“Will the Sec. of Navy please call on me at once.” Thus Lincoln writes from the “Executive Mansion,” signaling the crisis that is Fort Sumter.
Meanwhile, in Montgomery, Alabama, the Confederate States of America issues its first currency.
Also in Alabama, the Cedar Bluff Baptist Church (in Cedar Bluff, Alabama) meets for its monthly business meeting. As in many Baptist congregations, the national crisis does not yet intrude upon congregational life. Issues of membership, discipline, and “letters of dismission” (transfers of membership) are typical.
Today, however, Cedar Bluff Baptist struggles with an issue that is increasingly bedeviling Baptists of the South: alcohol.
Historically, Baptists have only been opposed to drunkenness, not alcohol. Indeed, the use of alcohol in communion is commonplace within Baptist churches.
Now, in the light of an emerging abstinence movement in some corners of Southern society, a few congregations grapple with whether or not to outlaw liquor altogether. While the Civil War (resulting in an increase of the abuse of alcohol in the South) will accelerate such discussions at large, Cedar Bluff today confronts the issue and makes a decision that many Baptist congregations will not embrace until the late nineteenth or early twentieth centuries: they take a strong stance against alcohol.
Visiting Brethren were invited to sit with the Church and aid in its deliberations.
An opportunity was given for membership. No one applied.
The minutes of the January & February conferences were read & approved.
The Moderator then enquired for the general peace of the Church, under which head he wished to imply all differences between members, and general offences. Upon which the Clk moved that a certain matter which had been before the Church at its last conference, and which had been laid on the table be taken up. The proposition was about in substance, to wit, Will the Church permit its members to buy & sell spirituous liquors for gain in any quantity — which motion was sustained. Whereupon the said mover was requested by Bro. F. M. Hardwick to state his reasons for wishing said subject to be taken from the table, which he attempted to do, stating among other things that reports prejudicial to the interests of the Church had been circulated in relation to the action had by the Church at the preceeding conference to wit: that the Church in the disposition of said subject had (if not directly) impliedly sanctioned the buying & selling of spirituous liquors in any quantity provided their action did not come in conflict with the laws of the Land. To correct which the mover desired the Church to give an authoritative opinion in relation thereto, or in other words to make the proposition a test question. Bro. F. M. Hardwick in response said in substance that if it was the desire of the Church to prohibit the traffic in spirituous liquors as heretofore engaged in by his son, he would appeal to him as a dutiful son and as a member of Cedar Bluff Church to abandon the traffic altogether; but that he would say in addition that he disliked very much to see men strain at a gnat and swallow a camel and further that he could discover in the introduction of this subject a disposition manifested to persecute his son; and that there were members in this Church who had heretofore manifested a strong disposition to become the persecutors of his son, that they had time after time had him arraigned at the bar of the Church with a settled determination to crush him down if possible and that they had always failed to prove any thing prejudicial to his Christian character, etc., etc. At the close of which remarks the mover requested the said Bro. to state whether he regarded him as one of the number referred to. He answered he did. The mover then requested Bro. Hardwick to state for the information of the Church his reasons for branding him as the persecutor of his son. He then stated that as the mover had called for an explanation he would make a clean breast of it, or words of similar import and commenced by referring to the position taken by the mover in a certain adjudication of a difficulty between his son & Bro. Jere Lawrence; that his son had complained to the Church of Bro. Jere Lawrence’s conduct towards him orally — an that the Church through her Moderator had required his son to make out his complaint in writing, and present it to the Church, which be subsequently did; and that the mover had strenuously opposed the introduction of the specifications of charges contained in said complaint, and through his opposition procured a reference of the whole subject to a committee, and that after the final action of said committee, the said brethren were each required to make acknowledgments to the Church, and that his son being present did as required, but that the said Jere Lawrence had never made any acknowledgment from which he reasoned that the mover, with others were & had been the persecutors of his son. The mover then read from the record the proceedings of the Conference held in March 1857 which showed that the difficulty heretofore existing between Bros. E. S. Hardwick & Jere Lawrence had been amicably adjusted. After many things had been said by several members of the Church and the mover had appealed to the Church in vindication of his character without any response, Bro. High, a member of a sister Church asked leave to speak a few words, giving the Church a delineation of her character in the neighborhoods adjacent saying among other things, that Ceder Bluff Church was regarded as one great big drunkard, and closed by exhorting the Church to put away from them accursed thing — touch not, taste note, Handle not.
The following resolutions were then offered and unanimously adopted to wit:
Resolved, That this Church will not recognize any member in good standing who deals & sells ardent spirits.
Resolved, further That it is the sense of the Church that its members are prohibited by Divine Law from using spirituous liquors in any quantity as a beverage.
Letters of dismission were granted to brother G. W. Potter & wife.
Bro Jeremiah Bishop and the Clerk was instructed to write a letter to Bro. Jno. Sewell of San Raphael, California certifying that at the date of his departure from the neighborhood he was a member in good standing in this Church.
No other business conference closed.
Aside from the mounting crisis concerning alcohol, church life in the South remains largely routine. Yet soon, despite Baptists’ historical commitment to separation of church and state, many Baptist congregations and associations will, in various ways, voice affirmation of the Confederate States of America as God’s chosen nation.
Source: Lincoln’s note (link); Confederate currency (link); Cedar Bluff Baptist Minutes (link)
