minister in Mississippi, the
Rev. James Smylie, made the "discovery," which "surprised himself," that
the system of American slavery was sanctioned and approved by the
Scriptures as good and righteous, he found that his brethren in the
Presbyterian ministry at the extreme South were not only surprised, but
shocked and offended, at the proposition.[278:1] And yet such was the
swift progress of this innovation that in surprisingly few years, we
might almost say months, it had become not only prevalent, but violently
and exclusively dominant in the church of the southern States, with the
partial exception of Kentucky and Tennessee. It would be difficult to
find a precedent in history for so sudden and sweeping a change of
sentiment on a leading doctrine of moral theology. Dissent from the
novel dogma was suppressed with more than inquisitorial rigor. It was
less perilous to hold Protestant opinions in Spain or Austria than to
hold, in Carolina or Alabama, the opinions which had but lately been
commended to universal acceptance by the unanimous voice of great
religious bodies, and proclaimed as undisputed principles by leading
statesmen. It became one of the accepted evidences of Christianity at
the South that infidelity failed to offer any justification for American
slavery equal to that derived from the Christian Scriptures. That
eminent leader among the Lutheran clergy, the Rev. Dr. Bachman, of
Charleston, referred "that unexampled unanimity of sentiment that now
exists in the whole South on the subject of slavery" to the confidence
felt by the religious public in the Bible defense of slavery as set
forth by clergymen and laymen in sermons and pamphlets and speeches in
Congress.[278:2]

The historian may not excuse himself from the task of inquiring into the
cause of this sudden and immense moral revolution. The explanation
offered by Dr. Bachman is the very thing that needs to be explained.
How came the Christian public throughout the slave-holding States, which
so short a time before had been unanimous in finding in the Bible the
condemnation of their slavery, to find all at once in the Bible the
divine sanction and defense of it as a wise, righteous, and permanent
institution? Doubtless there was mixture of influences in bringing about
the result. The immense advance in the market value of slaves consequent
on Whitney's invention of the cotton-gin had its unconscious effect on
the moral judgments of some. The furious