One year after Thomas Nast’s first illustration of Santa Claus appears in Harpers Weekly, Christmas, a day that is not yet universally celebrated in America, is haltingly acknowledged throughout the North and South. In Washington, D.C., U.S. President Abraham Lincoln works today as usual, believing that taxpayers expect such of him. Lincoln’s activities today include…
Although white Baptists of the Confederacy revile U.S. President Abraham Lincoln as (variously) the “black president,” an infidel, heretic, barbarian and an evil abolitionist (among other disparaging labels), and some Baptists of the North lament the President’s seeming lack of interest in religion, Lincoln maintains an open door in regards to ministers of the Gospel.…
Jacob M. C Breaker (1824-1894), born in South Carolina, is a leader among the state’s Southern Baptists. Like most prominent Southern Baptists, he is a member of a wealthy slave-owning family. In Jacob’s childhood years his father, Lewis Frederick Breaker–a wealthy merchant and plantation owner and a deacon at First Baptist Camden, South Carolina–moved the…