Proscribed Preachers, New Churches: Civil Wars in the Illinois Protestant Churches During the Civil War

Proscribed Preachers, New Churches: Civil Wars in the Illinois Protestant Churches During the Civil War Bryon C. Andreasen Exasperated by abuse heaped on Democrats from Northern church pulpits during the Civil War, Democratic editor (and local Methodist minister) Ira Norris protested from the columns of his newspaper in the spring of 1 863: "Democrats have as good a right to pray and share the blessings of grace as any beings on this green earth."1 It is undeniable that among the large number of Illinoisans who voted for Democratic candidates in elections from 1 860 through 1 864 were many churchgoing Protestants.2 Reverend Norris, in proclaiming that Democrats had "as This article is a revised version of a paper originally delivered at the Illinois Historical Symposium in 1996. 1 No copies ofthe issue ofNorris's newspaper, the Lacon Intelligencer, that contained his protest have survived. (The only surviving issues areApr. 3, 1855; Apr. 9, 1856; June 12, 1 861.) His article was republished, however, in several Democratic newspapers that have survived: "Religious Proscription ofDemocrats," Cincinnati Enquirer, May 6, 1863; "Religious Politic [sic] Proscription— More Irrepressible Conflict," Ottawa (Illinois) Free Trader, May 23, 1863; "Religious Proscription of Democrats," Columbia City (Indiana) News, May 12, 1863. 2 It is simply not possible to determine with precision the denominational affiliation of Democratic voters, given the paucity of firm data from the mid-nineteenth century. On the difficulty of obtaining religious quantitative data for the period, see Stephen L. Hansen, The Making of the Third Party System: Voters and Parties in Illinois, 1850-1876 (Ann Arbor: Univ. of Michigan Research Press, 1980), 216. My assumption is based on the sheer magnitude of the evangelical Protestant presence in Civil War America. Evangelical Protestantism reached its zenith of cultural and social influence in America in the mid-nineteenth century. If children, seekers, and casual attendere are added to official church membership numbers, historians estimate that as much as 60 percent of the population came under direct evangelical influence. The leading evangelical Protestant denominations at the time of the Civil War were Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians, Congregationalists , Disciples ofChrist, andevangelical Episcopalians. RichardJ. Carwardine,Evangelicals and Politics in AntebellumAmerica (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1993): 4-6; Curtis D. Johnson, Redeeming America: Evangelicals and the Road to Civil War (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1 993), 3-4. Non-evangelical Christians like Catholics, Lutherans, and various Reformed movements have traditionally been identified with the Democrats and have been the main focus of other wartime studies; I treat them only as they relate in general religious terms to their fellow Democrats who were evangelical Protestants. Civil War History, Vol. xuv No. 3 © 1998 by The Kent State University Press PROSCRIBED PREACHERS, NEW CHURCHES1 95 good a right to pray" as Republicans, expressed the frustration felt by many Protestant Democrats who found themselves at odds with the majority of their co-religionists. Most Northern Protestants, particularly clergymen, supported the war aims and policies of the Republican Party and the Lincoln administration .3 As the war progressed, the Democratic minority found itself increasingly ostracized and alienated from their congregations and religious leaders. Some coped by lapsing into sullen silence; others withdrew from activity or switched congregations or denominations; and some even formed new churches—derisively dubbed "Copperhead Christianity" by Republicans.4 What began as reactive , spontaneous, and defensive dissent among many Protestant Democrats, however, eventually assumed characteristics of a coordinated, self-conscious insurgency as various proscribed preachers came to the fore to give it direction. The story of these Copperhead Christians should cause historians to reassess their views about the nature and scope ofDemocratic opposition to the Republican war effort in Illinois and throughout the Midwest. The story ofone such proscribed preacher—John Van Buren Flack (his name revealing his political inheritance)—serves to introduce and illuminate the experience of many Copperhead Christians.5 Flack was twenty years old when in i860 he immigrated to Illinois from central Ohio. There he became a circuitriding preacher in the Illinois Conference of the United Brethren in Christ. He successfully fulfilled assignments throughout the west-central counties of the state, and was a favorite of the congregations he visited. Then came the war. In the...