Providence and Prestige: Misguided Faith and Ambition in Southern Defenses of Slavery

In his November 1860 sermon, “Slavery a Divine Trust: Duty of the South to Preserve and Perpetuate It,” Benjamin Morgan Palmer argued that the providential trust was “to conserve and to perpetuate the institution of slavery as now existing” (emphasis original).[1] The pastor of New Orleans’s First Presbyterian Church, Palmer embodied a providential worldview that … Read More Read More The post…