USA > Tennessee > History of Tennessee from the earliest time to the present : together with an historical and a biographical sketch of from twenty-five to thirty counties of east Tennessee, V.2 > Part 23
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The first published Memphis paper was The Memphis Advocate and Western District Intelligencer, the first issue appearing January 18, 1827. It was a weekly publication by Parron & Phoebus. The Times was established soon after, and later the two were consolidated and en- titled The Times and Advocate. P. G. Gaines and Mr. Murray found- ed The Memphis Gazette in 1831, and it continued until 1837 or 1838. F. S. Lathan, publisher of The Randolph Recorder, established in 1836 a weekly paper known as The Memphis Enquirer, with Mr. J. H. McMahon, editor. The paper continued with many changes of owners and editors until 1850, when it united with The Eagle, and was published as The Eagle and Enquirer for ten years. The Eagle was established by T. S. La- tham in January, 1842. Dr. Solon Borland began the publication of The Western World and Memphis Banner of the Constitution, a weekly, in 1839. The first number of The Memphis Appeal, edited by Henry Van Pelt, appeared April 21, 1841. It has changed proprietors several times since his death, and is still published as a daily and weekly. Memphis Monitor, which was founded by John C. Morrill in 1846, was merged into The Appeal soon after. Several other newspapers of a transitory na- ture were in existence between 1846 and 1860. Among these were The Whig Commercial and Evening Herald. The Memphis Bulletin, estab- lished in 1855, was published until 1867, when it was merged into The Av- alanche. The latter was founded by M. C. Gallaway in 1858, and with the exception of three years during the war, has since been published both as a daily and as a weekly. There were several papers published in the war, among which were The Public Ledger. Argus and Commercial. The last two were united in 1866 or 1867. In addition to newspapers a num- ber of periodicals have been published. The following is a list of the publications in 1884: Dailies-Appeal, Avalanche, Public Ledger and Scimeter. Each also publishes weekly editions. Weeklies and monthlies- Living Way, Mississippi Valley Medical Monthly, Review, Southern Post Journal (German), Tennessee Baptist and Watchman, a colored Baptist paper.
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CHAPTER XVIII.
RELIGIOUS HISTORY-THE RELATION BETWEEN RELIGION AND THE CONSTITUTION AND THE LAWS -- THE GRADUAL DEVELOPMENT OF ECCLESIASTICAL TOLERA- TION -- THE SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE -- THE EARLIEST MINISTRA- TIONS IN TENNESSEE-THE METHODS OF THE CIRCUIT RIDERS, AND THE PHENOMENAL RESULTS -- AN ANALYSIS OF THE CAUSES OF THE "JERKS" AND THE "POWER" -- A SUMMARY OF THE CREEDS OF THE PRINCIPAL SECTARIAN ORGAN- IZATIONS-AN ACCOUNT OF THE ORIGIN, GROWTH AND SUCCESS OF THE VARI- OUS CHURCHES-FAMOUS REVIVALS AND ILLUSTRATIVE ANECDOTES-THE IMPORTANCE OF THE ESTABLISHMENT OF CAMP MEETINGS-THE CONTROVER- SIES OF THE CHURCHES UPON THE QUESTION OF SLAVERY-THE INTEREST TAKEN IN SUNDAY-SCHOOL WORK -- THE RELIGIOUS STATUS OF THE COLORED RACE-BUILDINGS, FINANCES, PUBLICATIONS, CONVENTIONS, ETC.
T THE progress a people has made, so far as intelligence and tolerance of opinion are concerned, is with tolerable accuracy ascertainable by a careful study of their constitution and laws. When the people of a State adopt an original or an amended constitution, that constitution may be taken as an expression of their sentiments, opinions or convic- tions as to what is essential to the welfare of the community. The same remark is applicable to the laws passed by that body endowed with the power of enactment. It is true that a constitution may be adopted by a mere majority of the voters; the minority may be more or less earnestly opposed to it; the minority may be in fact more intelligent than the ma- jority, may gradually come to be the majority and may then amend the constitution under which they have lived in such manner that it shall con- form to their sentiments, opinions and convictions. This new constitu- tion in the particulars in which it has been amended indicates the change in the opinions of the people; it may be progression, it may be retrogres- sion, but the old and amended constitutions when compared serve to mark the degrees on the scale of progress. Individuals may be, and sometimes are, centuries in advance of their contemporaries. Lord Bacon who died in 1626, said: "Divisions in religion are less dangerous than violent measures of prevention. The wound is not dangerous unless poisoned with remedies. Inquiry is not to be feared. Controversy is the wind by which the truth is winnowed."
Where the mind is free religion never has dangerous enemies. Atheism is the mistake of the metaphysician, not of human nature. In- fidelity gains the victory when it wrestles with hypocrisy or superstition, not when its antagonist is reason. When an eclesiastical establishment
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requires universal conformity some consciences must necessarily be wronged and oppressed. In such cases, if the wrong be successful, the servitude is followed by consequences analogous to those which ensue on the civil enslavement of the people. The mind is burdened by a sense of injury; the judgment is confused, and in its zeal to throw of an intol- lerable tyranny, passion attempts to sweep away every form of religion. Bigotry commits the correlative error when it attempts to control opion- ion by positive statutes; to substitute the terrors of law for convincing argument. «It is a gigantic crime from the commission of which in the past the world is still suffering, to enslave the human mind under the earnest desire or under the specious pretext of protecting religion. Re- ligion of itself, pure and undefiled, never had an enemy. It has enemies only when coupled with bigotry, superstition and intolerance, and then only because it is so enveloped in these as to be indistinguishable from them. While their power and their tryanny have for centuries been em- ployed to strengthen and defend religion, they have ever been, and are to-day, though in a far less degree than formerly. the worst enemy that religion has. The history of the world conclusively proves that positive enactments against irreligion, or prohibiting the denial of the truths of religion as they are conceived to be, provoke and cause the very evil they were designed to prevent. For to deny the truths of the proposi- tions or dogmas of any form of religion is a right inherent in every man. for the exercise of which he is responsible to none but to himself and his Creator. Besides there are always those who have a desire for martyr- dom, being unable in any other way to achieve distinction, and because to be a martyr evinces courage and excites sympathy, and there are always more people capable of extending sympathy to the persecuted and oppressed than there are of those capable of rendering an accurate judg- ment upon the question for which the martyr chooses to be impaled.
While such principles as these seem now to be generally admitted. yet at the time of the formation of the constitutions of most of the origi- nal thirteen States, the most intelligent of the people, law-makers. min- isters and others, notwithstanding the fact that the Pilgrims abandoned England and sought the unknown and inhospitable shores of America for the sole purpose of finding an asylum in which they could themselves exercise and enjoy the sweets of religious freedom, and notwithstanding the fact that the Catholic colony of Maryland under Lord Baltimore, had found it expedient to extend to Protestants the religious liberty which they claimed for themselves, entertained and succeeded in having en- grafted into most of those constitutions provisions embodying and enfore- ing sentiments similar to those expressed by the rugged and uncom-
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promising Dudley, who was not softened even by old age, and many others of the leading religious thinkers of colonial times. Said Dudley: "God forbid our love of truth should thus grow cold-that we should tol- erate error. I die no libertine."
"Let men of God, in courts and churches watch, All such as toleration hatch, Lest that ill egg bring forth a cockatrice, To poison all with heresy and vice; If men be left and otherwise combine, My epitaph's "I died no libertine."
Cotton affirmed that it is "better to tolerate hypocrites and tares, than thorns and briers;" thus recognizing the great principle that hypocrisy is one of the grave evils of intolerance. Ward's opinion was that "poly- piety is the greatest impiety in the world. To say that man ought to have liberty of conscience is impious ignorance." Norton said: "Relig- ion admits of no eccentric motions."
In consonance with these sentiments and the spirit which they indi- cate, Massachusetts adopted a constitution under which a particular form of worship was made a part of the civil establishment, and irreligion was punished as a civil offense. Treason against the civil government was treason against Christ, and reciprocally blasphemy was the highest offense in the catalogue of crimes. To deny that any book of the Old or New Testament was the infallible word of God was punishable by fine or by whipping, and in case of obstinacy by exile or by death. Absence from the "ministry of the Word" was punished by a fine. "The State was the model of Christ's kingdom on earth." Gradually the spirit of the established religion smothered nearly every form of independence and liberty. The creation of a national, uncompromising church led the Congregationalists of Massachusetts to the indulgence of passions which. exercised upon them by their English persecutors, had driven them across the sea, and thus was the Archbishop of Canterbury justified by the men he had wronged. Massachusetts, after a vain attempt to silence the Quakers, made a vain attempt to banish them. She was as strongly set against what appeared to her as ruinous heresy as a healthy city is against the plague. The second general court of Massachusetts, which met May 18, 1631, is chiefly remarkable for the adoption of the theo- cratic basis on which for fifty years the government of the State con- tinued to rest. No man was thereafter recognized as a citizen and a voter who was not a member of some one of the colonial churches, and in order to obtain admission to one of them it was necessary to make an orthodox confession of faith. live conformably to Puritan decorum. and add to this a satisfactory religious experience, of which the substantial
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part was an internal assurance of a change of heart and a lively sense of justification as one of God's elect .* In 1649 it was deemed necessary to support the fundamental doctrines of the theocracy by civil penalties. "Albeit faith is not wrought by the sword, but by the Word. nevertheless seeing that blasphemy of the true God can not be excused by any ignor- ance or infirmity of human nature, no person in this jurisdiction, whether Christian or pagan, shall wittingly or willingly presume to blaspheme His holy name, either by willfully and obstinately denying the true God. or His creation and government of the world, or shall curse God, or re- proach the holy religion of God, as if it were but an ingenious device to keep ignorant men in awe, nor shall utter any other eminent kind of blasphemy of like nature or degree under penalty of death."
Such was the nature of the relation in Massachusetts between Church and State. Every person was taxed for the support of the church in the same manner as he was to support the government, but was permitted to say to which individual church his money should be paid. And such laws disgraced the pages of the statutes of that State to a later date than were those of any other State similarly disfigured. On April 1, 1554. a bill was enacted into a law containing the following provisions:
No person shall hereafter become or be made a member of any parish or religious society so as to be liable to be taxed therein for the support of public worship, or for other parish charges without his express consent for that purpose first had and obtained.
No citiżen shall be assessed or liable to pay any tax for the support of public worship or parish charges to any parish or religious society whatever other than that of which he is a member.
In 1649 sixteen acts were forwarded to Maryland to which the gov- ernor was to obtain the assent of the Assembly. One of these was en- titled "An Act of Toleration." The first four sections of this celebrated act comprised but little of the tolerant spirit, as may be seen by a peru- sal of their provisions: "All who shall blaspheme God, that is, curse Him, or who shall deny our Saviour Jesus Christ to be the Son of God. or shall deny the Holy Trinity, the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. or the Godhead of any of the said three persons of the Trinity, or the unity of the Godhead, or shall use or utter any reproachful speeches against the Holy Trinity, shall suffer death with forfeiture of lands and goods." Strange as it may seem, this death penalty for this offense darkened the statutes of Maryland for 200 years. No one was permitted under the law to utter any reproachful words or speeches concerning the Virgin Mary or the holy apostles or evangelists without suffering the penalty of a fine, and banishment for the third offense. No one was permitted to reproachfully call any one "heretic, schismatic, idolator, Puritan, Pres-
*Hildreth.
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byterian," etc., without being compelled to submit to suitable punish- ment. "Liberty of conscience" was, however, provided for in the follow- ing words: "That the enforcing the conscience in matters of religion hath frequently fallen out to be of dangerous consequences in those - commonwealths where it hath been practiced, and therefore for the more
quiet and peaceful government of the province, and the better to preserve mutual love and unity, no person professing the religion of Jesus Christ shall be molested or discountenanced on account of his religion, nor in- terrupted in the free exercise thereof." It is clear, however, from a study of the history of the colony of Maryland that whatever liberty of conscience was here provided for to those who "believed the religion of Jesus Christ" was adopted for the sake of policy, for the reason that an exclus- ively Roman Catholic colony would not have been for a moment tolerated by the mother country, then under the domination of the Church of Eng- land.
The same idea is embodied in the Declaration of Rights prefixed to the constitution of 1776 in the following language: " All persons pro- fessing the Christian religion, are equally entitled to protection in their religious liberty," and while this declaration expressed the opinion that " no person ought to be compelled to frequent or maintain or contribute, unless on contract to maintain any particular place of worship, or partic- ular ministry, yet," it said, " the Legislature may in their discretion lay a general and equal tax for the support of the Christian religion." Later this was all changed and liberty of conscience granted in the follow- ing words: "That, as it is the duty of every man to worship God in such manner as he thinks most acceptable to Him, all persons are equally en- titled to protection in their religious liberty."
Chapter III of the laws of Virginia passed in 1661, provided that " no minister be admitted to officiate in this country but such as shall produce to the Governour a testimonial, that he hath received his ordi- nation from some bishop in England, and shall then subscribe to be conformable to the orders and constitutions of the Church of Eng- land." etc. Chapter V provided that the liturgy of the Church of England should be read every Sunday, and no minister nor reader was permitted to teach any other catechism that that by the canons appointed and inserted in the book of common prayer, that no min- ister should expound any other than that. to the end "that our fun- damentals at least be well laid," and that no reader upon presumption of his own abilities should attempt to expound that or any other cate- chism or the Scriptures. Chapter VI, of the laws of 1705, provided for the punishment of "atheism, deism or infidelity" as follows: " If any
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person or persons brought up in the Christian religion shall by writing. printing, teaching or advisedly speaking, deny the being of a God, or the Holy Trinity, or shall deny the Christian religion to be true, or the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be of divine author- ity, and shall be thereof legally convicted upon indictment or information in a general court of this, Her Majesty's colony and dominion, such per- son or persons for this offense shall be incapable or disabled in law to all intents and purposes whatever to hold and enjoy any office or employ- ment, ecclesiastical, civil or military, or any part of them or any profit or advantage to them appertaining or any of them." For the second of- fense "he, she or they shall from thenceforth be disabled to sue, prose- cute, plead or use any action or information in any court of law or equity, or to be guardian to any child, or to be executor or administrator of any person. or capable of any deed or gift or legacy, or to bear any office. civil or military, within this, Her Majesty's colony or dominion, and shall also suffer from the time of such conviction three years' imprisonment without bail or mainprise."
A remarkable change in the attitude of Christianity toward infidelity occurred between this time and the adoption of the constitution of 1776. Section 16 of the Bill of Rights prefixed to this constitution reads as follows: " That religion, or the duty which we owe to our Creator, and the manner of discharging it, can be directed only by reason and convic- tion, not by force or violence; and, therefore, all men are entitled to the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience; and that it is the mutual duty of all to practice Christian forbearance, love and charity toward each other." This section has been incorporated into all the succeeding constitutions of Virginia, and still remains the embodi- ment of the sentiment of the people of that State as to religious tolera- tion.
The celebrated "fundamental constitutions of Carolina," drawn up by John Locke, author of the "Essay on the Human Understanding,"" provides in Article XCV that "No man shall be permitted to be a free- man of Carolina, or to have any estate or habitation within it, that doth not acknowledge a God, and that God is publicly and solemnly to be wor- shiped." But when the constitution of North Carolina came to be adopted the sentiment of the people with reference to religious liberty found expression in the following language: "That all men have a natu- ral and unalienable right to worship Almighty God according to the dic- tates of their own consciences." But "That no person who shall deny the being of God, or the truth of the Protestant religion, or the Divine authority either of the Old or New Testaments, or who shall hold relig-
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ious principles incompatible with the freedom and safety of the State, shall be capable of holding any office or place of trust or profit in the civil department of this State."
By a careful comparison of these various excerpt from the colonial and State constitutions and laws, the general reader will have but little difficulty in forming a tolerably correct conception of the progress made in public opinion as to the proper attitude to be assumed toward religion by the State, during the century or two previous to the adoption of the first constitution of Tennessee. Neither will he be less gratified than surprised to find that very little of the spirit of intolerance can be found crystalized into the provisions of that venerable instrument. And his impartial judgment may be unable to conclude that it would have been better for the interests of the State if what little of intolerance that is included had been omitted. With reference to the religious liberty of the individual, Section 3 of the Declaration of Rights is sufficiently ex- plicit: " All men have a natural and indefeasable right to worship Almighty God according to the dictates of their own consciences: that no man can of right be made to attend, erect or support any place of worship, or to maintain any minister against his consent; that no human authority can, in any case whatever, control or interfere with the rights of conscience, and that no preference shall ever be given by law to any religious establishment or mode of worship." This provision, as well as those relating to religious tests to office-holders, is in all the constitu- tions that have been adopted in Tennessee, in 1796, 1834 and in 1870, and stands as an admirable safeguard to the most cherished, if not the most valuable, of all kinds of freedom.
The little intolerance that the constitution contains applies only to office-holders, and is in the following words in the Declaration of Rights: "Section 4. That no religious test shall ever be required as a qualifica- tion to any office or public trust under this State:" and is as follows in the constitution: "Article IX, Section 2. No person who denies the be- ing of a God, or a future state of rewards and punishments, shall hold any office in the civil department of this State." The hypercritic might discover a slight contradiction in these two provisions, but perhaps the most able political philosopher would fail should he attempt to prove that evil has resulted to the body politic from its existence in the fundamen- tal law of the State.
The special laws of North Carolina that were in operation in this Territory previous to the operation of the State constitution were simply those which granted some special privilege to certain sects afflicted with conscientious scruples regarding the taking of an oath, as the United
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Brethren, Mennonites, Quakers, Dunkers, etc. In 1784 the Legislature of North Carolina passed an act by which the Quakers were permitted to "solemnly declare or affirm," instead of "to swear," and the same act provided that " it shall be lawful for the people called Quakers to wear their hats as well within the several courts of judicature in this State as elsewhere, unless otherwise ordered by the court." Thus it will be seen that under the constitution and laws in operation both before and after the adoption of the constitution, all the various' opinions concerning re- ligion, those unfavorable as well as favorable toward it were tolerated, · and it will be seen also as this narrative proceeds that all kinds of opin- ions upon religious subjects not only were tolerated but found a home in this State, and still here abide.
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It is generally admitted, perhaps nowhere seriously denied, that war is among the greatest demoralizers of the world, and the early settle- ment of this State was so nearly contemporaneous with the war of the Revolution, and war with various Indian tribes was so constantly present with the early settlers, that it is but reasonable to expect that an impar- tial inquiry into their condition must find that many of them were frequent- ly in anything but a religious state of mind, and even where they were thus disposed, religious instruction and worship were neglected from the neces- sity of the case, and even forms of religion imperfectly maintained. Vice and immorality have always followed in the wake of armies, as also, though to a less degree, in that of the excitement attendant upon political faction. But when the excitement of war subsides and that of politics is not intense, the superabundant energies of the people naturally turn to the excitement of religious discussion and debate. When the morals and the minds of a community are in this impressionable condition it may be truthfully said that the harvest is indeed ready for the sickle, but in this early time the reapers were few; and the field is equally in- viting to the circuit rider, missionary or preacher who labors for fame as to him who sincerely and earnestly labors for the salvation of souls. Happily, however, for the gratification of the lover of his State, the preachers of the latter class were far more numerous than those of the former in those early times.
One of the first to arrive within the limits of the State was the Rev. Charles Cummings, a Presbyterian minister, who preached regularly to a congregation in the Holston Valley not far from Abingdon, Va., as early as 1772. It was the custom of Mr. Cummings on Sunday morning to dress himself neatly, put on his shot pouch, shoulder his rifle, mount his horse and ride to church, where he would meet his congregation, each man with his rifle in his hand. Entering the church he would walk
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gravely through the crowd, ascend his pulpit, and after depositing his rifle in one corner of it, so as to be ready for any emergency, commence the solemn services of the day. Indians were not scarce in those days, and frontier congregations consisted of armed men surrounded by their families. Also in the eastern part of the State in 1779 a Baptist preacher named Tidence Lane organized a congregation, a house of worship was built on Buffalo Ridge, and the Rev. Samuel Doak was preaching about this time in Washington and Sullivan Counties. When the little army under Campbell, Shelby and Sevier, was preparing to march to King's Mountain, a solemn and appropriate prayer for Divine protection and > guidance was offered up by a clergyman whose name does not seem to have been preserved. In 1783 the Rev. Jeremiah Lambert was appointed to the Holston Circuit, and at the end of his year reported seventy-six members. In 1784 Rev. Henry Willis succeeded Mr. Lambert, but, although his services were valuable he did not increase the membership. In 1785 he was elder in the district embracing Holston, while Richard Swift and Michael Gilbert were on the circuit. The Presbyterians also made an early start in East Tennessee. Many of them were Scotch-Irish, and though doubtless of equal piety with the Methodist brethren, yet there was naturally an antagonism between the two sects on account of the incompatibility of the doctrines taught. In 1788, while tumult and discord were impending between North Carolina and the State of Frank- lin, the opportune arrival of the venerable Bishop Asbury, of the Method- ist Episcopal Church, a man of quiet dignity. unpretending simplicity and exemplary piety, served to calm and soothe the excited masses.
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