Product Description

"An important study of a significant aspect of Southern culture, one that should be read by all who are interested in the intellectual defense of slavery."—Journal of Southern History

"This highly commendable work should make its mark in the field of American religious history."—Bertram Wyatt-Brown

"Daly’s is an immensely valuable book, continuing and extending the recent focus on religion in the Civil War. His voice is a perfectly balanced one. His analysis draws on important theoretical, philosophical, and theological work, which he balances with solid historical documentation and deft analysis."—Civil War Book Review

When Slavery Was Called Freedom astutely dissects the evangelical defense of slavery at the heart of the nineteenth century’s sectional crisis. John Patrick Daly’s writing uncovers the cultural and ideological bonds linking the combatants in the Civil War era and boldly reinterprets the intellectual foundations of secession.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1105022 in Books
• Published on: 2004-10-08
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 224 pages

Review
"This highly commendable work should make its mark in the field of American religious history." -- Bertram Wyatt-Brown

Review

""Daly's is an immensely valuable book, continuing and extending the recent focus on religion in the Civil War. His voice is a perfectly balanced one. His analysis draws on important theoretical, philosophical, and theological work, which he balances with solid historical documentation and deft analysis."" -- Civil War Book Review

""Makes a significant contribution of scholarly understanding of the social implications of religious faith in nineteenth-century America."" -- Civil War History

""This is a well-written, thought-provoking volume that raises new questions while covering familiar territory. The result is a book that nuances our understanding of the southern defense of slavery, the coming of the Civil War, and evangelicalism's role in fostering the sectional crisis."" -- Georgia Historical Quarterly

""A valuable contribution to our understanding of antebellum ideology and the role of religious ideas in the sectional conflict."" -- H-Net Reviews

""A fascinating new perspective on religion in the Old South and the causes of America's fratricidal conflict."" -- H-Net Reviews

""This book addresses big topics -- religion, slavery, the Civil War -- in a fresh way, with immense scholarship, and with incisive analysis, and the author forces the reader to think afresh about the role of religion (especially its influence on politics, society, and 'public' matters) in the Old South. Recommended for every scholar of the era and region."" -- John Boles

""Daly argues that, while race lay at the heart of southern slavery, it did not define the southern defense of the institution. Evangelicals defended slavery, not in the abstract, but as it was practiced by evangelical slaveholders in keeping with the evangelical emphasis on individual conversion and responsibility."" -- Journal of American History

""An important study of a significant aspect of southern culture, one that should be read by all who are interested in the intellectual defense of slavery."" -- Journal of Southern History

""An important new look at the nexus of evangelical Protestantism and Confederate nationalism.... Daly's artfully written work, as accessible an intellectual history as this reader has ever encountered, is a must-read for all interested in antebellum evangelicals or in proslavery theory."" -- Journal of Southern Religion

""A genuinely new perspective on religious proslavery and its role in bringing about the Civil War."" -- Journal of the Early Republic

""To his credit, Daly has produced that most laudable of things: a useful history book. Its short length plus its clear prose makes it an excellent introduction for beginners in the field, yet his insights into the southern evangelical mind make this fascinating reading for even the most dedicated expert."" -- Maryland Historical Magazine

""This bold account offers a fresh look at the ways that religion, and it strong influence on politics and society, contributed to the bloody conflict."" -- McCormick (SC) Messenger

""Draws historians back to one of the defining aspects of antebellum southern culture: evangelical religion.... Sheds light on the staying power of the South's attachment to the Bible and its use in proclaiming racist and proslavery views both before and after the Civil War."" -- Southern Historian

""Daly covers new ground along a well-trodden path of historical scholarship."" -- Virginia Magazine of History and Biography

""Daly's work is admirable, both for the thoroughness of his research and for his carefully detailed history of evangelicalism and the proslavery movement."" -- Journal of American Folklore

""When Slavery Was Called Freedom definitely provides new and useful information for those interested in the religious attitudes of the Confederate South."" -- Debbie A. Hanson, Journal of American Folklore

""This highly commendable work should make its mark in the field of American religious history."" -- Bertram Wyatt-Brown

About the Author
John Patrick Daly is professor of American history at the State University of New York, Brockport.

Customer Reviews

Southern woman journalist reflects
Occasionally, long held beliefs are shaken by a bold new look at old theories.

While many feel that all possible causes for the Civil War have already been proffered and dissected, a new voice is refuting principles that some Civil War scholars assumed were absolute.
Daly argues that there were no sharp moral differences between North and South. He finds the causes of the war were identical, differing only in the perspectives of a widely separated people hampered by insufficient communication.

With myth-shredding clarity, When Slavery Was Called Freedom suggests that the virtue claimed by North and South stemmed from the same evangelical thought. Both sides appealed to the power of God to prove them victorious, and above all, morally superior.

A Northerner by birth and a Southerner by assimilation, Daly takes an objective look at the economy, religious thought and passions of the times that drove a great nation asunder and launched the bloodiest of all wars.

Rather than a backward South peopled by cruel slave owners, Daly presents sound evidence that the South was much the same as the North when it came to commerce and morality. Common to both was the idea that riches were God's way of rewarding good people. Many believed the end result of accumulated wealth was a higher moral plane.

Virtue equaled wealth and wealth equaled power. Although the power of the South was bolstered by slavery, Southerners theorized that slavery was an integral part of the American System and the genius of American commerce.

Concerning religion, Dally offers an example of thwarted Northern idealism involving God's own representatives. Evangelical ministers from the North clad in the armour of righteousness arrived at Southern plantations as if at the gates of Hell only to find the same sort of people they knew back home.

Bound to do battle with the evils of slavery, it was a short skirmish. Although the ministers recognized some evils, many found that slaves were regarded as "laborers" under the protection of Christian gentlemen. They met forward-thinking Southerners who were certain that slavery would gradually dissipate into a laboring class of free men. Slaveholders were quick to point out that under the Southern system , even in its present form, slaves were better treated than workers in Northern sweatshops.

These same ministers who came to reform, found plantation life pleasant and Southern women charming. Some married the heiresses to plantations and changed their views, allowing that it was just for good people to own slaves.

While Daly's research is not likely to completely displace the idea that a division in ideology and morality brought about the War, an excursion into his Virtue as Power theory is worth taking.

Focusing on the similarities of thought held by both sides preceding the War, Daly leaves the reader wondering if more Northerners and Southerners had discovered their commonality before 1860, perhaps secession and the Civil War would never have occurred.

Still, one question looms large: without the Civil War, would slavery have dissolved of its own accord?

By Anne Battle

Doublethink
This interesting snapshot of pre-bellum Southern evangelicalism struck me as less controversial than advertised and, in any case, a telling portrait of the 'actuals' of religion in American history. The parallel appearance of abolitionism and pro-slavery evangelical apologia is a difficult dialectic to reconcile, and the historical image refresh rate is essential for an archaeologist of ideology. One need not undergo a paradigm shift to find this a useful angle on a multidimensional subject, and a shadowy one at that.