Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-t5pn6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-24T10:04:55.770Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

‘Justice Must Prevail’: The Presbyterian Review and Scottish Views of Slavery, 1831–1848

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 November 2017

DANIEL RITCHIE
DANIEL RITCHIE*
Affiliation:
Belfast e-mail: dritchie05@qub.ac.uk
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The Presbyterian Review (1831–48) was one of the most important sources for Evangelical thought within the Church of Scotland before the Disruption of 1843, and for Free Church opinion after the schism. However, its views concerning slavery have yet to be subjected to critical evaluation by historians. Initially, it reflected the radicalism of the Evangelical leader, Andrew Thomson, especially in its demand for the immediate, uncompensated abolition of West Indian slavery. It also used slavery as part of its polemics against High Church Anglicans and Tractarians over the legacy of William Wilberforce and in its disputes with the Scottish Voluntaries. Subsequently, during the ‘Send back the money’ controversy, its position moved closer to the moderation of Thomas Chalmers.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 69 , Issue 3 , July 2018 , pp. 557 - 584
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 ‘West India slavery: John Jeremie, Four essays on colonial slavery’, Presbyterian Review ii (July 1832), 378Google Scholar.

2 Chalmers was a reader of the Presbyterian Review and had access to its editors: Thomas Chalmers journal, entry for 9 Oct. 1841; Chalmers to John Murray, 3 Jan. 1832, and 2 Jan. 1840, Chalmers papers, New College Library, University of Edinburgh, CHA.6.2.14; 3.14.97; 15.109.

3 Walker, N. L, Robert Buchanan, D.D.: an ecclesiastical biography, London 1877, 35–6Google Scholar; cf. J. R. Omond to Chalmers, 1830, Chalmers papers, CHA.4.145.27. Buchanan was a supporter of Chalmers's territorial community ideal and the revival of his Church Extension campaign: Brown, S. J., ‘Thomas Chalmers and the communal ideal in Victorian Scotland’, Proceedings of the British Academy lxxviii (1992), 61–80 at pp. 69–70Google Scholar.

4 W. M. Hetherington to Chalmers, 27 Feb. 1834, Chalmers papers, CHA.4.224.22.

5 Somerville, A. N., ‘Sermon on Revelation 15:3’, and ‘List of writings by Dr Horatius Bonar’, in Horatius Bonar, D.D.: a memorial, New York 1889, 40, 112Google Scholar; Wylie, J. A., Disruption worthies: a memorial of 1843, Edinburgh 1881, 44Google Scholar; Aberdeen Press and Journal, 7 Aug. 1889.

6 ‘The religious condition of Holland’, Biblical Repertory and Theological Review v (Jan. 1833), 19Google Scholar; Belfast News-Letter, 25 Nov. 1831, 8 June 1832, 17 Jan., 23 May 1834; ‘Review of the Presbyterian Review, no. xiv’, Orthodox Presbyterian iv (Aug. 1833), 408Google Scholar; Davidson, Samuel, ‘Review of the Presbyterian Review and Religious Journal, no. 40’, Orthodox Presbyterian n.s. i (June 1838), 219Google Scholar; Caledonian Mercury, 8 May 1834; Banner of Ulster, 5 Nov. 1844.

7 Northern Warder, 27 Nov. 1845.

8 Dundee Courier, 5 Aug. 1845.

9 The Witness, 15 July 1848.

10 ‘Advertisement’, Presbyterian Review i (1831), 1–2Google Scholar.

11 Brown, S. J., The national Churches of England, Ireland, and Scotland, 1801–1846, Oxford 2001, 296CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

12 Idem, Thomas Chalmers and the godly commonwealth in Scotland, Oxford 1982, 222–3Google Scholar.

13 Glasgow Herald, 20 Mar. 1826.

14 Fladeland, B., Men and brothers: Anglo-American antislavery cooperation, Chicago, Il 1972, 145–68Google Scholar; Davis, D. B., Inhuman bondage: the rise and fall of slavery in the new world, New York 2006, 237Google Scholar.

15 [Heyrick, Elizabeth], Immediate, not gradual abolition, London 1824Google Scholar.

16 Mullen, Stephen, ‘A Glasgow-West India merchant house and the imperial dividend, 1779–1867’, Journal of Scottish Historical Studies xxxiii (2013), 196–233 at p. 223Google Scholar.

17 Devine, T. M., ‘Did slavery help to make Scotland great?’, in his To the ends of the earth: Scotland's global diaspora, 1750–2010, London 2012, 46Google Scholar.

18 Chalmers, Thomas, A few thoughts on the abolition of colonial slavery, Glasgow 1826, 2, 5–8Google Scholar.

19 Shepperson, George, ‘The Free Church and American slavery’, Scottish Historical Review xxx (1951), 126–43 at p. 132Google Scholar.

20 ‘Immediate abolition of slavery the duty of Christians’, Edinburgh Christian Instructor xxv (Aug. 1826), 533–8Google Scholar; cf. Andrew Thomson to Chalmers, [1811], Chalmers papers, CHA.4.115.13; ‘Edinburgh Christian Instructor: new series’, Orthodox Presbyterian iii (Apr. 1832), 228Google Scholar; Whyte, Iain, ‘Can we come out of sin “by degrees”? The contribution of Andrew Thomson and John Ritchie to the anti-slavery movement in Scotland, 1820–1840’, Records of the Scottish Church History Society xxxv (2005), 119–41 at p. 137Google Scholar.

21 Chambers, R. (ed.), Chambers's cylopædia of English literature: a history, critical and biographical, of British authors with specimens of their writings, rev. Carruthers, Robert, 3rd edn, London 1876, 353Google Scholar; Whyte, I., ‘“The upas tree, beneath whose pestiferous shade all intellect languishes and all virtue dies”: Scottish public perceptions of the slave trade and slavery, 1756–1833’, in Devine, T. M. (ed.), Recovering Scotland's slavery past: the Caribbean connection, Edinburgh 2015, 199–200Google Scholar.

22 Fladeland, Men and brothers, 193; Davis, D. B., ‘The emergence of immediatism in British and American antislavery thought’, Mississippi Valley Historical Review xlix (1962), 209–30 at p. 221Google Scholar, and Inhuman bondage, 237.

23 Temperley, H., British antislavery, 1833–1870, Columbia, SC 1972, 12–18Google Scholar; Tyrrell, Alex, ‘The “moral radical party” and the Anglo-Jamaican campaign for the abolition of the negro apprenticeship system’, English Historical Review cccxcii (1984), 481–502 at p. 484Google Scholar, and ‘Making the millennium: the mid-nineteenth century peace movement’, Historical Journal xx (1978), 75–95 at p. 84Google Scholar; Davis, D. B., ‘James Cropper and the British anti-slavery movement, 1823–1833’, Journal of Negro History xlvi (1961), 154–73 at pp. 165–8Google Scholar, and The problem of slavery in the age of emancipation, New York 2014, 264–5, 270, 303Google Scholar; Fladeland, Men and brothers, 195–6; Hochschild, A., Bury the chains: the British struggle to abolish slavery, London 2005, 336Google Scholar.

24 Edinburgh Evening Courant, 9 Oct. 1830; The Scotsman, 9 Oct. 1830.

25 Caledonian Mercury, 9 Oct. 1830.

26 Edinburgh Evening Courant, 14 Oct. 1830.

27 The Scotsman, 20 Oct. 1830; Edinburgh Evening Courant, 21 Oct. 1830.

28 The Scotsman, 20 Oct. 1830; Edinburgh Evening Courant, 21 Oct. 1830.

29 Thomson, Andrew, Substance of the speech delivered at the meeting of the Edinburgh Society for the Abolition of Slavery, on October 19, 1830, Edinburgh 1830, 4Google Scholar.

30 Whyte, I., Scotland and the abolition of black slavery, 1756–1838, Edinburgh 2006, 190–8Google Scholar, and ‘From James Montgomery to James Macbeth: the development of Scottish antislavery theology and action, 1756–1848’, in Taylor, W. H. and Messer, P. C. (eds), Faith and slavery in the Presbyterian diaspora, Bethlehem, Md 2016, 27–30Google Scholar.

31 Garrison, W. L., Thoughts on African colonization, Boston, Ma 1832, 52, 87, 91Google Scholar.

32 The Witness, 25 Dec. 1844.

33 ‘Quarterly Review’, Presbyterian Review i (July 1831), 96Google Scholar; ‘The West India question’, Quarterly Review xlv (Apr./July, 1831), 209–51Google Scholar.

34 Alibrandi, Rosamaria, ‘Early nineteenth-century parliamentary debates for the abolition of slavery in the British empire and the contribution of the colonial judge Sir John Jeremie in the period 1824–41’, Parliaments, Estates and Representation xxxv (2015), 21–45 at pp. 25–6Google Scholar.

35 Thomas Babington to Chalmers, 19 Dec. 1831, Chalmers papers, CHA.4.152.1.

36 ‘West India slavery’, 377.

37 Ibid. 372.

38 Ibid. 363.

39 Turley, D., The culture of English antislavery, 1780–1860, London 1991, 41Google Scholar; Davis, D. B., The problem of slavery in the age of revolution, 1770–1823, Ithaca, NY 1975, 419–20Google Scholar.

40 Temperley, British antislavery, 11.

41 ‘West India slavery’, 373–4.

42 Ibid. 364, 373.

43 Ibid. 374.

44 Ibid. 374–6; The works of Lord Byron, including the suppressed poems, Paris 1828, 56Google Scholar.

45 Whyte, Scotland and the abolition of black slavery, 192.

46 ‘Critical notice of James Douglas, Address on slavery, Sabbath protection and church reform’, Presbyterian Review iii (May 1833), 610Google Scholar.

47 ‘West India slavery’, 366–7.

48 Ibid. 366–7, 377.

49 ‘Critical notice of James Douglas’, 610.

50 ‘West India slavery’, 368–9, 373.

51 Wolffe, J., The expansion of Evangelicalism: the age of Wilberforce, More, Chalmers and Finney, Nottingham 2006, 195–6Google Scholar.

52 ‘West India slavery’, 374, 376.

53 Drescher, S., Abolition: a history of slavery and antislavery, New York 2009, 260–2Google Scholar.

54 ‘West India slavery’, 377.

55 A report of a committee of the council of Barbadoes, appointed to inquire into the actual condition of the slaves in this island, London 1824, 8Google Scholar; ‘West India slavery’, 369.

56 ‘West India slavery’, 370–2.

57 Ibid.

58 Ibid. 376–7.

59 ‘Critical notice of James Douglas’, 609–10.

60 Jupp, P., The governing of Britain, 1688–1848: the executive, parliament and the people, London 2006, 151Google Scholar.

61 ‘West India slavery’, 378.

62 Turley, Culture of English antislavery, 70.

63 Draper, N., The price of emancipation: slave-ownership, compensation and British society at the end of slavery, Cambridge 2013, 100Google Scholar; Wolffe, Expansion of Evangelicalism, 197.

64 Huzzey, R., Freedom burning: anti-slavery and empire in Victorian Britain, Ithaca, NY 2012, 40Google Scholar; Davis, Problem of slavery in the age of emancipation, 269.

65 ‘Proceedings of the General Assembly’, Presbyterian Review v (July 1834), 497Google Scholar.

66 Wolffe, Expansion of Evangelicalism, 197; Larsen, Timothy (ed.), Biographical dictionary of Evangelicals, Leicester 2003, 725Google Scholar.

67 ‘The correspondence of William Wilberforce, edited by his sons’, Presbyterian Review xiv (Oct. 1841), 472Google Scholar.

68 Brown, Thomas Chalmers, 48–9, 219.

69 Chalmers journal, entries for 24, 29, 30 Dec. 1810, 16 Mar. 1811, Chalmers papers, CHA.6.1.4; Chalmers to William Wilberforce, 22 Jan. 1828, William Wilberforce letters, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University, Durham, NC, RL.01381; Wilberforce, William, A practical view of the prevailing religious system of professed Christians, in the higher and middle class, contrasted with real Christianity, 4th edn, London 1797Google Scholar; Brown, Thomas Chalmers, 55–6.

70 Wilberforce, R. I. and Wilberforce, Samuel, The life of William Wilberforce, London 1838Google Scholar, and Wilberforce, R. I. and Wilberforce, Samuel (eds), The correspondence of William Wilberforce, London 1840Google Scholar.

71 ‘Joshua Hunter, The rise of old dissent exemplified in the life of Oliver Heywood’, Presbyterian Review xv (Jan. 1843), 487Google Scholar.

72 Wilberforce and Wilberforce, Life of William Wilberforce, v. 162.

73 There are multiple items of correspondence between Chalmers and Wilberforce at various archive repositories. References to both Chalmers and letters that he sent to Wilberforce may be found in William Wilberforce journal, 19, 25 May, 4 June, 26 July 1817, 6 Mar. 1818, 31 May, 1 June 1820, 6 Oct. 1821, Additional Wilberforce papers, Weston Library, Bodleian Libraries, Oxford, ms Wilberforce c. 37; Brown, Thomas Chalmers, 56, 110–11, 129. Chalmers also visited Wilberforce in London towards the end of the latter's life: Chalmers journal, 1, 2 June 1830, Chalmers papers, CHA.6.1.11.

74 After William Wilberforce's death, there was a controversy between Clarkson and Wilberforce's sons on the role that the former had played in the antislavery movement: Wolffe, Expansion of Evangelicalism, 189n.

75 ‘Samuel Wilberforce, The life of William Wilberforce’, Presbyterian Review xi (Oct. 1838), 217, 234Google Scholar.

76 Wilberforce and Wilberforce, Life of William Wilberforce, i. 149.

77 ‘Life of William Wilberforce’, 219.

78 John Wesley to Wilberforce, 24 Feb. 1791, in Wilberforce and Wilberforce, Life of William Wilberforce, i. 297.

79 ‘Correspondence of William Wilberforce’, 472; cf. Brown, Thomas Chalmers, 56.

80 ‘Life of William Wilberforce’, 220.

81 Ibid. 232.

82 ‘Correspondence of William Wilberforce’, 473.

83 Chalmers to R. I. Wilberforce, 12 Sept. 1833, Wilberforce family papers, Weston Library, Bodl. Lib., ms Wilberforce d.13, fos 143–4.

84 ‘Life of William Wilberforce’, 234.

85 ‘Correspondence of William Wilberforce’, 483–4.

86 Robert Wilberforce subsequently converted to Roman Catholicism: Hilton, B., A mad, bad, and dangerous people? England, 1783–1846, Oxford 2006, 404, 468Google Scholar.

87 S. H. Cox to Chalmers, 22 Nov. 1841, Chalmers papers, CHA.4.297.55.

88 W. Wilberforce journal, 12 June 1826, 14 Dec. 1830, Additional Wilberforce papers, ms Wilberforce c. 39, fos 86, 130.

89 S. Wilberforce to Chalmers, 28 Jan., 1 Feb. 1840, Chalmers papers, CHA.4.295.67; CHA.4.295.69.

90 Turner, F. M., John Henry Newman: the challenge to Evangelical religion, New Haven, Ct 2002, 555–7Google Scholar; Chadwick, O., The Victorian Church, I: 1829–1859, London 1992, 229, 501–5Google Scholar.

91 Brown, S. J., Providence and empire: religion, politics and society in the United Kingdom 1815–1914, Harlow 2008, 83–4Google Scholar, cf. ‘Religion and the rise of liberalism: the first disestablishment campaign in Scotland, 1829–1843’, this Journal xlviii (Oct. 1997), 682–704

92 R. A. Jezierski, ‘The Glasgow Emancipation Society and the American anti-slavery movement’, unpubl. PhD diss. Glasgow 2011, 25–6, 42.

93 ‘Critical notice of John G. Lorimer, The past and present condition of religion and morality in the United States of America’, Presbyterian Review iv (Jan. 1834), 621Google Scholar.

94 Jezierski, ‘Glasgow Emancipation Society’, 19–20, 49–50, 75.

95 ‘Frances Trollope, Domestic manners of the Americans’, Presbyterian Review iii (Jan. 1833), 189Google Scholar; cf. Fladeland, Men and brothers, 170–1.

96 Trollope, Frances, Domestic manner of the Americans, London 1832, i. 150–1Google Scholar.

97 ‘Domestic manners of the Americans’, 199.

98 ‘John Dunmore Lang, Religion and education in America’, Presbyterian Review xiv (Apr. 1841), 55–6Google Scholar.

99 ‘Domestic manners of the Americans’, 189.

100 Ibid. 194.

101 ‘The American Biblical Repository’, Presbyterian Review xi (Apr. 1839), 617Google Scholar.

102 Colton, Calvin, Manual for emigrants to America, London 1832, 43Google Scholar.

103 ‘Critical notice of Calvin Colton, Manual for emigrants to America’, Presbyterian Review ii (July 1832), 400–1Google Scholar.

104 Stowe, Calvin, ‘Advantages and defects of the social condition in the United States of America’, American Biblical Repository i (Jan. 1839), 156Google Scholar.

105 ‘American Biblical Repository’, 616.

106 Stowe, ‘Advantages and defects’, 156–8.

107 ‘American Biblical Repository’, 617.

108 ‘Calvin Colton, History and character of American revivals’, Presbyterian Review ii (Sept. 1832), 523Google Scholar.

109 ‘Doctrine of revivals’, Presbyterian Review xii (Jan. 1840), 465Google Scholar. The works commended were Edwards, Jonathan, A narrative of the revival of religion in New England, Glasgow 1829Google Scholar, and Sprague, W. B., Lectures on revivals of religion, 2nd edn, Glasgow 1833Google Scholar. There are numerous letters from Sprague to Chalmers in the Chalmers papers.

110 ‘Critical notice of Albert Barnes, The theory and desirableness of revivals’, Presbyterian Review xv (Oct. 1842), 409Google Scholar.

111 ‘Doctrine of revivals’, 465; cf. Carwardine, R., Transatlantic revivalism: popular Evangelicalism in Britain and America, 1790–1865 (1978), Milton Keynes 2006, 5–10Google Scholar; Wolffe, Expansion of Evangelicalism, 27, 69–76.

112 ‘Domestic manners of the Americans’, 197.

113 ‘Critical notice of Charles G. Finney, Lectures to professing Christians’, Presbyterian Review xii (Jan. 1840), 553Google Scholar; cf. Jezierski, ‘Glasgow Emancipation Society’, 53, 88–9.

114 Hambrick-Stowe, C. E., Charles G. Finney and the spirit of American Evangelicalism, Grand Rapids, Mi 1996, 141–2Google Scholar.

115 ‘Presbyterianism in the United States’, Presbyterian Review xiii (Oct. 1840), 155–6Google Scholar.

116 Robert Peel to Robert Buchanan, 29 Mar. 1842, Peel papers, British Library, London, ms Add. 40508, fos 215–16.

117 Brown, National Churches, 190–1, 348–58.

118 Ibid. 358–60.

119 Whyte, I., ‘Send back the money!’ The Free Church of Scotland and American slavery, Cambridge 2012, 13CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

120 Lewis Tappan to John Scoble, 10 Apr. 1844, British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society papers, Weston Library, Bodl. Lib., ms Brit.Emp.S18.C113, fo. 154.

121 These paragraphs are based on Ritchie, Daniel, ‘Antislavery orthodoxy: Isaac Nelson and the Free Church of Scotland, c. 1843–65’, Scottish Historical Review xciv (2015), 74–99 at pp. 78–80Google Scholar.

122 Wolffe, Expansion of Evangelicalism, 80; Fladeland, Men and brothers, 231, 232n; Shepperson, ‘Free Church and American slavery’, 131; Jezierski, ‘Glasgow Emancipation Society’, 104, 154.

123 ‘The Evangelical Alliance and slavery’, Free Church Magazine iii (Oct. 1846), 312–13Google Scholar.

124 Proceedings of the General Anti-Slavery Convention, called by the committee of the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, and held in London, from Friday, June 12th, to Tuesday, June 23rd, 1840, London 1841, 301Google Scholar.

125 McKivigan, J. R., The war against proslavery religion: abolitionism and the Northern Churches, 1830–1865, Ithaca, NY 1984, 43Google Scholar; Turley, Culture of English antislavery, 202.

126 Shepperson, ‘Free Church and American slavery’, 131; Fladeland, Men and brothers, 297; Whyte, ‘Send back the money!’, 89, 126, 140.

127 ‘Critical notice of Thomas Smyth, The prelatic doctrine of apostolical succession examined’, Presbyterian Review xvi (Oct. 1843), 418–19Google Scholar; ‘Thomas Smyth, The prelatic doctrine of apostolic succession examined and Presbytery, and not prelacy, the scriptural and primitive policy’, Presbyterian Review xvii (Apr. 1844), 1–22Google Scholar.

128 ‘Critical notice of Thomas Smyth, The exodus of the Church of Scotland’, Presbyterian Review xvii (July 1844), 261Google Scholar.

129 Whyte, ‘Send back the money!’, 22, 43–6; Clarke, E., Our Southern Zion: a history of Calvinism in the South Carolina low country, 1690–1990, Tuscaloosa, Al 1996, 183–7Google Scholar; Livingstone, D. N., Adam's ancestors: race, religion, and the politics of human origins, Baltimore, Md 2008, 180–2Google Scholar; Kidd, C., The forging of races: race and Scripture in the Protestant Atlantic world, 1600–2000, Cambridge 2006, 127, 145CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

130 Chalmers to Thomas Smyth, 25 Sept. 1844, Chalmers papers, CHA.3.17.81; The Witness, 18 Dec. 1844, 14 May 1845; Scottish Guardian, 12 May 1845.

131 Lewis Tappan to Joseph Sturge, 15 Nov. 1844, British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society papers, ms Brit.Emp.S18.C113, fo. 194.

132 ‘Ecclesiastical intelligence’, Presbyterian Review xvii (Jan. 1845), 546–7, 549–50Google Scholar.

133 Ibid. 549–50.

134 ‘Report on slavery’, Presbyterian Review xvii (Jan. 1845), 559–62Google Scholar.

135 ‘George Lewis, Impressions of America and the American Churches’, Presbyterian Review xviii (July 1845), 145–6, 156–7Google Scholar.

136 Later that year the periodical printed a letter from a New School Presbyterian leader, which discussed how slavery had contributed to the Old-New School schism: Cox, S. H., ‘Letter to the editor’, Presbyterian Review xix (Oct. 1846), 559Google Scholar. An Old School correspondent of Chalmers did not regard Cox's interpretation of the events as a fair representation of the matter: James Lennox to Chalmers, 15 Dec. 1846, Chalmers papers, CHA.4.324.78. For the Methodist and Baptist divisions see McKivigan, Proslavery religion, 90–2.

137 ‘Proceedings of the General Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland’, Presbyterian Review xviii (July 1845), 227–8Google Scholar.

138 ‘Proceedings of the General Assembly’, Presbyterian Review xix (July 1846), 394Google Scholar.

139 Ibid. 395.

140 Cf. ‘Proceedings of the General Assembly’ (1845), 229; ‘John Bruce, A sermon preached after the funeral of Thomas Chalmers’, Presbyterian Review xx (July 1847), 418Google Scholar.