The Metaphysical Confederacy: James Henley Thornwell and the Synthesis of Southern Values by James Oscar Farmer, Jr. (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1986), Pp. vii, 295.
Historian James Oscar Farmer, professor of history at University of South Carolina at Aiken, opens The Metaphysical Confederacy by discussing, in some general terms, the philosophy of history and the ways by which history is recorded. Farmer contends that historiography of the Old South is plagued by botched methodology, what he considers a tendency to view the history of the war strictly in Northern, abolitionist terms. On one level, Farmer’s efforts are diametrically opposed to an assertion made by historian George Frederickson who, in the preface to The Inner Civil War, bases his examination of Northern intellectuals on the idea that Northerners shaped post-war culture and put forth the era’s greatest thinkers (2). Farmer notes insightfully that history cannot be written objectively; to choose ideas, sources, and perspectives is to choose against others. The genesis of Metaphysical Confederacy—recipient of The Frank S. and Elizabeth D. Brewer Prize Essay of the American Society of Church History—is rooted in an interest of Old South intellectuals, men confronted with a “complex of dilemmas” attempting to reconcile their circumstances with a national ethic and the Western Tradition (3). Farmer contends that James Henley Thornwell offers a window, by way of religious and theological inquiry, into the religious character of the Old South and the region’s efforts to build a sectional ideology and way of life (5).
Thornwell exerted great influence on southern culture and Christianity. Farmer attributes this influence to the orthodox, confessional Christianity that so pervaded the region in the years leading up to war. And, Farmer notes, the gap between the sacred and the secular world did not appear until after the war. Connections between theology and the general intellectual milieu were more intimate in the Antebellum Era (13). Thus, Thornwell and other southern intellectuals—particularly writers, scientists, clergymen, and professional men—effectively created a Southern Cosmology, a “metaphysical confederacy” that inculcated in the southern mind a profound sense of self-righteousness that, post 1850, dedicated itself to the proliferation of “an impressive apologia,” an effort in which theology played a central role (16).
The philosophy and theology of James Henley Thornwell is deep, dense, and difficult to comprehend. This was even the case for his contemporaries. But Farmer Jr. dedicates the fourth and fifth chapters of his work—and they are impressive—to unpacking the religious and philosophical thought that so informed southern identity and self-awareness. Calvinism—that of the Old School variety—informed Thornwell’s entire theology and worldview; a conservative, he was intimately aware of his religious tradition and his own sin. Farmer likens Thornwell’s theological outlook to Thomas Aquinas and Jonathan Edwards, men who in medieval Europe and colonial America attempted to reconcile “new ideas” with the “disparate values” of their times (125). Thornwell encountered Scottish Common Sense philosophy at a young age; it left an indelible mark on his intellectual formation. Farmer notes, “in the mind of Thornwell, philosophy and theology shared almost equal appeal,” but the rise of natural empiricism that came with Baconian philosophy troubled Thornwell, whose Calvinism placed limitations on the idea of human knowledge and perfectibility. Even so, Baconian methods of relying upon natural proof largely informed Thornwell’s theology and philosophy. Farmer recalls what one contemporary considered Thornwell’s—a teacher of metaphysics and logic in his early years—favorite lines, one that evinces the influence of Baconian thought on the southern divine: “You have stated your position—now prove it” (147). Still, it was Thornwell’s understanding of what constituted proof that so deviated from the Baconian tradition: his philosophy left more room for the divine, for the Word of God. It was purely conservative, skeptical of human nature (Calvin, Hobbes), viewed order as a safeguard from vulgar modernization, and put a premium on moral and spiritual order. The breadth and depth of Thornwell’s knowledge is best encapsulated by a run-in with John C. Calhoun in the summer of 1843; Calhoun was surprised that Thornwell possessed knowledge that only a true, liberally educated man maintained the ability to demonstrate.
Farmer’s work stands pre-eminent as a fine example of intellectual history; thoroughly researched, it makes wide and frequent use of Thornwell’s papers and correspondence. It’s value lies in its exegetical illumination of Thornwell’s worldview, and shows how the philosophy and theology proliferated by southern divines—“of whom James Thornwell was perhaps the quintessential example”—saturated the consciousness of an aspiring nation and assured southern conservatives of the righteousness of their cause (286). At the end of the day, however, the metaphysical confederacy was, in the words of the author, a “paradox” “short-circuited” by war.
Texas Christian University Mitchell G. Klingenberg
The Metaphysical Confederacy: James Henley Thornwell and the Synthesis of Southern Values. By James Oscar Farmer, Jr. Macon, Georgia: Mercer University Press, 1986. 289 pp.
In The Metaphysical Confederacy: James Henley Thornwell and the Synthesis of Southern Values, James Oscar Farmer, Jr., currently a professor of history at the University of South Carolina (Aiken), contends that the Confederacy was merely the “edifice” that was “built to house [the] mind that had been its harbinger.” (p. 194.) In other words, the actual Confederacy was metaphysically presaged by the work of Southern intellectuals whose rhetorical defense of the Old South and, specifically, the institution of slavery, gave Southerners a sense of pride and purpose in the years leading up to secession.
Published in 1986, The Metaphysical Confederacy was part of an effort by historians that began in the 1970s to get inside the “mind” of the Old South by studying Southern intellectuals on their own terms. For his part, Farmer analyzes the role that Southern clergymen played in defending Old South society by focusing on the career of James Henley Thornwell, a prominent minister and academic in South Carolina from the 1840s until his death in 1862.
Thornwell, the son of a plantation overseer, was born in South Carolina in 1812. Impressed by his precocious nature, two members of the local gentry financed his education, which included a stint at Harvard. Returning to South Carolina, Thornwell became a Presbyterian minister and embarked on a variegated career in which he pastored churches, edited theological journals, taught in colleges and seminaries, and frequently opined on the religious and political issues of the day. Serving at one point as the president of South Carolina College, Thornwell was well known in his native state and nationally prominent in Presbyterian Church circles.
According to Farmer, Thornwell was the “quintessential example” of those influential “preacher-sages” in the Old South who felt that “the Southern way of life was as close as man in his fallen state was likely to come to the Christian way of life.” (p. 286.) Obviously, that “way of life” included slavery but Farmer notes that “by the mid-1850s the subject of Christianity and slavery was virtually closed as far as most Southerners were concerned.” (p. 201.) The “preacher-sages” had come to an accommodation with the peculiar institution earlier in the antebellum era when they separated it from “from the abuses that sinful men committed in practicing it. The abuses were wrong and to be condemned, but slavery itself was permissible.” (p. 214). Since the Bible did not directly prohibit slavery, the preachers began to focus their efforts on Christianizing slaves and promoting their humanitarian treatment by masters.
As Farmer explains: “[T]he religious defense of slavery and the mission to the slaves were two sides of the same coin --- the development of a slaveholding ethic.” (p. 210.) But as Farmer also relates, this “ethic” not only failed to impress those Northerners who wanted slavery either abolished or at least kept out of the West but it also drew homegrown opposition since “the white South as a whole was more interested in defending the institution as it was than in reforming it.” (P. 215.) Farmer concludes that the “preacher-sages” were defending an ideal of slavery that sharply conflicted with its reality. Try as they would, no amelioration of the institution could bring them out of the shadow cast by their accommodation with it.
Which is not to say, as Farmer points out, that those preachers were insincere in seeking better conditions for slaves or exaggerating their own fears when they warned that abolitionism’s egalitarian strain contained within it, according to Thornwell, “the very spirit of socialism and communism.” (p. 224.) For Thornwell and his pro-slavery clerical thinkers were fundamentally conservative men in the mid-19th century sense of that term. According to Farmer, their conservatism was characterized by: “a skeptical view of human nature, . . . a desire for order, . . . a preference for personal relationships over institutional relationships, . . . an organic concept of human society, . . . and a pervasive spiritual and moral orientation.” (p. 155.) All of these principles were part of an organized and coherent system of thought, which Farmer dubs “aristocratic conservatism.” (p. 154.) While slavery was defended insofar as it appeared to fit within the notion of an organically ordered society in which one’s moral duties depended upon one’s station in life, aristocratic conservatism itself was by no means concocted as an elaborate pro-slavery “cover.”
The Metaphysical Confederacy is thoroughly researched and, for the most part, well-written. Farmer does, however, exhibit a nagging tendency of using the same quotations from Thornwell’s writings over and over again. But this is probably an organizational defect since the book is based on Farmer’s Ph.D. dissertation. Moreover, it did not keep Farmer’s work from winning the American Society of Church History’s Brewer Prize.
Joseph Rzeppa
The Confederate States of America were born in the Southern churches of the 1850s; in what author James Farmer, Jr. calls the “Metaphysical Confederacy.” Before there is a nation, there has to be a concept of or an idea for that nation. The genesis of that Confederacy was formed among Southern Baptist, Methodist and Presbyterian ministers in the decade leading up to the Civil War. According to Farmer, prior to 1850 there had been a considerable amount of self-critical apologia in Southern thought and writings. After 1850 Southern society unified and closed ranks, thanks in large part to the sermons and publications from these ministers.
It was the church that led this change from slavery apologist to champion of the peculiar institution. On one hand, the clergy claimed slavery was a civil matter, not in the realm of the church, and the church could not legislate where Christ had not legislated. On the other hand, no sector of the social order was more outspoken in its defense of slavery and secession than the churches, proclaiming the institutions of Southern society as God-ordained and sanctioned. One of the most vocal clergy in this respect was James Henley Thornwell. Throughout his writings and sermons the reader can see this Metaphysical Confederacy come to life in the 1850s. Thornwell was a giant in Southern theology; some called him the Calhoun of the church. This noted and well-respected Presbyterian minister was President of South Carolina College in 1851, pastor at First Presbyterian Church in Columbia and taught theology at Columbia Theological Seminary until 1862.
Farmer chose Thornwell because he is an excellent example of the religious ideology of the 1850s South, and the movement of this theology towards the defense and justification of slavery, secession and war. From their pulpits, ministers such as Thornwell constantly buttressed their views on slavery with scripture. “In defending this institution we have really been upholding the civil interests of mankind, the struggle is atheists and Jacobins on one side and the friends of order and regulated freedom on the other. Slaves have rights, but the rights of citizens are not among them, these rights are not essential to humanity or they would belong to women and children. Our design is giving them the gospel, it is not to civilize them or change them or change their social condition, nor exalt them into citizens or freemen, it is to save them.” (P. 225-226)
For Thornwell and other Southern clergy, slavery
was divinely ordained. Exalted societies of the past, such as the Greeks,
had condoned slavery. Five of the first seven U.S. presidents had owned
slaves. Throughout the sermons of these ministers there was a consistent
theme that God had made some men to be free and others to be slaves and
this was just a fact of nature. For blacks slavery was a good thing, it
gave them a useful purpose in life.
The vocal criticism of slavery by Northern
abolitionists and newspapers resulted in an increasingly homogenous and
defensive Southern mindset. Much sectional pressure was brought to bear
to ensure conformity to the cause. Critics were actively encouraged to
move north and those remaining, who still had doubts, were reassured by
ministers that the South “was morally clean and ready to withstand any
test.” (P.11) Clergy also saw themselves as responsible for rallying the
populace to the Southern purpose, often sounding like crusaders heading
off to war. Inspired by the Confederate flag, minister George Bagby of
Virginia wrote: “Let us give these stars a double brilliance by forming
them into a Cross-the-Southern Cross emblem of that pure and holy religion
that has been reviled, trampled and spit upon in the interest of abolition.”
(P.11) When clergy such as Thornwell preached to their congregations about
the importance of living a life of Orthodox Christianity they meant Christianity
with Old South values. They likened the South’s “noble struggle”, of withstanding
these assaults from false brethren in the North, to Jesus suffering upon
his cross; it was something that all Southerners had to endure, for the
time being. Indeed, Southern ministers were among the most vocal favoring
secession and war, they were also among the last to admit defeat when the
cause was clearly lost.
James Henley Thornwell gradually tempered his stance on slavery later in life, suggesting if the South would gradually free the slaves the situation could be favorably resolved. Yet even at this late date he still maintained that slavery was an issue for the states, not the church, and that its “drawbacks must be balanced against the fact that it has brought many Africans to us who have been made heir to the heavenly inheritance.” (P.279) This was as far as Thornwell was willing to shift on the issue.
James Oscar Farmer, Jr. is currently the Henderson Professor of Southern History at the University of South Carolina at Aiken. His study of Thornwell, including his sermons, letters and other writings, provides an excellent insight into how and when the formation of this “Metaphysical Confederacy” took place, and what role church leaders like Thornwell played in that formation. For scholars interested in the clergy and their integral role in Southern society, Farmer’s work is a thoroughly researched and interesting read.
Glen Ely
The Metaphysical Confederacy: James Henely Thornwell and the Synthesis of Southern Values. By James Oscar Farmer, Jr. (Macon, GA: Mercer University, 1986) 295.
Breaking with the long-standing tradition of ignoring southern intellectuals as lightweights and simpletons, James Oscar Farmer delves into the life and mind the great Presbyterian spokesman, James Henely Thornwell. Rather than simply give his readers an intellectual biography, Farmer firmly places Thornwell in the context of his times. He therefore vastly increases the usefulness of his book. By looking at Thornwell, a man very deeply involved in the controversies of his day, he opens a window into the mind of the South as a whole in the years leading up to secession.
Farmer bases his study on two basic premises. The first is that before the South could even think of leaving the Union, a philosophical/theological groundwork must be laid. Someone must create a "metaphysical Confederacy" to undergird the physical manifestation that was to follow. Unless the minds of the people were prepared ahead of time, secession could never come about. This important process, he argues, took place between the initial movement in 1850 and its successful follow up ten years later.
Secondly, that the South, contrary to some claims, was indeed a very religiously devout area that earnestly sought spiritual maturity. As such, some of their most potent spokesmen for any cause would be the region's pastors and preachers. They became some of the most influential workers in laying the necessary foundations for Southern reactions to the crisis of 1860. By that time, the populace stood on a definate feeling of religious superiority and the self-assurance they needed to last through the first few years of the war.
This is what gives his study its significance. Thornwell played an important role in each of these areas. Born to an overseer in South Carolina in 1812, he displayed an amazing intellect from a young age. His abilities soon attracted the attention of some rich benefactors, who paid for him to attend school. First he made his way through local institutions, finally graduating from South Carolina College. Shortly after this, he experienced a profound conversion and decided to enter full time Christian ministry. He attended seminary in the North, but was forced to return to South Carolina due to ill health. Once there, he was ordained and began his career as a pastor. Later, he became a professor at his alma mater, eventually rising to serve as president of that institution. He never thought of entering politics, but his addresses and writings still had widespread influence.
Thornwell was a Calvinist of the first rate, holding strictly each of the five points (1). He thought that the Bible, as the revealed word of the Creator of all, should be the final arbiter of all issues, public and private. Yet, he also held to the idea of separation of church and state. Therefore, Thornwell thought, if the Bible was not explicitly clear on a subject, the church had no say in the matter. Of particular interest for Farmer is his subject's view on the depravity of mankind. Thornwell was very skeptical of social reformation through government. As such, he argued strongly against the abolitionist movement on the grounds that, as he saw it, since the Bible was silent on the issue of slavery, it should be left up to the government. When it came to reforming the politician's minds, the total depravity of man prevented any real change from occurring outside direct supernatural intervention. God, he knew, would work in His own time. As such, he thought their best efforts should be directed at mitigating the negative effects of slavery until the government, of its own volition through God's leading, brought about its end.
Thornwell and his brethren held to an extremely conservative philosophy. In his view, any change or progress was to be avoided at all costs. This led to interesting interactions with the rising tide of modernistic scientism. Proceeding with the assumption that nothing in science could contradict the Bible, he devoted some of his best work to promoting harmony between the disciplines. Like many of his contemporaries, he experienced a series of progressive changes that pushed him farther and farther towards secession. Though opposed to it initially, he transformed his views during the 1850's and became an ardent proponent of it.
Overall, his most important work was dedicated to defending southern culture, slavery and all, by proving its superiority by the Bible and the findings of science. In this way, he contributed a great deal to the groundwork for secession. Thanks to Thornwell and others, the South went into the Civil War convinced that it held the moral high ground. As such, God must be on their side, and all the apparent advantages of the North posessed would avail them nothing. Thornwell did not live to question this premise, as many were forced to do after the war. He died in 1862 after a short illness.
Farmer's book is a welcome addition to the literature of the Old South. He provides excellent coverage of an area likely to be over looked by many historians, who generally look for political and economic answers to every question. The work is deceptively long, with only a few short index pages at the end. It uses footnotes instead of endnotes, but they are usually concise and rarely dominate a page. While his writing style is easily readable, his overwhelming use of passive voice will likely irritate some readers. His research is solid; he pulls from many collections of letters as well as Thornwell's published works. It will no doubt remain well placed in the field for years to come.
| Texas Christian University |
Brian C. Melton
|