Georgia State University ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University History Dissertations Department of History 7-18-2008 God and Slavery in America: Francis Wayland and the Evangelical Conscience Matthew S. Hill Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/history_diss Part of the History Commons Recommended Citation Hill, Matthew S., "God and Slavery in America: Francis Wayland and the Evangelical Conscience." Dissertation, Georgia State University, 2008. https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/history_diss/10 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Department of History at ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. It has been accepted for inclusion in History Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. For more information, please contact [email protected]. GOD AND SLAVERY IN AMERICA: FRANCIS WAYLAND AND THE EVANGELICAL CONSCIENCE by MATTHEW S. HILL Under the Direction of Dr. Wendy H. Venet ABSTRACT The work examines the antislavery writings of Francis Wayland (1796-1865). Wayland pastored churches in Boston and Providence, but he left his indelible mark as the fourth and twenty-eight year president of Brown University (1827-1855). The author of numerous works on moral science, economics, philosophy, education, and the Baptist denomination, his administration marked a transitional stage in the emergence of American colleges from a classically oriented curriculum to an educational philosophy based on science and modern languages. Wayland left an enduring legacy at Brown, but it was his antislavery writings that brought him the most notoriety and controversy. Developed throughout his writings, rather than systematically in a major work, his antislavery views were shaped and tested in the political and intellectual climate of the antebellum world in which he lived. First developed in The Elements of Moral Science (1835), he tested the boundaries of activism in The Limitations of Human Responsibility (1838), and publicly debated antislavery in Domestic Slavery Considered as a Scriptural Institution (1845). The political crisis from the Mexican-American War through the Kansas-Nebraska Act heightened Wayland’s activism as delineated in The Duty of Obedience to the Civil Magistrate (1847), his noncompliance with the Fugitive Slave Law, and his public address on the Kansas- Nebraska Bill (1854). In 1861 he became a committed Unionist. I argue that Francis Wayland was a mediating figure in the controversy between abolitionists and proslavery apologists and that his life was a microcosm of the transition that many individuals made from moderate antislavery to abolitionism. Wayland proved unique in that he was heavily coveted by Northern abolitionists who sought his unconditional support and yet he was respected by Southerners who appreciated his uncomdemning attitude toward slaveholders even while he opposed slavery. I argue that Wayland’s transition from reluctant critic to public activist was not solely due to the political sweep of events, but that his latter activism was already marked in his earlier work. Most importantly, his life demonstrated both the limits and possibilities in the history of American antislavery. INDEX WORDS: Francis Wayland, Antislavery, Abolitionist, Baptist Denomination, Richard Fuller, William Hague, Cyrus Pitt Grosvenor, William Lloyd Garrison, Anthony Burns, Mexican-American War, Compromise of 1850, Fugitive Slave Law, Civil Disobedience, Kansas-Nebraska Act, Civil War, Pacifism, Emancipation, Freedmen GOD AND SLAVERY IN AMERICA: FRANCIS WAYLAND AND THE EVANGELICAL CONSCIENCE by MATTHEW S. HILL A Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy In the College of Arts and Sciences Georgia State University 2008 Copyright by Matthew Scott Hill 2008 GOD AND SLAVERY IN AMERICA: FRANCIS WAYLAND AND THE EVANGELICAL CONSCIENCE by MATTHEW S. HILL Committee Chair: Wendy Venet Committee: Glenn Eskew Charles Steffen Electronic Version Approved: Office of Graduate Studies College of Arts and Sciences Georgia State University August 2008 iv DEDICATION To Dad 1947-2003 ~In memory of my father Roger D. Hill~ I wish you were here to see this project through to completion. Though I can never repay the debt that I owe you, your legacy lives on in my life and the lives of my children. v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Thanks to the skilled staff at the John Hay Library at Brown University who provided scholarly and skilled assistance in researching the life of Francis Wayland. Their inside knowledge of the Wayland sources and the special collections archives proved invaluable. I hope the final product is worthy of your respect. To the staff at the Hightower Library at Gordon College, my academic home for the past four years. Many thanks for tolerating my constant needs and demands. You have my gratitude. To the University Library at Georgia State University. Thank you for your unflinching assistance and help whenever I needed it. Many thanks. To Dr. Wendy Venet, my dissertation advisor who through diligence, encouragement, academic instruction, inspirational support, and unfailing hard work helped see this project through to completion. Many thanks and all the best. To the committee members, Dr. Glenn Eskew and Dr. Charles Steffen who provided valuable insight, encouragement, and assistance in seeing this completed. It was a team effort and a very valuable one. To Dr. David McCreery, who gave me the best advice I ever had on solid writing. I hope this work is a reflection of your advice. To Dr. Hugh Hudson, a special thanks, who through thick-and-thin from the first moment I stepped on campus at Georgia State provided invaluable support and assistance and who helped me in incalculable ways over the years. Thanks for always going above the call of duty. To Stuart McAllister, my friend and mentor. Many thanks for the many conservations, insights, visions, and encouragement in completing this manuscript. Your wisdom and wit contributed in its own way to the completion of this text. To G.G. for your intellectual inspiration and hospitality in the welfare of this project and of my family. To Sara and Tim. Sara set a worthy example in providing secondary care in helping my home and hearth weather the rigors of graduate school. I and my family are forever grateful. Tim, though absent from us now, provided unfailing moral support and encouragement both for myself and my family. To my late father, Roger Hill, who inspired in me a love for history and a passion for reading and learning. You are sorely missed. vi To my mother, Sherrill Hill, who taught me the value of education and who provided unending encouragement. To my children, Olivia-Grey, Ari, Taylor-Ashton, and Callie-Reagan, who provided unceasing support for dad despite his long absence and isolation at times while completing the manuscript. I love you all. To my wife Ashley, who weathered the ups and downs of graduate school and the completion of a dissertation. Thanks for never letting me quit. To you, I owe the greatest debt and devotion. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS DEDICATION iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS v CHAPTER INTRODUCTION- FRANCIS WAYLAND: LIFE AND LEGACY IN ANTISLAVERY HISTORY 1 1 FRANCIS WAYLAND AND ANTEBELLUM AMERICAN THOUGHT 26 2 FRANCIS WAYLAND’S ANTISLAVERY ARGUMENTS: CHAMPIONS AND CRITICS 68 3 THE WAYLAND-FULLER DEBATE, 1845 118 4 ON THE BRINK OF WAR: DORR, MEXICO AND CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE 165 5 FRANCIS WAYLAND IN THE FURNICE OF WAR 202 CONCLUSION- FRANCIS WAYLAND IN HISTORICAL MEMORY 241 BIBLIOGRAPHY 260 1 INTRODUCTION Francis Wayland: Life and Legacy in Antislavery History In 1860 E.N. Elliott, President of Planter’s College, Mississippi, penned in the opening lines of the proslavery anthology, Cotton is King (1860), “There is now but one great question dividing the American people, and that, to the great danger of the stability of our government, the concord and harmony of our citizens, and the perpetuation of our liberties, divides us by a geographical line.” The editor further spoke of “estrangement, alienation, enmity” arising “between the North and the South.” These opening lines are an apt summary of the life of Francis Wayland, noted pastor and educator, although he was not the intended subject. Wayland argued with equal passion for the sinfulness of slavery and for the need to maintain an unbroken fellowship with southern slaveholders. Perhaps no other evangelical and intellectual figure of his generation was so pressured by his peers to support immediate emancipation due to the general respect that his name garnered in the North and South alike. The geographical line of which Elliott wrote, was precisely the division Wayland worked to avoid. Furthermore, the expansion of slavery that produced the “estrangement, alienation, enmity” between the nation politically was the same force that tore at the nation’s denominational unity. His efforts to hold these centrifugal poles together proved no more successful than those of his political counterparts.1 This work explores the life and labors of Francis Wayland (1796-1865) and argues that Wayland held the centrist position in the struggle against slavery and that his life represented a microcosm in the growth of northern antislavery sentiment. He was a noted Baptist pastor, president of Brown University, educational and humanitarian reformer, economic, political, and philosophical theorist, and antislavery advocate. He wrote on a broad number of subjects, but he 1 E.N. Elliott, ed., Cotton is King and Proslavery Writings: Comprising the Writings of Hammond, Harper, Christy, Stringfellow, Hodge, Bledsoe, and Cartwright (Augusta, Ga.: Prichard, Abbott & Looms, 1860), iii. 2 was best known for his educational reform, economic and moral philosophy, and his famed debate with fellow Baptist divine Richard Fuller. Widely respected in his own day and the author of a leading text on moral philosophy that was notably used in southern colleges, Wayland makes an interesting case study in the intellectual world of antebellum America. Although comprehensive, I focus on his antislavery views and situate his life within the broader antebellum context.