Benjamin Morgan Palmer's "Thanksgiving Sermon"

civilwarcauses.org ^ | November 29, 1860 | Benjamin Morgan Palmer

[DoorGunner]

We know better than others that every attribute of their character fits them for dependence and servitude. By nature the most affectionate and loyal of all races beneath the sun, they are also the most helpless; and no calamity can befall them greater than the loss of that protection they enjoy under this patriarchal system. Indeed, the experiment has been grandly tried of precipitating them upon freedom which they know not how to enjoy; and the dismal results are before us in statistics that astonish the world. With the fairest portions of the earth in their possession and with the advantage of a long discipline as cultivators of the soil, their constitutional indolence has converted the most beautiful islands of the sea into a howling waste. It is not too much to say that if the South should, at this moment, surrender every slave, the wisdom of the entire world, united in solemn council, could not solve the question of their disposal. Their transportation to Africa, even if it were feasible, would be but the most refined cruelty; they must perish with starvation before they could have time to relapse into their primitive barbarism. Their residence here, in the presence of the vigorous Saxon race, would be but the signal for their rapid extermination before they had time to waste away through listlessness, filth and vice. Freedom would be their doom; and equally from both they call upon us, their providential guardians, to be protected. I know this argument will be scoffed abroad as the hypocritical cover thrown over our own cupidity and selfishness; but every Southern master knows its truth and feels its power.

[DoorGunner]

I was wondering whether a belief in Predestination was the cause of this attitude.

DG

[topcat54]

Great Southern Presbyterian minister and preacher.

The attitude in the sermon towards blacks was not uncommon that day. I do not think the concept of predestination per se had anything to do with the matter. Even some of the most ardent emancipationists privately questioned the abilities of black people to function in society. Men like Abraham Lincoln, no predestinarian by any stretch, had unflattering things to say about blacks.