Did Evangelicalism Make Compromise Impossible?

[gem]

Did Evangelicalism Make Compromise Impossible?

http://www.c-span.org/video/?299226-1/book-discussion-america-aflame

David Goldfield examines the social and political factors leading up to the start of the Civil War, focusing on the role that religion played. Professor Goldfield reports on how evangelicalism provided a backdrop of good versus evil that permeated the split between the North and South. The author argues that a politically mediated resolution to the fissure between the two sides became unrealistic due to the inclusion of religion in political affairs. David Goldfield spoke one the one hundred-fiftieth anniversary of the firing on Fort Sumter that opened the Civil War. He showed slides during his presentation and responded to questions from members of the audience. This program of the Georgia Center for the Book was held at the Decatur Library, the main library of the DeKalb County Public Library in Decatur, Georgia.

 

[John Hartwell]

I gave it a wishy-washy "maybe."
"Impossible" is the problematic word. "More difficult" would have been better.

 

[E_just_E]

I might had bought that, if Evangelicalism was not around since the 17th century and brought us the Salem, MA events and rooted the slave trade in MA in the 1600s...

 

[John Winn]

I suppose it might be true but have not seen anyone make the claim before so have my doubts. I'm sure religious differences did help define a significant difference between southern and northern society but if it alone would have prevented compromise is something entirely different. Frankly, I just am not up for watching an hour-long lecture to find out why the guy thinks such was so.

Thus, I've voted don't know. Most things could be "maybe" - that only says the probability is greater than zero which might be pretty darn close to zero or nearly certain.

If somebody really feels the statement is true I'd like to see a maybe one-paragraph summary stating why.

 

[gem]

I suppose it might be true but have not seen anyone make the claim before so have my doubts. I'm sure religious differences did help define a significant difference between southern and northern society but if it alone would have prevented compromise is something entirely different. Frankly, I just am not up for watching an hour-long lecture to find out why the guy thinks such was so.

Thus, I've voted don't know. Most things could be "maybe" - that only says the probability is greater than zero which might be pretty darn close to zero or nearly certain.

If somebody really feels the statement is true I'd like to see a maybe one-paragraph summary stating why.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/27/b...created-a-nation-by-david-goldfield.html?_r=0

excerpted from book review -

" What is distinctive about Goldfield's book is that he believes the 600,000 deaths and countless mutilations could have been avoided. A war fought over the future of slavery did not have to happen because "the political system established by the founders would have been resilient and resourceful enough to accommodate our great diversity sooner without the tragedy of a civil war." In advancing this thesis, Goldfield is returning to a view once held by eminent historians, including his teacher Avery Craven, that the war was an avertable catastrophe rather than, as Senator William Henry Seward of New York called it in advance, an "irrepressible conflict.
In Goldfield's telling, the force that drove the nation toward apocalypse was evangelical fervor of one form or another — in the North, faith in the righteousness of the abolitionist cause, in the South, faith in slavery as a guarantor of a threatened way of life. "Faith reinforced the romance of war" until "war had become a magic elixir to speed America's millennial march" toward Armageddon."

 

[gem]

His argument is one that we come across quite frequently in history. Both sides believe they have God on their side, so their cause becomes holy, and thus each side is immutable.

This leads to a situation where neither side feels compromise is possible and the result is war.

 

[rpkennedy]

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/27/b...created-a-nation-by-david-goldfield.html?_r=0

excerpted from book review -

" What is distinctive about Goldfield's book is that he believes the 600,000 deaths and countless mutilations could have been avoided. A war fought over the future of slavery did not have to happen because "the political system established by the founders would have been resilient and resourceful enough to accommodate our great diversity sooner without the tragedy of a civil war." In advancing this thesis, Goldfield is returning to a view once held by eminent historians, including his teacher Avery Craven, that the war was an avertable catastrophe rather than, as Senator William Henry Seward of New York called it in advance, an "irrepressible conflict.
In Goldfield's telling, the force that drove the nation toward apocalypse was evangelical fervor of one form or another — in the North, faith in the righteousness of the abolitionist cause, in the South, faith in slavery as a guarantor of a threatened way of life. "Faith reinforced the romance of war" until "war had become a magic elixir to speed America's millennial march" toward Armageddon."

Based on this review, I'd say he's overstating the case. I'd be hard pressed to believe that the North was driven by abolitionism; antipathy toward slavery I could believe but it wasn't necessarily out of some righteous indignation.

R

 

[Henry Whitworth]

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/27/b...created-a-nation-by-david-goldfield.html?_r=0

excerpted from book review -

" What is distinctive about Goldfield's book is that he believes the 600,000 deaths and countless mutilations could have been avoided. A war fought over the future of slavery did not have to happen because "the political system established by the founders would have been resilient and resourceful enough to accommodate our great diversity sooner without the tragedy of a civil war." In advancing this thesis, Goldfield is returning to a view once held by eminent historians, including his teacher Avery Craven, that the war was an avertable catastrophe rather than, as Senator William Henry Seward of New York called it in advance, an "irrepressible conflict.
In Goldfield's telling, the force that drove the nation toward apocalypse was evangelical fervor of one form or another — in the North, faith in the righteousness of the abolitionist cause, in the South, faith in slavery as a guarantor of a threatened way of life. "Faith reinforced the romance of war" until "war had become a magic elixir to speed America's millennial march" toward Armageddon."

I've listened to a portion of this talk now and read these excerpts and I'm not finding it to be terribly convincing except in the fact that you can't exclude Evangelicalism from the influences that brought the war on in the way and time that it came on. I don't really get the idea of saying, "Hey it didn't need to happen; if only people weren't the way people were." Well, sure.

As though this isn't just one more aspect of how people responded to the reality of slavery as it had become in America by the mid-19th Century. Yes, people for and against slavery viewed it through the lens of their religion and they argued it in those terms. But it was still the importance of the issue of slavery itself in all its aspects, social, moral, and economic, that drove the slave powers beyond their ability or willingness to compromise.

 

[gem]

I've listened to a portion of this talk now and read these excerpts and I'm not finding it to be terribly convincing except in the fact that you can't exclude Evangelicalism from the influences that brought the war on in the way and time that it came on. I don't really get the idea of saying, "Hey it didn't need to happen; if only people weren't the way people were." Well, sure.

As though this isn't just one more aspect of how people responded to the reality of slavery as it had become in America by the mid-19th Century. Yes, people for and against slavery viewed it through the lens of their religion and they argued it in those terms. But it was still the importance of the issue of slavery itself in all its aspects, social, moral, and economic, that drove the slave powers beyond their ability or willingness to compromise.

you're right, it was a factor but there were many others at play as well.

 

[brass napoleon]

I've listened to a portion of this talk now and read these excerpts and I'm not finding it to be terribly convincing except in the fact that you can't exclude Evangelicalism from the influences that brought the war on in the way and time that it came on. I don't really get the idea of saying, "Hey it didn't need to happen; if only people weren't the way people were." Well, sure.

As though this isn't just one more aspect of how people responded to the reality of slavery as it had become in America by the mid-19th Century. Yes, people for and against slavery viewed it through the lens of their religion and they argued it in those terms. But it was still the importance of the issue of slavery itself in all its aspects, social, moral, and economic, that drove the slave powers beyond their ability or willingness to compromise.

Indeed. I haven't watched the video, and frankly won't. But as far as religion is concerned in the American Civil War, it sounds to me like the lecturer is putting the cart before the horse. People had their ideas about slavery, THEN they found justifications for those ideas in the Bible.

And by the way, compromise wasn't impossible. Compromise had been happening for 80 years, and all it did was make the problem bigger and worse. So I'm voting an emphatic NO.

 

[jackt62]

Indeed. I haven't watched the video, and frankly won't. But as far as religion is concerned in the American Civil War, it sounds to me like the lecturer is putting the cart before the horse. People had their ideas about slavery, THEN they found justifications for those ideas in the Bible.

And by the way, compromise wasn't impossible. Compromise had been happening for 80 years, and all it did was make the problem bigger and worse. So I'm voting an emphatic NO.

I actually read Goldfield's book "America Aflame" awhile ago (didn't watch the video) but I can't recall that he placed such a heavy emphasis on the role of evangelicalism and religion in setting the backdrop for the Civil War. But regardless, I agree with Brass Napoleon's view that as far as religion is concerned, my feeling is that it alone did not make compromise impossible. If so, how could the US successfully carry out a number of compromises (1820, 1850) in the decades before the war?

 

[Arwen]

Without watching the video, my inclination is to say that Goldfield holds a personal prejudice against Evangelicalism and sets forth to build a case against it. Personally I see it on par with people who claim "all wars are bankers wars." It's sloppy and lazy history dedicated to proving an already preconceived prejudice without actually taking other factors into consideration. If that's not actually his premise and I'm misrepresenting his position, then I withdraw the accusation that he holds a personal prejudice; but I would say that was true of anyone who held that premise.

 

[Allie]

I don't buy it, because I don't think most Southerners truly believed slavery had anything to do with religion. They fervently believed in money and their way of life, and enlisted everything in support of those beliefs, including religion. Also, a disproportionate number of the politicians who shaped the conflict were Episcopalians, who are not Evangelicals.

 

[jackt62]

Without watching the video, my inclination is to say that Goldfield holds a personal prejudice against Evangelicalism and sets forth to build a case against it. Personally I see it on par with people who claim "all wars are bankers wars." It's sloppy and lazy history dedicated to proving an already preconceived prejudice without actually taking other factors into consideration. If that's not actually his premise and I'm misrepresenting his position, then I withdraw the accusation that he holds a personal prejudice; but I would say that was true of anyone who held that premise.

Absolutely. It's easier for many people to fall back on easy stereotypes ("all wars are bankers," or WWI was a plot by the munitions manufacturers) rather than study all the nuances that contribute to why events play out the way they do.