again)

The leaders of the Old School had few immigrants among them (with some notable exceptions). Most were second or third generation Americans who had been born between 1785-1820. The older leaders of the Old School, such as Ashbel Green of Philadelphia (1762-1848), Samuel Miller of New York and Princeton Seminary (1769-1850), Archibald Alexander of Virginia and Princeton Seminary (1772-1851), George A. Baxter of Virginia and Union Seminary (1771-1841), John A. Matthews of Virginia and New Albany Seminary (1772-1848), Joshua L. Wilson of Cincinnati (1774-1848), and Francis Herron of Pittsburgh (1777-1860), had grown up in the excitement of the early republic. Deism had been the challenge of their youth, and the Presbyterians had played a central role in overcoming it.[37]

One implication of the rapid growth of the church that has rarely been mentioned, is that the Old School–together with other American denominations (and indeed, with the nation as a whole)–was a young church. In 1840, more than half of all Old School ministers had been ordained in the previous decade. Nearly 60% were under the age of forty. In contrast, twenty years later, in 1860, only around 40% were under the age of forty. The generation that came of age in the 1820s and 1830s came to positions of leadership at a relatively young age, and maintained their standing for nearly forty years.[38] Older ministers were respected (and often were able to defeat the young turks), but generational politics cannot be ignored.

Joyce Appleby has called attention to the role of the “first generation” of Americans–born between 1776 and 1800.[39] While that generation played a significant role in the formation of the Old School in 1837, it was the second generation that came to define the Old School during the 1840s. The younger generation had watched their fathers defeat the rising tide of deism–or were like the Breckinridge brothers who had a deist father. It is interesting to note that the fathers of the two most outspoken leaders of the Old School party, Ashbel Green and Robert J. Breckinridge (1800-1871), were not orthodox Presbyterians. Jacob Green (of New England descent), had departed from the Presbyterian Church with a handful of other ministers to form the Morris Presbytery in 1780 in order to practice his Edwardsean views of the sacraments.[40] Ashbel himself was tempted by Deism during the Revolutionary war, through his contact with “infidel” army officers. His contemporary, John Breckinridge (1760-1808), however, fell prey to Deism and departed from the Presbyterian Church, serving eventually as Thomas Jefferson’s Attorney General. At least two of his sons, John Cabell and Robert Jefferson, initially followed in his steps, both politically and religiously. R. J. studied at the College of New Jersey with Ashbel Green in 1817-18, but Green’s influence appears to be minimal: R. J. was expelled from the college for fighting. After the death of John Cabell Breckinridge in 1823, R. J. took over the family’s financial affairs, since the second son, John, had entered the ministry.

A major flaw in the Jeffersonian agenda was that they did not sufficiently take women into account. How was a young man like R. J. Breckinridge supposed to maintain his Deist beliefs, when his Presbyterian mother had catechized him from his childhood, and his wife, Ann Sophonisba Preston, became a devout Christian?[41] By 1835 the three surviving Breckinridge sons were orthodox Presbyterian ministers, and R. J., in his first pastorate in Baltimore, had already joined Ashbel Green of Philadelphia and Joshua L. Wilson of Cincinnati as a leader of the Old School movement.

Having successfully blocked the infidel invasion through a cooperative arrangement with the Congregationalists, the first generation of Presbyterians had hoped that they could continue to reap the harvest of their triumph. But the issues of the 1830s were not as easy as the open threat of Deism. While most Presbyterians had fervently embraced the American Revolution, and repudiated the concept of ecclesiastical establishment, as the nineteenth century progressed many began to express concerns about the future of Presbyterianism in an increasingly democratic culture. Several factors combined in different ways to leave many Presbyterians (perhaps even most) increasingly ambivalent about their place in American culture. All but a tiny handful were enthusiastically patriotic and wholeheartedly approved of the American project, but most saw developments in the nineteenth century that threatened to marginalize them.[42] Old School Presbyterians differed over which factors were the central causes for concern, and most embraced at least some of the them, but a whole array of issues were now before them:

1) the democratizing trends in antebellum religion

2) the Jacksonian turn in American politics[43]

3) the secularization of education

4) the established power of northeastern business elites

5) the increasing Roman Catholic immigration

6) the rise of Romantic and Idealist thought

7) the “young West,” and especially the growing influence of the Northwest

8) the growing tension between abolition and proslavery advocates

Old School Presbyterians had enthusiastically embraced America and had not initially thought much about their Scottish identity as they sought to participate in the making of the new nation. But, as that new nation departed further and further from their imaginative vision of what it should be, they began to draw more and more consciously from their Scottish Presbyterian heritage. They were always selective, but when an Old School Presbyterian became unhappy with a certain aspect of American culture/religion, his first recourse was frequently to the mother Kirk.

This is particularly interesting because not all of these men were Scots. Samuel Miller, for instance, was of English descent, while Robert L. Dabney was of Huguenot origin, yet both fully embraced their Scottish heritage as Presbyterians. Further, some like Thomas Smyth, who had been born in Ulster, tended to be more enthusiastic about certain American ideals than others who were third or fourth generation Americans.

Hence, ethnicity appears to be almost as much a function of frustration with the American project as it is a matter of birth. Or, to put it differently, Presbyterian religion was the way in which Scottish ethnicity adopted non-Scots into its cultural patterns. It is not the case that American Presbyterians actually did things in a Scottish way, but that ideas and practices imagined and described as Scottish frequently carried significant weight.

In their own self-identification, Old School Presbyterians frequently remarked on their ethnic heritage. One correspondent wrote to the Presbyterian Herald that the General Assembly of 1857 “has a peculiarly Scotch-Irish cast of form and countenance. They look like men of firmness and decision who would be ready to do or die, the stuff of which martyrs, but not fanatics, might be made."[44]

C. Presbyterian Conservatism

Both in its numerical growth and in its cultural place in the American mainstream, Old School Presbyterianism took a mediating stance between the democratic culture of the Baptists and Methodists and the more aristocratic Episcopalians. The general opinion in the Old School was that Presbyterianism was the best hope for America to avoid both the extremes of mobocracy or aristocracy. David McKinney, editor of the Presbyterian Banner, the Pittsburgh newspaper, offered a perspective that held true for most Old School Presbyterians. Presbyterian conservatism was not merely in favor of keeping things the same. The true conservative “acts from principle instead of impulse,” and therefore is also the true progressive. Presbyterian theology was inherently conservative, tending “to exalt God and humble man. It teaches that all are sinful and unworthy of favor, that God has a right to do as he will with his own, that he makes men to suffer according to his sovereign pleasure. It teaches that every one has his appointed work, with which he is to be content, and that he is to be clothed with humility.” One who lives by Presbyterian doctrines and principles “becomes an aggressive Conservative, from whom the world has much to hope and nothing to fear.”[45]

Four years before Lyman Atwater had stated in the Princeton Review that the church needed to be both conservative and progressive. Unless she made “constant advances in her understanding, or consciousness of the import, the reach, the limits, the applications of this truth, especially to new and varying circumstances; and unless she makes unceasing efforts to bring men under its saving power, the truth itself will become stagnant and impotent, a dead orthodoxy.”[46] The constant innovations of the radicals contradicted the slow but steady progress of the true conservative.

The Old School’s moderate stance may help explain its relative obscurity in antebellum historiography. As Peter B. Knupfer has said regarding political moderates more broadly, “they have not as a group received the attention that reformers, reactionaries, ideologues, and idealists have received.”[47] This dissertation will attempt to cast some light on at least one institution that nourished the moderate stance.[48]

D. Institutional Geography

The local cultures of the Old School were expressed institutionally in at least three ways: 1) educational institutions, 2) periodicals, and most importantly 3) a system of church courts.

1) Educational Institutions. Old School Presbyterian colleges, seminaries, and academies were some of the most advanced educational institutions outside of New England,[49] and their academies, colleges and seminaries became centers of Presbyterian identity. Every Presbyterian minister was expected to have a college degree, and by 1840, around ninety per cent of newly ordained ministers had also attended seminary.[50] In contrast, Finke and Starke report that in 1823 only 100 of the 2,000 Baptist clergy had a liberal education, while fewer than 50 of the more than 4,000 Methodist itinerants in 1844 had more than a grammar school education.[51] Nearly every Old School synod either operated its own Presbyterian college, or had considerable influence in a private or state operated college.

Theological seminaries were influential in shaping the distinctive vision of a region, although since professors were chosen largely by the ministers and elders in the region, there is even greater reason for suggesting that the church shaped the seminary to perpetuate its own character. In both respects, the seminary was one of the most prized institutions in each region, and the boards of the seminaries generally consisted of the most influential ministers and elders in the region. As one editor pointed out, the seminaries were somewhat diverse due to various local influences. Echoing the Jeffersonian wariness of party, he warned that this boded ill, if “under those ever active outward causes, the Seminaries will partake more of the local spirit of the church, than will be consistent with either the great commission or the expansive spirit of the gospel.” Because behind the Jeffersonian fear of party lay a far older tradition: the catholicity of the church. The triumph of local spirit could only be counterproductive for the catholicity and orthodoxy of the church. “It is a fair conclusion, then, that if the church continue sound, her seminaries will also be sound; if she become corrupt, the infusion of her spirit into them would be but to pollute the fountains, and render the streams that issue from them more noxious.”[52]

In the 1820s and 1830s most Old School candidates attended Princeton Seminary. By the 1850s this was no longer the case. While nearly half of all ministers attended Princeton Seminary, attending Princeton Seminary did not mean that men would agree with each other in later years; rather, it provided a common framework for discussion. The diversity of seminary training emerges not so much in the initial years (when the faculties were largely Princeton-trained) but as the regions develop their own character independent of (and often in opposition to) Princeton.[53]

2) Periodicals. Antebellum Americans were inundated with periodicals. The 1860 census revealed 4,051 periodicals with a total circulation of over 927 million, more than half of which circulated in New York, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts alone. Eighty per cent were political, while only seven per cent were religious. For Old School editors, these statistics demonstrated the power of the periodical press and the need for religious periodicals to be more zealous in the work of spreading the gospel.[54]

Each region maintained (at least sporadically) its own weekly newspaper, and the major centers produced at least one or two monthly and/or quarterly journals as well. I have been able to identify at least eighty distinct titles that were edited by and for Old School Presbyterians between the years 1837-1870. The subscription lists and editorials of these journals suggest that there was a general consensus that each region should have its own weekly Presbyterian paper, designed for a lay audience.[55] Monthlies and quarterlies tended to be more specialized and thus sought to reach a narrower audience amidst a wider geographical scope.

I have not attempted to include every Old School paper in the following regional survey. Instead I have attempted to give a sense for how the newspapers became institutional centers for regional identity. The Old School sustained from eight to twelve weekly newspapers throughout its history (the New York Observer was formally a nondenominational paper, but after 1840 its editor was in the Old School, and it engaged more with Old School issues than any other denomination).[56] The following is a list of those that lasted for at least a decade:

Figure Figure 1. Leading Old School Weeklies, 1840-1870

Location: Title(s): Dates:

New York, NY New York Observer 1823-1912

Philadelphia, PA Presbyterian 1831-1923

Pittsburgh, PA Presbyterian Advocate/Presbyterian Banner 1838-1937

Cincinnati, OH Presbyterian of the West/Presbyter 1841-69

St. Louis, MO Herald of Religious Liberty/St. Louis Pbn/Missouri Pbn 1844-62, 66-97

Louisville, KY Protestant & Herald/Presbyterian Herald 1836-62

Richmond, VA Watchman of the South/Watchman & Observer/Central Pbn 1837-1909

Fayetteville, NC North Carolina Presbyterian 1858-99

Charleston, SC Charleston Observer 1829-45

GA/SC Southern Presbyterian 1847-1909

New Orleans, LA NO Observer/NO Prot/NO Pbn/True Witness/Pbn Index 1837-40, 44-51, 54-62, 66-8

It is worth pointing out–as numerous Old School editors did–that despite the fact that two-thirds of the Old School resided in the north, of these ten papers (since the Southern Presbyterian is the geographical successor of the Charleston Observer),[57] six were in the south. Northern editors generally suggested that this was due to southerners’ local pride, and noted that the northern papers had twice the circulation of the southern papers. Of course, both the Kentucky and Missouri papers had a significant circulation in the northwest, and the location of five of these papers along the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers demonstrates the way in which Americans tended to think of the rivers as the center of the West–rather than the border between North and South.[58]

3). Church Courts. The session consisted of the minister(s) and elders of the local congregation. The presbytery consisted of all of the ministers, and one ruling elder from each congregation in the presbytery, which could embrace anywhere from 3-60 congregations. The presbytery met at least twice a year, so most presbyteries sought a compact geographical range. The synod included 3-12 presbyteries, and its boundaries frequently (though not always) followed state lines.[59] Every minister in the synod and one ruling elder from each congregation could vote in the synod’s annual meeting.

Old School identity was closely bound up with this presbyterial and synodical structure. Educational institutions and periodicals were frequently supported by the synod–and the presbytery and the synod formed centers of activity. Meetings of college trustees or seminary directors were often called to synchronize with synods, and whenever the regional newspaper hit hard times, a special meeting would be held at synod in support of the editor. For that matter, editors often announced which synods they would attend, so that their readers could send their payments along with their pastor.

The synod coordinated regional missionary activity and provided a court of appeal to correct errors made by sessions and presbyteries. Synods frequently registered their approval or disapproval of General Assembly actions, and functioned as a forum for debate and discussion of controversial topics. When discontent over the policy of one of the General Assembly’s boards flared up in a region, the board would frequently send a representative to meet with the synod–hopefully dealing with the issue before it caused major problems for the Assembly.

Presbyterians prized openness and candor. “Confidence in our brethren” was crucial in such a large and growing church. The only way to remain united was to maintain open communication and to provide an outlet for discussion–and dissent, if need be.[60]

E. Regional Geography

Some historians have mistakenly identified the Old School as a predominantly southern denomination.[61] In fact, only one-third of the church resided in the south. By 1860 another third resided in the northwest. Most Old Schoolers recognized that while the south had some influence, the leading region remained the northeast–especially the Philadelphia-New York corridor. The regions were bound together by various institutions: colleges, seminaries, periodicals, and synods. The following regional definitions will be utilized in this dissertation:

Northeast (often called the East):

New York/New England: the synods of Albany, New York and Buffalo (all of New York and New England)

Mid-Atlantic: the synods of New Jersey, Philadelphia and Baltimore (New Jersey, eastern Pennsylvania, Delaware and Maryland)

Northwest (sometimes called the West–with or without the Southwest):

Old Northwest: the synods of Pittsburgh, Allegheny, Wheeling, Ohio and Sandusky (western Pennsylvania, eastern Ohio and northern West Virginia)

New Northwest: the synods of Cincinnati, Indiana, Northern Indiana, Illinois, Chicago, Wisconsin, Iowa, Southern Iowa and St. Paul.

Southwest (sometimes with the Northwest called the West, or defined with the South):

Upper Southwest: the synods of Kentucky, Missouri, Upper Missouri and Kansas (including Nebraska)–sometimes included with the Northwest

Lower Southwest: the synods of Nashville, Memphis, Mississippi, Arkansas and Texas (including Oklahoma and Louisiana)

Southeast (often called the South):

Upper South: the synods of Virginia and North Carolina

Deep South: the synods of South Carolina, Georgia and Alabama (including Florida)

While perhaps somewhat too neat, the rationale for these divisions is provided by the institutional connections that these synods shared. Certain synods had close working relationships with others around them. The synods of Virginia and North Carolina jointly controlled Union Theological Seminary in Prince Edward, Virginia, and until 1858 both patronized the Richmond newspaper. The synods of Wheeling and Allegheny remained close to their parent synod, Pittsburgh, in support of Western Theological Seminary and the Presbyterian Advocate (later the Presbyterian Banner), a relationship shared at a distance by the Synod of Ohio. South Carolina, Georgia and Alabama were united in their support for Columbia Seminary and the Charleston Observer (later the Southern Presbyterian). Other synods appear to have operated more or less independently from those around them. While their ministers and elders had regular contact with each other through the Boards of the church, Philadelphia, New Jersey and New York (the three largest and wealthiest synods in the church) do not seem to have had much formal contact with each other. The main reason for distinguishing the New York synods from the Mid-Atlantic ones is due to the significant New England influence in New York. Baltimore was originally a part of the Synod of Philadelphia, and it continued to support Princeton Theological Seminary and the Philadelphia Presbyterian.

It should be noted, however, that “border” synods were frequently looking in two directions. North Carolina, for instance, had strong ties to Columbia Seminary, as well as Union, and members of the Tennessee synods of Memphis and Nashville could be drawn towards the Louisville newspaper as easily as New Orleans.

And of course, the influence of Princeton Seminary and the Philadelphia-New York corridor was felt everywhere. Princeton had trained nearly half of all Old School ministers, and they spread to every corner of the church. The Presbyterian and the New York Observer circulated widely in the South (a frequent source of complaint for southern editors), and the Home and Foreign Record (a monthly magazine devoted to reporting on the work of the boards of the church) was published in Philadelphia.

While regional and sectional distinctiveness was on the rise in the 1840s and 1850s, many regions maintained a strong national identity. Well into the 1850s, Georgia remained firmly connected to the national church. The Southern Presbyterian, a weekly newspaper founded in 1847, endorsed “all our institutions,” and not until the late 1850s did the paper endorse James H. Thornwell’s vision of the church.[62]

F. The General Assembly

Only one institution brought these disparate institutions, and the regions they represented, together: the General Assembly. As the Presbyterian Form of Government put it, the General Assembly was to be the “bond of union, peace, correspondence, and mutual confidence among all our churches.”[63] The Assembly consisted of one minister and one ruling elder from each presbytery. In order to prevent the unnecessary multiplication of presbyteries, the constitution allowed large presbyteries (those consisting of 25 or more ministers) to send two ministers and two ruling elders.[64]Mathetes, “Representation,” Presbyterian 17.18 (May 1, 1847) 69.

The Assembly began each year on the third Thursday in May, and usually continued in session for at least two weeks. Including travel time, commissioners coming from a distance could expect to spend as much as two months (May and June) in this service. While this would be a considerable sacrifice for a minister to be away from his congregation for so long, it was often prohibitively expensive for ruling elders.[65] Most presbyteries elected their commissioners based on their experience and wisdom, but some operated on a rotation plan that enabled all ministers to have the experience of going to General Assembly.[66]He pointed to an article from the Watchman and Observer condemning the growing practice of sending ministers in rotation to the Assembly. The editors agreed that presbyteries should send only men of wisdom and discretion. From 1800-1843 it had met in Philadelphia every year except for 1835 and 1836 when it met in Pittsburgh. But from 1844 through the reunion of 1869 it began a wandering pilgrimage, visiting key cities from Charleston, SC, to Indianapolis, IN, and New Orleans, LA. This peripatetic approach communicated effectively the Old School’s desire to maintain the unity of the church and nation. By providing the opportunity for each region of the church to give hospitality, they hoped to cement the bonds of union between the regional churches. Ministers and elders could experience for themselves the various local cultures–which would hopefully bring understanding and trust.

Wherever it met, it dominated the local news, and frequently provided headlines for the national papers as well. After the divisions of the Methodist (1844) and Baptist (1845) churches, the Old School Presbyterians and the Protestant Episcopal Church were the only national protestant denominations that had not split over slavery. As the larger and more influential of the two bodies, the Old School prided itself on its “conservative” influence in society. As the 1850s progressed, many marveled at the harmony and peace of the Presbyterian General Assembly–in spite of the fact that its leading elders were diametrically opposed to each others’ political views. For instance, at the 1856 General Assembly, Judge Humphrey Leavitt of Ohio (a staunch Republican later known for his role in the Clement Vallandigham trial),[67] worked side by side with Chancellor Kensey Johns of Delaware, and Judge D. C. Campbell of Georgia. As one observer put it: “It seemed almost incredible, among all the political strifes and fierce encounters of the day, to see a body of men from every section of the country. . . moving on from day to day in undisturbed tranquility of temper and harmony of sentiment. Where on earth shall we find another like it?”[68] Another elder, Cyrus H. McCormick, the inventor of the reaper, even stated that the Old School Presbyterian General Assembly and the Democratic party were the two hoops that bound the Union together.[69] And whether praising them or damning them, the American press agreed.

The New Orleans Picayune commented on the General Assembly that met in its city in 1858, that “Not only intellectual power, but a spirit of conservatism, admirably blended with that of progress, characterized the men who guided its deliberations. It was worthy of note that every thought, every sentiment uttered, was eminently national.” In a common comparison to one of the few other national assemblies, the author added that “The dignity of the deliberations of the Assembly, the courtesy exhibited in the debate, the directness of the speeches to the point at issue, and the regard to points of order, were such as might even furnish the Congress of the United States a happy example for imitation.” In spite of sectional differences, the unity of the Presbyterian Assembly should encourage New Orleans and the South in the hope of “the preservation of fraternal relations between opposing sections.”[70]

Three years earlier the Nashville True Whig opined regarding the Assembly: “Indeed, in point of logical acumen, clearness, elegance of diction, and power of forensic eloquence, we have never seen them equalled.” Impressed by the collegiality and confidence that existed on both sides of the sectional divide, the author pointed out that while “eminently conservative” northerners might frankly state their own views, “yet there was no disposition to make these opinions an issue.”[71]

A northern daily paper offered a different sort of tribute: “Of the large Protestant denominations, the only ones that retain a national organization are the old Calvinistic ironside Presbyterian and the Episcopal Churches. But the Methodist, Baptist, and New-school Presbyterian divisions represent in both sections of the Union a sufficient body of communicants to keep alive the slavery agitation North and South, as a religious element, whatever the compromises and adjustments of politicians and statesmen.”[72]

But the Old School does not easily fit into political boxes.[73] While many appear to be Democrats as Carwardine’s typology should make them,[74] Old School Presbyterians seem to have been as divided as the nation in their political allegiances. Some liked Andrew Jackson, himself an Old School Presbyterian, but the Princeton Seminary faculty was Whig–though not as “cotton Whig” as Howe calls them,[75] and both R. J. Breckinridge and James Henley Thornwell joined the Know-Nothings,[76] but both Breckinridge and Hodge voted for Abraham Lincoln in 1860. The sort of political monolith apparent in modern evangelical churches simply did not exist in the nineteenth century.[77]

There were very few things upon which Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun agreed. But they agreed that the unity of the Old School Presbyterian Church boded well for the national union. Calhoun’s famous March 1850 speech (delivered by another due to his weakness) stated: “The cords that bind the states together are not only many but various in character. . . . The strongest of those of spiritual and ecclesiastical nature, consisted in the unity of the great religious denominations, all of which embraced the whole union.” But since the Methodists and Baptists had divided he feared that continued agitation would “finally snap every cord, when nothing will be left to hold the States together except force.” Likewise Clay in 1852 declared “this sundering of religious ties which have hitherto bound our people together, I consider the greatest source of danger to our country. If our religious men cannot live together in peace, what can be expected of us politicians, very few of whom profess to be governed by the great principles of love.”[78]

In their own minds, this national service was an important part of the purpose of the General Assembly, but by no means the most important. As the church grew from one synod of 419 churches in 1788 to 33 synods of 3,592 churches in 1860, the General Assembly became more and more important as the place where Old School Presbyterians came together. By 1830 the PCUSA was larger than its parent Church of Scotland. Even after the excision of the New School synods, the Old School could claim more congregations than the Church of Scotland, and after the Free Church disruption of 1843, the Old School was in every category the largest Presbyterian denomination in the world.[79]

For the sake of narrative coherence, I have used several General Assembly debates as windows into larger issues in the church and culture. I have attempted to select debates that were recognized as important in their own day. In some cases the debates were at the center of American culture (e.g., slavery or education), but in other instances the issues may seem rather parochial (e.g., whether a man could marry his deceased wife’s sister, or whether ruling elders could lay hands on ministers during ordination). But even seemingly trivial matters can reflect important transformations in thought and culture.

Besides the Congress of the United States, the Old School General Assembly appears to be the last major annual gathering that drew members from every part of the nation after 1845. Political parties only gathered their national constituencies every four years. The Episcopal General Convention met once every three years. Voluntary and literary societies might draw on a diverse regional base, but participation was frequently limited to regional auxiliaries. While only a small percentage of Old School ministers and elders could personally attend the Assembly, every speech was reported back home in all the weekly newspapers, and the major issues at the General Assembly usually became fodder for discussion in the newspaper for months. In this way the General Assembly truly functioned as “the bond of union” for the Presbyterian church.

The General Assembly executed its day-to-day work through the year by means of several boards. The boards of the church were the hands and feet of the Assembly in conducting the work of missions, education and publication.[80] The northeast played a smaller role in the Old School than it had in the united church. While still providing 44% of the funds for the denominational boards throughout the era, that was considerably lower than the 55% in 1836. The most striking change in the funding of the boards came from the southwest. The presbyteries of Mississippi and New Orleans each provided over $22,000 for the boards in 1860, while St. Louis provided $41,000. Only New York ($82,000), Philadelphia ($36,000), and Rochester ($29,000) gave more than this. Meanwhile the entire northwest, still recovering from the Panic of 1857, could barely match the total contributions of New York Presbytery.[81]

G. Intellectual Geography

The influence of the Scottish common sense philosophy and Baconianism on Old School Presbyterianism has been well-documented.[82] Mark Noll has argued that the hermeneutic of most antebellum Reformed Protestants was identified by three classic features: sola Scriptura (the sole final authority of scripture against any other religious authorities), the regulative principle (that scripture regulates the entirety of Christian worship and practice), and the third use of the law (that the Old Testament law was not merely given to Israel, but was also given to direct Christians in their daily lives). But in addition he argues that there was an increasing movement toward a commonsense literalism that treated the Bible as though it was written directly to the modern reader. Noll explains the development of this hermeneutic by suggesting that “the engine that drove Reformed approaches to Scripture into uncharted American territory was social transformation. The revolution in American society from hereditary, deferential hierarchy to democratic, ideological antihierarchy. . . created a distinctly American form of biblicism.”[83]

Eugene Genovese has taken this a step further, pointing out that “In North and South, the scriptural and constitutional arguments were of a piece.” He rightly argues that “The doctrine of strict construction began with Scripture and ended with the constitutional structure of the republic.”[84] This dissertation will demonstrate that ecclesiastical constitutional debates were central to the shaping of the both northern and southern Presbyterian approaches to slavery.[85]

Old School Presbyterians utilized these philosophical traditions because they appeared congenial to their confessional commitments. One author in the Danville Quarterly Review highlighted Lord Bacon’s commitment to divine revelation: “so as we ought not to attempt to draw down or submit the mysteries of God to our reason; but contrariwise to raise and advance our reason to the divine truth.”[86] Revelation, he argued, is the standard by which all philosophies and sciences must be judged.

Old School Presbyterians generally objected when so-called evangelicals used reason to overturn revelation. When Edward Beecher claimed that