I think you need to read some history Gadawg.
As abolitionism gained popularity in the northern states, it strained relations between northern and southern churches. Northern preachers increasingly preached against slavery in the 1830s. In the 1840's,slavery began to divide denominations. This, in turn, weakened social ties between the North and South, allowing the nation to become even more divided in the 1850s.
The issue of slavery in the United States came to a conclusion with the American Civil War. Although the war began as a political struggle over the preservation of the nation, it took on religious overtones as southern preachers called for a defense of their homeland and northern abolitionists preached the good news of liberation for slaves. Gerrit Smith and William Lloyd Garrison abandoned pacifism, and Garrison changed the motto of The Liberator to Leviticus 25:10, "Proclaim Liberty throughout all the land, and to all the inhabitants thereof." The YMCA joined with other societies to found the United States Christian Commission, with the goal of supporting Union soldiers, and churches collected $6 million for their cause.
Harriet Tubman, considered by many to be a prophet due to her success as a liberator with the Underground Railroad, warned "God won't let master Lincoln beat the South till he does the right thing" by emancipating slaves. Popular songs such as John Brown's Body (later The Battle Hymn of the Republic) contained verses which painted the northern war effort as a religious struggle to end slavery. Even Abraham Lincoln appealed to religious sentiments, suggesting in various speeches that God had brought on the war as punishment for slavery, while acknowledging in his Inaugural Address that both sides "read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes His aid against the other."
With the Union victory in the war and a constitutional ban on slavery, abolitionist Christians also declared a religious victory over their slave-holding brethren in the South. Southern religious leaders who had preached a message of divine protection were now left to reconsider their theology.
As abolitionism gained popularity in the northern states, it strained relations between northern and southern churches. Northern preachers increasingly preached against slavery in the 1830s. In the 1840's,slavery began to divide denominations. This, in turn, weakened social ties between the North and South, allowing the nation to become even more divided in the 1850s.
The issue of slavery in the United States came to a conclusion with the American Civil War. Although the war began as a political struggle over the preservation of the nation, it took on religious overtones as southern preachers called for a defense of their homeland and northern abolitionists preached the good news of liberation for slaves. Gerrit Smith and William Lloyd Garrison abandoned pacifism, and Garrison changed the motto of The Liberator to Leviticus 25:10, "Proclaim Liberty throughout all the land, and to all the inhabitants thereof." The YMCA joined with other societies to found the United States Christian Commission, with the goal of supporting Union soldiers, and churches collected $6 million for their cause.
Harriet Tubman, considered by many to be a prophet due to her success as a liberator with the Underground Railroad, warned "God won't let master Lincoln beat the South till he does the right thing" by emancipating slaves. Popular songs such as John Brown's Body (later The Battle Hymn of the Republic) contained verses which painted the northern war effort as a religious struggle to end slavery. Even Abraham Lincoln appealed to religious sentiments, suggesting in various speeches that God had brought on the war as punishment for slavery, while acknowledging in his Inaugural Address that both sides "read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes His aid against the other."
With the Union victory in the war and a constitutional ban on slavery, abolitionist Christians also declared a religious victory over their slave-holding brethren in the South. Southern religious leaders who had preached a message of divine protection were now left to reconsider their theology.
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