A SMALL AND ODIOUS PARTY OLD SCHOOL PRESBYTERIAN OPPOSITION TO ABOLITIONISM IN ANTEBELLUM AMERICA

Abstract

The Old School Presbyterian Church was the only major evangelical denomination not to divide over slavery prior to the American Civil War. ‘A Small and Odious Party’ looks at the nature and the role of the Church’s opposition to abolitionism in ensuring the continuance of a non-sectional evangelical church in antebellum America. It argues that the anti-abolitionism of the Presbyterian Church concerned a number of issues including: a continued adherence to the old anti-slavery worldview, a defence of the common sense reading of scripture, and the promotion of a conservative philosophy of society. But also that each of these individual concerns represented the continuing vivacity of a conservative worldview dedicated to preserving the national unity of the United States.