The Bible in American Law and Politics. John R. Vile
contrasted it to the aristocratic government of the Confederate States and to the despotisms of other nations (250).
As the war progressed, Beecher sharpened his attack on the Confederacy. Basing a sermon on “Our Good Progress and Prospects” on the story of Jesus casting out a demon from a boy in Mark 9:26–27, Beecher likened that demon to American slavery (368) and lauded Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. A sermon on “Liberty under Law,” which drew from Galatians 5:18, again also drew from natural law (396) to argue that no one should be subject to bondage to another.
As he reached the last sermon, Beecher evoked a long passage from Revelation 18:1–8 describing Babylon, which he applied to any regime that violated justice and emphasized commerce over human rights (420). The prospect of emancipation had finally revealed the wide gap between “the great cause of God in modern civilization and the cause of the Devil” (433). He ended with the hope that slavery “and those who uphold it” might perish (445).
See also Brown, John; Declaration of Independence; Lincoln, Abraham; Prophets and Jeremiads; Slavery; Stevens, Alexander H. (The Cornerstone Speech); Stowe, Harriet Beecher; U.S. Flag
For Reference and Further Reading
Beecher, Henry Ward. 1863. Freedom and War. Discourses on Topics Suggested by the Times. Boston: Ticknor and Fields.
Cheesebrough, David B., and Lawrence W. McBride. 1990. “Sermons as Historical Documents: Henry Ward Beecher and the Civil War.” History Teacher 23 (May): 275–91.
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Benefit of Clergy
Although colonial codes of justice were often quite rigid by comparisons to those of today, judges and juries sometimes worked to avoid their more severe consequences, and there were a number of legal remedies that defendants could employ. One such mechanism was known as the benefit of clergy and was applied to some of the soldiers who had been convicted of manslaughter in the so-called Boston Massacre. After claiming benefit of clergy, they were branded on their hand and released.
The mechanism appears to have originated in England, where ordained clergymen could claim exemption from civil jurisdiction in preference for ecclesiastical jurisdiction. In time, this privilege was extended to individuals, clergymen or not, who were convicted of a broad range of felonies. Originally, after they made the claim, they were asked to read a passage of Scripture (thus initially applying only to those who were literate), and then branded rather than given the stiffer punishment. Typically, one could only evoke the benefit of clergy for one offense.
This workaround appears to have been based on Psalm 105:15, which admonished, “Touch not mine anointed, and do my prophets no harm” (Skousen 2008, 7), but this tie arguably applied far more clearly to the benefit’s initial desire to exclude clergymen from ecclesiastical jurisdiction than of its later use in mitigating punishments.
Although originating in England, the practice was continued in the American colonies, with one scholar observing that it remained “a fundamental feature of the criminal law in Maryland and Virginia” up through about the end of the eighteenth century (Sawyer 1990, 67). He further observed that the colonies used the mechanism not simply because it was English but because it proved just as useful in mitigating the harsher elements of the law.
See also Criminal Law
For Reference and Further Reading
Sawyer, Jeffrey K. 1990. “‘Benefit of Clergy’ in Maryland and Virginia.” American Journal of Legal History 34 (January): 79–68.
Skousen, Lesley. 2008. “Redefining Benefit of Clergy during the English Reformation: Royal Prerogative, Mercy, and the State.” Thesis for MA in history at the University of Wisconsin.
Benezet, Anthony
Anthony Benezet (1713–1784) was a Pennsylvania Quaker who had immigrated to America from France. A friend of Benjamin Rush’s, Benezet served as a school teacher and reformer who advocated for the education of women and African Americans and was very active in the early anti-slavery movement. Even though Pennsylvania had been founded as a haven for individuals of all faiths, American Patriots often resented the refusal of Quaker neighbors who failed to take up arms against those that the Patriots considered to be common enemies.
In one of Benezet’s most important essays, his “Serious Considerations on Several Important Subjects,” which was printed in 1778, he laid out the case for 53Christian pacifism and other reforms. Mark Noll has observed that the work “devoted thirteen pages to slavery, in which Scripture was prominent; seven pages against drink, in which an appeal to Scripture was mostly absent; and about twenty-eight pages on warfare, again relentlessly biblical” (2016, 275).
As Noll indicates, Benezet’s indictment of war was particularly dominated by Scriptures. Believing that Christians were called to emulate Christ and to obey his commandment to love one another and follow his counsel in the Sermon on the Mount, Benezet contrasted this with the death and destruction that accompany war. Citing James 4, he further associated war with human lust and with the inability to trust God. Christians are called upon to love and pray for their enemies rather than destroying them, whereas war proceeds from man’s fallen nature and that which is carnal. Benezet was particularly concerned that deaths caused by war shortened the time that sinners would otherwise have to repent and receive redemption. It is further inconsistent with the prophecy in Isaiah 2:4 that describes God’s kingdom, for which Jesus urged Christians to pray, as one where nations have beaten their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks.
Although Benezet’s words against slavery were also scripturally based, at the beginning of this section of his narrative, he quoted statements from the Declaration of Independence and the Virginia Declaration of Rights that indicated that all men are created equal while indicating that failure to live up to such proclamations “is likely to be one of the principal causes of those heavy judgments, which are now so sensibly displayed over the Colonies” (1778, 29). Whereas Scripture (Isaiah 1:17) called upon people “to seek judgment, to relieve the oppressed; to plead for the fatherless, and to judge for the widow” (30), slavery elevated the pursuit of profit over such ideals. Scripture (Jeremiah 34:17) thus condemned the people for not hearkening unto God “in proclaiming liberty every one to his brother, and every man to his neighbor” (32). If people continued to withhold love and compassion, and continue to act the part of “menstealers,” they would be judged like the ancient cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.
Benezet’s remarks on “spirituous liquors” (40) focused not on alcohol in general but on distilled beverages, which Benezet thought were especially detrimental to health and morals and which spiritually enslave men. In an interesting twist, he also associated the practice with other ills:
Besides that it would discourage the distillation of rye and other grain; a practice which is not only a great hurt to the poor in raising the price of bread but must also be very offensive to God the great and good father of the family of mankind, that people should in their earthly and corrupt wisdom, pervert their Maker’s benevolent intention, in converting the grain he hath given to us as the staff of life, unto a fiery spirit, so destructive of the human frame and attended with the other dreadful consequences already mentioned. (1778, 44)
Benezet was particularly skeptical of claims that distilled alcohol eased earthly labors, but pointed out that even if they did so, “they must nevertheless waste the powers of life, and of course occasion premature old age” (45). Benezet further cited Paul’s admonition in 1 Corinthians 8:13 that “if meat make 54my brother to offend I will eat no flesh while the world stands, lest I make my brother to offend,” which he though equally applied to strong drink (47).
See also Declaration of Independence; Quakers; Rush, Benjamin; Slavery
For Reference