RICE UNIVERSITY

No Northern or Southern Religion: Cumberland Presbyterians and the Christian Nation, 1800–1877

by

William Robert Black

A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE

Doctor of Philosophy

APPROVED, THESIS COMMITTEE

HOUSTON, TEXAS July 2018

ABSTRACT

No Northern or Southern Religion Cumberland Presbyterians and the Christian Nation, 1800–1877

by

William Robert Black

Historians have struggled to define the evangelical consensus that dominated American

life for most of the nineteenth century. Scholars of the antebellum church tend to emphasize how

it exacerbated sectional tension and precipitated the Civil War, while scholars of the postbellum

church emphasize how it bolstered sectional reunion. But how can both have been true? I address

this question by examining one denomination, the bulk of whose membership lived in the trans-

Appalachian South and the lower Midwest. Focusing on one denomination averts the

shortcomings of studying American evangelicalism as a homogenous whole when it was no such

thing. Moreover, the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, because it was arguably the largest

denomination not to divide along sectional lines during the Civil War era, allows us to locate

important continuities across time (before and after the war) and space (north and south of the

Mason-Dixon line).

And what do I find? That the heart of the evangelical consensus was the project of the

Christian nation—the belief that America had a special mission to purify the church and

evangelize the globe. At least for the Cumberland Presbyterians, Christian nationalism was a

useful tool in addressing the two great problems that a Protestant denomination faced in the

nineteenth-century United States: namely, the religious marketplace and the institution of slavery.

But at the same time, those two same forces actually undercut the Cumberland Presbyterian

narrative of the Christian nation. This paradox helps explain how Christian nationalism, and by

extension the evangelical consensus, could both reinforce and undermine the union of the

republic.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The work of many made this possible. The history department at Rice University

provided most of the guidance I needed to formulate the project and most of the resources I

needed to complete it. The departmental staff, especially Lydia Westbrook, Lisa Tate, and Bev

Konzem, were crucial in helping me pay for my travel and fulfill all degree requirements. I

received additional funding from Rice’s Humanities Research Council.

Caleb McDaniel and Randal Hall supported me throughout the entire process and assured

me this was a story worth telling. Matthias Henze generously agreed to join my committee as the

third reader and lend a different and much needed perspective. And Luke Harlow, despite not

having a formal seat on my committee, read and critiqued several chapter drafts. Thanks to them,

I have produced a stronger piece of scholarship than I would have otherwise. I am grateful for

their patience, rigor, and magnanimity.

My dissertation prospectus took its final shape in a seminar led by Ed Cox, alongside a

cohort of graduate students (Mark Bebawi, Esmat Elhalaby, Ashley Evelyn, Keith McCall, and

Erika Rendon Ramos) uniquely committed to each other’s betterment as scholars. I benefited

greatly from my association with other colleagues in the department, including Blake Earle,

Andrew Johnson, John Marks, Maria Montalvo, David Ponton, Cara Rogers, Whitney Stewart,

and Kelly Weber Stefonowich. I presented portions of my research at the Society for U.S.

Intellectual Historians conference in October 2017 and at an invited talk at Memphis Theological

Seminary that same month, receiving valuable feedback in both settings.

Countless others shaped my maturation as a scholar, offered insight into my project, and

asked valuable questions. Among them were John Boles, Carl Caldwell, Nate Citino, Sayuri

Guthrie Shimizu, Jim Sidbury, Kerry Ward, and Fay Yarbrough at Rice University; Carol-Crowe

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Carraco, Tony Harkins, Glenn LaFantasie, M. B. Lucas, Patti Minter, Beth Plummer, Eric Reed,

Larry Snyder, and Tammy Van Dyken at Western Kentucky University; and Dan Dalrymple,

Alex DeBonis, Marion Graham, Sarah Kidd, Josh Roberts, and Jim Scruton at Bethel University,

in McKenzie, Tennessee. I also would like to thank Erin Bartram, Lora Burnett, Paul Calhoun,

Heath Carter, Seth Cotlar, Emily Conroy-Krutz, Jay Earhart-Brown, Elesha Coffman, Kate

Engel, Justin Gage, Pete Gathje, Andrew Klumpp, Ben Park, Chris Phillips, Paul Putz, Adam

Shapiro, Brent Sirota, Jemar Tisby, and Ben Wright.

Several archivists lent their expertise to this project, including Jenny Barr, Lisa Jacobson,

and David Staniunas at the Presbyterian Historical Society; Jonathan Jeffrey and Sue Lynn

McDaniel at Western Kentucky University’s special collections library (the “Kentucky

Building”); DeLisa Harris at Fisk University; and Matt Holdzkom at the Indiana Historical

Society. But above all I must thank Susan Knight Gore, director of the Historical Foundation of

the Cumberland Presbyterian Church and the Cumberland Presbyterian Church in America. My

research would have been utterly impossible without her decades’ worth of research and hard

work. Her generosity was unending, even giving me an old microfilm machine and enabling me

to do some of my research at home. I might have suspected she was giving me special treatment

due to the fact I am married to her niece, had I not witnessed the care and attention she pays to

every researcher at the Historical Foundation. It is not much of an exaggeration to equate her

legacy, alongside that of her husband Matt, with all future scholarship on Cumberland

Presbyterianism.

Helen Knight and Chet Dickson made it possible for my family to move to Memphis. My

parents, Ken and Reta, fostered from childhood my love for history and the church. My in-laws,

Geoff and Rose Anne, bolstered those two loves of mine, as did the Cumberland Presbyterian

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congregations of Faith, Houston First, and Colonial. Finally, my wife Marisa, to whom this is

dedicated, has been a true partner and friend, a source of strength and a check on my pride; again

and again she has reminded me why any work is worth doing. And without her I would not have

received the blessing of our two sons, Abel and Jeremiah, both born during our time at Rice—a

rambunctious cohort I would not trade for any other.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction 1

Chapter 1 Revival and Schism 1800–1814 18

Chapter 2 A Middle Way, 1810–1860 54

Chapter 3 The Slavery Consensus, 1810–1850 88

Chapter 4 The Body and Blood, 1850–1860 122

Chapter 5 Rehearsal for Reunion, 1860–1864 154

Chapter 6 The Unity of the Spirit, 1864–1877 188

Bibliography 243

INTRODUCTION

Though St. Louis was not his final destination, Lewis L. Lorimor got off the steamboat

anyway to stretch his legs. He was soon greeted by someone who said he had met him before,

and indeed Lorimor had met many people during his career as a preacher, first in Ohio and now

in Iowa. As the two men walked along the riverfront, Lorimor probably explained he was

heading to the annual meeting of his denomination’s highest judicatory, the General Assembly of

the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, convening that year, 1867, in Memphis. A steamboat

roustabout came up to the two men and told Lorimor’s partner “his goods had arrived, and that

the freight bill was $22.50.” Lorimor’s new friend checked his coat and pockets and found he

only had a $50 bill on him, which the roustabout couldn’t make change for. Could Lorimor front

the bill? Sure; they could then break the $50 at a bank a couple of blocks away. But as they

began walking again, Lorimor’s friend realized he forgot to tell the roustabout “where to put the

goods” and dashed back to the boat. After waiting for some time, Lorimor realized the stranger

was not coming back.1

Before he was conned out of $22.50, Lewis Lorimor may have boasted that his

denomination was the largest Protestant church with significant numbers in the North and South

not to split along sectional lines. The Cumberland Presbyterian Church, which split from the

Presbyterians in 1810, had around 100,000 adherents at the end of the Civil War, approximately

two-thirds in the South and one-third in the North, one of the few denominations where an Iowa

minister could attend a judicatorial meeting in Memphis. The Methodists and Baptists had been

cordoned off into separate northern and southern churches since the mid-1840s, the Presbyterians

1 “Confidence Game,” Alton (Ill.) Weekly Telegraph, May 24, 1867, p. 1 (quotations). The Weekly Telegraph article did not name the minister, but Lorimor was the only commissioner from Iowa at that year’s General Assembly; GA Minutes (CPC), 1867: 5.

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since the beginning of the Civil War, and the Lutherans since 1863. The Episcopalians, formally

divided during the war, had reunited, but most evangelicals thought they were little better than

Roman Catholics; in any case, Cumberland Presbyterians could still distinguish themselves as

having never divided in the first place. Only the Disciples of Christ could make a similar claim,

but they rejected being thought of as a denomination at all; furthermore, their congregations were

so utterly autonomous there was nothing to split. Regardless, Cumberland Presbyterians had

begun to take special pride in their history as a national church rather than a sectional one. This

dissertation shows how this story served an important function for Cumberland Presbyterians in

the religious marketplace, and how that story obscured many uncomfortable truths about the

church, above all their debt to the institution of slavery. The stranger in St. Louis was not the

only one playing a confidence game.

There has been very little scholarship on the Cumberland Presbyterians.2 This is partly

due to their size, since they never had the membership numbers of the major Protestant

2 The two major denominational histories are B. W. McDonnold, History of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church (Nashville: Board of Publication of Cumberland Presbyterian Church, 1888); and Ben M. Barrus, Milton L. Baughn, and Thomas H. Campbell, A People Called Cumberland Presbyterians (Memphis: Frontier Press, 1972). Other books include Thomas H. Campbell, Good News on the Frontier: A History of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church (Memphis: Frontier Press, 1965); R. Douglas Brackenridge, Voice in the Wilderness: A History of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church in Texas (San Antonio: Trinity University Press, 1968); Thomas H. Campbell, Arkansas Cumberland Presbyterians, 1812–1984: A People of Faith (Memphis: Frontier Press, 1985); Thomas D. Campbell, One Family under God: A Story of Cumberland Presbyterians in Black and White (Memphis: Federated Board of Christian Education, 1982); Joe Ben Irby, This They Believed: A Brief History of Doctrine in the Cumberland Presbyterian Church (Memphis: Cumberland Presbyterian Resource Center, 1997); Matthew Harry Gore, A History of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church in Kentucky to 1988 (Memphis: Joint Heritage Committee of Covenant and Cumberland Presbyteries, 2000). The only recent work of peer-reviewed scholarship on the church is Justin Randolph Gage, “Cumberland Presbyterianism in Northwest Arkansas, 1827–1865” (M.A. thesis, University of Arkansas, 2006).

3

denominations, except for a few years during and after the Civil War when they outnumbered the

Southern Presbyterians. But then again, far smaller denominations and sects have received far

more study. The Cumberland Presbyterians outnumbered the Mormons, for example, until the

1870s. The Shakers peaked at around 3,600 members in 1840—a mere two percent of the

Cumberland Presbyterians’ peak membership, around 185,000 in the early 1900s—yet the

Shakers have been the subject of at least seven academic monographs since 1990.3 It may be that

the Cumberland Presbyterians were both too large and too small to be of much interest to

historians, which is another way of saying they were neither representative enough nor strange

enough, occupying a middling space between the Southern Baptist Convention and the

Separatists of Zoar. A couple of other factors have contributed to the paucity of scholarship on

the church: first, the denomination’s dwindling membership numbers, especially compared with

before 1906, when the majority of the church reunited with the Presbyterian Church, U.S.A.; and

3 For statistics, see 2008 Church Almanac (Salt Lake City: Deseret Morning News, 2008), 652; GA Minutes (CPC), 1877: 79–93; William Sims Bainbridge, “Shaker Demographics, 1840–1900: An Example of the Use of U.S. Census Enumeration Schedules,” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 21 (December 1982), 355; and Barrus, Baughn, and Campbell, People Called Cumberland Presbyterians, 376. Recent books on the Shakers include Linda A. Mercadante, Gender, Doctrine, and God: The Shakers and Contemporary Theology (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1990); Lawrence Foster, Women, Family, and Utopia: Communal Experiments of the Shakers, the Oneida Community, and the Mormons (Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1991); Stephen J. Stein, The Shaker Experience in America: A History of the United Society of Believers (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992); Sally M. Promey, Spiritual Spectacles: Vision and Image in Mid-Nineteenth-Century Shakerism (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993); Etta M. Madden, Bodies of Life: Shaker Literature and Literacies (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1998); Elizabeth A. De Wolfe, Shaking the Faith: Women, Family, and Mary Marshall Dyer’s Anti-Shaker Campaign, 1815–1867 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002); and Stephen C. Taysom, Shakers, Mormons, and Religious Worlds: Conflicting Visions, Contested Boundaries (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2011).

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second, the relative inaccessibility of the church’s records, most of which are at the

denominational archive in suburban Memphis, uncatalogued and largely undigitized.4

Nevertheless, the Cumberland Presbyterians are worthy of deeper study than they have

received. Indeed, such an analysis should be useful for historians struggling to define the

evangelical consensus, the broad coalition of Protestant denominations that, in lieu of an

established church like the Church of England, dominated American religion for most of the

nineteenth century. Ever since Sydney E. Ahlstrom popularized the concept in 1972, it has been

unclear what precisely the consensus was and how it related to other aspects of American life.

Historians have usually understood the consensus as a cohesive ideological framework rather

than the mere fact that the majority of American churchgoers were evangelical Protestants. But

how cohesive could it have been when there were so many denominations, often accusing each

other of heresy? Nathan O. Hatch, George M. Marsden, and Mark A. Noll have done influential

work distilling a shared set of beliefs among 19th-century American evangelicals, including a

commonsense biblical hermeneutic, an emphasis on personal religious experience, and a

suspicion of ecclesiastical elites, though admittedly none of their distillations cleanly fit every

denomination. It has been more difficult, however, to discern how the evangelical consensus fit

within American politics. Charles Sellers’s ambitious categorization, linking evangelicals to the

Jacksonian Democrats and more mainline Protestants to the Whigs, has not borne scrutiny well;

indeed, much of the work of evangelicalism, from the nationwide distribution of Bibles and

tracts to the establishment of Sunday schools and temperance societies, smacks of Daniel Walker

4 The archive is located on the campus of the denominational headquarters in Cordova, Tennessee, and its full name is the Historical Foundation of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church and the Cumberland Presbyterian Church in America; it is the archive for both the majority-white denomination and the historically black denomination established in 1874.

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Howe’s beloved Whiggery, a religious analogue to Henry Clay’s American System. It would

seem that if the evangelical consensus had a relationship to American politics—and surely it did

if the consensus had ideological, not just demographic, weight—then it likely had little to do

with party lines.5

A similar problem arises when historians look for an ideological link between the

evangelical consensus and the sectional debates of the Civil War era. Evangelical Protestants

cited their faith when both supporting and opposing slavery; when championing both the Union

and the Confederacy; when both calling for reunion after the war and rejecting that call; and

when lobbying for both racial justice and white supremacy. Historians are fond of quoting

Abraham Lincoln’s enigmatic statement that both sides of the sectional conflict “read the same

Bible and pray to the same God.” But were there any meaningful ideological similarities between

northern and southern evangelicals other than their approach to Scripture and their faith in

providence? Habits of periodization exacerbate matters further. Scholars of the antebellum

church tend to emphasize how it contributed to sectional tension and precipitated the Civil War,

while scholars of the postbellum church tend to emphasize how it bolstered sectional reunion—

5 Sydney E. Ahlstrom, A Religious History of the American People (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1972), 381–82; Nathan O. Hatch, The Democratization of American Christianity (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989); George M. Marsden, Fundamentalism and American Culture: The Shaping of Twentieth-Century Evangelicalism, 1870–1925 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982); Mark A. Noll, America’s God: From Jonathan Edwards to Abraham Lincoln (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002); Charles Sellers, The Market Revolution: Jacksonian America, 1815–1846 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991); Richard Carwardine, “‘Antinomians’ and ‘Arminians’: Methodists and the Market Revolution,” in Melvyn Stokes and Stephen Conway, eds., The Market Revolution in America: Social, Political, and Religious Expressions, 1800–1880 (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1996), 282–307; Daniel Walker Howe, What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815–1848 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007); Richard J. Carwardine, Evangelicals and Politics in Antebellum America (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993).

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leaving it unclear how this could have been the same church throughout.6 When the scholarship

on antebellum and postbellum evangelicalism in the North and South is looked at as a whole, one

is tempted to conclude the church simply coheres to the larger trends of a particular time and

place. This reduces faith to a mere epiphenomenon, something easily stretched or shrunk to fit

one’s political beliefs. It leads one to ask whether religion is worth studying at all, or at least only

as moonlight is worth studying insofar as it is a reflection of the sun.

Denominational histories can help clarify these questions. They have been out of vogue

for several decades, having earned a reputation for being primarily written by members of the

6 Abraham Lincoln, “Second Inaugural Address,” in Roy P. Basler, ed., The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln (9 vols.; New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1953–1955), 8:333 (quotation). Important works in this vein include Carwardine, Evangelicals and Politics in Antebellum America; C. C. Goen, Broken Churches, Broken Nation: Denominational Schisms and the Coming of the American Civil War (Macon, Ga.: Mercer University Press, 1985); John R. McKivigan, The War against Proslavery Religion: Abolitionism and the Northern Churches, 1830–1865 (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1984); Molly Oshatz, Slavery and Sin: The Fight against Slavery and the Rise of Liberal Protestantism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011); Charles F. Irons, The Origins of Proslavery Christianity: White and Black Evangelicals in Colonial and Antebellum Virginia (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2008); Mitchell Snay, Gospel of Disunion: Religion and Separatism in the Antebellum South (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993); Richard Carwardine, “Methodists, Politics, and the Coming of the American Civil War,” Church History, 69 (September 2000), 578–609; Mark A. Noll, The Civil War as a Theological Crisis (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006); George C. Rable, God’s Almost Chosen Peoples: A Religious History of the American Civil War (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2010); Chandra Manning, What This Cruel War Was Over: Soldiers, Slavery, and the Civil War (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2007); Timothy L. Wesley, The Politics of Faith during the Civil War (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2013); James H. Moorhead, American Apocalypse: Yankee Protestants and the Civil War, 1860–1869 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1978); Daniel W. Stowell, Rebuilding Zion: The Religious Reconstruction of the South, 1863–1877 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998); Edward J. Blum, Reforging the White Republic: Race, Religion, and American Nationalism, 1865–1898 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2005); Charles Reagan Wilson, Baptized in Blood: The Religion of the Lost Cause, 1865–1920 (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1980); and William E. Montgomery, Under Their Own Vine and Fig Tree: The African-American Church in the South, 1865–1900 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1993).

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denomination for members of the denomination. Such works have often shown disinterest in

larger historical questions, made ungrounded exceptionalist claims, and sought to depict their

subject matter in the best possible light. This has been true, for example, of nearly everything

written on the Cumberland Presbyterians. But denominational history need not be so. Classic

works such as George Marsden’s analysis of the New School Presbyterians and David Edwin

Harrell Jr.’s two-volume history of the Disciples of Christ demonstrated that denominational

history can integrate sophisticated social-scientific methods and close, critical readings. More

recent work, including Margaret Bendroth’s work on Congregationalists and Joshua Guthman’s

work on Primitive Baptists, have proven that denominational histories can be useful case-studies

for comprehending the multivalencies of American religion and society. Studying a single

denomination of course has its limits, but so does studying American evangelicalism as a

homogeneous whole when it was no such thing. Though the evangelical consensus was more

than the sum of its parts, few Americans thought of themselves foremost as evangelicals or even

Protestants—they thought of themselves instead as Hard Shell Baptists, New School

Presbyterians, and African Methodists.7 Moreover, the Cumberland Presbyterian Church,

7 David Edwin Harrell Jr., A Social History of the Disciples of Christ (2 vols.; reprint, Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2003 [1966–1973]); George M. Marsden, The Evangelical Mind and the New School Presbyterian Experience: A Case Study of Thought and Theology in Nineteenth-Century America (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1970); Margaret Bendroth, The Last Puritans: Mainline Protestants and the Power of the Past (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2015); Joshua Guthman, Strangers Below: Primitive Baptists and American Culture (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2015). Other classic studies include Donald G. Mathews, Slavery and Methodism: A Chapter in American Morality, 1780–1845 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1965); Andrew E. Murray, Presbyterians and the Negro: A History (Philadelphia: Presbyterian Historical Society, 1966); Mechal Sobel, Trabelin’ On: The Slave Journey to an Afro-Baptist Faith (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1979); Clarence E. Walker, Rock in a Weary Land: The African Methodist Episcopal Church during the Civil War and Reconstruction (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1982); Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent: The

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because it did not divide along sectional lines during the Civil War era, allows us to locate

important continuities across time (before and after the war) and space (north and south of the

Mason-Dixon line).

And what do I find? That the heart of the evangelical consensus was the project of the

Christian nation—the belief that America had a special mission to purify the church and

evangelize the globe. This was the ideology that held Cumberland Presbyterians together as they

debated at great length their Confession of Faith, the nature of the pastorate, the distribution of

power among the church’s judicatories, the morality of slaveholding, the secession of southern

states from the Union, the postbellum reconstruction of the church, the church’s proper

Women’s Movement in the Black Baptist Church, 1880–1920 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1993); Allen C. Guelzo, For the Union of Evangelical Christendom: The Irony of the Reformed Episcopalians (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1994); Paul Harvey, Redeeming the South: Religious Cultures and Racial Identities among Southern Baptists (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997); Gregory A. Wills, Democratic Religion: Freedom, Authority, and Church Discipline in the Baptist South, 1785–1900 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997); and John H. Wigger, Taking Heaven by Storm: Methodism and the Rise of Popular Christianity in America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998). For newer work, see Jennifer Oast, “‘The Worst Kind of Slavery’: Slave-Owning Presbyterian Churches in Prince Edward County, Virginia,” Journal of Southern History, 76 (November 2010), 867–900; Charity R. Carney, Ministers and Masters: Methodism, Manhood, and Honor in the Old South (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2011); Durwood Dunn, The Civil War in Southern Appalachian Methodism (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2014); Thomas S. Kidd and Barry Hankins, Baptists in America: A History (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015); Hunter Price, “The Traveling Life of John Littlejohn: Methodism, Mobility, and Social Exchange from Revolutionary Virginia to Early Republican Kentucky,” Journal of Southern History, 82 (May 2016), 237–68; William Harrison Taylor, Unity in Christ and Country: American Presbyterians in the Revolutionary Era, 1758–1801 (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2017); and Samuel Avery-Quinn, “As We Will Know Each Other in Heaven: The Place of the 1872 Knoxville National Camp Meeting in the Imagined Geography of the Wesleyan Holiness Movement,” Journal of Southern Religion, 19 (2017), jsreligion.org/vol19/avery-quinn. Also see the roundtable conducted by Lincoln A. Mullen at the 2016 meeting of the Conference on Faith and History; “The Uses of Denominational History: A Conversation with Margaret Bendroth, Keith Harper, Thomas S. Kidd, and Robert W. Prichard,” Fides et Historia, 49 (Summer/Fall 2017), 57–66.

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relationship to other Presbyterian denominations, and the fate of black Cumberland Presbyterians

upon their emancipation. These seemingly disparate points of contention all stemmed from the

two great problems that a Protestant denomination faced in the nineteenth-century United States:

the religious marketplace and the institution of slavery. Cumberland Presbyterians had to justify,

like any vendor in the marketplace, their continued separate existence as a denomination; they

also had to rationalize their utter entanglement in the trafficking of beings made in the image of

God. The story of the Christian nation was a useful tool in addressing these problems. At the

same time, however, those two same forces actually undercut the Cumberland Presbyterian

narrative of the Christian nation; it continually made their jobs harder, if not impossible. This

paradox helps explain how Christian nationalism, and by extension the evangelical consensus,

could both reinforce and undermine the union of the republic. Christian nationalism was the

cohesive ideology that underlay what, on the surface, seemed mere chaos.

There is a wealth of scholarship on slavery, sectionalism, and religion; on the religious

marketplace that emerged after the disestablishment of state churches in the late eighteenth and

early nineteenth centuries; and on Christianity’s relationship to American nationalism. But no

one else has quite connected these three strands as this dissertation does. Historians of Christian

nationalism in the United States have usually focused on how American exceptionalism

underwrote the evangelization of “heathens” foreign and domestic, or how churches promoted

patriotism in times of war or political disorder.8 In the former case, Christian nationalism served

8 Emily Conroy-Krutz, Christian Imperialism: Converting the World in the Early American Republic (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2015); John Fea, The Bible Cause: A History of the American Bible Society (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016), esp. 8–71; Joshua Paddison, American Heathens: Religion, Race, and Reconstruction in California (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2012); Ian Tyrrell, Reforming the World: The Creation of America’s Moral Empire (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010); Barbara Reeves-

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as an almost unconscious framework for church actions, while in the latter case, churches

utilized Christian nationalism to address problems faced by the state and/or the body politic. In

neither case have historians emphasized how churches used Christian nationalism to address

their own problems, especially those related to the religious marketplace and the institution of

slavery.

It may seem odd to describe the religious marketplace as a problem for American

evangelicalism, when in many ways it was a boon. The early republic’s disestablishment of state

churches and the resultant capitalistic free-for-all fostered the proliferation and multiplication of

sects; the Methodists and Baptists flourished in the United States as they never had in Great

Britain, while vibrant and often radical new movements like the Stone-Campbellites, Mormons,

and Shakers also took hold. If, as Alexis de Tocqueville observed in the 1830s and pollsters have

maintained since, the United States is profoundly more religious than western Europe, the

Ellington, Kathryn Kish Sklar, and Connie A. Shemo, eds., Competing Kingdoms: Women, Mission, Nation, and the American Protestant Empire, 1812–1960 (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2010); Thomas S. Kidd, God of Liberty: A Religious History of the American Revolution (New York: Basic Books, 2010); Jonathan Den Hartog, “Elias Boudinot, Presbyterians, and the Quest for a ‘Righteous Republic,’” in Daniel L. Dreisbach and Mark David Hall, eds., Faith and the Founders of the American Republic (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), 253–76; Jonathan J. Den Hartog, Patriotism and Piety: Federalist Politics and Religious Struggle in the New American Nation (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2015); Nicholas Guyatt, Providence and the Invention of the United States, 1607–1876 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 137–258; Robert T. Handy, A Christian America: Protestant Hopes and Historical Realities, 2nd ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1984), 24–56; Jonathan D. Sassi, A Republic of Righteousness: The Public Christianity of the Post-Revolutionary New England Clergy (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001); John C. Pinheiro, Missionaries of Republicanism: A Religious History of the Mexican-American War (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014); Joseph S. Moore, Founding Sins: How a Group of Antislavery Radicals Fought to Put Christ into the Constitution (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016); Moorhead, American Apocalypse; Rable, God’s Almost Chosen Peoples; Blum, Reforging the White Republic; Matthew McCullough, The Cross of War: Christian Nationalism and U.S. Expansion in the Spanish-American War (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2014).

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religious marketplace is partly why. But a marketplace implied losers as well as winners. The

religious economy of the early republic, wherein denominations were forced to compete with

each other for adherents and depend almost entirely on voluntary donations (rather than state-

imposed taxes) for funding, was unprecedented in post-Constantinian Christendom. Not only did

churches have to seek members and resources in a way no church had needed to before, but they

also had to justify their very existence. If a cooper set up shop in a town that already had a

cooper, he was compelled to explain why the town needed another cooper. This compulsion was

all the greater for a church when the Bible taught “there should be no schism in the body” of

Christ—when arguably any division in the church entailed crucifying the savior anew.9

9 Hatch, Democratization of American Christianity; Sellers, Market Revolution; Wigger, Taking Heaven by Storm; Paul E. Johnson, A Shopkeeper’s Millennium: Society and Revivals in Rochester, New York, 1815–1837 (New York: Hill and Wang, 1978); Mary P. Ryan, Cradle of the Middle Class: The Family in Oneida County, New York, 1790–1865 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981); Terry D. Bilhartz, Urban Religion and the Second Great Awakening: Church and Society in Early National Baltimore (Rutherford, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1986); Jon Butler, Awash in a Sea of Faith: Christianizing the American People (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1990); Roger Finke and Rodney Stark, The Churching of America, 1776–2005: Winners and Losers in Our Religious Economy, 2nd ed. (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2005 [1992]); R. Laurence Moore, Selling God: American Religion in the Marketplace of Culture (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994); Nathan O. Hatch, “Mormon and Methodist: Popular Religion in the Crucible of the Free Market,” Journal of Mormon History, 20 (Spring 1994), 24–44. Also see Walter Brownlow Posey, Religious Strife on the Southern Frontier (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1965), esp. xiii–xvii. The biblical quotation comes from 1 Corinthians 12:25. For this and all other biblical quotations, I am using the Authorized (or “King James”) Version. Tocqueville wrote that “there is no country in the world where the Christian religion retains a greater influence over the souls of men than in America”; Democracy in America, trans. Henry Reeve (4 vols.; London: Saunders and Otley, 1835–1840), 2:229. A recent Pew study found that “nones” in the United States—those who identify their religion as “nothing in particular”—were nevertheless more religious than Christians in France, Germany, or the United Kingdom; “Being Christian in Western Europe,” Pew Research Center, pewforum.org/2018/05/ 29/being-christian-in-western-europe.

12

Studying the religious marketplace fell out of vogue in the late 1990s, perhaps having

become associated with an overly materialistic or even Marxist understanding of religion. This

was likely part of the larger “cultural turn,” as historians became more interested in language and

meaning than in quantitative and other social-scientific methods. But recent scholarship,

including Kyle T. Bulthius’s study of four New York City congregations and Lincoln A.

Mullen’s ambitious history of conversion, have fused traditional social science with the methods

of the cultural turn (the sort of methodological endeavor for which denominational case-studies

are ideal) to illustrate different ways in which Americans navigated the religious marketplace of

the early republic.10 This dissertation points to Christian nationalism as one of those ways.

Cumberland Presbyterians believed their church was uniquely destined to shape the future of the

Christian nation, and that claim was necessary to justify their continued presence in the

denominational marketplace. After all, the church began somewhat in spite of itself, after a few

Presbyterian preachers were expelled by the Synod of Kentucky in 1805. Even the church’s

name was an accident, stemming from the fact that the preachers were expelled from

Cumberland Presbytery. So the church had to tell a convincing story about itself. Cumberland

Presbyterians pointed to their republican form of church government, their commonsense

10 Kyle T. Bulthuis, Four Steeples over the City Streets: Religion and Society in New York’s Early Republic Congregations (New York: New York University Press, 2014); Lincoln A. Mullen, The Chance of Salvation: A History of Conversion in America (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2017). Also see Rodney Hessinger, “‘A Base and Unmanly Conspiracy’: Catholicism and the Hogan Schism in the Gendered Religious Marketplace of Philadelphia,” Journal of the Early Republic, 31 (Fall 2011), 357–96. On the cultural turn in historiography, see Lynn Hunt, ed., The New Cultural History (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989), esp. Hunt’s introduction on pp. 1–22; James W. Cook and Lawrence B. Glickman, “Twelve Propositions for a History of U.S. Cultural History,” in James W. Cook, Lawrence B. Glickman, and Michael O’Malley, eds., The Cultural Turn in U.S. History: Past, Present, and Future (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008), 3–57; and Leigh E. Schmidt, “Religious History and the Cultural Turn,” in Karen Halttunen, ed., A Companion to American Cultural History (Malden, Mass: Blackwell, 2008), 406–15.

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“medium theology” between Calvinism and Arminianism, their origins and predominance in the

trans-Appalachian West, and ultimately their moderation on the great questions of slavery and

Reconstruction—all as evidence they were integral to the project of the Christian nation.

Meanwhile, the institution and legacies of slavery presented problems of their own. Many

historians have touched on these problems, usually focusing on biblical interpretation, white

supremacy, and the separation of church and state. None, however, have emphasized Christian

nationalism as an ideological framework and tool in the great debates over slavery and

sectionalism. Was slavery an instrument of the Christian nation or a stain upon it? Were black

people destined to be co-agents of the Christian nation, or were they destined to leave America

and evangelize Africa? Was the formation of the Confederacy a deathblow to the Christian

nation, or its last great hope? Should slaveholders be barred from communion or, after the war,

former slaveholders forced to repent? Christian nationalism was central to how Cumberland

Presbyterians, and I suspect many if not most white evangelicals, understood and shaped all

these debates.

I am particularly interested in scholarship that examines the commonalities and ties

between moderate anti- and proslavery evangelicals—the very coalition that held the

Cumberland Presbyterian Church together. John R. McKivigan showed how difficult it was for

abolitionists to persuade the bulk of northern Protestants to join their cause, especially when it

came to potentially excommunicating slaveholders. And Luke E. Harlow argues that antislavery

evangelicals who sought to ameliorate slavery rather than abolish it actually strengthened

proslavery religion, which coopted the language of amelioration. Moderate antislavery

evangelicals also united with proslavery evangelicals against abolitionism, which they regarded

as a threat to both white supremacy and their commonsense reading of the Bible. Relatedly,

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April E. Holm shows how border-state evangelicals who pled neutrality on slavery and

secession, maintaining a strict separation between church and state, ultimately sided with the

supporters of slavery and secession, even if this alliance did not take its final shape until after the

Civil War. I do not take issue with any of their arguments; I am instead both providing further

evidence for their claims and providing evidence for the importance of Christian nationalism in

this larger story as well. Nor was the project of the Christian nation a mere religious gloss on

white supremacy, Confederate nationalism, or Unionism; it was a coherent story about God and

God’s people, one that was both powerful and flexible enough to keep white Cumberland

Presbyterians united throughout the Civil War era.11

The first chapter of this dissertation delineates the origins of the Cumberland Presbyterian

Church. The Great Revival of the early 1800s drove a wedge between evangelical and

conservative Presbyterians in south-central Kentucky and north-central Tennessee, the territory

of Cumberland Presbytery, the main points of contention being the doctrine of predestination and

educational requirements for ministerial candidates. When the Synod of Kentucky (arguably in

defiance of ecclesiastical law) expelled the evangelical preachers from Cumberland Presbytery in

1805, the preachers were stranded for years without a church. They eventually formed an

independent presbytery in 1810, which morphed over the next few years into a full-fledged

denomination with an amended Confession of Faith.

11 McKivigan, War against Proslavery Religion; Luke E. Harlow, Religion, Race, and the Making of Confederate Kentucky, 1830–1880 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014); April E. Holm, A Kingdom Divided: Evangelicals, Loyalty, and Sectionalism in the Civil War Era (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2017). Also see Lucas P. Volkman, Houses Divided: Evangelical Schisms and the Crisis of the Union in Missouri (New York: Oxford University Press, 2018); Elizabeth Fox-Genovese and Eugene Genovese, The Mind of the Master Class: History and Faith in the Southern Slaveholders’ Worldview (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 521–26; and Noll, Civil War as a Theological Crisis, 51–74.

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The second chapter documents the first half-century of the church’s struggle to find its

place in the religious marketplace and reckon with the material consequences of that

marketplace. Debates about ministerial education, creedal statements, and the centralization of

church power were vital debates about how the church ought to function in a cutthroat

marketplace and what role the church would play in the project of the Christian nation. Out of

this struggle came a cohesive and powerful story about the church’s history and future, rooted in

Christian nationalism. Cumberland Presbyterians claimed to offer a theological middle ground

between Calvinism and Arminianism, which would empower American Christendom to escape

centuries of arcane European debates. The harsh doctrine of predestination was, they feared,

holding Presbyterianism back, quite a misfortune when the presbyterian form of government was

far more similar to that of the American republic than, say, Baptist anarchy or the Methodist

episcopate. Cumberland Presbyterians justified their place in the religious market by arguing

they would enable Presbyterianism to obtain its rightful place in American Christendom.

Corollaries to the larger story Cumberland Presbyterians told about themselves were that

they were a “western” church rather than a southern or northern one; that they were ultimately a

church for white people, with people of color being a missionary field rather than co-agents in

the project of the Christian nation; and that their church had succeeded where many

denominations had failed in reaching a compromise on the slavery question. The third and fourth

chapters show how the institution of slavery undermined not just the last of these claims but all

three. The financial and personal entanglement of the entire church with slavery undermined the

church’s geographical claim, as it was arguably a “southern” church rather than a western one.

The presence of enslaved Africans in Cumberland Presbyterian spaces of worship, and indeed

the labor they performed to maintain those spaces, undermined the church’s racial claim. And the

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limited nature of the church’s consensus on the slavery question—rejecting abolitionism and

promoting the amelioration of slavery rather than its destruction—undermined their political

claim; in the eyes of many critics, the church was not neutral on the slavery question but rather

firmly in the proslavery camp.

Then came the war. The fifth and sixth chapters examine how the Cumberland

Presbyterians managed to stay united throughout the Civil War and its immediate aftermath.

Their continued union was in some ways an accident of geography and timing, and there were

many points of fracture between Cumberland Presbyterians in the Confederacy and the Union—

the largest being the General Assemblies of 1864 and 1865, which mandated that supporters of

the Confederacy repent for their treason or else be expelled from the church. But the coalition of

white southerners and moderate northerners that had held the church together during the

antebellum slavery debate won out again, and the General Assembly of 1866 essentially nullified

the actions of the previous two assemblies. Shortly thereafter, the Cumberland Presbyterians

resisted union with both the Southern Presbyterians and the Northern Presbyterians, and they

justified their resistance on the basis of their purported role in the project of the Christian

nation—a story bolstered by their union throughout the Civil War era. But this union was

ultimately a union of the church’s white members, just as the larger reconciliation of the North

and South took place at the expense of black freedpeople. Denied an equal place in the church’s

judicatories, black Cumberland Presbyterians were forced to go their separate way, forming their

own denomination in 1874. Racial division was the price of national union.

I conclude this introduction with a theological reflection which the reader is free to pass

over. I noted that denominational history has too often been devotional literature written by and

for members of that denomination. Nevertheless, I would not have been drawn to this story had I

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not been a member of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church since infancy. It is the church where

my wife and I were married and both of our children were baptized; I am also an ordained elder

and have served on two congregational sessions. Some readers may fear I am biased in the

church’s favor; a few readers familiar with the church may be distraught by my willingness to

follow the evidence, even when it casts the church in a negative light. But I am continually

brought back to the eucharist: the sacrament wherein all time folds upon itself and the entire

communion of saints, including those who have died and those yet to be born, meet together in

the body and blood of Christ. The author of the Book of Hebrews, after recounting the story of

the church’s ancestors—the story of Israel—concludes that the ancestors have not yet received

God’s promise, for it was God’s will “that they without us should not be made perfect.” To listen

to, argue with, and even call for repentance from the saints past are, collectively, a form of

worship. It is what Margaret Bendroth calls an “extended argument constantly unfolding across

both space and time,” and it is all mysteriously part of God’s plan for heaven and earth. I both

pray and fear that those yet to come will keep the argument alive, however much it may leave us

chastened. For without them we should not be made perfect.12

12 Hebrews 11, esp. verses 39–40 (first quotation); Margaret Bendroth, The Spiritual Practice of Remembering (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2013), 99–132 (second quotation on 132).

CHAPTER 1: REVIVAL AND SCHISM, 1800–1814 For many Presbyterians in Kentucky at the turn of the nineteenth century, the annual

sacramental meeting was the only church they had. The sacramental meeting was a kind of

religious festival that first evolved in seventeenth-century Scotland and was brought to America

by Scottish and Scots-Irish immigrants. For four long days in the summer, people from several

miles around gathered at a meetinghouse and worshiped. It was often the most people they saw

in one place all year; there were old childhood friends, sisters who had moved after getting

married, nieces and nephews who had grown at a miraculous pace since last summer. On

Sunday, usually the third or fourth day of the meeting, they ate the body that Christ had broken

for them and the blood that he had shed. The eucharist was the climax of the sacramental

meeting (hence sacramental), the brief moment when the veil between heaven and earth was

lifted.1

Though the sacramental meeting was frequently a time of heightened religious

enthusiasm, there was something different about what happened at the Red River meetinghouse

in Logan County in June 1800. During a sermon on the last day, a Monday, a woman who had

been struggling with her faith for months suddenly broke “out into an amazing rapture of joy and

adoration.” It went on for minutes. A little while later, once the sermon was over, the few

hundred congregants stayed seated as if frozen. People broke into tears. Many “fell to the

ground” and cried out—in his account the minister James McGready used the word roared—

“What shall I do to be saved?” Boys and girls (“nine, ten, and twelve years of age, and some

1 Leigh Eric Schmidt, Holy Fairs: Scottish Communions and American Revivals in the Early Modern Period (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989); James M’Gready, The Posthumous Works of the Reverend and Pious James M’Gready, Late Minister of the Gospel, in Henderson, Kentucky, ed. James Smith (2 vols.; Louisville: W. W. Worsley, 1831; Nashville: Lowry and Smith, 1833), 1:266–74.

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younger”) lay on the ground and cried for God’s mercy, reminding McGready of criminals at the

gallows about to be hanged. The worshipers’ behavior, recalled the minister John Rankin, was

“quite inconsistent with presbyterial order.” The ministers were taken aback. One of them turned

to Rankin and asked what they should do, but he had no answer except to stand by and let the

Holy Spirit act.2

The Red River meeting was the first of a series of sacramental meetings throughout the

Ohio River Valley that came to be collectively called the Great Revival or the Revival of 1800.

Out of the revival the American camp meeting was born and modern American

denominationalism came of age. The era of the established church gave way to the era of the

religious marketplace, in which a dizzying array of denominations and sects competed for

adherents. Most of those who worshiped at the sacramental meetings were Presbyterians

descended from long lines of Scots-Irish Presbyterians, but within a few years many of them had

become Methodists or Baptists or had joined more radical groups like the Stoneite “Christians”

2 James M’Gready, “A Short Narrative of the Revival of Religion in Logan County, in the State of Kentucky, and the Adjacent Settlements in the State of Tennessee, from May 1797, until September 1800,” Western Missionary Magazine, 4 (March 1803), 48; John Rankin, “Auto-biography of John Rankin, Sen.,” in “History of the South Union Shaker Colony from 1804 to 1836,” ed. Harvey L. Eads (4 vols.; South Union, Ky., 1870), 1:18; John M’Gee, “Commencement of the Great Revival of Religion in Kentucky and Tennessee, in 1799, in a Letter to the Rev. Thomas L. Douglass,” Methodist Magazine, 4 (May 1821), 190; M’Gready, Posthumous Works, 1:ix–xvi; John McGee to [Francis Asbury], October 27, 1800, in Lorenzo Dow, ed., Extracts from Original Letters, to the Methodist Bishops, Mostly from Their Preachers and Members, in North America: Giving an Account of the Work of God, Since the Year 1800 (Liverpool: H. Forshaw, 1806), 10. Rankin wrote his autobiography in 1845. The original copy of Rankin’s autobiography, written in 1845, has been lost, but it was transcribed by Shaker elder Harvey Eads and included in his edited collection of primary sources related to the South Union society. Rankin’s autobiography is found in the first volume, which is housed at the Special Collections Library at Western Kentucky University, Bowling Green. The manuscript volume is normally closed off to researchers but a typescript (known as Shaker Record A) is available. Though the typescript usually notes the original pagination, I will instead use the typescript’s own pagination.

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or the Shakers. The revival subverted not only the established church but other power structures

as well, such as slavery, marriage, and the household. Like the ministers at Red River, many

could only stand by and wonder (or fear) what would happen next.3

Tension grew between conservative and evangelical Presbyterian ministers in Kentucky.

Conservatives were alarmed by the erosion of doctrinal purity and ecclesiastical order, while

evangelicals embraced the revival as a manifestation of God. In the Green River country of

south-central Kentucky and northern Middle Tennessee, the division between conservative and

evangelical Presbyterians produced a schism and ultimately a new denomination: the

Cumberland Presbyterians.4

Cumberland Presbyterians had an ambiguous relationship with the Great Revival.

Though the revival undoubtedly gave birth to the church, it also gave birth to many other

religious movements that Cumberland Presbyterians did not want to be associated with. They

insisted they were orthodox Presbyterians forced by an ultra-conservative faction to split off

from the mother church. They further insisted they were nothing at all like the Shakers or the

“Christians.” They even resented being compared to Methodists. Cumberland Presbyterians

celebrated the religious fervor of the Great Revival but at the same time rejected its most radical

and subversive implications, and this balancing act shaped the church for the next century. To

3 John B. Boles, The Great Revival, 1787–1805: The Origins of the Southern Evangelical Mind (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1972); Paul K. Conkin, Cane Ridge: America’s Pentecost (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1990); Stephen Aron, How the West Was Lost: The Transformation of Kentucky from Daniel Boone to Henry Clay (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996), 170–91. 4 For accounts of the Cumberland schism, see Barrus, Baughn, and Campbell, People Called Cumberland Presbyterians, 50–104; Ben Melton Barrus, “A Study of the Factors Involved in the Origin of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church: 1800–1813” (Ph.D. diss., Vanderbilt University, 1964); McDonnold, History of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, 39–108; Conkin, Cane Ridge, 150–62; and Boles, Great Revival, 159–63.

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understand the church’s culture of moderation, its pride in finding itself in the middle of every

road, we must understand the church’s origins in the Great Revival.

At the time of the great sacramental meetings, Presbyterianism in Kentucky was less than

two decades old. The first Presbyterian minister to settle in Kentucky was David Rice in the fall

of 1783, who began a church near Danville the next spring. There were enough congregations by

1786 to form a presbytery, and by 1799 there were enough congregations to form three

presbyteries. Washington Presbytery covered northeastern Kentucky and southwestern Ohio,

now the greater Cincinnati area. West Lexington Presbytery lay farther west, between the

Kentucky and Licking rivers. The largest presbytery was Transylvania, which included most of

the central Bluegrass region as well as the Green River country to the south, extending to the

Cumberland River in Tennessee. The southern portion of Transylvania Presbytery, the country

between the Green and Cumberland rivers, eventually became Cumberland Presbytery in 1802.5

The Green River country was at that time the backwater of Kentucky. It bore little

resemblance to the Bluegrass: no large hemp plantations, no slaveholding gentry, no university

or literary club. Not long before the revival the Green River country was a land of squatters. In

1795 less than a fifth of heads of household owned the land they lived on. That same year a

homestead act allowed squatters to buy up to 200 acres of land at a mere thirty cents per acre,

and the land of squatters became a land of small landowners. By 1800 more than half of

landowners in the Green River country owned exactly 200 acres, and only one in seven owned

more than that. Only about a fifth owned slaves, and only a quarter of slaveholders owned more

than four. If anywhere in Kentucky emulated Jefferson’s dream of an egalitarian yeoman’s

5 William Warren Sweet, ed., Religion on the American Frontier, vol. 2, The Presbyterians, 1783–1840 (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1936; hereinafter cited as Presbyterians), 30–32.

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republic, unspoiled by the concentration of land and human chattel in a few hands, it was the

Green River country.6

The region’s relative equality did not necessarily earn it a good reputation. To the

astonishment of a Baptist minister from Virginia, the inhabitants of Christian County were

“content with shabby, dirty clothes” and “unfinished” log cabins, while “smart looking grown

girls” went barefoot. A Bluegrass planter warned a friend thinking of moving south that the

region was “filled with nothing but hunters, horse-thieves & savages . . . a country where

wretchedness, poverty & sickness will always reign.” The nickname of Logan County was

“Rogues’ Harbor,” and the Methodist preacher Peter Cartwright claimed that so many

“[m]urderers, horse thieves, highway robbers, and counterfeiters fled there” that they “actually

formed a majority.” In the eyes of many, the Green River country was dangerously free from the

influence of civilization.7

A corollary to this was that the country was free from the influence of the church. There

were few preachers and even fewer full-time pastors. Most churches were ad hoc gatherings of

people who met a couple times a year. Babies died before anyone could baptize them. Sunday

was not a day of worship but rather, Peter Cartwright recalled, a day of “hunting, fishing, horse-

racing, card-playing, balls, dances, and all kinds of jollity and mirth.” When John Rankin first

6 Aron, How the West Was Lost, 150–54, 204–6; Christopher Waldrep, “Opportunity on the Frontier South of the Green,” in Craig Thompson Friend, ed., The Buzzel About Kentuck: Settling the Promised Land (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1999), 153–72. 7 John L. Blair, ed., “A Baptist Minister Visits Kentucky: The Journal of Andrew Broaddus I,” Register of the Kentucky Historical Society, 71 (October 1973), 410; James Breckinridge to Samuel Meredith, August 7, 1796, Box 14, Breckinridge Family Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., quoted in Craig Thompson Friend, Kentucke’s Frontiers (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2010), 213; Peter Cartwright, Autobiography of Peter Cartwright (New York: Nelson and Phillips, 1856), 24.

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visited the region in the winter of 1795–96, he was astounded by “the almost impenetrable

darkness & indifference” of its inhabitants toward the gospel. He visited the Gasper River church

in Logan County and found not a single person with any “knowledge of living religion, or any

desire for it.” The next year James McGready began pastoring the churches at Gasper River, Red

River, and Muddy River, and he too found in his congregations a “universal deadness and

stupidity.” For evangelicals like Rankin and McGready, “living religion”—rather than a dead

religion that relied solely upon right doctrine and right liturgy—was necessary for personal

salvation. Faith could not simply be performed but had to be felt within one’s body and soul. The

Green River country was therefore in great need of religious revival. So despite the spiritual

deadness he perceived in the region’s inhabitants—or because of it—Rankin decided to move

himself and his family to Sumner County, Tennessee, the following fall.8

Like many evangelical Presbyterians, Rankin and McGready had spent much of their

lives striving for “living religion” and often agonizing over its absence. Rankin’s conservative

Presbyterian mother drilled him in creed and catechism, but he became dissatisfied with

Calvinism. He found it hard to believe his membership in a predestined elect precluded any need

for spiritual transformation. Surely, he wrote, recalling these travails in his old age, “there was

something more to be done, than for a dead mind to operate on a dead letter.” He longed for the

Holy Spirit to “operate on my dead soul, & quicken & bring [it] into life.” In his quest for

“experimental religion”—a faith that could be personally experienced, not merely acceded to—

Rankin began studying for the ministry at an academy in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina.

After two years of study, however, he felt even further from God. So he quit, got married, had

8 Cartwright, Autobiography, 25; Rankin, “Auto-biography,” 16; M’Gready, “Short Narrative,” 27.

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children, and made a living as a farmer, feeling throughout like “a dead carcass without a soul . .

. compelled to duty by the fear of punishment and dishonor.” His friends assured him the faith he

longed for was an anachronism, something that had existed for the apostles but had since died

out. This gave him little comfort. Ironically, despite his sense of spiritual deadness, his

increasingly public struggle with faith persuaded his neighbors he was called to the ministry. He

gave in to these calls and began to preach in 1795. And it was only at a sacramental meeting at

Gasper River in the fall of 1798 that he came to believe his quest for living religion was not in

vain. His “heart,” he wrote, “was enlarged with love,” and his “tongue was loosed to address” the

congregation “on the all-importance subject of regeneration,” and “ideas . . . rushed into [his]

mind with flowing advance.” Here at last was a faith that acted not upon dead letters but upon a

newly alive body—his heart grown, his tongue unstuck, his mind like the nearby river flowing.9

James McGready took a little longer than Rankin did to question Calvinist orthodoxy.

McGready prayed every day since he was seven years old; he never drank or swore or broke the

sabbath; his parents enrolled him at John McMillan’s academy in Lancaster County,

Pennsylvania, and it seemed he was well on his way to becoming a great man of God. But then

he overheard his roommate asking their teacher McMillan whether he believed McGready had

“religion,” and McMillan replied, “No, not a spark.” Though McGready was initially outraged,

he realized McMillan was right. He believed the right things and behaved the right way but did

not “understand” God “experimentally.” The Bible spoke of being “filled with the spirit” and

9 Rankin, “Auto-biography,” 2–17.

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“filled with joy,” but McGready felt empty inside. And only after a great deal of prayer and inner

turmoil did McGready finally acquire that experimental faith.10

Rankin and McGready were not alone in their dissatisfaction with Calvinist orthodoxy

and their yearning for living religion. The question that the Red River congregants kept asking—

“What shall I do to be saved?”—stood in contradiction to the Calvinist doctrine of

predestination: that from the beginning of time God had already chosen who would be saved and

who would be damned, and there was nothing humans could do to change that. This doctrine,

more properly termed double predestination, was the logical inference from two other doctrines,

unconditional election (humans are saved thanks not to their own agency but to God’s) and

limited atonement (Christ died not to save all humanity but only part). This did not sit right with

worshipers at Red River and elsewhere. It would not do to sit back and let God choose them;

they also needed to choose God. A worshiper at the Gasper River meetinghouse moaned that

despite having been “a sober professor” of the faith, he now realized “that religion is a sensible

thing,” something he needed to feel within his body and soul, not merely a creed to recite. God’s

work at the sacramental meetings was intensely sensory: worshipers felt “the pains of Hell”; they

saw Christ’s “beauty” and “fulness”; they groaned and laughed and shrieked and wept; they

danced and spun in circles; they fell into trances that lasted for hours; they fell prostrate on the

floor, often having to be picked up and moved out of the way. At one point McGready beheld

10 William Henry Foote, Sketches of North Carolina, Historical and Biographical, Illustrative of the Principles of a Portion of Her Early Settlers (New York: Robert Carter, 1846), 368–69 (quotations on 369). For a biography of McGready see John Thomas Scott, “James McGready: Son of Thunder, Father of the Great Revival” (Ph.D. diss., College of William and Mary, 1991).

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“the ground . . . every where strewed over with sinners . . . crying out for mercy.” Experimental

religion was on full, even overwhelming, display.11

Word spread quickly. People learned what had happened at Red River and wondered if

God would perform similar work at the next sacramental meeting, scheduled for two weeks later

at Gasper River. The congregation there, having just finished shingling their meetinghouse the

night before, were astonished when hundreds of people arrived, some from as far as 100 miles

away. There was no way for the congregation to house everyone, so most people had to camp out

overnight in covered wagons or in the woods.12 This became standard practice during the

summer and fall of 1800, with some ten sacramental meetings held throughout the Green River

country. The American camp meeting, eventually to eclipse its Scottish Presbyterian origins, was

born.13

11 M’Gready, “Short Narrative,” 48–51, 177 (first quotation on 48, second quotation on 49, third and fourth quotations on 50, fifth and sixth quotations on 51, seventh quotation on 177); Rankin, “Auto-biography,” 20–21; McGee to [Asbury], October 27, 1800, in Dow, ed., Extracts from Original Letters, 10; “Extract of a Letter from the Rev. William Hodge, of Summer County, State of Tennessee, to the Rev. Francis Asbury,” Methodist Magazine, 26 (June 1803), 269–70; M’Gready, Posthumous Works, 2:348–56; Peter J. Thuesen, Predestination: The American Career of a Contentious Doctrine (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009). Even though most evangelical Presbyterians, including Cumberland Presbyterians, believed in a form of predestination, I will use the term predestination to refer specifically to the Calvinist doctrine of double predestination. 12 Rankin, “Auto-biography,” 19; M’Gready, “Short Narrative,” 49. 13 James McGready lists the sacramental meetings in “Short Narrative,” 48, 52–53, 99–100; and Posthumous Works, 1:xii–xv. The earliest recorded instance of the word camp-meeting is from an entry Francis Asbury made in his journal on September 16, 1802; The Journal of the Rev. Francis Asbury, Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church, from August 7, 1771, to December 7, 1815 (3 vols.; New York: N. Bangs and T. Mason, 1821), 3:79. The word was in common usage by the next year; Dow, ed., Extracts from Original Letters, 30, 38–42, 45–50. Also see Dow’s explanation of the word in the preface to Extracts from Original Letters, v.

27

Revival begat revival. People returned home from the meetings and shared what they had

experienced; their neighbors became interested and attended the next meeting; and so the cycle

continued, soon encompassing the whole of the Green River country. In the late summer of 1800,

the Shiloh congregation in Tennessee was abuzz with news of the Gasper River meeting thanks

to a group of young people who had attended it. Since they did not have a full-time pastor, the

young people begged their parents to let them meet “in society,” gathering once a day at

someone’s home to read scripture and pray. These lay prayer meetings sustained the revival

fervor in the absence of pastoral leadership and made people anxious to attend the next

sacramental meeting. When a meeting was held near Shiloh on Desha’s Creek in September

1800, around five thousand people came.14 At that time there were only 100,000 people in all of

Tennessee and a little more than twice that number in Kentucky. Nashville, the largest town in

Tennessee, had a population of 345; Lexington, Kentucky, the largest city west of the

Appalachians, had fewer than two thousand people. For many who attended the sacramental

meeting, the bewildering multitude looked like nothing less than the New Jerusalem prophesied

by John the Revelator, heaven come crashing down to earth.15

When people learned of God’s remarkable work at Gasper River and Muddy River and

the Ridge and Desha’s Creek, they “waited with anxious expectation” for God to make a similar

14 M’Gready, “Short Narrative,” 52, 99, 172–73; “Extract of a Letter from the Rev. William Hodge, of Summer County, State of Tennessee, to the Rev. Francis Asbury,” Methodist Magazine, 26 (June 1803), 269. Though McGready and Hodge wrote that the meeting was held at the Shiloh church, the Methodist layman John Carr recalled that due to the lack of water at Shiloh the meeting was instead held at “Blythe’s Big Spring, on Desha’s Creek”; Early Times in Middle Tennessee (reprint, Nashville: Parthenon Press, 1958 [1857]), 35. 15 Return of the Whole Number of Persons within the Several Districts of the United States, According to “An Act Providing for the Second Census or Enumeration of the Inhabitants of the United States” (Washington, D.C.: Duane, 1801; hereinafter cited as Second Census of the United States), 63–64, 67; M’Gready, “Short Narrative,” 51, 174, 177.

28

“visitation” in their country, and this anxious expectation was the very catalyst necessary for

revival. Barton W. Stone, a Presbyterian minister in the Kentucky Bluegrass who was an old

friend of McGready and Rankin and shared their qualms with Calvinist orthodoxy, learned of

what was happening and attended a sacramental meeting in Logan County in the spring of 1801.

He saw worshipers falling down “as men slain in battle” and staying down for hours till “they

obtained deliverance”; he heard their “heart-penetrating” appeals to God and their exhortations to

their fellow sinners. He then “returned with ardent spirits” to his congregation at Cane Ridge in

Bourbon County, Kentucky, and shared with them what he had seen and urged them to accept

Christ, leaving many of them in tears. That very night two young girls began exhibiting some of

the same behaviors he had described at the Logan County meeting. The next day, while he was

visiting a congregant’s home, dozens of other congregants came to see him, and within a few

minutes they were falling to the ground, pale and “trembling.” Some tried to escape but found

themselves falling down before they could leave; some made it farther but felt compelled to turn

around and return to the crowd. News of what was happening in Bourbon County spread, Stone

later remembered, “like fire in dry stubble driven by a strong wind.”16

Excitement over the revival’s apparent arrival in the Bluegrass, coupled with the region’s

greater population density, produced the largest crowd seen yet at a sacramental meeting. The

Cane Ridge meeting in August 1801 drew at least ten thousand people, with estimates ranging as

16 Barton Warren Stone, The Biography of Eld. Barton Warren Stone, Written by Himself: With Additions and Reflections, ed. John Rogers (Cincinnati: American Christian Publication Society, 1853), 30–37. McGready, Rankin, and Stone (as well as John McGee, William McGee, William Hodge, and Samuel McAdow) all attended David Caldwell’s influential academy in Guilford County, North Carolina; Paul Conkin, “Caldwell’s Boys,” Tennessee Historical Quarterly, 50 (Summer 1991), 71–79.

29

high as thirty thousand.17 If only ten thousand came, the crowd was still more than five times the

size of Lexington and constituted nearly one out of every twenty Kentuckians.18 Indeed, if ten

thousand came, Cane Ridge was for a week the seventh-largest city in the United States.19

Regardless, the Cane Ridge meeting was a sight to behold: more than a dozen worship services

occurring at once, preachers shouting from wagons and fallen trees, worshipers falling to the

ground, shaking and ranting, hugging and kissing, jerking their heads back and forth, for five

long days and candlelit nights. From a distance it sounded like a great waterfall.20

Word of the revival did not stay put in Tennessee and Kentucky. The Methodist bishop

Francis Asbury received letters detailing God’s work at Gasper River and Cane Ridge and

elsewhere, and he read these letters aloud to congregations along his enormous circuit, from the

North Carolina tidewater to the South Carolina piedmont to the city of Baltimore. News of the

revival continued to spark revival elsewhere, and camp-meetings “in the Kentucky Stile” were

17 For estimates of the crowd size, ranging from lower to higher, see “Extract of a Letter from Colonel Robert Paterson, of Lexington, Kentucky, to the Rev. Dr. John King,” Methodist Magazine, 26 (February 1803), 85; “Extract of a Letter from the Rev. Mr. John Evans Findley, of Mason-County, Kentucky,” Methodist Magazine, 26 (March 1803), 127; “Letter from the Rev. George Baxter to the Rev. A. Alexander, dated Washington Academy, Virginia, Jan. 1, 1802,” New-York Missionary Magazine, 3 (1802), 88; and Stone, Biography, 37. Paul K. Conkin doubts there were more than ten thousand people at Cane Ridge “at any one time,” given logistical issues such as “the space needed accommodate even up to 5,000 horses or mules.” However, he adds, “it is quite possible that 20,000 were at Cane Ridge at some time” during the meeting; Cane Ridge, 88. 18 Second Census of the United States, 63–64. 19 Campbell Gibson, “Population of the 100 Largest Cities and Other Urban Places in the United States: 1790 to 1990” (June 1998), Working Paper No. 27, Population Division, United States Census Bureau, www.census.gov/population/www/documentation/twps0027/twps0027.html. See Table 3, “Population of the 33 Urban Places: 1800,” census.gov/population/www/ documentation/twps0027/tab03.txt. 20 Conkin, Cane Ridge, 83–98; Boles, Great Revival, 64–68.

30

held in Georgia, the Carolinas, Virginia, Maryland, western Pennsylvania, and Ohio. Letters

were sent across the country, and compilations of letters were published as early as 1801.

Readers of the New-York Missionary Magazine, the Connecticut Evangelical Magazine, the

Western Missionary Magazine, and the Methodist Magazine in London learned of the miraculous

work, and by June 1802 the news had even reached Calcutta.21

Not everyone was wholly enthused about the revival, nor were all confident it was

entirely the work of God. When the Synod of Kentucky met in 1803, the opening sermon was

given by David Rice, venerated by his peers as the father of Presbyterianism in Kentucky; Rice

devoted much of his sermon to criticizing the revival. By placing so much emphasis on

experimental religion, Rice warned, evangelicals risked valuing their inner experiences more

than the scriptures and the wisdom of the church. They considered “the exercises of their mind . .

. an additional revelation from heaven,” equal to or even superseding the Old and New

Testaments. As Rice later explained, if a particular doctrine was too complex or “mysterious,”

evangelicals felt free to reject it rather than prayerfully wrestling with it. After all, if the doctrine

seemed to contradict their own personal revelation, then it contradicted God’s own truth. A

downward spiral began: evangelicals rejected the doctrine of predestination, then original sin,

then the holy trinity, and then the atonement, until finally they were deists or atheists.22

21 Asbury, Journal, 3:17, 20, 27–28, 39; Boles, Great Revival, 70–94; Richard Furman to William Rogers, April 22, 1802, Richard Furman Papers, South Caroliniana Library, University of South Carolina, Columbia, quoted in Boles, Great Revival, 77; “Letter from the Rev. Mr. Carey, Baptist Missionary in India, to the Rev. Mr. Williams, in This City,” New-York Missionary Magazine, 3 (1802), 470–72. 22 David Rice, A Sermon on the Present Revival of Religion, &c. in this Country; Preached at the Opening of the Kentucky Synod (Lexington, Ky.: Joseph Charless, 1803), 10–11 (quotation on 11); David Rice, An Epistle, to the Citizens of Kentucky, Professing Christianity; Especially Those That Are, or Have Been Denominated Presbyterians (Lexington, Ky.: Daniel Bradford,

31

Experimental religion was particularly dangerous, argued conservatives, when it was

unchecked by the discipline of the church. The Confession of Faith, for example, was designed

to guide people when they read the Bible. When evangelicals rejected the Confession and relied

only upon personal revelation, they often wound up merely imposing their own desires and

whims upon the Bible, and the divine voice they discerned in the text sounded suspiciously like

their own. It was precisely to avoid this atomization of scriptural interpretation—every man his

own sect—that the Presbyterian constitution required ministerial candidates to subscribe to the

Confession of Faith. Yet to conservatives’ alarm, some presbyteries in Kentucky were allowing

ministerial candidates to subscribe to the Confession with exceptions, usually rejecting

predestination. David Rice believed it was a mistake “to let every candidate . . . draw up his own

Confession of Faith,” lest they “dro[p] one mystery after another” and the spiral towards atheism

ensue. The church constitution also made a classical education a prerequisite for ordination, yet

presbyteries were starting to ordain men who had had little seminary training and certainly knew

no Latin or Greek. The result, Rice argued, was not only repetitive, rambling sermons that relied

more upon emotion than reason, but also a tendency to reject any doctrine that required much

effort to understand. When presbyteries relaxed their rules about ministerial education and

confessional subscription, doctrinal purity suffered.23

1805), 4–11 (quotation on 4). Also see Minutes of West Tennessee Presbytery, April 7, 1812, pp. 24–26, Presbyterian Historical Society (hereinafter cited as PHS), Philadelphia. 23 Rice, Epistle, 4–11 (quotations on 11); Rice, Sermon on the Present Revival of Religion, 16–17; Minutes of West Tennessee Presbytery, September 17, 1811, and April 7, 1812, pp. 13–19, 24, 27; PCUSA Const. (1788), Form of Government 13.2–5, pp. 151–52. Whenever I cite the Presbyterian constitution of 1788, I will note the pagination found in The Constitution of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America Containing the Confession of Faith, the Catechisms, the Government and Discipline, and the Directory for the Worship, Ratified and Adopted by the Synod of New-York and Philadelphia, Held at Philadelphia May the 16th 1788, and Continued by Adjournments until the 28th of the Same Month (Philadelphia: Thomas Bradford, 1789).

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The revival also threatened to overthrow the various social hierarchies instituted by God.

The relationship between parent and child was frequently upended, as children preached to their

parents and pled with them to accept Christ. At the Muddy River sacramental meeting, a twelve-

year-old boy argued with a grown man because he was a deist; the boy “recommended Christ to

him in the most forcible and affecting manner.” At the same meeting, a girl who was eleven or

twelve years old “wept over” her father and “told him that he had no religion,” until he finally

wept, as McGready put it, “like a child.” The subordination of African Americans, particularly

the enslaved, to whites was also cast into doubt, as whites and blacks worshiped together and

black preachers sometimes exhorted to white sinners; James McGready asserted, surely to the

discomfort of some white congregants, that an illiterate black man who “had embraced Christ”

was more fit to preach than an educated white man who had not. Women also had a voice in the

revival that they rarely had otherwise. Though women were not allowed to preach the gospel,

they frequently testified to God’s work in their lives, and the men in the congregation were

obliged to listen. At one meeting, a woman who had fallen to the floor and lay there for a while

suddenly “jump’d up & say’d as in distraction that she wanted to praise God & thought others

hinder’d her.” Sometimes the hindrance was a woman’s husband, and the revival posed a direct

challenge to his traditional rights. At the Ridge sacramental meeting, a man barged into the

meetinghouse demanding that his wife return home, only to be humiliated when “she refused to

go.” The revival subverted hierarchies of age, race, and gender, leaving conservatives

worried that experimental religion would upend the order God had established on earth.24

24 “Extract of a Letter from the Rev. James M. Gready, a Presbyterian Minister, in Logan County, Kentucky, to the Rev. Dr. Coke,” Methodist Magazine, 26 (April 1803), 183 (first

33

More immediately concerning to conservative Presbyterians was how the revival

threatened the survival of their denomination. From its very beginning, the Great Revival was an

interdenominational phenomenon. At the Red River sacramental meeting in June 1800, the

Methodist minister John McGee helped stoke the fires of revival, encouraging the Presbyterian

congregants and ministers (including his brother William) not to fear what God was doing.25

Methodists and Baptists regularly attended and preached at camp meetings, and they even joined

Presbyterians in the eucharist, a breach with traditional Presbyterian practice. James McGready

boasted that “names, parties, and divisions” had dissipated, and contemporaries repeatedly

reported a “union” between Presbyterians and Methodists. Union congregations of Presbyterians

and Methodists were formed. A Methodist who had belonged to a union congregation in

Tennessee later remembered that “the Methodists and Presbyterians were almost a unit; they

could not tell which shouted the loudest.”26 Yet conservative Presbyterians were not so enthused.

quotation); M’Gready, “Short Narrative,” 46, 50–51, 100–2, 176 (second through fourth quotations on 101, seventh quotation on 102); M’Gready, Posthumous Works, 1:314 (fifth quotation); John Lyle, “Diary of Rev. John Lyle,” 27, 46, 49, 59 (sixth quotation on 59), typescript in John Lyle Papers, Kentucky Historical Society, Frankfort. Presbyterians in West Tennessee later claimed that evangelicals in the Green River country despised “[o]rder in society” for being a “check” on “the spirit of the revival”; Minutes of West Tennessee Presbytery, April 7, 1812, pp. 25–26. 25 M’Gee, “Commencement of the Great Revival,” Methodist Magazine, 4 (1821), 190; Rankin, “Auto-biography,” 18–19. 26 “Extract of a Letter from the Rev. James M. Gready, a Presbyterian Minister, in Logan County, Kentucky, to the Rev. Dr. Coke,” Methodist Magazine, 26 (April 1803), 184 (first quotation); Carr, Early Times in Middle Tennessee, 73 (third quotation); “Extract of a Letter from the Rev. William Hodge, of Summer County, State of Tennessee, to the Rev. Francis Asbury,” Methodist Magazine, 26 (June 1803), 271. For uses of union/unite/united, see Lewis Garrett to [Francis Asbury?], March 27, 1804, in Dow, ed., Extracts from Original Letters, 52; “From the Rev. Francis Asbury, to Mr. Charles Atmore,” Methodist Magazine, 27 (March 1804), 135; Asbury, Journal, 2:397; “Extract of a Letter to the Publisher, from Tennessee, dated October 10, 1801,” New-York Missionary Magazine, 3 (1802), 38; and “The Following Letter

34

They feared that union between Presbyterians and Methodists would mean the absorption of the

former into the latter. If a Presbyterian minister pastored a union congregation but then had to

move elsewhere, it was more likely than not he would be succeeded by a Methodist. Methodists

outnumbered Presbyterians; they had more lax requirements for the ordination of ministers; their

Arminian theology (rejecting the Calvinist doctrine of predestination altogether and proclaiming

the individual’s freedom to accept Christ) was often more appealing to new converts than

Presbyterian orthodoxy; moreover, their Arminian theology made them more predisposed to

evangelizing the unsaved—after all, one could argue that if God had already ordained who

would be saved and who would be damned, then it was useless to evangelize at all. It was no

surprise that the Methodists had better luck winning converts than the Presbyterians and that

their churches included many who had grown up Presbyterian.27

Ironically, strategies adopted by evangelical Presbyterians to keep pace with the

Methodists only drew further ire from conservatives. When David Rice criticized presbyteries in

Kentucky and Tennessee for relaxing certain requirements for ministerial candidates—namely,

that they receive a classical education and subscribe to the Confession of Faith in full—he failed

to mention that the presbyteries did so in order to keep evangelicals in the Presbyterian fold and

address a ministerial shortage that the Methodists were all too happy to fill. The revival had

created a demand for the word and sacraments that the Presbyterian ministers could not satisfy

despite “laboring both night and day”; the congregations were too “numerous” and were

Was Addressed to Mr. Edwards, of Lambeth, London,” Methodist Magazine, 25 (June 1802), 262. For examples of Methodists and Baptists preaching at sacramental meetings, see Asbury, Journal, 2:396–97; and Lyle, “Diary,” 35–39. 27 “Extract of a Letter from the Rev. William Hodge, of Summer County, State of Tennessee, to the Rev. Francis Asbury,” Methodist Magazine, 26 (June 1803), 271; Lyle, “Narratio Factotum,” 4, typescript in Lyle Papers; Minutes of West Tennessee Presbytery, April 7, 1812, p. 26.

35

“scattered” across “an extensive frontier.” If the presbyteries required ministers to subscribe to

the Confession of Faith without exceptions, they might alienate evangelicals who wanted to

remain Presbyterian but had doubts about predestination. And if they required ministers to

receive a classical education, they might lose talented young men, particularly those with wives

and children, for whom it was not practical to move east for a few years to study at a seminary.28

To conservatives’ dismay, ambiguities and loopholes in the Presbyterian constitution

allowed presbyteries to bend the rules regarding ministerial requirements. First, the question

posed to candidates regarding the Confession of Faith was whether they adopted it “as containing

the system of doctrine taught in the holy scriptures.” Evangelicals could argue the Confession

contained the truth of the scriptures but that it also contained extrabiblical doctrines like

predestination which they were free to adopt or reject. After all, candidates were also asked if

they believed the Bible was “the only infallible rule of faith and practice,” so wherever the

Confession diverged from the Bible, they ought to follow the Bible. As for educational

requirements, the constitution said that “no candidate, except in extraordinary cases, be licensed”

without an education in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. Evangelicals in the Green River country

argued that the revival was one of these “extraordinary cases,” since the demand for the word

and sacraments had greatly outpaced the supply of ministers.29

28 A Circular Letter Addressed to the Societies & Brethren of the Presbyterian Church Recently under the Care of the Council by the Late Cumberland Presbytery, in Which There Is a Correct Statement of the Origin, Progress, and Termination, of the Difference, between the Synod of Kentucky, and the Former Presbytery of Cumberland (Russellville, Ky.: Matthew Duncan, 1810), 2–5, 7 (first quotation on 5; other quotations on 2). 29 PCUSA Const. (1788), Form of Government 13.4–5, p. 152. See the next paragraph for an example of evangelicals invoking the “extraordinary cases” clause.

36

Moreover, presbyteries had a great deal of freedom in how they interpreted the

constitution. This was thanks to the presbyterian form of government, which like a federalist

government divides powers among various ecclesiastical units, or judicatories. The smallest

judicatory is the congregation; several congregations make up a presbytery; several presbyteries

make up a synod; and synods fall under the jurisdiction of the General Assembly, made up of

elected representatives from all the presbyteries. More to the point, while synods and the General

Assembly function as appellate courts, presbyteries have the sole power to license, ordain, and

discipline preachers and ministers. (One is usually licensed as a preacher before one is ordained

as a minister; both preachers and ministers can preach the gospel, but only ministers can

administer the sacraments of baptism and the eucharist.)30 It was therefore within Transylvania

Presbytery’s power in 1802 to license three men as preachers—including Finis Ewing and

Samuel King—even though they were “destitute of classical learning.” Some conservatives

objected to the licensure, but they were overruled by the majority, who invoked the

“extraordinary cases” clause.31

The clause was invoked even more once Cumberland Presbytery was carved out of

Transylvania Presbytery in 1803. Whereas evangelicals were the minority in most presbyteries,

they had a slim majority of six to five in Cumberland Presbytery. This majority grew as they

ordained more men who did not meet the normal educational requirements, and required

candidates to subscribe to the Confession of Faith only insofar as they believed it agreed with the

30 PCUSA Const. (1788), Form of Government 7–11, 13, 14.7–10, pp. 141–48, 150–53, 157–59. See especially Form of Government 9.5, pp. 144–45. 31 Minutes of Transylvania Presbytery, October 8, 1802, in Sweet, ed., Presbyterians, 189. The original minutes of Transylvania Presbytery, Cumberland Presbytery, and the Synod of Kentucky are housed at PHS and are available via microfilm at HFCPC. I consulted Sweet’s edition and will cite it throughout, but I checked each quotation with the microfilm at HFCPC; a few quotations therefore differ slightly from Sweet’s transcription.

37

scriptures. The majority included Finis Ewing and Samuel King as well as the older men who

had presided over the revival of 1800: James McGready, John Rankin, William McGee, William

Hodge, and Samuel McAdow. By the fall of 1805 there were ten evangelical ministers and only

six conservatives, whose dissent grew ever weaker. Besides licensing and ordaining men who

were uneducated and unorthodox, the presbytery alarmed conservatives in other ways. It

encouraged the continuation of camp meetings and circuit-riding, and licensed exhorters, a

category of lay preacher not usually recognized by Presbyterians. When several members

separated themselves from the Shiloh church because it was allowing Methodists to share

communion with them, and petitioned the presbytery to recognize them as the true Shiloh, the

presbytery rejected their petition and accused them of opposing “the present blessed revival in

our country.” For the evangelical majority in Cumberland Presbytery, the revival took precedent

over doctrinal purity and ecclesiastical tradition.32

Conservatives took their complaints to the Synod of Kentucky. In October 1804 the

synod received a letter from the Shiloh separatists and another from Thomas Craighead, leader of

the conservatives in Cumberland Presbytery. The synod appointed a committee to investigate

Cumberland Presbytery, and a member of that committee attended the presbytery’s meeting in

April 1805. Wary of his intentions, five men who were scheduled to be examined by the

presbytery for licensure claimed they were “not prepared” and postponed their examinations.

Thanks to the young men’s supposed unpreparedness and the vagueness of Cumberland

Presbytery’s minutes, the committee could not corroborate the charge that Cumberland

32 Minutes of Cumberland Presbytery, April 5, 1803–October 2, 1805, in Sweet, ed., Presbyterians, 283–302 (quotation on 293); Minutes of Synod of Kentucky, December 6, 1805, in Sweet, ed., Presbyterians, 338–39; Circular Letter, 5–7. For an analysis of the exhorters, licensed preachers, and ordained ministers in Cumberland Presbytery, see Barrus, Baughn, and Campbell, People Called Cumberland Presbyterians, 52–54, 58–59.

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Presbytery was only requiring partial subscription to the Confession of Faith. The committee

could nevertheless report to the synod that the presbytery had licensed exhorters and established

circuits like the Methodists had, that it had not properly examined men before licensing and

ordaining them, and that its minutes were generally “defective.” In light of this report, in October

1805 the synod appointed a commission to deal with Cumberland Presbytery. The commission

was vested with all the powers of the synod and would convene at the Gasper River

meetinghouse in December.33

In the intervening weeks the conservative minister John Lyle toured Cumberland

Presbytery, and what he saw greatly alarmed him. The exhorters and preachers who occupied

most of the pulpits were largely uneducated. Lyle met two licentiates who had “not even studied

English grammar,” much less Greek. Furthermore, nearly every preacher he encountered was

either outright Arminian “or deeply tainted with Arminian doctrine.”34 Church gatherings were

marked by hyper-emotional disorder, such as a prayer meeting that sounded to Lyle “like a

drinking party when heard from the other room,”35 or a worship service where “a baptist negor

[sic] took the jerks,” violently tossing his head back and forth and hollering about the Lord. The

black man then began a “shuffling” dance that went on for “half an hour,” the congregation

sometimes singing popular tunes to accompany him. A congregant informed Lyle that the

33 Minutes of Synod of Kentucky, October 22, 1804, in Sweet, ed., Presbyterians, 328–29; Minutes of Cumberland Presbytery, April 3, 1805, in Sweet, ed., Presbyterians, 298; Minutes of Synod of Kentucky, October 17–19, 1805, in Sweet, ed., Presbyterians, 331–32, 335–36 (quotation on 331). 34 Lyle, “Narratio Factotum,” 2–3 (first quotation on 3), 11 (second quotation). 35 Ibid., 6.

39

dancing was the only thing that would relieve the jerks.36 At another service, a minister

encouraged the people to behave “like little children” and not worry whether their shouting and

singing and dancing was in accordance with the scriptures; indeed, if they stopped to consult the

Bible, the moment might pass and the flame of revival would be extinguished.37 The evangelicals

in Cumberland Presbytery were, Lyle feared, more concerned about perpetuating the revival than

about adhering to God’s will. Rankin even implied he had adopted unorthodox views for the

revival’s sake, since he had been “less successful” in his work when he preached orthodox

Calvinism. “For my part,” Lyle wrote in his diary, “I am far from thinking that success in

converting people to error is success in the cause of God.” The revival had, in Lyle’s view,

become a false idol for evangelicals at the expense of order and correct doctrine.38

When Lyle and the other commissioners arrived at the Gasper River meetinghouse in

December, they found the location far from hospitable. The inhabitants, influenced by their

pastor John Rankin, called the commission an “Inquisition” and gave the commissioners hateful

nicknames. They believed the commission had been “sent down by the Synod to destroy the

revival of religion,” all because “the young preachers . . . had not learned Latin and Greek.”39 No

one would open their doors to the commissioners, except for one man who “lived three or four

36 Ibid., 3–4 (first quotation on 3, second and third quotations on 4). 37 Ibid., 11–12 (quotation on 12). 38 Ibid., 2. 39 [Thomas H. Cleland], A Brief History of the Rise, Progress, and Termination of the Proceedings of the Synod of Kentucky, Relative to the Late Cumberland Presbytery: In Which Is Brought to View a Brief Account of the Origin and Present Standing of the People Usually Denominated Cumberland Presbyterians; As Taken from Official Documents and Facts in Possession of Synod (Lexington, Ky.: Thomas T. Skillman, 1823), 11–12 (quotations on 12).

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miles from the Church,” so all thirteen men had to stay there and trek back and forth every day.40

John Lyle did not help matters when he gave the opening sermon, lecturing for three hours “on

the call & qualifications necessary to the gospel ministry.” He cited Hebrews 5:4, which says

that “no man taketh [the] honour” of priesthood “unto himself” but must instead be “called of

God.” Lyle likely repeated David Rice’s warning that the revival’s emphasis on experimental

religion led to a self-indulgence that bordered on self-worship, and led men to think they should

preach the gospel when it was not in fact their calling. The church’s laws regarding confessional

subscription and ministerial education were meant to check men’s pride and prevent the

proliferation of false prophets. Though some who heard his sermon were, Lyle claimed, “pleased

& edified,” most were “uneasy and disatisfied.” The Presbyterians of Logan County were not

particularly sympathetic with Lyle’s call for checks and balances upon the revival.41

Though the issue of educational requirements came up intermittently during its

proceedings, the commission focused on the charge that Cumberland Presbytery “had required

only a partial adoption of the Confession of Faith” from the men it had licensed and ordained.

James McGready spoke on behalf of the evangelical majority. He reasoned that while the Bible

was divinely inspired and infallible, the Confession of Faith was of “Human composition and

fallible.” It was therefore proper to allow candidates to adopt the confession only so far as it

corresponded with the Bible. The commission was not convinced. After all, a commissioner

argued, by McGready’s logic the presbytery could require candidates to subscribe to the Koran

only so far as it corresponded with the Bible. The evangelicals conceded this was “literally true,”

40 Robert Davidson, History of the Presbyterian Church in the State of Kentucky; with a Preliminary Sketch of the Churches in the Valley of Virginia (New York: Robert Carter, 1847), 235. 41 Lyle, “Narratio Factotum,” 12–13 (quotations on 13); Minutes of Synod of Kentucky, December 3, 1805, in Sweet, ed., Presbyterians, 336.

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but what was more important was that the presbytery required partial subscription to the

Confession of Faith and no other document—proof that though they deemed the confession

subordinate to the Bible, they still “esteemed it above all HUMAN creeds.” But the commission

feared that partial subscription would ultimately water down the Presbyterian faith until it meant

nothing.42

The commission therefore resolved to examine all the young men whom the presbytery

had licensed and ordained without requiring a full subscription to the Confession of Faith. The

evangelical majority of Cumberland Presbytery objected, arguing that the synod (much less a

commission of synod) had no right to examine the candidates. The church’s constitution, they

pointed out, vested in presbyteries the sole right to examine, license, and ordain men for the

ministry. The commission reconvened the next day and expanded its resolution. It would now

also examine the five evangelical ministers who had been regularly licensed and ordained, the

men who had led the Revival of 1800: James McGready, John Rankin, William Hodge, William

McGee, and Samuel McAdow. One by one the men were asked to submit to the commission’s

authority, and all five said no. Then the irregularly licensed and ordained men, including Finis

Ewing and Samuel King, were asked, “Do you submit? or not submit?,” and they all said no.43

The synodic commission responded in full force. It ordered the five older ministers to

appear at the next meeting of synod to account for their obstructionist behavior, and further

accused Rankin, Hodge, and McGee of heresy. The commission also ruled that all the men who

42 Minutes of Synod of Kentucky, December 6, 1805, in Sweet, ed., Presbyterians, 338–39 (first and second quotations on 338); Circular Letter, 7 (third and fourth quotations). Only once did the commission refer explicitly to educational requirements; Minutes of Synod of Kentucky, December 9, 1805, in Sweet, ed., Presbyterians, 341. 43 Minutes of Synod of Kentucky, December 6–9, 1805, in Sweet, ed., Presbyterians, 339–41 (quotation on 340); Circular Letter, 7–8.

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had only partially subscribed to the Confession of Faith had no authority to preach the gospel or

administer the sacraments until they underwent examination by the synod, effectively suspending

twenty-six men from the ministry. The commission’s aim appeared to be an outright purge of

evangelicals from Cumberland Presbytery.44

John Rankin and William Hodge appeared before the Synod of Kentucky in October

1806, and upon examining them the synod dismissed the heresy charges against them. However,

when the synod asked Rankin and Hodge to deliver the twenty-six irregularly licensed and

ordained men to the next meeting of synod, Rankin and Hodge refused. The synod therefore

suspended them from the ministry. It then went further and dissolved Cumberland Presbytery

entirely, returning its members into the fold of Transylvania Presbytery, where conservatives

were in the majority.45

Three years of delay and jurisdictional friction ensued. In 1807 a council made up of the

expelled preachers from Cumberland Presbytery petitioned the General Assembly to help their

cause, but the council had no legal standing. Without a proper case before them, the General

Assembly could only advise the council to appeal their case to the Synod of Kentucky first and

only then, if need be, appeal their case to the assembly. The assembly also advised the Synod of

Kentucky to “consult the spirit as well as the letter of the law.” While they were afraid

Cumberland Presbytery had gone too far in licensing and ordaining uneducated and unorthodox

men, they found the synod’s actions “at least of questionable regularity” and hoped that

Cumberland Presbytery might soon be reestablished with its former members “without

sacrificing either the doctrines or the government of our Church.” A great source of confusion

44 Minutes of Synod of Kentucky, December 9–10, 1805, in Sweet, ed., Presbyterians, 341–44. 45 Minutes of Synod of Kentucky, October 25–28, 1806, in Sweet, ed., Presbyterians, 350–53.

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was that the Synod of Kentucky had acted so irregularly that it was hard to mitigate what the

synod had done along regular channels. A Presbyterian elder who had attended the assembly

meeting wrote to William Hodge that the synod ought to have simply dissolved Cumberland

Presbytery and allow Transylvania Presbytery to re-examine its ministers and licentiates. For the

synod to examine and suspend the men on its own accord was, however, “wholly improper.”46

Despite the General Assembly’s criticism of the former Cumberland Presbytery,

conservatives in the Synod of Kentucky felt under attack. One minister feared the assembly was

now “in favour of Disorder” and wrote, “They might as well . . . have stabbed the church in

Kentucky to the heart.” At its next meeting, the synod ignored the General Assembly’s advice

and simply reaffirmed the commission’s actions. The synod also referred the whole matter of the

suspended ministers and licentiates to Transylvania Presbytery. But the evangelical council was

reluctant to bring their case before Transylvania Presbytery: first, because a presbytery could not

overrule the action of a synod; and second, because the conservative majority in Transylvania

Presbytery would not allow a partial subscription to the Confession of Faith. The council

petitioned the General Assembly again in 1808, but once again the assembly insisted the council

go through proper channels. The council then asked Transylvania Presbytery to receive them into

the presbytery as a body, without re-examining them, but the presbytery insisted it would need to

46 “The Council” to General Assembly, Spring 1807, in James Smith, History of the Christian Church, from Its Origin to the Present Time; Compiled from Various Authors, Including a History of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, Drawn from Authentic Documents (Nashville: Cumberland Presbyterian Office, 1835), 617–25; Minutes of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America from Its Organization A.D. 1789 to A.D. 1820 Inclusive (Philadelphia: Presbyterian Board of Publication, 1820), 390–93 (first and second quotations on 390, third quotation on 391); Mr. Jackson to William Hodge, Summer 1807, in [Finis Ewing], A Series of Letters, Containing a Reply to a Pastoral Letter of West Tennessee Presbytery (Russellville, Ky.: Matthew Duncan, 1812), 9–10 (fourth quotation on 10).

44

re-examine them individually and would require “an unequivocal adoption of our Confession of

Faith.”47 The matter came before the General Assembly again in 1809, and John Lyle moved the

assembly with a tearful oration, persuading them to endorse the synod’s actions. A few of the

suspended ministers and licentiates asked Transylvania Presbytery to refer their case to the

Synod of Kentucky, and then asked the synod to appoint a new commission to resolve the whole

situation. The synod initially agreed to do so but then held another vote and decided instead to

refer their petition back to Transylvania Presbytery. The evangelicals of the former Cumberland

Presbytery would therefore have to adopt the Confession of Faith in full or leave the church

altogether.48

A few ministers chose the former and became members of Transylvania Presbytery. At

least one minister forsook Presbyterianism outright. All in all, by January 1810 only three

ministers (along with more than a dozen licensed preachers and exhorters) remained in the

council: Samuel McAdow, Finis Ewing, and Samuel King. In presbyterian law, three is the

minimum number of ordained ministers required to establish a new presbytery.49 Having given

up hope on the regular judicatorial channels, Ewing and King (and a licentiate named Ephraim

47 Joshua L. Wilson to James McGready, September 21, 1807, Folder 13, Box 2, Joshua Lacy Wilson Papers, Reuben T. Durrett Collection, University of Chicago Library (first and second quotations); Minutes of Synod of Kentucky, October 22–26, 1807, in Sweet, ed., Presbyterians, 359–62; Circular Letter, 10; Minutes of the General Assembly, 408–9; Minutes of Transylvania Presbytery, March 23–25, 1809, in Sweet, ed., Presbyterians, 220–24 (third quotation on 223). 48 Minutes of the General Assembly, 416; John Connelly to William Hodge, September 5, 1809, in Minutes of West Tennessee Presbytery, April 7, 1812, p 34; Minutes of Transylvania Presbytery, October 6, 1809, in Sweet, ed., Presbyterians, 225; Minutes of Synod of Kentucky, October 14–15, 1809, in Sweet, ed., Presbyterians, 379–80. 49 Circular Letter, 11; Minutes of Transylvania Presbytery, March 24, October 5, December 6–7, 1809, in Sweet, ed., Presbyterians, 222, 224, 226–27; PCUSA Const. (1788), Form of Government 9.4, p. 144.

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McLean) traveled to McAdow’s log house in Dickson County, Tennessee, and pled with him to

join them in establishing an independent Cumberland Presbytery. After praying through the night

and much of the next morning, McAdow came to believe it was God’s will to do so. They

constituted the presbytery on February 4, 1810.50

It was not the intention of Ewing, King, and McAdow to begin a new denomination. In a

circular letter published later that year, they insisted they had “not set up as a party, inimical to

the general presbyterian church” and would keep trying to reunite with the Synod of Kentucky.

They felt especially compelled to say this because of the more radical departures from the

Presbyterian faith occurring in their midst.51 There was, for example, the schism led by Richard

McNemar and Barton W. Stone. In 1803, two years before the synodic commission met at

Gasper River, the Synod of Kentucky censured Washington Presbytery for ordaining McNemar

despite his rejection of predestination. In response, McNemar, Stone, and three other ministers

withdrew from the synod, and they were joined by two other ministers in constituting an

independent Springfield Presbytery. In their first theological statement, Stone argued that all

humanity, not just an elect group predestined by God, could be saved if they had sufficient

faith—in short, rejecting the doctrine of predestination altogether. The members of Springfield

Presbytery then decided they had not gone far enough, so in June 1804 they proclaimed that the

Bible would be their only creed and that they would recognize no ecclesiastical body other than

the autonomous congregation: no presbyteries, no synods, no General Assembly, and no

Confession of Faith. They dissolved Springfield Presbytery and began to simply call themselves

50 Circular Letter, 11–12; Smith, History of the Christian Church, 639; F. R. Cossitt, The Life and Times of Rev. Finis Ewing, One of the Fathers and Founders of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church (Louisville: Lee Roy Woods, 1853), 195. 51 Circular Letter, 13–14 (quotation on 13).

46

Christians. The movement, also called New Lights or Stoneites, later united with the

Campbellites of western Pennsylvania and western Virginia, and their modern descendants

include the Disciples of Christ and the churches of Christ.52

The Stoneites were not the most radical group to emerge from the Great Revival. In 1805,

a trio of missionaries from upstate New York arrived in Kentucky and preached that their sect,

the United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing—popularly known as the

Shakers—fulfilled what the revival had promised. At the great sacramental meetings, worshipers

had felt God’s tangible presence and received a foretaste of the millennium, the coming together

of heaven and earth at the end of days. The Shaker missionaries told how they gave up all their

property—including their claims to their wives, children, and slaves—and lived together in

community, a sort of camp meeting that lasted forever rather than dispersing after five days.

They believed they could perfect themselves to the point where they could live without sin. In

the Shaker community, heaven and earth became one. By dwelling within each of them, Christ

dwelt among them. The millennium had come.53

52 Minutes of Synod of Kentucky, September 8–13, 1803, in Sweet, ed., Presbyterians, 315–24; Springfield Presbytery, An Apology for Renouncing the Jurisdiction of the Synod of Kentucky: To Which Is Added, a Compendious View of the Gospel, and a Few Remarks on the Confession of Faith (Lexington, Ky.: Joseph Charles, 1804); [Richard McNemar], ed., Observations on Church Government, by the Presbytery of Springfield. To Which Is Added, the Last Will and Testament of That Reverend Body (Cincinnati: John W. Browne, 1807); Boles, Great Revival, 149–56. 53 William R. Black, “Went off to the Shakers: The First Converts of South Union” (M.A. thesis, Western Kentucky University, 2013), 41–61; McNemar, Kentucky Revival, 73–86; David Meacham, Amos Hammond, and Ebenezer Cooly to “people in Kentucky and the adjacent states,” December 30, 1804, in J. P. MacLean, ed., Shakers of Ohio: Fugitive Papers Concerning the Shakers of Ohio, with Unpublished Manuscripts (Columbus, Ohio: F. J. Heer, 1907), 61–63; F. Gerald Ham, “Shakerism in the Old West” (Ph.D. diss., University of Kentucky, 1962), 1–122.

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The Shakers won several prominent converts, including Richard McNemar and John

Rankin. McNemar’s Turtle Creek congregation in southwestern Ohio transmorphed into the

Shaker society of Union Village, and Rankin’s congregation at Gasper River became the society

of South Union. By 1815 South Union was a sprawling campus with a tanyard, an icehouse, a

blacksmithery, three mills, and four enormous “family” buildings home to some 180 adults and

150 children. The men and women lived in separate quarters and practiced celibacy, and the

children were raised in common.54 The Shakers’ radical ways and rapid success provoked a

strong backlash. One pamphleteer warned that, if left unchecked, Shakerism would “extirpate

Christianity, destroy marriage and also our present free government, and finally depopulate

America.” A mob of two thousand people stormed Union Village in 1810 and demanded the

Shakers release several children, only relenting when the children refused to leave. The next year

Kentucky passed a law allowing a woman to divorce her husband if he became a Shaker,

implying that conversion to Shakerism was analogous to adultery or abandonment. Shakerism

was so radical that outsiders not only wondered whether Shakers were true Christians but also

whether they were true citizens of the republic.55

54 Ham, “Shakerism in the Old West,” 79–122, 206–60; Black, “Went off to the Shakers,” 66–68. 55 James Smith, Shakerism Detected, Their Erroneous and Treasonous Proceedings, and False Publications, Contained in Different News-papers, Exposed to Public View, by the Depositions of Ten Different Persons Living in Various Parts of the State of Kentucky and Ohio, Accompanied with Remarks (Paris, Ky.: Joel R. Lyle, 1810), 15 (quotation); MacLean, Shakers of Ohio, 367–79; William Littell, ed., The Statute Law of Kentucky; with Notes, Prælections, and Observations on the Public Acts, vol. 4 (Frankfort, Ky.: William Hunter, 1814), 407–10; Ham, “Shakerism in the Old West,” 123–71; Tim Kanon, “‘Seduced, Bewildered, and Lost’: Anti-Shakerism on the Early Nineteenth-Century Frontier,” Ohio Valley History, 7 (Summer 2007), 1–30; Black, “Went off to the Shakers,” 74–103. The anti-Shaker pamphleteer James Smith was unrelated to the Cumberland Presbyterian minister and historian James Smith.

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It was all too easy for conservatives to link the independent Cumberland Presbytery to

these other movements. As already mentioned, Barton Stone was a friend of McGready and

Rankin and had been inspired by the revival in Logan County. Rankin himself became a Shaker.

Cumberland Presbytery had not required ministers and licentiate to subscribe to the Confession

of Faith in full, and the Stoneites’ rejection of confessions and creeds altogether seemed like the

logical next step. The revival had sometimes subverted certain social structures, setting wife

against husband and child against parent; the Shakers had merely gone further and outright

abolished those structures. To conservatives, the Shaker doctrine of Christ’s indwelling presence

within believers sounded an awful lot like what evangelicals called experimental religion, and

confirmed their suspicion the revival had degenerated into self-worship. Indeed, the difficulty

evangelicals in Cumberland Presbytery had with predestination seemed to stem from their

overconfidence in humanity, to the point that they were willing to deny God’s sovereignty when

it seemed to interfere with human freedom. When David Rice wrote an epistle to Kentucky

Presbyterians in 1808, he felt no need to distinguish between the Stoneite, Shaker, and

Cumberland schisms; in his view, they all posed the same threat to the church.56

Ewing, King, and McAdow therefore took great pains not to stray too far from

Presbyterian norms. For example, throughout the winter of 1809–10, when McAdow seemed

reluctant to constitute a new presbytery, Ewing despaired over whether he and King should

simply establish a presbytery with only two ordained ministers. Ewing reasoned that the rule was

found nowhere in scripture and that no other “church in Christendom” had the rule, but he still

believed it was a good rule and would only eschew it “in a case of extreme necessity.” In

56 David Rice, A Second Epistle to the Citizens of Kentucky Professing the Christian Religion, Especially Those Who Are, or Have Been, Denominated Presbyterians (Lexington, Ky.: D. & C. Bradford, 1808).

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December 1809 he pitifully asked one licentiate “whether it would most wound your pride or

your conscience, to receive ordination from only two ministers?” Unlike Barton Stone, Ewing

was not ready to cast aside everything not found in scripture. He took even minor points of

Presbyterian polity seriously.57

The independent Cumberland Presbytery demonstrated its dedication to Presbyterian

norms in other ways. Ewing, King, and McAdow quietly abandoned the old Cumberland

Presbytery’s practice of permitting ministers and licentiates to adopt the Confession of Faith only

insofar as it corresponded to scripture; now they would only allow ministers and licentiates to

make an exception for the doctrine of double predestination. This more stringent approach to

confessional subscription kept the church within the fold of moderate evangelical

Presbyterianism and avoided reducing the Confession of Faith to nothing, as the synodic

commission had accused the old presbytery of doing. The new Cumberland Presbytery also made

clear it would still require licentiates “to undergo an examination on English Grammer,

Geography, Astronomy, natural, & moral philosophy, and church history”—in other words,

everything except Latin and Greek. The presbytery did not want to be associated with illiteracy

or Arminianism.58

The leaders of the independent Cumberland Presbytery also distanced themselves from

radical sects like the Stoneites and the Shakers. Finis Ewing wrote that they had “carefully

avoided any intercourse or fellowship” with the Stoneites, accusing the sect of working “to

57 Finis Ewing to James B. Porter, December 6, 1809, in Cossitt, Life and Times of Rev. Finis Ewing, 192. 58 Circular Letter, 11–14 (quotations on 12). For evidence that the presbytery enforced its educational requirement, see Minutes of Cumberland Presbytery, March 21, July 27, 1810, and March 21, 1811, in J. Berrien Lindsley, ed., “Sources and Sketches of Cumberland Presbyterian History.—No. XIII,” Theological Medium, 2nd ser., 9 (April 1878), 210, 213–14, 221–22.

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undermine the very foundation of the Gospel.” In its 1810 circular letter the presbytery

complained that in the last few chaotic years, “swarms of Heretics, and Fanatics” had taken

“advantage” of the suspended ministers’ “peculiar situation” and done much damage to the

church. While conservatives saw Cumberland Presbytery as the first step down the awful road to

heresy, Cumberland Presbytery saw itself as the only thing that could save Presbyterianism from

itself. The evangelicals in Cumberland Presbytery had found a way to embrace the revival

without degenerating into something that was no longer Presbyterianism. They insisted that,

though skeptical of predestination and the classical education requirement for ministers, they

“earnestly desired to live and die” in the Presbyterian church. In expelling evangelicals from the

church, conservative Presbyterians had only made it easier for radical sects to condemn

Presbyterianism as lifeless formalism and steal away converts. According to Ewing and others in

Cumberland Presbytery, it was reactionary overreach rather than moderate evangelicalism that

was hurting Presbyterianism in the trans-Appalachian West and letting other sects co-opt the

revival.59

Few within the larger Presbyterian church found this argument persuasive. Even James

McGready, who had rejoined Transylvania Presbytery, believed the Cumberland preachers had

gone too far when they established an independent presbytery. He was dismayed by their

“contempt” for the Confession of Faith and their “malignant” campaign to “rend and break up”

Presbyterian congregations.60 West Tennessee Presbytery was alarmed by the arrival of

59 [Ewing], Series of Letters, 5 (first and second quotations); Circular Letter, 4, 12–14 (third through fifth quotations on 12, sixth quotation on 4). 60 Minutes of Transylvania Presbytery, October 5, 1809, in Sweet, ed., Presbyterians, 224; James McGready to Archibald Cameron, November 6, 1811, Archibald Cameron Papers, Box 3, Shane Collection, PHS, photocopy in James McGready Papers, PHS. Researchers at PHS are only allowed to consult the James McGready Papers or the microfilmed copy of the Shane Collection;

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Cumberland preachers in its midst and issued a fiery letter in 1811: if the preachers truly wanted

to be Presbyterian, then they should submit themselves for re-examination like others had; if they

found the Confession of Faith too “obnoxious” to adopt in full, then they should abandon the

pretense of being Presbyterians. After all, West Tennessee Presbytery argued, the Cumberland

preachers were closer to the Methodists in doctrine and worship than they were to the

Presbyterians, and they even shared the eucharist with Methodists. They had no respect for the

Confession of Faith, Transylvania Presbytery, the Synod of Kentucky, or the General Assembly;

their lax requirements on ministerial education would lead clergy and laity “together into the

vortex of ignorance and enthusiasm.” West Tennessee Presbytery suspected the schismatic

preachers only called themselves Presbyterians so they could “mislead the unwary” into their

fold. In short, despite what Cumberland Presbyterians insisted, most within the mother church

did not recognize them as fellow Presbyterians.61

The members of Cumberland Presbytery finally gave up on reuniting with the

Presbyterians in 1813. They constituted a synod and adopted a new Constitution of the

Cumberland Presbyterian Church, the title clearly identifying the Cumberland Presbyterians as a

separate denomination.62 Furthermore, in drafting their constitution they made certain alterations

see reel 4, file MS Sh18 C145 1–10 (frames unnumbered; microfilm does not match finding aid because collection was reprocessed). 61 Minutes of West Tennessee Presbytery, September 17, 1811, pp. 13–19 (first quotation on 15, second quotation on 17, third quotation on 14). 62 Minutes of Cumberland Presbytery, April 8, 1813, and Minutes of Cumberland Synod, October 5–7, 1813, and April 5–9, 1814, in J. Berrien Lindsley, ed., “Sources and Sketches of Cumberland Presbyterian History.—No. XV,” Theological Medium, 2nd ser., 10 (January 1879), 93–94, 96–100; The Constitution of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, in the United States of America: The Confession of Faith, a Catechism, the Government and Discipline, and the Directory for the Worship of God (Nashville: M. & J. Norvell, 1815), hereinafter cited as CPC Const. (1814).

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to the Presbyterian church’s constitution in order to address the controversies of the past decade.

Where the old constitution required candidates for the ministry to know Latin, Hebrew, and

Greek, the Cumberland Presbyterian constitution merely recommended that candidates had

“received, at least, a good English education.”63 The constitution also made explicit about

synodic powers what many Presbyterians already thought was implicit: namely, that a synod

could not assume the presbytery’s power to examine and discipline licentiates and ministers, and

instead that it should “censure, dissolve or divide any presbytery . . . acting contrary to order.”

This new language echoed what one Presbyterian had written to William Hodge, that the Synod

of Kentucky should have dissolved Cumberland Presbytery rather than re-examining and

suspending its members.64 Finally, a few sections of the Confession of Faith were altered to

remove the doctrine of predestination. Rather than stating that only “those whom God had

predestined unto life” would be saved by Christ and rescued from sin and death, the Cumberland

Presbyterian confession affirmed that all “who obey the call” of God would be saved. Also,

where the old confession had said, “Elect infants dying in infancy are regenerated and saved by

Christ,” suggesting that non-elect infants were damned, the Cumberland Presbyterian confession

replaced the word elect with all.65

63 PCUSA Const. (1788), Form of Government 13.3, p. 151; CPC Const. (1814), Form of Government 12.2, p. 107. 64 CPC Const. (1814), Form of Government 10.9, p. 105; Jackson to Hodge in [Ewing], Series of Letters, 9–10. 65 PCUSA Const. (1788), Confession of Faith 10, pp. 16–17 (first quotation on 16, second and fourth quotations on 17); CPC Const. (1814), Confession of Faith 10, pp. 23–24 (third quotation on 23). For an analysis of the differences between the two confessions, see McDonnold, History of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, 101–4. For a critical edition of the 1814 confession with every difference from the Presbyterian confession annotated, see William R. Black, “Cumberland Presbyterian Confession of Faith, 1814,” in Andreas Mühling and Peter Opitz, eds., Reformierte Bekenntnisschriften, vol. 4 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht), forthcoming.

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But while the new constitution announced that Cumberland Presbyterians had become a

distinct denomination, it also demonstrated their unwillingness to make a radical break from

Presbyterianism. The very fact that they adopted a constitution, complete with a confession of

faith, catechism, form of government, and directory of worship, distinguished Cumberland

Presbyterians from Baptists, Stoneites, and other sects suspicious of extrabiblical creeds and

ecclesiastical hierarchies. And despite a few alterations, the constitution was mostly identical to

what the Presbyterians adopted in 1788, which in turn was largely what the Church of Scotland

adopted in 1647. Moreover, the alterations made to the Confession of Faith meant that the church

no longer needed to allow licentiates and ministers to adopt the confession in part. Cumberland

Presbyterians could now adopt their confession without reservation, and the doctrinal leniency

that Presbyterians feared would unravel the church was unnecessary.

The Cumberland Presbyterian Church’s origins in the Revival of 1800 and the schism of

1805 shaped its course throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The church

continued many practices, such as camp meetings and circuit-riding, that were either birthed or

popularized by the revival, and preachers continued emphasizing the importance of experimental

religion and the individual’s freedom to accept God’s grace. At the same time, Cumberland

Presbyterians were wary of certain aspects of the revival, particularly its tendency to upend

social order and dilute doctrinal purity. They did not wish to be seen as radical or subversive.

Over the next few decades, Cumberland Presbyterians crafted an identity for themselves that

celebrated their moderation in such matters as the doctrine of predestination, seminary education

for ministerial candidates, and the morality of slaveholding. They linked this identity—and a

mythic retelling of the church’s origins—to the project of the Christian nation.

CHAPTER 2: A MIDDLE WAY, 1810–1860

In 1811, West Tennessee Presbytery warned its members to avoid the Cumberland

Presbyterians. The presbytery claimed they were little more than Methodists in disguise, and

insisted they pull off their masks and stop pretending to be Presbyterians. But Finis Ewing

bristled at this accusation, and he wrote a pamphlet rebutting West Tennessee Presbytery’s

claims. Cumberland Presbyterians were not Methodists, he wrote, because they did not attribute

as much agency to humanity as Methodists did. While Methodists believed a person could, after

being saved by Jesus Christ, backslide and lose their salvation, Cumberland Presbyterians

believed that once someone was saved they were always saved; someone who appeared to be a

backslider had simply not been truly saved yet. Cumberland Presbyterians also rejected the

Methodist claim that someone could, in this life, become perfect and live without sin.1

At the same time, Ewing made it clear that Cumberland Presbyterians were not orthodox

Calvinists. Whereas the Presbyterian Confession of Faith taught that some were “fore-ordained

to everlasting death,” Cumberland Presbyterians taught that Christ died for all humanity, not just

an elect group. God’s grace was free to all who would accept it. Ewing anticipated the criticism

that Cumberland Presbyterians were at the risk of falling between two stools; he denied they had

to be fully Calvinist or Arminian “to be consistent.” Indeed, he argued, “what man often calls

consistency, is inconsistency with God.” Ewing was beginning to formulate an argument that

Cumberland Presbyterians would make for the next century—that their theological moderation

was a way to recover the original truth of the Scriptures from centuries of Protestant in-fighting.

The old debates about limited atonement and unconditional election and the perseverance of the

1 Minutes of West Tennessee Presbytery, September 17, 1811, pp. 14–15; [Ewing], Series of Letters, 17–19.

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saints had grown into a dense knot, and Cumberland Presbyterians had found a way to cut

through it.2

Finis Ewing linked this argument to a larger narrative about America. The knot

Cumberland Presbyterians were cutting through was a European knot. Ewing implied what many

other American Protestants argued: that the Reformation in Europe had not fully escaped the

influence of the Catholic Church and could only do so by beginning anew in the United States.

Ewing frequently suggested the Presbyterians were acting like the Roman Catholic Church,

especially when they claimed Cumberland Presbyterians were illegitimate because they were “a

self created body.” Every Protestant church, he wrote, was self-created, so by the Presbyterians’

logic “the church of Rome is the only legitimate church in the world.” Ewing was proud to “live

in a free state” where his “fathers and brothers” had “fought hard for civil and religious liberty,”

and where no “ecclesiastical lord” could tell Cumberland Presbyterians what they could call

themselves, much less whether they had the right to exist. If Americans did not have to submit to

a particular church, they also did not have to submit to a particular creed, despite the

Presbyterians’ tyrannical insistence that one could only be Calvinist or Arminian and that there

was no path in between. It was because Cumberland Presbyterians lived in a nation of “free

enquiry” that they could cut through the knot of European theological debates and find the truth

of the Scriptures: the path in between that orthodox Calvinists claimed did not exist. This

medium way was only possible in a free nation.3

2 PCUSA Const. (1788), Confession of Faith 3.3, p. 7 (first quotation); [Ewing], Series of Letters, 14–15, 26 (second and third quotations on 26). 3 [Ewing], Series of Letters, 20–21, 25 (first and third through sixth quotations on 20, second quotation on 21, seventh quotation on 25).

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Cumberland Presbyterians were far from the only Protestant group to join primitivism

(the belief that a church had reclaimed the original or “primitive” Christian faith, untainted by

Catholicism) to American nationalism. Indeed, many went further than the Cumberland

Presbyterians. Stone-Campbellites denied they were a denomination at all but rather the one true

church, calling themselves “Christians” or “Disciples of Christ.” Mormons claimed there had

been no true church from around the 2nd century A.D. until God appeared to Joseph Smith in

1820; indeed, an angel had revealed to Smith a new sacred text to read alongside the Old and

New Testaments, in which Christ visited the Americas sometime after his ascension to heaven.

The question remained for Cumberland Presbyterians: why call themselves Presbyterians? If

they claimed to have found a path between Calvinism and Arminianism, why still take on a name

associated with Calvinism? This was a free country, after all, and there were many Christians

who felt even freer than Cumberland Presbyterians did to carve their own path to God’s truth.

Finis Ewing’s answer had nothing to do with theology and everything to do with

ecclesiology, how the church government was organized: “We are governed by a Presbytery,

therefore we are Presbyterians.” The presbyterian form of government, with its system of checks

and balances between local congregations and regional and national judicatories, was “most

congenial” to the teachings of the Bible and to “civil liberty.” Cumberland Presbyterian minister

Franceway R. Cossitt made Ewing’s argument more explicit four decades later. Cossitt wrote

that out of the various forms of church government, the presbyterian was “in the strictest

harmony with the republican institutions” of the United States. The Baptists’ system of

autonomous congregations was practically anarchic, while the Methodists’ system of bishops

smacked of papistry. Yet somehow those denominations had “outstripped” the Presbyterians in

membership. In 1776, the percentage of American churchgoers who were Presbyterian (19%)

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was roughly equal to the combined number of American churchgoers who were Baptist and

Methodist (19.4%). By 1850, however, the Presbyterian share of the religious market fell to

11.6%, while the combined share of the Baptists and the Methodists soared to 54.7%. Why was

this so? In Cossitt’s opinion, it was because the Calvinist doctrine of predestination stifled

Presbyterian growth. If America was to usher in the evangelization of the globe, then it could

only benefit from a church with an ecclesiology suitable for a republic and a theology palatable

to the majority.4

Many historians have demonstrated the importance of Christian nationalism in the early

republic. Christian nationalism was the synthesis of evangelicalism, republicanism, and

American exceptionalism: God had entrusted the United States with a special role in human

history, since its form of government would purify the Christian faith and enable the

evangelization of the globe. Unlike many post–World War II evangelicals who saw the

separation of church and state as anti-Christian, nineteenth-century evangelicals believed the

separation of church and state was precisely what made America a more truly Christian nation.

They compared Christianity in America to Christianity in Europe, where the church and the state

were intertwined and (they believed) the individual believer’s relationship with Christ suffered as

a result. In America, they argued, the monopoly of the Church of England—or, even worse, the

Church of Rome—had given way to a vibrant marketplace where citizens were free to worship

howsoever they felt called to by the Holy Spirit. From this marketplace would emerge a purified

Christianity which would then revitalize Protestant Europe, convert Catholics to the true faith,

4 [Ewing], Series of Letters, 19 (first quotation), 20 (second and third quotations); Cossitt, Life and Times of Rev. Finis Ewing, 392–93 (fourth quotation on 392, fifth quotation on 393); Finke and Stark, Churching of America, 55–116, esp. 56.

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and bring the heathen races of the world to Christ. The ideology of Christian nationalism was

central to how American evangelicals understood the relationship between the church and the

nation.5

But at least in the case of the Cumberland Presbyterians, Christian nationalism was not

just something they believed or a frame by which they understood things; it was a solution to a

set of problems created by the very denominational marketplace that Christian nationalism

celebrated. In a nation where an ever growing number of denominations and sects competed for

converts, it was incumbent on each religious group to justify its existence. After all, as one

Cumberland Presbyterian minister admitted, “the strife and divisions among Protestants”

hampered their ability to convert souls to Christ.6 Every new denomination was a new division in

5 Conroy-Krutz, Christian Imperialism; Den Hartog, “Elias Boudinot, Presbyterians, and the Quest for a ‘Righteous Republic’”; Den Hartog, Patriotism and Piety; Fea, Bible Cause; Steven K. Green, Inventing a Christian America: The Myth of the Religious Founding (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015), 199–241; Steven K. Green, The Second Disestablishment: Church and State in Nineteenth-Century America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010); Guyatt, Providence and the Invention of the United States, 137–258; Handy, Christian America, 24–56; Sam Haselby, The Origins of American Religious Nationalism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015); Nathan O. Hatch,“The Christian Movement and the Demand for a Theology of the People,” Journal of American History, 67 (December 1980), 545–67; Hatch, Democratization of American Christianity; Martin E. Marty, Righteous Empire: The Protestant Experience in America (New York: Dial Press, 1970); Sidney E. Mead, The Nation with the Soul of a Church (New York: Harper & Row, 1975); Sidney E. Mead, The Old Religion in the Brave New World: Reflections on the Relation between Christendom and the Republic (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977); Joseph S. Moore, Founding Sins: How a Group of Antislavery Radicals Fought to Put Christ into the Constitution (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016); H. Richard Niebuhr, The Kingdom of God in America (Chicago: Willett, Clark & Co., 1937); Jonathan D. Sassi, A Republic of Righteousness: The Public Christianity of the Post-Revolutionary New England Clergy (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001); Timothy L. Smith, Revivalism and Social Reform in Mid-Nineteenth-Century America (Nashville: Abingdon, 1957); Timothy L. Smith, “Righteousness and Hope: Christian Holiness and the Millennial Vision in America, 1800–1900,” American Quarterly, 31 (Spring 1979), 21–45; Ernest Lee Tuveson, Redeemer Nation: The Idea of America’s Millennial Role, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968); Gordon S. Wood, “Evangelical America and Early Mormonism,” New York History, 61 (October 1980), 359–86. 6 Milton Bird quoted in GA Minutes (CPC), 1851: 59.

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the body of Christ, and mere partisan spirit could not justify such a division. It was easier for

more radical sects like the Stone-Campbellites, Shakers, or Mormons to justify their existence:

they claimed to be the one true church while all others had fallen into apostasy. But what about a

moderate denomination like the Cumberland Presbyterians, who did not claim a monopoly on

truth and shared communion with most orthodox Protestants? Christian nationalism proved vital

to the stories Cumberland Presbyterians told about themselves—where they had come from, how

they fit in the greater body of Christ, and what part they might play in ushering the kingdom of

heaven on earth. They could only make sense of their church’s purpose in the context of the

Christian nation.

The religious marketplace presented churches with a host of other challenges, which

Cumberland Presbyterians answered in part by turning to Christian nationalism. Denominations

were free to establish ecclesiastical governments and other infrastructures however they chose,

and every decision along the way was a source of contention. There were those who, on the one

hand, favored increased centralization and professionalization; and, on the other hand, those who

favored voluntarism and local autonomy. Cumberland Presbyterians debated whether to form a

General Assembly, whether to establish a theological seminary, whether ministers should enter

full-time pastorates or ride the circuit, how many church newspapers there should be and who

should control them, and other similar matters. Christian nationalism helped Cumberland

Presbyterians rationalize their slow path toward centralization and professionalization, and to tell

a story about themselves that glossed over internal conflict and instead celebrated their

moderation in all things.

Several historians have told a similar story, but they have usually cast it in stark regional

and/or denominational terms: a struggle between a centralist “national evangelism” propagated

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by Presbyterians and Congregationalists in the Northeast, and a localist “frontier revivalism”

propagated by evangelicals in the South and trans-Appalachian West. For Cumberland

Presbyterians, however, this struggle took place within a single denomination—both

Presbyterian and evangelical—entirely located west of the Appalachians. And there was not

necessarily a clear centralist or localist camp. Rather than being a contest between two factions,

the tension between localism and centralism was an interconnected set of problems that stemmed

from the republic’s creation of a religious marketplace. This chapter looks at those

interconnected problems and how Cumberland Presbyterians addressed them through the lens of

Christian nationalism.7

A major challenge facing Cumberland Presbyterians was to stake a theological ground

distinct enough to justify their existence but not so distinct as to breach Christian orthodoxy or

jeopardize their communion with other churches. Cumberland Presbyterians did not claim to be

the one true church or brand everyone else a heretic, and they criticized those who did so.8 But

they did believe they contributed something unique to the cause of Christ. If they did not, they

7 The starkest example of this is Haselby, Origins of American Religious Nationalism (quotations on 2 and passim). Also see Peter G. Mode, The Frontier Spirit in American Christianity (New York: Macmillan, 1923); William Warren Sweet, The Story of Religion in America (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1930); and Hatch, Democratization of American Christianity. The influence here of Frederick Jackson Turner’s frontier thesis is unmistakable, even though he barely mentions religion in his seminal essay “The Significance of the Frontier in American History.” See the above essay in the Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1893 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1894), 225–26; and John B. Boles, “Turner, the Frontier, and the Study of Religion in America,” Journal of the Early Republic, 13 (Summer 1993), 205–16. By far the best treatment of professionalization and centralization within southern evangelical churches, and the fraught debates over them, is Beth Barton Schweiger, The Gospel Working Up: Progress and the Pulpit in Nineteenth-Century Virginia (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000). 8 See Robert Donnell’s remarks on Stone-Campbellites, Baptists, Episcopalians, and Roman Catholics in Thoughts on Various Subjects (Louisville: Lee Roy Woods, 1854), 200–3.

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had no right to be a separate church. Indeed, if their doctrines were close enough to that of

another church that they could unite with it without compromising their beliefs, it was their

divine imperative to do so.9 The minister David Lowry wrote that although in commerce it was

healthy to have multiple businesses in competition with one another, spreading the gospel was

not “a mere commercial concern.” No one was brought to Christ by the spectacle of Cumberland

Presbyterians and Methodists and Baptists hawking their wares like peddlers and denouncing

their competitors. But the fact remained that Cumberland Presbyterians remained a separate

denomination. What, then, did they contribute “to the world’s salvation”?10

The answer from most Cumberland Presbyterians was that they had found a middle path

between Calvinism and Arminianism. In a brief statement endorsed by Cumberland Synod in

1814, Finis Ewing and Robert Donnell wrote that “the truth . . . lies between the opposite

extremes” of Calvinism and Arminianism. On the one hand, they accused the Calvinist of

denying humanity any agency whatsoever, even in the sins they committed, thereby making God

“the author of sin.” On the other hand, they accused the Arminian of granting humanity too much

agency, making sinners—and not Christ—the authors of their own salvation.11 Both Calvinism

9 [Milton Bird], “Onward in Our Course—No. II,” Theological Medium, 1st ser., 5 (August 1850), 313. 10 David Lowry, “A Brief Sketch, of the Character and Preaching of the Late Rev. Alexander Chapman,” Theological Medium, 1st ser., 2 (November 1846), 302–3 (first quotation on 303, second quotation on 302). Also see Matthew H. Bone, “A Sermon, Delivered at the Opening of the 17th General Assembly of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, in Lebanon, Ohio, May 18th, 1847,” Theological Medium, 1st ser., 2 (August 1847), 516–17. 11 [Finis Ewing and Robert Donnell], “Presbyterians Cumberland,” in Charles Buck [and William Woodward], eds., A Theological Dictionary, Containing Definitions of All Religious Terms; A Comprehensive View of Every Article in the System of Divinity, an Impartial Account of All the Principal Denominations Which Have Subsisted in the Religious World, from the Birth of Christ to the Present Day: Together with an Accurate Statement of the Most Remarkable Transactions and Events Recorded in Ecclesiastical History, 4th ed. (Philadelphia: W. W.

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and Arminianism were, according to the minister Milton Bird, detrimental to evangelism. The

Calvinist had little incentive to share the gospel with others, since God had already chosen who

would be saved and who would be damned. The Arminian, however, worked in a sort of frenzy,

as though it was his or her own efforts and not God’s that ultimately brought about salvation.12

Calvinism, Bird wrote, “congeals” the Christian’s “heart to ice,” while Arminianism “burns his

heart to a cinder.”13 The fact that the Cumberland Presbyterian Church’s sole theological journal

was titled the Theological Medium demonstrated how vital their “medium position” was to the

church’s identity.14

Cumberland Presbyterians had an easier time proclaiming their medium position than

they did describing it. After all, their Confession of Faith was identical to the Presbyterian

confession except for a few alterations and deletions. They had little in the way of a professional

theological community: no theologian on the order of James Henley Thornwell or Charles

Hodge, no school of theology until 1852, no systematic theology published until 1898. The

Theological Medium mostly printed sermons, eulogies, and anti-Calvinist polemics, a far cry

from what was published in the Princeton Review or the Southern Presbyterian Review. It was

Woodward, 1815), 421. For the appointment of Ewing and Donnell to write the statement, and for the eventual endorsement of the statement, see Minutes of Cumberland Presbytery, April 7, 1813, and Minutes of Cumberland Synod, October 6, 1813, in J. Berrien Lindsley, ed., “Sources and Sketches of Cumberland Presbyterian History.—No. XV,” Theological Medium, 2nd ser., 10 (January 1879), 91, 97. All future citations from the Cumberland Synod minutes will note the pagination in the above article edited by Lindsley. 12 [Milton Bird], “The Intermediate System,” Theological Medium, 2nd ser., 4 (July 1860), 385–94. 13 [Milton Bird], “The True System—or ‘Golden Mean,’” Theological Medium, 1st ser., 3 (March 1848), 119. 14 [Milton Bird], “Board of Publication,” Theological Medium, 1st ser., 2 (September 1847), 543.

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one thing to write, as Milton Bird did, that “Cumberlandtown” was “situated on the highway of

truth between Calvinburg and Arminianville”—but it was another thing to explain what the

denizens of Cumberlandtown actually believed.15

The sharpest criticism on this front came from Lewis A. Lowry, son of a prominent

Cumberland Presbyterian minister and one of the church’s rising young stars before he joined the

Old School Presbyterians in 1849 after a two-year stint at Princeton. (In 1837 the Presbyterians

had split into two denominations, the Old Schoolers being more rigidly Calvinist and less

supportive of revivals than the New Schoolers.) Lowry published a series of letters addressed to

his father, justifying his decision to leave his home church. He wrote that the Cumberland

Presbyterians “boast . . . of a ‘middle way;’ but nearly half a century has passed since the

discovery was made, and it has not yet been clearly defined.” His colleague Ashbel Fairchild

wrote in the book’s introduction that while Cumberland Presbyterians kept “telling us that they

are neither Calvinists nor Arminians,” they were only able to say “what this middle way is not,”

rather than “what it is.” Lowry observed that the Cumberland Presbyterians were fiercely anti-

Calvinist but were certain about little else. He attributed this lack of clarity to the church’s

accidental origins. It had not been the intention of Ewing and the other exiled preachers of

Cumberland Presbytery to found a new church, but when their repeated efforts to rejoin the

parent church failed they created a whole identity around their “opposition” to Calvinism. When

a denomination had “nothing peculiar and distinctive” to unite its members, its only options were

15 [Milton Bird], “Intermedial System Is Right,” Theological Medium, 1st ser., 4 (May 1849), 193. The first theological department was at Bethel College in McLemoresville, Tennessee; McDonnold, History of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, 363–64. The first systematic theology was Robert Verrell Foster, Systematic Theology (Nashville: Cumberland Presbyterian Publishing House, 1898).

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“to tear down the systems of others” and “appropriate to themselves that which is popular.” In

Lowry’s opinion, the Cumberland Presbyterian Church failed to contribute anything unique to

Christendom and only continued to exist because of partisan pride.16

Cumberland Presbyterians were sensitive to the accusation that they did not truly stand

for anything. They tired of being called Arminians in disguise by the Presbyterians, and

Calvinists in disguise by the Methodists.17 The latter claim particularly upset them because, as

Lowry rightly pointed out, anti-Calvinism was central to their identity in a way that anti-

Arminianism was not; they occasionally critiqued Methodist teachings on backsliding and

perfectibility, but they were far more vigorous in their attacks on the Calvinist doctrine of

predestination.18 It particularly troubled many Cumberland Presbyterians that their Confession of

Faith was nearly identical to the Presbyterian confession and still contained elements of Calvinist

predestinarianism.19

16 L. A. Lowry, Address Delivered before the Redstone Presbytery of the Presbyterian Church, on Making Application for Membership (Pittsburgh: Johnston & Stockton, 1849); L. A. Lowry, An Earnest Search for Truth: In a Series of Letters to Cumberland Presbyterians, Addressed to a Father (Cincinnati: John D. Thorpe, 1851), 7–8, 18–21 (first quotation on 21, second through fourth quotations on 7, fifth quotation on 20, sixth through eighth quotations on 19). 17 See the series on “J. S.” in the Uniontown (Penn.) Union Evangelist, February 25–May 20, 1841; [Milton Bird], “The Middle System, Neither Calvinistic Nor Arminian,” Theological Medium, 1st ser., 2 (July 1847), 489–90; and L. A. Lowry, Earnest Search for Truth, 21–22. 18 L. A. Lowry, Earnest Search for Truth, 18–21. For Cumberland Presbyterian critiques of Arminianism, see John Morgan on perfectibility in “J. S., Again,” Uniontown Union Evangelist, May 20, 1841, pp. 1–2; and Laban Jones on backsliding in “Difficulties of Cumberland Presbyterians. No. 1,” Theological Medium, 1st ser., 1 (November 1845), 69. 19 “Cumberland Not Methodism. No. 1,” Uniontown Union Evangelist, February 25, 1841, pp. 4–5; Robert Donnell to Milton Bird, May 4, 1854, in Louisville Watchman and Evangelist, May 12, 1854, reprinted in David Lowry, Life and Labors of the Late Rev. Robert Donnell, of Alabama, Minister of the Gospel in the Cumberland Presbyterian Church (Alton, Ill.: S. V. Crossman, 1867), 95–96; GA Minutes (CPC), 1854: 34–36.

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To rebut the charges that they had no cohesive theology—and perhaps even worse that

they were Calvinists in disguise—several Cumberland Presbyterians called on the General

Assembly to revise the Confession of Faith.20 In 1854 a General Assembly committee headed by

the theologian Reuben Burrow found that, while the church’s doctrine was contained in the

Confession of Faith, it was “surrounded and encumbered” by “the most rigid features of

Calvinism.”21 For example, the confession currently stated that only “those whom God calls, and

who obey the call” would be rescued from “sin and death.” This suggested that God called some

and did not call others, and that those whom he did not call were damned. The committee

recommended the sentence be revised to say that God “enlightens and calls all men,” but only

“those who obey his call” would be saved. This better aligned the confession with Cumberland

Presbyterian doctrine: Christ died for all, not only part, of humanity, and individuals were

damned not because God had not chosen them but because they had rejected God’s call.22 The

committee recommended several other revisions, “so as to make our doctrines plainer, and less

liable to be confounded with rigid Calvinism.”23

Not everyone was supportive of the committee’s efforts to make the Confession of Faith

a less Calvinist document. When a resolution was made to submit the revisions to all the

presbyteries for a vote (if at least two-thirds of the presbyteries approved the revisions, the next

General Assembly was bound to adopt them), several commissioners spoke out against it. They

20 GA Minutes (CPC), 1852: 43–44, 1854: 34–36. 21 Ibid., 1854: 34. 22 GA Minutes (CPC), 1854: 39; CPC Const. (1814), Confession of Faith 10.1, p. 23. The Presbyterian confession was more straightforwardly predestinarian: “All those whom God hath predestinated unto life, and those only, he is pleased . . . to call . . . out of that state of sin and death . . .”; PCUSA Const. (1788), Confession of Faith 10.1, pp. 16–17. 23 GA Minutes (CPC), 1854: 35–43 (quotation on 36).

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likely agreed with Robert Donnell that it was better to leave well enough alone, since no revision

would appease the “heresy hunters” who took pleasure in splitting hairs and finding fault. One

commissioner even moved to table the resolution until 1910, perhaps thinking the church’s

centenary a more appropriate time to take on such a matter, but he eventually withdrew the

motion. Finally the resolution lost by a vote of 64 to 41. For now the Confession of Faith would

stay as it was.24

It is likely that where some critics (both in and outside the church) saw a lack of

theological clarity, many Cumberland Presbyterians saw a freedom from sectarian division and

therefore greater fidelity to God. They did not see the need to pinpoint each of their doctrines

within a schema devised by European theologians a few centuries ago. Even Reuben Burrow

claimed to care less whether their doctrines were halfway “between Calvin and Arminius” than

he did whether they were “taught in the Holy Bible.” Others made a similar primitivist claim that

the church’s middle path was truer to the teachings of the Bible than the European concoctions

imbibed by Presbyterians and Methodists. One minister wrote that another name for Cumberland

Presbyterianism could be “Bibleism,” and another wrote that their doctrines were “much older

than the Westminster Confession, and just as old as the Bible.” Burrow supported the revision

because he believed it would pull the church further out of the orbit of Calvin and into the orbit

of Scripture. But opponents of the revision saw little need to worry about the Confession of Faith

at all. It was, Robert Donnell wrote, an imperfect document just like “any other human

24 GA Minutes (CPC), 1854: 17, 19–23; Donnell to Bird in Louisville Watchman and Evangelist, May 12, 1854, reprinted in Lowry, Life and Labors of the Late Rev. Robert Donnell, 95–96 (quotation). Also see Samuel McSpedden to Robert Donnell, January 5, 1854; Robert Donnell to Samuel McSpedden, January 12, 1854; and Thomas Calhoun to Robert Donnell, c. 1852; in Lowry, Life and Labors of the Late Rev. Robert Donnell, 166–67, 168, and 171, respectively. Both Donnell and Calhoun helped write the 1814 confession; Minutes of Cumberland Synod, October 7, 1813, p. 98.

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production”; there was no need to spend time revising the confession into something no less

imperfect. Even if leaving the confession as it was meant retaining elements of Calvinist

theology, avoiding a revision debate meant escaping the whole culture of doctrinal exactitude

and petty infighting that Cumberland Presbyterians saw as entrenched within the Calvinist

tradition and which they sought to transcend. Leave the Presbyterians to fight over words and

clauses: there was more pressing work to be done.25

Cumberland Presbyterians gave their theological middle ground a nationalist gloss. There

was no room for “ecclesiastical tyranny” in the United States, and tyranny did not only take the

form of a bishop or priest—it included any attempt to suppress what modern historians call the

commonsense hermeneutic, a theory of biblical interpretation embraced by most evangelicals in

nineteenth-century America. According to the commonsense hermeneutic, all believers had the

capacity to pick up a Bible and interpret it without the guiding hand of a priest or some

theological system concocted by over-educated seminarians. It was tyrannical to insist that

believers toe a strict Calvinist or Arminian line, for to do so implied that Americans needed

Calvin or Arminius (or the Westminster Confession, or the Methodist episcopacy) to discern the

voice of God in scripture. In his opening sermon for the 1860 General Assembly, Thomas B.

Wilson reminded the commissioners that at one time the great philosophical minds of Europe

had insisted there was no middle ground between tyranny and anarchy—and the United States

25 R. Burrow, “Cumberland Presbyterianism Not Calvinism Nor Arminianism,” Theological Medium, 2nd ser., 4 (September 1859), 64 (first and second quotations); Donnell to Bird in Lowry, Life and Labors of the Late Rev. Robert Donnell, 96 (third quotation); F. R. Cossitt to ———, February 3, 1840, in Richard Beard, Brief Biographical Sketches of Some of the Early Ministers of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church (Nashville: Southern Methodist Publishing House, 1867; hereinafter cited as Brief Biographical Sketches, 1st ser.), 167 (fourth quotation); Donnell to McSpedden in Lowry, Life and Labors of the Late Rev. Robert Donnell, 168 (fifth quotation).

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had proven them wrong. Similarly, he said, Europe’s priests and theologians had claimed there

was no middle ground “between Calvinism and Arminianism,” yet here they were, gathered

together in Nashville. Just as Americans had flouted European wisdom and constituted a

government that was neither tyrannical or anarchical, so had Cumberland Presbyterians

discovered the truth that lay between the tyrannical god of Calvinism and the powerless god of

Arminianism. Robert Donnell believed the “medium system” of Cumberland Presbyterianism,

since it was less concerned with theological sophistication than with a commonsense reading of

scripture, was “more acceptable to the unbiased mind” and therefore more suitable for a nation of

free men and women. Indeed, Donnell wrote, the Cumberland Presbyterian Church’s theological

moderation made it a truly “American church, if not the only one.”26

The question remained why Cumberland Presbyterians remained Presbyterian. If they

believed, as at least one minister did, that Calvinism had “done more injury to the cause of

Christ, than the dogmas of the Romish Church,” why did they not reject the Presbyterian label

altogether?27 If anything they ran the other way, insisting that they were “the most orthodox

26 Cossitt, Life and Times of Rev. Finis Ewing, 477 (first quotation); T. B. Wilson, “Opening Sermon of the General Assembly of 1860,” Theological Medium, 2nd ser., 5 (October 1860), 33 (second quotation); Donnell, Thoughts on Various Subjects, 173 (third through fifth quotations); Finis Ewing, “Substance of a Discourse on National Affairs,” Theological Medium, 1st ser., 6 (December 1850), 42–43. On the commonsense hermeneutic, see Noll, America’s God, 367–85; Theodore Dwight Bozeman, Protestants in an Age of Science: The Baconian Ideal and Antebellum American Religious Thought (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1977), 132–59; and George M. Marsden, “Everyone One’s Own Interpreter? The Bible, Science, and Authority in Mid-Nineteenth-Century America,” in Nathan O. Hatch and Mark A. Noll, eds., The Bible in America: Essays in Cultural History (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982), 79–100. 27 L. A. Lowry, Earnest Search for Truth, 18. Lowry attributes the quotation to “a loved Uncle” who had since then died. He may have been referring to his maternal uncle Laban Jones, a Cumberland Presbyterian minister who died in 1848; L. L. Lorimor, “David Lowry,” Nashville Cumberland Presbyterian, April 12, 1877, p. 2; “A Faithful Minister and a Good Man Has Been Called to His Final Reward,” BP, March 3, 1848, p. 3.

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Presbyterians on the American continent” and that their Confession of Faith was the only one

which all Presbyterians could faithfully adopt.28 This seeming contradiction can be explained by

the careful distinction Cumberland Presbyterian made between Calvinism and presbyterianism.

Calvinism was a theological school, for many evangelicals a derogatory shorthand for double

predestination. Presbyterianism, however, was a system of church government, and this mattered

deeply to Cumberland Presbyterians. Indeed, one of the great faults they found with Calvinism

was that it turned Christians away from presbyterian church government.29

As with their theology, Cumberland Presbyterians understood their church government

through the lens of Christian nationalism. They frequently compared presbyterianism to the

republican government of the United States; there was, after all, a division of powers between

ministers and laypeople and among the various judicatories, from the congregation to the

presbytery to the synod to the General Assembly. Each judicatory had, as did the various levels

and branches of government, “well defined constitutional limitations.” A presbytery could ordain

whomever it wished to the ministry without much fear of meddling from its synod or the General

Assembly—though the synod could dissolve the presbytery if things got out of hand. A

congregation could, in turn, call whomever they wished to their pulpit, unlike in the Methodist or

Episcopal churches where pastors and priests were appointed by bishops. Once again, however,

if a presbytery decided a congregation was flouting orthodoxy or treating its pastor unfairly, it

could dissolve the congregation’s session. These decisions could be appealed all the way to the

28 [Milton Bird], “Cumberland Presbyterians the Most Orthodox Branch of Presbyterians in America,” Theological Medium, 1st ser., 2 (March 1847), 454. 29 [Robert Donnell], Miscellaneous Thoughts, on Several Subjects of Divinity, So Much Controverted in the World: With a Brief Historical Sketch of the Rise of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, and of Its Progress to the Present Day (Princeton, Ky.: Office of the Religious and Literary Intelligencer, 1832), 74.

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General Assembly, and at each step the issue was debated by the appellant’s lay and ordained

peers and put to a public vote. Like the government of the United States, presbyterianism stood,

as the minister James Smith wrote, “equally aloof from monarchy and anarchy” and was

therefore most “congenial” to a nation of free people.30

By tying their form of church government to a larger story about America as a Christian

nation, Cumberland Presbyterians glossed over the many difficulties that actual governing

entailed. In a nation where there was a separation of church and state, building a denomination

meant creating a lot out of scratch and doing so in the face of competition from countless other

sects. Without any tax support, how would ministers get paid and who would pay them? How

much power could be accrued to the General Assembly without jeopardizing the freedom of

local judicatories? Every question of church governance was a matter of debate. Though perhaps

in theory presbyterianism was a tidy system of checks and balances, in practice it was a never-

ending game of tug-of-war. And anyone who pulled the rope towards professionalization and

centralization had to contend with folks pulling in the other direction.

A major question facing Cumberland Presbyterians was how preachers ought to operate

and make a living. In the church’s early years most of its ministers and licentiates rode the

circuit, preaching to one congregation then traveling a dozen or so miles to preach to another,

presiding over camp meetings and baptizing the latest infants. Circuit-riding was well-suited for

small congregations spread out over large, sparsely populated country. It also enabled the

church’s growth. Imagine a family of Cumberland Presbyterians from western Kentucky who

30 T. B. Wilson, “Opening Sermon of the General Assembly of 1860,” Theological Medium, 2nd ser., 5 (October 1860), 34–35 (first quotation on 35); Smith, History of the Christian Church, 647 (second and third quotations); James Guthrie, “Church Government,” Theological Medium, 1st ser., 1 (November 1845), 71–72; Donnell, Thoughts on Various Subjects, 173; CPC Const. (1814), Form of Government 8–10, 14, pp. 99–105, 113.

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move north across the Ohio into southern Illinois. They write back home asking for a minister to

come bring them the word and sacrament. Word—the “Macedonian cry,” it was often called—

reaches the presbytery in western Kentucky, and the presbytery appoints one of its preachers to

visit the family in Illinois. A few more families move to the same region, and every few months

a circuit-rider breaks bread and pours wine for them. Finally the community of believers

organizes a congregation. More people move and more congregations are organized, until the

synod forms a new presbytery there: Illinois Presbytery. Then families move west into Indiana,

north along the Illinois River, and northeast along the Missouri River, and they again send out

the Macedonian cry; a new generation of young men who grew up in southern Illinois answer

that cry, and the process repeats itself. It was in this way that the church spread throughout the

Mississippi River Valley, far beyond the original bounds of Cumberland Presbytery.31

But riding the circuit demanded a lot from the preacher, and some thought it was too

much.32 Though it was romanticized by later generations, the life of the circuit-rider was grueling

and often dangerous. It was a life of fording creeks and sleeping in the rain, with “jerked venison

and corn bread” for subsistence and saddle-bags for a pillow. One preacher was traveling in

western Virginia when he was set upon by three highwaymen; they dragged him off his horse

and tied him to a tree, and he was stuck there until someone found him an hour later. More

31 I have based this on the Minutes of Cumberland Synod, 1813–1828, and accounts found in Cossitt, Life and Times of Rev. Finis Ewing, 234–37, 257–59, 267–69; David Lowry, “A Brief Memoir of the Life and Character of the Late Rev. William Harris,” Theological Medium, 1st ser., 2 (December 1846), 325–26; Richard Beard, Brief Biographical Sketches of Some of the Early Ministers of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. Second Series (Nashville: Cumberland Presbyterian Board of Publication, 1874; hereinafter cited as Brief Biographical Sketches, 2nd ser.), 129–30; and McDonnold, History of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, 142–200, 253–300. For the formation of Illinois Presbytery out of Anderson and McGee presbyteries, see Minutes of Cumberland Synod, October 16, 1822, p. 164. 32 Minutes of Cumberland Synod, October 19, 1824, p. 274; GA Minutes (CPC), 1838: 250–51.

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typically the circuit-rider fought against mosquitoes and frostbite, which were deadly enough.

And for all their hard work, circuit riders were usually poorly paid. They depended on the

generosity of those they preached to, and that generosity was usually limited to free room and

board. One preacher spent six months riding the circuit, traveling more than 1500 miles and

preaching 150 sermons, and in return received $1.50. Another received, for a whole year’s labor,

12½ cents. Another only got a pair of homespun socks.33

A vivid illustration of the circuit-rider’s life comes from the autobiography of Reuben

Burrow. He was preaching at a Missouri camp-meeting in 1822 when his horse ran away, and

after a couple of days searching for the horse in vain, Burrow had to shoulder his saddle-bags

and walk eighty miles to his next appointment. The next year he was riding the Arkansas circuit

with two other young preachers, Robert D. King and John Carnahan, when he became too ill to

ride a horse and had to float 150 miles down the Arkansas River, lying down in a canoe under

the hot sun aching with chills and fever. By the time he reconnected with King and Carnahan,

Burrow was feeling better but King was feeling worse, so Burrow and Carnahan had to abandon

King on the banks of the Arkansas and travel 100 miles for a camp-meeting. Afterwards Burrow

left for an appointment in Missouri, traveling most of the 150 miles by foot because his horse got

sick and finally died. He made the appointment and then left for the annual presbytery meeting

with the preacher William Long, but a day into the journey Burrow became ill again and could

go no further. Long left him—for dead, he thought. Two weeks later Burrow felt well enough to

33 Cossitt, Life and Times of Rev. Finis Ewing, 69 (quotation); “Highway Robbery,” Philadelphia Public Ledger, November 28, 1840, p. 2; Beard, Brief Biographical Sketches, 2nd ser., 306, 369, 376–77; Smith, History of the Christian Church, 583; Lexington Missouri Cumberland Presbyterian reprinted in “Circuit Riding in Old Times,” Nashville Union and American, June 18, 1854, p. 1; Laban Jones, “Difficulties of Cumberland Presbyterians. No. 2,” Theological Medium, 1st ser., 1 (March 1846), 162–63.

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travel again, so he borrowed a horse and made his way to the presbytery meeting near Boonville,

Missouri, “with a burning fever . . . all the way.” There he was pleased to see Robert King, who

had recuperated since the time Burrow left him on the banks of the Arkansas. By the time

Reuben Burrow returned home, he had been gone eighteen months.34

By the 1830s, many Cumberland Presbyterians believed the church would be well served

if fewer preachers rode the circuit and more served as full-time pastors. One minister compared

circuit-riding to a volunteer militia. It sufficed during an emergency, such as when the church

was young and so many were living in remote areas without the word and sacrament, but it was

ultimately inferior to a standing army. A full-time pastor could do a better job guiding the

spiritual lives of a congregation than a circuit-rider stopping by once or twice a year could. He

could no longer get away with preaching the same sermon over and over now that he was

preaching regularly to the same congregation. He had a more dependable source of income and

could devote more time to study and prayer; he could afford to subscribe to church newspapers

and purchase works on theology. The congregation would become stronger and draw more

members, and it could erect a proper church building. With more settled pastorates, the

Cumberland Presbyterian Church could become respectable and develop the same sort of

professional class that had emerged among the Presbyterian, Methodist, and Episcopal clergy.35

34 Beard, Brief Biographical Sketches, 2nd ser., 245–47, 250–51 (quotation on 247); Reuben Burrow, Medium Theology (Nashville: Cumberland Presbyterian Publishing House, 1881), 10–13. 35 Laban Jones, “Difficulties of Cumberland Presbyterians. No. 2,” Theological Medium, 1st ser., 1 (March 1846), 163; GA Minutes (CPC), 1836: 163–64, 169–70; 1838, p. 251; 1840, pp. 282–83; Minutes of the Convention (CPC), 1839, pp. 4–5; “Rather Dark,” Nashville Cumberland Presbyterian, August 12, 1835, p. 3; [Milton Bird], “The Circuit System,” Theological Medium, 1st ser., 2 (July 1847), 498–99. A shift in attitudes seems to have occurred between 1830, when the General Assembly proposed abolishing the pastorate altogether (p. 16); and 1836, when the General Assembly came out in unequivocal favor of pastorates (pp. 163–64).

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But those who wanted more full-time pastorates faced several obstacles. Congregations

were often reluctant to pay their pastors livable salaries. The result was the so-called secularized

pastor, who made his living by farming, teaching, or in other lines of work. He preached every

Sunday, but his secular work prevented him from spending much time visiting his congregants or

preparing his sermons. This led, critics argued, to weak congregations and poor sermons. The

preacher had a few homiletic fragments at his disposal and simply cobbled some of them

together to fit the day’s biblical text. A vicious cycle ensued, since having a secularized pastor

only discouraged the congregation from paying him a higher salary. After all, why would the

congregation “contribute to the support of a man who . . . devotes no more of his time to the

promotion of the cause of Christ than they do”? Moreover, proponents of full-time pastorates

faced opposition from other ministers and the lay grassroots. Many feared that settled pastorates

made preachers go soft and sapped them of the revival spirit that characterized the circuit and the

camp-meeting. They distrusted the general trend towards professionalization among the clergy

and worried it would upset the balance of power between clergy and laity.36

Related to the question of settled pastorates was the question of education for preachers.

This was a particularly fraught question because the very schism that birthed the Cumberland

36 [James Smith], “Why Ministers Are Not Better Supported,” Nashville Cumberland Presbyterian, June 24, 1835, p. 2 (quotation); GA Minutes (CPC): 1838: 251, 1840: 282–83; “Who Will Go?,” Nashville Cumberland Presbyterian, April 1, 1835, p. 2; “Reasons Why the Gospel Is Not Supported,” Nashville Cumberland Presbyterian, April 1, 1835, p. 3; James Guthrie, “How Shall We Employ All Our Preachers, Supply All Our Congregations and Meet Other Calls for Preaching,” Theological Medium, 1st ser., 1 (June 1846), 238–40; D. Lowry, “Recollections . . . of the Late Rev. Phillip McDonnald, of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church,” Theological Medium, 1st ser., 2 (November 1846), 307–8; [Milton Bird], “Cumberland Presbyterian Preachers—Your Duties. No. 2,” Theological Medium, 1st ser., 2 (March 1847), 406; [Milton Bird], “Demand for the Home Missionary in Iowa,” Theological Medium, 1st ser., 2 (October 1847), 569–70; [Milton Bird], “Demand for Home Missionaries,” Theological Medium, 1st ser., 2 (October 1847), 571.

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Presbyterian Church was in part about whether a classical education should be required for

ministerial candidates. No one in the church argued such an education should be mandatory, but

some worried that the pendulum had swung too far the other way, to the point that ignorance

itself had become a point of pride. If ministers were better educated, they would be better

prepared to refute the arguments made by ultra-Calvinists, heretics, Catholics, and infidels—their

competition in the great contest for souls. They would also write better sermons and thereby

encourage congregants to contribute more to the church coffers.37 Among the lay grassroots and

quite a few ministers, however, there was as a great suspicion of seminary-educated pastors as

there was of full-time ones. A seminary education, after all, seemed to denigrate the

commonsense hermeneutic central to Christian nationalism. America was supposed to be a

country that revered the individual believer’s ability to interpret the Bible for themselves—why,

then, did they need their ministers to attend special schools and attain special knowledge? Was

not God’s truth freely accessible to all who read the Bible and prayed? As with settled pastorates,

opponents of seminary education believed it could create the very ecclesiastical elite that the

evangelicals in Cumberland Presbytery had rebelled against.38

Cumberland Synod sought to appease both sides of the issue when it established the

denomination’s first college in 1825. The college would be a manual-labor school along the lines

of what had been theorized by the popular Swiss educators Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi and

37 GA Minutes (CPC), 1835: 130; [Milton Bird], “We Must Educate,” Theological Medium, 1st ser., 1 (November 1845), 72; Charles R. Barclay, “The Gospel Ministry,” Theological Medium, 1st ser., 1 (March 1846), 175–78; D. Lowry, “On the Importance of a Well Trained Ministry,” Theological Medium, 1st ser., 4 (March 1849), 148–54; W. S. Delany, “Our Educational System,” Theological Medium, 1st ser., 6 (April 1851), 189–90; [Milton Bird], “Theological Education,” Theological Medium, 1st ser., 6 (August 1851), 316–19. 38 GA Minutes (CPC), 1849: 31; D. Lowry, “On the Importance of a Well Trained Ministry,” Theological Medium, 1st ser., 4 (March 1849), 149, 153; Cossitt, Life and Times of Rev. Finis Ewing, 372–75. I have also drawn on indirect evidence in the sources cited in the last footnote.

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Philipp Emanuel von Fellenberg. The campus would consist not only of a schoolhouse and

dormitories but also a farm, and every student would be required to work on the farm at least two

hours a day. Those who were more enthusiastic about the school were happy that the students

would receive a classical education—reading Virgil and Cicero in Latin, Homer and the New

Testament in Greek—while those more suspicious of the school were happy that the young men

would get their hands dirty and not forget the value of hard work. Franceway R. Cossitt, who

lobbied hard for the college and later became its first president, agreed that too often the

educated professional believed labor was beneath him—and that, by extension, laborers were

beneath him. Manual labor, he wrote a few years later, “humbles the proud and exalts the lowly.”

The synod crafted further policies to appease critics of ministerial education: the students and

faculty would be as self-sufficient as possible, living off the fruits of their labor; students were

forbidden to sleep on feather beds and would “avoi[d] all luxuries”; tuition would be a mere

thirty dollars a year so that young men from less wealthy families could attend. Finally, the

synod refrained from establishing an actual theological seminary (ministerial candidates would

only be required to attend the occasional theological lecture), thereby preserving the

commonsense hermeneutic. The college was designed to alleviate any concerns that the church’s

young preachers would degenerate into an arrogant professional elite.39

Cumberland College opened the next year in Princeton, Kentucky. The campus was, a

student later remembered, “a good deal like a bee-hive.” Every hour the teachers, dressed in

39 Minutes of Cumberland Synod, October 22, 1825, pp. 283–86 (second quotation on 285); [Franceway R. Cossitt], A Brief View of Cumberland College, Founded by the Synod of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, Near Princeton, Kentucky (Princeton, Ky.: Brock, 1828), 8–12 (first quotation on 12); Cossitt, Life and Times of Rev. Finis Ewing, 372–75; Richard Beard, “Sources and Sketches of Cumberland Presbyterian History. No. V,” Theological Medium, 2nd ser., 7 (April 1876), 130–31, 139.

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black gowns, rang their bells: time for class. Every two hours the farm manager blew his horn:

time for work. The student body was divided into work gangs, so that with each blow of the

horn, one gang quit the farm and another took their place. After the last blow of the horn, the

students supped, retired to their rooms, studied, and slept, eight or nine young men to a room.

And the next morning the bell and the horn began again.40 By 1830 the college had more than

120 students. Cossitt began publishing what was the church’s first newspaper, the Religious and

Literary Intelligencer. One student wrote home to let them know he had, thanks to the moral

guidance of the professors, “quit chewing tobacco.”41

But the school faced several difficulties. The farm did not yield nearly enough to feed the

students. The school had to raise tuition first to sixty dollars a year and then to eighty. It was

continually in debt. Cumberland College was located in Princeton partly because its citizens

pledged thousands of dollars to the school, little of which the college ever saw. A cholera scare

and the Panic of 1837 did not help matters.42 And grassroots suspicion of the school still

lingered; “complaints of extravagance in dress” lodged “against some of the students” led the

General Assembly to require “an uniform dress” on campus. The college’s board of trustees

ordered students and faculty to wear “good strong woolen jeans” in the winter and “flax linen, or

hemp linen” in the summer. Instead of a professorial black gown, Richard Beard obediently wore

40 Richard Beard, “Sources and Sketches of Cumberland Presbyterian History. No. V,” Theological Medium, 2nd ser., 7 (April 1876), 141. 41 GA Minutes (CPC), 1830: 22; McDonnold, History of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, 229; Thomas P. Street to Joseph M. Street, November 19, 1829, in Michael D. Green, ed., “Cumberland College in 1829,” Register of the Kentucky Historical Society, 66 (October 1968), 397–99 (quotation on 399). 42 Richard Beard, “Sources and Sketches of Cumberland Presbyterian History. No. V,” Theological Medium, 2nd ser., 7 (April 1876), 134, 136, 149; GA Minutes (CPC), 1830: 19, 1835: 135–36, 1836: 174, 1837: 209, 1838: 241, 1842: 66.

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a blue denim coat, even though his tailor had made it “nearly large enough for two men of his

size.” The college was struggling to appease its anti-elitist critics at the same time it was falling

short of its supporters’ expectations.43

In 1842 a committee appointed by the General Assembly decided to relocate Cumberland

College to Lebanon, Tennessee, where the residents offered $10,000 in cash. It turned out,

however, that the General Assembly did not have the legal authority to dissolve the college or to

relocate it outside Kentucky, so it simply switched its financial support over to the Lebanon

school and claimed it as the sole denominational college. Cumberland University opened the

next year with none other than Franceway Cossitt as its president. Meanwhile, Cumberland

College shut down the manual-labor program, sold off the farm, and became debt-free for the

first time in its history. Now affiliated with the Green River Synod, it remained a viable school

until the Civil War and a thorn in the side for those who wanted Cumberland University to have

the church’s unified support.44

The campaign to establish a theological seminary continued. The most vocal supporter

was James Smith, an eccentric Scottish immigrant who edited the Cumberland Presbyterian and

served as the General Assembly’s stated clerk for several years. In 1834, largely because of

Smith’s lobbying, the General Assembly referred the question of establishing a theological

seminary to the presbyteries. The vast majority of the presbyteries voted against it. Finis Ewing

wrote to Smith that, as much as a seminary “may be needed,” he worried it would make the

43 GA Minutes (CPC), 1832: 51–52 (first and second quotations on 51, third quotation on 52); Richard Beard, “Sources and Sketches of Cumberland Presbyterian History. No. V,” Theological Medium, 2nd ser., 7 (April 1876), 147 (fourth through sixth quotations). 44 GA Minutes (CPC), 1842: 65–68; 1843: 103–5, 111; Richard Beard, “Sources and Sketches of Cumberland Presbyterian History. No. V,” Theological Medium, 2nd ser., 7 (April 1876), 158–71.

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church arrogant and elitist. In 1839—since the 1838 General Assembly had agreed not to meet

again until 1840—James Smith called for an ad hoc convention in Nashville, which

recommended that the next General Assembly consider the seminary question again. It did not. It

did, however, take the matter up again in 1849, when a General Assembly committee called for

the establishment of two seminaries, one at Cumberland University and one at Cumberland

College. (Their recommendation was likely influenced by the fact that the assembly met in

Princeton, Kentucky, that year.) The General Assembly debated the recommendation fiercely,

with some only wanting one seminary located at the denominational school. One commissioner

moved to establish a single seminary and “that said school be located at ———.” The motion

passed. Then there was a motion to fill in the blank with Princeton, Kentucky, but it stalled.

Finally the assembly voided the first motion and resolved (if that is the right word) in favor of

“the establishment of a Theological Seminary or Seminaries.” This too went nowhere. At long

last, when the General Assembly met in Nashville in 1852, it voted to establish a single seminary

at Cumberland University in nearby Lebanon. The denomination was more than forty years

old.45

The seminary question was but one example of tension in the church between those who

wanted a more professionalized, centralized denomination and those who did not. Even the

decision to form a General Assembly was fraught. From 1813 to 1828, the highest judicatory in

the church was Cumberland Synod. The synod met once a year and all ordained ministers were

required to attend. This worked well enough in the beginning, when the congregations were all in

45 GA Minutes (CPC), 1834: 100–1, 1835: 133; Smith, History of the Christian Church, 663 (first quotation); Minutes of the Convention of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, Held in Nashville on the 21st, 22nd, 23rd, 24th, and 25th Days of May, 1839 (Lebanon, Tenn.: Chronicle Office, 1839), 4–5; GA Minutes (CPC), 1849: 18, 21, 32–33 (second quotation on 18, third quotation on 21), 1852: 18.

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Middle Tennessee and south-central Kentucky and there were only three presbyteries and a

dozen or so ministers. But the church grew, and it became too much to ask all the church’s

ministers to meet in a single location once a year. Many simply did not show up, and no stern

resolution from the synod could persuade them to attend. In 1815 the synod ruled that it would

accept no excuse from a truant minister unless the excuse entailed “a providential hindrance.”

Three years later the synod softened: “no excuse for absence shall be deemed a sufficient one,

except providential hindrance and such other excuse as the Synod may deem sufficient.” In 1823

the synod passed another measure designed to “coerce the attendance of her members,” only to

repeal it the next year. By that point there were nine presbyteries and sixty-five ministers, with

congregations throughout Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois, Missouri, and Arkansas, and expanding

into Alabama, Mississippi, and Indiana. Exasperated, the synod referred to the presbyteries the

question of dividing Cumberland Synod into multiple synods and forming a General Assembly.

But the next year, 1825, the matter was postponed. Ewing later wrote that he “feared a General

Assembly” because he associated it with “a spirit of pride and self-confidence.” Still, the

question could not be postponed much longer. In 1827 the church had 112 ministers, nearly

double what it had just three years earlier. Again the synod referred the matter to the

presbyteries, and this time it won majority approval for a General Assembly.46

The question remained how much power the General Assembly should have. Should it,

for example, sponsor a newspaper? In 1830 the General Assembly endorsed Cossitt’s Religious

and Literary Intelligencer as the church organ, but its relationship with the paper grew difficult,

46 Minutes of Cumberland Synod, October 19, 1815, p. 102 (first quotation); October 17, 1817, p. 148; October 21, 1818, p. 151 (second quotation; my italics); October 19–22, 1824, pp. 271–73, 278 (third quotation on 272–73); October 24, 1825, p. 288; November 20–22, 1827, pp. 289–91, 293; GA Minutes (CPC), 1829: 3; Smith, History of the Christian Church, 663 (fourth and fifth quotations); McDonnold, History of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, 203–4.

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especially when James Smith became the editor in 1832. Smith was a restless, opinionated man

who tended to overextend himself and alienate even those who agreed with him. Due to his

complaints of financial insolvency, the General Assembly pledged to supply his paper (now

titled the Cumberland Presbyterian) with 4,000 subscribers. This pledge was never fully met. It

did not help matters that a pledge made by a General Assembly was in no way binding for the

next year’s assembly. Smith finally shut down the paper, lambasted the church as “a mass of

ignorance, heresy, and fanaticism,” and left the church altogether.47

Other papers took its place. Franceway Cossitt began publishing the Banner of Peace in

Lebanon, Tennessee, and called again for a denominational paper, provoking the ire of a smaller

paper on the church’s margins in western Pennsylvania. The editors of the Union Evangelist

believed a church organ would be “unwise” and “anti-Presbyterian.” They were not convinced

by the argument that an organ would ensure “union in doctrine” church-wide; after all, by the

same logic, the General Assembly and not the presbyteries should judge the beliefs and

qualifications of ministerial candidates. The Union Evangelist opposed “all Church Monopoly”

and “Ecclesiastical Aristocracy,” favoring “voluntary agency” instead. Let there be however

many newspapers, large and small, that the church’s members could support. This sentiment was

shared by a majority in the church. Throughout the 1840s and ’50s local papers proliferated,

from the Texas Presbyterian to the Missouri Cumberland Presbyterian to the Louisville

47 GA Minutes (CPC), 1830: 15, 1834: 97–98, 1835: 121–22, 1836: 160–61, 1840: 263–64, 285–89; McDonnold, History of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, 229–40 (quotation on 234); J. Berrien Lindsley, ed., “Sources and Sketches of Cumberland Presbyterian History,” Theological Medium, 2nd ser., 6 (July 1875), 266; [James Smith], “Our Future Prospects,” Nashville Cumberland Presbyterian, June 24, 1835, p. 2; [James Smith], “Will We Have 4000 Subscribers?,” Nashville Cumberland Presbyterian, September 9, 1835, p. 2; “A Church Organ,” Uniontown Union Evangelist, April 22, 1841, p. 6.

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Watchman and Evangelist. For the time being, local autonomy won out over centralized

efficiency.48

Other issues divided localists and centralists in the church. Many called for the

establishment of chartered boards that could carry out denominational work throughout the

year—ultimately answerable to the General Assembly but not needing permission from that

annual gathering for every little decision. Others, however, were suspicious of chartered boards,

fearing that such a body, sanctioned by a state legislature and outside the norms of presbyterian

government, “savor[ed] of Church and State” and could “become a pope.”49 Eventually a few

boards were established: a Board of Missions in 1836, a Board of Publication in 1847, a Board of

Church Erection in 1856.50 But they were not well-supported by the church’s grassroots. In its

first decade, the Board of Missions received an average of $2,000 a year, approximately 2 cents

per Cumberland Presbyterian. Consequently the board could only employ a few home

missionaries and could not even begin to think about foreign missions.51 Milton Bird, president

of the Board of Publication, complained that Cumberland Presbyterians were not buying what

48 “A Church Organ,” Uniontown Union Evangelist, April 22, 1841, pp. 6–7 (first, second, and fourth through sixth quotations on 7); “A Church Organ, Again,” Uniontown Union Evangelist, May 6, 1841, pp. 6–7 (third quotation on 6); GA Minutes (CPC), 1840: 284–85, 1841: 14–18, 1843: 106; McDonnold, History of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, 599–603. Benjamin McDonnold speculated that James Smith wrote these editorials in the Union Evangelist, ironically turning against the idea of a church organ when someone’s else paper sought the title; History of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, 239. 49 McDonnold, History of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, 133 (first quotation), 365 (second quotation); [James Smith], “Missionary Effort,” Nashville Cumberland Presbyterian, September 9, 1835, p. 2; [Milton Bird], “Cumberland Presbyterian Preachers—Your Duties. No. 2,” Theological Medium, 1st ser., 2 (March 1847), 406. 50 GA Minutes (CPC), 1836: 166; GA Minutes (CPC), 1847: 14–15, 1856: 55–57. 51 GA Minutes (CPC), 1855: 64, 1856: 51.

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the board was publishing. Cumberland Presbyterian children would, he warned, grow up reading

Baptist books and Methodist pamphlets. Bird did not understanding why so many in his church

resisted the work of boards. If it was alright for two or three or twenty Christians “to co-operate

for the purpose of doing good,” why couldn’t 100,000 Christians do the same?52

The church even struggled to obtain accurate statistics on its membership. Initially this

was due to a suspicion of “a love of numbers”—that a church bragging about how many

members it had was behaving more like a cotton merchant than the body of Christ.53 In 1816

Cumberland Synod ordered its presbyteries to submit statistical reports including their

membership numbers, but two years later the synod amended this so that presbyteries would only

report how many souls they had won to Christ—even if those souls ultimately joined other

churches. Such a report (“the state of religion,” it was called) downplayed the rivalries of the

denominational marketplace in favor of the loftier goal of evangelism. In 1835 a General

Assembly committee called for the inclusion of membership numbers in the presbyterial reports.

The assembly initially voted against the measure but then changed its mind.54

Still, the collection of membership data was complicated by the fact that presbyteries

submitted their reports not to the General Assembly but to their respective synods. And the

52 [Milton Bird], “Board of Publication,” Theological Medium, 1st ser., 2 (September 1847), 536–45 (quotations on 539); [Milton Bird], “Cumberland Presbyterian Board of Publication,” Theological Medium, 1st ser., 5 (April 1850), 179–90; [Milton Bird], “Onward in Our Course—No. II,” Theological Medium, 1st ser., 5 (August 1850), 312–16; McDonnold, History of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, 587. 53 Robert Donnell to Thomas Calhoun, November 29, 1845, in Lowry, Life and Labors of the Late Rev. Robert Donnell, 155 (first quotation); [Donnell], Miscellaneous Thoughts, 78; Minutes of Cumberland Synod, November 23, 1827, p. 296; McDonnold, History of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, 117, 206, 319–20. 54 Minutes of Cumberland Synod, October 17, 1816, p. 105; October 21, 1818, p. 151; GA Minutes (CPC), 1835: 119, 127, 143.

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assembly almost never received reports from every synod; in 1840, it only received reports from

six of the thirteen synods.55 Even when synods did submit their reports, they rarely reported their

membership numbers.56 In 1847, therefore, the General Assembly circumvented the synods and

ordered the presbyteries to submit their statistics directly to the assembly: a rather un-

presbyterian move. Since few presbyteries obeyed the order, the assembly then tasked the stated

clerk with corresponding with all the presbyteries and compiling a report, but he only heard back

from twenty-five of the church’s seventy-five presbyteries. It was not until 1859 that the stated

clerk was able to compile a nearly complete statistical report, with data on ninety of the church’s

ninety-six presbyteries.57

By 1860 the Cumberland Presbyterian Church was more closely resembling the

professionalized, centralized denomination that many of its leaders had been pushing for. In the

span of three decades, for example, the minutes of the General Assembly had gone from a dozen

handwritten pages to a hundred-plus-page published book, with a hefty appendix of committee

and board reports, statistical reports, treasurers’ reports, and a ministerial registry.58 The church

had a seminary, a theological journal, a publishing house, and a university with an influential law

school.59 The Board of Missions collected more than $3,500 in the 1856–57 fiscal year; around

55 GA Minutes (CPC), 1840: 265–70. 56 Ibid., 1845: 125–26. 57 GA Minutes (CPC), 1847: 17–18, 1849: 16–17, 1850: 3–6, 28, 1859: 108–10. 58 The General Assembly began publishing its minutes in 1847. From 1847 to 1853, the minutes had an average length of 48.7 pages; from 1854 to 1860, they had an average length of 87.7 pages. 59 Graduates from Cumberland University’s law school included two U.S. Supreme Court justices, Howell E. Jackson and Horace H. Lurton; David J. Langum and Howard P. Walthall,

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$6,000 the next year; nearly $9,000 the next year; and more than $14,000 the next—a nearly

fourfold increase in four years.60 Resistance and foot-dragging persisted among the grassroots,

and the church still lagged in comparison to its Methodist and Presbyterian counterparts, but the

overall trend was towards professionalization and centralization.

The irony was that, in their decades-long tug-of-war, Cumberland Presbyterians on both

ends of the rope invoked Christian nationalism. Both sides framed their argument in terms of

what would better serve the project of the Christian nation, purifying the faith and evangelizing

the continent. When Cumberland Presbyterians likened chartered boards to popes, or

denominational newspapers to monopolies, or seminary-trained full-time pastors to aristocrats,

they implied that these things would lead the church down the same degenerative path that so

many churches had taken in Europe—a path which America’s separation of church and state had

freed the church from. Here was an opportunity to begin God’s work anew untainted by papist

influence, and yet some within the church were seemingly working to squander that opportunity.

The church was safer, they believed, if as much was entrusted to local congregations and

presbyteries as possible.

Other Cumberland Presbyterians were more concerned with what the church needed to do

to compete in the denominational marketplace. Perhaps in the time of the Great Revival it was

sufficient to have a few honest circuit-riders and the occasional camp-meeting. But times had

changed. Now, they wrote, it was the age of the telegraph, the steamboat, and the railroad. The

church had an unprecedented opportunity to share its message with many souls at great speed—

as did heretics, infidels, Roman Catholics, and other supposed enemies of Christ. The church

From Maverick to Mainstream: Cumberland School of Law, 1847–1997 (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1997), 46–47, 67–68. 60 GA Minutes (CPC), 1858: 56, 1859: 87, 1860: 49.

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needed to publish books and newspapers, direct its missionaries, and train its preachers, and to

do so with maximum efficiency, or else others would succeed where they did not. Even if other

churches they shared communion with succeeded, the Cumberland Presbyterians owed it to

Christendom—since their commonsense theology and republican polity were most perfectly

suited to a nation of free men and women—to do all they could to spread their word and increase

their influence.61

The republic’s disestablishment of religion and creation of a religious marketplace

presented Cumberland Presbyterians with several challenges. They had to justify their existence;

they had to decide how their preachers would operate in the church; and they had to determine

how much power their central government should wield. Christian nationalism proved useful in

answering these challenges. Cumberland Presbyterians argued that their moderate theology and

moderate polity made them a uniquely American church, and they believed they would play a

pivotal role in renewing Christianity and evangelizing the globe. The church would be, Milton

Bird predicted, a “glorious center of theological unity, at which christians can meet in the unity

of the spirit, in the great peace bond.” Cumberland Presbyterianism would thereby, Robert

61 Robert Donnell to Jacob Lindley, February 7, 1845, in Lowry, Life and Labors of the Late Rev. Robert Donnell, 150–52; Milton Bird, “A Voice to the Parents of Our Country,” Theological Medium, 1st ser., 1 (January 1846), 98; Milton Bird, “A Sermon . . . On the Subject of Missions,” Theological Medium, 1st ser., 1 (August 1846), 276; D. Lowry, “Recollections . . . of the Late Rev. Phillip McDonnald, of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church,” Theological Medium, 1st ser., 2 (November 1846), 308; Matthew H. Bone, “A Sermon, Delivered at the Opening of the 17th General Assembly of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, in Lebanon, Ohio, May 18th, 1847,” Theological Medium, 1st ser., 2 (August 1847), 521–22; I. Shook, “The Position and Obligations of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church,” Theological Medium, 1st ser., 5 (January 1850), 86–87; [Milton Bird], “We Must Advance in Our Missionary Work,” Theological Medium, 1st ser., 6 (November 1850), 6.

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Donnell wrote, “hasten the millennial glory of the Church of Christ.”62 And for the time being,

reform-minded leaders in the church invoked this narrative to justify increased

professionalization and centralization, despite some Cumberland Presbyterians’ fears that these

developments would actually make the church less democratic and thereby undercut its

contribution to the Christian nation.

The denominational marketplace was not the only reality that Cumberland Presbyterians

in the early republic had to grapple with, and which they turned to Christian nationalism to help

address. Milton Bird hinted at this obliquely when he waxed poetic about “Cumberlandtown,” a

“beautiful and safe town” located “between frigid and torrid zones.” The Cumberland

Presbyterian Church was born in the Ohio River Valley, the middle region of the United States,

not quite North or South. The church celebrated this fact as proof of its American-ness. “Our

heart,” Bird wrote, “embraces in its friendly grasp the west and the east, the sunny south and the

icy north. We know not how to ride a sectional hobby.”63 But despite the rosy picture

Cumberland Presbyterians liked to present, the Ohio Valley became increasingly contentious as

the church neared its fortieth year, and sectionalism—which Cumberland Presbyterians claimed

to have transcended—threatened to divide them as it had many other denominations. At the heart

of this sectional divide was, of course, the continued enslavement of millions of Americans,

including thousands of Cumberland Presbyterians.

62 [Milton Bird], “Our Theological Position,” Theological Medium, 2nd ser., 1 (August 1854), 540–41 (first and quotations on 541); Donnell, Thoughts on Various Subjects, 143 (second quotation); I. Shook, “The Position and Obligations of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church,” Theological Medium, 1st ser., 5 (January 1850), 85–86; [Milton Bird], “Onward in Our Course—No. II,” Theological Medium, 1st ser., 5 (August 1850), 314; Cossitt, Life and Times of Rev. Finis Ewing, 478. 63 [Milton Bird], “Intermedial System Is Right,” Theological Medium, 1st ser., 4 (May 1849), 193 (first and second quotations); [Milton Bird], “The Peace Bond,” Theological Medium, 2nd ser., 3 (August 1858), 124–25 (third and fourth quotations).

CHAPTER 3: THE SLAVERY CONSENSUS, 1810–1850

As the slavery debate intensified and the ties that bound the North and South together

began to slacken, Cumberland Presbyterians were quite proud of themselves. They still had

congregations in both the North and the South, while the nation’s three great evangelical

denominations—Methodist, Baptist, and Presbyterian—had been rocked in one way or another

by the slavery question. Debates over whether a slaveholder could become (in the case of the

Methodists) a bishop or (in the case of the Baptists) a missionary led to the formation of a

separate Methodist Episcopal Church, South, in 1844, and the Southern Baptist Convention the

next year. The Presbyterians had split in 1837 over theological differences, with a more orthodox

Old School branch splitting from the more liberal New Schoolers, but the theological schism

morphed into a sectional one. By the late 1850s, thanks to the increasing opposition to slavery

among New School Presbyterians in the North, there were very few New School congregations

in the South. Some of the disaffected southerners joined the Old School church, while others

formed a new United Synod of the South. A Cumberland Presbyterian newspaper suggested, of

course, that southerners leaving the New School church should unite with the Cumberland

Presbyterians. Why should they start a new denomination from scratch, or join the ultra-

Calvinists of the Old School, when they could join a church that espoused the medium theology

they already believed in their hearts, and above all “quiet themselves of slavery—the maelstrom

of their seas—and sail with us on our placid and hopeful voyage, laden with the bread of life”?

Cumberland Presbyterians saw their church as a refuge for an American Christendom tearing

itself asunder.1

1 BP reprinted in “New School General Assembly,” Lisbon (Ohio) Anti-Slavery Bugle, July 18, 1857, p. 3. A good overview of the Baptist, Methodist, and Presbyterian schisms is Goen, Broken

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The slavery question seemed a great stumbling block for the project of the Christian

nation. How were Americans going to purify Christianity and evangelize the globe if they could

not even maintain national churches? The increasingly sectional nature of American

evangelicalism—northern churches for northerners, southern churches for southerners—

undermined the evangelical argument that the American church had a unique role in the history

of God and humanity. Cumberland Presbyterians saw themselves as the last best hope for the

Christian nation.

This hope rested in a set of related claims or assumptions: first, that the church’s

“westernness” enabled it to overcome the growing division between the North and the South;

second, that the church was primarily a church by and for white people, with darker-skinned

people being objects rather than agents of the work of Christian nationalism; and third, that the

church had found a middle ground on the slavery question, allowing for union between

proslavery and antislavery moderates. Abolitionism threatened all three claims, for Cumberland

Presbyterians saw the movement as sectionally divisive (pitting the North against the South),

racially subversive (making the black race equal to the white), and poisonous to compromise

(hindering union between supporters and opponents of slavery). Therefore, the majority of

Cumberland Presbyterians came to believe abolitionism was a grave threat to the Christian

nation, far graver than whatever threat was posed by slavery itself.

The coalition forged by moderate pro- and antislavery Cumberland Presbyterians

complicates the historian Mark Noll’s argument that American Protestants’ commonsense

Churches, Broken Nation. On the theological and sectional splits within Presbyterianism, see Marsden, Evangelical Mind and the New School Presbyterian Experience; and Harold M. Parker Jr., The United Synod of the South: The Southern New School Presbyterian Church (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1988).

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reading of the Bible furthered sectional division before the Civil War. Noll reasons that since

northern and southern Protestants believed anyone could discern God’s will in the scriptures

without any ecclesiastical or academic guidance, each side of the slavery debate found it

impossible to understand how the other side could disagree with them without defying God. But

Cumberland Presbyterians agreed to disagree about slavery, even though they certainly shared

the commonsense approach to scriptural interpretation described by Noll. How did they manage

this? The answer lies in the limitations placed upon the Cumberland Presbyterian coalition: their

shared commitment to the project of the Christian nation, in which white people were to be the

primary actors. Luke Harlow makes a similar argument in his study of evangelicals in Kentucky,

and it goes a long way to explain the great backlash within evangelicalism to abolitionism, as

demonstrated by John McKivigan and several other historians—but none of them have made

explicit the relationship of white supremacy and anti-abolitionism to Christian nationalism. My

analysis of Cumberland Presbyterians takes into account the centrality of the Christian nation in

their worldview, and thereby explains the kinship of anti-abolitionism to seemingly unrelated

things like the church’s attitude towards Native Americans and its imagination of the trans-

Appalachian West.2

Cumberland Presbyterians had good reason to consider their church western. The

denomination was born along what was then the western fringe of the United States, and it

largely grew north (into Indiana and Illinois), northwest (into Missouri and Iowa), southwest

(into West Tennessee, Mississippi, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas), and south (into Middle

2 Noll, Civil War as a Theological Crisis; Harlow, Religion, Race, and the Making of Confederate Kentucky; McKivigan, War against Proslavery Religion; Goen, Broken Churches, Broken Nation; Snay, Gospel of Disunion; Fox-Genovese and Genovese, Mind of the Master Class.

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Tennessee and Alabama)—not east. This was because Cumberland Presbyterians had little

success, or interest in, winning people over from other denominations. Instead the church

expanded thanks to the migration of Cumberland Presbyterian families and the evangelization of

their unchurched neighbors. The church’s growth therefore tracked the migration of people from

the Green River country, and its eastward growth was mostly limited to areas that were settled

later like East Tennessee. The main exception was a pocket in western Pennsylvania near

Pittsburgh, where Cumberland Presbyterian missionaries had rare success in persuading

Presbyterians to leave the parent church.3 Even then, the denomination did not have a single

congregation east of the Appalachians. Indeed, it was the largest denomination in the United

States for which this was true.4

3 McDonnold, History of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, 120–27, 142–200, 253–300. The church’s success in western Pennsylvania in the 1830s was largely thanks to the work of Cumberland Presbyterian missionaries John Morgan and Alfred McGready Bryan, and the sympathetic ear they found in the Presbyterian minister Jacob Lindley. Since Lindley had connections in southern Ohio, where he had pastored several congregations, the Cumberland Presbyterians also had some success in that region. McDonnold, History of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, 273–300. Reuben Burrow and Robert Donnell held a successful camp-meeting in Greensboro, North Carolina, in 1831, and heard calls from some of the townspeople to establish a Cumberland Presbyterian congregation there. But Burrow explained in a letter to David Lowry that they “had come there to do good, and would not disturb their peace”; they were happy to bring new souls to Christ but would not offend the congregations already established in the region. Burrow later had a slightly different take on what happened, arguing that planting churches in North Carolina was not worth the effort because “there were more inviting fields for us in the new countries of the West, where sectarian prejudice, though it may exist, is not organized as it is in older sections.” Lowry, Life and Labors of the Late Rev. Robert Donnell, 52–53 (first quotation on 53); Burrow, Medium Theology, 18 (second quotation). 4 Statistics of the United States, (Including Mortality, Property, &c.,) in 1860; Compiled from the Original Returns and Being the Final Exhibit of the Eighth Census, under Direction of the Secretary of the Interior (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1866; hereinafter cited as 1860 Statistics), 352–501.

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We can get an idea of the denomination’s westernness from where its general assemblies

met, especially when compared to where the Old School and New School assemblies met. In the

years 1838–1860, only about one-third of the Old School assemblies and less than one-quarter of

the New School assemblies met west of Appalachia. Meanwhile the easternmost place the

Cumberland Presbyterians met was in Pittsburgh, and all their other assemblies met a good deal

Where Presbyterian General Assemblies Met, 1838–1860

Old School New School Cumberland

1838 Philadelphia Philadelphia Princeton, Ky.

1839 Philadelphia Philadelphia did not meet

1840 Philadelphia Philadelphia Elkton, Ky.

1841 Philadelphia Philadelphia Owensboro, Ky.

1842 Philadelphia Philadelphia Owensboro, Ky.

1843 Philadelphia Philadelphia Owensboro, Ky.

1844 Louisville Philadelphia did not meet

1845 Cincinnati Philadelphia Lebanon, Tenn.

1846 Philadelphia Philadelphia Owensboro, Ky.

1847 Richmond, Va. Cincinnati Lebanon, Oh.

1848 Baltimore did not meet Memphis

1849 Pittsburgh Philadelphia Princeton, Ky.

1850 Cincinnati Detroit Clarksville, Tenn.

1851 St. Louis Utica, N.Y. Pittsburgh

1852 Charleston, S.C. Washington, D.C. Nashville

1853 Philadelphia Buffalo Princeton, Ky.

1854 Buffalo Philadelphia Memphis

1855 Nashville St. Louis Lebanon, Tenn.

1856 New York New York Louisville

1857 Lexington, Ky. Cleveland Lexington, Mo.

1858 New Orleans Chicago Huntsville, Ala.

1859 Indianapolis Wilmington, Del. Evansville, Ind.

1860 Rochester, N.Y. Pittsburgh Nashville

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farther west. More than three-quarters of the Cumberland Presbyterian assemblies were held in

Kentucky or Tennessee, while more than one-half of the Old School assemblies and nearly two-

thirds of the New School assemblies met at an Atlantic port city like Philadelphia, New York, or

Baltimore. If we calculate each denomination’s center of gravity according to where its General

Assembly met in the years 1838–60, then the center of the New School church was in central

Pennsylvania, the center of the Old School church was in current-day West Virginia, and the

Cumberland Presbyterians’ center was in western Kentucky.5 Put differently, the New School

and Old School centers of gravity were, respectively, 150 and 250 miles from the Atlantic, while

the geographic center of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church was nearly 750 miles from the

coast.6

Of course, for Cumberland Presbyterians their westernness was more than a mere

geographical fact; it was integral to the unique role they believed their church would play in the

project of the Christian nation. The Mississippi River Valley was, they said, “the land of their

nativity” and therefore their “principal field of labor.”7 Indeed, they believed Cumberland

5 I calculated each denomination’s center of gravity using the Geographic Midpoint Calculator at geomidpoint.com, weighing each city according to how many times a denomination’s General Assembly met there. The New School midpoint was in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania; the Old School midpoint was in Belington, Virginia (now West Virginia); and the Cumberland Presbyterian midpoint was in Greenville, Kentucky. 6 I am going by the distance of both Huntingdon and Belington from the port of Baltimore; and the distance of Greenville from the port of Norfolk. 7 GA Minutes (CPC), 1835: 132 (first quotation), 1830, p. 17 (second quotation). Also see Donnell, Thoughts on Various Subjects, 134; [Milton Bird], “Our Denomination,” Theological Medium, 1st ser., 1 (September 1845), 23; [Milton Bird], “Cumberland Presbyterian Preachers—Your Duties,” Theological Medium, 1st ser., 2 (February 1847), 384; Milton Bird, “The Sermon, Preached at the Opening of the Nineteenth General Assembly of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, at Princeton, Ky.,” Theological Medium, 1st ser., [4] (July 1849), 266; [Milton Bird], “Onward in Our Course—No. II,” Theological Medium, 1st ser., 5 (August 1850), 314; and GA Minutes (CPC), 1853: 57–58, 1855: 63.

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Presbyterianism was in a unique position to evangelize the Mississippi Valley and beyond, for

the church was “not only American, but Western in its origin” and therefore “better adapted . . .

to bring the truth to bear upon the Western mind than any other church.” The white settlers of the

West had little patience for arcane European debates over predestination and would therefore be

drawn to Cumberland Presbyterians’ commonsense theology. “Divine providence,” wrote Milton

Bird, “gave the Cumberland Presbyterian Church a mission to prosecute, a work to perform in

the great valley of the West, which neither Calvinists nor Arminians would have executed.”8

Even the church’s lenient educational standards for ministers, a bone of contention since

the original schism in Cumberland Presbytery, gave the church an advantage in the western

frontier, where ruggedness was more valuable than erudition. “Missionaries from the east who,”

wrote James Smith, “had been raised delicately” and “confined within the walls of a literary

institution, were not the men to ride . . . through the lone wilderness, exposed to the chilling blast

of winter, the parching heat of summer, and the drenching rain, and the terrible tornado.” Milton

Bird compared the seminary-trained ministers of the older denominations to West Point cadets,

while his own church’s itinerant preachers were instead like citizen-soldiers whose only school

was the battlefield—and it had been, after all, such citizen-soldiers who had won the West from

Native American and European foes.9

If the Cumberland Presbyterian Church was destined to be the church of the West, then it

was also destined to be the church of America, for westward expansion was integral to the work

8 [Milton Bird], “The Intermediate System,” Theological Medium, 2nd ser., 4 (July 1860), 394 (first and second quotations); [Milton Bird], “Our Theological Position,” Theological Medium, 2nd ser., 1 (August 1854), 540–41 (third quotation on 540, fourth quotation on 540–41). 9 Smith, History of the Christian Church, 583–84 (quotations on 583); [Milton Bird], “Cumberland Presbyterian Preachers—Your Duties,” Theological Medium, 1st ser., 2 (February 1847), 384. Also see [Milton Bird], “Onward in Our Course—No. II,” Theological Medium, 1st ser., 5 (August 1850), 314.

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God had chosen for America. The minister Isaac Shook predicted that by the end of the century a

plurality of Americans would live in the Mississippi Valley, and Milton Bird predicted that the

western states would soon have a majority in Congress. The “western frontier,” Franceway

Cossitt wrote, “has now become the centre of American civilization.” The westward impulse that

had driven Christians across the Atlantic, then across the Appalachians, and then across the

Mississippi, would now drive them across the Rockies to the Pacific, bringing about the

Christianization of the entire continent and, eventually, the Christianization of the world. As a

General Assembly committee wrote in 1836, “the song of redeemed souls from the valley of the

Mississippi [will] be echoed by the kindred spirits of the Rhine, the Danube, and the Nile, and . .

. from the banks of the Euphrates and the far Western Islands.” Westward expansion would usher

in the final triumph of God, and Cumberland Presbyterians hoped to be a vital part of that.10

The importance of the church’s westernness to its own identity was evidenced in the

priorities it set for missionary work. From the Board of Missions’s establishment in 1836, it

constantly faced the question of where to focus its efforts—where, in other words, the church’s

future lay. And with few exceptions the decisions of the Board of Missions and the General

Assembly bespoke a desire to give Cumberland Presbyterians a place of prominence in the West.

Though there was briefly a mission in Philadelphia, and some fundraising for possible missions

in the port cities of the Gulf (Mobile, New Orleans, and Galveston), the church’s primary focus

10 I. Shook, “The Position and Obligations of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church,” Theological Medium, 1st ser., 5 (January 1850), 85–91, esp. 86; Milton Bird, “A Sermon . . . On the Subject of Missions,” Theological Medium, 1st ser., 1 (August 1846), 274–75, esp. 275; GA Minutes (CPC), 1836: 171–72 (quotation); Cossitt, Life and Times of Rev. Finis Ewing, 476–78; Richard Beard, “Characteristics of the Present Age,” Theological Medium, 1st ser., 1 (September 1845), 19; [Milton Bird], “We Must Advance in the Missionary Work,” Theological Medium, 1st ser., 6 (November 1850), 6; R. S. Bevier, “The Future,” Theological Medium, 2nd ser., 2 (July 1855), 338–42; [Milton Bird], “The Intermediate System,” Theological Medium, 2nd ser., 4 (July 1860), 394.

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was on the West’s great riverine ports. The General Assembly resolved in 1850 that the Board of

Missions’s top priorities should be St. Louis; Cincinnati; and Burlington, Iowa. By 1857 the

board actually had missions (not just aspirations) in St. Louis, Louisville, Evansville, and

Burlington; Alton and Peoria, Illinois; St. Cloud, Minnesota; Kansas and northern Iowa; the

Choctaw and Chickasaw nations in present-day Oklahoma; and, last and perhaps least,

Philadelphia.11

St. Louis and California were of particular symbolic importance for Cumberland

Presbyterians. The church was not alone, after all, in believing St. Louis was “destined to be a

central city of the Great West.” It was the agricultural, commercial, and cultural hub of the upper

Mississippi Valley, with a population more than seven times that of Nashville. Cumberland

Presbyterians therefore frequently expressed dismay and disappointment that they did not have

greater success in St. Louis, where they had only one congregation with a few dozen members.

Perhaps it was exasperation over the church’s weak presence in St. Louis, as well as cities like

Louisville and Cincinnati, that drove the General Assembly in 1855 to prohibit the Board of

Missions “from establishing any other Mission until one could be established in California,”

which was less settled than the great ports of the Ohio and Mississippi and would presumably be

more amenable to the work of Cumberland Presbyterian missionaries. If St. Louis was the

gateway to the West, then California was the gateway to the Pacific. Just as politicians and

businessmen saw California as the key to unlocking the Asian market and enabling the United

States to sell its goods and foodstuffs to millions more consumers, so too did evangelists see it as

the key to unlocking the Asian mission field and enabling the Christian nation to export the

11 GA Minutes (CPC), 1850: 18, 1857: 34–36. This paragraph draws from all the Board of Missions and General Assembly Committee on Missions reports in the General Assembly minutes from 1837 to 1860.

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gospel to millions more souls. Both St. Louis and California were integral to Cumberland

Presbyterians’ great dream of their shared destiny with the Christian nation. But a dream did not

guarantee material results. In 1857 the General Assembly quietly repealed the California

ultimatum.12

If Cumberland Presbyterians were embarrassed at having fallen short of their

transcontinental ambitions, they took solace in their church’s resilience in the face of growing

division between the North and the South. The slavery debate gave the church’s westernness new

meaning: a latitudinal trajectory focused on the Christian nation’s destiny, in opposition to the

longitudinal back-and-forth of sectional politics. Cumberland Presbyterians claimed to

“recogniz[e] no sectional distinctions—no dividing lines between North and South,” because

their focus was on the Christian nation’s movement from east to west.13

The church’s westernness played into Cumberland Presbyterians’ conception of

themselves as white, and of their church as a church by and for white people. Westward

expansion, after all, entailed encounters and conflict with a darker-skinned race. It was primarily

in conjunction with the displacement and removal of Native Americans, rather than the

enslavement of African Americans, that Cumberland Presbyterians at first conceived their

12 GA Minutes (CPC), 1855: 28, 1856: 51 (first quotation), 1857: 26 (second quotation); Cossitt, Life and Times of Rev. Finis Ewing, 477–78; Milton Bird, “A Sermon . . . On the Subject of Missions,” Theological Medium, 1st ser., 1 (August 1846), 275; I. Shook, “The Position and Obligations of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church,” Theological Medium, 1st ser., 5 (January 1850), 86–87. On the respective roles St. Louis and California played in the American imagination, see Adam Arenson, The Great Heart of the Republic: St. Louis and the Cultural Civil War (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2011); and Kevin Starr, Americans and the California Dream, 1850–1915 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1973). 13 [Milton Bird], “Cumberland Presbyterians,” Theological Medium, 1st ser., 6 (September 1851), 337 (quotation). Also see [Milton Bird], “The Peace Bond,” Theological Medium, 2nd ser., 3 (August 1858), 124–25.

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whiteness. In other words, being white had less to do with not being black than it did with not

being Indian—and the racial categories of “white” and “Indian” were understood within the

framework of God’s plan for the American continent.

Like most white Americans, Cumberland Presbyterians told a story about westward

expansion that entailed a kind of purification of the white race and reaffirmed that white

supremacy was the proper order of things—indeed, that it was sanctioned by God. Milton Bird

observed that before white people came to America it “had the same rich soil, mighty forests,

wide prairies . . . [and] broad rivers,” yet the Native Americans had done little to improve the

land, thereby failing to obey God’s injunction to “subdue” the earth. The Native Americans were

more like wild animals—Bird called them “the red children of the woods”—than humans made

in the image of God. But now that whites were settling the continent, farms and cities were

arising where mere decades ago “the growl of the wolf answered the hoot of the owl, and the red

man hunted the wild deer and the buffalo.” Franceway Cossitt encapsulated this racial

narrative—that Indians were more bestial than human, and that whites were destined to tame the

land—when he wrote that the “western wilderness, now the home of savages and haunt of wild

beasts, will soon be converted, by Anglo-Saxon enterprise and industry, into fruitful fields, the

inheritance of civilized men.” The Christianization of America was not limited to the realm of

human souls; the land itself would be Christianized. White colonization remade the continent

according to God’s commandments. Though Cossitt was referring to crops ripe for harvesting,

and by allusion to souls ripe for evangelization, it was appropriate in yet another sense when he

wrote of the West’s “whitening fields.”14

14 Milton Bird, “A Voice to the Parents of Our Country,” Theological Medium, 1st ser., 1 (December 1845), 80 (first and third quotations); Genesis 1:28 (second quotation); [Milton Bird],

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In colonizing America and bringing about the proper relationship between humanity and

nature, white settlers were also reconnecting with their race’s divine calling and, in effect,

becoming more white. Paradoxically, the proximity to a darker race who had failed so greatly in

asserting their God-given dominion over the earth—the Native Americans—brought white

people closer to God and more sure of their mission. Finis Ewing saw the disestablishment of

Christianity and the contestation with Native Americans over the land as part of the same

struggle that defined American whiteness as well as the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. In a

sermon he gave during the War of 1812, Ewing recalled that their ancestors escaped

ecclesiastical tyranny in Europe “and chose to be neighbors to the Indians, with the free

enjoyment of their religious privileges [rather] than live with civilized man who was assuming

the seat of God and lording it over the consciences of his fellow men.” The civilizing forces of

church and state had, in Europe, become corrupted and had stifled the ability of Christians to

obey God as they heard him. Contact and even violent conflict with an uncivilized race somehow

helped white Americans shed themselves of that corruption and empowered them to take on the

mission of the Christian nation. Ewing proudly went on to fight in Samuel Hopkins’s army,

boasting that his conversion to Christianity made him a better Indian fighter than he had been

decades earlier. When Cumberland Presbyterians cast their church as the fruit of westward

expansion and the liberation of Christianity from papism, they were also telling a story about the

liberation of whiteness from overcivilization, a race defining itself in opposition to the American

“The Dealings of God with Our Nation,” Theological Medium, 2nd ser., 3 (December 1858), 247 (fourth quotation); Cossitt, Life and Times of Rev. Finis Ewing, 477–78 (fifth quotation on 477, sixth quotation on 478). Also see Richard Beard, “Characteristics of the Present Age,” Theological Medium, 1st ser., 1 (September 1845), 19.

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continent’s native peoples.15

The minister David Lowry hinted at this dialectical relationship between overcivilized

whiteness and uncivilized wildness in his account of his journey to Prairie du Chien, a trading

post in the Wisconsin territory mostly populated by Indian and French fur traders. One night on

the journey, as he and his companions sat around a log-fire and sang hymns of praise to God,

Lowry remembered that the General Assembly was gathered in worship that very same time in

Nashville. “While we united in the worship of God,” he wrote, “surrounded with the croaking of

frogs, and yelling of wolves, I supposed they were assembled in a splendid Church, attended

with all the beauties and refinements of civilization and religion.” These two vastly different

worship experiences—a temple in a city, and a campfire among beasts—represented a balance

between civilization and wilderness that was necessary to keep the American church vital. And it

was along these lines that Cumberland Presbyterians imagined the decades-long contestation

with Native Americans over the American continent as vital to their church’s identity and to

Christian nationalism.16

At least one Cumberland Presbyterian projected this contestation into the past, namely

the history of the church’s Scotch-Irish ancestors. In the minister Thomas C. Anderson’s telling,

the migration of Scottish Presbyterians to northern Ireland played a similar purifying role as the

migration of their descendants into the trans-Appalachian West. The Church of Scotland, with its

pampered clergy and cerebral faith, was analogous to the conservative establishment in

American Presbyterianism; the native Irish, with their Catholic superstitions and “gross vices,”

15 Finis Ewing, “Substance of a Discourse on National Affairs,” Theological Medium, 1st ser., 6 (December 1850), 33 (quotation); Cossitt, Life and Times of Rev. Finis Ewing, 207–13; Finis Ewing to James Madison, January 27, 1814, Founders Online, founders.archives.gov/ documents/Madison/03-07-02-0210. 16 D. Lowry, “Winnebago School,” Nashville Cumberland Presbyterian, August 19, 1835, p. 3.

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were analogous to the native peoples of America. Anderson even used the same conflation of

native with beast that Franceway Cossitt used: the Scotch-Irish “pioneer” had to protect his

family and his land “both from the marauding incursions of the wild Irish, and the ferocious

beasts of the forest.” Taming the Irish wilderness brought the Scotch-Irish closer to God—they

worshipped “in the woods,” not in “the splendidly-furnished sanctuary”; they “were not so

wedded to formality, but were more spiritually minded than the Scotch.” Finally, having

“civilized Ireland,” the Scotch-Irish were prepared to civilize the American West. Long “the

home of the buffalo, and the hunting-ground and the battle-field of the red man,” the West would

now “become the home of a vigorous civilization, and of primitive Christianity”—a faith shed of

European accoutrements—and the Scotch-Irish, who “had been trained to hardships for more

than a century,” were to lead the vanguard. The purification of whiteness could only take place in

a wilderness of bestial non-whiteness—and this made possible the civilization of the wilderness

and the purification of the faith.17

This did not mean, however, that Native Americans—or the Irish, or any semi-bestial

race—had no place in God’s kingdom. Like most American Protestants, Cumberland

Presbyterians considered the evangelization of Native Americans a major priority. They firmly

believed Native Americans could become Christians, which entailed not only reciting the creeds

but also practicing Western agriculture. When David Lowry arrived at Prairie du Chien and

finally addressed a gathering of Indians, he assured them that though their “skin is red,” their

17 T. C. Anderson, “Origin of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church,” Theological Medium, 2nd ser., 3 (March–June 1859), 345–68, 477–505 (first quotation on 477, sixth quotation on 478); T. C. Anderson, Life of Rev. George Donnell, First Pastor of the Church in Lebanon; with a Sketch of the Scotch-Irish Race (Nashville: n.p., 1858), 11–86 (second quotation on 59, third quotation on 60, fourth and fifth quotations on 61, seventh and tenth quotations on 83, eighth and ninth quotations on 82). Also see G. W. Mitchell, “A Sketch of the Life, Labors, Character and Death of Rev. Robert Donnell,” BP, June 21, 1855, p. 1.

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“blood is of the same color” as God’s white children, and they were therefore perfectly capable

of learning “to live like your father’s good white children.” If they attended Lowry’s school or

sent their children there, they too could learn to make flour, guns, hoes, and axes; “live in warm

houses” with “hogs and cows always ready to kill,” no longer needing to hunt for their meat; and

speak “the white people’s language” so they “could live as neighbors . . . without quarrelling.”

When the Indians rebuffed Lowry’s offer, they emphasized the material reality of racial

difference: “their skin was red, and soap and water never could wash it white.” Lowry had, on

the other hand, espoused a kind of spiritual equality between the races, whereby an uncivilized

race had only to adapt the civilized race’s ways to achieve their godly potential. Lowry saw

racial difference as having less to do with biology than with different stages in socio-spiritual

development. Part of the project of the Christian nation was elevating the darker races into

civilization and Christianity and thereby erasing racial difference—with white people, of course,

as the key historical actors, the ones who did the heavy lifting of civilizing and Christianizing.

When the Indians near St. Cloud rejected Lowry’s claim that they all had the same hearts and the

same blood, they were rejecting the subordinate role Lowry accorded them in the story of the

Christian nation.18

White Cumberland Presbyterians accorded African Americans a similarly subordinate

role. As with Native Americans, white Cumberland Presbyterians certainly believed black people

were ripe for evangelization; but they did not see black people as co-equal actors. The General

Assembly and the Board of Missions regularly spoke of Native Americans and African

Americans and even Pacific islanders in the same breath as mission fields, sites upon which the

18 D. Lowry, “Winnebago School,” Nashville Cumberland Presbyterian, August 19, 1835, p. 3.

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Christian nation would act out its world-historical calling.19 This was why white Cumberland

Presbyterians often spoke in such a way as to write their black co-communicants out of

existence. By 1860 one out of five Cumberland Presbyterians was black, around 20,000 total,

most of them enslaved.20 There were many black preachers and even a few ordained ministers.

19 GA Minutes (CPC), 1847: 18. 20 In 1888 the Cumberland Presbyterian minister Benjamin W. McDonnold wrote that there had been “about twenty thousand colored Cumberland Presbyterians in 1860”; History of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, 436. My own estimate is that 20,534 Cumberland Presbyterians were enslaved. I reached this estimate by asking three questions: which counties did Cumberland Presbyterians live in, how many Cumberland Presbyterians lived in each of those counties, and what percentage of each county’s population was enslaved? As for which counties Cumberland Presbyterians lived in, I went with the counties that had Cumberland Presbyterian congregations according to the religious data tabulated by the U.S. Census Bureau in the 1860 Statistics. (The Census Bureau did not count Cumberland Presbyterians separately from other Presbyterians in 1850 or 1870.) How many Cumberland Presbyterians lived in each county? The census did not count churchgoers or communicants; instead it counted “aggregate accommodations,” or how many people could be seated in a given denomination’s congregations in a given county. The statistical reports in the 1859 and 1860 General Assembly minutes record the number of communicants in each presbytery, but that is as fine-grained as their data gets; unlike the more detailed reports in the Old School and New School minutes, there is no data on individual congregations. So I did my best to combine the census data with the presbyterial data. I grouped presbyteries according to which states or state sub-regions (like Middle Tennessee or the Arkansas Piney Woods) they were in, and then estimated how many communicants lived in each state or state sub-region. Next I calculated the ratio of communicants to aggregate accommodations in each state or state sub-region. Finally I applied this ratio to each county; for instance, if a state sub-region had 12,000 aggregate accommodations according to the 1860 Statistics and 4,000 communicants according to the General Assembly statistical reports, then I estimated that a county in that region with 120 aggregate accommodations had 40 communicants. As for the enslaved population in each data, I used Lincoln Mullen’s interactive map “The Spread of U.S. Slavery, 1790–1860,” lincolnmullen.com/projects/slavery, data and shapefiles from Minnesota Population Center, National Historical Geographic Information System, version 2.0 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 2011). An example of how this worked. According to the 1860 Statistics, the Cumberland Presbyterians in central Alabama had accommodations for 5,874 people. According to the General Assembly statistical reports, meanwhile, central Alabama was home to 1,565 communicants. In short, central Alabama had 3.75 times as many accommodations as communicants. When I apply this ratio to the central Alabama county of Bibb, which had

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Yet Thomas Anderson boasted of the church’s Scotch-Irish heritage without a second thought,

and when he wrote that most of the church’s early members “were of the same race,” he was

making an exception not for the African Americans who worshiped alongside their owners in the

Great Revival, but for white people of pure Scottish or English descent. In his 1812 letter to

Presbyterians in West Tennessee, Finis Ewing wrote that their congregations were, like his,

“composed of FREEMEN, not vassals,” and he later preached that in America all Christians

were free to worship however and wherever they chose. The United States was, after all, as the

minister Allison Templeton wrote, the “most free” nation on earth, with no “feudal lords” or

“slaves.” This language only made sense if the idealized American—and the idealized

Cumberland Presbyterian—were white. White supremacy was inseparable from Christian

nationalism.21

It was this dedication to Christian nationalism and white supremacy that allowed

antislavery and proslavery Cumberland Presbyterians to find common ground and avoid the

schisms that tore other denominations apart. Some white Cumberland Presbyterians hoped to see

the institution of slavery eventually come to an end; others hoped to see the institution continue

in perpetuity; but all agreed that the work of the Christian nation was to be primarily done by

accommodations for 1,224 people, I can estimate Bibb County was home to 326 Cumberland Presbyterians. And since 32.3% of Bibb County’s population was enslaved, I estimate that 32.3% of the county’s Cumberland Presbyterians (105) were enslaved. I applied the same process to every county with a Cumberland Presbyterian congregation. This is admittedly not an ideal way to estimate the enslaved membership of the church, since the rate at which enslaved people became church members surely varied widely from county to county. But I am encouraged by how close my estimate is to McDonnold’s. 21 Campbell, One Family under God, 27–35; Anderson, Life of Rev. George Donnell, 14 (first quotation); [Ewing], Series of Letters, 25 (second quotation); Finis Ewing, “Substance of a Discourse on National Affairs,” Theological Medium, 1st ser., 6 (December 1850), 42–43; A. Templeton, “God Requires Nations to Serve Him,” Theological Medium, 1st ser., 6 (July 1851), 284 (third through fifth quotations).

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white people, and that African Americans were more a missionary field than equal partners in

God’s work. This shared worldview meant that when Cumberland Presbyterians opined on what

should be done for enslaved people, it was often difficult to tell whether they were supporters or

opponents of slavery in and of itself.

Like David Lowry in his address to the Indians at Prairie du Chien, Cumberland

Presbyterians espoused a kind of equality between the white and black races, the difference

between them having less to do with biology than with how far along each race was on its path to

godliness. The white race was undoubtedly at the forefront—they were the pioneers—but this

did not mean the black race was incapable of being elevated and civilized. James Smith, editor of

the Cumberland Presbyterian, was highly critical of polygenist scientists who claimed that

blacks and Native Americans were entirely different species from whites. This kind of racial

differentiation flew in the face of what Smith believed about Christ and salvation. If the darker

races were not descendants of Adams—if they had “no ‘moral organs,’ and therefore can neither

be civilized or Christianized”—than this meant “that Christ did not . . . taste death for every man,

but only for the Caucasian.” Cumberland Presbyterians, like most evangelicals, refused to accept

this.22

If Africans Americans were indeed capable of being civilized and Christianized, then it

was the church’s obligation to work towards their being civilized and Christianized. It was

primarily through this lens that white Cumberland Presbyterians viewed the institution of

slavery. Where they could work within the institution to bring the slave to Christ, they were

22 [James Smith], “Unity of the Human Race,” Nashville Cumberland Presbyterian, July 15, 1835, p. 2 (quotations); [James Smith], “Cull Will Pray,” Nashville Cumberland Presbyterian, June 3, 1835, p. 2; [James Smith], “Great African Procession,” Nashville Cumberland Presbyterian, June 17, 1835, p. 2; Minutes of Columbia Synod, October 17, 1851; GA Minutes (CPC), 1852: 15.

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eager to do so; where the institution stood between the slave and Christ, they were willing to call

for reform. Whether or not they thought slavery ought to come to an end, they agreed that, at

least in the meantime, the evils of slavery could be ameliorated. The disagreement between pro-

and antislavery Cumberland Presbyterians was a disagreement over the means to an end, but they

all had the same end in mind: the salvation of the black person’s soul. Anything that stood in the

way of that end—such as calling for the immediate abolition of slavery—was anathema for the

majority of Cumberland Presbyterians.

Cumberland Presbyterians, like most evangelicals, believed the slaveholder had a unique

duty to tend to the spiritual lives of their slaves. Too many slaveholders were so bent on reaping

profits from black bodies that they ignored the “souls . . . committed to their care.” Ministers

urged slaveholders to teach their slaves how to read, especially how to read the Bible; and to

hold prayer meetings and worship services with their slaves. Make sure, James Smith cautioned

his readers, your slaves know “you value their souls more than your cotton bales.” A model

Christian slaveholder was Robert Donnell, the founder of Cumberland Presbyterianism in

northern Alabama, who operated a cotton plantation in Athens. Though his plantation was

certainly profitable—he owned around fifteen slaves in 1830 and double that in 1850—Donnell

did not neglect the souls of his human chattel. He presided over worship services every morning

and evening, and everyone, white and black, free and enslaved, gathered to pray and sing and

share their concerns. Donnell read a passage of scripture and expounded upon it. The services

were so long, upwards of an hour, that one of Donnell’s overseers complained “that it would be

impossible . . . to cultivate his farm, unless he would shorten the time spent in devotion.”

Donnell countered that all his wealth and every harvest came from God, and that “he would have

rather have less done in the field, than to curtail his worship in the family.” The supposedly

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benevolent leadership of slaveholders like Donnell made the institution of slavery into a vehicle

for God’s work. Every plantation was a mission-field, a site upon which slaveholders had an

opportunity to bring civilization and the gospel to a benighted race. This too was part of the

project of the Christian nation.23

While they celebrated the benevolent slaveholder, Cumberland Presbyterians

acknowledged there were ways the institution of slavery hindered rather than furthered the

gospel. In some states it was illegal to teach slaves to read, and even in states where it was legal,

many slaveholders feared teaching slaves how to read lest they become rebellious. Slave sales

led to the separation of families, making it difficult for enslaved Christians to fulfill their holy

obligations as spouses, parents, and children. An enslaved Cumberland Presbyterian brought

such a concern to their congregational session: they had previously been married only to then be

sold and thereby “forcibly separated” from their spouse; could they now enter into a new

marriage? Would this be adultery? Could such a thing as adultery exist when there was no legal

marriage in the first place, no such thing as divorce, no control over one’s own marriage? The

session did not know, and neither did the presbytery. The case was appealed to Cumberland

Synod in 1818, and the synod simply referred it back to the congregational session,

recommending that they “act as a concurrence of circumstances might seem to require.” When

Cumberland Presbyterians called for reform of the institution of slavery, it was because they

23 “A Bundle of Wonders,” Nashville Cumberland Presbyterian, April 1, 1835, p. 3 (first quotation); [James Smith], reply to “A Revival of Religion on My Cotton Plantation,” Nashville Cumberland Presbyterian, July 15, 1835, p. 2 (second quotation); Cossitt, Life and Times of Rev. Finis Ewing, 273; Lowry, Life and Labors of the Late Rev. Robert Donnell, 209–10 (third and fourth quotations on 210); 1850 U.S. Census, Slave Schedule, Limestone County, Alabama, District 3, p. 213.

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recognized that aspects of the institution made it impossible for slaves to obey God’s

commandments.24

This focus on the slave’s soul meant it was often hard to tell the difference between a

proslavery and an antislavery Cumberland Presbyterian. Let us look, for example, at one of the

church’s most prominent antislavery ministers—the church’s very founder, Finis Ewing. Soon

after moving to Cooper County, Missouri, in 1820, Ewing began preaching against the “traffic in

human flesh and human souls,” and he pledged “not to hold, nor to give, nor to sell, nor to buy

any slave for life.” He condemned Cumberland Presbyterians who left their slaves half-fed and

half-clothed, who refused to teach their slaves how to read scripture, who made their slaves toil

in the field “while the white people are praying around the family altar,” and who separated

wives from husbands and parents from children by unscrupulous slave sales. The heart of his

critique was that too few slaveholders treated their slaves as “fellow-beings,” feeding into the

dangerous heresy that black people were separate creatures descended from someone other than

Adam and saved (if saved at all) by someone other than Christ.25

But there was little if anything Ewing said that a proslavery Cumberland Presbyterian

could not have agreed to. He never condemned slaveholding in and of itself as a sin. After all, to

do so would have meant condemning what the Bible quite clearly sanctioned, something very

few Christians were willing to do. Instead Ewing condemned evils within the institution of

slavery—physical cruelty, the separation of families, the neglect of slaves’ spiritual and material

24 [James Smith], “Shameful Legislation,” Nashville Cumberland Presbyterian, April 8, 1835, p. 2; Lowry, Life and Labors of the Late Rev. Robert Donnell, 73–74; Cossitt, Life and Times of Rev. Finis Ewing, 273; Minutes of Cumberland Synod, October 22, 1818, in J. Berrien Lindsley, ed., “Sources and Sketches of Cumberland Presbyterian History.—No. XVI,” Theological Medium, 2nd ser., 10 (April 1879), 152 (quotations). 25 Cossitt, Life and Times of Rev. Finis Ewing, 273.

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needs. The implication was that if a slaveholder avoided these evils, then they could have a clean

conscience. Ewing emancipated his slaves because he believed this was what it meant to obey

God’s admonition to masters to “give unto your servants that which is just and equal.” A

slaveholder might agree with Ewing’s sentiment but disagree with his method; they could keep

their slaves so long as they gave them that which was just and equal. Ewing implied that the

question of actually emancipating one’s slaves was a matter of personal choice rather than divine

edict, akin to whether one abstained from alcohol or merely drank in moderation. The sin was

not slavery in the abstract but rather slavery as it was too often practiced in the United States.26

Calling for reforms within the institution of slavery could be a way of saying that slavery

was not evil (like adultery) or neutral (like wine) but actually a positive good. James Smith

implied that ameliorating the evils of slavery would make slavery itself more robust and

profitable. He wrote of evangelization as a wise investment, like using a good fertilizer or

circulating crops. The “ability to read . . . the Scriptures,” Smith wrote, “adds at least ten per cent

to the value of a slave,” since the slave become more moral, more healthy, and more honest.

“Learn your slaves to read, and give them moral and religious instruction, and they will not only

be better men, but better servants.” Of course, Smith may have only been couching

evangelization in terms of profit so as to appeal to slaveholders’ material interests and ease their

concern that religious instruction would devalue a slave’s worth. But in that same article Smith

made it clear that American slavery was part of God’s design to bring darker-skinned peoples to

26 Cossitt, Life and Times of Rev. Finis Ewing, 273–74 (Colossians 4:1 quoted on 273). For other lukewarm endorsements of emancipation, see [James Smith], “Insurrection in Mississippi,” Nashville Cumberland Presbyterian, July 22, 1835, p. 2; [James Smith], reply to “A Revival of Religion on My Cotton Plantation,” Nashville Cumberland Presbyterian, July 15, 1835, p. 2; and Milton Bird, “A Voice to the Parents of Our Country,” Theological Medium, 1st ser., 1 (December 1845), 89.

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Christ. God “suffered the poor African to be brought into bondage,” Smith argued, “to bring him

under the influence of the Gospel, and thereby free his immorality from the dark cloisters of

gross superstition.” The coerced migration of millions of Africans across the Atlantic and

throughout the Mississippi River Valley was just as much part of God’s plan to Christianize the

globe as was the voluntary migration of Europeans across that same ocean and throughout that

same valley.27

However, though the white and black races had followed parallel routes of providence,

their destinies were not the same. The westward trajectory of the Christian nation, to the Pacific

and beyond, was not the black race’s path to take. Their destiny, according to many Cumberland

Presbyterians, lay in Africa. If God had brought these people to America to be civilized and

Christianized, then perhaps God now wanted them to return home to civilize and Christianize

that continent. This was a popular idea in the antebellum United States and led to the creation of

the American Colonization Society and various other schemes to encourage and subsidize free

black migration to Africa, particularly to Liberia. Many Cumberland Presbyterians were

enthusiastic colonizationists. The General Assembly endorsed the American Colonization

Society several times, declaring that its work would “promote the cause of the Redeemer” and

encouraging congregations to donate funds. Many Cumberland Presbyterians emancipated their

slaves, often in their wills, and provided them with resources to migrate to Liberia. When

Edmond Weir, a free black man and an ordained Cumberland Presbyterian minister, settled in

27 [James Smith], “Shameful Legislation,” Nashville Cumberland Presbyterian, April 8, 1835, p. 2. Also see Robert Donnell’s diary entry from October 18, 1828: “O Lord, in Thy providence thou hast placed under my care a number of black people. For them I feel a deep interest. Help me, O my Master in heaven, to do for them what is right, and to give them what is right.” Lowry, Life and Labors of the Late Rev. Robert Donnell, 48.

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Liberia in 1858, he found several other Cumberland Presbyterians there, enough to form a

congregation.28

Cumberland Presbyterians’ fervor for colonization revealed how enmeshed Christian

nationalism was with white supremacy, and the limits that white supremacy placed on the project

of the Christian nation. The popularity of colonization schemes made it clear that, for most

Cumberland Presbyterians, black people did not ultimately have a place in America’s future. An

African American only belonged in the United States if they were enslaved, because this meant

they were still undergoing the process of civilization and Christianization. Once they were free,

there was nowhere in America for them to be. The General Assembly’s committee on missions

argued that Africa was “the only land of privilege and full liberty and freedom [for] the black

man.” Of course, this sentiment can be read as a mere admission that white racism made black

freedom an impossibility in America—the General Assembly hinted at this when it said that

colonization would “ameliorate the condition of the free colored population”—but the fact

remained that the Christian nation had no place for black people if they were not enslaved.29

Moreover, Cumberland Presbyterians were wary of any schemes that threatened the racial

hierarchy of slavery. It was easier for Cumberland Presbyterians to support emancipation,

colonization, and religious education for slaves if the channel for such reforms was the

28 GA Minutes (CPC), 1831: 29, 1833: 75–76 (quotation on 75); GA Minutes (CPC), 1851: 52, 1858: 59; John Morgan to Robert Donnell, July 6, 1838, in Lowry, Life and Labors of the Late Rev. Robert Donnell, 128; “Legacy,” Wheeling (W.Va.) Daily Intelligencer, October 12, 1853, p. 2. Also see Brownsville (Penn.) Cumberland Presbyterian, quoted in Joseph Gordon, “Colonization,” Albany (Oh.) Free Presbyterian, 185?, reprinted in Joseph Gordon, The Life and Writings of Rev. Joseph Gordon (Cincinnati: Free Presbyterian Synod, 1860), 250. 29 GA Minutes (CPC), 1831: 29, 1833: 75–76 (quotation on 75); GA Minutes (CPC), 1851: 52, 1858: 59; John Morgan to Robert Donnell, July 6, 1838, in Lowry, Life and Labors of the Late Rev. Robert Donnell, 128; “Legacy,” Wheeling (W.Va.) Daily Intelligencer, October 12, 1853, p. 2.

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slaveholder. There was little enthusiasm when the church attempted larger-scale reforms that

might circumvent slaveholders’ possessory rights over their slaves. When Columbia Synod

resolved in October 1851 that its presbyteries should “devise and adopt some efficient,

systematic plan of the adequate spiritual instruction of the colored people within their bounds,”

the General Assembly responded with a hearty endorsement, perhaps hoping that other

judicatories would follow Columbia Synod’s lead. But there is no evidence that any judicatories

did, or that any of the presbyteries in Columbia Synod actually devised a “systematic plan” for

evangelizing African Americans. A similar silence met the Board of Missions’s plea that

someone who owned an ordained minister might emancipate him and place him in the board’s

hands, so that the newly freed minister or ministers might join Edmond Weir and form a Liberian

presbytery. Instead Weir toiled for years in isolation. Cumberland Presbyterians were

comfortable with a slaveholder voluntarily instructing or emancipating their slaves; they were

much less comfortable with a church judicatory trying to tell slaveholders what to do. Such

ecclesiastical meddling threatened to undermine the slaveholder’s total, godlike authority over

the slave—threatened, in short, white supremacy.30

Even the manual-labor curriculum at Cumberland College alienated some Cumberland

Presbyterians who feared it would upend the racial order. After all, the manual-labor movement

was propagated by many of the same people who lobbied for gradual emancipation, colonization,

and even abolition. The chief prophet of manual-labor education—a man who once gave an

address on the topic before the General Assembly—was Theodore Dwight Weld, who soon

thereafter spearheaded the exodus of abolitionist students from Lane College to Oberlin and then

30 Minutes of Columbia Synod, October 17, 1851 (quotations); GA Minutes (CPC), 1852: 15, 1858: 59.

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became a leader in the American Anti-Slavery Society. And the connection between the manual-

labor and anti-slavery movements was not mere coincidence. Weld argued that one of the evils

of slavery was that it degraded manual labor, so that white men associated hard work with

slavery and thought it beneath them. James Smith remembered that many thought Cumberland

College would be a failure, “alledging that the Manual System never could succeed in a slave-

holding community—that the haughty sons of the South would not submit to such a servile

system.”31

Of course, the college was not exactly a success. Benjamin McDonnold recalled that

“[m]any of the Southern boys, reared where slaves did all the work, met the labor requirements

with bad grace,” and that there were frequent clashes between the students and the farm overseer.

After all, the daily routines of labor at Cumberland College—the blowing of horns, the ringing of

bells, the regimented hours—were quite similar to labor-management strategies used on large

plantations. From the perspective of reformers like Franceway Cossitt and James Smith, the

manual-labor curriculum was a necessary corrective; slavery threatened to overcivilize and

enervate white men, thereby undoing the racial purification begotten by westward expansion. But

for the young planters’ sons grumbling at Cumberland College, the curriculum dangerously

blurred the lines between the white and black races. It is possible that this fear, or least an

unconscious distaste, was shared by many Cumberland Presbyterians; this may partly explain

31 GA Minutes (CPC), 1832: 45; [James Smith], “The Baptists in Mississippi,” Nashville Cumberland Presbyterian, May 6, 1835, p. 2 (quotation); Paul Goodman, “The Manual Labor Movement and the Origins of Abolitionism,” Journal of the Early Republic, 13 (Autumn 1993), 355–88.

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why churchwide fundraising campaigns for the college had little success.32

If reform movements like colonization and the manual-labor curriculum made many

Cumberland Presbyterians uneasy, then abolitionism made them apoplectic. Indeed, anti-

abolitionism became a unifying force in the church, with pro- and antislavery Cumberland

Presbyterians agreeing that abolitionism posed a grave threat to the Christian nation. The turning

point for many Cumberland Presbyterians came in 1835, when the American Anti-Slavery

Society attained national prominence and mounted a massive direct-mail campaign, attempting

to distribute abolitionist literature throughout the South. A great backlash ensued; a mob attacked

the post office in Charleston, South Carolina, and Andrew Jackson asked Congress to block

abolitionists’ access to the postal system. Elyton (Alabama) Presbytery and Columbia Synod

passed resolutions condemning abolitionism in general and the postal campaign in particular. In

an editorial for the denominational newspaper, James Smith condemned the northern

“firebrands.”33

Smith’s critique of abolitionism, which most Cumberland Presbyterians also espoused,

was threefold. First, abolitionism was presumptuous to the point of heresy, for in demanding that

Christians free their slaves, abolitionists were assuming “more authority in the church than Christ

and his disciples had.” Christ healed the centurion’s slave without insisting the centurion then

free him; Paul enjoined slaves to obey their masters, and masters to be just with their slaves, but

32 McDonnold, History of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, 224 (quotation); Mark M. Smith, Mastered by the Clock: Time, Slavery, and Freedom in the American South (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997). 33 Elyton Presbytery’s resolution in “Anti Abolitionism,” Nashville Cumberland Presbyterian, November 18, 1835, p. 2; “Columbia Synod,” Nashville Cumberland Presbyterian, November 18, 1835, pp. 2–3; [James Smith], “To Cumberland Presbyterian Preachers,” Nashville Cumberland Presbyterian, August 19, 1835, p. 3 (quotation).

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never called for an end to slavery itself. It was one thing to voluntarily emancipate your own

slaves or refrain from slaveholding; it was another thing altogether to deem slaveholding itself a

sin and condemn all unrepentant slaveholders. But abolitionists like William Lloyd Garrison

were doing just that and thereby claimed a higher moral standard than Christ himself.34

Second, abolitionism circumvented God’s timeline and spoiled the work of the Christian

nation. If the institution of slavery was designed to civilize and Christianize black people, then

immediate emancipation would cut short God’s work and let loose the black population before it

was ready. Finis Ewing exemplified this ideal of gradual emancipation. As Ewing’s biographer

wrote, the founding father of the church “made exertions to qualify” his slaves “for freedom,”

teaching them how to read and providing them provisions so they would be self-sufficient. This

process took a long time—all the way to Ewing’s death, upon which the last of his slaves became

free. Immediate abolition jeopardized white Christians’ ability to elevate the black race, and then

presumably African Americans’ ability to bring the gospel to Africa. God’s plan would be

compromised.35

Finally, if God’s timeline were circumvented and black people were freed before they

were ready, the result would be a bloody race war. The sheer “mass of unregenerate mind,” no

longer under the guardianship of white slaveholders, would erupt in violence. James Smith

hoped to someday “see the black man free and happy,” but he was afraid immediate abolition

would “let loose” the black population “like demons upon the white population.” He drew an

analogy to Saint-Domingue, where the un-Christianized Africans (perhaps the fault of their

34 [James Smith], “Abolition Mania,” Nashville Cumberland Presbyterian, July 22, 1835, p. 2. 35 [James Smith], “Insurrection in Mississippi,” Nashville Cumberland Presbyterian, July 22, 1835, p. 2; [James Smith], “To Cumberland Presbyterian Preachers,” Nashville Cumberland Presbyterian, August 19, 1835, p. 3; Cossitt, Life and Times of Rev. Finis Ewing, 273–74 (quotations on 274).

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French Catholic masters) mounted a violent insurrection and expelled the white people. The

South might, Smith feared, become another Saint-Domingue, with race war “drenching the South

in human gore.” When he heard rumors of a thwarted slave rebellion in Mississippi he feared it

was only the beginning.36

The abolitionist threat came closer to home in late August 1835, a little less than two

months after the slave insurrection scare in Mississippi and a month after the post-office riot in

Charleston. Amos Dresser, a young abolitionist living in Cincinnati, had embarked on a book-

selling tour of the South in July, mainly selling Cottage study Bibles and the anti-Catholic

memoir Six Months in a Covent. However, when he packed these books he wrapped them in old

periodicals so they wouldn’t rub against each other, and among these papers were issues of the

Anti-Slavery Record. When Dresser arrived in Nashville, a young man man brought up his books

and papers but left some of those tracts and pamphlets in Dresser’s carriage. The carriage needed

some repairs so Dresser took it to a shop on Clark Street, which was operated by Samuel Van

Dyke Stout, a Nashville city alderman and future mayor. While Stout’s men were repairing the

carriage, Stout wondered aloud if Dresser was an abolitionist since he was from Cincinnati; one

of the men rummaged around and sure enough found an issue of the Anti-Slavery Record. Rumor

spread quickly that Dresser was distributing abolitionist literature, even to African Americans,

with the intention of provoking a slave rebellion. A few days later Dresser attended a nearby

camp-meeting “at the mouth of Brown’s creek,” and within a few hours of his arrival he was

36 [James Smith], “Insurrection in Mississippi,” Nashville Cumberland Presbyterian, July 22, 1835, p. 2 (first quotation); [James Smith], “To Cumberland Presbyterian Preachers,” Nashville Cumberland Presbyterian, August 19, 1835, p. 3 (second through fourth quotations); [James Smith], “Intended Insurrection,” Nashville Cumberland Presbyterian, August 19, 1835, p. 3 (fifth quotation). Also see the Elyton Presbytery and Columbia Synod resolutions cited above in note 34.

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arrested and brought before a vigilance committee. The committee interrogated him for hours,

read aloud passages from his private correspondence, and concluded he was an agent of an

abolitionist conspiracy to rile up the black population. Dresser was whipped in the main square

with a cowskin. That night Dresser fled in a disguise, leaving behind his horse and carriage and

books.37

The Dresser episode not only outraged James Smith, who published the denominational

paper in Nashville; it also mortified him, because there were reports that Dresser was

Cumberland Presbyterian. The confusion arose (Dresser was actually Methodist) because the

abolitionist was arrested at a Cumberland Presbyterian camp-meeting. Dresser even wrote in his

own account of what happened that when he was arrested and hauled into town “most of [his]

friends were” still at the camp-meeting. Dresser likely counted Smith among his friends. Dresser

had stopped by the offices of the Cumberland Presbyterian and sold Smith a study Bible, and

Smith then supplied Dresser with the names of other Cumberland Presbyterians who might want

to buy a copy. But now, upon the supposed revelation of the abolitionist’s scheme, Smith did all

he could to distance the church from Dresser. “Amos Dresser is not a Cumberland Presbyterian,”

Smith wrote, “never was known to Cumberland Presbyterians until a few days before he was

apprehended,” and anyone who claimed otherwise “knows better.” Moreover, Cumberland

Presbyterians were “as far from countenancing the . . . pernicious measures of abolitionists as

any” other denomination.38

37 Cincinnati Gazette reprinted in “Amos Dresser’s Own Narrative,” Boston Liberator, September 26, 1835, p. 4; Nashville Republican, August 20, 1835, p. 3 (quotation). 38 Cincinnati Gazette reprinted in “Amos Dresser’s Own Narrative,” The Liberator, September 26, 1835, p. 4 (first quotation); [James Smith], “Amos Dresser,” Nashville Cumberland Presbyterian, September 30, 1835, p. 2 (second through fifth quotations); [James Smith], “Misrepresentations,” Nashville Cumberland Presbyterian, October 17, 1835, p. 2. The camp-meeting was advertised in the Nashville Republican, August 20, 1835, p. 3.

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The rise of abolitionism in the mid-1830s and the subsequent anti-abolitionist backlash

hardened the boundaries of discourse for Cumberland Presbyterians. Smith’s calls for reform of

the institution of slavery and criticisms of cruel slaveholders subsided, and instead he ramped up

criticism of the abolitionist movement. Whereas beforehand some of his articles had been

reprinted in the abolitionist press, including The Liberator, now he threw a tantrum when an

abolitionist paper so much as endorsed something he wrote. He took it as a grave insult when the

New York Emancipator praised him for condemning the lynching of Elijah P. Lovejoy. Smith

dared the Emancipator to “send . . . half a score of Dressers” to the South and called the

abolitionists a lot of “condescending” “wise-acres” who only wanted to send “such foolish and

impudent men as Amos Dresser to excite the blacks” into cutting white southerners’ throats.39

For more than twenty-five years after the American Anti-Slavery Society postal

campaign, the Cumberland Presbyterian Church was dominated by an anti-abolitionist

consensus. Milton Bird wrote in the church’s theological journal that abolitionists were at worst

“infidels” and at best “misguided” by infidels; their goals were “to demolish the ministry,

overthrow the church, obliterate the Bible, blot out the institutions of religion, dissolve the civil

government, and convert the country into a pandemonium.”40 The main exception to this

consensus was Pennsylvania Synod, which encompassed western Pennsylvania and southern

Ohio. A year after the failed postal campaign of 1835, a congregation in Washington,

Pennsylvania, invited an American Anti-Slavery Slavery agent to give a talk, only to have an

anti-abolitionist mob lob rocks and eggs through the church windows, both “ruining clothes and

39 “Let the South Speak,” New York Emancipator, May 3, 1838, p. 1 (quotations). 40 Milton Bird, “A Voice to the Parents of Our Country,” Theological Medium, 1st ser., 1 (December 1845), 89.

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endangering lives.”41 A decade later in 1847, at the request of Athens (Ohio) Presbytery,

Pennsylvania Synod resolved that “the system of Slavery, in the United States, is contrary to the

principles of the Gospel, hinders the progress thereof, and ought to be abolished.” The General

Assembly scolded the synod and resolved that “such resolutions” would only produce “strife”

and “distraction in the Church, and thereby hinder the progress of the Gospel.” Whereas

Pennsylvania Synod claimed that slavery was hampering the project of the Christian nation—a

great sin that prevented America from fully following Christ—the General Assembly argued that

it was abolitionism, not slavery, that was getting in the way of God’s work. After all,

abolitionism posed a great threat to sectional and denominational unity, and to white

supremacy.42

A General Assembly resolution in 1850 hinted at the correlation between anti-

abolitionism and Christian nationalism. The resolution was issued in the midst of congressional

debate over the expansion of slavery into territories acquired from Mexico, a debate which later

that year resulted in the Compromise of 1850. Henry Clay and other moderate senators,

especially from the border states, struggled to appease both antislavery northerners and southern

fire-eaters. Cumberland Presbyterians likely saw their church’s position as similar to that of

Clay. Indeed, Robert L. Caruthers, the elder who proposed the General Assembly’s resolution on

the current political crisis, was a Henry Clay Whig. He was also one of the most influential men

in the church—the president of Cumberland University’s board of directors and cofounder of its

41 Philadelphia National Enquirer reprinted in “The Washington Rioters,” Boston Liberator, November 26, 1836, p. 191; “Mr. Gould in Pennsylvania,” Utica (N.Y.) Friend of Man, August 4, 1836, p. 25 (quotation); John L. Myers, “The Early Antislavery Agency System in Pennsylvania, 1833–1837,” Pennsylvania History, 31 (January 1964), 73–74. 42 GA Minutes (CPC), 1848: 12–13 (quotations on 13). Also see Milton Bird, “A Voice to the Parents of Our Country,” Theological Medium, 1st ser., 1 (December 1845), 88–89; and Donnell, Thoughts on Various Subjects, 175–76.

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law school, a man who had served as a Tennessee attorney general, spent one term each as a

Tennessee and then a U.S. representative, and in 1852 was appointed to the Tennessee Supreme

Court. On Caruthers’s motion, the General Assembly affirmed that “the preservation of the

union” was “essential to the civil and religious liberty of the people,” and that Cumberland

Presbyterians had a special role in preserving the union since their church had arisen “within the

limits of the United States of America, and that soon after the blood of our revolutionary fathers

had ceased to flow.” Moreover, the General Assembly denounced “attempts from any quarter to

dissolve the Union,” which would prove “hazardous to the cause of religion as well as civil

liberty.” Threatening the union of the American nation meant hindering the progress of the

gospel.43

The 1850 resolution did not single out abolitionists as enemies of union. In fact,

Caruthers may well have been angrier with southern Democrats at the time. Just a few weeks

after the General Assembly, delegates from nine southern states met in Nashville to debate what

to do if slavery were banned in the western territories, and many, including one Jefferson Davis,

called for secession. But the fact that the resolution condemned “attempts from any quarter to

dissolve the Union,” when very few abolitionists were actually calling for secession, implied that

abolitionism was itself a threat to union.44

The events of the decade seemed to vindicate Cumberland Presbyterians’ fears about

abolitionism and what it meant for the American union. Far from being pacified by the

Compromise of 1850, abolitionists were outraged by it, especially by its inclusion of a new

fugitive slave law that required northern citizens to cooperate in returning runaway slaves to their

43 GA Minutes (CPC), 1850: 13. 44 Ibid. (my italics).

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owners. And as the political climate intensified, antislavery radicals became louder in their

demands on the church. They grew tired of church leaders’ neutrality on what they regarded as

the great moral question of their time. In the case of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, critics

within and without the denomination chipped away at the church’s presentation of itself as

western, white, and moderate. They questioned whether the project of the Christian nation was

worth the sacrifice that abstaining from the slavery debate entailed. After all, for many

Cumberland Presbyterians, especially those owned by other Cumberland Presbyterians, not

taking a side on the slavery question was in fact taking a side.

CHAPTER 4: THE BODY AND BLOOD, 1850–1860

In September 1905 some men were clearing a cornfield on Nehemiah Clarke’s farm when

a mule got one of its feet stuck in a strange hole. The men dug into the hole and uncovered some

sort of brick vault; they thought they had found treasure. When they opened the vault, however,

they found a little wooden casket containing the remains of a child. The men looked on the child

for a few moments and then covered up the vault. Nehemiah Clarke knew nothing about the

grave, and the land had only had one previous owner, who was long dead and whose nephew,

now a local judge, had no idea who the child might be.1

Half a century earlier, the Cumberland Presbyterian Church was trying in vain to keep the

slavery question dead and buried. The General Assembly’s vague resolution in 1850 against

disunion did little to silence the great moral problem of the day. And despite the church’s

powerful anti-abolitionist consensus, there were enough abolitionists to make occasional trouble,

especially when they used outside channels like the abolitionist press. A series of controversies

throughout the 1850s—a round of abolitionist petitions to the General Assembly, the

machinations of Indiana Presbytery against three abolitionist ministers, the migration of a

slaveholding minister to Minnesota, and legal dealings involving a bequest to the church—

exposed weaknesses in the story Cumberland Presbyterians told about themselves. In the midst

of these controversies, critics deflated many of the church’s most important claims; they argued

that the church was actually a southern church and only superficially a western one, that the

church was not at its core a white church but was in fact built on the back of enslaved black

labor, and that there was in fact no middle ground on the slavery issue—that the Cumberland

Presbyterian Church was a proslavery church.

1 “Found Dead Child in Vault,” St. Cloud (Minn.) Journal-Press, September 21, 1905, p. 7.

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The critiques lodged at the Cumberland Presbyterian Church in the 1850s presaged

arguments made by recent historians about the antebellum United States generally. They have

posited that moderate antislavery politics, because it sought to reform or ameliorate slavery

rather than eradicate it, actually bolstered the proslavery argument that slavery was not

inherently evil—that it was, in other words, reformable.2 Historians have also come to better

understand how vital enslaved labor was not only to the southern plantation economy but also to

the industrial, agricultural, and financial economies of the North. Though disagreement remains

whether slavery was capitalistic per se, few deny that the revenue and products produced by

enslaved labor, and the loans backed by enslaved bodies as collateral, helped make the modern

American economy possible. The economic growth of the American church was not exempt

from this fact.3 Finally, historians have questioned whether the North and the South had indeed

2 John Patrick Daly, When Slavery Was Called Freedom: Evangelicalism, Proslavery, and the Causes of the Civil War (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2002); Irons, Origins of Proslavery Christianity; Harlow, Religion, Race, and the Making of Confederate Kentucky. 3 The literature on slavery’s relationship to capitalism is vast, but recent major works include Seth Rockman, Scraping By: Wage Labor, Slavery, and Survival in Early Baltimore (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009); Joshua D. Rothman, Flush Times and Fever Dreams: A Story of Capitalism and Slavery in the Age of Jackson (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2012); Walter Johnson, River of Dark Dreams: Slavery and Empire in the Cotton Kingdom (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2013); Edward E. Baptist, The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism (New York: Basic Books, 2014); Sven Beckert, Empire of Cotton: A Global History (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2014); Calvin Schermerhorn, The Business of Slavery and the Rise of American Capitalism, 1815–1860 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2015); and Sven Beckert and Seth Rockman, eds., Slavery’s Capitalism: A New History of American Economic Development (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016). Notable reflections on this work and the question of slavery and capitalism include Walter Johnson, “The Pedestal and the Veil: Rethinking the Capitalism/ Slavery Question,” Journal of the Early Republic, 24 (Summer 2004), 299–308; “Interchange: The History of Capitalism,” Journal of American History, 101 (September 2014), 503–36; Allen C. Guelzo, “Slavery All the Way Down,” Claremont Review of Books, 15 (Spring 2015), 56–60; Scott Reynolds Nelson, “Who Put Their Capitalism in My Slavery?,” Journal of the Civil War Era, 5 (June 2015), 289–310; and “Roundtable of Reviews for The Half Has Never Been Told,” Journal of Economic History, 75 (September 2015), 919–31. The ur-text for this scholarship,

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become fundamentally distinct societies by the Civil War. In addition to the economic ties

engendered by slavery, the North and South shared a broad commitment to white supremacy, and

few valued freedom for African Americans above harmony among whites. Examining how

slavery undercut the story Cumberland Presbyterians told about themselves and the Christian

nation helps us see how the institution undercut many of America’s chief claims, above all that

the South was an anomaly in what was actually a land of the free.4

despite its focus on the British Caribbean, is Eric Williams, Capitalism and Slavery (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1944), particularly the first half. Also looming in the background is Eugene D. Genovese, whose The Political Economy of Slavery: Studies in the Economy and Society of the Slave South (New York: Pantheon, 1965) made an influential Marxist case that antebellum slavery was pre-capitalistic. 4 Much of this work, like mine, focuses on the American middle region of the upper South and the lower Midwest: Edward L. Ayers, In the Presence of Mine Enemies: The Civil War in the Heart of America, 1859–1863 (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 2003); Matthew Salafia, Slavery’s Borderland: Freedom and Bondage Along the Ohio River (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013); Bridget Ford, Bonds of Union: Religion, Race, and Politics in a Civil War Borderland (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2016); Christopher Phillips, The Rivers Ran Backward: The Civil War and the Remaking of the American Middle Border (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016). For a counterpoint, see Stanley Harrold, Border War: Fighting over Slavery before the Civil War (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2010). In some ways this scholarship echoes the revisionist school of the early twentieth century, which posited that differences between the North and South were not so great as to make civil war inevitable. Two representative essays from this school are Avery Craven, “Coming of the War Between the States: An Interpretation,” Journal of Southern History, 2 (August 1936), 303–22; and J. G. Randall, “The Stumbling Generation,” Mississippi Valley Historical Review, 27 (June 1940), 3–28. For an excellent analysis of the revisionist school, see Thomas N. Bonner, “Civil War Historians and the ‘Needless War’ Doctrine,” Journal of the History of Ideas, 17 (April 1956), 193–216. Eric Foner made an influential case that the antebellum North and South were indeed fundamentally different societies in “The Causes of the American Civil War: Recent Interpretations and New Directions,” Civil War History, 20 (September 1974), 197–214. Recent calls for a new revisionism include Gary J. Kornblith, “Rethinking the Coming of the Civil War: A Counterfactual Exercise,” Journal of American History, 90 (June 2003), 76–105; and Edward L. Ayers, “What Caused the Civil War?,” in What Caused the Civil War?: Reflections on the South and Southern History (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 2005), 131–44.

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Though the Compromise of 1850 alleviated fears that the United States was on the brink

of disunion, it did nothing to temper abolitionist zeal. Indeed, the Fugitive Slave Act included in

the compromise made abolitionists or at least vocal opponents of slavery out of northerners who

had previously been neutral on the issue. Beforehand—despite the mills that made cloth out of

southern cotton, the banks that grew rich off of slave-backed loans, and the farms that sold

produce to southern plantations—it was easier for northerners to think of slavery as limited to the

borders of the South, an institution which they only needed to limit the expansion of and

patiently allow to die where it already existed. This was a harder belief to hold when the Fugitive

Slave Act required northerners to cooperate in the retrieval and return of black people who had

escaped to freedom. Slavery looked increasingly like a national institution, not a southern one,

and an antislavery backlash ensued.

This was why, six months after the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act, Robert Donnell

wrote David Lowry, “I tremble for our approaching General Assembly.”5 It did not help that the

General Assembly was meeting that year in Pittsburgh; southwestern Pennsylvania was, after all,

home to the denomination’s most vocal faction of abolitionists. Donnell’s fears were confirmed a

week or so later when a group of abolitionist Cumberland Presbyterians met at the Bethel

congregation in Washington County, Pennsylvania, and issued the strongest attack on slavery in

the denomination’s history. One of the group’s main leaders was the minister James Henry

Dickey Henderson. Henderson knew first-hand the evil of slavery, having been born in Kentucky

and then spent most of his life in Missouri. He was also, for a time, a slaveholder; in 1845, two

years before slavery was abolished in Pennsylvania, he became the last person to register a slave

5 Donnell to Lowry, March 6, 1851, in Lowry, Life and Labors of the Late Rev. Robert Donnell, 91.

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(a nine-year-old mulatto girl named Harriet) in Washington County. Now, six years later,

Henderson and four other Cumberland Presbyterians introduced a series of resolutions that not

only named slavery a great evil but also called out the denomination’s complicity in that evil.6

The first resolution made it clear that the Cumberland Presbyterians gathered at the

Bethel church had no patience for antislavery politics that called for anything short of immediate

abolition. Slavery was, they said, incompatible “both with the dictates of humanity and religion.”

This echoed Pennsylvania Synod’s 1847 resolution that “the system of Slavery, in the United

States, is contrary to the principles of the Gospel [and] hinders the progress thereof,” but it went

a few steps further. The Pennsylvania Synod resolution was careful not to condemn slavery

itself, which would have breached a commonsense reading of scripture, but rather condemned

slavery as practiced “in the United States”—a qualifier common among antislavery evangelicals.

The Bethel resolution did not use that qualifier. Also, while Pennsylvania Synod did say that

American slavery “ought to be abolished,” the Bethel convention spoke in more immediate

terms, deeming it “the duty of all Christians” to work as hard they could and “as speedily as

possible” to “wipe out this blot” from Christendom. The language of immediacy countered the

church’s majority consensus that the institution of slavery could be reformed and that slavery

6 “Bethel, Washington County, Penn.,” Washington (D.C.) National Era, March 20, 1851, p. 48; A. G. Walling, comp., Illustrated History of Lane County, Oregon (Portland, Ore.: A. G. Walling, 1884), 483; Washington County (Penn.) Negro Register, 1782–1851, p. 82, Pennsylvania State Archives, Harrisburg, online at phmc.state.pa.us/bah/dam/rg/di/r47-SlaveRecords/r47-SlaveRecords-Washington/r47-SlaveRecords-WashingtonInterface.htm. It is exceedingly unclear how Harriet came to be in Pennsylvania. The slave register records she was born in Marion County, Kentucky, in 1835, but Pennsylvania law prohibited slaves from being brought to the state after 1780.

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was somehow part of God’s plan to Christianize the African race. No; slavery was a “blot” on

the Christian faith and should be removed as soon as possible.7

The second resolution hinted at how more urgent and immediate the Fugitive Slave Act

had made the slavery question for many northerners. Since “the world is the broad theatre of

Christian action,” the Bethel convention stated, “we discard and utterly repudiate the sentiment

that localizes and geographically bounds moral obligation and Christian duty.” The convention

was anticipating the criticism that Cumberland Presbyterians in Pennsylvania had no business

condemning an institution that did not even exist in their state; their rebuttal was that their duties

as Christians did not end at the boundary of Pennsylvania, especially if they belonged in the

same denomination as Christians in Mississippi. After all, the evils of slavery certainly did not

stop at the Ohio or the Mason-Dixon line.8

The third resolution shifted the focus from the evil of slavery to the complicity of

slaveholders and the Cumberland Presbyterian Church as a whole. The Bethel convention

lamented “the pro-slavery character” of their denomination, puncturing the church’s claim of

neutrality on the slavery issue. Though they did not directly reference it, their main objection

was likely to the General Assembly’s resolution in 1848 that lower judicatories should not speak

out on the slavery question, which would only divide the church and “hinder the progress of the

Gospel.” The Bethel convention implied that this coerced neutrality only served to enable the

institution of slavery. They would not remain neutral. They could not, if they were to stay

faithful to God, “refrain from expostulating with the slaveholding members of our church” and

7 “Bethel, Washington County, Penn.,” Washington National Era, March 20, 1851, p. 48 (first and fifth through eighth quotations); GA Minutes (CPC), 1848: 13 (second through fourth quotations). 8 “Bethel, Washington County, Penn.,” Washington National Era, March 20, 1851, p. 48.

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urging them to emancipate their slaves. The Bethel convention therefore rejected not only the

boundaries imposed by geography but also the boundaries on discourse imposed by the General

Assembly.9

But they would not merely expostulate with Cumberland Presbyterian slaveholders. The

Bethel convention proposed, in its fourth and fifth resolutions, something far more drastic: to

petition the General Assembly “for the final removal of slaveholding from her communion.”

Barring someone from communion and church membership was no small thing. It was reserved

for sins so heinous that, if the sinner were allowed to remain in communion, it would make the

church itself appear sinful; excommunication’s purpose, in other words, was “to keep the

character of the Church unblemished in the eye of mankind.” Indeed, it was a sin not to

excommunicate someone whose sin was a blemish on the church, and it was a sin even to share

communion with those who ought to be excommunicated. When the Bethel convention called for

the excommunication of slaveholders, they not only implied that slaveholding was a heinous sin;

they also implied that the Cumberland Presbyterian Church was committing a grave sin in

communing with unrepentant slaveholders.10

It was ambiguous what excommunication meant for the excommunicated sinner’s soul.

Cumberland Presbyterians did not have clear teaching on the matter. But an examination of the

main texts assigned to theology students at Cumberland University suggests the excommunicated

9 “Bethel, Washington County, Penn.,” Washington National Era, March 20, 1851, p. 48 (first and third quotations); GA Minutes (CPC), 1848: 13 (second quotation). 10 “Bethel, Washington County, Penn.,” Washington National Era, March 20, 1851, p. 48 (first quotation); Timothy Dwight, Theology; Explained and Defended, in a Series of Sermons (5 vols.; Middletown, Conn.: Clark and Lyman, 1818–1819), 397–98 (second quotation on 397); Jonathan Edwards, “The Nature and End of Excommunication,” Practical Sermons, Never Before Published (Edinburgh: M. Gray, 1788), 386–401, esp. 390, 397–98; Paul Chang-ha Lim, In Pursuit of Purity, Unity, and Liberty: Richard Baxter’s Puritan Ecclesiology in Its Seventeenth-Century Context (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 84–114.

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were “to be treated as belonging to the visible kingdom of Satan.” Jonathan Edwards explained

that if the excommunicated person did not repent, Christ would “for ever reject and damn him.”

This did not mean, however, that God had damned someone who had already been saved, which

would have been contrary to the Cumberland Presbyterian doctrine of the perseverance of the

saints. Instead, argued the Yale theologian Timothy Dwight, excommunication had exposed

someone as an unconverted sinner.11

Cumberland Presbyterians certainly believed barring someone from communion had

grave implications when they castigated Baptists, Stone-Campbellites, and others who practiced

closed communion, only allowing other Baptists, other Stone-Campbellites, etc., to partake of

the bread and wine. Finis Ewing reasoned that “if a man be not fit for the Lord’s table, he is not

fit for heaven.” After all, if the doctrinal differences between the various evangelical

denominations were not “so essential as to exclude us from heaven, why would we be excluded

from the Lord’s table?” Though Ewing did not make it explicit, if it were true that those allowed

in heaven ought to be allowed at the communion table, then those who were rightfully barred

from communion were also barred from heaven. James Smith, who had likely read Ewing’s

lecture on closed communion, echoed his logic in 1835 when he asked the American Anti-

Slavery Society, which had recently called upon churches to excommunicate slaveholders, why,

if slaveholders in the early Christian church “now make up a part of the communion of saints

above, ought Christian slave-holders to be debarred from the communion of saints below?”

Smith’s question hinted at another problem with the excommunication of slaveholders, which

11 Edwards, “Nature and End of Excommunication,” Practical Sermons, 386–401 (first quotation on 389, third quotation on 397); Dwight, Theology, 5:163–64; Lim, In Pursuit of Purity, Unity, and Liberty, 84–114. The theology textbooks were listed in GA Minutes (CPC), 1854: 67–68.

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was that it held Christians to a higher standard than Christ and his apostles had. Such a standard

seemed to elevate the abolitionist to a perch higher than Christ himself.12

The Bethel convention’s bold call for the abolition of slavery and the excommunication

of slaveholders was quickly disseminated, not least because the convention published its

proceedings in the National Era, an abolitionist paper in Washington, D.C. To the great dismay

of many Cumberland Presbyterians, news of the convention made its way into the southern press,

at least as far as Columbus, Mississippi.13 Union Presbytery, the bulk of which was in Fayette

County, Pennsylvania, castigated the Bethel convention for seeking to “meddle with negro

slavery” and “obstruct the laws of the land.” The presbytery invoked the Golden Rule, reasoning

that if the abolitionists of Washington County owned slaves, and if those slaves escaped to

freedom, that they would want their slaves returned to them; it was only fitting, therefore, that

they do unto others as they would have done unto them.14 One of the members of the Bethel

convention, likely James H. D. Henderson, then lambasted Union Presbytery in the National Era.

He detected “a strong smell of Popery” in the presbytery’s resolutions because they claimed he

12 Ewing, Lectures on Important Subjects in Divinity, 3rd ed. (Louisville: Cumberland Presbyterian Board of Publication, 1854), 313 (first and second quotations); [James Smith], “Abolition Mania,” Nashville Cumberland Presbyterian, July 22, 1835, p. 2 (third quotation). Also see [Donnell], Miscellaneous Thoughts, 3, 11; Donnell, Thoughts on Various Subjects, 189; and Milton Bird, “A Voice to the Parents of Our Country,” Theological Medium, 1st ser., 1 (January 1846), 89. 13 The convention resolved that its proceedings be submitted for publication in the National Era, the Cumberland Presbyterian (which despite its name was a small church paper in Brownsville, Pennsylvania), “and all others friendly to the cause.” It is worth noting that the convention did not mention the Banner of Peace, the de facto church organ published in Nashville. “Bethel, Washington County, Penn.,” Washington National Era, March 20, 1851, p. 48. The proceedings were reprinted in “Bethel, Washington County, Penn.,” Columbus (Miss.) Southern Standard, April 12, 1851, p. [4]. They were also reprinted in the Baltimore Sun; “Resolutions of the Union Presbytery,” Washington National Era, May 29, 1851, p. 85. 14 “Resolutions of the Union Presbytery,” Washington National Era, May 29, 1851, p. 85.

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had no right to express the “honest convictions” he had arrived at through prayer and reading of

the scriptures. “Have we no right,” he asked, “to express our views of the moral character of the

institution of slavery?” He closed by mocking the presbytery’s invocation of the Golden Rule,

comparing it to Satan’s use of scriptural passages when he tempted Christ.15

When the General Assembly met in 1851 in Pittsburgh (roughly thirty miles northeast of

the Bethel congregation), the moderator was presented with the Bethel convention’s petition and

five other similar petitions from Cumberland Presbyterians in Pennsylvania and Ohio, altogether

signed by around 150 people.16 The General Assembly committee tasked with answering the

petitions sided firmly with the moderate consensus. It affirmed that slaves were “rational and

accountable beings,” and that slaveholders should “affor[d] them . . . the means of grace,” but the

committee did not believe the petitioners’ call for the abolition of slavery was under the church’s

purview. “The Church of God is a spiritual body,” not a political body, argued the committee,

and abolition was a matter of “civil rather than ecclesiastical legislation.” The church had “no

power to legislate upon subjects on which Christ, and his apostles, did not legislate,” which was

precisely what excommunicating slaveholders would amount to. Moreover, what the abolitionists

were calling for would be disastrous for the project of the Christian nation. It would divide the

Cumberland Presbyterian Church along the same sectional lines that the Methodists and the

Baptists had been divided, making it a poor model for American Christendom. It would make

slaveholders distrustful of any efforts to reform the institution of slavery and thereby ruin any

chance that God could use the institution to Christianize the African. The results would be such

15 Ibid. (quotations). Henderson later signed two articles in the National Era, both titled “Thomas Rubey”; June 5, 1851, pp. 89–90, August 14, 1851, p. 131. He has also previously edited a newspaper in Missouri; Walling, comp., Illustrated History of Lane County, Oregon, 483. 16 GA Minutes (CPC), 1851: 16.

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as “to be deprecated by every true patriot, and Christian.” The General Assembly endorsed the

committee’s response.17

This was the last time until the Civil War that the slavery debate came to the General

Assembly. The handful of abolitionists in the church did not try again to force the issue upon the

highest judicatory in the church. In the face of increasing opposition in his own congregation—

and unwilling to resettle in the slave state of Missouri—James H. D. Henderson and his family

moved to the Oregon territory in 1853. (Henderson later spent one term in the U.S. House, and it

was on land purchased from him that the University of Oregon was established.)18 But the

criticisms lobbed at the Cumberland Presbyterian Church—what the Bethel convention went so

far as to call a “pro-slavery” church—did not go away.19 As quiet as things may have appeared at

the annual General Assembly, the problem of slavery—and the challenge it presented to

Cumberland Presbyterian identity and the myth of the Christian nation—remained.

“I am connected with the underground railroad & I do not care who knows it.” Thus

proclaimed the minister Thomas B. McCormick at the fall 1854 meeting of Indiana Presbytery,

three years after the General Assembly thought it had settled the slavery question once and for

all. McCormick claimed to have helped twenty slaves escape from nearby Union County,

Kentucky, and another fifteen from Henderson County. What was more, he knew “all the

stopping places on the way, and the other persons who helped them,” though he was not about to

divulge this information. If any of McCormick’s fellow ministers were not yet shocked, they

17 Ibid., 55–57 (quotations on 56). 18 Walling, comp., Illustrated History of Lane County, Oregon, 483; J. J. Walton, “A Brief History of the Establishment and Location of the University of Oregon at Eugene,” Quarterly of the Oregon Historical Society, 7 (June 1906), 150. 19 “Bethel, Washington County, Penn.,” National Era, March 20, 1851, p. 48.

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surely were when he implied that some of the slaves he had helped escape to freedom had been

the property of another Cumberland Presbyterian minister, the well-known Joel Lambert of

Henderson, Kentucky—“Uncle Joel,” as one minister called him when he testified what

happened the next year.20

McCormick was one of many antislavery preachers who had been slowly radicalized over

the years. He had grown up in Todd County, Kentucky, where more than a third of population

was enslaved, but his own parents were not slaveholders and taught him that slavery was wrong.

He was not, however, an abolitionist, and instead supported colonization. After preaching for

half a dozen years in Kentucky, he moved north to Princeton, Indiana, in part because of his

opposition to slavery. He began preaching “more freely against Slavery” than he had before,

likely emboldened by the burgeoning abolitionist movement and the incipient proslavery

backlash.21 He may have also become a bit of a heretic, thereby confirming fears that the loose

reading of scripture required by abolitionism opened the door to further unorthodoxy. In

November 1853, Indiana Presbytery charged McCormick with teaching that infants were born

without original sin, that some mentally ill people did not have souls, that Jesus never changed

water into wine, and that the “spirit rappings” (knocking sounds which the Fox sisters of

Hydeville, New York, had claimed were communications from the spirit world, sparking a media

20 Minutes of Indiana Presbytery, May 30, 1855, pp. 174–77 (first and second quotations on 175, third quotation on 174). 21 “Humanity Pronounced a Crime by an Ecclesiastical Tribunal,” Washington National Era, November 22, 1855, p. 188 (quotation); Minutes of the Thirty-fifth Annual Meeting of the General Association of Congregational Churches and Ministers of Indiana, Held with the Congregational Church of Ridgeville, May 10–12, 1893 (Indianapolis: Carlon & Hollenbeck, 1893), 19; census data on Todd County accessed via Lincoln Mullen, “The Spread of U.S. Slavery, 1790–1860,” interactive map, http://lincolnmullen.com/projects/slavery.

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sensation) were somehow a fulfillment of the book of Revelation. The charges were lifted but

only on a technicality.22

The relationship between McCormick and his fellow ministers became especially fraught

after the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854. McCormick’s colleagues began to warn

him that slavery “was a political question” and not a fit subject for the pulpit. He also drew

suspicion for his ties to two men who had been arrested separately in Henderson, Kentucky, on

the suspicion of helping runaway slaves: Thomas Brown, upon whose arrest his wife and

daughters fled north to Princeton and were befriended by McCormick; and Eli Bryant of

Evansville, whose wife asked McCormick for legal assistance after Bryant was imprisoned for

more than six months without a trial. Based on the sermons McCormick preached and the

company he kept, it increasingly looked like he could be part of an abolitionist conspiracy to

smuggle slaves across the Ohio.23

Then McCormick confirmed people’s suspicions outright during his sermon at the

Indiana Presbytery meeting in August 1854: “I am connected with the underground railroad & I

do not care who knows it.” What drove him to do this? It is hard to know for sure, but it may

have had to do with something that happened just a month before, when an enslaved man was

found dead in a field in Henderson. The Louisville Daily Courier reported that the man died of

sunstroke, but an abolitionist paper in Ohio claimed this was not the full story—that the man’s

owner had knocked him down with a six-foot-long whip and then given him “more than a

22 Minutes of Indiana Presbytery, November 2–23, 1853, pp. 128–49 (esp. 130). 23 “Humanity Pronounced a Crime by an Ecclesiastical Tribunal,” Washington National Era, November 22, 1855, p. 188.

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hundred lashes.” The verdict of death was, the abolitionist paper alleged, both “over heating and

imprudent whipping.”24

The man who had allegedly whipped his slave to a pulp and left him to die in a field was

the Cumberland Presbyterian minister Joel Lambert: “Uncle Joel.” A month later, when

McCormick told Indiana Presbytery about his work in the underground railroad, he mentioned

that Lambert had recently “lost Negroes, That they were safe in Canada, & that [Lambert] could

never get them.”25 Perhaps the murder in Henderson provoked some of Lambert’s slaves to

escape; perhaps the escape had already occurred and Lambert was inflicting retribution on

someone he thought had conspired with them. Or perhaps the slave’s death was unrelated to the

escape but provoked McCormick to speak out.

In any case, McCormick managed to alienate most of his fellow ministers. In direct

response to his sermon, Indiana Presbytery resolved that it was “not expedient to discuss the

question of American Slavery from the pulpit.” Seventeen ministers voted for the resolution;

only McCormick and the brothers Lewis and Levin Wilson voted against it. Lewis Wilson asked

what the consequence would be for disobeying the resolution; trial for heresy was the answer.

But McCormick and the Wilson brothers ignored the resolution and decried it as a “gag rule,”

alluding to the U.S. House resolutions that prohibited the discussion of anti-slavery petitions.

The three men continued preaching against slavery, and at the next presbytery meeting in the

spring of 1855 one of the Wilson brothers moved that slavery be declared “a great moral evil,

contrary to the spirit of the Gospel.” The resolution went nowhere. Instead the presbytery

24 Minutes of Indiana Presbytery, May 30, 1855, p. 175 (first quotation); Louisville Daily Courier, July 14, 1854, p. 2; “The Institution—A Recent Case,” Lisbon Anti-Slavery Bugle, August 19, 1854, p. 2 (second and third quotations). 25 Minutes of Indiana Presbytery, May 30, 1855, pp. 174–77 (first quotation on 174, second quotation on 175).

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deferred to the General Assembly’s resolution of 1851 and warned that further “agitation of the

subject” might “result in severing the body of Jesus Christ.” In protest, the Wilson brothers and

McCormick withdrew from the presbytery. Indiana Presbytery agreed to write letters of

dismission for the Wilsons but refused to let McCormick get off as easily. Instead, it held a

special meeting in May and charged him with “unchristian conduct”—specifically, helping

fugitive slaves in violation of the law. After hearing testimony from several preachers, the

presbytery suspended McCormick from the ministry. McCormick and the Lewis brothers formed

an independent presbytery, forsaking communion with slaveholders or the abettors of

slaveholders and invoking, among others, a passage from Exodus: “He that stealeth a man and

selleth him . . . shall surely be put to death.”26

In addition to angering ministers in southern Indiana, McCormick had also made some

powerful enemies across the river in Henderson. Joel Lambert was, after all, not only a minister;

he was also the acting sheriff of Henderson and lived next-door to another man whose slaves

McCormick claimed to have helped run away—Alexander Buchanan Barret, one of the

wealthiest and most powerful tobacco merchants in the world. Henderson had become a tobacco

hub in large thanks to Barret’s tobacco stemmeries, factories where enslaved workers separated

the stem from the large leaf of the tobacco plant. Besides living next-door to each other, Barret

and Lambert were in business together; they were co-incorporators of the (never finished)

26 Minutes of Indiana Presbytery, August 31, 1854, pp. 161–62 (first quotation on 161); A Declaration of Principles and Church Policy, of the Independent Presbyterians (Evansville, Ind.: Daily Journal Office, 1855), 4–6, 20–23 (second quotation on 5); “Humanity Pronounced a Crime by an Ecclesiastical Tribunal,” Washington National Era, November 22, 1855, p. 188 (third quotation); Minutes of Indiana Presbytery, April 2–4, May 30, 1855, pp. 168–71, 174–78 (fourth quotation on 168, fifth quotation on 168–69, sixth quotation on 174); Exodus 21:16 quoted in Declaration of Principles and Church Policy, 21.

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Henderson & Paducah Railroad. Another incorporator of the railroad was Lazarus W. Powell, a

prominent lawyer and tobacco planter from Henderson—and the governor of Kentucky. The

Henderson & Paducah was incorporated in March 1854, just a few months before McCormick

proclaimed his membership in the underground railroad.27

It was likely due to the influence of McCormick’s powerful enemies, in addition to the

rumormongering of a Kentucky minister who had attended the April 1855 meeting of Indiana

Presbytery, that McCormick landed in legal trouble. Just a few weeks after he withdrew from the

Cumberland Presbyterian Church, a grand jury in Union County, Kentucky, indicted him for the

“abducting and stealing of slaves,” and the circuit court issued a warrant for his arrest. Governor

Powell requested Joseph Wright, the governor of Indiana, to allow for the extradition of

McCormick, and Wright agreed. McCormick fled. He remained a fugitive for years, unable to

see his wife and children without risking (as he wrote) “being dragged as a felon into the land of

manacles and bowie-knives.” He did not return to Indiana until 1862.28

27 Edmund L. Starling, History of Henderson County, Kentucky (Henderson, Ky.: n.p., 1887), 797, 803–4; 1850 U.S. Census, Henderson County, Kentucky, p. 550; 1850 U.S. Census, Slave Schedule, Henderson County, Kentucky, pp. 487–88; John Michael Crane Jr., “Slavery on the Edge of Freedom: The Lower Ohio River Valley in the Antebellum and Civil War Era” (Ph.D. diss., Vanderbilt University, 2009), 61–65, 68–74; Acts of the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Kentucky, at the Session Which Was Begun and Held in the City of Frankfort, on Saturday the 31st of December, 1853, and Ended Friday the 10th of March, 1854 (2 vols.; Frankfort, Ky.: A. G. Hodges, 1854), 2:578–84. 28 “Humanity Pronounced a Crime by an Ecclesiastical Tribunal,” Washington National Era, November 22, 1855, p. 188 (quotations); Minutes of the Thirty-fifth Annual Meeting of the General Association of Congregational Churches and Ministers of Indiana, 19. McCormick alleged that a Kentucky minister who attended the April 1855 meeting then returned home and spread rumors about McCormick, leading to the grand jury indictment. In attendance at the April 1855 meeting was the minister William C. McGehee, who was a member of Anderson Presbytery—Joel Lambert’s presbytery. “Humanity Pronounced a Crime by an Ecclesiastical Tribunal,” Washington National Era, November 22, 1855, p. 188; Minutes of Indiana Presbytery, March 31, 1855, p. 164.

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News spread of how McCormick had been treated by both church and state. The

Louisville Daily Courier’s coverage of the story was picked up by the abolitionist papers and

even several British papers, many of whom expressed disbelief that Indiana Presbytery had

deemed McCormick’s assistance to runaway slaves “unchristian conduct.”29 Meanwhile, a

Nashville paper hoped other northern churches would “profit by this example” and weed out any

lawbreaking abolitionists in their midst. A North Carolina paper simply ran the headline: “A

Good Sign.”30 Interest continued to grow after McCormick wrote a letter to the New York Daily

Tribune detailing his persecution. The Tribune rebuked the claim that McCormick was guilty of

“unchristian conduct,” arguing that he was only obeying the Golden Rule when he aided fugitive

slaves. The paper was further disgusted that the governor of Indiana agreed to let McCormick be

extradited. Why was it, the Tribune asked, that a citizen of Indiana “who had not touched the soil

of Kentucky” could be extradited to Kentucky for doing something that violated Kentucky’s law

but not Indiana’s? After all, it was illegal to own slaves in Indiana—why couldn’t a Kentucky

slaveholder be extradited to Indiana? McCormick’s travails were another piece of evidence that

the “Slave oligarchy” would not be satisfied until it wielded full “despotism” over all the

inhabitants of free states.31

29 “A Minister Suspended,” Louisville Daily Courier, September 29, 1855, p. 1; “A Minister Suspended,” Rochester (N.Y.) Frederick Douglass’ Paper, October 26, 1855, p. 3; “A Church Development,” Lisbon Anti-Slavery Bugle, November 3, 1855, p. 3; “News in Brief,” Norwich Norfolk News, October 27, 1855, p. 6; “‘Unchristian’ Conduct,” Huddersfield Chronicle and West Yorkshire Advertiser, October 27, 1855, p. 8; “‘Unchristian’ Conduct,” Lewes Sussex Advertiser, Surry Gazette and West Kent Courier, October 30, 1855, p. 3. 30 “A Minister Suspended,” Daily Nashville Patriot, November 3, 1855, p. 2; “A Good Sign,” Wilmington (N.C.) Daily Journal, October 13, 1855, p. 2. 31 “Slavery in a Free State,” New York Daily Tribune, November 1, 1855, p. 4.

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While the Tribune focused its criticism on the governors of Kentucky and Indiana, other

papers were more focused on McCormick’s denomination. A Milwaukee paper declared that the

“infamous Cumberland Presbyterians, should, and will, receive the just execrations of every

lover of truth and justice, of religion and humanity, of God and man.” The Lisbon (Ohio) Anti-

Slavery Bugle, which had also reported on Lambert’s murder of one of his slaves, was especially

critical of the church, which it deemed “one of the most pro-slavery Churches in the land.” When

Indiana Presbytery suspended McCormick from the ministry, the Bugle remarked that it was “an

act altogether worthy of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church.” A couple of months later, when

the Bugle came across a story of several successful Cumberland Presbyterian camp-meetings in

Tennessee, it reminded readers of the McCormick incident and wondered what effect if any the

camp-meetings would have on how the worshipers treated their human chattel: “Alas for the

slaves, when their masters rob and flog them with solemn faces and hypocritical prayers.”

Though most Cumberland Presbyterians considered themselves nobly moderate on the slavery

issue, the Bugle argued that their mistreatment of abolitionists like McCormick made them

enemies of freedom and friends to the slaveocracy. For abolitionists, there was no moderate

position on the slavery question. If a church did all it could to avoid controversy, it was in fact

aligning itself with slaveholders. If a church forbade the discussion of slavery in its pulpit, if it

prohibited its members from aiding slaves seeking freedom, if it held the laws of slave states in a

higher regard than the laws of free states—then it was a proslavery church.32

32 “Slavery in Indiana,” Milwaukee Daily Free Democrat, November 21, 1855, p. 2 (first quotation); “Cumberland Presbyterian Church,” Lisbon Anti-Slavery Bugle, November 4, 1854, p. 1 (second quotation); “A Church Development,” Lisbon Anti-Slavery Bugle, November 3, 1855, p. 3 (third quotation); “Revivals among the Slaveholders,” Lisbon Anti-Slavery Bugle, January 5, 1856, p. 2 (fourth quotation).

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Some critics of the church undercut one of its most cherished narratives: that it was a

truly national, rather than a northern or southern, church. The Anti-Slavery Bugle pointed out the

majority of the church was in the South—“almost exclusively in the slave states”—and that “the

leaven” of the South was “pretty thoroughly worked into the” denomination’s northern

congregations. A similar point was made a few years later by the Southern Methodist minister

John B. McFerrin. Though he was far from an abolitionist, McFerrin had little patience with

Cumberland Presbyterians who boasted they had not been divided on the slavery question. Their

continued unity was, he wrote, “easily accounted for”: “Most of their churches lie in the

slaveholding States, and where they exist in any of the free States, they were planted by ministers

from the South.” According to McFerrin and the abolitionist press, the Cumberland Presbyterian

Church was, despite its pretenses that it transcended the sectional divide, for all intents and

purposes a southern church.33

There was truth to what these critics said. In 1860 around eighty percent of Cumberland

Presbyterians lived in slave states. Sixty-nine of the church’s ninety-seven presbyteries, and

seventeen of its twenty-four synods, were in slave states.34 The church’s largest newspaper was

published in Nashville, and thirty miles east was the church’s flagship university. By 1860 the

General Assembly had only convened three times in the North, and each of those times it met

within thirty miles of a slave state.35 The church had, after all, tracked the migration of former

33 “A Church Development,” Lisbon Anti-Slavery Bugle, November 3, 1855, p. 3 (first quotation); “Cumberland Presbyterian Church,” Lisbon Anti-Slavery Bugle, November 4, 1854, p. 1 (second and third quotations); J. B. McFerrin to the editor in “Rev. Wm. Ralson—Division of the Methodist Episcopal Church,” Nashville Republican Banner, January 25, 1861, p. 2 (fourth and fifth quotations). 34 Statistical reports in GA Minutes (CPC), 1859: 107–10, 1860: 75–77. 35 The General Assembly met in Lebanon, Ohio, in 1847; Pittsburgh in 1851; and Evansville in 1859.

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Kentuckians and Tennesseans, most of whom had moved west and south rather than east or

north. Cumberland Presbyterians made up more than half of all Presbyterians in Missouri but

less than a fifth of all Presbyterians in Iowa; there was only one Cumberland Presbyterian

congregation in Minnesota and none at all in Michigan or Wisconsin. Even in the northern

regions where Cumberland Presbyterians did live, they were not nearly as prevalent or influential

as in the South; in the fifty-five counties where Cumberland Presbyterians made up more than

twenty percent of churchgoers, only four were in the North.36

And it’s notable that three of those four counties were in the southern “Little Egypt”

region of Illinois, which was largely settled by Kentuckians and overwhelmingly rejected

Lincoln in the 1860 presidential election.37 Indeed, if the election in Illinois had been limited to

counties with Cumberland Presbyterian congregations, Lincoln would have lost the state by

nearly fourteen percentage points instead of winning it by two.38 And southern Indiana, where

McCormick was suspended from the ministry for his aiding of fugitive slaves, was in many ways

similar to southern Illinois. Indeed, the Butternut region—as southern Illinois, southern Indiana,

and southwestern Ohio were collectively known, and where the bulk of northern Cumberland

Presbyterians lived—was the region of the North most sympathetic of the South. To a great

extent it had been settled by southerners, and its economy was strongly tied to the South. Many

Butternut farmers made their living selling produce down the Ohio and the Mississippi to feed

36 Compiled from the 1860 Statistics. To be more precise, I am talking about the fifty-five counties where Cumberland Presbyterian congregations constituted more than twenty percent of aggregate accommodations. For further explanation see chapter 3, note 20. 37 The three Little Egypt counties were Pope, Saline, and Wayne. The fourth was Menard County, Illinois, just north of Springfield. 38 County-level election results compiled from Michael J. Dubin, ed., United States Presidential Elections, 1788–1860: The Official Results by County and State (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2002), 163–64.

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southern plantations, where cotton may have been profitable but was not particularly edible.

Whites in the Butternut region were friendly enough to colonization and gradual emancipation

schemes, but they were hostile to abolition, and above all fearful of any policy that might mean a

sudden influx of free blacks across the Ohio. Opposition to slavery in the Butternut region

stemmed less from compassion for enslaved people than fear of having to compete with enslaved

people’s labor—a sentiment which could easily translate into contempt for black people

generally. In short, the northern population of Cumberland Presbyterians was concentrated in the

North’s most “southern” region, and it is hard to imagine the church otherwise remaining a

nominally national one.

The influence of the South and its peculiar institution could even be seen in St. Cloud,

Minnesota, the northernmost outpost of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church.39 The minister

Thomas P. Calhoun—recently secretary of the Board of Missions; son of one of the church’s

founding fathers; son-in-law of David Lowry, who had moved there after a long stint in Prairie

du Chien and was running a school for Winnebago Indians—moved from Tennessee to help

Lowry organize a Cumberland Presbyterian congregation. Calhoun brought with him his wife

Elizabeth, their children David and Mary, their slave Mary Bethune, and Bethune’s toddler son.40

39 Truth be told, there was a Cumberland Presbyterian congregation just a few latitudinal minutes north of St. Cloud in Columbia County, Oregon. 40 William B. Mitchell, “St. Cloud in the Territorial Period,” Collections of the Minnesota Historical Society, 12 (1908), 641–42; “Religious,” St. Cloud (Minn.) Visiter, May 20, 1858, p. 2; [Jane G. Swisshelm], “Rev. Thomas Calhoun,” St. Cloud (Minn.) Democrat, April 7, 1859, p. 1; [Jane G. Swisshelm], “Divine Judgments,” St. Cloud Democrat, October 3, 1861, p. 2. For two historical accounts of Calhoun’s controversial time in St. Cloud, see Christopher P. Lehman, Slavery in the Upper Mississippi Valley, 1787–1865: A History of Human Bondage in Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2011), 136–40, 152–55; and Sylvia D. Hoffert, Jane Grey Swisshelm: An Unconventional Life, 1815–1884 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004), 139–40.

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According to the recent Supreme Court decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford, Calhoun was free to

bring slaves to Minnesota since it was still a federal territory. (Indeed, the Dred Scott decision

triggered a small wave of southern immigrants to Minnesota.) The journey was not, however, an

easy one. Mary Bethune was pregnant, and her toddler fell ill with the measles. On the steamboat

ride up the Mississippi she had to sit out on the outer guards and keep the child rolled up in the

folds of her dress. Soon thereafter he died, and soon after that Bethune gave birth to another son.

She named him John, and Thomas P. Calhoun probably baptized him. Since John was born in a

federal territory, he was, according to the law, free.41

His mother, however, was still a slave, a matter of great concern to one of Calhoun’s

church members: Jane G. Swisshelm, a radical abolitionist and feminist from Pittsburgh.

Swisshelm had only recently divorced her husband and moved to St. Cloud, where she started a

newspaper and began warring publicly with her slaveholding neighbors. Her archenemy was

none other than Calhoun’s brother-in-law Sylvanus Lowry, who in addition to owning slaves was

the mayor of St. Cloud and the boss of local Democratic politics; Swisshelm called him a

The name of the enslaved woman is not certain. The only clue can be found in the 1857 territorial census of Minnesota, where David Lowry’s household includes the misnamed “Joseph” P. and “Emma” Calhoun; their correctly named children David and Mary; a 32-year-old black woman born in Tennessee; and her month-old son born in Minnesota. Christopher Lehman has transcribed the black woman’s name as Mary Butler, but the surname looks much more like Buthen to me. I also suspect “Buthen” is a misspelling of her surname; in 1850 there were very few Buthens in the United States but a good number of Bethunes and Bathoons in Middle Tennessee. The Bethunes were also a prominent slaveholding family in Georgia. For the Lowry household, see 1857 Minnesota Territorial Census, Stearns County, p. 20, online at Ancestry, ancestry.com/interactive/1058/mn1857_5-0044. For my discussion with other historians on how to transcribe the enslaved woman’s surname, see this Twitter conversation on August 16, 2017: https://twitter.com/williamrblack/status/897852013823893505. Also see “Calhoun/Calhoon Family Information,” Historical Foundation of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church and the Cumberland Presbyterian Church in America (hereinafter cited as HFCPC), http://www.cumberland.org/hfcpc/minister/CalhounCalhoon.htm, updated November 16, 2016. 41 [Jane G. Swisshelm], “Divine Judgments,” St. Cloud Democrat, October 3, 1861, p. 2.

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“dictator,” a “Czar,” and the “commander-in-chief of all the woman-whippers in Northern

Minnesota.” Exasperated by her attacks, Lowry and two other men broke into her newspaper’s

office, smashed her printing press, and dumped the pieces into the Mississippi. Unfazed,

Swisshelm bought a new press and started another paper, continuing her print war against “the

Southern lordling” and “his laqueys.”42 It was probably a surprise to Calhoun that Swisshelm

would consider joining his church at all. She even told him she could not commune “with a

voluntary slave-holder.” There were, however, few options for an English-speaking Protestant in

St. Cloud; moreover, she was persuaded by Calhoun’s avowed opposition to slavery. He

explained that Tennessee law prohibited him from emancipating his slaves in that state, and

Mary Bethune was the only one of his slaves willing to move to Minnesota, where he had a

“detailed” plan to emancipate her. Swisshelm distinguished this seemingly compassionate,

reluctant slaveholder from an unrepentant fire-eater like his brother-in-law.43

But as so often happened, Calhoun could not reconcile his antislavery principles with his

finances. Bethune wanted to take a trip to Tennessee to visit her family, and Calhoun agreed to

take her, originally planning to emancipate her beforehand and supply her with freedom papers.

But he did not get around to it. Emancipating a slave was essentially throwing away money, and

he had fallen in financial trouble, without so much as five dollars on him. So there were no

42 [Jane G. Swisshelm], “Nominations for the Twentieth District of Minn.,” St. Cloud Democrat, September 30, 1858, p. 3 (first through third quotations); [Jane G. Swisshelm], “General Lowry,” St. Cloud Democrat, September 30, 1858, p. 3 (fourth and fifth quotations). On the Swisshelm–Lowry feud, see Hoffert, Jane Grey Swisshelm, 112–22; and Jane Grey Swisshelm, Half a Century (Chicago: Jansen, McClure & Co., 1880), 169–90. Also see those two books on Swisshelm’s life generally. 43 Jane G. Swisshelm, “To the Rev. Calhoun,” St. Cloud Democrat, September 30, 1858, p. 3 (quotations); [Jane G. Swisshelm], “Rev. Thomas Calhoun,” St. Cloud Democrat, April 7, 1859, p. 1.

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freedom papers when Calhoun took Mary and John Bethune to Tennessee in the summer of

1858. And when Calhoun returned to St. Cloud, there was no Mary or John Bethune. There was,

however, a new horse and carriage at the Calhoun household.44

Jane Swisshelm was incensed. She accused him in her paper of betraying his word to

Mary Bethune and selling her rather than emancipating her—and even worse, illegally selling

her freeborn infant son, thereby rendering Minnesota into sordid “slavebreeding soil.” Swisshelm

blamed Calhoun’s in-laws for pressuring him to settle his debts by such a heinous act. (The

rumor was that Calhoun had gotten $1,400 from the sale.) Perhaps, she wrote, his antislavery

avowals were a lie, and he was no reluctant slaveholder—in which case he had actually caused

her to sin when she shared communion with him.45

God will, Swisshelm later wrote, “make His displeasure apparent in this life.” She

believed this was exactly what happened on March 20, 1859, when Thomas P. Calhoun and his

wife were crossing a bridge and their horse became startled, pushed against the railing, and

leaped, sending all them nearly thirty feet to the frozen ground below. The horse was killed upon

impact; Elizabeth Calhoun was severely injured; and in a few days, Thomas P. Calhoun died of a

punctured lung. This was, Swisshelm argued, what Calhoun deserved for forgetting that Mary

Bethune “was one of God’s people.”46 Calhoun’s actions—separating a family, betraying his

44 [Jane G. Swisshelm], “Rev. Thomas Calhoun,” St. Cloud Democrat, April 7, 1859, p. 1; [Jane G. Swisshelm], “Divine Judgments,” St. Cloud Democrat, October 3, 1861, p. 2 45 Jane G. Swisshelm, “To the Rev. Calhoun,” St. Cloud Democrat, September 30, 1858, p. 3; Jane G. Swisshelm, “Letter to the Rev. Calhoun,” St. Cloud Democrat, November 11, 1858, p. 3; [Jane G. Swisshelm], “Rev. Thomas Calhoun,” St. Cloud Democrat, April 7, 1859, p. 1 (quotation); [Jane G. Swisshelm], “Divine Judgments,” St. Cloud Democrat, October 3, 1861, p. 2. 46 “Frightful Accident,” St. Cloud Democrat, February 24, 1859, p. 2; [Jane G. Swisshelm], “Rev. Thomas Calhoun,” St. Cloud Democrat, April 7, 1859, p. 1; [Jane G. Swisshelm], “Divine Judgments,” St. Cloud Democrat, October 3, 1861, p. 2 (quotations).

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word, and selling a free child into slavery—exposed the limits of the moderate antislavery

position. Whatever his principles may have been, what mattered more in the end was that black

bodies were worth a lot of money, even in Minnesota.

The monetary value of black bodies—not only for slaveholders but for the church—

became especially clear in the summer of 1859, just a few months after Thomas P. Calhoun’s

horse leaped off a bridge in St. Cloud. The General Assembly met in Evansville, where they

learned that their denomination had been, for a short time at least, the legal owner of two slaves.

The trouble began two decades earlier when William Brown of Greeneville, Tennessee, died

having willed around $1,000 to the church. Though his executor (and the General Assembly)

thought the money rightfully belonged to the General Assembly, some who knew Brown argued

he had intended the money to either go to Knoxville Presbytery or East Tennessee Synod. In

1845 the General Assembly agreed to annually pay over the interest of Brown’s bequest to the

Missionary Society of East Tennessee Synod. The legal body responsible for paying over the

interest was the denomination’s Board of Trustees, whose treasurer for a time was the minister

Silas N. Davis. Then Davis died in 1854. To the trustees’ dismay they learned Davis was deeply

in debt and had dipped a few too many times into the Brown bequest. Since they had to retrieve

the money somehow, and since most of Davis’s estate was tied up in human chattel, after a few

years of legal wrangling they managed to secure two of the deceased minister’s slaves. Soon

thereafter the Board of Trustees sold the slaves, and that was where things stood in May 1859.

The General Assembly approved the trustees’ report without debate and ordered that the

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proceeds from the sale be paid over to East Tennessee Synod. The money—all $1,240.43 of it—

would be used for missionary work.47

The published minutes of the General Assembly made no mention of the slave sale and

did not even include the Board of Trustees report, so Cumberland Presbyterians likely hoped to

keep it quiet.48 But to their dismay, news of the sale reached the New York Daily Tribune, where

the abolitionist Charles T. Congdon attacked the church for selling slaves in the name of

spreading the gospel. He suggested that the real souls in peril were not those of tropical heathens,

but those of white slaveholders, including slaveholding Cumberland Presbyterians. The proceeds

from the sale, Congdon wrote, should be spent not on the “King of the Cannibal Islands” but

rather on bringing Christianity to Kentucky slaveholders, for at least then enslaved people might

get something out of their “sacrific[e] upon the altar of the Cumberland Faith” and receive more

humane treatment—“fewer floggings and fuller fare.” The whole church, Congdon implied, was

tainted by its tolerance of and even participation in the institution of slavery. He imagined one of

the slaves sold by the Board of Trustees happening upon a Cumberland Presbyterian church

building with “a new pine steeple glittering with fresh and radiant tin,” upon which the slave

47 Greene County (Tenn.) Wills, vol. 1, 1828–1873, p. 192, online at Ancestry, ancestry.com/ interactive/9176/004776296_00132; GA Minutes (CPC), 1841: 13, 1842: 55–56, 1845: 135–36, 149–50; GA Minutes (CPC), 1855: 45, 1860: 92; “The Cumberland Presbyterian General Assembly,” Evansville (Ind.) Daily Journal, May 23, 1859, p. 2; Aaron Burrow, “A Church Going into Business,” Evansville Daily Journal, August 3, 1859, pp. 1–2. Not that it matters now, but Brown almost certainly intended the money to go to the General Assembly. Towards the end of his will he bequeathed the money not yet accounted for in equal thirds to “the Trustees of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church,” “the Charter Fund of the Methodist Episcopal Church,” and “the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, or governing authority thereof.” He likely left the third legatee more vague than the first two because he was unsure what apparatus the denomination had for receiving a bequest; indeed, the General Assembly had not yet formed a Board of Trustees. 48 The Board of Trustees was included in both the 1858 Minutes (pp. 68–69) and the 1860 Minutes (p. 92) but not the 1859 Minutes.

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would “take off his hat . . . and exclaim: ‘That is my leg!’” Congdon’s imagery may have been

influenced by Frederick Douglass’s critique of American religion in his 1845 memoir: “We have

men sold to build churches, women sold to support the gospel, and babes sold to purchase Bibles

for the poor heathen!” The church, supposedly the body of Christ, was in fact constructed out of

black bodies—steeples made of legs, pews made of bones, communion wine purchased with

blood that was not Christ’s.49

Thanks to the Tribune article the episode made its way into the abolitionist press. The

Anti-Slavery Bugle, long a critic of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, remarked with dark

irony that “Slavery Christianizes twice at once”: first by exposing black people to the gospel, and

then by selling them and using the funds to further spread the gospel. Slavery was a kind of

perpetual machine of evangelism. And more to the point, evangelism was a perpetual machine of

profit, for a converted slave was allegedly worth more money than a unconverted slave, since the

former was rumored to be more obedient and docile than the latter. The profit gained by

converting and then selling a slave could grow exponentially; the more money you made on a

slave, the more slaves you could buy, whom you could then evangelize and sell. Evangelism was

a wise investment.50

Though the denomination’s largest paper, the Banner of Peace, stayed quiet about the

slave sale, the bad press outraged the minister Milton Bird, who denounced Congdon’s editorial

in his own paper, the St. Louis Observer. Congdon took notice and responded in the Tribune,

calling Bird’s Observer “the most curiously unenlightened and miraculously illiterate” paper he

49 [Charles T. Congdon], “A Church Going into Business,” New York Daily Tribune, June 13, 1859, p. 4 (first through fifth quotations); Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (Boston: Anti-Slavery Office, 1845), 119 (sixth quotation). 50 “The Reign of Diabolism,” Lisbon Anti-Slavery Bugle, July 2, 1859, p. 2; reprinted in Boston Liberator, October 7, 1859, p. 1.

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had ever read. When Bird wrote that Congdon should “be skinned with a hackle and smeared

with aquafortis” (i.e., nitric acid), Congdon replied that Bird was “[p]robably” right—“And yet it

would be painful.” Bird asked his readers to pray for Congdon, that the New York abolitionist

would “repent . . . and escape the doom of all liars, who have their part in the lake that burneth

with fire and brimstone.” Congdon replied he would rather not be prayed for in this manner.

Bird’s only truly substantive rebuttal to Congdon was that the slavery question was political and

outside the purview of the church, which “wages no war on the external organizm of society.”

But if this were so, Congdon wrote, then the church had no business standing up to “tyrants,”

“brothels,” “gambling-hells,” or “grog-shops”—in short, no business in this world at all. Finally,

mocking Bird’s rarefied idea of a church divorced from the temporal world, Congdon exhorted

readers to purchase a bottle of Dr. Sandford’s Liver Invigorator, as advertised in the Observer.51

Aaron Burrow, the son of Reuben Burrow and himself a minister in Evansville, issued a

calmer response than Milton Bird had to Congdon’s editorial. In the Evansville Daily Journal,

Burrow argued that the Board of Trustees had merely fulfilled its legal obligation in acquiring

and selling the slaves, and that this was consistent with the church’s professed neutrality on the

slavery question. Unlike some other churches, Burrow wrote, the Cumberland Presbyterian

Church refused to say one way or the other whether slavery was right or wrong. But it remained

legal in much of the United States, and the Board of Trustees had to respect that. Burrow’s most

pointed response was not to Congdon but to an unnamed Old School Presbyterian in Evansville

51 “[Charles T. Congdon], “A Cumberland Presbyterian Newspaper,” New York Daily Tribune, July 25, 1859, p. 4 (including Bird quotes). There are no extant issues of the St. Louis Observer. Bird did not know at the time who wrote the Tribune article; Congdon revealed his authorship in Tribune Essays: Leading Articles Contributed to the New York Tribune from 1857 to 1863 (New York: J. S. Redfield, 1869), 68–73. For a reprinting of Congdon’s rebuttal to Bird, see Tribune Essays, 79–84.

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whom Burrow suspected of having leaked word of the slave sale to the Tribune. Despite this Old

Schooler’s apparent opposition to slavery, Burrow noted that the Old School Presbyterian

Church accepted all the money “offered her for benevolent purposes . . . without asking whether

it is the product of free or slave labor.” Even if its Board of Trustees never held slaves, the

denomination’s coffers were regularly filled with the proceeds of slave sales and the profits of

slave labor.52

Though Burrow’s intention was to point out someone else’s hypocrisy, he also revealed

that the Cumberland Presbyterian Church’s economic entanglement with slavery was by no

means limited to the sale of two slaves. After all, suppose that Silas Davis had died with enough

cash on hand to settle the debt to East Tennessee Synod—how much of that money would have

been the product of the labor of his half-dozen slaves?53 Furthermore, the two major bequests to

the church before the Civil War, totaling nearly $10,000, both came from slaveholders.54 Slave

labor helped fund missionary fields, college endowments, and ministers’ salaries. Slave labor

enabled white men to leave their homes for months at a time and preach the gospel, knowing

their crops would be taken care of. Slave labor built the churches Cumberland Presbyterians

worshiped in and the balconies where many black Cumberland Presbyterians sat.

52 Aaron Burrow, “A Church Going into Business,” Evansville Daily Journal, August 3, 1859, pp. 1–2 (quotation on 2). 53 1850 U.S. Federal Census, Slave Schedule, Todd County, Kentucky, District 2, p. 193. 54 John P. Freeman bequeathed $4,194.48 to the church; Eliza K. Gray bequeathed $5,000. On Freeman, see GA Minutes (CPC), 1857: 40; and 1850 U.S. Federal Census, Slave Schedule, Logan County, Kentucky, District 1, unnumbered left-hand page, online at Ancestry, ancestry.com/interactive/8055/KYM432_226-0180 (District 1 microfilmed out of order). On Gray, see GA Minutes (CPC), 1859: 69, 1860: 47; and 1850 U.S. Federal Census, Slave Schedule, Maury County, Tennessee, District 5, unnumbered left-hand page, online at Ancestry, ancestry.com/interactive/8055/TNM432_905-0351.

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Slavery’s central role in the church’s economy can be seen in the largest flow of money

at the denominational level: donations to the Board of Missions. According to the board’s reports

in 1858 and 1859, nearly thirty percent of donations came from Alabama and Mississippi, even

though only ten percent of the church’s members lived in those two states. And though nearly a

quarter of Cumberland Presbyterians lived in the North, only one-tenth of donations to the Board

of Missions came from free states.55 While the average Cumberland Presbyterian lived in a

county where between ten and twenty percent of the population were enslaved, and the average

Cumberland Presbyterian in the South lived in the next decile (where between twenty and thirty

percent of the population were enslaved), the average Cumberland Presbyterian in Mississippi

and Alabama lived in a county where between forty and fifty percent were enslaved. In fact,

thirty-five percent of Cumberland Presbyterians in Mississippi and Alabama lived in a county

where enslaved blacks outnumbered whites, while there were only five such counties in

Arkansas, three in Tennessee, only one in Kentucky, and none at all in Missouri.56 These

majority or near-majority black counties in Mississippi and Alabama lay in the cotton belt, where

the concentration of slaves and wealth was greater than in the wheat, corn, tobacco, and hemp

belts of the Upper South. Slaveholders in Tennessee, Kentucky, Missouri, and Arkansas—where

nearly sixty percent of Cumberland Presbyterians lived—tended to own fewer slaves and make

smaller profits, and therefore had less disposable income than in the Deep South. The gradual

centralization and professionalization of the denomination, with its colleges and boards, required

money, and that was something slaveholders in the cotton belt had a good deal of.

55 For the enumeration of donations by state, see the 1858 and 1859 General Assembly minutes. 56 See chapter 3, note 20, for an explanation of how I determined which counties Cumberland Presbyterians lived in, how many Cumberland Presbyterians lived in each county, and what percentage of each county’s population was enslaved.

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It was rather revealing that the Board of Missions had its office in St. Louis, a city with a

weak Cumberland Presbyterian presence but which was heralded as the capital of the West and

the portal to the Pacific, while nearly a third of the board’s funding came from the Deep South.

The church had an unpayable debt to slavery, a fact which undermined its claim to be a

“western” or “American” church rather than a southern one. The church’s debt to slavery also

undermined its claim to be neutral on the slavery question. Abolitionists argued that if a church

did not fully renounce slavery and expunge it from its body, it could not claim to be neutral—it

was in fact aiding and abetting the institution of slavery. Aaron Burrow admitted as much when

he called out the hypocrisy of Presbyterians who professed to oppose slavery but gladly accepted

the wealth it generated. Finally, white Cumberland Presbyterians’ dependency on chattel slavery

exposed as a myth their assumption that their church was intrinsically white. Not only were one-

fifth of Cumberland Presbyterians of African descent, but the entire church benefited from black

people’s labor and the wealth they produced. Though Cumberland Presbyterians preferred to

think of enslaved people as a mere project of the church—a benighted group they were meant to

bring to Christ—enslaved people were vital to the church’s continuation and growth. Black

slaves were not just a mission field. They were the church.

Thomas P. Calhoun’s son David was a judge in St. Cloud when, in September 1905,

some men found a small child’s grave on land that had once been part of the Lowry estate. The

child had been buried in a wooden casket, not in the manner of the local Native Americans, and

the land’s current owner, the banker and lumberman Nehemiah Clarke, did not know anything

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about it. But David Calhoun knew nothing of a dead child.57 David Lowry had not had any more

children in Minnesota; his son Sylvanus only had one child, who was still alive; David Calhoun’s

sisters had lived into adulthood.58 Perhaps David Calhoun did not remember—he was only four

years old at the time—when his family’s youngest slave succumbed to the measles during their

move to St. Cloud. Perhaps Calhoun did not remember that sick black boy, crying and shaking in

the folds of his mother’s dress, nodding off to the churning of the paddle wheels only to be

awakened by the whistle as they came around a bend. That boy did not know he would be buried

in a free country, and he likely had little energy to look upon the riverbanks and thereby follow

Christ’s injunction in John 4:35, a passage Cumberland Presbyterians liked to quote when they

proclaimed their mission to evangelize and populate the Mississippi Valley. In Mary Bethune’s

makeshift womb—pressed against her first womb, where a supposedly free child was growing—

her son would have found it hard to lift up his eyes and look on the fields, and see that they were

white already to harvest.59

57 “Found Dead Child in Vault,” St. Cloud Journal-Press, September 21, 1905, p. 7; Christopher P. Lehman, “Sylvanus Lowry and Slavery in St. Cloud,” Crossings (Stearns History Museum), 31 (January 2005), 3–4, online at theyhavenames.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/binder1.pdf. 58 “Lowry Family Information,” HFCPC, cumberland.org/hfcpc/minister/Lowry.htm, updated November 17, 2016; “Calhoun/Calhoon Family Information,” HFCPC, cumberland.org/hfcpc/ minister/CalhounCalhoon.htm, updated November 16, 2016. 59 For allusions to John 4:35, see Minutes of Cumberland Synod, November 23, 1827, p. 296; GA Minutes (CPC), 1841: 23; Donnell, Thoughts on Various Subjects, 134; Beard, Brief Biographical Sketches, 2nd ser., 261; and Cossitt, Life and Times of Rev. Finis Ewing, 478.

CHAPTER 5: REHEARSAL FOR REUNION, 1860–1864

Weeks before the General Assembly of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church convened

on May 16, 1861, the church papers published routes and fares for the ministers and elders

making the journey to St. Louis. Commissioners in East Tennessee were asked to arrive at the

Chattanooga station by 7:30 P.M. on May 11, so they could take the train to Nashville. From

Nashville commissioners could make it to St. Louis by road, by riverboat ($5 each way, though

boats were “irregular now”), or by train (which would take roughly 30 hours). If commissioners

were traveling via Louisville they should take the Louisville, New Albany & Chicago to

Mitchell, Indiana, for which they would pay full fare. They were to then take the Ohio &

Mississippi to St. Louis, though it was important that they purchase “two half-fare tickets” in

Mitchell, one for the way to St. Louis and one for the way back to Mitchell. Once in St. Louis

they should secure a certificate from the General Assembly moderator that would allow them to

ride free from Mitchell to Louisville. Commissioners in Mississippi and Alabama could take the

Mobile & Ohio (which now had a policy of charging all ministers at half-price) to Columbus,

Kentucky, which was some 200 miles downriver from St. Louis. Also, every Monday evening

the steamboat Memphis left its eponymous port and arrived at St. Louis the following Thursday

morning.1

But as the General Assembly drew near, it became increasingly unclear whether all the

commissioners would be able to reach St. Louis. By April, Cumberland Presbyterians in

Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas lived in states that had seceded

from the Union and joined the Confederacy, and there were strong secession movements in the

1 “The Route and Fare to the General Assembly,” BP, April 25, 1861, p. 126; “The Route and Fare to the General Assembly,” BP, May 9, 1861, p. 134 (quotations).

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border slave states of Tennessee, Kentucky, and Missouri. On April 12, Confederates bombarded

the U.S. Army garrison at Fort Sumter, South Carolina, and three days later Abraham Lincoln

called for 75,000 volunteers to stamp out the rebellion. The governors of Tennessee, Kentucky,

and Missouri condemned the call for troops, and a referendum on secession was scheduled in

Tennessee for June. On April 20, a Missouri secessionist militia company seized the U.S. Army

arsenal near Kansas City. Days later, a steamboat on its way from St. Louis to Nashville and

laden with gunpowder, lead, and revolvers, was seized north of Cairo by order of the governor of

Illinois. On May 2, the U.S. Treasury Department ordered customs officers in St. Louis,

Louisville, and other western port cities to examine all boats and railroad cars “destined for any

port or place under insurrectionary control” and confiscate all contraband of war.2 That same day

the Cumberland Presbyterian Church’s largest paper, the Nashville Banner of Peace, wrote, “It

may be impossible to get to St. Louis in two weeks from now.” Perhaps, the paper continued,

commissioners outside Missouri should not even bother coming. Missouri could supply the

quorum necessary (twelve commissioners) to constitute a General Assembly, so they could meet

briefly and then adjourn to meet the next year, when hopefully things would have died down.3

Commissioners from East and Middle Tennessee trickled into Nashville, waiting to hear

the latest news from St. Louis before they decided their next course of action. The news was not

encouraging. A U.S. Army regiment captured a state militia at Camp Jackson, Missouri, when it

heard the militia was plotting to seize the federal arsenal at St. Louis; then, while the regiment

was marching the captives into the city, it clashed with an angry secessionist mob, resulting in at

least 28 civilian deaths. The next day, May 11, another U.S. Army regiment made up largely of

2 Phillips, Rivers Run Backward, 120–62, 169–206 (Chase’s circular quoted on 196). 3 [William E. Ward], “The Next Assembly,” BP, May 2, 1861, p. 130.

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German immigrants was winding through downtown St. Louis when secessionists began firing

on them from their windows, and the regiment returned fire upon the crowds in the street,

leaving six more dead. This happened only six blocks southeast of the First Cumberland

Presbyterian Church in St. Louis, whose pastor quickly sent a telegram to the commissioners

huddled in Nashville, warning them not to come.4

They took his advice. Other commissioners who were on their way to St. Louis turned

around and went back home. But not all made the same decision—the minister James L. Riley,

for instance, did not hear of the skirmishes in St. Louis until he reached the train station at

Ashley, Illinois, but he boarded the train nevertheless, perhaps reluctant to have ridden horseback

for two days in vain.5 Altogether 51 commissioners attended the assembly, more than enough to

make quorum but a mere fraction of the normal attendance. (There were 167 commissioners at

the 1860 assembly.) Moreover, only five commissioners came from the Confederacy, where

nearly a quarter of Cumberland Presbyterians lived. A mere three commissioners came from

Tennessee, which seceded later that year and where thirty percent of Cumberland Presbyterians

4 [William E. Ward], “Did Not Go to the Assembly,” BP, May 23, 1861, p. 142. The May 11 riot happened at the corner at 5th and Walnut, and the church was at 11th and St. Charles; J. Thomas Scharf, History of Saint Louis City and County, from the Earliest Periods to the Present Day: Including Biographical Sketches of Representative Men (2 vols.; Philadelphia: Louis H. Everts & Co., 1883), 1:507–8; Joseph M. Wilson, ed., The Presbyterian Historical Almanac, and Annual Remembrancer of the Church, for 1862 (Philadelphia: Joseph M. Wilson, 1862), 285. For a contemporaneous map of St. Louis, see G. Woolworth Colton and Richard Swainson Fisher, Colton’s Atlas of America: Illustrating the Physical Geography of North and South America and the West India Islands (New York: J. H. Colton, 1857), 45 (online as part of the David Rumsey Map Collection at Stanford University Libraries, searchworks.stanford.edu/view/tv269kb0865). 5 [Ward], “Did Not Go to the Assembly,” BP, May 23, 1861, p. 142; James L. Riley, Life Sketches of the Rev. James L. Riley (n.p., 1911[?]), 25.

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lived; none at all came from Middle Tennessee, the heart of the church with fifteen percent of its

members.6

It was uncertain whether the Cumberland Presbyterian Church would remain intact for

long. Indeed, years later Cumberland Presbyterians would exaggerate just how united the church

was during the war. The events of the winter and spring of 1860–61 sparked a vicious war of

words in the church’s periodicals, with Cumberland Presbyterians across the country accusing

each other of treason against God, the church, the white race, and the U.S. Constitution—in

short, betraying the project of the Christian nation. In a significant departure from past rhetoric,

Cumberland Presbyterians who supported the Confederacy proclaimed that the church was at its

core a “southern” church as opposed to a “western” one. The war of words only ceased when the

actual war intensified, cutting off flows of movement and communication. Two-thirds of the

church were effectively shut out of its highest levels of governance, with the General Assembly

only representing the minority of Cumberland Presbyterians who lived outside the Confederacy.

The church more or less remained united in name only.

Still, it was significant and by no means inevitable that the church remained united in

name. Even Protestant denominations that had not been divided by the slavery issue, like the

Episcopalians and the Lutherans, divided amicably into separate Union and Confederate

churches. Why then did the Cumberland Presbyterians not do so? What made them think they

could remain a united church even if the Confederacy won and became a separate sovereign

nation? In part because of the church’s “southernness”; as already discussed, the northern part of

6 GA Minutes (CPC), 1860: 3–6, 1861: 3–5; religious statistics compiled from GA Minutes (CPC), 1859: 108–10, 1860: 75–77. There were 14 commissioners from Missouri, 11 from Illinois, seven from Kentucky, three each from Tennessee and Pennsylvania, two from Indiana, and one each from Iowa and the Kansas Territory; two from Arkansas, two from Mississippi, and one from Alabama.

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the church had familial, financial, and ideological ties to the South which disincentivized a

sectional split. Of course, a large number of Cumberland Presbyterians outside the Confederacy

lived in the slave states of Missouri and Kentucky, and were particularly resistant to

abolitionism. Also, many Cumberland Presbyterians in the North had been born or once lived in

the South, and few subscribed to the most radical antislavery politics of the Republican Party.

The church had been to a large extent financially dependent on slave labor before the war, and

there was reason to believe the church, even north of the Mason-Dixon line, would still need

slave-state money if the Confederacy reached a mutual understanding with the United States.

Cumberland Presbyterians were also able to envision a united church straddling two

American republics because their understanding of American nationalism was not intrinsically

tied to a single nation-state. It was within the realm of possibility that the American “nation”

could actually consist of two or more republics, so long as they shared a dedication to the project

of the Christian nation. The vision of the Christian nation espoused by Cumberland Presbyterians

in the Confederacy, and tacitly entertained by Cumberland Presbyterians in the Union, supports

the claim made by some historians that Confederate nationalism was not a break from American

nationalism but rather a natural continuation of it. 7

Nevertheless, the future of the Christian nation, and by extension the Cumberland

Presbyterian Church, looked rather tenuous during the months following the election of Abraham

Lincoln. Seven states rapidly seceded from the Union, and Milton Bird wrote in the Theological

Medium that a handful of “fanatics” were threatening “to tear down the best government God

7 Brian D. Schoen, The Fragile Fabric of Union: Cotton, Federal Politics, and the Global Origins of the Civil War (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009); Paul Quigley, Shifting Grounds: Nationalism and the American South, 1848–1865 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012); Matthew Karp, This Vast Southern Empire: Slaveholders at the Helm of American Foreign Policy (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2016).

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ever made.” William E. Ward, editor of the Nashville Banner of Peace, prayed that the Union

would prevail and even called on Lincoln and his vice-president to resign immediately upon their

inauguration for the Union’s sake. Still, Cumberland Presbyterians remained hopeful that even if

the Union were to be divided the church would survive. After all, during the slavery debate that

had rocked so many other denominations, the Cumberland Presbyterian Church had remained

“an asylum to the lovers of peace.” The Cumberland Presbyterians were “the only people,” wrote

the president of Cumberland University, “that can hold a national convention,” and they could

yet hope that they would “continue to assemble from the broad wheat-fields of the North-west,

and cotton plantations of the sunny South.” William Ward called on Cumberland Presbyterians

to imagine the “whole Church living in unity,” from “the balmy Florida” to “the rich prairies of

Illinois and Iowa,” from “the hills of Tennessee” to “the golden-shored Pacific,” and ask

themselves why this vision could not become reality.8

There was some skepticism, however, whether this vision was possible. A hint of this

skepticism emerged in an exchange between Cyrus Haynes of Centerville, Iowa, and Samuel B.

Vance of Henderson, Kentucky. Haynes wrote in the Banner of Peace that “the real feelings and

sentiments of the great mass of the Northern people” had been “misunderstood” and

“misrepresented.” He denied that “more than one in fifty of the Republican party” wanted “to

interfere with slavery where it exists”; the vast majority simply wanted to prevent the

institution’s expansion. But Samuel Vance, in his own letter to the editor, wondered whether

8 [Milton Bird], “The Disease of the Times and the Peril of Our Country,” Theological Medium, 2nd ser., 5 (January 1861), 251–54 (first quotation on 252, second quotation on 254); [William E. Ward], “The Voice of History” and “A Chance for Immortality,” BP, December 6, 1860, p. 50; [William E. Ward], “Peculiar Relation of Our Church to the Country,” BP, January 31, 1861, p. 78 (third quotation); T. C. Anderson, “The Crisis and Our Church,” BP, March 14, 1861, p. 102 (fourth through sixth quotations); [William E. Ward], “The Peace, Unity, and Purity of the Church,” BP, February 21, 1861, p. 90 (seventh through eleventh quotations).

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Haynes, who had grown up in Tennessee, had an accurate understanding of what many if not

most northerners believed. After all, in his famous “House Divided” speech of 1858, Lincoln had

argued that halting the expansion of slavery would eventually lead to its extinction, even in the

South. To claim that the Republican Party, which had won the North in a landslide, would not

interfere with slavery where it existed but instead “inaugurate a policy which . . . will ultimately

destroy it” was mere sophistry. Vance and other Cumberland Presbyterians hostile to the

Republican Party wondered whether they could remain in fellowship with those who aimed for

the destruction of the peculiar institution.9

This suspicion only grew after Lincoln made his call for 75,000 volunteers to quash the

southern rebellion. William Ward lost nearly all patience with the North and wrote that anyone

who still “hopes in the clemency of the North is deluded—insane.” Now that the United States

had declared war on the rebellion, Ward wrote, “[o]ur negroes are to be freed and taught to

butcher families, our houses burned and fields laid waste, and the entire South reduced by

military power to obey a wicked and tyrannical government.” (This was not an abstract concern

for Ward; he owned two slaves himself, and his father-in-law, with whom Ward and his wife

were then living, owned twenty-four.)10 Ward did not see how any northerners who supported

the war of aggression could be friends of the South. If “the thousands of Christians North” did

“not throw themselves in the way of the mad Administration,” then they were the enemies of all

southerners who wished to defend their homes and property. And yet Ward held out hope that

9 Cyrus Haynes, February 22, 1861, in “The Crisis—A Letter from Iowa,” BP, March 21, 1861, p. 105; S. B. Vance, March 26, 1861, in “To the Rev. Cyrus Haynes,” BP, April 18, 1861, p. 121. 10 [William E. Ward], “The War Is Upon Us,” BP, May 2, 1861, p. 130 (first and second quotations); 1860 U.S. Federal Census, Davidson County, Tennessee, District 13, pp. 151–52; 1860 U.S. Federal Census, Slave Schedules, Davidson County, Tennessee, District 13, pp. 37–38.

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Cumberland Presbyterians in the North, most of whom were from the South and conservative in

temperament, would remain the brethren and friends of the majority of the church. For once,

there was no middle ground—“our brethren North” could either stand on the side of tyranny or

on the side of liberty. Acknowledging the irony, the editor of the Banner of Peace believed it

was “useless for us now to cry ‘peace,’ when there is no peace.”11

The General Assembly attempted to cast the church’s position in less dire terms. Though

attendance was far below average and disproportionately from the North, and only six out of 25

synods had submitted their minutes for review, it could still be said that commissioners had come

“from North and South, East and West.” Two commissioners had come from Arkansas, two from

Mississippi, and one from Alabama, all states which had already seceded from the Union;

Arkansas and Mississippi synods were among the few that had submitted their minutes. Milton

Bird blamed the weak attendance on the church newspapers, especially the Banner of Peace,

which had discouraged commissioners from going. The 1861 assembly would prove, he

believed, an anomaly.12

Bird, who was tasked with giving the General Assembly’s opening sermon, was in a

unique position to provide a vision of a unified church. He was born in 1807 in Barren County,

Kentucky, a two days’ walk from the Gasper River meetinghouse, where the Revival of 1800

was born and where, in 1805, the evangelical ministers were suspended from Cumberland

Presbytery. Bird preached for a few years in south-central Kentucky and then helped plant the

11[William E. Ward], “State of the Country,” BP, April 25, 1861, p. 126 (first, second, and fourth quotations); [William E. Ward], “Cumberland Presbyterians North,” BP, May 2, 1861, p. 130 (third quotation). 12 GA Minutes (CPC), 1861: 3–5, 8–9, 23 (quotation); [Milton Bird], “Thirty-first General Assembly of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church,” Theological Medium, 2nd ser., 5 (April 1861), 376–82. Despite its masthead, the spring 1861 issue of the Theological Medium was published sometime after the General Assembly in May.

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church in western Pennsylvania, where he began the Theological Medium and the Union

Evangelist newspaper. In the late 1840s and early 1850s he lived in Louisville, where he ran the

Book Concern and began the Watchman and Evangelist. He then lived in Princeton, Kentucky,

where he was briefly the president of Cumberland College; then in St. Louis, where he began the

Observer (he seemed not to like living anywhere long without founding a newspaper); and then

Jeffersonville, Indiana, across the river from Louisville. He was married to a Pennsylvanian, had

six children in Indiana, a daughter and two grandchildren in Kentucky, four siblings in Oregon

and two in Illinois. Bird helped draft the plans for Cumberland University’s theological

department in 1852 and later received an honorary degree from the institution. He had attended

every General Assembly but one since 1835, had been the stated clerk since 1850, and still edited

the church’s theological journal. In short, more than any other Cumberland Presbyterian he had

the background, connections, and influence necessary to hold together the disparate regions of

the church—north, south, east, and west.13

For his sermon’s text, Bird chose Hebrews 13:1—“Let brotherly love continue.” Yes, he

said, the nation was at war with itself: “The fact cannot be disguised. We all see and feel it. It is

humiliating and painful.” But this by no means meant the church had to divide. “Why should we

divide into North and South? . . . Christ is not divided.” Cumberland Presbyterians could rest

assured that, unlike other evangelical denominations, they were not responsible for the sectional

crisis that had rent the nation; they had remained united when few others had, and they could

keep doing so, even if the Confederacy won its independence. After all, Bird said, in heaven

13 Beard, Brief Biographical Sketches, 2nd ser., 339–55; 1860 U.S. Federal Census, Jeffersonville, Indiana, p. 34; “Bird Family Information,” HFCPC, cumberland.org/hfcpc/ minister/Bird.htm, updated September 15, 2016. Also see [Milton Bird], “A Word of Caution,” Theological Medium, 2nd ser., 5 (April 1861), 364–65.

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“there is no Southern nor Northern religion,” and the Cumberland Presbyterian Church was

“neither a Northern or a Southern body.” Since its birth the church had been “conservative” in

doctrine, occupying a common-sense theological middle ground; this same conservative spirit

would carry the church through the coming storm. As another minister remarked at the

assembly’s closing, “We part in hope of meeting in heaven, expecting to pass through deep

waters. Our moderation should be known to all men.”14

In the weeks following the General Assembly, readers of the Nashville Banner of Peace

encountered a rather different portrait of the church. The paper had 10,000 subscribers and, once

it was circulated among friends and family, likely reached the hands of at least one-quarter of

Cumberland Presbyterians and quite possibly more.15 And in mid-May the paper became a

veritable battlefield. The same day that Milton Bird preached there was no North or South in

heaven, the Banner of Peace published a fiery letter from William S. Prince of Mt. Vernon,

Indiana, saying he was incensed by William Ward’s increasingly bellicose editorials and wanted

Ward to cancel his subscription. “I want no more secession documents,” he wrote; he was “for

the stars and stripes” and would join his fellow northerners in doing all they could “to subdue

traitors”—even to “exterminate the last man that advocates the disunion sentiment.” Ward

replied that if Prince were going to exterminate the South, he should start by exterminating his

debt, since Prince hadn’t paid his subscription for two-and-a-half years. Although delinquent

subscribers were normally charged $3 a year, Ward would give him a discount and only charge

14 Milton Bird, “Opening Sermon, Preached at the Thirty-first General Assembly of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, in St. Louis, May 16th, 1861,” Theological Medium, 2nd ser., 5 (April 1861), 344–61 (first quotation on 344, second quotation on 350, third quotation on 352, fourth quotation on 356, fifth quotation on 359, sixth quotation on 351); J. N. Edmonton quoted in “Meeting of the General Assembly,” BP, May 30, 1861, p. 146 (seventh quotation). 15 [William E. Ward], “Position of the Banner,” BP, May 23, 1861, p. 142.

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him $5 instead of $7.50. Finally Ward asked if another Cumberland Presbyterian could “take the

place of this lost subscriber.”16

Someone did take Prince’s place—in fact, forty-seven new subscribers reached Ward’s

office by the end of May.17 “I will fill the place of that abolitionist,” wrote someone from Sparta,

Tennessee. A reader from Pleasant Site, Alabama, had even sterner words, writing that “if W. S.

Prince comes here to ‘exterminate’ us, we will give our birds a very good bait of abolition flesh.”

Another reader, from Springfield, Arkansas, made it clear there was no room in the church for

supporters of the Union war effort: “they may be loyal subjects to ‘King Lincoln,’ but never will

make good Cumberlands.”18

Cancellations kept coming in, and more still took their place. All in all, from May 16 to

July 4, the Banner of Peace lost twenty subscribers and gained 105. And in a move that was so

petty it was impressive, William Ward began publishing the cancellation letters without editing

them at all for spelling, capitalization, or punctuation.19 A letter from Hiram Bryson of

Savannah, Tennessee, was published thus:

This is to say to you for I cant say brother to no cecession I want you to not send me no

more of yor southrency Confedrd news I have not had a paper in two weeks and I have

ben trying to collect money to pay for your papaer and stop it some time if tennessee goes

out of the unnion the money is onsettled for I cant live undr Jef Davises administration so

16 “Another Subscriber Wanted,” BP, May 16, 1861, p. 138. 17 BP, May 30–June 13 1861, pp. 142, 150, 154. 18 John W. Glenn in “Another Subscriber,” BP, May 30, 1861, p. 142 (first quotation); C. M. Coffee in the first article titled “Alabama,” BP, June 6, 1861, p. 150 (second quotation); W. C. Cannon in “Letters from the Friends of the South,” BP, June 13, 1861, p. 154 (third quotation). 19 BP, May 16–July 4, 1861, pp. 138, 142, 150, 154, 158–59, 162, 164–66.

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keep your paper I was to get a religious paper but there is no stain of religion in it Daniel

Maddox wishes his stopt also so do not send no more of your cesession hay wood and

stubble cecession as I believe was conceivd of satan brought forth in inequitty we ar

for the constitution no violtion as I see only J. Davis and his party so no more

stop your stuff

A reader (now former reader) from Philadelphia, Tennessee, claimed that anyone who would

“brake up the best government god ever placed on the face of the earth hant fit for heaven nor

hell.” Another warned his secessionist brethren that once “a man is in Hell it is to late to pray.”

William S. Hail of Macomb, Illinois, sent Ward a hand-drawn sketch of a cannon, adding, “I

herewith send you our compromise, with respects.”20

Secessionist and unionist Cumberland Presbyterians accused each other of betraying the

project of the Christian nation. If the United States was indeed the best government God placed

on the earth—as evidenced by the flourishing of evangelical Protestantism, free from papist

tyranny—then breaking apart that government was a grievous sin. One unionist even called

secession a “Herasy,” suggesting that loyalty to the United States was a doctrine akin in

significance to the bodily resurrection of Christ.21 Secessionists, meanwhile, argued it was not

they but rather radical northerners who had broken up the Union. In opposing the westward

expansion of slavery, the Republican Party had relegated slaveholders to an unequal status, since

southerners were no longer free, as northerners were, to move to a federal territory and bring all

20 Third article titled “Tennessee,” BP, June 20, 1861, p. 159 (first quotation); W. H. Davis in “Letters from the Friends of the North,” BP, June 6, 1861, p. 150 (second quotation); “Here Is the Letter—Who Will Take His Place?,” BP, July 4, 1861, p. 166 (third quotation); “Letters from the Friends of the North,” BP, June 6, 1861, p. 150 (fourth quotation). 21 “Letters from the Friends of the North,” BP, June 6, 1861, p. 150; [Bird], “The Disease of the Times and the Peril of the Country,” 254; A. F. Cox quoted in “The St. Louis Observer,” BP, June 20, 1861, p. 158; William Foster in “Discontinued,” BP, June 27, 1861, p. 162 (quotation).

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their chattel property. William Ward believed northern Cumberland Presbyterians were pining

for a Union that no longer existed. “A new king has arisen,” he wrote, “who knows not Joseph,”

referring to the pharaoh who first enslaved the Israelites when they had until then lived among

the Egyptians as a free people. In other words, white southerners under a Republican

administration were little more than slaves, and secession was a sort of exodus, presumably

favored by God. The South was now “the only beacon-light of popular liberty,” the last

stronghold of the Christian nation which had once been synonymous with America. Indeed,

Ward suggested the Christian nation would flourish as it had not done in decades, since the

South would be free of such northern travesties as Millerism, atheism, women’s rights, and free

love.22

Chief among these travesties, of course, was abolitionism, which secessionist

Cumberland Presbyterians interpreted as a betrayal of the white race. One reader who had found

a new subscriber for the Banner of Peace promised to find “a Matthias . . . for every Judas that is

willing to sell our Church to Northern negro-equality.”23 Supporters of the Union war effort

were, William Ward argued (using a common political epithet), siding “with the Black

Republicans” against white southerners.24 Ward repeatedly claimed the North wanted to

22 [William E. Ward], “The St. Louis Observer Sold!,” BP, June 6, 1861, p. 150 (first and second quotations); [William E. Ward], “The South—A Great Destiny Awaits Her,” BP, June 6, 1861, p. 150 (third quotation); [William E. Ward], “What We Get Rid Of,” BP, June 6, 1861, p. 150. 23 J. Campbell in “Letters from the Friends of the South,” BP, June 20, 1861, p. 158. According to Acts 1:16–25, the apostles chose Matthias to replace Judas Iscariot after the latter committed suicide. 24 [William E. Ward], “Position of the St. Louis Observer,” BP, May 16, 1861, p. 138.

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“enslave” white southerners in addition to making them unequal to white northerners.25 The

North, in short, sought to undermine white supremacy by reducing white southerners to a status

they did not, because they were white, deserve. “Northern negro-equality” meant, according to

many Cumberland Presbyterians, the denigration—in the full etymological sense—of the white

southerner.

And this was not just an insult to the white southerner; it was an insult to God. Collin

Forbes, a minister in Karnes County, Texas, noted that when the biblical Joseph was sold into

slavery by his brothers, he later testified that God had “sent” him to Egypt for a higher purpose.

Similarly, God had “sent the African into slavery among Protestant evangelical Christians” so

that the African could encounter Christ and be both saved and civilized. And Forbes believed this

was a uniquely American story, since America was where Christianity flourished in its purest

form.26 William Ward wrote, too, that it was God’s plan to bring Africans to the South, and that

God was working “out the great problem of their salvation and elevation” via the institution of

slavery. The South’s divine mandate to assist in this great work meant it was compelled to

secede from the Union; it had to protect its four million enslaved inhabitants from a North that

“cares nothing for them.” If the African’s subservience to the Caucasian was divine providence,

25 “Another Subscriber Wanted,” BP, May 16, 1861, p. 138; [William E. Ward], “This War,” BP, June 27, 1861, p. 162. Also see [William E. Ward], “The Multitude of Counsel,” BP, December 6, 1860, p. 50; [William E. Ward], “The War Is Upon Us,” BP, May 2, 1861, p. 130; [William E. Ward], “The Principles of ’76,” BP, May 16, 1861, p. 138; and [William E. Ward], “The St. Louis Observer Sold!,” BP, June 6, 1861, p. 150. 26 “From Western Texas—An Old Man on the Times,” BP, February 21, 1861, p. 89; Genesis 45:5–8.

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then the northern war on the institution of slavery was a war on the project of the Christian

nation—and the Confederacy was the Christian nation’s last best hope.27

As a growing number of Cumberland Presbyterians came to see the Confederacy as the

legitimate vessel of the Christian nation, their mental geography of their own church changed.

Whereas most Cumberland Presbyterians had, before the election of 1860, described their church

as a “western” church, now many of them thought of their church as, at its core, southern. They

repeated some of the arguments made by the church’s critics during the antebellum slavery

debate: that the Cumberland Presbyterian Church “was born in the South,” that it largely lay in

the South, and that the “Northern portion of our Church was planted from the South.”28

Cumberland Presbyterians even read back into their church’s history and found therein a

vindication of slavery. Most of the church’s founders were slaveholders, after all. If God looked

upon slaveholding as sinful, then how could one explain the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in

1800, “converting both master and servant,” and the miraculous growth of the church (mostly in

slave states) since 1810? Cumberland Presbyterians had largely beforehand said their church was

peculiarly American because it lay in the West, and they tied their history to westward

expansion; but now, especially in the Confederacy, Cumberland Presbyterians said their church

27 [William E. Ward], “The South—A Great Destiny Awaits Her,” BP, June 6, 1861, p. 150. Also see “A Voice from Alabama,” BP, June 20, 1861, p. 157; and [William E. Ward], “Will the Slaves Be Better Off?,” BP, February 7, 1861, p. 82. 28 [William E. Ward], “Peculiar Relation of Our Church to the Country,” BP, January 31, 1861, p. 78 (quotations); T. C. Anderson, “The Crisis and Our Church,” BP, March 14, 1861, p. 102; [William E. Ward], “Policy of Our Church Now,” BP, June 27, 1861, p. 162; Wm. Ralston, “The State of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church,” BP, July 4, 1861, p. 165; James G. Trigg in the third article titled “Three More,” BP, May 30, 1861, p. 142.

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was peculiarly American because it lay in the South, and they tied their history to the institution

of slavery.29

Southern Cumberland Presbyterians also brought up the uncomfortable truth that had

emerged a few years earlier during the controversy over the General Assembly trustees’ slave

sale—namely, that the church as a whole was financially dependent on the South, and by

extension slave labor. An elder in Oxford, Mississippi, noted that whenever a church was to be

planted in Evansville or Cincinnati or some other northern city, that the fundraisers went

“directly South to obtain the needful.” Donations to the Board of Missions from the South

outnumbered donations from the North more than ten to one. William Ward estimated that 90

percent of the Board of Publication’s book sales were to the South and that “[n]early all of our

Education money is from the slave States.” Now that, according to southern Cumberland

Presbyterians, northern extremists had broken the truce that had held the Union together, there

was no need to spare the feelings of their moderate antislavery brethren; they could admit the

plain fact that slavery was central not only to the Cumberland Presbyterian Church’s history but

also to its current growth and financial solvency, both north and south of the Mason-Dixon

line.30

This newfound brazenness on the part of southern Cumberland Presbyterians emerged in

some exchanges between William Ward and a couple of ministers from Illinois. Both James B.

Logan and Stephen T. Stewart complained that the Banner of Peace painted northerners with too

29 Forbes in “From Western Texas—An Old Man on the Times” (quotation); Wm. Ralston, “The State of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church,” BP, July 4, 1861, p. 165; [William E. Ward], “Peculiar Relation of Our Church to the Country,” BP, January 31, 1861, p. 78. 30 James G. Trigg in the third article titled “Three More,” BP, May 30, 1861, p. 142 (first quotation); [William E. Ward], “Policy of Our Church Now,” BP, June 27, 1861, p. 162 (second quotation).

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broad a brushstroke. Logan (who had grown up in East Tennessee, become a minister in the

Missouri Ozarks, and only moved to Alton when he was 34) insisted that Cumberland

Presbyterians in the North were “conservative almost to a man” and had “done nothing . . . to

bring on the war.” Stewart, who had been born in Kentucky and now pastored a church in Peoria,

balked at his fellow northern Cumberland Presbyterians being called “vile abolitionists” and

“Black Republicans,” and suggested the bellicose Ward change his paper’s title to the Banner of

War.31 But Ward had little patience for their complaints. Any northerner who thought southern

secession was vile treason rather than noble rebellion and therefore supported Lincoln’s war on

the Confederacy—as did both Logan and Stewart—was little better than an abolitionist. And

Ward could not help but bring up the fact that both Logan and Stewart, who pastored urban

church plants funded by the Board of Missions, depended on the slave South for their income.

Ward reminded Logan and Stewart that out of the $22,000 raised for missions in the last year,

only $600 came from the entire state of Illinois, and only $1,700 from the free states altogether.

Ward recalled that Stewart was “quite fat the last time” he saw him—“Perhaps eating bread from

‘traitors’ confounded your gastric apparatus. . . . It may be that, being opposed to slave labor, the

$623 paid you by the Board, from the South, troubles your conscience. We are sorry.”32

Cumberland Presbyterians reading the bitter back-and-forth in their church newspapers

had reason to fear their church would not survive the war intact, and that fear surely grew as the

war made itself known. Communication and movement across the U.S.–Confederate border

31 “The Religious Newspaper,” BP, June 13, 1861, p. 154 (first and second quotations); “Let the Church Read This Letter from Illinois,” BP, June 20, 1861, p. 158 (third and fourth quotations); “Rev. J. B. Logan,” Ladies’ Pearl, 5 (December 1872), 365–67; 1860 U. S. Federal Census, Peoria, Illinois, 3rd Ward, p. 241. 32 “Let the Church Read This Letter from Illinois,” BP, June 20, 1861, p. 158 (quotations); [William E. Ward], “A Few Words with Brother Logan,” BP, June 13, 1861, p. 154.

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became nearly impossible. The Banner of Peace straggled along for a while—readers outside the

Confederacy could send letters to a minister in Louisville, who would then transport them to

Nashville—but finally ceased publication after the fall of Forts Donelson and Henry in February

1862 and the subsequent U.S. takeover of the Cumberland River. The Board of Missions,

headquartered in Lebanon, Tennessee, ruled it could not legally support any missionaries in the

United States so long as that nation was at war with the Confederacy. Most of the colleges

suspended their operations—in the case of Cumberland College, the old manual-labor school,

once and for all—and were frequently transformed into army camps and hospitals. Soldiers

confiscated an expensive telescope at Bethel, the synodic college for West Tennessee, because

they mistook it for a cannon. Cumberland University was largely burned down, as was Cane Hill

College in Arkansas.33

The wartime breakdown of the church made life particularly difficult for its farthest-flung

missionary, James C. Armstrong, who had departed Nashville in June 1860 with his wife and

three-month-old child for Constantinople. They soon found themselves virtually stranded—

unable to contact the Board of Missions in Lebanon, Tennessee, and alienated from the other

American missionaries, who were mostly from the North. Armstrong’s hands were so tied

without money and counsel from the Board of Missions that, when a Greek Orthodox splinter

sect approached Armstrong about becoming Cumberland Presbyterians and forming a Turkish

presbytery, he could do nothing but pray. Eventually the Armstrongs were evicted from their

house in Constantinople, and James fell ill with typhoid fever. They only survived thanks to the

33 [William E. Ward], “To Our Friends in Kentucky, Missouri, and the North,” BP, July 4, 1861, p. 165; McDonnold, History of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, 382–83, 515, 569–70, 572–73, 575, 577; Vander Velde, Presbterian Churches and the Federal Union, 405–6; [William E. Ward], “Cumberland University Suspended,” BP, May 23, 1861, p. 142.

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hospitality of a few British families, and finally some American missionaries who agreed to lend

them money for a ship to Canada. (James, who had been ill for eight months, had to be carried

onboard on a stretcher.) Word of the Armstrongs’ safe return from Constantinople finally

reached the church in early 1863, after two and a half years of having heard nothing from them.34

The breakdown of denominational cohesion was most obvious at the meetings of the

annual General Assembly. Despite what Cumberland Presbyterians had hoped the year before,

34 GA Minutes (CPC), 1863: 96, 1866: 56–59; McDonnold, History of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, 443–47.

0

45

90

135

180

1859 1860 1861 1862 1863 1864

Geographical Makeup of General Assemblies, 1859–1864

NorthBorder South (Missouri and Kentucky)Confederacy (i.e., states which ultimately seceded)

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attendance was abysmal at the 1862 assembly in Owensboro, Kentucky, and it was even less

representative of the church as a whole than the last year’s. 40 of the 58 commissioners were

from free states, where less than a quarter of Cumberland Presbyterians lived; and there were no

commissioners at all from the Confederacy, now home to more than half of the church. There

was no report from the Board of Missions or any news on any of the missions south of Kentucky.

(If anyone had heard that the board had cut off support for missionaries outside the Confederacy,

it was not discussed at length.) Milton Bird, the stated clerk, reported that thanks to “the breaking

up of mail communication” he had been unable to contact the General Assembly treasurer, an

Alabaman—so the General Assembly just made Bird the treasurer. Those tasked with reviewing

the minutes of Kentucky and Missouri synods found that neither of them had met.35

As the war continued, it increasingly looked like the Cumberland Presbyterian Church

was unified only in name, and that even that was tenuous. At the 1863 General Assembly in

Alton, Illinois, there were yet again no commissioners from the Confederacy. Having still not

heard from the Board of Missions, the General Assembly authorized the creation of a

“Committee of Missions” in Alton, which two years later was made a full-fledged board. The

1863 assembly also commissioned a pair of ministers to travel to Nashville, obtain as many

books and plates as they could from the Board of Publication, and transport them to Pittsburgh,

where a new “Committee of Publication” would be headquartered; in two years’ time it officially

supplanted the Nashville board.36

In August 1863, a few months after the General Assembly met in Alton, Confederate

Cumberland Presbyterians held their own convention in Chattanooga. There were more than

35 GA Minutes (CPC), 1862: 25–27, 29 (quotation), 36–37, 58–59. 36 GA Minutes (CPC), 1863: 63–64, 87–88 (second quotation on 87), 90–91 (first quotation on 91), 1865: 184–85, 192–94, 203.

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sixty commissioners present, more than were present at the General Assembly, and they resolved

to start meeting annually at the same time as the General Assembly. They also created a

permanent committee on missions chaired by Alexander P. Stewart, a major general in the Army

of Tennessee. (Not long thereafter, the committee received bloodstained dollar bills from a

woman whose husband had died in the Battle of Chickamauga, the fragments of a shell

penetrating him at the thigh and driving his pocketbook into his flesh; the widow believed the

money had been made “too sacred for any common use.”) The convention met again in May

1864 in Selma, Alabama, with around 150 delegates, more than double the number of General

Assembly commissioners meeting at the same time in Lebanon, Ohio. And the Selma convention

authorized the publication of a new weekly paper, meaning that Confederate Cumberland

Presbyterians now had a de facto General Assembly, a de facto Board of Missions, and a de facto

church organ.37

Nevertheless, Cumberland Presbyterians who prayed for a united church could take

comfort in the fact that the Confederate convention called itself a convention, not a General

Assembly. A motion at the 1863 convention to secede from the Cumberland Presbyterians and

form a separate Confederate church failed unanimously, with even the delegate who made the

motion voting against it. Meanwhile, the General Assembly still recognized its presbyteries in

the Confederacy as belonging to its body, including them in the commissioner rolls even when

the minister and elder columns were blank. And two commissioners from Middle Tennessee

managed to attend the 1864 General Assembly.38

37 McDonnold, History of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, 383–84, 429–30 (quotation on 430). 38 McDonnold, History of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, 404–5; GA Minutes (CPC), 1861: 3–5, 1862: 25–27, 1863: 63–65, 1864: 103–4.

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There were other signs that Cumberland Presbyterians in the Union and the Confederacy

wanted to remain a single denomination. There was one presbytery that straddled the Union and

Confederate lines, encompassing northwestern Tennessee and the Purchase region of Kentucky,

and at least one minister preached in both states every month. The stated clerk Milton Bird

embarked on a short goodwill tour of Tennessee in 1862, visiting Nashville and Lebanon and

assuring them the church’s union remained strong. A year later the two ministers appointed by

the General Assembly to transport the Board of Publication’s materials to Pittsburgh were

greeted in Nashville by none other than William Ward, who helped them make an invoice of all

the books and plates scattered throughout the board’s abandoned office—more than 2,500

hymnals; 1,600 Sunday school books; 150 copies of the Confession of Faith; altogether nearly

$6,000 worth, and Ward apparently had no objection to moving them out of harm’s way.

Likewise, the Committee of Missions in Alton received a warm letter from Richard Beard, a

member of the Board of Missions in Lebanon, saying the board’s business was practically at a

standstill and he was glad to learn the committee had been formed. Insofar as the denomination

was divided, it was more by the contingencies of war than by the fact that where there had once

been one national government there were now two. The ad-hoc committees and conventions

were only a temporary measure, and Cumberland Presbyterians assumed their denomination’s

cohesion would be restored once the war was over, whatever the war’s outcome might be.39

Why did Cumberland Presbyterians assume this? Why did they believe their church

would survive the war intact? The question must be answered separately for those who supported

the Union and those who supported the Confederacy. In the case of Cumberland Presbyterians in

39 Minutes of Obion Presbytery, March 1861–March 1865; Beard, Brief Biographical Sketches, 2nd ser., 343; GA Minutes (CPC), 1864: 147, 155–62; McDonnold, History of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, 382.

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the Union, the answer is clearer. Most obviously, they hoped the Confederacy would be defeated

and the nation would be reunited, in which case there was no need to divide the church. This

position was analogous to that taken by the United States, which never acknowledged secession

as a constitutionally valid act or the Confederacy as a sovereign nation. And after all, it would

have been rather detrimental to the church in the North and the border South if, once the nation

was reunited, it were still cut off from the rest of the church. It would have reduced the northern

half of Cumberland Presbyterianism to a rump church without access to most of the talent,

infrastructure, and wealth built during the denomination’s last half-century—especially if, in a

hypothetical split, Cumberland Presbyterians in Missouri and Kentucky ultimately sided with

their southern neighbors. As William Ward argued, the Cumberland Presbyterian Church was

unique in that “no Church which extends over both sections has so large a portion in the South.”

If the denomination were roughly half in the North and half in the South, each half may have

been able to go their separate paths. But the northern church was, Ward wrote, “only a branch”

of the Cumberland Presbyterian tree, its roots resting firmly in the South.40

It is less obvious why Cumberland Presbyterians in the Confederacy did not leave their

northern brothers and sisters behind and form a wholly southern church. Why not prune a few

stray branches? Two presbyteries in Mississippi took unconstitutional actions to attempt as

much—disclaiming fellowship with anyone who supported the Union in one case, outright

seceding from the denomination in the other. But both presbyteries were reprimanded by their

respective synods.41 The Confederate conventions staunchly refused to secede and respected the

40 [William E. Ward], “Peculiar Relation of Our Church to the Country,” BP, January 31, 1861, p. 78 (first quotation); [William E. Ward], “Policy of Our Church Now,” BP, June 27, 1861, p. 162 (second quotation). 41 The two presbyteries were, respectively, Mississippi and Oxford; Minutes of Mississippi Synod, October 26, 1861; McDonnold, History of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, 404.

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legitimacy of the General Assembly through the war’s duration. (One wonders what would have

happened if the 1860 General Assembly had voted to hold its next meeting in, say, Huntsville,

Alabama, instead of St. Louis, in which case it would have been a mostly Confederate assembly

and would have kept meeting in the Confederacy until the war’s end.) The refusal to secede may

have partly stemmed from stubbornness; why should they secede when they contained the heart

of the church? As William Ward wrote in the extended arboreal metaphor he so loved, “For our

Church South to think of seceding from the North is almost amusing: it is like a tree pulling itself

up by the roots to get away from one of its branches.”42

Cumberland Presbyterians’ central story, that of the Christian nation, also lent itself to a

vision of a church that would straddle the United States and the Confederacy. The project of the

Christian nation—America—did not have to be constrained within a single nation-state. After all,

the Cumberland Presbyterians established a presbytery in Texas while it was still an independent

republic, and they claimed this was a worthy venture whether or not Texas ever joined the

United States. In 1845 Richard Beard speculated, as many Americans did when the Rockies

seemed virtually impassable, that Oregon would one day become an independent republic, but

did not see that as an obstacle to the expansion of the Christian nation or the Cumberland

Presbyterian church.43

Cumberland Presbyterians envisioned the Confederacy in similar terms as an American

republic. After all, the nation-state’s full name was the Confederate States of America, and

Confederates still spoke of a “North” and “South” as if there were still a meaningful unit called

42 [William E. Ward], “Policy of Our Church Now,” BP, June 27, 1861, p. 162 (quotations); McDonnold, History of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, 404–5. 43 [Franceway R. Cossitt], “A Call from Texas—Brother M’Gown’s Mission,” Lebanon Banner of Peace, June 13, 1844, p. 3; Richard Beard, “Characteristics of the Present Age,” Theological Medium, 1st ser., 1 (September 1845), 19.

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America with northern and southern nation-states. Confederate nationalism was not the antithesis

but rather the continuation of American nationalism. The president of Cumberland University

could therefore write, weeks after the founding of the Confederacy, that the Cumberland

Presbyterians were “the only people that can hold a national convention,” for the American

nation consisted of any republic on the continent dedicated to political and religious liberty.

William Ward suggested that in the future the Cumberland Presbyterian Church might

encompass several republics, including Oregon, all of them part of the same American nation

destined to purify Christianity and export it to the globe.44

Of course, the project of the Christian nation was not unique to Cumberland

Presbyterians. The difference between them and other evangelical denominations was that there

was enough agreement among Cumberland Presbyterians about what the Christian nation should

look like that they were able to overcome their differences over the question of secession.

Importantly, they agreed that black people’s role in the Christian nation was destined to be a

subservient one. Many Cumberland Presbyterians in Kentucky and Missouri, after all were

slaveholders, and few Cumberland Presbyterians in the Midwest were enthused by the idea of a

unfettered black population crossing the Ohio. There was therefore little moral drive, unlike in

other denominations with more radical and influential antislavery wings, to expel the institution

of slavery from the church—if there had been, Missouri and Kentucky would have likely left the

44 T. C. Anderson, “The Crisis and Our Church,” BP, March 14, 1861, p. 102 (third quotation); [William E. Ward], “The Voice of History” BP, December 6, 1860, p. 50.” Also see [William E. Ward], “The Multitude of Counsel,” BP, December 6, 1860, p. 50; “Our Country’s Troubles,” BP, January 24, 1861, p. 73; J. B. Logan in “Illinois,” BP, February 7, 1861, p. 82; Milton Bird, “Opening Sermon, Preached at the Thirty-first General Assembly of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, in St. Louis, May 16th, 1861,” Theological Medium, 2nd ser., 5 (April 1861), 356; and [William E. Ward], “A Few Words with Brother Logan,” BP, June 13, 1861, p. 154.

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northern branch and joined the southern branch (as happened with border-state Methodists), and

the relatively sparse Cumberland Presbyterianism of the North would have probably been

absorbed by the PCUSA. Instead there was more energy in the campaign to expel the sin of

secession from the church; but even then, moderate Cumberland Presbyterians, especially

proslavery Unionists in the Border South, were reluctant to make that a red line. For though they

disagreed with the means of secession, they agreed with the ends: a white Christian nation

purified of abolitionism. They hoped that, once the war was over, the debate over means would

be moot and they could all return to pursuing the same end.

The clearest statement of this consensus was provoked by one of its strongest challenges,

a resolution passed by Ohio Synod in the fall of 1862. Ohio Synod was, despite its proximity to

Kentucky, more closely connected to the church in Pennsylvania, whose ministers had largely

planted the Ohio church; indeed, until 1853 Ohio was under the jurisdiction of Pennsylvania

Synod. (Furthermore, there were very few Cumberland Presbyterians in the north-central

Bluegrass region that bordered Ohio.) The church in Ohio was therefore markedly less

conservative and less sympathetic to the South than the church in Indiana or southern Illinois.

This was demonstrated when the synod proclaimed that both “American Slavery” and secession

were violations of God’s will, and that therefore all Cumberland Presbyterians engaged in either

of those evils ought to be expelled from the church. This would “purify the sanctuary from the

oppressors” and relieve the church of “the burden of slavery with all its evils.” Ohio Synod

memorialized the General Assembly to make the same commitment.45

45 The quotations come from a memorial from Muskingum Presbytery, which Ohio Synod approved; Minutes of Ohio Synod, 1862, pp. 88–89 (first and second quotations on 88, third quotation on 89). For the creation of Ohio Synod, see GA Minutes (CPC), 1853: 14.

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The General Assembly met the following May in Alton, Illinois, ten miles upriver from

St. Louis. Though none of the commissioners came from the Confederacy, nearly forty percent

of them (29 out of 74) came from the slave states of Missouri and Kentucky. More than half the

ministers in attendance had been born in the South, including thirteen of the twenty-seven

ministers currently living in free states; indeed, ten ministers, including three now living in the

North, had been born in what was now the Confederacy.46 Finally, at least ten commissioners

were slaveholders themselves, one of them (Thomas P. Lambert of Henderson, Kentucky, who

was likely the brother of Joel Lambert) owning more than sixty human beings.47

Actually, these statistics do not reflect the makeup of the General Assembly when it

began business on May 21, 1863, because fourteen commissioners arrived late. These included a

half-dozen from Iowa and northern Illinois who had boarded a boat together at Keokuk, Iowa;

46 For the commissioners, see GA Minutes (CPC), 1863: 63–66, 68. Biographical data compiled from the HFCPC’s Cumberland Presbyterian Ministers database at cumberland.org/hfcpc/ minister; and 1860 census records accessed via Ancestry. When looking for place of birth I limited myself to ministers because their occupations were listed as such in the 1860 census and could be easily cross-referenced. 47 The following are the slaveholding commissioners, each name being accompanied by a citation from the 1860 U.S. Federal Census slave schedules: Martin Baker, Cumberland County, Kentucky, District 1, p. 5; Edward Barber, Daviess County, Kentucky, District 2, p. 22; R. R. Caldwell, Boyle County, Kentucky, p. 2; Jas. W. Campbell, Currie, Pike County, Missouri, p. 193; W. L. Casky, Christian County, Kentucky, p. 59; U. E. Kennedy, Todd County, Kentucky, p. 56; Thomas P. Lambert, Henderson County, Kentucky, Division 1, p. 4; A. J. McLean, Logan County, Kentucky, District 2, p. 2; Peter G. Rea, Boonville, Cooper County, Missouri, p. 5; George T. Tisdol, Simpson County, Kentucky, p. 8. I am confident the “R. R. Caldwell” listed in the Boyle County, Kentucky, slave schedules is Robert Henderson Caldwell, who is listed as “Robt. H. Caldwell” in the same county’s census (Danville, Boyle County, p. 14). The households of Robt H. Caldwell, Will A. Caldwell, and Jane Crutchfield (who lived with Phebe Crutchfield) are listed on the same page in the census; likewise, the slaveholdings of R. R. Caldwell, W. Logan Caldwell, Jane Crutchfield, and Phebe Crutchfield are listed on the same page in the slave schedules. Furthermore, Boyle County did not report any other heads of household named Caldwell besides Robert and William. And finally, Robert H. Caldwell is recorded as having two slaves in the 1850 U.S. Federal Census, Slave Schedules, Boyle County, Kentucky, District 1, p. 556.

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and who, when the boat landed at Alton, figured the boat would stay tied up long enough, what

with the unloading and loading of various goods and foodstuffs, that they could finish their

breakfast. They were mistaken. Instead they were stuck on the boat until it reached St. Louis, at

which point they darted to the nearest telegraph office and sent a message asking to delay the

vote for moderator. The telegram never reached the General Assembly.48

The vote for moderator (the president of the assembly) was unusually politicized this year

because it was understood he would have tremendous influence over how the assembly dealt

with the memorial from Ohio Synod. There were two candidates: Milton Bird, the choice of the

conservative wing, including the Border South; and Stephen T. Stewart, the choice of the

“radical” wing. (Stewart was the Peoria pastor whom William Ward called a hypocrite for

denouncing the institution of slavery when he was growing fat from the wealth it produced; he

had since then moved to Pennsylvania.) While the Iowans and northern Illinoisans were trapped

on a southbound boat, conservatives and “radicals” were scrambling to whip votes for their

candidate. Both sides knew the delayed arrival of commissioners from the church’s northern

margins was in the conservatives’ advantage.49

But would it be enough? Southern Illinois minister James L. Riley wasn’t so sure. He

learned that Finis A. Witherspoon, a minister from an adjacent presbytery, had died just a week

before the assembly. Witherspoon had supported Bird for moderator and was urged by his

presbytery to vote likewise. It was a mystery, however, how G. W. Jordan, the alternate

commissioner who had taken Witherspoon’s place, would vote. Riley asked Jordan’s presbyterial

cohort and they admitted they had not talked to Jordan, having assumed he would vote how

48 GA Minutes (CPC), 1863: 65–66; Riley, Life Sketches, 26. 49 Riley, Life Sketches, 25–26; GA Minutes (CPC), 1863: 64.

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Witherspoon intended to vote. But then Riley managed to eavesdrop on Jordan talking to a few

“radical” commissioners, and Jordan said he would vote for Stewart. When Riley related this to

the other commissioners from Jordan’s presbytery, they promptly went to Jordan and

successfully pressured him to vote for Bird instead. The result was that Milton Bird was elected

moderator by the margin of one vote. If Jordan had voted for Stewart, the vote would have been

a tie, and the northern Stewart supporters would have made it to Alton in time to break the tie.50

The day after he was elected moderator, Milton Bird appointed a special committee on

Ohio Synod’s petition, with eleven members representing the eleven synods present at the

assembly. Though Stephen Stewart was among the eleven, a few antislavery commissioners

likely rolled their eyes at who else Bird picked. Illinois Synod was represented by the self-

appointed conservative whip James Riley. Ohio Synod was represented by one of only two men

who voted against the petition at the synod’s 1862 meeting. One member of the special

committee, James W. Campbell, was the son-in-law of Silas N. Davis, the General Assembly

treasurer whose debt upon his death had necessitated the controversial slave sale by the

assembly’s board of trustees. Campbell himself owned two slaves, and three other

commissioners were slaveholders as well. Moreover, of the eleven members of the special

committee, eight had been born in slave states—well above the average for that General

Assembly, though admittedly more in keeping with the church at large.51

50 Riley, Life Sketches, 26–27. 51 The special committee is listed in GA Minutes (CPC), 1863: 68. J. H. Coulter’s dissenting vote at the 1862 meeting of Ohio Synod is recorded in that synod’s minutes, p. 89. See note 46 above for the census evidence that Robert H. Caldwell, James W. Campbell, W. L. Casky, and Peter G. Rea owned slaves. For Campbell’s kinship to Davis, see Beard, Brief Biographical Sketches, 2nd ser., 326.

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The committee spent the next three days holed up in a church basement arguing with

each another. Some of the committee members agreed with Ohio Synod’s condemnation of

slavery and secession and the need to purge the church of those evils, knowing full well that

excommunicating slaveholders and rebels from the church would mean splitting it in two—

indeed, that it would risk losing parts of Missouri and Kentucky as well as the Confederacy.

James Riley argued they could not oppose secession from the federal government but support

secession in the church—and that framing was telling, since it implied that the northern church

would, by expelling the southern majority from its fellowship, be effectively seceding from the

Cumberland Presbyterian Church. (This echoed William Ward’s logic when he argued the

church’s southern roots could not secede from the mere “branches” of the North; secession was

only possible the other way around.) Finally the committee reached a compromise: they would

let one of the conservative members write the response to Ohio Synod’s condemnation of

slavery, and one of the radical members would write the response on secession.52

It is hardly conceivable the compromise could have worked the other way, by letting a

radical write the slavery response and a conservative write the secession response. Most if not all

the commissioners at the General Assembly opposed the Confederacy—the question of slavery

was another matter altogether. Ohio Synod had attempted to link the two issues by referring to

secession as one of slavery’s “attendant evils”; since the Confederacy had seceded to preserve

the institution of slavery, the evil of secession was merely a byproduct of the greater evil of

slavery. But the majority of Cumberland Presbyterians in the Union were more comfortable

condemning secession as a crime against the greatest government God ever made, without

52 Riley, Life Sketches, 27; [William E. Ward], “Policy of Our Church Now,” BP, June 27, 1861, p. 162 (quotations).

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making explicit why the Confederacy seceded in the first place. This was not only because they

did not wish to offend their brothers and sisters in the border states; it was also because

condemning slavery itself was contrary to a commonsense reading of the Bible. Ohio Synod may

have meant to alleviate that fear when it specifically condemned “American Slavery,” implying

the problem was not slavery per se but rather slavery as it was practiced in the United States,

which of course the Bible did not explicitly condemn or condone.53

Accordingly, the conservative report on slavery allowed room for criticism of American

slavery. The report called “the introduction of slavery” to North America “an enormous crime,”

thereby conceding an abolitionist argument that the Atlantic slave trade was tainted by the sin of

kidnapping, which was clearly prohibited in the Bible. However, the report continued,

Cumberland Presbyterians ought not to consider slavery “as if it were about to be introduced” to

the United States, but as it already existed. Was the institution of slavery being practiced in full

accordance with Paul’s injunction to give the slave all that was just and equal? No. But the

remedy was not clear, and “the greatest and best minds” in the Cumberland Presbyterian Church

did not agree on what should be done. The report suggested that the evils of American slavery

could be remedied without overthrowing the whole institution; instead, efforts to bring the

institution in alignment with God’s will had to occur within the institution itself. Slaveholders

had been providentially “placed in connection with this institution,” and it was their obligation to

pray and read the scriptures and thereby “determine their duty.” Those who did not own slaves,

however, ought only to “exercise forbearance”; any agitation on their part would prove ruinous

to both master and slave. The reform of slavery, in short, would be brought about by

slaveholders and slaveholders alone. Slaveholders were not only in a unique position to

53 Minutes of Ohio Synod, 1862, p. 88.

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understand what was best for the slave and for the institution as a whole; they were also

invaluable to the survival of the Christian nation. They were destined to be heroes in the story of

God’s blessed nation, saving it from heresy and race war. The conservative report managed to

twist antislavery logic into a vindication of the slaveholding class.54

Of course the conservative report rejected Ohio Synod’s petition to bar slaveholders from

fellowship. Indeed, the only resolution proffered on the issue of slavery was that the church

“disavow any connection with, or sympathy for the extreme measures of ultra abolitionists,” who

were bent on “the destruction of our civil government.”55 Ironically, this repudiation of

abolitionists was stronger than anything the so-called radical report had to say about supporters

of the Confederacy. The radical report condemned the rebellion in general, using the same logic

(though less heated language) that William Ward’s critics had used at the beginning of the war.

Secession, the radical report maintained, was no “mere political offenc[e]” but rather a “heinous

si[n] against God and his authority,” and the very “cause of Christian civilization” was imperiled.

But while the Confederacy was a grave threat to the project of the Christian nation, actual people

living in the Confederacy came off in a far better light. The radical report repudiated the

Confederacy in general but did not call for the disfellowshipping of any Confederates in

particular. Instead the report included a resolution expressing sympathy for those who lived in

the Confederacy but had, despite “great temptation and suffering . . . stood firm in their devotion

to God and their country”—in other words, those remaining Southern Unionists whose power

and numbers were chronically overestimated by many in the North. But the report didn’t stop

there; it even expressed sympathy for those who had joined “the ranks of rebellion” but only

54 GA Minutes (CPC), 1863: 89. 55 Ibid., 89–90 (first quotation on 89, second quotation on 90).

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because they had “been driven” to do so “contrary to their judgment and wishes.” In short, the

radical report on the Confederacy was laying the groundwork for a generous reconciliation after

the war. Not only those who lived in the Confederacy but even those who fought for it would be

given the benefit of a doubt.56

When the conservative and radical members of the special committee reconvened and

read each other’s reports, one of the radicals objected to the conservative report on slavery for

not going far enough, but he backed down after being scolded by someone else on his side. And

so the compromise report on Ohio Synod’s memorial was brought to the General Assembly,

where it passed nearly unanimously, with only two dissenting votes. The next day and a half’s

business was fairly perfunctory, and the assembly was finally closed with prayer by Milton Bird.

Several of the commissioners rode the same train together for a distance; they had a running gag

where they called the minister A. F. Dadisman “Gooddaddy” because someone at the General

Assembly had accidentally conflated his name with that of S. W. Goodnight. Dadisman laughed

along. James Riley later wrote (giving most of the credit to providence but taking a small share

for himself) that the General Assembly had prevented a division in the church.57

Despite what the commissioners may have thought as they returned home, the question of

what the Cumberland Presbyterian Church would look like when the war finally ended remained

unanswered. But the 1863 General Assembly presaged what would eventually come to be: a

condemnation of rebellion without holding any rebel accountable; a disavowal of the evils of

slavery without condemning the institution or questioning white supremacy; a vision of the

Christian nation that held union in higher esteem than repentance or justice. A rivaling vision of

56 Ibid., 88–89 (first through fourth quotations on 88, fifth through seventh quotations on 89). 57 Riley, Life Sketches, 26–28 (quotation on 28); GA Minutes (CPC), 1863: 76–82.

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the church’s future emerged briefly in the last year of the war, but only briefly. William Ward

had good reason to feel hopeful when, at the war’s end, by which time he and his father-in-law

had lost two dozen slaves, he walked among the ruins of his alma mater Cumberland

University—burnt by Confederate raiders in August 1864 when they learned it was being used as

barracks for black Union soldiers—and half-idly wrote a Latin word on one of the bare columns,

acting out something he had read about the architect Christopher Wren and the ruins of the Great

Fire of London. Resurgam, he wrote on the column with a pencil (or, in other accounts, a charred

piece of wood). “I will arise.”58

58 Langum and Walthall, From Maverick to Mainstream, 49–51; McDonnold, History of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, 515; “Thaddeus Constantine Blake—An Autobiography. Chapter VII. Disappoint Doctors,” Nashville Cumberland Presbyterian, March 22, 1906, p. 361.

CHAPTER 6: THE UNITY OF THE SPIRIT, 1864–1877

In the summer of 1863, Anthony S. Walker called a Cumberland Presbyterian minister to

his deathbed. Walker was “one of the wealthiest and most influential” men in Cooper County,

Missouri, owning a couple of slaves and more than $50,000 worth of land, and had recently

completed a term in the state house. He was also a lifelong Methodist. Yet he asked to speak to a

Cumberland Presbyterian minister about joining his church, since it was the only denomination

to remain united during the awful war. The northern and southern Methodists had split nearly

two decades beforehand and were now warring over Missouri, where the northern church

(though home to less than 15 percent of the state’s Methodists) had the support of the occupying

Union army. Southern Methodist ministers were frequently harassed and imprisoned by U.S.

soldiers; northern Methodists seized control of several southern Methodist congregations and

nearly captured the southern Methodist publishing house in St. Louis. The Cumberland

Presbyterians, meanwhile, were still one, and their General Assembly had just disavowed both

abolitionism and secession, which Border State moderates doubly blamed for tearing the nation

apart. As Anthony Walker lay dying in his bed, he recalled a passage from the apostle Paul’s

letter to the church in Ephesus, where tension between Jewish and Gentile converts to the faith

had once threatened the congregation’s survival; Walker told the Cumberland Presbyterian

preacher that any church that “could maintain its unity when all others have split, surely had the

true unity of the Spirit.” Walker believed the unity of Christ’s body was overseen and

undergirded by that most mysterious person in the triune godhood, the Holy Spirit, and where

Walker found evidence of the Spirit’s work he knew he had found the Spirit’s blessing. And so

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this dying man was willing to leave behind the church in which he and his children had been

baptized.1

The Cumberland Presbyterian minister may have been Peter G. Rea, also a prominent

man in Cooper County and president of Missouri Female College. Rea had actually been a

member of the 1863 General Assembly committee that reached the heralded compromise on

slavery and secession. In any case, the minister in question included the story about Anthony

Walker in a sermon he gave a year after the war ended, two and a half years years after Walker’s

death. His expressed purpose in sharing the story was to arouse the congregation’s pride in what

their church had accomplished. Indeed, when he detailed how the Cumberland Presbyterians

“had maintained our unity through the whole struggle of the last five years,” he noticed this

“seemed to electrify the audience.” But the story was also a warning. Yes, the Cumberland

Presbyterian Church had survived the war intact; but would it survive the peace? The answer was

far from clear in the spring of 1866. It was a great honor to be a city on a hill, but it also meant

that, if the city were to falter, all in the valley would see.2

The greatest test of Cumberland Presbyterian unity came not with the election of Lincoln

or the firing on Fort Sumter but with the final year of the war and the year that followed.

1 “Unity of the Church,” BP, March 22, 1866, p. 121 (quotations); 1860 U.S. Federal Census, Slave Schedules, Clear Creek, Cooper County, Missouri, p. 11; 1860 U.S. Federal Census, Clear Creek, Cooper County, Missouri, p. 102, dwelling no. 694; History of Howard and Cooper Counties, Missouri, Written and Compiled from the Most Authentic Official and Private Sources, Including a History of Its Townships, Towns, and Villages (St. Louis: National Historic Company, 1883), 933, 965; Lucas Volkman, Houses Divided: Evangelical Schisms and the Crisis of the Union in Missouri (New York: Oxford University Press, 2018); Ephesians 4:3. 2 “Unity of the Church,” BP, March 22, 1866, p. 121 (quotations); History of Saline County, Missouri, Carefully Written and Compiled from the Most Authentic Official and Private Sources, Including a History of Its Townships, Towns, and Villages (St. Louis: Missouri Historical Company, 1881), 799–800; 1860 U.S. Federal Census, Boonville, Cooper County, Missouri, p. 42, dwelling no. 342; GA Minutes (CPC), 1863: 68; Matthew 5:14.

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The General Assemblies of 1864 and 1865, both with minimal representation from the

Confederacy, condemned slavery and mandated that any Cumberland Presbyterian who

supported the Confederacy would have to repent of their treason before they could be allowed

back into communion. Had this mandate been enforced, it would have undoubtedly meant the

disunion of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. But it was not enforced. The General

Assembly of 1866 more or less rescinded the resolutions of 1864 and 1865, and the debate over

whether to bar unrepentant former Confederates from communion, much less unrepentant former

slaveholders, withered fast.

The reconstruction of Cumberland Presbyterianism helps make sense of the relationship

between religion and the postbellum reunification of the United States. While historians like

Daniel Stowell point to the continuation of separate southern and northern denominations after

the war as evidence that sectionalism was not extinguished at Appomattox, other historians argue

persuasively that Christian ideas and rhetoric underwrote the reforging of the republic. But if the

church was little more than a harbor of sectional animosity, then how did religion offer a salve to

the nation’s wounds? After all, though religion is certainly not limited to or contained by the

church, it is hard to imagine religion having a significant impact on Civil War–era American

society if by religion we mean something wholly outside the church.3

Examining the largest denomination to survive the war intact clarifies things. We find

that the same two forces that before the war had paradoxically both bolstered and undermined

3 Stowell, Rebuilding Zion; Wilson, Baptized in Blood; Moorhead, American Apocalypse; Blum, Reforging the White Republic; W. Scott Poole, Never Surrender: Confederate Memory and Conservatism in the South Carolina Upcountry (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2004); Victor B. Howard, Religion and the Radical Republican Movement (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1990); Joan Waugh, “‘Pageantry of Woe’: The Funeral of Ulysses S. Grant,” Civil War History, 51 (June 2005), 151–74.

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the project of the Christian nation—the institution of slavery and the religious marketplace—

came into play during the war’s end and the reconstruction of Cumberland Presbyterianism. If, as

historian Luke Harlow has argued, proslavery Christianity did not die with the death of slavery,

then neither did the consensus that united pro- and antislavery moderates.4 The emancipation of

the enslaved population did not lessen the distaste most Cumberland Presbyterians held for

abolitionism, or lessen their commitment to white supremacy. And so the Cumberland

Presbyterian Church agreed, with little debate, that its formerly enslaved members could not

exist on equal terms with its white members, resulting finally in the establishment of a separate

black church in 1874. Nevertheless, though the union of Cumberland Presbyterians north and

south of the Mason-Dixon line ultimately took place at the expense of the church’s black

members, Cumberland Presbyterians insisted they had remained united, as though it were the

union of the church’s white members that truly mattered.

This narrative became central to the story Cumberland Presbyterians told about

themselves for the next few decades. Ever more needing to justify their existence as a separate

denomination as the Old and New Schools reunited, Cumberland Presbyterians could point to the

union of their white members throughout the Civil War era as evidence they were still a vital and

necessary part of American Christendom. Indeed, they believed they were to be, as a truly

national church, the model of the Christian nation’s future. Of course, it was the church’s

steadfast commitment to white supremacy that made its union possible, and thereby justified the

4 Luke E. Harlow, “The Long Life of Proslavery Religion,” in The World the Civil War Made, ed. Gregory P. Downs and Kate Masur (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2015), 132–58; Harlow, Religion, Race, and the Making of Confederate Kentucky. For analogous arguments, see Molly Oshatz’s Slavery and Sin on the continuity between antebellum antislavery theology and postbellum liberal theology; and April Holm’s Kingdom Divided on the continuity between border churches’ antebellum and wartime claims to neutrality and their postbellum alliances with southern sectional churches.

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church’s relevance to the project of the Christian nation—something which was necessary in the

denominational marketplace. This fit into a larger national story, as white northerners and

southerners reforged the United States along terms that excluded African Americans from full

equality; see the Republican Party’s abandonment of Reconstruction, the ceding of the “Negro

question” to the white southern elite, and the white North’s embrace of a sentimental

historiography that downplayed the centrality of slavery and African Americans to the Civil War.

White supremacy was integral to American nation-building, and the Cumberland Presbyterians

demonstrated the project of the Christian nation could work in the same mold.5

In March 1864 (a couple of months before the General Assembly convened in Lebanon,

Ohio), Indiana Presbytery held its spring meeting in the southwestern town of Patoka. Though it

was the same presbytery that had expelled Thomas McCormick for aiding fugitive slaves, it

apparently viewed the politics of slavery differently now that the southern slaveocracy was at

war with the Union and the Fugitive Slave Act was in shambles. Indiana Presbytery unanimously

approved the 1863 General Assembly’s declaration “that the introduction of slavery was an

enormous crime,” but it did not think the assembly had gone far enough. It wanted the assembly

to more explicitly denounce the peculiar institution, as Ohio Synod had asked the previous year.

The presbytery condemned slavery for trampling the holy ties that bound husband to wife and

parent to child, and for making humans into mere “chattel” and thereby “shutting out the light of

5 Heather Cox Richardson, The Death of Reconstruction: Race, Labor, and Politics in the Post–Civil War North, 1865–1901 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2001); David W. Blight, Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2001); Nina Silber, The Romance of Reunion: Northerners and the South, 1865–1900 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1993); K. Stephen Prince, Stories of the South: Race and the Reconstruction of Southern Identity, 1865–1915 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2014); Natalie J. Ring, The Problem South: Region, Empire, and the New Liberal State, 1880–1930 (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2012), 175–215.

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truth” from their souls. The presbytery therefore memorialized the next General Assembly “to set

forth more fully and clearly” the “evils inherent in the System of Slavery, as it exists in the

Southern States,” and to “urge” southern Cumberland Presbyterians to “abandon” the system.

Though Indiana Presbytery was careful not to condemn slavery itself and thereby violate the

commonsense reading of scripture—it denounced slavery “as it exists in the Southern States”—

this was nevertheless a more full-throated incrimination of slavery than most white southerners

would have been comfortable with.6

Lebanon, Ohio, was, with the exception of Pittsburgh, the farthest north and farthest east

the General Assembly had ever met. It was only the fourth time the General Assembly had met

in a free state.7 The arrival of moderate-minded ministers and elders from Missouri, Kentucky,

Illinois, and southern Indiana raised the suspicion of a few Ohio abolitionists, who thought the

assembly little more than a “nest” of “Copperheads.” But while a significant portion of the

Cumberland Presbyterians gathered there probably had politics closer to Clement Vallandigham

than Salmon P. Chase, this General Assembly proved to be the most “radical” one the

denomination ever witnessed.8

It was a contentious gathering even before Indiana Presbytery’s memorial came up for

debate. On the second day of business, a minister moved to raise the American flag over the

church building as a “token of our loyalty to the Federal Government.” The assembly debated the

motion for hours, adjourned, and picked it up again the next day. Finally the resolution passed by

6 Minutes of Indiana Presbytery, March 28, 1864, pp. 224, 230–31 (second and third quotations on 230, fourth through eighth quotations on 231); GA Minutes (CPC), 1863: 89 (first quotation). 7 The General Assembly met in Pittsburgh in 1851; Evansville, Indiana, in 1859; and Alton, Illinois, in 1863. 8 Columbus Daily Ohio Statesman, May 31, 1864, p. 2 (first and second quotations).

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a vote of 45 to 18, though three separate explanatory statements were included in the minutes:

one from the eighteen ministers who voted no, explaining they were wary of blurring the line

between church and state; another from one of the eighteen, clarifying his vote was not cast

“against the glorious old ensign of liberty”; and finally a statement from seven ministers who

admitted they only voted yes because they were afraid of seeming disloyal.9

If these ministers were dismayed by the hoisting of the Stars and Stripes, they were even

more upset by what came out of the special committee on the Indiana Presbytery resolution. The

committee resolved that “the holding of human beings in involuntary slavery, as practiced in

some of the States of the American Union,” was “contrary to the precepts of our holy religion,”

and the “source of many evils and vices in the social system.” Though this denunciation of

slavery was even more careful than Indiana Presbytery’s—denouncing the institution “as

practiced in some of the States,” rather than just simply “in the Southern States,” allowing

Border State slaveholders to believe the resolution did not incriminate them but rather

slaveholders in the Deep South—the committee went a step further than Indiana Presbytery and

urged Cumberland Presbyterians to support “all constitutional efforts of our government to rid

the country of that enormous evil.” Among other things, this meant Cumberland Presbyterians in

the unoccupied Confederacy should emancipate their slaves as ordered by the federal

government. And if the federal government were to ultimately abolish slavery outright, then it

would have the church’s support.10

The committee did not stop there. It also took it upon itself to respond to a resolution

from the Middle Tennessee presbytery of Richland, which had urged the General Assembly not

9 GA Minutes (CPC), 1864: 108–16 (first quotation on 108, second quotation on 111). 10 GA Minutes (CPC), 1864: 142 (first through fourth quotations, sixth quotation); Minutes of Indiana Presbytery, March 28, 1864, p. 231 (fifth quotation).

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to take any political stance that would threaten the unity of the church. Though the committee

expressing its desire for a unified church, it cautioned that this must be done “without conniving

at sin, and sacrificing the principles of truth and justice.” Christ, after all, said he “came not to

send peace, but a sword”—indeed, he came to set the son “against his father, and the daughter

against her mother.” A Christian had to choose loyalty to God over loyalty to friends and family,

including those whom the Christian had once worshiped alongside. It was time now for such a

choice. And so the committee resolved:

[W]e must regard those who are or have been voluntarily in rebellion against the

Government of the United States, as not only guilty of a crime against the Government,

but also guilty of great sin against God, and with such, without repentance and

humiliation before God and the Church, we cannot desire fellowship.

It was not enough to condemn the Confederacy as the 1863 General Assembly had; the church

needed to expel all Cumberland Presbyterians who supported the Confederacy. “[W]e must stand

by our Master, though it require us to sever the dearest ties of time.”11

When the special committee’s report arrived at the assembly floor, a minister from

southern Illinois moved to refer the report to the presbyteries and table the matter until the next

General Assembly. This was, constitutionally speaking, the proper step if the General Assembly

wanted to make any new rule mandatory for the church as a whole; but it would also require a

majority of the presbyteries to sign off on the report before the General Assembly could vote on

it. After a few hours of debate, the motion passed by a vote of 31 to 26. Except for two

commissioners who were absent, all who voted against raising the flag above the church

building voted for referring the report to the presbyteries. They were joined by all the

11 GA Minutes (CPC), 1864: 143; Matthew 10:34–36.

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commissioners (except for another two absentees) who voted for raising the flag but declared

they did so reluctantly, and by another ten commissioners who had supported raising the flag

without reservation.12

But this coalition began to crack. Frederick Lack, who pastored the German-language

mission church in St. Louis, immediately asked to change his vote from yea to nay. He was

joined the next morning by three other commissioners, who like Lack had supported raising the

flag. This changed the final tally from 31–26 to 27–30. The special committee’s report would not

be referred to the presbyteries, and the assembly would have to vote on the actual report. It

passed. The General Assembly of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church endorsed the abolition of

slavery and swore off communion with supporters of the Confederacy.13

How did this happen? The geographical makeup of the assembly did not necessarily

indicate it would be more radical than in 1863; in fact, Border Staters made up a slightly higher

percentage of the 1864 assembly than the previous year’s (albeit fewer from western Kentucky,

the most pro-Confederate region in the Union), and there were even two commissioners from

Middle Tennessee.14 But the war had been raging for three years. There had been a time when

abolitionism was perceived as a threat to the Union, but Lincoln had made the destruction of

slavery central to the war cause. Many commissioners therefore likely supported the special

committee’s report for the same reason they supported hoisting the American flag above the

church: to signal their support for the Union. Even then, they won with a bare majority in a

12 GA Minutes (CPC), 1864: 110–11, 115, 123–25; CPC Const. (1829), Form of Government 10.7, pp. 120–21. The pagination cited for the 1829 constitution (adopted upon the establishment of the General Assembly) is from The Constitution of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, in the United States of America (Pittsburgh: Arthur A. Anderson, 1843). 13 GA Minutes (CPC), 1864: 125–27. 14 GA Minutes (CPC), 1863: 63–66, 68, 1864: 103–5, 110.

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General Assembly that itself represented a minority of the church—indeed, if the four absentees

who had either opposed or expressed reservations about raising the flag had been present, the

moderate coalition could have held.

Twelve commissioners, including eight Kentuckians (the most prominent being stated

clerk Milton Bird), submitted a protest to the assembly. They believed the special committee was

not, as it claimed, acting in radical obedience to Christ, but rather under the sway of “sectional

hatred.” The dissidents said the General Assembly had been overcome by political “mania” and a

fanatical spirit akin to the Spanish Inquisition. Echoing older critiques of abolitionists who

lobbied for the excommunication of slaveholders, Bird and the other dissidents accused the

assembly’s majority of placing a condition upon communion that neither Christ nor his disciples

had placed. This meant, in short, holding the Republican Party platform in a higher regard than

the very word of God. And since the resolutions had not come to the presbyteries for a vote, they

were not binding on the presbyteries and therefore “merely agitation for the sake of agitation”—

for the sake, it seemed, of alienating a majority of the denomination.15

Their protest was included in the General Assembly minutes, but the resolutions stood.

The New York Daily Tribune, which had exposed the General Assembly trustees’ slave sale in

1859, was pleasantly surprised that what had “been heretofore a strong pro-Slavery church” was

now “urging the immediate abolition of Slavery.” At the next General Assembly, held in

Evansville, Indiana, mere weeks after Appomattox, the commissioners reaffirmed the 1864

resolutions; all Cumberland Presbyterians who had supported the now-vanquished Confederacy

should repent of the sin of rebellion if they wanted to be welcomed back into communion.16

15 GA Minutes (CPC), 1864: 127–29 (quotations on 128). 16 “The Churches of the Slave States,” New York Daily Tribune, March 23, 1865, p. 4 (quotations); GA Minutes (CPC), 1865: 175, 191–92.

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But it was not long before large portions of the church that had been dormant awoke.

Slowly but surely Cumberland Presbyterians in the old Confederacy resurrected the old

infrastructure of the church and made their voices heard. Presbyteries and synods convened that

had not done so in years. The trustees of Cumberland University began fundraising to rebuild the

campus. In September 1865, subscribers to the Banner of Peace, shuttered since the federal

occupation of Nashville in February 1862, began receiving new issues in the mail. People wrote

the paper asking—is Reuben Burrow still alive? What about the brothers Burgess? Was H. B.

Warren still in Texas? The paper also published the most relevant passages from the minutes of

the wartime assemblies, which most Cumberland Presbyterians had only heard rumors of.17

Cumberland Presbyterians from the South (largely from the former Confederacy) held a

convention in Memphis in November 1865. There was some fear the men gathered there would

form a separate southern denomination, just as an ad-hoc convention led to the formation of the

Confederate Presbyterian church. But the Memphis convention was proud their church had

survived the war intact, and did not wish to separate from the North. They did, however,

castigate the 1864 General Assembly. They said the resolutions on slavery and secession were

“extra-ecclesiastical, and therefore utterly nugatory”; moreover, the resolutions “condemn[ed]

what God does not condemn” and assumed a position more holy and righteous than God. The

Memphis convention did not think anyone should be ashamed of having supported the

Confederacy, nor did they have anything to repent for. Repentance for what was not a sin could

17 T. C. Blake, “Cumberland University,” BP, January 11, 1866, p. 81; BP, September 16, 1865 (first postbellum issue); “Letter from Ohio,” BP, January 11, 1866, p. 81; [J. C. Provine], “Deliverances of the Late Assemblies,” BP, March 22, 1866, p. 121; “Sense of the Assembly—1861,” BP, March 22, 1866, p. 121; “Report of the Committee on the State of the Church,” BP, March 29, 1866, p. 125; “Report of Special Committee—General Assembly of 1863,” BP, April 5, 1866, p. 129; “Deliverance of the Assembly, 1864,” BP, April 12, 1866, p. 133.

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not be a condition for partaking of the body and blood of Christ. The convention therefore urged

commissioners from the southern states to overturn the 1864 and 1865 resolutions at the next

General Assembly.18

Cumberland Presbyterians were faced with four great questions as the 1866 assembly

grew close, the first since 1860 where the whole denomination would be represented. What

would it mean to “reconstruct” the church, if indeed the church needed reconstruction? What was

the proper relationship between the church and the state? Who was more at fault—the North or

the South—for lingering disunion in the church? And how would disunion undermine the

church’s potential contribution to the project of the Christian nation?

The 1865 General Assembly invoked the problem of reconstruction in its reaffirmation of

the 1864 resolutions, ordering Cumberland Presbyterians in the former Confederacy to require

repentance from former rebels when going about the business of “reconstructing the churches.”19

But what did reconstruction actually mean, and how extensive did it have to be? Alfred B.

Miller, president of Waynesburg College and editor of the Waynesburg Cumberland

Presbyterian—in short, the most influential Cumberland Presbyterian in western Pennsylvania—

argued that most synods in the former Confederacy were “disorganized” and therefore needed a

wholesale reconstruction. He did not use the term “disorganized” primarily in a pejorative sense

but rather in a legal sense; he meant that these synods no longer existed according to

ecclesiastical law. The church’s constitution mandated that synods meet once a year and forward

their minutes to the General Assembly, and the General Assembly was obligated to discipline—

18 “Cumberland Presbyterian Convention—Memphis, Tennessee,” BP, November 30, 1865, p. 68 (quotations); “The Memphis Convention,” BP, November 30, 1865, p. 69. 19 GA Minutes (CPC), 1865: 192.

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and empowered to dissolve—any synod delinquent in its constitutional duties. Most synods in

the former Confederacy had not met during the war.20

Many Cumberland Presbyterians disagreed with Miller’s interpretation of church law.

The General Assembly certainly could have disciplined the Confederate synods for not meeting

during the war, but the fact was it did not. A delinquent synod did not automatically dissolve if it

fell short of its constitutional mandate; dissolution required the explicit action of the General

Assembly. The Banner of Peace suggested that northern Cumberland Presbyterians calling for a

reconstruction of the church were conflating ecclesiastical law with national politics. Requiring

repentance from Cumberland Presbyterians who had supported the Confederacy before they

could take communion was, many believed, analogous to the Andrew Johnson administration

requiring certain former Confederates to petition for a presidential pardon and pledge their

loyalty to the United States before their full rights as citizens were restored. And the matter of

reconstructing synods was analogous to the ongoing debate over how to readmit the former

Confederate states into the Union. In May 1865, Andrew Johnson announced that any former

Confederate state could be readmitted if it held a convention abolishing slavery, disavowing

secession, and repudiating its war debts. When Johnson proclaimed a few months later that the

Union was restored (even though not every state had met the criteria he had set), Congress

responded that the former Confederate states were federal territories and therefore only Congress

could readmit them as states, rendering Johnson’s words moot. There were now various

proposals for reconstructing the southern states, including requiring a certain percentage of a

20 “Reconstruction,” BP, January 25, 1866, p. 89 (quotations); Waynesburg (Penn.) Cumberland Presbyterian reprinted in “Reconstructing the Church,” BP, February 1, 1866, p. 92; CPC Const. (1829), Form of Government 10.2, 10.4, 11.4, pp. 118, 120. Also see Lee Roy Woods quoted in “Organization of the Assembly,” BP, May 3, 1866, p. 143.

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state’s citizens to swear an oath of allegiance to the U.S. government; the most radical plans

entailed redrawing the states’ borders from scratch. Southern Cumberland Presbyterians were

therefore afraid that northerners like Alfred Miller had something rather drastic in mind when

they said the southern synods no longer legally existed and needed to be reconstructed.21

Cumberland Presbyterians in the South also thought those calling for a reconstruction of

the southern church were violating the separation between church and state. And this was a

larger critique they had of “radical” Cumberland Presbyterians in the North. The Memphis

convention pointed to the Confession of Faith, which commanded the General Assembly “not to

intermeddle with civil affairs” but rather to deal only with spiritual matters. During the slavery

debates before the Civil War, the church’s moderate consensus took this to mean that the legality

of slavery itself was outside the purview of the church, while the reformation of slavery was

inside it. When the General Assembly endorsed the abolition of slavery and required former

Confederates to repudiate their support for secession, it violated that consensus.22

The requirement that Cumberland Presbyterians repudiate the Confederacy was the

subject of more heated debate than the assembly’s resolution on slavery. The minister David

Lowry, who now lived in Iowa after working as an Indian missionary in Prairie du Chien,

suggested the resolution on slavery may have gone too far, but that the Thirteenth Amendment

had made it a moot point. Rebellion, though, was a different matter for Lowry, who believed it

21 “Reconstruction,” BP, January 25, 1866, p. 89; “Reconstructing the Church,” BP, February 1, 1866, p. 92; “Organization of the Assembly,” BP, May 3, 1866, p. 143. 22 “Cumberland Presbyterian Convention—Memphis, Tennessee,” BP, November 30, 1865, p. 68. Also see Minutes of Columbia Synod, 1865, pp. 295–96.

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was undoubtedly a sin; the former rebels therefore ought to repent.23 An Illinois presbytery

pointed to a passage in Paul’s letter to the church in Rome, where he wrote that “the powers that

be are ordained of God,” and whoever “resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God.”

Repentance for the sin of rebellion was therefore within the General Assembly’s purview.24 But

Stanford G. Burney, pastor of the church in Oxford, Mississippi, disagreed with this

interpretation of Paul, which if taken to its logical extreme meant denouncing every rebellion and

endorsing every tyrant. Did this mean the American republic’s rebellion against the British

crown was a sin? What about Jeroboam’s rebellion against the fourth king of Israel, of which

God said, “this thing is from me”? Burney reasoned that Paul’s injunction was to obey

“municipal or civil law” and did not require obedience to, say, the Republican Party. The sort of

rebellion subject to the church’s discipline was not siding with Jefferson Davis instead of

Abraham Lincoln, but rather “violations of municipal or civil law, such as the practice of stealing

negroes.”25

Burney’s sly reference to abolitionists who violated the Fugitive Slave Act hinted at a

larger talking point among southern and moderate northern Cumberland Presbyterians: that the

North was as much to blame as the South was for disunion, if not more to blame, both before and

after the war. A Cumberland Presbyterian paper in Illinois wrote that the “same inflammable

elements” existed in the North and the South, and “the match” merely “touched [the South’s]

combustible matter first.” (As an example of northern combustibility, the paper cited William

23 Alton (Ill.) Western Cumberland Presbyterian reprinted in D. Lowry, “A Plain Talk with Cumberland Presbyterians, Both North and South,” BP, February 22, 1866, p. 104. 24 “Memorial of the Wabash Presbytery,” BP, April 19, 1866, p. 136; Romans 13:1–2. 25 S. G. Burney, “S. G. Burney to the Wabash Presbytery,” BP, May 17, 1866, p. 150 (second and third quotations); 1 Kings 12:24 (first quotation).

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Seward’s 1850 remark that opponents of slavery were bound to obey a “higher law” than the

U.S. Constitution.) In short, northerners had little room to deride southerners for what they could

have easily been guilty of as well had the wind blown the other way.26 Milton Bird, who had

stayed true to the Union throughout the war, believed secession was indeed a sin but that this sin

began in the North, where abolitionist mobs, courts, and state legislatures had rebelled against

Congress and the Constitution. Even when Bird tried to be even-handed, he could not help but in

the same breath place the greater onus on the North:

I am not now going to inquire whether Northern or Southern Christians are most to blame

with regard to past alienation and strife. It so happened, unfortunately, as I think, that

Northern Christians were for driving on faster than time and Providence for the

overthrow of slavery, and so provoked Southern Christians to give the fatal blow to the

institution.27

The anti-abolitionist consensus from before the war, that radical northerners rushed

God’s plan for the white and black races and thereby jeopardized the project of the Christian

nation, was applied anew to the postbellum state of the church. If abolitionists were as

blameworthy as secessionists were for disunion, then it was hypocritical for the northern church

to require repentance from its southern half. After all, the South was not demanding repentance

from abolitionists! The North, therefore, or at least its radical faction, was the sole obstacle to

continued union. The Banner of Peace was particularly alarmed by the Pennsylvania radical

26 Alton Western Cumberland Presbyterian reprinted in D. Lowry, “A Plain Talk with Cumberland Presbyterians, Both North and South,” BP, February 22, 1866, p. 104. 27 Owensboro (Ky.) Central Cumberland Presbyterian reprinted in Milton Bird, “The Cumberland Presbyterian Church. Number II,” BP, May 10, 1866, p. 147; Milton Bird, “The Important Crisis Past—With Care Avoid the Danger of the Lee-shore,” BP, August 30, 1866, p. 1 (quotation).

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Alfred Miller’s warning that the commissioners at the 1864 General Assembly “were earnest and

intelligent men, and their action is not to be ignored.” The upcoming General Assembly, with far

greater representation from the South, would likely overturn the resolutions of the 1864

assembly—would its action not be as legitimate as the 1864 assembly’s? The Banner worried

that northern Cumberland Presbyterians like Miller wanted “a pretext for secession.” If so, then

the South would have no share of the blame. If, having survived the war, the church now

faltered, it would be northerners’ fault.28

Not that southern Cumberland Presbyterians took any glee in the prospect of disunion; on

the contrary, they feared disunion would fatally undermine the church’s role in the Christian

nation, if not undermine the project altogether. The Methodists, Baptists, and Presbyterians

remained divided. The Episcopalians had reunited, but they were, in the eyes of most

evangelicals, little better than Roman Catholics. The Cumberland Presbyterians stood tall as the

largest evangelical church with significant territory in both the North and the South, and if they

remained united they would, in the words of one Methodist minister, “occupy the most exalted

and enviable position of any church on this continent.”29 If, however, they were torn apart by

sectional antagonism, Milton Bird warned it would be the ruination of God’s project in America,

28 “Their Action Is Not to Be Ignored,” BP, March 22, 1866, p. 122 (first quotation); [J. C. Provine], “Memorial from the Wabash Presbytery,” BP, March 29, 1866, p. 125 (second quotation); “The Next General Assembly,” BP, April 5, 1866, p. 129; “Yet We Cannot Sacrifice Everything for the Sake of Union,” BP, April 12, 1866, p. 132; [J. C. Provine], “The Spirit of Southern Ministers,” BP, April 19, 1866, p. 137; Owensboro Central Cumberland Presbyterian reprinted in Milton Bird, “The Cumberland Presbyterian Church. Number II,” BP, May 10, 1866, p. 147. 29 “The Position of the Cumberland Presbyterian Before the American People—What Others Think,” BP, October 5, 1865, p. 54 (quotation); “Unity of the Church,” BP, March 22, 1865, p. 121; Owensboro Central Cumberland Presbyterian reprinted in Milton Bird, “The Cumberland Presbyterian Church. Number II,” BP, May 10, 1866, p. 147.

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shutting down the progress of the gospel in America and thereby the world, portending an

“eclipse” that would “obscure this hemisphere and blight forever the anxious anticipation of

mankind,” and then some future poet might sing:

The star of hope shone brightest in the West,

The hope of Liberty, the last, the best,

That, too, has set, upon her darkened shore,

And hope and freedom light up earth no more.30

Bird was not alone in having such a melodramatic imagination. After all, the Cumberland

Presbyterians’ national unity was not the only thing at stake; so was the theological middle

ground they believed would one day win over all of American Christendom. One minister

implied that, if the upcoming General Assembly reaffirmed the 1864 resolution on former

Confederates, the church would no longer “preach that salvation is possible for all of the fallen

race of man.” A class of men and women would be, for reasons not taught in scripture, closed off

from Christian communion and presumably from the very kingdom of God. This would be little

better than the Calvinist doctrine of predestination the church had sought to escape.31

These fears were quickly relieved when the General Assembly convened in Owensboro,

Kentucky, in May 1866. Former supporters of the Confederacy won an immediate victory when

stated clerk Milton Bird (who had voted against the 1864 resolutions on slavery and secession)

received without objection all the commissioners in attendance. Bird could have asked any

commissioner if he had supported the Confederacy, and if so had he disavowed the rebellion; and

Bird would have had the authority to reject any unrepentant commissioner. A minister from

30 Milton Bird, “Report of the Delegate of Princeton Presbytery to the Memphis Council,” BP, May 3, 1866, p. 142. 31 “Letter from Rev. William Ralston,” BP, May 17, 1866, p. 151.

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Indiana believed such an action would have meant expelling a large number of the men gathered

in Owensboro; he was dismayed by how many “unrepentant rebels” there were, “men who

gloried in having been officers and soldiers in the Rebel Army . . . and who claimed, that in so

doing, they had only done what was right and honorable.” But Bird said nothing and let every

commissioner be seated. The assembly was therefore made up of 159 commissioners, 71 of them

(44.6%) from the former Confederacy and 111 total (69.8%) from former slave states. The

previous assembly only had 74 commissioners, and the 1864 assembly only had 57 present for

the most critical vote. This would be a very different assembly.32

Bird appointed a special committee to consider the 1864 and 1865 assemblies’

resolutions on slavery and rebellion, with one representative from each synod—nine from the

former Confederacy (albeit one from Unionist East Tennessee), three from the Border South, and

eight from the North. At least three synods were represented by men who had fought for the

Confederacy, including one who had fought under Nathan Bedford Forrest and another who had

lost a chunk of his scalp to a Union bullet. And Kentucky’s synod was represented by Milton

Bird.33

Unlike its predecessor at the 1864 assembly, the special committee failed to reach a

consensus, instead producing a majority report and a minority report. The majority report was

32 GA Minutes (CPC), 1864: 124–25, 1865: 163–66, 170, 1866: 87–91; Minutes of Indiana Presbytery, August 31, 1866, p. 398 (quotations). 33 GA Minutes (CPC), 1866: 16–17; Richard Inge, “The Rev. Reuben Burrow,” Nashville Cumberland Presbyterian, June 14, 1888, p. 2; John Berrien Lindsley, ed., The Military Annals of Tennessee. Confederate (Nashville: J. M. Lindsley & Co., 1886), 721; Robert E. Waterman and Thomas Rothrock, eds., “The Earle-Buchanan Letters of 1861–1876,” Arkansas Historical Quarterly, 33 (Summer 1974), 99–174, esp. 105–6; C. H. Bell, “In Memory of E. B. Crisman, D.D.,” Nashville Cumberland Presbyterian, June 8, 1899, p. 714; James D. Porter, ed., Tennessee, vol. 8 of Confederate Military History: A Library of Confederate States History, in Twelve Volumes, Written by Distinguished Men of the South, ed. Clement A. Evans (Atlanta: Confederate Publishing Company, 1899), 281.

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signed by all the southern members of the committee, except for Samuel B. West of East

Tennessee, and was also signed by the representative from California Synod—nine men in all.

Their report emphasized the importance of maintaining the separation of church and state, and

derided the 1864 and 1865 assemblies for legislating on civil matters. While “the moral welfare

of the African race” remained, as it did before the war, a proper matter for discussion, the legal

issue of slavery and its aftermath ought to be kept out of the pulpit and the ecclesiastical court.

The authors of the majority report wrote that “as individual members of the Cumberland

Presbyterian Church,” they “accept[ed] in good faith the results of the late war” and swore

allegiance to the U.S. government; but the church itself should swear allegiance to no

government, nor should anyone be forced to repent for having supported another government.

The minority report was signed by the northern members of the special committee, with the

exception of California Synod and the addition of East Tennessee, eight men total. They simply

said there was “nothing in the deliverances of former Assemblies” regarding slavery or secession

“requiring modification or repeal.”34

Though the two reports were debated for four days on the General Assembly floor,

ultimately neither came to a vote. Instead Milton Bird proposed a substitute report that managed

not to explicitly mention the 1864 or 1865 assemblies. The report cited Christ’s assertion that his

kingdom was not of this world, and the Confession of Faith’s provision that the General

Assembly must only deal with matters ecclesiastical, not civil; it then resolved that the General

Assembly should oppose the “union of Church and State” and disclaim “any expression of

political sentiment.” The vagueness of Bird’s substitute report irritated many in that body. Alfred

34 GA Minutes (CPC), 1866: 45–47 (first through third quotations on 46, fourth and fifth quotations on 47); Minutes of Indiana Presbytery, August 31, 1866, p. 397.

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Miller cheekily proposed an amendment that the moderator appoint another special committee to

examine which past actions of the General Assembly, if any, Bird’s report nullified; this

amendment was indefinitely postponed. Another commissioner proposed an amendment to

Bird’s report clarifying that it was not meant to nullify “any previous action of the Assembly

touching the subjections of Rebellion and Slavery.” This too was postponed.35

A motion was then made to adopt the minority report, amending it so it found “nothing in

the deliverances of former Assemblies . . . requiring modification or repeal except the expression

of former Assemblies, which seems to require repentance and humiliation before God and the

Church, as a condition of fellowship.” The denunciation of slavery and rebellion would stand, as

would the endorsement of abolition, but the requirement of repentance from former Confederates

would be dispensed with. (One minister who supported this motion later explained he hoped

retaining the 1864 assembly’s endorsement of abolition and condemnation of secession would

alienate unrepentant Confederates and persuade them to leave the denomination anyway,

accomplishing the very thing the compromise motion disclaimed.) Still, this motion lost by a

vote of 110 to 42, with 102 of those voting against it representing presbyteries in the South and

38 of those voting for it representing presbyteries in the North.36

An Illinois minister then proposed an amendment to Milton Bird’s substitute report,

adding the following resolution: “That nothing in the foregoing shall be so construed as an

endorsement of Slavery or Rebellion.” But a commissioner from Texas, afraid the amendment

sounded like a tepid disavowal of slavery and the Confederacy, proposed a more neutral-

35 GA Minutes (CPC), 1866: 26–27 (quotations on 26); John 18:36; CPC Const. (1829), Confession of Faith 31.4, p. 77. 36 GA Minutes (CPC), 1866: 28–30 (quotation on 28); Minutes of Indiana Presbytery, August 31, 1866, p. 397.

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sounding resolution: “That nothing in the foregoing shall be so construed as an expression of

opinion upon Slavery or Rebellion.” With this resolution appended to it, Milton Bird’s substitute

report passed by a vote of 112 to 40, despite a minister’s objection that the statement was so

“ambiguous” as to be “a shame and disgrace to the church.” Once again the vote was cast mostly

along geographical lines. Of the 112 commissioners who voted for the report, 102 were from the

South; of the 40 who voted against, 36 were from the North.37

Though the General Assembly did not explicitly overturn the resolutions of the 1864 and

1865 assemblies, or say anything at all about slavery or secession, conservative members of the

church, both North and South, heralded the assembly’s action as a triumph. One Texan “felt like

shouting” when he heard the news, and another “could not but laugh and weep.” The Banner of

Peace cheered that the church had “safely passed the fearful crisis,” and Milton Bird wrote that

Cumberland Presbyterians finally stood “together . . . one at the cross,” knowing “no North, no

South, no East, no West.”38

Cumberland Presbyterians quickly wove the General Assembly of 1866 into a larger

narrative about their church’s role in the project of the Christian nation. This was, after all, a time

when it seemed Christianity only served to divide the nation. It was commonly believed the

sectional schisms of the large evangelical denominations precipitated the Civil War, and the

37 GA Minutes (CPC), 1866: 30–31 (first and second quotations on 30); Minutes of Indiana Presbytery, August 31, 1866, p. 398 (third and fourth quotations). 38 J. G. Harris in “Texas Correspondence,” BP, July 26, 1866, p. 2 (first quotation); C. J. Bradley in “Extracts from Letters,” BP, September 13, 1866, p. 2 (second quotation); “The Adjustment,” BP, May 31, 1866, p. 159 (third quotation); Milton Bird, “A Friendly Talk with Cumberland Presbyterians—No. 3,” BP, July 19, 1866, p. 1 (fourth and fifth quotations). Also see W. E. Ward, “The Action of This General Assembly,” BP, May 24, 1866, p. 155; Alton Western Cumberland Presbyterian reprinted in “The Church One,” BP, July 5, 1866, p. 1; F. M. Gilliam, “Illinois Correspondence,” BP, July 5, 1866, p. 2; W. G. L. Quaite, “Texas Correspondence,” BP, August 23, 1866, p. 2; and J. M. Halsell, “Editorial Correspondence,” BP, August 23, 1866, p. 2.

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continued division of the Presbyterian, Baptist, and Methodist churches seemed to undermine

efforts to reconcile the North and South. In such a time as this, the Cumberland Presbyterian

paper in Illinois insisted God had “perpetuated the unity of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church

to teach the world . . . that the religion of Jesus Christ is stronger than sectional or party

feelings.” Their denomination demonstrated that Christianity could be conducive to national

unity, indeed the very force that brought the North and South together. In other words,

Cumberland Presbyterians thought they had restored the reputation of their faith and proven its

vitality to American nationalism. “Only let the Church be right,” wrote Milton Bird, “and the

Nation will be kept right.”39

One Cumberland Presbyterian tied the church’s success and the project of the Christian

nation together into a story about westward expansion, a central motif in the imagination not

only of Cumberland Presbyterians but also of many other Americans. “I imagined,” he wrote,

“that man, from his cradle in the East, had ever been fleeing Westward from civil and religious

thraldom . . . until finally he had reached his home in the West.” He imagined, in other words,

that Christendom had been continually moving west, from the Middle East to Europe and then

across the Atlantic and finally across the Appalachians; and the farther west it traveled the freer

it became of tyranny, the more purified its faith. But the division between North and South made

this Cumberland Presbyterian fearful the westward trajectory of Christendom had faltered,

especially as northern churches allied themselves with positions he associated with the

39 Alton Western Cumberland Presbyterian reprinted in “The Church One,” BP, July 5, 1866, p. 1 (first quotation); Milton Bird, “Strengthen the Ties of Brotherhood—Stand Up for Peace and Union—Mark Them Which Cause Divisions and Offenses,” BP, October 18, 1866, p. 1 (second and third quotations); Milton Bird, “A Friendly Talk with Cumberland Presbyterians—No. 3,” BP, July 19, 1866, p. 1.

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Republican Party, threatening to revert to the European model of “civil and religious thraldom.”

The Cumberland Presbyterian Church’s union, however, gave him hope.40

The church hoped it could use this story to its advantage in the denominational

marketplace. “The unsectional position that we have taken,” wrote the Banner of Peace, “is a

favorable introduction of our Church and her doctrines in localities where they have been

unrepresented before.” A minister reported that several prominent men from other denominations

told him “the whole Christian world” was “obliged to respect” the Cumberland Presbyterians for

avoiding a North–South schism. The church’s union seemed to vindicate not only its lack of

sectionalism but also its middle-of-the-road theology and ecclesiology. William Ward, former

editor of the Banner of Peace, wrote that the late General Assembly had found “the via media”

between God and Caesar, using the same language the Theological Medium used when talking

about Calvinism and Arminianism or episcopalianism and congregationalism. A Cumberland

Presbyterian in Illinois wrote that the church’s commonsense theology, its “unexcelled” form of

government, and its “standing before the world as one and undivided, even in the midst of war

and revolution—all combine to fix upon us the broad seal of respect from all mankind.” In his

mind, the church’s moderate theology, church government, and geographical union were all of a

piece, all part of a larger story justifying the Cumberland Presbyterians’ place in the

denominational market.41

40 Letter to the editors, BP, October 18, 1866, p. 2. 41 “Enterprise,” BP, July 26, 1866, p. 2 (first and second quotations); [T. C. Blake], “The Cumberland Presbyterian Church,” BP, January 10, 1867, p. 2 (third and fourth quotations); W. E. Ward, “The Action of This General Assembly,” BP, May 24, 1866, p. 155 (fifth quotation); “Illinois Correspondence,” BP, July 12, 1866, p. 2 (sixth and seventh quotations). Also see Milton Bird, “Preach the Gospel to Every Creature,” BP, October 11, 1866, p. 1.

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There were, however, lingering signs of disunion in the Cumberland Presbyterian

Church. A prototypically Presbyterian source of discontent was the location of denominational

boards. During the war, the Board of Publication was moved from Nashville to Pittsburgh, and it

was proposed at the 1866 General Assembly to relocate it to Nashville, “a more central point” in

the denomination. A rival motion to keep the board in Pittsburgh passed by a vote of 70 to 45,

with 32 of the nay votes coming from the former Confederacy. The next year, however, the

General Assembly voted to relocate the board to Nashville.42

The Board of Missions was a larger mess. February was traditionally the month

congregations were asked to give an offering for “the missionary cause,” but in January 1866 the

trustees of Cumberland University called upon the churches to give their February offering to the

university, reasoning that the Board of Missions had not yet resumed its work. An irate minister

from Pennsylvania responded in the Banner of Peace that the Board of Missions in Alton,

Illinois, was busy at work. Herein lay the problem: when the General Assembly created the new

board in Alton during the war, it never dissolved the board in Lebanon, Tennessee, meaning

there were now two boards. (There were actually briefly three boards, thanks to the

establishment of a Board of Missions for Pacific Synod.) The next few years were a turf war

between the Alton and Lebanon boards, especially as they both sought funds from the Border

South. Finally the General Assembly decided to consolidate the Alton and Lebanon boards in

1869, and as a geographical compromise the new Board of Missions would be neither in the

North nor the former Confederacy but rather in St. Louis. But the former supporters of the Alton

board had the upper hand, as Alton was only twenty miles upriver from St. Louis, practically a

42 GA Minutes (CPC), 1863: 87–88, 1866: 33–34, 72–73 (quotation on 72), 1867: 21–22, 74–75.

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suburb; in fact, the new board decided to keep the old Illinois charter and simply do all its

business, “except its annual election of officers,” in St. Louis.43

There was also the problem of Pennsylvania. As during the antebellum slavery debate,

Pennsylvania Synod was the radical fringe of the church. Alfred Miller argued in the

Waynesburg Cumberland Presbyterian that the resolutions of the 1864 and 1865 assemblies

were not explicitly overturned by the 1866 assembly and were therefore still in effect. Many of

his readers in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana called for a northern convention analogous to the

Memphis convention in November 1865, and Miller thought a sectional schism was “inevitable.”

News of the discontent in Pennsylvania trickled southwest, alarming many in the church who

thought that the 1866 General Assembly’s resolution (often called the “final action”) had settled

everything. Meanwhile, Stuart Robinson, a prominent Old School Presbyterian minister in

Louisville who had long been hostile to abolitionists, thought the southern majority of

Cumberland Presbyterians ought to “rejoice at such a separation” from the northern “Jacobins.”44

Though there wasn’t a northern convention, the October 1866 meeting of Pennsylvania

Synod was radical enough to consternate the rest of the church. The synod rested its argument in

the 1865 General Assembly’s mandate that presbyteries in the former Confederacy require

repentance from members who were former rebels. Any presbytery that did not follow through

was, according to Pennsylvania Synod, “disorganized” and had no right to representation at the

43 T. C. Blake, “Cumberland University,” BP, January 11, 1866, p. 81 (first quotation); S. T. Anderson, “An Error Corrected,” BP, February 8, 1866, p. 97; GA Minutes (CPC), 1866: 53, 1869: 29–30, 1870: 39–40 (second quotation on 40). 44 “Not Surprised!,” BP, July 5, 1866, p. 2; “The Convention Movement,” BP, October 11, 1866, p. 2 (first quotation); “Alabama Correspondence.—Letter Number Eleven,” BP, October 11, 1866, p. 2; “The Action of Pennsylvania Synod on the Status of the Church and the ‘Final Action’ of the General Assembly of 1866,” BP, October 25, 1866, p. 2 (second quotation); “The Cumberland Presbyterian Church,” BP, October 11, 1866, p. 2 (third and fourth quotations).

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General Assembly. Given the large number of commissioners from so-called disorganized

presbyteries—essentially the entire former Confederacy, excluding East Tennessee—the General

Assembly of 1866 was not, Pennsylvania Synod argued, “a constitutional Assembly.” The synod

therefore petitioned the next General Assembly to inquire whether the previous assembly was

constitutionally valid, and also to clarify whether the 1864 resolutions “against the sins of

slavery and rebellion” had been nullified. Finally, the synod warned that if the next assembly did

not reaffirm the 1864 resolutions, Pennsylvania Synod would declare itself “the true Cumberland

Presbyterian Church in the United States.” If the General Assembly sought to rebuild the church

by befriending sin, then its authority was, in the eyes of Pennsylvania Synod, null and void.45

But Pennsylvania stood alone among the northern synods. LeRoy Woods, who had

helped plant the Pennsylvanian church and now preached in Ohio, pled with the Pennsylvanians

not to destroy the church’s union and thereby forsake “all the advantage our theology has given

us.” It would be more difficult for the Cumberland Presbyterians to win the unchurched over to

their commonsense doctrines if they were simply another church rent asunder by a war that was

already over. The same consensus that held the church together before the war could, Woods

believed, hold it together now. He implied the southern majority of Cumberland Presbyterianism

was never truly proslavery but merely anti-abolitionist, and they held “to-day precisely the

opinion they held before.” The only difference was that “then they practiced slavery—now they

do not.” The abolition of slavery made the question of personal sin irrelevant, for the sin lay not

in the reluctant slaveholder who wanted the best for those whom had God had entrusted to his

care; instead the sin lay solely in the institution itself, and perhaps in a few extreme cases of

45 “The Action of Pennsylvania Synod on the Status of the Church and the ‘Final Action’ of the General Assembly of 1866,” BP, October 25, 1866, p. 2.

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brutality. Like many moderate northerners, Woods thought the defeat of the Confederacy and the

abolition of slavery had wiped the slate clean, and the only obstacle to union was the obstinacy

of a few radicals.46

A secular Memphis paper shared the same view. As the General Assembly gathered in

that city in May 1867 (the first time since 1860 it had convened south of Owensboro), the Public

Ledger was proud North and South were coming together to further the gospel work, and

believed the Cumberland Presbyterians “should be thanked for restoring to us the hope that

religious union will yet dominate over the country.” After all, there was no reason for the North

and South to be divided, for “there can be no more slavery of the black race.” The only question

that could threaten union was the “enslavement of the white race,” by which the Ledger meant

the disfranchisement of white southerners. The ecclesiastical analogy to disfranchisement, of

course, was excommunication, and so long as the General Assembly held true to the principles

espoused at its 1866 meeting, then white worshippers in the North and South would be equal and

constitute a united body.47

This sentiment ultimately carried the day, understandably so when a slight majority of the

commissioners (82 out of 163) were from the former Confederacy. Northerners only made up

one-quarter of the assembly, the smallest percentage since 1860. Benjamin W. McDonnold, who

had served as a chaplain in the Confederate Army of Tennessee, made a motion regarding

Pennsylvania Synod’s question as to whether the 1866 assembly had nullified the resolutions of

the 1864 and 1865 assemblies. McDonnold’s answer was there was nothing to nullify. A General

Assembly resolution could not become a binding law for lower judicatories unless it was first

46 Waynesburg Cumberland Presbyterian reprinted in “The Storm Will Soon Be Over,” BP, November 29, 1866, p. 2. 47 “Significant Reunion,” Memphis Public Ledger, May 23, 1867, p. 2.

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referred to the presbyteries, so the resolutions of the 1864 and 1865 assemblies were mere

opinions expressed by those bodies and non-binding. Neither repealing nor reaffirming the

radical resolutions, the 1867 assembly “simply disclaimed all jurisdiction over such questions.”

McDonnold’s resolution passed nearly unanimously, with only two commissioners (meaning not

even all four commissioners from Pennsylvania Synod) voting against it.48

Perhaps due to lack of support from other northern judicatories, Pennsylvania Synod

ultimately did not follow through with its earlier threat to secede and declare themselves “the

true Cumberland Presbyterian Church.” Cumberland Presbyterians could finally claim, without

reservation, that they had stayed united throughout the sectional crisis. The Old School and New

School churches lay almost entirely in the North. The former Presbyterian Church in the

Confederate States of America, now renamed the Presbyterian Church in the United States, lay

almost entirely in the former Confederacy. The Cumberland Presbyterians were, the Banner of

Peace reminded its readers, “the only national body of Presbyterians in America.”49

But this claim was tested during the decade that followed the Civil War. The story

Cumberland Presbyterians told about their church’s union and their place in the Christian nation

helped the church resist two movements to unite with larger Presbyterian denominations, first

with the southern church and then with the northern. The story of union also belied an

uncomfortable truth: that by 1874, the Cumberland Presbyterians were not a united church, the

disunion occurring along racial lines rather than sectional. And perversely, the racial division of

48 GA Minutes (CPC), 1867: 4–6, 8, 12, 24–25 (quotation on 25); Porter, ed., Tennessee, 281. 49 “The Action of Pennsylvania Synod on the Status of the Church and the ‘Final Action’ of the General Assembly of 1866,” BP, October 25, 1866, p. 2 (first quotation); GA Minutes (Old School), 1867: 449–564; GA Minutes (New School), 1867: 574–677; GA Minutes (PCUS), 1867: 200–241; [T. C. Blake], “Our Position and Prospects,” BP, June 25, 1868, p. 2 (second quotation).

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the church propped up its sectional unity.

When the Cumberland Presbyterians held their General Assembly in 1867, many

members of the church were less concerned with a handful of Pennsylvania dissidents than they

were with another matter on the table: a plan of union with the Presbyterian Church in the United

States (PCUS), often simply called the Southern Presbyterian Church. The movement to unite

with the PCUS was largely thanks to one man, Claiborne A. Davis, the Cumberland Presbyterian

Church’s corresponding delegate to the PCUS General Assembly of 1866. When Davis

addressed the Southern Presbyterian assembly, he took it upon himself to propose a union of the

Southern and Cumberland churches. He did not think the theological differences between the two

denominations were sufficient to merit continued division, and may never have been:

The fathers of my Church thought that they saw . . . a monstrous animal in your

Westminster Confession of Faith—an animal with horns, hoofs, and dragon tail. They

were afraid of him. You say the monster is not there; I do not say he is there; and if he is

not there, let us try and know the fact, so that we may no longer be divided upon a

question of imagination.

The PCUS was itself a union of New School and Old School southerners, the New Schoolers

tacking far closer to Cumberland Presbyterian doctrine than traditional Calvinism. Davis

therefore thought it was worth asking if there was also room for Cumberland Presbyterians to sit

at the same table and subscribe to the same confession. The PCUS assembly applauded Davis’s

speech and appointed a committee of six to meet with the Cumberland Presbyterians and pursue

the matter further.50

50 “Address of Rev. C. A. Davis, D.D., before the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Memphis, Tenn.,” BP, December 6, 1866, p. 1; GA Minutes (PCUS), 1866: 15, 29–33.

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But the proposal received mixed support from other Cumberland Presbyterians. The

Banner of Peace lambasted Davis for overstepping his commission as corresponding delegate

and had little patience for the claim there was little theological distinction between the two

churches. Several readers agreed; it was revealing that they often referred to the PCUS as the

“Old School” church, referring to the more hardline Calvinists that made up the majority of

Southern Presbyterians.51 Davis defended himself by saying he did not expect the Cumberland

Presbyterians to join the PCUS “by adopting the Westminster Confession of Faith, without

explanation or modification,” but in doing so he admitted that a mere explanatory statement from

the PCUS General Assembly might be sufficient grounds for the Cumberland Presbyterians to

adopt the old confession.52

When the Cumberland Presbyterians held their assembly in 1867, they opposed any plan

of union that required abandoning their Confession of Faith. If, however, the PCUS could agree

to “mutual confession”—a church in which members were free to subscribe to either

confession—then Cumberland Presbyterians were open to the possibility. The assembly agreed

with Davis that “the points of agreement between the two Churches are numerous and vital,”

while “the points of disagreements are but few.” The assembly therefore appointed its own

committee of six to meet with the PCUS committee.53

51 [J. C. Provine], “The General Assembly at Memphis—Speech of Rev. C. A. Davis, D.D.,” BP, December 6, 1866, p. 2; [J. C. Provine], “Organic Union with the Southern Presbyterian Church,” BP, December 6, 1866, p. 2; “Alabama Correspondence.—Letter Number Fourteen,” BP, December 20, 1866, p. 1; letter to the editor from T. C. Anderson, BP, December 20, 1866, p. 2. 52 Letter to the editor from C. A. Davis, BP, January 10, 1867, p. 2 (quotation). Also see Davis’s response to his critics in GA Minutes (CPC), 1867: 71–72. 53 GA Minutes (CPC), 1867: 92–95 (first quotation on 94, second quotation on 92).

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A union of the Southern and Cumberland churches would have yielded several benefits.

The PCUS would have become the second-largest Presbyterian denomination in America, with

more members than the New School church and about 70% the membership of the Old School

church. But the real story was where the PCUS’s new members would live. Except for West

Virginia and a few congregations in Maryland, the PCUS was contained by the boundaries of the

former Confederacy. By merging with the Cumberland Presbyterians, the PCUS would have

made inroads not only into Kentucky and Missouri but also the Midwest and the Pacific coast.

The PCUS would have also greatly expanded its presence in the trans-Appalachian South. Only

35% of Southern Presbyterians, but nearly all Cumberland Presbyterians, lived west of

Appalachia. Bringing in the Cumberland Presbyterians would have increased the PCUS’s

membership in Alabama by 80% and in Mississippi by 65%; it would have more than tripled the

church’s numbers in Arkansas and Tennessee, and more than quadrupled its numbers in Texas.

Union would have given the PCUS the broadest geographical expanse of any Presbyterian

denomination in the United States and strengthened its hold on the whole of the American

Southeast.54

What the Cumberland Presbyterians could contribute in numbers and territory, the

Southern Presbyterians could contribute in cash. In the year preceding their General Assembly in

1867, PCUS congregations contributed $21,500 for domestic and foreign missions, while that

54 I am relying on the following statistical reports: GA Minutes (CPC), 1859: 108–10, 1860: 75–77; GA Minutes (PCUS), 1867: 200–242; GA Minutes (New School), 1867: 482; and GA Minutes (Old School), 1867: 565. The 1867 PCUS statistical report was missing data on Brazos, Louisiana, and Tuscumbia presbyteries, so I used the data on Brazos and Louisiana presbyteries from GA Minutes (PCUS), 1868: 323, 339; and the Alabama congregations in Chickasaw Presbytery (with which Tuscumbia Presbytery merged) recorded in GA Minutes (PCUS), 1869: 443–44.

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same year Cumberland Presbyterians only contributed $9,300 total to their rivaling missionary

boards.55 Though the two PCUS seminaries were both struggling to recover from the war, Union

Theological Seminary had recently received a $30,000 endowment from millionaire reaper

manufacturer Cyrus McCormick, and Columbia Theological Seminary had received $16,000 in

donations in the past year.56 And whereas the largely rural Cumberland Presbyterians were

scrambling to establish congregations in cities like St. Louis and Louisville and even large towns

like Paducah and Bowling Green,57 the Southern Presbyterians had three dozen urban

congregations whose members collectively tithed at least $2,500 in 1866–67, fourteen of them in

wealthy coastal cities like Baltimore, Charleston, Savannah, Mobile, and New Orleans. In fact,

there were five PCUS congregations that each tithed more in 1866–67 than the entirety of

Cumberland Presbyterians contributed that year for domestic and foreign missions. The disparity

in wealth between the two denominations was partly due to their respective geographies; if New

Orleans is excluded, only 28% of the collective tithings from the three dozen wealthiest PCUS

congregations came from west of Appalachia—only 15% from what we might call Cumberland

Presbyterian territory. It wasn’t just that Cumberland Presbyterians tended to live near fewer

urban areas than Southern Presbyterians did (or Old and New Schoolers, for the matter); it was

also that, outside Tennessee, it was difficult for Cumberland Presbyterians to get a foothold in

cities where they had to compete with Presbyterian congregations subsidized in part by wealthier

congregations in the lower Mississippi Valley and on the Atlantic coast. One can therefore

55 GA Minutes (PCUS), 1867: 200–241; GA Minutes (CPC), 1867: 41, 47, 60. 56 GA Minutes (PCUS), 1866: 21; GA Minutes (PCUS), 1867: 136. 57 “Bowling Green Mission,” BP, July 5, 1866, p. 2; “Enterprise,” BP, July 26, 1866, p. 2; J. M. Halsell, “Editorial Correspondence,” BP, September 13, 1866, p. 2; Milton Bird, “Preach the Gospel to Every Creature,” BP, October 11, 1866, p. 1.

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imagine a symbiotic relationship where the old PCUS establishment provided material resources

and the former Cumberland Presbyterians provided a rich field for church expansion.58

Supporters of the union thought it would be a valuable contribution to the project of

Christian nation. Central to this belief was the argument, made by Claiborne Davis and both the

Southern and Cumberland general assemblies, that the two denominations were in agreement on

the proper relationship between church and state.59 In its 1866 and 1867 general assemblies, the

Cumberland Presbyterian Church refused to legislate on the civil matters of abolition and

secession, and of course the Southern Presbyterians did not do so either. The Old School church,

on the other hand, swore off fellowship with anyone who supported slavery or was disloyal to

the U.S. government; the New School church endorsed not only abolition but also black men’s

suffrage and even such specific actions as the passage of the 1866 Civil Rights Act and the

creation of the Freedmen’s Bureau.60 A union between the Cumberland and Southern

Presbyterians would, the PCUS General Assembly hoped, find strength in their shared

commitment to the separation of church and state, and form “a breakwater against the current

which is sweeping from its moorings our common Protestantism, until the doctrine of the Church

as a free spiritual [i.e., not civil] commonwealth shall regain its ascendancy . . . over the whole

58 GA Minutes (PCUS), 1867: 200–241; GA Minutes (CPC), 1867: 41, 47, 60. The five wealthiest PCUS congregations in 1866–67 were Franklin Street Church in Baltimore, Government Street Church in Mobile, and the First, Third, and Lafayette churches in New Orleans. The wealthiest PCUS congregations in Cumberland Presbyterian territory were the Little Rock and San Antonio churches; the First Church in Nashville and the First and Second churches in Memphis; and the churches in Smyrna and Murfreesboro, both in Middle Tennessee. 59 “Address of Rev. C. A. Davis, D.D., before the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Memphis, Tenn.,” BP, December 6, 1866, p. 1; GA Minutes (PCUS), 1866: 31; GA Minutes (CPC), 1867: 92. 60 GA Minutes (Old School), 1865: 560–61; GA Minutes (New School), 1863: 241–45, 1865: 41–43, 1866: 262–64.

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American Protestant mind.” This could be a source of hope for the Cumberland Presbyterian

who feared Christendom had fled the tyrannical union of church and state in the east only to find

it anew in the west. If the northern churches’ opposition to slavery and secession had undermined

God’s design for the Christian nation, then a united Presbyterian front of southerners and

moderate northerners could provide a needed salve.61

The two denominations’ committees of six met in Memphis on August 5, 1867, and laid

out their respective plans of union. Their discussion centered around the two main points of

contention that resulted in the original Cumberland schism, the doctrine of predestination and

educational requirements for ministers. As for the latter, the PCUS committee argued that

whatever may have been the “exigencies” of the early frontier days, the Cumberland

Presbyterians seemed to now be in agreement with the PCUS. Indeed, most of the Cumberland

Presbyterian Church’s leadership argued that times had changed and the church needed an

educated ministry if it were to compete in a rapidly modernizing, urbanizing nation. The

Cumberland Presbyterian committee was therefore willing to cede the point, agreeing to adopt

the PCUS standards for ministerial education (which still contained the extenuating-

circumstances loophole utilized by the evangelicals in Cumberland Presbytery before they were

kicked out).62

There was less harmony on the question of the Confession of Faith. The Cumberland

Presbyterian committee proposed that the united church adopt the Cumberland Presbyterian

confession, or at least a modified version of the Westminster Confession of Faith. But the PCUS

committee stated that since the “excitement” of the Great Revival had passed away, the

61 GA Minutes (PCUS), 1866: 31 (quotation); letter to the editors, BP, October 18, 1866, p. 2. 62 GA Minutes (PCUS), 1867: 172–74 (quotation on 174).

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Cumberland Presbyterians should be able to see the Westminster Confession did not in fact

annihilate human agency or make God the author of evil. The Cumberland Presbyterians

therefore ought to unite with the Southern Presbyterians under the old confession, with “the same

liberty” to interpret the confession “as was then allowed . . . in the union of the Old School and

New School bodies.” This was the most meager of the options Claiborne Davis had laid out—not

a mutual-confession agreement, or even a modified confession, but rather a bare explanation:

that the Cumberland Presbyterians were wrong about what the Westminster Confession said.63

Still, the PCUS committee agreed to refer the matter of revising the Confession of Faith

to the next General Assembly. But the assembly, which met in December 1867, was not

interested. They were likely alarmed by a communication from James A. Lyon, a member of the

PCUS committee of six and pastor of the church in Columbus, Mississippi. Lyon was worried

not only by the Cumberland Presbyterians’ heterodoxy, but also by their numbers. The PCUS

then had around 80,000 members, while the Cumberland Presbyterian Church had more than

100,000; it was more accurate to say “that in the union contemplated we should join them, not

they us.” The church would have gone from having one-third to more than two-thirds of its

members west of Appalachia, where the former Cumberland Presbyterians could become even

more dominant than their numerical majority would suggest. Furthermore, despite what the

Cumberland Presbyterians now said about the importance of an educated ministry, the majority

of their current ministers fell short of PCUS standards, and union would therefore inevitably

water down the church’s claim to doctrinal rigor, even if its Confession of Faith remained intact.

With little debate, the Southern Presbyterians resolved it was not yet time for a union of the two

63 GA Minutes (PCUS), 1867: 172–77 (quotations on 174).

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churches, especially if doing so meant modifying their Confession of Faith. Claiborne Davis

would have been greatly disappointed had he not succumbed weeks earlier to yellow fever.64

Talk of church union reemerged when the northern New School and Old School churches

reunited in 1869 to form the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America (PCUSA),

commonly called the Northern Presbyterian Church. As with the PCUS union talks, this began

with a rogue Cumberland Presbyterian minister—Alexander J. Baird, pastor of a large Nashville

church and corresponding delegate to the PCUSA General Assembly of 1873. Baird told the

assembly he was cheered by the union of the New and Old School branches, and particularly

what such a union signified—namely, that there was greater liberty in interpreting the

Westminster Confession of Faith than had existed beforehand, certainly compared to when the

Synod of Kentucky expelled the evangelical ministers of Cumberland Presbytery. The founders

of Baird’s denomination only made a few changes to the Confession of Faith; if, as Baird

suspected, the Northern Presbyterians made those same exceptions in their own “mind and

meaning,” then let them “place these explanations in the Confession of Faith,” or at least make

explicit the range of permitted interpretations. Then there would be no good reason to let the two

denominations remain separate.65

As a result of Baird’s speech, both the Northern and Cumberland assemblies appointed

committees on union, which met together in Nashville in February 1874. The meeting was a near

facsimile of the PCUS–Cumberland union committee meeting four years earlier. The

Cumberland Presbyterian committee ceded the point of ministerial education to the PCUSA and

was willing to adopt its Form of Government. The Cumberland Presbyterians also asked that

64 GA Minutes (PCUS), 1867: 135, 176–78 (quotation on 177); Memphis Daily Appeal, October 20, 1867, p. 3; “Sunday’s Midnight Report,” Natchez Weekly Democrat, October 28, 1867, p. 1. 65 GA Minutes (CPC), 1874: 57–59 (quotations on 58); GA Minutes (PCUSA), 1873: 485.

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“both Confessions of Faith” be “regarded as of equal authority,” allowing each individual

minister and communicant to decide which confession they would subscribe to. But the PCUSA

committee would not even consider the mutual-confession plan. Instead they said that, though

the Cumberland Presbyterians understood the Westminster Confession as denying God’s

goodness and humanity’s agency, the confession was “not so understood in the Presbyterian

Church.” They suggested that dialogue between the two denominations would eventually

persuade the Cumberland Presbyterians to simply adopt the old confession. But the Cumberland

Presbyterian committee remained unpersuaded; they instead recommended the PCUSA modify

its confession as the Cumberland Presbyterians had, to fit what not only Cumberland

Presbyterians but also most Northern Presbyterians believed. The two committees reached a

standstill and adjourned, hoping they could meet again the next year.66

They did not. Though the PCUSA was happy to continue talks, the Cumberland

Presbyterian General Assembly in May 1874 voted to disband their committee on union.67 There

was quickly disagreement as to why the assembly scuttled the union talks. The editor of the

Cumberland Presbyterian, now published in Alton, Illinois, alleged that “union was opposed

because” the PCUSA “was a Northern Church.” He was sorely dismayed to see “the bloody

corpse of the rebellion . . . uncovered and brought into view,” the sectional animus of the late

war still sundering the body of Christ. But the Banner of Peace denied that anyone objected to

union with the PCUSA “because they were a northern Church,” and pointed out that many of the

same people who favored union with the northern church had earlier supported union with the

southern. Indeed, the corresponding delegate who proposed union with the PCUSA not only

66 GA Minutes (CPC), 1874: 60–64 (first and second quotations on 62, third quotation on 63). 67 GA Minutes (PCUSA), 1874: 86; GA Minutes (CPC), 1874: 22–23.

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pastored a church in the South but had also sat on the committee of union with the PCUS. And

the most outspoken critic of the church’s postbellum reconstruction, Alfred Miller of western

Pennsylvania, had opposed union in both instances. The editor of the Cumberland Presbyterian

conceded he may have been “mistaken.”68

Though sectional bias surely played a role in the breakdown of union talks between the

Cumberland and Northern churches, the dispute over their respective confessions of faith was

likely the decisive factor. The PCUSA was not going to modify its confession, nor were the

Cumberland Presbyterians going to accept the confession without any modification or

explanatory statement. The Cumberland Presbyterians did not consider this a matter of

theological hair-splitting; they believed the predestinarian language in the Westminster

Confession hampered evangelism and stifled the growth of a church—Presbyterianism, that is—

which ought to be the dominant force in American Christendom. (Only 11% of American

congregations in 1870 were Presbyterian, down two percentage points from 1850 and far behind

the Methodists and Baptists, who together made up 57% of congregations.) The salvation of

souls and the future of the gospel were at stake.69

68 Alton (Ill.) Cumberland Presbyterian reprinted in [John R. Brown], “The General Assembly,” BP, July 2, 1874, p. 1 (first through third quotations); [S. P. Chesnut], “Dr. Brown and the General Assembly,” BP, July 2, 1874, p. 4 (fourth quotation); “Organic Union and the Assembly,” BP, July 16, 1874, p. 1; A. B. Miller, “Presbyterian Union—Cumberland Presbyterians,” BP, July 15, 1869, p. 1; “The Request Not Granted,” BP, July 23, 1874, p. 4 (fifth quotation). 69 D. Lowry, “Thoughts on Organic Union,” BP, January 15, 1874, p. 1; “Plain Talk on Organic Union,” BP, March 19, 1874, p. 1; Francis A. Walker, comp., A Compendium of the Ninth Census (June 1, 1870,) Compiled Pursuant to a Concurrent Resolution of Congress, and Under the Direction of the Secretary of the Interior (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1872), 514–15. Also see A. B. Miller, “Presbyterian Union—Cumberland Presbyterians,” BP, July 15, 1869, p. 1.

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Ultimately the debate over whether to unite with the PCUSA was a debate over how best

to serve the project of the Christian nation. Supporters of union thought a united Presbyterian

church would provide American Christendom an ecclesiastical framework that was neither too

democratic nor too hierarchical and therefore best suited for a republic. Opponents of union

thought it was best to preserve their Confession of Faith and medium theology. “The world

needs,” wrote David Lowry, “a conservative system of Theology between Calvinism and

Arminianism.” Even Alexander Baird, in his speech before the PCUSA assembly, implied the

united church would only be worthwhile if it internalized the Cumberland Presbyterian culture of

moderation—agreement on essential doctrines and liberty on non-essentials. Baird said what

made his denomination distinct was not that it espoused doctrines any sensible Protestant would

disagree with, but rather that it “held and preached . . . little else” than what any sensible

Protestant would agree with. If this mold of Presbyterianism, preserving its republican form of

government but streamlining its theology, could take hold in the PCUSA, then most Cumberland

Presbyterians were ready to support such a union; if not, then it was best to wait. “There is a

Providence,” Richard Beard told the PCUSA corresponding delegate at the 1876 General

Assembly, “in our existence. We think there is a place for us, both ecclesiastically and

theologically.”70

70 D. Lowry, “Thoughts on Organic Union,” BP, January 15, 1874, p. 1 (first and second quotations); GA Minutes (CPC), 1874: 24, 56–59, 61 (third quotation on 59), 1876: 55 (fourth and fifth quotations). Also see [J. C. Provine], “The General Assembly at Memphis—Speech of Rev. C. A. Davis, D.D.,” BP, December 6, 1866, p. 2; [T. C. Blake], “To Our Friends and Patrons,” Theological Medium, 2nd ser., 6 (April 1870), 247; L. C. Ransom, “Reasons for Preferring the Cumberland Presbyterian Church,” Theological Medium, 2nd ser., 7 (January 1871), 1–15; J. Berrien Lindsley, “Review of McFerrin’s ‘Methodism in Tennessee,’” Theological Medium, 2nd ser., 11 (January 1875), 63; and S. G. Burney’s speech in “Inaugural Exercises,” Theological Medium, 2nd ser., 13 (October 1877), 459–60, 467.

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This logic was necessary to justify the church’s continued separate existence, since it was

God’s ultimate will that the body of Christ be one. In their talks with the PCUSA, the

Cumberland Presbyterian committee on union confessed they were weary of “the selfishness and

pride and ambition” that denominations fell prey to in the American religious marketplace. Yet

they had to compete in that market. Their paradoxical claim to finding a useful distinction in

their theological indistinctiveness was how they threaded the needle of competing in the

religious marketplace while avoiding the snare of pride. Disunion was far from ideal, but

postponing union a little longer would, most Cumberland Presbyterians believed, pave the way

for a better united church in the end.71

Cumberland Presbyterians also turned to their story of having stayed united during the

Civil War to justify themselves to American Christendom. At the 1869 General Assembly, when

the corresponding delegate from the Old School church alluded to the imminent union of his

church with the New School, hoping it would presage “further union” among the Presbyterian

churches, the moderator responded by boasting of the Cumberland Presbyterians’ geographical

expanse and union during the recent war (the latter, of course, enabling the former):

From Niagara to California, and from the lakes to the gulf, our flag is hoisted . . . Look

over this large Assembly of ministers and delegates sitting together in harmonious

council. They are from the east and west, the north and south. . . . Yes, this Church has

rode out the storm, and bundling up their political differences, they have brought them to

the foot of the cross and buried them forever. Convey this fact to the Church you have the

honor to represent.

71 GA Minutes (CPC), 1874: 60 (quotation). Also see the letter to the editor from C. A. Davis, BP, December 20, 1866, p. 2; and J. Berrien Lindsley, “Review of McFerrin’s ‘Methodism in Tennessee,’” Theological Medium, 2nd ser., 11 (January 1875), 67.

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He suggested that, as impressive as the northern church was for healing its theological schism, so

too did the Cumberland Presbyterians command respect for remaining a national church and not

succumbing to the sectional antagonism that still divided the northern Presbyterians from their

southern brothers and sisters.72

It was ironic, however, that the moderator of the 1869 General Assembly boasted of the

church’s union, for that same assembly helped drive a wedge between white and black

Cumberland Presbyterians, portending a formal division five years later. The catalyst, as the

white church would later point out in its defense, was a convention of black Cumberland

Presbyterian preachers meeting at the same time, also in Murfreesboro—seven ordained

ministers and three licentiates, all of them from within a sixty-mile radius except for one from

West Tennessee and two from Kentucky. In cooperation with the white commissioners of the

General Assembly, they compiled a list of black preachers in the church, coming up with the

names of twenty-one ordained ministers and thirty licentiates. The convention then relayed two

questions and an opinion to the General Assembly. They first asked the assembly to encourage

the church’s synods “to create as many Presbyteries of colored ministers as the Synods may

think best.” Second, they asked that white churches help black churches by lending them space,

“aiding them in building churches of their own, and furnishing them with books.” Finally, the

convention asserted it would be for the best if the church’s white and black ministers did not

“meet together in the same judicatures”—that is, in the same presbyteries or synods, or even the

same General Assembly. The assembly acquiesced to the convention’s requests and concurred in

its opinion that the two races should be kept ecclesiastically separate.73

72 GA Minutes (CPC), 1869: 13. 73 “Proceedings of Colored Convention,” BP, June 17, 1869, p. 2; GA Minutes (CPC), 1869: 9, 23–24 (first and second quotations on 23, third quotation on 24).

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Black Cumberland Presbyterians posed a threefold challenge to white supremacy, white

wealth, and white union. Most obviously, black Cumberland Presbyterians had an implicit (and

sometimes explicit) claim to equality with their white brothers and sisters in Christ. This claim,

of course, existed from the church’s beginning, when white and black believers worshipped

together at camp meetings. But white Cumberland Presbyterians, like most white evangelicals,

did not see the spiritual equality of white and black believers as being in conflict with the

institution of slavery; they saw the enslavement of black people as part of God’s providence, part

of the great project of evangelizing the globe, and the subjugation of the black race to the white

as analogous to the subjugation of children to their parents or wives to their husbands. How then

were white and black believers to relate to one another now that the latter had been emancipated,

especially since many whites believed emancipation had come too soon, the abolitionists having

recklessly sped ahead of providence?74 The Banner of Peace lamented in February 1866 that it

saw “no other alternative” but that “the unfortunate race is to remain with us.” The minister

Thaddeus C. Blake regretted that the old system, in which black people were supposedly

“members of our households” and received intimate spiritual guidance from their white owners,

had died, and a far more cumbersome system had taken its place. The institution of slavery had

fit cleanly into many white Christians’ understanding of the chain of creation; the new reality, in

which African Americans were suddenly and utterly free, seemed unnatural and misbegotten,

and it was less clear what the church should look like. The gospel did not allow for inequality

outside the justification of familial subjugation, yet true equality between white and black

74 Milton Bird, “The Important Crisis Past—With Care Avoid the Danger of the Lee-shore,” BP, August 30, 1866, p. 1; [J. C. Provine], “Religious Training of Freedmen,” BP, November 8, 1866, p. 2.

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believers was, for most white Christians, an impossibility. When, in June 1867, Alexander Baird

denounced rumors “that no colored people were allowed” in his Nashville church, it was unlikely

those rumors came out of thin air.75

It was soon obvious that black Cumberland Presbyterians were not welcome in white

churches, and indeed that they desired their own churches. The great majority of black

Cumberland Presbyterians—more than 15,000 out of 20,000—left the denomination altogether,

most likely to become Baptists or Methodists. “What has become of them?” asked the Banner of

Peace in June 1867, taking notice of the quiet exodus of freedpeople—“where is the large

membership which belonged to our denomination?” A committee of the 1870 General Assembly

suspected black Baptists and Methodists were telling black Cumberland Presbyterians “that

loyalty to the Cumberland Presbyterian Church” was “disloyalty to Caesar”—in other words,

that the Cumberland Presbyterians were incurably affiliated with the former Confederacy. It is

possible, however, that freedpeople leaving the church of their former enslavers did not need

much convincing on that point. Of course, there were other reasons freedpeople would have been

drawn to the Baptist and Methodist churches: they were often friendlier to more expressive styles

of worship; and they had, because they were the two largest Protestant traditions in the South, a

critical mass of autonomous or semi-autonomous black congregations not found in

Presbyterianism.76

75 “Treatment and Training of the Colored Population,” BP, February 8, 1866, p. 98 (first and second quotations); T. C. Blake, “The Freedmen,” BP, June 13, 1867, p. 2 (third quotation); “A Falsehood Contradicted,” Nashville Union and American, June 16, 1867, p. 3 (fourth quotation). 76 McDonnold, History of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, 436; T. C. Blake, “The Freedmen,” BP, June 13, 1867, p. 2 (first and second quotations); GA Minutes (CPC), 1870: 10 (third and fourth quotations), 1874: 66; Stowell, Rebuilding Zion; Montgomery, Under Their Own Vine and Fig Tree; Walker; Rock in a Weary Land; Harvey, Redeeming the South.

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Those who remained Cumberland Presbyterians still left their old congregations. They

worshipped in brush arbors and tool sheds and under grapevines before they had buildings of

their own, and as soon as they could they acquired land and erected places of worship. Black and

white Cumberland Presbyterians in Aliceville, Alabama, had previously worshipped in the same

building, the white members likely being a numerical minority but owning the land and holding

the leadership roles. After the war, the church’s black members purchased the land from the

white trustees and made the church their own. When black Cumberland Presbyterians organized

a church in Meridian, Texas, a black man who did not attend the church thought it a worthy

enough endeavor to donate a few acres; and the local black schoolmaster, Pete Robinson, though

not a pious man—he was a fiddler—helped the church acquire the land deed and hauled the

necessary lumber from Waco. (Robinson was likely persuaded by his wife Mariah, one of the

church’s charter members.) The establishment of separate black churches and presbyteries were

assertions of black autonomy, flouting the white church’s desire to keep them in a subservient

position.77

But were these assertions of autonomy in keeping with the black convention’s plea for

assistance from white Cumberland Presbyterians in acquiring land, building materials, and

Sunday school literature? The white church understood such assistance as philanthropy, an

extension of the “moral training” they had proffered their black brothers and sisters when they

77 Nancy J. Fuqua, Built by the Hands: An Historical Account of Love, Faith, and Determination in the Cumberland Presbyterian Church in America, ed. Henry Bradford Jr. (Huntsville, Ala.: Cumberland Presbyterian Church in America, 2002), 185, 225–26, 255, 279–80, 292, 304, 378–79, 382–83, 446, 449; Federal Writers’ Project interview with Mariah Robinson in George P. Rawick, ed. The American Slave: A Composite Autobiography (41 vols; Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1972–1979), 1st ser., 16 (Texas), pt. 3, pp. 254–55, online at Library of Congress, loc.gov/resource/mesn.163/?sp=260.

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were enslaved.78 But there was another way to interpret the black ministers’ request: not as

philanthropy but as recompense. How many thousands of dollars’ worth of unpaid labor had the

black members of the denomination performed for its white members, and how much of the

denomination’s wealth had that labor generated? Why should the black Cumberland

Presbyterians of Fayetteville, Tennessee, have had to host a large dinner—tables spread with

“jellies, salads, fruits, custards, hams, chickens, shotes, etc.”—to raise $100 for their own church

building? Could not the white Cumberland Presbyterians of Fayetteville have simply donated the

money without needing to be fed first? In some cases, whites did in fact donate land or even

whole buildings to their black co-religionists; but this was far from universal. The black

preachers’ request in 1869 was relatively tame—lend us the use of your church building while

we build our own; give us your old hymnals and weathered Confessions of Faith. It is the least

you owe us. This sentiment may have been partly why black Cumberland Presbyterians remained

in the denomination at all—not to receive further moral training, but rather compensation in cash

or in kind.79

But white Cumberland Presbyterians were blind to the black church’s implicit reparatory

claim. They did not believe they owed black Cumberland Presbyterians anything other than what

they owed fellow creatures of God. The convention of southern ministers that met in Memphis in

November 1865 disclaimed responsibility for slavery; after all, they weren’t the ones who

manned the ships of the Middle Passage. They came to own slaves not through any fault of their

own but by God’s providence, and it had been their responsibility to take care of their slaves as it

78 “Treatment and Training of the Colored Population,” BP, February 8, 1866, p. 98 (quotation); [J. C. Provine], “Religious Training of Freedmen,” BP, November 8, 1866, p. 2; T. C. Blake, “The Freedmen,” BP, June 13, 1867, p. 2. 79 Fayetteville (Tenn.) Observer, May 16, 1867, p. 3 (quotations); Fuqua, Built by the Hands, 225–26, 248, 255, 267, 292, 426.

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was to take care of their wives and children. That responsibility disappeared with slavery, or

rather the responsibility was transferred to “those who freed them” prematurely. Of course, “as

philanthropists and . . . as christians,” the Memphis convention acknowledged they were

“required to do good unto” the freedpeople, but no more than they were “required to do good

unto all men.” Any assistance they gave to their former slaves, even within their own church,

was an act of charity, not justice.80

Now that black Cumberland Presbyterians were free, they seemed to endanger the

continued union of white Cumberland Presbyterians. Even before emancipation, white

Cumberland came close to conflating the political problem of slavery (and the threat it posed to

the church) with the very existence of African Americans. During the secession winter, Milton

Bird wrote that it would be a great shame if the Christian nation faltered “because they could not

deal successfully with three or four millions of African slaves scattered among them!” The fate

of enslaved people was tangential to the fate of the Christian nation, and it was not worth

sacrificing the latter for the former. A couple of months later, in March 1861, the president of

Cumberland University boasted that the North and the South could “meet in our Assembly, and

transact the business of the whole Church, without the least apprehension of encountering the

negro in that reverend body.” He used the term negro as a synecdoche for the slavery debate, but

a literal reading of his remarks was borne out in the end as well.81

80 “Cumberland Presbyterian Convention—Memphis, Tennessee,” BP, November 30, 1865, p. 68 (quotations). Also see “Treatment and Training of the Colored Population,” BP, February 8, 1866, p. 98; GA Minutes (CPC), 1866: 80–81; Milton Bird, “The Important Crisis Past—With Care Avoid the Danger of the Lee-shore,” BP, August 30, 1866, p. 1; [J. C. Provine], “Religious Training of Freedmen,” BP, November 8, 1866, p. 2; and T. C. Blake, “The Freedmen,” BP, June 13, 1867, p. 2. 81 [Milton Bird], “The Disease of the Times and the Peril of Our Country,” Theological Medium, 2nd ser., 5 (January 1861), 252 (first quotation); T. C. Anderson, “The Crisis and Our Church,” BP, March 14, 1861, p. 102 (second quotation).

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White Cumberland Presbyterians believed the unconditional admission of unrepentant

former slaveholders and Confederates into fellowship had put an end to the political turmoil that

threatened the unity of the church; the continued presence of black Cumberland Presbyterians in

their midst was a constant reminder there were still questions unanswered and wrongs

unaddressed. Might the open wound of racial injustice reopen the wound of sectional

antagonism? When the Banner of Peace lay responsibility for the fate of freedpeople on white

northerners and scolded “the Northern Churches” for failing to appreciate what “the Southern

Churches” had done for enslaved people, the paper’s readers had reason to fear their church’s

union was not a sure thing after all. Indeed, the fiercest critic of the church’s treatments of its

black members was the spokesman of its radical northern wing, Alfred Miller.82

Miller was troubled by the now-common practice among presbyteries to license black

preachers with the stipulations that they only preach to other black people and not sit at

presbyterial meetings as voting members. Miller denounced this as “unauthorized by the Bible”

or ecclesiastical law, and any honest reading of the Cumberland Presbyterian constitution

corroborated his opinion.83 This was not the only instance in which racist church policies flouted

the norms of presbyterian government. When a black congregation in Leavenworth, Kansas,

applied for membership in Kansas Presbytery, they were told “they could not become members,

but only come under the care of the Presbytery.” Such an arrangement may have made sense for

82 [J. C. Provine], “Religious Training of Freedmen,” BP, November 8, 1866, p. 2 (quotations); “Treatment and Training of the Colored Population,” BP, February 8, 1866, p. 98; Milton Bird, “The Important Crisis Past—With Care Avoid the Danger of the Lee-shore,” BP, August 30, 1866, p. 1; letter to the editor from J. M. Howry, BP, November 8, 1866, p. 2; “Presbyterian,” Philadelphia Evening Transcript, March 12, 1870, p. 6. 83 “Presbyterian,” Philadelphia Evening Transcript, March 12, 1870, p. 6. For examples of such licensures, see Minutes of Hopewell Presbytery, Fall 1867, p. 77; and Minutes of New Hope Presbytery, December 7, 1867.

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a de facto congregation of enslaved people affiliated with an official white congregation, but it

no longer made sense for a congregation of free people. (The Leavenworth church rejected

Kansas Presbytery’s offer and attached itself to the Congregationalists instead.)84 Even the

establishment of separate black presbyteries, as the church’s black preachers and the General

Assembly had jointly called for, was contrary to presbyterian polity, for a presbytery was

supposed to contain all the ministers, licentiates, and communicants within a given geographical

boundary. Presbyteries were not supposed to overlap one another.85

The extra-constitutional lengths taken to keep white and black Christians apart signaled

the ultimate impossibility of their belonging to the same church, which became clearer

throughout the early 1870s. When Greenville Presbytery, a black presbytery established by

Green River Synod, sent the minister Moses T. Weir as a commissioner to the 1870 General

Assembly, his commission was rejected on a technicality after much disgruntled murmuring

from the white commissioners, especially those from the South. It was the last time a

representative from a black presbytery tried to be seated at the General Assembly, and Moses

Weir left the denomination altogether for the Congregationalists. The next year, the church’s

three black presbyteries—Greenville in Kentucky, Elk River in Middle Tennessee, and

Huntsville in northern Alabama—requested that the General Assembly organize them into a

synod, which the assembly agreed to. It was exceedingly unclear, though, if this new synod was

part of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. The assembly’s resolution referred to the synod as

“the First Synod of the Colored Cumberland Presbyterian Church,” which, combined with the

fact that none of the synod’s ministers or elders were allowed to vote in the General Assembly,

84 Philadelphia Christian Recorder, July 10, 1869, p. 2 (quotation); “Religious Intelligence,” Pittsburgh Weekly Gazette, July 3, 1869, p. 2. 85 CPC Const. (1829), Form of Government 9.2, 9.5, pp. 114–15.

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suggested this was a new church altogether. But if this were the case, then the General Assembly

had no authority to form the synod, nor would the black presbyteries have had any reason to ask.

So was the synod part of the original church or not?86

The answer came two years later. In 1872, Ozark Synod organized a separate presbytery

(Missouri) for its black ministers. But did the presbytery in fact belong in Ozark Synod, or rather

the black synod that was formed in 1871? Missouri Presbytery posited this question to the 1873

General Assembly, which replied the black ministers were not members of Ozark Synod and

could have no representation at the assembly. Up to that point, the new black synod had a

modicum of geographical cohesion, stretching from western Kentucky through Middle

Tennessee to northern Alabama. If it were to admit a presbytery from southwestern Missouri,

then it was clearly not a synod among other cohesive synods within the Cumberland Presbyterian

Church, but in fact a separate denomination.87

Finally, in May 1874, the first General Assembly of the Colored Cumberland

Presbyterian Church was held in Nashville at the office of the Cumberland Presbyterian

Church’s Board of Publication. The new church had seven presbyteries, 46 ordained ministers,

and 3,000 members, the bulk of them in Middle Tennessee and northern Alabama, with a

smattering in central Alabama, West Tennessee, Kentucky, southwestern Missouri, and Texas.

(Seventeen of the church’s first twenty general assemblies were held within 150 miles of

86 GA Minutes (CPC), 1870: 7, 10, 14; McDonnold, History of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, 310; “The Annual Statistics of the American Congregational Ministers and Churches, Collected in the Year 1872 by the Secretaries of the Several State Organizations, and Compiled for This Publication by the Secretary of the National Council,” Congregational Quarterly, 2nd ser., 15 (January 1873), 122; 1871 GA Minutes (CPC), 28 (quotation). 87 E. E. Stringfield, Presbyterianism in the Ozarks: A History of the Work of the Various Branches of the Presbyterian Church in Southwest Missouri, 1834–1907 ([Springfield, Mo.]: Presbytery of Ozark, U.S.A., 1909), 383–84; GA Minutes (CPC), 1873: 31–32; Fuqua, Built by the Hands, 167–252, 348–68, 415–66.

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Nashville, and six were held in Huntsville, Alabama, alone.) Robert Johnson, the black church’s

corresponding delegate to the white church’s General Assembly in 1874, relayed this

information to the Cumberland Presbyterians and pled for whatever “aid” they could provide.

“We are weak—you are strong.” Indeed, the total property value of the Colored Cumberland

Presbyterian Church was only $5,000, while the total property value of the Cumberland

Presbyterian Church was more than $1.5 million, around nine times as much wealth per

communicant—an unknowable but large percentage of said wealth having been generated by

enslaved people, including enslaved Cumberland Presbyterians.88

The moderator, Thaddeus C. Blake, responded to Johnson’s plea by recounting how his

own “religious career” began—when, as a little boy, he overheard one of his father’s slaves

praying for his soul. Blake was confident the black church would fare better as a separate entity

than in an interracial communion, but he conceded they would “need the help of the white race.”

Such assistance would further their “elevation as a race” and perhaps, if it were God’s

providence, their eventual return to Africa, where they could evangelize those who had never

heard the gospel. Here again was the consensus story among white Cumberland Presbyterians

about race and the Christian nation: the white and black races had once benefited from the

intimacy begotten by slavery; now that the black race was free, it was better for them to be at a

distance from each other, with some occasional philanthropy from the white race; and America

would eventually be rid of the black race altogether, God needing them to return east across the

Atlantic once their “elevation” was complete.89

88 GA Minutes (CPC), 1874: 66 (quotations), 94. 89 GA Minutes (CPC), 1874: 66–67 (quotations on 66). Also see J. Berrien Lindsley, “African Colonization and Christian Missions,” Theological Medium, 2nd ser., 9 (October 1873), 396–420.

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This logic facilitated the white church’s virtual neglect of the black church. Fisk

University, established in Nashville by the northern American Missionary Association and

staffed largely by Congregationalists and Methodists, approached the white Cumberland

Presbyterians about sponsoring young black men who wished to study theology at the school, but

the General Assembly had no interest in a formal partnership. Later, when a black presbytery in

Kentucky asked the white General Assembly to help them establish a school in Bowling Green,

the assembly punted the matter to the congregations in south-central Kentucky. (A school was

finally established there in 1885 and, though it asked for more than tenfold the amount, received

a few thousand dollars from the white church over the next few years.)90 A black schoolteacher

in Trenton, Tennessee, who had grown up a Cumberland Presbyterian and briefly studied

theology at Fisk, confided to Fisk’s president in 1878 that the Congregationalists were the only

denomination he would associate with. Perennially strapped for cash, he had little interest in

joining a church with so few resources and a meager white donor base.91 “The Cumberland

Presbyterian Church has done,” admitted a white minister in 1882, “very little for these people in

any way.”92

In truth, the Cumberland Presbyterians were disinclined to think much at all of the black

denomination, preferring instead to focus on the union of their white members. At the 1877

90 H. S. Bennett, “Fisk University,” BP, February 26, 1874, p. 2; GA Minutes (CPC), 1874: 9, 32, 1876: 36, 1885: 39, 1886: 57, 1887: 47–48, 1888: 54, 1889: 62–63, 1890: 102–3; McDonnold, History of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, 437. 91 Quinton B. Neale to A. K. Spence, February 20, 1878, Folder 57, Box 21, Spence Family Collection, Special Collections Library, Fisk University, Nashville. Also see Q. B. Neale to A. K. Spence, December 22, 1875, in the same folder. 92 J. D. Kirkpatrick, “How the White Man Should Help the Black Man,” Cumberland Presbyterian Quarterly Review, 3 (January 1882), 84 (quotations). Also see McDonnold, History of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, 438.

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General Assembly, when the corresponding delegate from the PCUS claimed “the Southern

Church and its branches . . . know the negro well and are best adapted to the work” of elevating

that race, the moderator critiqued both his implicit sectionalism and his narrow focus on African

Americans. The moderator likely suspected the PCUS delegate had in mind the federal

government’s recent abandonment of Reconstruction and withdrawal of troops from the South,

ceding the freedpeople’s fate to the white southern elite; the analogy being that the Northern and

Cumberland Presbyterians should cede the fate of freedpeople’s souls to the PCUS. But rather

than harp on the lingering sectional hostilities from the late war, the Cumberland Presbyterian

moderator boasted of how his denomination had “little churches nestled among the hills of

Pennsylvania, some looking out on the Pacific, some in the cold regions of our Northern States,

some in the warmest regions of the South, and yet we are one.” He continued:

It is a matter of a history, sir, than when our country passed through a great revolution

that sundered commercial, political, and social ties, we, as a Church, were able through

the arrest of the storm to hold together, and we are here represented as one people to day,

for which we thank God.

The assembly applauded. As for the plight of freedpeople, the moderator conceded that a

southern church, rather than a national one, might know better “the wants of a particular class or

people in the South best”; but he suggested this was too narrow an aim for a church. He preferred

the example of the Cumberland Presbyterians, “a people who love all the people, North, West,

South, and East alike.” Of course, when he spoke of all the people, he emphasized the all that

transcended sectional barriers rather than racial ones. And given that the moderator—none other

than Alfred B. Miller—had been such a virulent critic of the church for casting aside the former

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slave in favor of the former slaveholder, this story of a national church was a necessary one for

him to tell if he were to remain in that communion.93

The Cumberland Presbyterian Church was stronger than ever. At the close of

Reconstruction, it had 1,200 ministers and 100,000 members, virtually identical numbers to the

PCUS. The church had grown considerably in Texas, Kansas, and California, and made inroads

into Nebraska, the Indian Territory, and Colorado, as well as northwestern Georgia. The Board

of Missions had healthy plants in Atlanta, Chattanooga, Little Rock, and St. Louis, and had its

eyes next on Kansas City, Waco, and Colorado Springs; it had also sent a pair of missionaries to

Japan.94 In 1874, the various church newspapers had been consolidated into one paper, the

Nashville Cumberland Presbyterian, giving the denomination its first organ since the days of

James Smith, with nearly 8,000 subscribers. The Board of Publication had since then bought new

presses and soon would have a new boiler and engine for their operations. There were five

Cumberland Presbyterian colleges with more than 100 students: Trinity University in Tehuacana,

Texas; Lincoln University in central Illinois; Waynesburg College in western Pennsylvania;

Bethel College in McKenzie, Tennessee; and Cumberland University in Lebanon, Tennessee.

Though they still lagged behind the PCUSA and PCUS in power and influence, the Cumberland

Presbyterians had reason to believe, especially given their “medium” theology and ecclesiology

and their geographical union throughout the great sectional conflict, that they belonged in the

religious marketplace. They believed they occupied an important place in the project of the

93 GA Minutes (CPC), 1877: 69–72 (first quotation on 69, second and third quotations on 70, fourth and fifth quotations on 71). 94 GA Minutes (CPC), 1877: 41–45, 74–77, 79–93; GA Minutes (PCUS), 1877: 578.

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Christian nation.95

But still the legacies of slavery and white supremacy remained, besmirching the church’s

reputations in the eyes of some. The Christian Recorder, organ of the African Methodist

Episcopal Church, wrote that the Cumberland Presbyterians had been “one of the most wickedly

pro-slavery bodies known in America” and had changed little since. A Scottish observer derided

the Cumberland Presbyterians as “an Assembly . . . of negro haters and negro excluders.”96 The

most direct challenge to the denomination came from H. A. Gibson, a Colored Cumberland

Presbyterian minister from Bowling Green who attended the 1878 General Assembly as a

corresponding delegate. Gibson made explicit what the black church’s repeated pleas had merely

implied: that the white church “had not done all . . . they should have done” for the black church.

The Cumberland Presbyterian Church, he said, was like a mother with three children, one of

whom was “deformed . . . not as beautiful as the others,” and therefore neglected. Gibson asked

why the church could not at least “provide schools for the colored children of the church,” as the

Methodists and Presbyterians had done. But the moderator assured Gibson he was exaggerating

the white church’s neglect, and urged him and his church to be patient. Thaddeus Blake, whose

soul had been first directed heavenward by a slave’s prayer, reminded Gibson it was the

freedpeople’s “desire to have a church by themselves,” and they were therefore in no position to

make demands on the church they had left. A secretary for the Board of Missions complained

95 GA Minutes (CPC), 1873: 26, 1875: 56–57, 1876: 35, 69, 1877: 23–24, 58–60, 71 (quotation on 71). 96 L. Boyd, “A Piece of By-gone History,” Philadelphia Christian Recorder, October 13, 1881, p. 2 (first quotation); “Letter to Editor,” Dundee Courier & Argus, June 13, 1881, p. 4 (second quotation).

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that they had offered to send free issues of the Missionary Record to any black minister “who

would send for it, and . . . so far only three had accepted this offer.”97

Gibson’s plea for justice simply did not register with the Cumberland Presbyterians, who

believed they owed nothing to those whom they had once enslaved, those whose unpaid labor

they had transubstantiated into seminarians’ gowns and moderators’ gavels. They did not have

the ears to listen. If anything, they heard Gibson’s petition as a rude echo from the storm that had

nearly subsumed the church and nearly undermined their future role in the divine drama.

Nevertheless, as a token of their generosity, and as one body and spirit, professing faith in one

lord and sharing one baptism, the commissioners of the General Assembly of the Cumberland

Presbyterian Church passed around a hat.98

97 “The Cumberland Presbyterians,” Nashville Daily American, May 21, 1878, p. 4 (quotations); GA Minutes (CPC), 1878: 14. 98 “The Cumberland Presbyterians,” Nashville Daily American, May 21, 1878, p. 4; Ephesians 4:4–5.

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