Question regarding the church & the South during American civil war

[Alan D. Strange]

Absolutely, Wayne. That's what I'm talking about! Thanks.

And, seeing this makes me remember that I had a PM from you that I meant to answer but haven't. Given my schedule it'll probably be two years before the book to which I referred comes out. It's on Hodge's spirituality of the church, with comparisons to Thornwell, Robinson, and others. I won't say more for now, but I'll be in touch with you about it once I get a first full draft. Perhaps you would like to read it and give me your criticisms. I am thankful for all the good things that the PCAHC has put online! I should get by there to visit you sometime later this year or next year (I am about to go again to Princeton and spend a good part of June in the Special Collections in the Hodge Papers in the Firestone).

Peace,
Alan

 

[Edward]

This however is historically insupportable.

That's not good Constitutional exegesis.

Since the Constitution did not specifically deal with leaving the Union, it was well covered by the Tenth Amendment - at least until 1865.

"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people."

---------- Post added at 05:35 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:25 PM ----------

Another can of worms!

I do thank you for your comments, although we do disagree on several points. And I've gone further down this road than I intended. The question I attempted to address in my first post today was that the southern Presbyterians were not necessarily contra confessional, they just look that way from our perspective a century and a half later.

 

[rbcbob]

You miss my point perhaps. Patrick Henry argued passionately at his states ratification convention for "conditional ratification" maintaining the right to withdraw from the union if so desired. Henry's proposal was defeated and Virgina, like all other States, entered the Union with no recourse to secession.

 

[Alan D. Strange]

Folks, my research has uncovered the same sort of thing that Bob is arguing here. To really get at this, you need to research the ratifying conventions in the states and what prevailed there. The U.S. becomes a nation, I believe, in the ratifying of the Constitution and the anti-Federalists are defeated. Maybe you don't like that--and that's fine--the anti-Federalists have some interesting arguments, but that was not what prevailed. Jefferson himself betrayed many of the anti-Federalist principles that he found he could not live with in attempting to govern the nation. So did his successor Madison (the War of 1812; which, btw, you dear Canadian friends did not win ). Remember Calhoun was a nationalist (for "internal improvements" like Clay) up into the 1830s when it became clear that that threatened slavery. Enough of this! Bob is right.

Peace,
Alan

 

[rmwilliamsjr]

see also mark noll's
chapter 18 "The 'Bible Alone' and a Reformed, Literal Hermeneutic", and

chapter 19 "The Bible and Slavery"

from his _America's God_

 

[Contra_Mundum]

PBers should feel no need to come to definitive conclusions about these exceedingly thorny issues and should be wary of me or anyone else who offers dogmatic answers.

I completely agree. I do not wish anyone to suppose that I think the complex issues in view are reducible to soundbites, or short paragraphs.

Those were merely my opinions, and should not be viewed as anything more than dilettantish.

I am a native Virginian, and biased in her favor on that account. But not so biased that I cannot imagine she (and the rest of the South) were quite so right as they portrayed themselves, not only politically, but especially morally.

I do think the record shows that many states, including NewEngland examples, clearly ratified the original union with the understanding (animus imponentis) that this was not an irreversible choice.

In my view, if South Carolina was free to secede, then Sumpter's Fort had no right to demand a toll or threaten shipping at the Charleston Free Harbor to collect duty for a foreign (D.C.) government. That doesn't mean the Fort should have been bombarded. Bellicose sentiment was quite ridiculous among those "feeling their oats" in the South.

And I suppose I've said too much myself, and will leave it alone too.

 

[Loopie]

I just want to say that I respect all of the opinions that have been put forth in this thread concerning States having the right (or not) to secede. There is so much historical information to study about the subject that it would take quite some time to go through it all.

It is certainly true that believing that States SHOULD have the right to secede is very different than saying that according to the Constitution, the States DO have the right to secede. Even though I am still unsure about the constitutionality of secession, I am very much in favor of states having the right to secede.

The reason I say this is because if we were to say that a State NEVER has the option of seceding, then we essentially grant potentially unlimited power to the Federal Government. If the Federal Government were to do something that was both immoral and unconsitutional, a State could never do anything more than cry out and complain. It could not secede, and it could not resist.

Consider for a moment an example where the Federal Government 'crosses the line' against a State Government. It very well might be possible that one day the Federal Government decides that ALL states MUST recognize ALL same-sex marriages. Now, in this situation a state would have to comply, and could do nothing more than complain about what the Federal Government has done.

Please understand that I am not saying that a state SHOULD secede if the Federal Government tries to redefine marriage nationally. What I am saying is that I believe it is very possible that the Federal Government could 'cross the line' to the point that a State could be justified in seceding from the Union. That is why I believe that States SHOULD have the right to secede. I honestly do not know what situation would need to develop in order for a State to be justified in seceding, but I do believe that there is 'a line' out there that the Federal Government might one day cross. To say that a state does not have the right to secede is to essentially say that there IS NO LINE that the Federal Government could cross. It is to say that the Federal Government COULD potentially have unlimited power over the states (if it chose to do so).

On a more personal note, I honestly do not know what I would do if the Federal Government ordered me to launch air strikes against my home state of Pennsylvania. There are Air Force pilots that I have flown with that openly declare that they would fight for their state if it were to secede from the Union. I pray that there will never come a time where Washington D. C. orders me to bomb members of the Pennsylvanian National Guard (which my cousin is a Captain in). If such an order were to come down, I do not think I could follow it.

Perhaps this is what motivated many Confederate soldiers to stand against the Federal Government. There can be no doubt that many of them were appalled at the idea of going to war against their own countrymen, to invade and subdue their own states. Regardless of whether or not we can 'prove' that secession was unconstitutional, there is no doubt that millions of Americans in 1861 thought that it was a perfectly legitimate option. Perhaps they were all wrong in their interpretation of the constitution, but I still have not been fully convinced that secession is wholly unconstitutional. There is no doubt that the idea of secession was thrown around during the Hartford Convention of 1814 (as well as the War of 1812). Whether anyone was serious about it or not is a different question. Yet even if it could be shown to be clearly unconstitutional, I still believe that States SHOULD have the option to secede as a last resort against a potentially immoral and tyrannical Federal Government.

 

[Pergamum]

Here is another sermon on slavery from a Reformed Baptist perspective:


Commerce in the Human Species, and the Enslaving of Innocent Persons, inimical to the Laws of Moses and the Gospel of Christ

By Abraham Booth, preached on 29 January, 1792. I am looking for a full copy now.

 

[Pergamum]

Commerce in the human species, and the enslaving of innocent persons, inimical to the laws of Moses and the gospel of Christ : a sermon, preached in Little Prescot Street, Goodman's Fields, January 29, 1792

Here is a link to the Booth sermon.