Two Presbyterian ministers agitate Tar Heels over slavery question (1850s)
“Slaves, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, in singleness of heart, as you obey Christ.” — Ephesians 6:5
In August of 1856, the Western Democrat in Charlotte re-published (“by request of a lady”) a response to Rev. A. Blackburn by Frederick Augustus Ross, a Presbyterian New School clergyman, slave owner, and author of Slavery As Ordained of God (1857). Ross’s response, published in the “Knoxville Presbyterian Witness” in July, attempted to clarify his position on “the slavery question” after “Brother Blackburn” had apparently objected to an earlier commentary by Ross about how “slavery agitation [in the North] has done, and will accomplish good.”
“I said that agitation has brought out, and would reveal still more fully, the Bible, in its relation to slavery and liberty — also, the infidelity which has long been, and is now, leavening, with death, the whole Northern mind. And that it would triumph of the true Southern interpretation of the Bible; to the honor of God, and to the good of the master, the slave, the stability of the Union, and be a blessing to the world…”
Ross emancipated his own slaves when he entered the ministry, but he persisted in the view “that slavery is part of the government ordained in certain conditions of fallen mankind” (Dunphy, 2015) and even “sanctioned by God” in some circumstances — such as the one the Union found itself in, presumably.
He went on to bemoan how the abolitionists had given them Polk, the Mexican War, and California, and that Northerners were engaging in hypocrisy for advocating abolition (on moral grounds) while buying Southern cotton. But the real difficulty for Ross was the fact that Northerners thought slavery was a “sin per se,” and only after this issue was resolved would the two sides be able to consider, without anger, the question of its utility in the real world. I’m sure you can guess which side Ross would have taken on that question.
“Yes, that is the difficulty, and that is the whole difficulty, between the North and the South, so far as the question is one of the Bible and morals. Now, I say again, that sin per se doctrine will, in this agitation, be utterly demolished. And when that is done; when the North will know, and feel, fully, perfectly, that the relation of master and slave is not sin, but sanctioned by God, then, and not till then, the North and South can, and will, without anger, consider the following question; whether slavery, as it exists in the United States, all things considered, be or be not, a great good, and the greatest good for a time, notwithstanding its admitted evils?”
Ross didn’t elaborate on the “admitted evils” or “great good” of slavery and apparently saw the main difficulty between North and South as resulting from Southern slave owners being denounced as sinners by Northern abolitionists. Everyone had to first recognize that slavery was sanctioned by God, according to Ross. Only then could we have a reasonable public policy discussion, without anger, about the “great good” of slavery and determine the best way forward for the Union. The Western Democrat took pleasure in laying before its readers his novel views on the question.
“Now, sir, the moment the sin question is settled, then all is peace. For these other questions belong entirely to another category of morals. They belong entirely to the category of what is wise to realize good.”
However, in this same response in which he praises the “slavery agitation” and decries the judging of slave owners as a sinners, Ross also takes aim at the godless North for killing his Savior. And with that, you already know the rest of this tragic story.
“Ye have, like the French infidels, made reason your goddess, and are exalting her above the Bible. And in your unitarianism and neology and all modes of infidelity, ye are rejecting and crucifying the Son of God.”
“Let all who are under the yoke of slavery regard their masters as worthy of all honor, so that the name of God and the teaching may not be blasphemed.” — 1 Timothy 6
On June 22, 1858 The North Carolina Whig (Charlotte, N.C.) published a story about John Todd who had written an article in the New York Tribune about his recent visit to Charlotte. The paper noted of his visit that “No threat of a ‘coat of tar and feathers,’ was made, but he no doubt richly deserved one.” The Whigs were upset about Todd’s criticism of the Journal of Commerce, his anti-slavery views, and his denial that slavery was sanctioned by the Bible.
“The Journal of Commerce has been considered by many persons here sound on the question of slavery as its motto is ‘THE BIBLE, THE CONSTITUTION, AND THE UNION,’ and when this Rev. gentleman commenced abusing it; he was set down as a rank abolitionist by those present, although he denied being one, and to his abuse of the paper may be attributed the treatment he received in the afternoon at the office, when he remarked that the Bible did not support slavery.”
For behavior that “endeavors to uphold his own peculiar views” and “renders himself obnoxious to our citizens,” Rev. Todd and his ilk were warned to “be on you[r] guard when you come to Charlotte.”
Todd was raised Presbyterian and would later become a leader of the temperance movement. But until 1857 he was also a leading abolitionist and a “conductor” on the Underground Railroad. Todd’s house served as a “station…complete with a concealed room in which escaped slaves hid until their next ride arrived, but also as a storehouse of weapons, ammunition and other supplies for radical abolitionist John Brown” (Wikipedia). Four years before Todd’s visit to Charlotte, a piece by the pro-slavery editorialist John Mitchel had appeared in the Western Democrat expressing the South’s growing frustration with the Christianity of abolitionists.
“Neither can the South safety take any longer for its monthly reading the platitudes of the abolitionists, who quote the Bible for the ‘unity of the human race,’ (which the Bible does not assert,) but condemn the same Bible as an authority for slavery, (upon which the Bible is clear,) — who have the face to appeal to Christianity, yet are ready to call the Apostle Paul a ‘doughface,’ because he returned a fugitive slave.” — John Mitchel, Western Democrat, November 24, 1854.
The Whig in Charlotte accused Todd of being “determined if possible to make himself an object of attack, so as to give Greely and the freedom shriekers at the North another item to harp upon.” But you don’t need religion or harping or a degree in Biblical hermeneutics to believe Todd was right on the slavery question, at least with respect to ends, while Ross was right with respect to what the Bible literally says about slavery — and yet they each probably felt quite certain of that which they got both right and wrong.
“[T]he injunction of the New Testament is not, masters discharge your slaves, but be merciful to your slaves — slaves be obedient to your masters.” — John Mitchel, The Western Democrat (Charlotte, N.C.), 24 Feb. 1854
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