II. The Baptists.
The Baptists were among the original settlers in Tennessee. They were strong in North Carolina by 1750,[90] and by 1780 were coming into Tennessee from both Virginia and North Carolina in great numbers.[91] They settled in the Holston country and on Boone’s Creek, but they were not so numerous in these early days as the Presbyterians and Methodists.[92] In 1784 there were 400 Baptists in Tennessee; 900 in 1792, and 11,325 in 1812.
The Baptists were anti-slavery in the early period of American history, just as were the Methodists. 1783 the Baptists said:
It is the duty of every master of a family to give his slaves liberty to attend the worship of God in his family, and likewise it is his duty to convince them of their duty; and then to leave them to their own choice.[93]
In 1789 John Leland proposed the following resolution in the Triennial Convention, which was adopted:
Resolved, That slavery is a violent deprivation of the rights of nature, and inconsistent with a republican government, and therefore recommend it to our brethren, to make use of every legal measure to extirpate this horrid evil from the land; and pray Almighty God that our honorable legislature may have it in their power to proclaim the great Jubilee consistent with the principles of good policy.[94]
This protest, while very strong in its declaration, was ineffective. The Baptists were no exception to mankind as to slaveholding. The Baptists became slaveholders in large numbers, and adopted the policy that it was the work of the church to mitigate slavery into a humane institution.[95]
The Baptists were more successful in adding negroes to the church than any other denomination. There are more negroes in the Baptist church today than in all other churches combined. One out of every five Southern negroes is a Baptist.[96] In 1813, there were 40,000 negro Baptists, mostly in the South, among whom were a great many negro preachers and exhorters.[97]
Among the attractive features of the Baptist faith to the negroes were immersion, the congregational form of government, which gave them participation in church meetings, the liberality of the Baptists in permitting them to preach, and the Baptist method of communion, which did not discriminate against them.[98] These advantages of Baptism[99] caused negroes to withdraw from other churches.[100]
The Baptists despite the advantages that a form of local church government gave them in handling the slavery question, were not able to prevent its frequent discussion. It was not so difficult for the individual congregations to settle the matter by a majority vote and select a preacher whose views agreed with the majority. But it was inevitable that the forces that finally united the Southern Methodists would produce the same effect upon the Southern Baptists. The Southern Baptists were among the largest slaveholders of the South, and in due time came to be defenders of slavery, while Northern Baptists became increasingly anti-slavery.[101]
That separation was inevitable was evident to many of the leaders, although both Northern and Southern Baptists tried to relegate slavery to the background. Rev. Richard Fuller was one of the first to see this impending division in the church, and he hastened to take steps to prevent it. He tried to distinguish between the church as an organization and its membership. In the Triennial Convention of 1844 he secured the adoption of a resolution to the effect that as a church they should disclaim all sanction of slavery or anti-slavery, either expressed or implied, but that as individuals they should have the freedom both to express and to promote their views on these subjects in a Christian manner and spirit.[102]
This was apparently a happy solution of the question, a philosophical way to handle the problem, but slavery would not down. The incident that most of all precipitated the organization of the Southern Baptist Convention was the attitude of the Board of Foreign Missions of the church. This board, apparently on its own initiative, adopted in 1844 a resolution to the effect that,
In the thirty years in which the board has existed, no slaveholder, to our knowledge, has applied to be a missionary. And as we send out no domestics, or servants, such an event as a missionary taking slaves with him, were it morally right, could not, in accordance with all our past arrangements and present plans, possibly occur. If, however, anyone should offer himself as a missionary, having slaves, and should insist on retaining them as his property, we can never be a party to any arrangements which would imply approbation of slavery.
The American Baptist Home Missionary Society in April, 1845, found itself in the same predicament that the Foreign Missionary Society was facing. This board said: “We declare it expedient that members shall hereafter act in separate organizations, at the South and at the North, in promoting the objects which were originally contemplated by the society.”
This announcement of policy was regarded by the Southern Baptists as a violation of the rights of the convention of the church. This policy was soon put into effect by the rejection of Rev. James E. Reeves, a slaveholder and applicant to become a missionary.[103] This was a challenge that was immediately accepted. The Southern Baptists said: “This is forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles.... We will never interfere with what is Caesar’s. We will not compromise what is God’s.”[104]
The Southern Baptist Convention was organized at Augusta, Georgia, in the summer of 1845. There were 377 delegates present. They said that “a painful division has taken place in the missionary operations of the American Baptists.... They differ in no article of the faith. They are guided by the same principles of gospel order.”[105]
The Tennessee Baptists were, like the Baptists as a whole, divided on the question of slavery. In general, the attitude of the National Triennial Convention down to 1845 reflects the opinion of Tennessee Baptists. There are no local histories nor any minutes of local bodies that give us any insight into the particular feelings of different groups of Baptists in Tennessee. Tennessee Baptists went with the Southern Convention in 1845, but there were anti-slavery Baptists scattered throughout the state.
One of the most noted of the anti-slavery Baptists in Tennessee was Professor J. M. Pendleton, of Union University, Murfreesboro, Tennessee (now at Jackson, Tennessee). Professor Pendleton was born in Virginia in 1811. He moved to Kentucky in 1817 and to Tennessee in 1857. He was in 1858 professor of theology at Union, and joint editor with Rev. A. C. Dayton of the Tennessee Baptist, published at Nashville, and was one of the editors of the Southern Baptist Review.[106]
In 1858, Dr. Dawson, editor of the Alabama Baptist, accused him of being an abolitionist. He was brought before the board of trustees of Union. Professor Pendleton explained the charge in the following way: “I suppose he (Dawson) made no distinction between an ‘Abolitionist’ and ‘Emancipationist.’ The latter was in favor of doing away with slavery gradually, according to state constitution and law; the former believed slavery to be a sin in itself, calling for immediate abolition without regard to consequences. I was an Emancipationist ... but I was never for a moment an Abolitionist.”[107] He frankly stated his views before the board, and was acquitted.[108]
The Southern Baptists made special effort to evangelize the slaves after their separate organization was accomplished. “This department of our labor,” says the report of 1845, “is increasing in interest every year. Whenever it is practicable, the missionaries of the board hold separate services for the special benefit of the slaves. And all bear favorable testimony to the happy influence of the Gospel upon the hearts and lives of that people. Their owners are becoming more and more awake to their special wants. Some are erecting houses of worship on their plantations, others are making liberal donations to sustain the ministry among them.”[109] The general proposition of the convention to any local church was that it would pay half the expense of a mission among the negroes if the church would pay the other half. In 1855, the Baptists had missions at Rogersville, Knoxville, Chattanooga, Cumberland Mountains, Huntingdon, and Memphis.[110]
The convention of 1859 said:
Our slaves, too, demand our attention. They form part of our families, speak our language, are easy of access, and are impressible beyond any other people. They number more than three and a half million, and out of this multitude scarcely more than three or four hundred thousand are professed Christians.[111]
The character of the slave converts as given by Rev. Pendleton, seemed to justify the efforts of the church. He said, “I saw among them in the days of slavery as pious Christians as I ever saw anywhere. They attended church, occupied the place assigned them in the meeting-house, and partook of the Lord’s Supper with their white brethren.”[112]
The special training that the negroes received in the Baptist church largely prepared them to establish and manage their own churches. “The first negro Baptist church in Tennessee,” says Pius, “was the Mt. Lebanon Baptist Church, organized at Columbia, October 20, 1843.”[113] This church now has a membership of 200 and property worth $15,000. In 1853, Spruce Street Baptist Church was built at Nashville. Beal Street Church at Memphis was also one of the early negro churches.