Posted on 10/10/2025 8:01:36 AM PDT by CondoleezzaProtege
The Civil War was undoubtedly a crisis for the soldiers, the nation, and the destiny of the American people. In many ways, that war made us, and continues to make us, the country and the people we are today. Shelby Foote famously described the Civil War as “the crossroads of our being.” It was a great personal and national crisis. However, it was also a theological crisis.
Leading historian Mark Noll wrote a book called The Civil War as a Theological Crisis…The book documents and addresses the fact that Northerners and Southerners experienced the shock and horror of the Civil War as a deeply theological crisis, a test of faith, a dark cloud over the ways of the American God.
The crisis centered around two points of contention: does the Bible (and therefore God) sanction the institution of slavery, and which side of the war does God really fight for? Both sides believed in the righteousness of their cause, the truth of their convictions, and the biblical fidelity of their institutions. Both sides prayed in earnest and proclaimed that God in his providence would rise up to vindicate them and grant a glorious victory.
Thus, the Civil War became a deeply theological crisis. The outcome of the war would determine whose interpretation of Scripture is correct and whose moral convictions and political institutions were approved by heaven. The nature and character of God was on the line.
This understanding of the connection between war on earth and the ways of heaven did not originate with 19th century Americans. In fact, the idea is exceedingly ancient. In the worlds of ancient Israel and the early church, the deeds of gods and humans were closely linked. Everyone understood that what happened on earth was a reflection of what happened in heaven…
(Excerpt) Read more at forkschurch.org ...
Isaiah 55:9
For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts
Did this same thought apply in 1776? Was 1776 about slavery?
Or was it about independence?
There were anti slavery proponents in the Revolutionary War. But politics got in the way. Force too much change and they would have fought and probably lost on their own.
Utter nonsense!
Proverbs 16:9
A man's heart deviseth his way: but the Lord directeth his steps
My point is that we have always been taught that the Civil War was about slavery. Some years back, I learned that *OUR GOVERNMENT VOTED FOR PERMANENT SLAVERY* in March of 1861.
They passed in the House and the Senate, by a 2/3rds majority, the Corwin Amendment to the US Constitution. Lincoln supported this amendment too.
So the intent of our government was to enact permanent slavery in the United States. With the USA and the CSA both agreeing that slavery should continue indefinitely, it cannot rationally be said that the war was over slavery.
The war was in fact over whether the Southern states would be independent from the Northern states, and rule themselves.
Same as the war in 1776.
So IMHO the cultural change of the Frist Great Awakening was real, including making headway for the abolitionist movement. Just not quite enough to get the job done at that time.
Do we have any Biblical scholars who can point me to a passage that says slavery is OK?
I agree. If the US broke apart their military budget would be almost entirely consumed posturing against each other.
I suggest reading abolitionist Pastor Theodore Weld's Bible Against Slavery. I found it free online years ago. It was enlightening to me. The cliff notes of it was that slavery as described in the Old Testament was more akin to what we called voluntary servitude (though admittedly not always). And certainly with the rights that the Moses law gave to slaves (servants?), which were both unheard of at the time in Canaan, and which were way better than slavery as it was in Weld's day here.
Yes - The war was in fact over whether the Southern states would be independent from the Northern states, and rule themselves.
Yes, rule themselves as opposed to being ruled by the Northern states. This is why the Southern states were subjected to the Northern Aggression and it’s resulting ruin of the Southern economy for decades.
Many points. My take on them:
1) The Corwin Amendment was pushed by Dims before Lincoln was inaugurated. It passed the House and Senate and Lincoln, once in office, dutifully sent it to the states, and it was ratified by only two states (Ohio and Maryland) ratified it. So if you're going to say the north pushed for slavery to be accepted, that's true, but remember it was a Dim majority in Congress that did it, spurred on by Dim President Buchannan. And even then, we're talking only 2 states ratified it anyway. So it's not like the Corwin Amendment should be used as some example that the northern states were all gung-ho on protecting slavery.
2) About the primary reason the south seceded, I suggest reading each confederate state's declaration of secession. I summarized here on FR how many times the word "slave" or "slavery", etc. was mentioned (107 times). Obviously a primary reason for secession.
3) Not stated, but often mention in these types of discussion, is whether or not the confederate states had the legal right to secede. I say yes. Unrelated for the morality of why they seceded (i.e. slavery). I'm saying that for whatever reasons they wanted to, they should have been able to.
4) Related to #3 above, it wasn't the norm at the time, at least in North America, to let a population/region secede peacefully. Look at these examples:
A) 1770's -- U.S. seceded from England and had to fight for it.
B) 1810's -- Mexico seceded from Spain and had to fight for it.
C) 1830's -- Texas seceded from Mexico and had to fight for it.
D) 1860's -- South tried to secede from U.S. and had to fight for it.
E) 1890's (and for a while before that) -- Cuba seceded from Spain and had to fight for it (with lots of help from the U.S. in the Spanish-American War).
So it would have been unusual for the U.S. to just sit back and let the south secede. I'm not saying it was right for the U.S. to make them fight for secession. I'm just saying perhaps it's unrealistic for us to expect them to have done so.
Bkmk
Romans 1:1
Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God
The Apostle Paul describes himself, first and formost, as a slave of Jesus.
"Slave: The Hidden Truth About Your Identity in Christ" - Book by John F. MacArthur
That was a last-minute compromise measure to keep the country — or what was left of it. The Congress was at the “try anything” stage. A “Hail Mary pass,” the amendment was also something of a punt: the vote was purely formal as it depended upon ratification by the states, which was unlikely and if it did happen would have taken some time.
While there may have been hopes that the states that had already voted (supposedly) to secede, they weren’t coming back, since their leaders had decided that slavery would be safer outside the union than inside it under a Republican president, amendment or no amendment.
You really seriously need to get a life.
Is all you can do is focus on contention and controversy?
Is that all Christianity means to you, proving one side right over against another or pitting believers against each other over issues that happened centuries ago that no impact on a person’s life these days?
This is precisely what the original sources say. So we must recognize it. Anti-slavery was wrapped up into the Revolutionary War itself even if it was relegated to third-ran or fifth-ran. It wasn't at zero.
Gen.Blather, there's an excellent book on this subject from 1866 titled "An Historical Research Respecting the Opinions of the Founders of the Republic on Negroes" if you may happen to be interested. Contains a lot of really good original source material.
New audiobook release: An Historical Research Respecting the Opinions of the Founders of the Republic on Negroes https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/4172958/posts
DiogenesLamp: "Did this same thought apply in 1776? Was 1776 about slavery?
Or was it about independence?"
The Declaration of Independence contains more than 1 single grievance in its plain-text written face. It allows itself to be about more than 1 thing.
DiogenesLamp: "Did this same thought apply in 1776? Was 1776 about slavery?
Or was it about independence?"
This is a dishonest set of questions designed to guide people who attempt to answer it to a useless place. There was a distinct strain of Independence-so-we-can-free-the-slaves anti-slavery sentiment in the final lead up to the war with the Empire. Even if it was relegated to third-ran or fifth-ran, it wasn't at zero. You desire for it to be at zero but you can't have it at zero, that would be historical malpractice.
There is no wall of separation between the war for Independence and opposition to slavery as your questions suggest.
Slavery would have substantially died out by 1900 with the mechinization and diversification of agriculture. Lincolns’s plan to return blacks to Africa could have been put into practice perhaps with the feds buying slaves to send home. And a full generation of young men would have survived to produce offspring who would have discovered who knows what in their liftimes.
I think Charlie Kirk did a really good job of breaking down how slavery in the Bible:
1) It’s not about chattel slavery at all in any of the passages. That was something primarily new in the transatlantic context. So the Bible could not address that item simply due to the passage of time and new inventions.
2) knowing that slavery exists is not an endorsement of slavery. Further direction to treat slaves fairly is not an endorsement of slavery either.
Charlie Kirk COOKS Atheist on “Biblical” Slavery
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/4343111/posts
Being a slave is subjugation. Being a “slave” to Jesus is not subjugation.
We don't have a hostile stance towards Canada, as much as I wish we did. There is no reason to think the CSA and the USA could not have had the same sort of relationship.
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