In the Methodist Episcopal church the conflict over slavery had long been smouldering, and in 1844 it broke out in regard to the ownership of slaves by the wife of Bishop Andrew of Alabama. The hostile sections agreed to separate into a northern and a southern church, and a Plan of Separation was adopted. This was disregarded by the northern body and the question of the division of property went to the courts. The United States Supreme Court finally decided in favor of the southern church. From these troubles angry feelings on both sides resulted. The southern church took the name of the Methodist Episcopal Church South; the northern church retained the old name.[30]
In 1858, the northern conferences of the Methodist Protestant Church, having failed to change the constitution of the church in regard to slavery, withdrew, and uniting with a number of Wesleyan Methodists, formed the Methodist Church.[31]
The Southern Aid Society was formed in New York in 1854 for mission work in the South because it was generally believed that the American Home Mission Society was allied with the abolitionists, and because the latter society refused to aid any minister or missionary who was a slaveholder. In Alabama the Southern Aid Society worked principally among the Presbyterians of north Alabama.[32]
The Presbyterians (N.S.) separated in 1858 “on account of politics,” and the southern branch formed the United Synod South.[33] The East Alabama Presbytery (O.S.) in 1861 supported the Presbytery of Memphis in a protest against the action of the General Assembly of the church in entering politics. The Presbytery of South Alabama (O.S.) met at Selma in July, 1861, severed its connection with the General Assembly, and recommended a meeting of a Confederate States Assembly. This Assembly was held at Augusta and formed the Presbyterian Church in the Confederate States of America. A long address was published, setting forth the causes of the separation, the future policy of the church, and its attitude towards slavery. It declared that the northern section of the church with its radical policy was playing into the hands of both slaveholders and abolitionists and thus weakening its influence with both. “We,” the address stated, “in our ecclesiastical capacity are neither the friends nor foes of slavery.” As long as they were connected with the radical northern church the southern Presbyterians felt that they would be excluded from useful work among the slaves by the suspicions of the southern people concerning their real intentions.[34]
The Christian church was divided in 1854. During the war the southern synods of the Evangelical Lutherans withdrew and formed the General Synod South. There were few members of these churches in Alabama.[35]
The Cumberland Presbyterians, though separated by the war, seem not to have formally established an independent organization in the Confederate States. A convention was called to meet at Selma in 1864, but nothing resulted.[36]
In May, 1861, the Protestant Episcopal Convention of Alabama declared null and void that part of the constitution of the diocese relating to its connection with the church in the United States. Instead of the President of the United States, the Governor of Alabama, and later, the President of the Confederate States, was prayed for in the formal prayer. Bishop Cobbs, a strong opponent of secession, died one hour before the secession of the state was announced. Rev. R. H. Wilmer, a Confederate sympathizer, was elected to succeed him.[37] In July the bishops of the southern states met in Montgomery to draft a new constitution and canons. A resolution was passed stating that the secession of the southern states from the Union and the formation of a new government rendered it expedient that the dioceses within those states should form an independent organization. The new constitution was adopted in November, 1861, by a general convention, and the Protestant Episcopal Church in the Confederate States was formed.[38] And thus the religious ties were broken.
Business had also become sectionalized by 1861. The southern states felt keenly their dependence upon the states of the North for manufactures, water transportation, etc. For two decades before the war the southern newspapers agitated the question and advocated measures that would tend to secure economic independence of the North. As an instance of the feeling, many of the educators of the state were in favor of using only those text-books written by southern men and printed in the South. Professor A. P. Barnard[39] of the University of Alabama was strenuously in favor of such action. He declared that nothing ought to be bought from the North. From 1845 to 1861, fifteen “Commercial Conventions” were held in the South, largely attended by the most prominent business men and politicians. The object of these conventions was to discuss means of attaining economic independence.
When Alabama withdrew from the Union in 1861, no bonds were broken. Practically the only bond of Union for most of the people had been in the churches; to the Washington government and to the North they had never become attached. The feelings of the great majority of the people of the state are expressed in the last speech of Senator C. C. Clay of north Alabama in the United States Senate. It had been forty-two years, he said, since Alabama had entered the Union amidst scenes of excitement and violence caused by the hostility of the North against the institution of slavery in the South (referring to the conflict over Missouri). In the churches, southern Christians were denied communion because of what the North styled the “leprosy of slavery.” In violation of Constitution and laws southern people were refused permission to pass through the North with their property. The South was refused a share in the lands acquired mainly by her diplomacy, blood, and treasure. The South was robbed of her property and restoration was refused. Criminals who fled North were protected, and southern men who sought to recover their slaves were murdered. Southern homes were burned and southern families murdered. This had been endured for years, and there was no hope of better. The Republican platform was a declaration of war against the South. It was hostile to domestic peace, reproached the South as unchristian and heathenish, and imputed sin and crime to that section. It was a strong incitement to insurrection, arson, and murder among the negroes. The southern whites were denied equality with northern whites or even with free negroes, and were branded as an inferior race. The man nominated for President disregarded the judgment of courts, the obligations of the Constitution, and of his oath by declaring his approval of any measure to prohibit slavery in the territories of the United States. The people of the North branded the people of the South as outlaws, insulted them, consigned them to the execration of posterity and to ultimate destruction. “Is it to be expected that we will or can exercise that Godlike virtue that beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things; which tells us to love our enemies, and bless them that curse us? Are we expected to be denied the sensibilities, the sentiments, the passions, the reason, the instincts of men?” Have we no pride, no honor, no sense of shame, no reverence for ancestors and care for posterity, no love of home, of family, of friends? Are we to confess baseness, discredit the fame of our sires, dishonor ourselves and degrade posterity, abandon our homes and flee the country—all—all—for the sake of the Union? Shall we live under a government administered by those who deny us justice and brand us as inferiors? whose avowed principles and policy must destroy domestic tranquillity, imperil the lives of our wives and children, and ultimately destroy the state? The freemen of Alabama have proclaimed to the world that they will not.[40]