Theology, Slavery, and Abolition 1756–1848

The seventeenth-century Court of Session cases involving slaves in Scotland saw extensive use of Scripture on both sides, and the issue of Christian baptism was more significant north of the border. Scottish petitions to Parliament against the slave trade emphasized divine wrath and national guilt. The sinfulness of enslavement was generally accepted in the Church despite the widespread profits from slavery, but by the 1830s a key call from a leading minister for immediate abolition replaced the cautious gradual approach, hitherto accepted in the churches. After the abolition of slavery in the British Empire, attention turned to America in the 1840s. Support for the new Free Church from Northern and Southern States led to a nationwide campaign to ‘Send Back the Money’ and have no fellowship with slaveholders, led largely by Presbyterian Secessionists and Quaker abolitionists.