Baptists in America: A History

by Thomas S. Kidd

White southern Baptists did not necessarily think slavery was right, but they could see no way to safely abolish it. Baptist officials saw no reason to disrupt their national fellowship in the name of abolition. In light of the antimission controversy and breakaways, the need for unity among pro-missionary Baptists seemed even more pressing.19 The mission board’s tepid response was not good enough for some northern Baptists, a group of whom sent a letter with 180 signatories commending the English Baptists for their admonition. “SLAVEHOLDING,” they thundered, “is now the most heinous sin with which America is chargeable.” Southerners responded in kind, with the Charleston Association deploring the work of “deluded and mischievous fanatics . . . to interfere with the domestic institutions of the Southern and Slave-holding States.” Such efforts to convince southerners of slavery’s immorality would fail, they proclaimed, as long as southerners had “the Bible in their hands.” The association regarded outside interference on the issue “not only as officious and unfriendly but incendiary and murderous.” It could fatally damage the union of American states, the Charlestonians averred—fifteen years before their state would actually secede. The association also reaffirmed its commitment to the evangelization of slaves and cautioned against restricting the religious liberty of blacks except in cases of compelling urgency.