While I have spent much of my career understanding the politics of the colonial, revolutionary, antebellum, and Civil War periods, my real interest has been in the intellectual and social issues that drove the people of this country, including religion. I was born into a Presbyterian family; my paternal grandfather was a fire-and-brimstone Presbyterian minister from the Midwest. When I was in my teens, I undertook an odyssey of discovery and ultimately decided that all religions are based on myth.
With that birdwalking out of the way, the Presbyterian Church, which arrived in the colonies by the 1630s, suffered two schisms. The first occurred in the 1830s during the Second Great Awakening: The Old (focused on reason and scholarship) and New School (more evangelical and emotional) traditions. The second occurred in 1861, when the General Assembly passed the Spring Resolutions requiring loyalty to the federal government. The Southern delegates to that assembly met and voted to secede and form their own denomination: The Presbyterian Church of the Confederate States of America. When the war ended in a Union victory, the denomination changed its name to the Presbyterian Church in the United States (PCUS).
In the Union, the two traditions, old and new school, remained divided until 1869. The northern and southern denominations remained separate entities until the Merger Agreement. The local presbyteries, the ruling council of the local churches, ratified the agreement in the early months of 1983. At the 1983 General Assembly held in Atlanta, the UPCUSA and the PCUS held separate simultaneous final sessions and then came together in a massive celebratory parade to formally constitute the Presbyterian Church U.S.A., thus ending the 122-year split.
The Presbyterians are not the only denomination to split over the issue of slaver/loyalty to the federal government. The Methodists and Baptists also split into separate denominations. The Southern Baptist Church is an artifact of the split in the Baptist denomination.
Today, the denominations are in flux. Presbyterians and other denominations have split on the touchstone social and cultural issues of today, particularly women's issues like choice, civil rights issues, and LGBTQ+ rights and issues.
It is remarkable to my friends outside the US that we in the US continue to have to fight a battle over the undisputed facts of our history. They seem not to understand how embedded racism is in our culture from its beginning until now. Nor how the secessionist mythologizers are encouraged by the Trump administration.
Everything you say is true, but I have a bit of pushback. As historians, we should not cast judgment after the fact. It's like Monday morning quarterbacking.
Jackson and Lee were brought up in a world that was viciously racist and yet were able to act in ways that were against the norm of the world they were brought up in and lived their lives in. Sure, they were racist but by the standards of their society, they had progressed beyond its strict level of oppression and prejudice, and while defending slavery, they had begun to see the humanity that slaves possessed and the evil that slavery was.
At least that's how I see it. I think it's unfair in every case, not just this one, to judge a person from the past by our standards today.
Both Jackson and Lee fought for the Confederacy, and, if memory serves, Lee resigned his commission with the US Army. Both of them had the opportunity to lead the Union forces, yet there friendships with their Southern neighbors took precedence. Regardless of their beliefs and statements concerning slavery, they could not engage in battle against their friends, families and neighbors.
😡And notably President Jackson, slavery advocate, is President Trump's favorite President.
Lee waa talking out both sides of his mouth. And both used the "christian do-gooder" myth to perpetuate the lies.
They used the same reasoning brought from Europe with them that proved effective wherever colonization and slavery still exist.
My first thought in reading this? Somebody should have sucker punched both of them in the mouth for lying.
No, students should not be forced into attending a place of education 'honoring' slave holders.
Which is why knowing their history, the uncomfortable truths, is critical.
Your article is a keeper.thank you for your research and sharing
While I have spent much of my career understanding the politics of the colonial, revolutionary, antebellum, and Civil War periods, my real interest has been in the intellectual and social issues that drove the people of this country, including religion. I was born into a Presbyterian family; my paternal grandfather was a fire-and-brimstone Presbyterian minister from the Midwest. When I was in my teens, I undertook an odyssey of discovery and ultimately decided that all religions are based on myth.
With that birdwalking out of the way, the Presbyterian Church, which arrived in the colonies by the 1630s, suffered two schisms. The first occurred in the 1830s during the Second Great Awakening: The Old (focused on reason and scholarship) and New School (more evangelical and emotional) traditions. The second occurred in 1861, when the General Assembly passed the Spring Resolutions requiring loyalty to the federal government. The Southern delegates to that assembly met and voted to secede and form their own denomination: The Presbyterian Church of the Confederate States of America. When the war ended in a Union victory, the denomination changed its name to the Presbyterian Church in the United States (PCUS).
In the Union, the two traditions, old and new school, remained divided until 1869. The northern and southern denominations remained separate entities until the Merger Agreement. The local presbyteries, the ruling council of the local churches, ratified the agreement in the early months of 1983. At the 1983 General Assembly held in Atlanta, the UPCUSA and the PCUS held separate simultaneous final sessions and then came together in a massive celebratory parade to formally constitute the Presbyterian Church U.S.A., thus ending the 122-year split.
The Presbyterians are not the only denomination to split over the issue of slaver/loyalty to the federal government. The Methodists and Baptists also split into separate denominations. The Southern Baptist Church is an artifact of the split in the Baptist denomination.
Today, the denominations are in flux. Presbyterians and other denominations have split on the touchstone social and cultural issues of today, particularly women's issues like choice, civil rights issues, and LGBTQ+ rights and issues.
I can’t believe anyone pretended those Traitors were against slavery. It’s just nonsense. The south is forever trying to rewrite history.
It is remarkable to my friends outside the US that we in the US continue to have to fight a battle over the undisputed facts of our history. They seem not to understand how embedded racism is in our culture from its beginning until now. Nor how the secessionist mythologizers are encouraged by the Trump administration.
Thank you.
Facts are facts. Thanks for more real history. DD
The cuntfederacy was a bunch of white douche bags who were white supremacists
I can see why you were offended. On the positive end, it inspired you to write this piece, setting the history straight. I appreciate that.
Good read!
Everything you say is true, but I have a bit of pushback. As historians, we should not cast judgment after the fact. It's like Monday morning quarterbacking.
Jackson and Lee were brought up in a world that was viciously racist and yet were able to act in ways that were against the norm of the world they were brought up in and lived their lives in. Sure, they were racist but by the standards of their society, they had progressed beyond its strict level of oppression and prejudice, and while defending slavery, they had begun to see the humanity that slaves possessed and the evil that slavery was.
At least that's how I see it. I think it's unfair in every case, not just this one, to judge a person from the past by our standards today.
Both Jackson and Lee fought for the Confederacy, and, if memory serves, Lee resigned his commission with the US Army. Both of them had the opportunity to lead the Union forces, yet there friendships with their Southern neighbors took precedence. Regardless of their beliefs and statements concerning slavery, they could not engage in battle against their friends, families and neighbors.