Southerners still argue the cause of the Civil War on the 150th anniversary of its start.
Some call it the War of the Northern Aggression, a battle that pitted patriots defending states’ rights against a tyrannical federal government. Others blame economics – regional tensions between the industrialized North and the rural South.
But at the Southern Baptist Historical Library and Archives in downtown Nashville, what the Baptists of that era thought becomes clear.
The cause was slavery. They never even mentioned anything else.
“It cannot be denied that the institution of slavery is the cause of the war,” Boykin wrote in August of 1861, defending the Confederacy. “… We have boldly seized the Bible in one hand and the sword in the other and plunged into this struggle resolved to maintain our cause or die martyrs with the sincerity of our convictions.”
Read on at Southern Baptists examine role in slavery The Tennessean
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