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Full-Text Articles in History
Slavery, Secession, And Sin: Religion And Dissent In The Upcountry South, 1820-1865, Douglas R. Porter
Slavery, Secession, And Sin: Religion And Dissent In The Upcountry South, 1820-1865, Douglas R. Porter
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Despite decades of scholarship illuminating divisions within Southern society during the nineteenth century, religious historians still imply that white Southerners collectively supported slavery, secession, and the Confederate war effort, choices they believed to be inherently just and holy. This dissertation challenges this notion by highlighting religious dissent in the South during the antebellum and Civil War eras. It argues that antislavery and anti-Confederate white Southerners imagined their lives and times, and justified their social and political choices, with as much religious urgency as their proslavery and pro-Confederate neighbors. Recognizing Protestant diversity rather than evangelical uniformity, this study insists that there …