Looking back on it, it is difficult to see how any Christian could ever have defended slavery. Most didn’t try until the 1830s. We sometimes forget that during the first three decades of the nineteenth century the antislavery movement was stronger in the South than in the North. For a combination of reasons, however, the antislavery movement faded and a Southern defense of the institution arose. Some of the arguments for slavery were drawn from the Bible, thanks to Southern churchmen.
