Slavery is mentioned throughout human history. There are many references to it in the Bible. Nowhere prior to the late 18th century did anyone call it bad. At the time our American Constitution was being drawn up in Philadelphia in l787, a compromise was worked out by our founding fathers so that some of the states in the proposed union would be allowed to not have slavery, whereas slavery would be allowed in other states. This was considered a matter of states' rights. It did not present a big problem, because all of the delegates to the Constitutional Convention understood that the federal government which they were proposing was the creation of the several states themselves. Hence the doctrine of states' rights was a fundamental part of the new Constitution, which all states entering into the new nation took for granted. At that time, a majority of the states practiced slavery. The vast majority of ships participating in the slave trade were of northern registry, and most of these were registered in New England with Boston and Providence being the harbors from which a majority sailed to pick up their human cargo in Africa and the Caribbean Islands.

With the passing of time, even though the slave trade continued through New England, the states of this region began to demand the abolition of slavery because these states, which were becoming industrialized wanted a powerful central government (not allowed in the Constitution). The reason was to support a society vastly changed by the industrial revolution. This political theory was supported by Abolitionists, a group of Christians, who came to believe that slavery was wrong. These Abolitionists were for the most part Unitarians or Liberal Christians, who, no longer believing in a literal Bible or a literal Judgment or Hell, began to substitute the freeing of slaves for the Gospel of Christ, which was no longer being preached in much of New England.

At this very time, great theologians such as Dr. Robert L. Dabney, Dr. Richard Furman and James Henley Thornwell pointed out that the most pure form of Christianity in the world was to be found in the American South. These great Southern preachers pointed out that the Christian religion, from the teachings of the Bible stated very literally that all men were sinners and therefore in need of salvation. Romans 3:23. Sin has separated man from God and left him no hope of salvation. The Bible taught that Jesus Christ is God's only provision for man's sin and therefore he died in man's place on the cruel cross to bear his sins and wash them away by His holy healing blood. Romans 5:8. These men and many others believed that until people became converted and had their sins forgiven by God's grace, the sinful problems that plague the human race, such as war, injustice, the plagues of nature cannot be solved. Indeed they cannot be solved this side of Heaven and eternity.

Let us consider slavery in the light of this brief and oversimplified statement. Here is a statement from one of James Henley Thornwell's sermons on slavery. He said: "The Bible does not condemn slavery, neither our Lord Jesus Christ, nor Paul, nor any of the other Apostles and Evangelists who wrote the New Testament condemn slavery. In our capacity as a church, we are neither, the friends nor the foes of slavery; that is to say, we have no commission either to propagate or abolish it. We have no right as a church to enjoin it as a duty or to condemn it as a sin. Our business is with the duties which spring from the relation; the duties of the master, on the one hand, and of the slaves on the other. These duties we are to proclaim and to enforce with spiritual sanctions. But, is slaveholding a sin? The Word of God must furnish the answer. Neither directly nor indirectly, do the Scriptures condemn slave holding as a sin. Slavery is no new thing. It has not only existed for ages in the world, but it has existed under every dispensation of the covenant of grace, in the church of God.

In a speech at the dedication of Zion Church, on Anson Street in Charleston, a church which was built by white Christians for the use of both freed blacks and slaves, and a place where they might learn to read and write for the purpose of reading the Bible and reading Christian tracts, catechisms and literature, Thornwell said in 1850: "The parties in this conflict are not merely abolitionists and slaveholders - they are atheists, socialists, communists, red republicans, Jacobins on the one side, and the friends of order and regulated freedom on the other. In one word, the world is a battleground - Christianity and atheism are the combatants and the progress of humanity is the stake."

It is interesting to note that when Thornwell spoke those words, not all Southern slave owners were white, some of them were black. In an excellent monogram, Robert M. Grooms writes about "Dixie's Black Slave Owners. "He pointed out that in South Carolina, a number of freed blacks owned slaves. For example Justis Angel and Mistress L. Horry of Colliten District, each owned 84 slaves in 1830. That same year one fourth of the free black masters owned 10 or more slaves and eight owned 30 or more. In Louisiana a free black woman, "Coin" Richards owned 152 slaves on a large sugar cane plantation. Her son joined her in this operation. Another black sugar cane plantation owner in ante-bellum Louisiana was Antoine Bubuclet. There were many black slave holders in the South and they were as prosperous as their white counterparts.

Many white Christians and ministers, labored as early as the 1830s to educate slaves so that they could read the Bible, understand sermons and worship intelligently. It was against the law at the time, but these courageous men of God were not interfered with. For example, Thonwell, labored along with Charles Cotlot Jones, John Adger, John Geredeaux and many another Southern pastor to treat their servants with kindness and respect. Dr. Daniel Baker, a Presbyterian evangelist led a revival at Zion Church in Charleston where more than one thousand slaves professed their faith in Christ. White pastors and laymen met with them in special classes to teach them about their new faith. Slave children at Zion Church and also at First Baptist and First Presbyterian Churches in Columbia were teaching black Sunday School children to read and write. Many slaves were becoming Christians. Charles Cotlot Jones and John Geredeaux both spent much time on plantations, teaching the Christian faith to slaves. The Thornwell family, always included their slaves in family devotions, which were often held daily.

Dr. Robert L. Dabney tells the story of visiting a Virginia plantation, near his church at Tinkling Springs. Dabney relates: "the slaves were not a pariah in the master's house. They worshiped and partook of the Lord's Supper in the same sanctuary with their master and, during time of prayer, they could make known their requests and pray aloud together with the master and his family, of which they were treated as a part."

Since I am out of time and space, I wish to conclude by saying that slavery is abolished in our country and our western society today. Elsewhere it is not totally abolished. It is practiced in Sudan, in Mauritania (where it is legal), in remote parts of Yemen and Saudi Arabia and other Islamic areas. Nevertheless in most of the world it no longer exists. This is right. It would be wrong for any Christian to advocate its reintroduction. We must do our utmost to preach the Gospel of Christ, as commanded by our Master in Matthew 28:19-20.

Even though we live in a very sinful society, we must rejoice that slavery is no longer a part of it. We must realize that had Mr. Lincoln, not broken faith with the Constitution and invaded our beloved South, slavery would have been abolished by agricultural technology, long before the end of the century, probably by about 1890 or shortly thereafter. We would still be the free Constitutional Republic which our forefathers envisioned and we would have much better race relations today in all parts of our country. Lincoln and his minions, tried to run ahead of our sovereign God and, as a result destroyed our fair Southland and turned America into a large and somewhat irresponsible Democracy, as both Thornwell and Dabney, in almost the same words, foretold.