A House Divided:Southern And Northern Christian Interpretations Of Slavery In Antebellum American Civil War

The study of American Civil War is one of the most researched topics in American and world history. Many of the studies have sought to focus on the war itself and the causes of it from many perspectives such as the deep political and economic divisions in American North and South, as well as the sectional ideological conflicts. While the causes of the civil war have received a lot of attention, little work in China has been done to explore the effects of religion on the roots of the American civil war. The religion in antebellum America had the most divine power and its Scripture Bible was the most widely read text and professed by everyone. Therefore, arguing for or against slavery based on the Bible would have offered the most powerful morality and authoritative support for the North or South. Before and during the times of war, both leaders had continued to invoke religion to justify their own cause, but their religious justifications for slavery were very distinct and contrary.And Abraham Lincoln had declared the Union divided against slavery between the opponents and advocates cannot exist by citing the famous biblical words—“a house divided against itself can not stand”. This thesis aims to analyze how the South and North had separately justified its own Christian interpretations of the slavery during the antebellum period which had significant effect on the course of events, indirectly leading to the disunion and American civil war. The first chapter states the evasiveness of the Constitution between liberty and slavery which left a hidden crisis for the civil war. The second and the third chapters respectively investigate the main content of religious justification between southern proslavery and northern antislavery. The last chapter illustrates what consequence the divergent biblical debates over slavery had brought and how it finally affected the eruption of American civil war.