Citation

Carrigan WD. Am. Nineteen. Cent. Hist. 2000; 1(2): 31-52.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2000, Informa - Taylor and Francis Group)

DOI

10.1080/14664650008567015

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Because of the very centrality and perseverance of race in the nineteenth century, historians have often not been sensitive enough to changes within racial thought. This case study of Southern white Presbyterians - based primarily on their numerous and rich published documents - attempts to contribute to our increasingly complex understanding of white supremacy. Before the Civil War, the religious leaders of the Southern Presbyterian Church did not rely upon overt appeals to white supremacy to defend slavery. Instead, they cloaked their defense in scripture. Emancipation, however, challenged this defense of the social order. While the defenders of the antebellum South had turned to the Bible in support of slavery, the postbellum defenders of segregation could not rely upon significant scriptural argument to justify their new social relations. As Southern white Presbyterians began to construct a post-emancipation defense of black subordination, explicit and overt racial justifications vied with biblical justifications as never before. This intellectual transformation helped pave the way for the rise of a new, unfettered and often violent form of racial prejudice in the late nineteenth century.