HomeLOOKING BACK: Unitarianism, Slavery and Civil War
READING: from Abiel A. Livermore “The War With Mexico Reviewed” 1850.
“O war, what shall we say of thee, thou dark spirit, thou fearful minister of wrath, thou flaming angel of swift destruction? When thou art let loose, there is a shudder in heaven, and the angels veil their faces in horror. The sound of thy trumpet strikes terror to the mother's heart, and makes the sister turn pale with fear and foreboding. Wives shrink from the sound of thy coming, and children flee from the thunder and havoc of thy train as from the whirlwind. Is there purity? Thou dishonorest it. Is there temperance? Thou debauchest it. Is there mercy? Thou turnest it to stone. Is there love? Thou curdlest the milk of human kindness to hatred. Is there prosperity? Thou cuttest off its resources, thou multipliest taxes. Is there home? Thou layest it waste with fire and sword. Is there religion? Thou repealest every law of the decalogue, every precept of Christ. Is there patriotism? Thou puttest in place of the true a vile substitute, current neither among gods nor men. Is there honor? Thou cheatest the world with a base compound that bears the same relation to true honor that pewter coin does to -pure silver. Is there freedom? Thou draggest her a bound captive at thy chariot wheels. Is there commerce? Thou chasest her from the seas. Is there agriculture? Thou tramplest her harvests under the hoofs of thy coursers, and riotest in her plenty. Is there art, practical or ideal? Thou burnest her workshops, thou plunderest her galleries. Is there any good thing on earth, which heaven has given, or which man has made? Thou art the curse and destruction of all. Where thou movest, a garden is before thee, and a desert behind thee. Thou art hell let loose upon the world; and when we see thy banner in the sky, all the good angels of heaven seem to have taken flight, and left us to ourselves and to our own worst passions. Thine attendant spirits are pain, and woe, and despair, and sickness, and licentiousness, and intemperance, and profaneness, and Sabbath-breaking, and murder, and robbery, and cruelty. Thy victories are the defeats of humanity. Thy conquests are the losses of liberty. Thy rejoicings are the wailings of the poor and suffering. -Thy glories are the shame of immortals, and the trophies of tigers and hyenas. Thy laurels are red with blood, and thy hosannas are the shrieks of the wounded, the yells of the dying, the sobs of widows, the cries of orphans, and the lamentations of nations.”
SERMON
Good Morning!
My sermon today is part of this congregation’s 150th anniversary celebration. Since we were founded in 1856, the time just before the Civil War when slavery still existed, I focus today on the issue of slavery and of Unitarianism, with particular emphasis on those things that might have most directly touched this congregation.
First, some general historical background; then a focus on the Unitarian church in Cincinnati, Ohio; then a look at how one copes with the internal struggle that arises when two strongly held moral imperatives are in conflict.
General Background
The first point to note is that slavery existed, and that its effects were felt here in Westchester, particularly following the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850.
Many in the North were outraged by this and some who had ignored slavery by thinking because it did not touch their lives now turned against it as they were now complicit in it.
As a sample of the negative reaction within certain Unitarian circles I refer to several Ministers:
Ralph Waldo Emerson
From: Unitarian and Universalist Denominational and
Individual Involvement in the Anti-Slavery Movement Prior to the U. S. Civil War by Paul McLain
Emerson referred the Act as:
“"this filthy enactment" and wrote in his journal, "I will not obey it, by God!" Speaking before the citizens of Concord, he said, "This is a law which every one of you will break on the earliest occasion."
from Henry Steele Commager’s book “Theodore Parker: Yankee Crusader”:
Parker “organized Vigilance Committees and harbored fugitive slaves in his house. He fomented rebellion against wicked laws and offered to lead attacks upon the Court House and the jail. He was indicted for ‘offending against the peace and dignity of the United States,’ and so welcomed the indictment that the Judge did not dare let the case go to trial. He helped inspire and finance the Kansas Crusade; he was one of John Brown’s secret committee of six, privy to his plans; he incited slaves to insurrection…”.
Samuel J. May helped to plan the Jerry Rescue, in which a group of citizens in Syracuse freed a runaway slave from the police and helped him escape to Canada.
The Underground Railroad, which now had to run to Canada, had a number of main routes. One of these was along the lower Hudson River Valley, including Philipsburg Manor, Foster Memorial AME Zion Church in Tarrytown, the John Jay Homestead in Katonah and others. Quaker communities were deeply involved. Surely people in this congregation were aware of the fact. Nowhere can I find any reference to the Underground Railroad and Unitarians in Yonkers or in Westchester.
Unitarian Church Cincinnati
I am going to look at the Unitarian Church in Cincinnati for some very good reasons. First, there are available several historical reviews of the congregation during the pre-Civil War era. Second, those reviews display the conflict that divided people in the North during this time, and also divided Unitarians. Third, one of the ministers of that congregation, Abiel A. Livermore, served the congregation in Cincinnati from 1850 to 1856, just prior to coming here and serving this congregation as its first minister.
The study on Ministers is titled THE UNITARIAN CLERGY AND ANT-SLAVERY IN ANTEBELLUM CINCINNATI.
I quote to you from it selections about Rev. Livermore:
“Generally these men were conservative both theologically and socially. The abolition of slavery was not a cause in which they were eager to take part. Abiel Abbot Livermore was one such Unitarian minister…his concern for problems in American society did not extend to the issue of slavery…Slavery, because of its highly controversial nature, was a topic that Livermore shied away from …Livermore worked very hard at keeping… his congregation…together as the issue of slavery split apart other churches and denominational structures and he was largely successful…[other ministers of the congregation] and Livermore… had much to lose…their writings reveal a concern for the uncontrolled disintegration of American society. They feared what would happen to their world, the North, were slavery to end and the Union split apart…The desire to protect their way of life in the North was more important than a quick but uncertain ending to the injustice of slavery in the South.”
There is no record of Livermore preaching against slavery. Though previous ministers of the congregation did so, most urged that it be slowly abolished over time, a relatively unthreatening approach.
If one looks at a map, Cincinnati is on the north side of the Ohio River just across from Kentucky. The financial well being of the city and its residents was tied to business with southern states and clients.
A document entitled SUCH A GLARING INCONSISTENCY The Unitarian Laity and Anti-Slavery in Antebellum Cincinnati, describes the congregation in this period as divided. Some were pro-slavery, or at least, anti-abolition. They did not want their economic well being to be disrupted. That was true no only in Cincinnati, but also in places like Boston and New York where financial interests were tied to business with the south. There also was a voiced concern about the slaves—since they are not capable of running their own lives, aren’t they better off the way things are.
Arguing in economic terms is not alien to us; one parallel issue today is that of child labor in China, India and other countries. There is no question in my mind but that children belong in school. Some—including those who do business with these nations—would argue that people in those countries are economically better off if their children work. I don’t accept that argument, I personally have no willingness to accept economic reasons for refusing or opposing moral action, and I believe it is as much a rationalization as the one about the slaves, but it is an argument that is made and believed.
But back to Cincinnati: aside from the pro-slavery people, other members were major leaders of the local Colonization movement which urged a gradual end to slavery, purchasing the freedom of slaves, and sending the freed slaves to Liberia. They did not feel that black people could integrate into American society.
The congregation also had leaders of the local Abolitionist movement, and they published a newspaper calling for immediate abolition. Radical Abolitionists, called ultra-abolitionists, felt that a nation founded on slavery deserved no loyalty and ought to be destroyed.
Then there were members of the congregation who were key leaders of the Underground Railroad in Cincinnati. This was a main gateway to freedom for runaway slaves.
These three groups did not fully overlap, and in fact there was stark tension in Cincinnati between the Colonizationists and the Abolitionists. In 1836, that tension broke out into a three-day riot. Colonizationists, under the leadership of members of the Unitarian Church, attacked and destroyed the printing press operated by members of the Unitarian church and raided the homes of the Abolitionists, including members of the Unitarian Church.
That occurred fourteen years before Livermore arrived in Cincinnati. One can perhaps, understand the desire to avoid speaking to a topic that stirred that much heat within the congregation.
It should also be said, however, that the minister who followed Livermore was an ardent Abolitionist, and the more conservative members did leave to found another congregation.
Internal Moral conflict
However, I want to point to other possible factors in Livermore’s silence on slavery.
Imagine if you will, that you live in the United States in the year 1850. Imagine further that you are a genuine nationalist; that you believe that this country is, as Abraham Lincoln would later describe it, the “last best hope of earth”. You believe that war is moral wrong. You also believe that slavery is a moral wrong.
But here is your fear: Those who are pushing to end slavery will achieve only the disunion of the nation. If hot heads prevail, then there will also be a great and terrible war with untold suffering, death and destruction. And the worst possible outcome of that might be that the nation you so love will be torn apart, that the horror of war will be visited upon it, and, since the outcome of such a war is not known ahead of time, when the war is over, slavery may still exist.
We know that Livermore was an ardent believer in peace, and I read earlier from his book about the War with Mexico. When one feels so strongly about war, when one so vehemently hates it, and when it seems the likely outcome of pressing for the end even of a system one despises, what does one do?
There is the moral conflict for many in that time. Believing that war is evil, believing that their nation is the hope of the world, and believing that slavery is a moral wrong, they had to make individual judgments about the proper words to speak and actions to take.
Is a horrible war worth the effort to end slavery? And from whose perspective: the slave owners; the merchant or financier’s; the nationalist’s; or the slave’s?
As I review the past, though I now understand better the concerns of those who cautioned a slow approach to ending slavery, I remain convinced that then as now, human rights must always come first. We must always strive for freedom and justice, and the time to do so is always now. Not tomorrow, not someday, not when the time is right, now.
Had Frederick Douglas and others not thundered against slavery, had we as a nation heeded the call to be cautious, I believe that officially sanctioned slavery would till exist in this nation.
If Rosa Parks had stood up and moved, if Dr. Martin Luther King and others not raised their voices when they did, then segregation would still exist in this land and Coretta Scott King’s body would not lie in state in the Capital Rotunda of Atlanta, Georgia.
Had Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and others not raised their voices when they did, the women of this country would still not be permitted to vote.
Had Betty Friedan and others not raised their voi8ces when they did, women would still be living lives as proscribed as they were in the 1950’s.
If those who now struggle for the rights of gays, lesbians and transgendered people heed the voices of those who say, “Not yet”, then equality will never come.
Always, always, always the time for struggle is now. Success may be far off, but it will be further off if voices are now stilled.
As struggles for justice continue, we must find ways to raise our voices without burning down buildings; but we cannot refrain from speaking and acting for justice out of fear that others will burn buildings should we do so.
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