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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 July 2009
Lyman Beecher's approach to antislavery reform has received remarkably little attention from historians. No thorough study has been made of his attitudes toward chattel slavery, the methods he advanced to ameliorate or eradicate it, and his feelings toward free blacks and their future in America. The interpretations that have been proposed have been deficient in design, superficial in exposition and misleading in conclusion.
1. Although Vincent Harding has not attempted a systematic analysis of Beecher's antislavery thought, he has offered some valuable insights in the course of his intellectual biography of Beecher. “Lyman Beecher and the Transformation of American Protestantism” (Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, The University of Chicago, 1965), passim.Google Scholar
2. The Liberator: William Lloyd Garrison (Boston: Little, Brown, and Co., 1963), p. 58.Google Scholar
3. The Autobiography of Lyman Beecher, ed. Barbara M. Cross (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, Belknap Press, 1961), p. xiGoogle Scholar. See also 1, p. xxxi.
4. The Antislavery Impulse, 1830–1844 ([orig. 1933] New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, Inc., 1964), p. 95. See pp. 228–30.Google Scholar
5. The Protestant Clergy and Public Issues, 1812–1848 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1954), p. 142. See pp. 141–42Google Scholar. See also Cole, Charles C. Jr, The Social Ideas of Northern Evangelists, 1826–1860 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1954), pp. 198–99.Google Scholar
6. Murray, , Presbyterians and the Negro—A History (Philadelphia: Presbyterian Historical Society, 1966), pp. 78, 95Google Scholar. Murray does not explain when and under what circumstances Beecher gave up colonization. Wyatt-Brown, , Lewis Tappan and the Evangelical War against Slavery (Cleveland: Press of Case-Western Reserve University, 1969), p. 85.Google Scholar
7. Merideth, , The Politics of the Universe: Edward Beecher, Abolition, and Orthodoxy (Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 1968), pp. 88–90Google Scholar and Ratner, , Powder Keg: Northern Opposition to the Antislavery Movement, 1831–1840 (New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1968), pp. 98–100, 102.Google Scholar
8. A notable exception is Marty's, Martin E.Righteous Empire: The Protestant Experience in America (New York: The Dial Press, 1970).Google Scholar
9. Redeemer Nation: The Idea of America's Millennial Role (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1968), Chapter 5. He has treated Beecher on pp. 169–71.Google Scholar
10. A Christian America: Protestant Hopes and Historical Realities (New York: Oxford University Press, 1971), p. 48.Google Scholar
11. See especially ibid., pp. 60–63.
12. The Autobiography of Lyman Beecher, ed. Cross, 1, p. xxixGoogle Scholar. See 1, pp. xviii-xix.
13. For an astute interpretation of the themes of subversion and counter-subversion in pre-Civil War America, see Davis, David Brion, “Some Themes of Counter-Subversion: An Analysis of Anti-Masonic, Anti-Catholic, and Anti-Mormon Literature,” The Mississippi Valley Historical Review. 47 (09, 1960), pp. 205–24CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Davis, David Brion, “Some Ideological Functions of Prejudice in Ante-Bellum America” American Quarterly, 15 (Summer, 1963), pp. 115–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
14. Frederickson, George M., The Black Image in the White Mind: The Debate on Afro-American Character and Destiny, 1817–1914 (New York: Harper and Row, Publishers, 1971), p. 19.Google Scholar
15. Ibid., p. 1.
16. For a general account of the slow beginnings of the colonization movement in New England, see Staudenraus, P. J., The African Colonization Movement, 1816–1865 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1961), pp. 76, 79, 86–87, and Chap. XI.Google Scholar
17. Slavery and the Domestic Slave-Trade in the United States. In a Series of Letters Addressed to the Executive Committee of the American Union for the Relief and Improvement of the Colored Race (Boston: Light and Stcarns, 1836), p. 11.Google Scholar
18. Bacon, Leonard Woolsey, “The Services of Leonard Bacon to African Colonization,” Liberia, 15 (11, 1899), pp. 1–21, and 16 (02, 1900), pp. 40–55Google Scholar; and Bacon, Theodore Davenport, Leonard Bacon: A Statesman in the Church, ed. Bacon, Benjamin W. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1931), pp. 54–61, 81, 179–206.Google Scholar
19. Third Annual Report of the Managers of the Colonization Society of the State of Connecticut, with an Appendix. May, 1830 (New Haven: Baldwin and Treadway, 1830), p. 5.Google Scholar
20. Proceedings of the General Association of Connecticut, June, 1825 (Hartford: Peter B. Gleason and Co., 1825), pp. 3–4, 7.Google Scholar
21. The African Repository and Colonial Journal, 11 (07, 1836), pp. 205–06.Google Scholar
22. The African Repository and Colonial Journal, 8 (07, 1832), pp. 144–45.Google Scholar
23. The African Repository and Colonial Journal, 9 (05, 1833), pp. 88–89.Google Scholar
24. The African Repository and Colonial Journal, 25 (12, 1849), p. 379.Google Scholar
25. The African Repository and Colonial Journal, 9 (05, 1833), pp. 88–89.Google Scholar
26. Sermons Delivered on Various Occasions (Boston: T. R. Marvin, 1828), p. 76.Google Scholar
27. Works (Boston: John P. Jewett and Company, 1852 and Cleveland: Jewett, Proctor and Worthington, 1852), 1, p. 410. See pp. 409–10.Google Scholar
28. Ibid., p. 414. See pp. 398–99.
29. Ibid., p. 394.
30. The African Repository and Colonial Journal, 10 (11, 1834), p. 281.Google Scholar
31. See, for example, The Christian Spectator, 5 (10, 1823), p. 544Google Scholar; Dana, Daniel, A Discourse Addressed to the New-Hampshire Auxiliary Colonization Society, at Their First Annual Meeting, Concord, June, 1825 (Concord: Shepard and Bannister, 1825), p. 22Google Scholar; and M'Keen, Silas, A Sermon, Delivered at Montpelier, October 15, 1828, before the Vermont Colonization Society (Montpelier: E. P. Walton, 1828), p. 11.Google Scholar
32. The African Repository and Colonial Journal, 10 (11, 1834), p. 279.Google Scholar
33. Ibid.
34. Ibid.
35. Ibid., p. 283.
36. Professor George M. Frederickson's interpretation of colonization confirms this conclusion of my own independent research. The Black Image in the White Mind, pp. 1–21.
37. The African Repository and Colonial Journal, 10 (11, 1834), p. 281Google Scholar. For interesting comparisons, see The Christian Spectator, 5 (09, 1823), pp. 485–493 and 10 (11, 1828), p. 495Google Scholar; Dana, , A Discourse …., pp. 8–10Google Scholar; Wheeler, John, A Sermon, Preached before the Vermont Colonization Society, at Montpelier, October 25, 1825 (Windsor: W. Spooner, 1825), pp. 5, 19–20Google Scholar; and The Quarterly Christian. Spectator, 2 (09, 1830), pp. 470–71 and 5 (06, 1832), p. 326.Google Scholar
38. 10 (July, 1828), p. 368.
39. A Plea for the West (2d ed.; Cincinnati: Truman and Smith, 1835 and New York: Leavitt, Lord and Co., 1835), p. 39.Google Scholar
40. The Christian Spectator, 5 (10, 1823), p. 547Google Scholar. For example, in the 1820s the free blacks accounted for 1/74 of the population in Massachusetts but 1/6 of the state prison inmates; and in Connecticut, 1/34 of the population but 1/3 of the convicts. The Christian Spectator, 10 (07, 1828), p. 368.Google Scholar
41. The African Repository and Colonial Journal, 10 (11, 1834), p. 281.Google Scholar
42. For some discussions of this theme by New England colonizationists, see The Christian Spectator, 5 (09 1823), p. 493Google Scholar; Dana, , A Discourse …, p. 9Google Scholar; Wheeler, , A Sermon …;, pp. 13–1419–20Google Scholar; Address to the Public, by the Managers of the Colonization Society of Connecticut. With an Appendix (New Haven: Treadway and Adams, 1828), pp. 4–5Google Scholar; Smith, Reuben, Africa Given to Christ: A Sermon Preached before the Vermont Colonization Society, at Montpelier, Oct. 20, 1830 (Burlington: Chauncey Goodrich, 1830), pp. 6–9Google Scholar; and The Quarterly Christian Spectator, 3 (03, 1831), pp. 56–75Google Scholar; 6 (September, 1834), pp. 447–51; and 7 (December, 1835), p. 524.
43. Address to the Public, …, p. 6.
44. Frederickson, , The Black Image in the White Mind, p. 19Google Scholar. See pp. 16–21, 30.
45. Address to the Public, …, p. 5. For a description of the vast discrimination against blacks in free states, see Litwack, Leon F., North of Slavery: The Negro in the Free States, 1790–1860 (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1961).Google Scholar
46. The African Repository and Colonial Journal, 10 (11, 1834), p. 282.Google Scholar
47. A Plea for Africa; Delivered in New Haven, July 4, 1825 (New Haven: T. G. Woodward and Co., 1825), p. 13.Google Scholar
48. The African Repository and Colonial Journal, 10 (11, 1834), p. 283Google Scholar. See also Address to the Public, …, pp. 8, 10–12.
49. “Union of Colonizationists and Abolitionists,” The Spirit of the Pilgrims, 6 (07, 1833), p. 398.Google Scholar
50. The African Repository and Colonial Journal, 9 (05, 1833), p. 89Google Scholar. See also The African Repository and Colonial Journal, 10 (11, 1834), p. 280.Google Scholar
51. Richards, Leonard L., “Gentlemen of Property and Standing”: Anti-Abolition Mobs in Jacksonian America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1970), p. 44Google Scholar. Professor Richards has added that for many Northerners “this alternative was as immutable as the law of gravity or the Ten Commandments: if slaves were freed, it followed that the two races must completely separate or wholly merge.” Ibid. See pp. 43–46.
52. A Sermon …, pp. 19–20. This was affirmed by other New England colonizationists, for instance, The Christian Spectator, 5 (10, 1823), pp. 542, 548Google Scholar and The Quarterly Christian Spectator, 4 (06, 1832), p. 327Google Scholar; and 6 (September, 1835), pp. 509–10.
53. The Spirit of the Pilgrims, 6 (07, 1833), p. 398.Google Scholar
54. Ibid., pp. 398–99.
55. The African Repository and Colonial Journal, 10 (11, 1834), p. 283.Google Scholar
56. Ibid., p. 280.
57. His first public statement of this position appeared in The Spirit of the Pilgrims, 6 (07, 1833), pp. 396–402.Google Scholar
58. Ibid., p. 281.
59. Nathaniel William Taylor, 1786–1858: A Connecticut Liberal (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1942), p. 206.Google Scholar
60. Thomas, , The Liberator…, p. 58Google Scholar. See pp. 223–24.
61. McLoughlin, William G. Jr, Modern Revivalism: Charles Grandison Finney to Billy Graham (New York: The Ronald Press Company, 1959), p. 37.Google Scholar
62. Compare Religious Intelligencer, 12 (07, 1827), pp. 140–41Google Scholar; Beecher, , Sermons …, pp. 289–90Google Scholar; Letters of the Rev. Dr. Beecher and Rev. Mr. Nettleton, on the “New Measures” in Conducting Revivals of Religion. With a Review of a Sermon by Novanglus (New York: G. and C. Carvill, 1828), pp. 97–98Google Scholar; Beecher, Lyman, “Propriety and Importance of Efforts to Evangelize the Nation,” The National Preacher, 3 (03, 1829), pp. 153– 54Google Scholar; and The Boston Recorder, 31 (10 15, 1846), p. 166Google Scholar. The best exposition of Beecher's tireless labors in behalf of a cooperative evangelical Protestantism is by Vincent Harding, “Lyman Beecher, …” passim.
63. The Spirit of the Pilgrims, 6 (07, 1833), p. 399Google Scholar. See pp. 399–401.
64. The African Repository and Colonial Journal, 10 (11, 1834), p. 279.Google Scholar
65. Ibid., p. 282.
66. Ibid., p. 281. See pp. 281–82.
67. The Spirit of the Pilgrims, 6 (07, 1833), p. 396.Google Scholar
68. The African Repository and Colonial Journal, 10 (11, 1834), p. 280.Google Scholar
69. Ibid., p. 281.
70. Ibid., p. 280. See pp. 280–81.
71. Ibid., p. 283.
72. “Statement of the Faculty Concerning the Late Differences at Lane Seminary,” History of the Foundation and Endowment [of Lane Seminary] and Catalogue of the Trustees, Alumni, and Students (Cincinnati, 1848), p. 37.Google Scholar
73. “The Reform of the Racist Religion of the Republic,” in Elwyn A. Smith, ed., The Religion of the Republic (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1971), p. 282Google Scholar. Vincent Harding has written the most thorough and balanced account of the Lane Rebellion. See “Lyman Beecher …,” pp. 487–526.
74. History of the Foundation …, p. 39.
75. Ibid., p. 40.
76. Wyatt-Brown, , Lewis Tappan …, p. 177.Google Scholar
77. For a perceptive treatment of how the concept of the moral government of God was interpreted and used by Timothy Dwight, Nathaniel William Taylor and Lyman Beecher, see Smith, Elwyn A., “The Voluntary Establishment of Religion,” in Elwyn A. Smith, ed., The Religion of the Republic, pp. 154–82.Google Scholar
78. The Spirit of the Pilgrims, 6 (07, 1833), p. 401.Google Scholar
79. The African Repository and Colonial Journal, 10 (11, 1834), p. 282.Google Scholar
80. Ibid.
81. Ibid., p. 281.
82. Beecher, , Works, 1, p. 409.Google Scholar
83. Cross, ed., The Autobiography of Lyman Beecher, 2, p. 260.Google Scholar
84. Stowe, Charles Edward and Stowe, Lyman Beecher, Harriet Beecher Stowe: The Story of Her Life (Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1911), p. 140.Google Scholar
85. Wyatt-Brown, , Lewis Tappan …, p. 128.Google Scholar
86. The Autobiography of Lyman Beecher, 2, pp. 259–60.
87. The New York Evangelist, 7 (07 9, 1836), p. 110Google Scholar. Apart from the claim of abolitionist William Goodell that Beecher masterminded these prohibitory resolutions. I have found no other incriminating evidence. See The Friend of Man, 1 (08 11, 1836), p. 30Google Scholar and Barnes, , The Antislavery Impulse, 1830–1814, pp. 95–96Google Scholar. Vincent Harding has argued persuasively that the Reverend Leonard Bacon and Beecher planned this action mainly in order to keep the Reverend Asahel Nettleton and his ilk out of New England pulpits where they could conveniently attack the New Haven theology. “Lyman Beecher …,” pp. 584–86.
88. The Autobiography of Lyman Beecher, 2, p. 321. The most recent and convincing discussion of the Presbyterian schism is by Marsden, George M., The Evangelical Mind and the New School Presbyterian Experience: A Case Study of Thought and Theology in Nineteenth-Century America (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1970), Chaps. 3–4Google Scholar. He has demonstrated that slavery was only one causative factor in the division of the Presbyterian Church.
89. Vincent Harding cited an anonymous letter, perhaps written by Beecher. that appeared in the Cincinnati Journal, July 13, 1837, contending that New School Presbyterians would not become radical abolitionists as a result of the schism. “Lyman Beecher …,” p. 604.
90. Birney, James Gillespie to Tappan, Lewis, 07 29, 1837. Letters of James Gillespie Birney, ed. Dumond, Dwight L. (New York and London: D. Appleton - Century Company, 1938), 1, p. 399.Google Scholar
91. Wright, Elizur Jr, to Birney, James Gillespie, 08 14. 1837, Letters of James Gillespie Birney, 1, p. 414.Google Scholar
92. Stanton, H. B. to Birney, James Gillespie, 08 7, 1837, Letters of James Gillespie Birney. 1, p. 411.Google Scholar
93. The Politics of the Universe …, pp. 108–14. I have also found some of Aileen S. Kraditor's comments about conservative abolitionism suggestive. Means and Ends in American Abolitionism: Garrison and His Critics on Strategy and Tactics, 1834–1850 (New York: Pantheon Books, 1967).Google Scholar
94. The Church and Slavery. Second edition. (Philadelphia: Parry and McMillan, 1857), p. 167.Google Scholar
95. Ibid., p. 169.
96. Lane Seminary gave sanctuary to some blacks during this riot. Harding, , “Lyman Beecher …,” pp. 573–74.Google Scholar
97. The Autobiography of Lyman Beecher, 2, p. 335. But in a recruitment letter of the Reverend Thomas Brainerd, an Old School Presbyterian leader in Virginia, on May 23, 1840, Beecher also said: “‘Our trustees and faculty are not abolitionists [did he mean radical abolitionists]—and our students are conservatives rather than ultra and young men from the south will not be annoyed here or disqualified for usefulness at home.’” Harding, , “Lyman Beecher …,” p. 624, n. 1.Google Scholar
98. Birney, James Gillespie to Tappan, Lewis, 04 29, 1836, Letters of James Gillespie Birney, 1, p. 321.Google Scholar
99. Howard, Victor B., “The Anti-Slavery Movement in the Presbyterian Church, 1835–1861” (Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Ohio State University, 1961), pp. 41–42.Google Scholar
100. Ibid., pp. 89–90.
101. The Cincinnati Observer, 1 (11 5, 1840).Google Scholar
102. The Watchman of the Valley (Cincinnati), 3 (11 10, 1842).Google Scholar
103. The Watchman of the Valley (Cincinnati), 1 (05 13, 1841).Google Scholar
104. Howard, , “The Anti-Slavery Movement …,” p. 98. See pp. 98–99Google Scholar. The Watchman of the Valley (Cincinnati), 3 (06 1, 1843).Google Scholar
105. The Watchman of the Valley (Cincinnati), 2 (06 23, 1842), p. 168.Google Scholar
106. For discussions of the Graham case, see The Cause and Manner of the Trial and Suspension of the Rev. William Graham, by the New School Synod of Cincinnati (Privately printed, n.d.) and Howard, , “The Anti-Slavery Movement …,” pp. 112–14Google Scholar. There is also ample material in the pages of The Watchman of the Valley (Cincinnati), beginning December 5, 1844, and continuing into 1846.
107. Marsden, , The Evangelical Mind …, pp. 99–100.Google Scholar
108. The Cause and Manner …, p. 8.
109. Ibid.
110. Ibid., p. 10.
111. In 1844 the Synod of Cincinnati censured Graham and instructed his presbytery to continue their efforts to reclaim him, and in 1845 the synod suspended him from the ministry. Although this judgment against Graham was overturned by the General Assembly in 1846 and sent back to synod for correction, nothing further happened because Graham moved into the Old School Presbyterian Church.
112. The Watchman of the Valley (Cincinnati), 6 (01 1, 1846), p. 54.Google Scholar
113. The Watchman of the Valley (Cincinnati), 6 (02 20, 1845), p. 82.Google Scholar
114. The Boston Recorder, 21 (08 26, 1836), p. 140.Google Scholar
115. Ibid. Beecher invoked some of the same biblical arguments used by immediatists in the 1830s. See Shanks, Caroline L., “The Biblical Anti-Slavery Argument of the Decade 1830–1840”, Journal of Negro History, 16 (04, 1931), pp. 132–57CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Marsden, , The Evangelical Mind …, pp. 100–03.Google Scholar
116. The Watchman of the Valley (Cincinnati), 6 (02 20, 1845), p. 82.Google Scholar
117. For suggestive comments about the evangelical Protestant longing for a national leader and spokesman, see Wyatt-Brown, Bertram, “Prelude to Abolitionism: Sabbatarian Politics and the Rise of the Second Party System,” The Journal of American History, 58 (09, 1971), pp. 323–27, 345.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
