The Founding Myth: Why Christian Nationalism Is Un-American

by Andrew L. Seidel

Jefferson Davis and Daniel Webster were right: the bible supported the southern slaveholders, not the northern abolitionists.28 The point was even made in the House of Representatives during the first US Congress. Two months before his death, Benjamin Franklin petitioned Congress to abolish slavery. Franklin was in an abolition society that included Thomas Paine, other founders, and Quakers. Representative James Jackson of Georgia attacked the petition, at least partly because the bible allows slavery: “If they [the petitioners] were to consult that book, which claims our regard, they will find that slavery is not only allowed, but commended. Their Saviour, who possessed more benevolence and commiseration than they pretend to, has allowed of it.”29 Representative William Smith of South Carolina also favored slavery on religious grounds, as “the professors of its [Christianity’s] mild doctrines never preached against it.”30 Slavery is sanctified and permitted in the bible. Jesus even discusses the proper force with which to beat one’s slaves in Luke 12:45–49, a passage the Southern states often used to justify slavery.31