Slavery

Yes, the Civil War Was About Slavery

INTRODUCTION Baptists and other white Americans North and South during the Civil War-era were unequivocal: secession, the existence of the Confederate States of America, and the Civil War were all the result of slavery, the immoral (or moral, depending on one’s race, political persuasion and/or geographic location) institution that served as the economic engine of…

A War Long Coming

This is the introductory chapter to Bruce Gourley’s 2015 volume, Baptists and the American Civil War: Crucible of Faith and Freedom. The road to the American Civil War began with the introduction of slavery into the American colonies in the mid-seventeenth century. Slavery was confined to Africans, as English Common Law prohibited the enslavement of…

Racism and Inequality in the North Prior to the Civil War

by Bruce Gourley From its earliest days, the colonial experience in the New World was infused with human inequality. Theocratic colonies through both government institutions and establishment churches refused to allow freedom of conscience or religious liberty. Many poor whites were indentured servants and many blacks either indentured servants or slaves. White women were denied…