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…
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…
The American Civil War did not occur within a vacuum. Years of political discourse, regional maneuvering, and ideological dueling between the northern and southern states led to the break up of the United States and the war that followed. African slavery, existent in America since early colonial days, stood at the heart of the political…