Religion, Race, and the Making of Confederate Kentucky, 18301880

This book sheds new light on the role of religion in the nineteenth-century slavery debates. Luke E. Harlow argues that the ongoing conflict over the meaning of Christian 'orthodoxy' constrained the political and cultural horizons available for defenders and opponents of American slavery. The central locus of these debates was Kentucky, a border slave state with a long-standing antislavery presence. Although white Kentuckians famously cast themselves as moderates in the period and remained with the Union during the Civil War, their religious values showed no moderation on the slavery question. When the war ultimately brought emancipation, white Kentuckians found themselves in lockstep with the rest of the Confederate South. Racist religion thus paved the way for the making of Kentucky's Confederate memory of the war, as well as a deeply entrenched white Democratic Party in the state.

About the author

Luke E. Harlow is Associate Professor of History at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. His published work has appeared in Slavery and Abolition, Ohio Valley History and the Register of the Kentucky Historical Society. He is the co-editor of Religion and American Politics: From the Colonial Period to the Present.

Summary

This book sheds new light on the role of religion in the nineteenth-century slavery debates. Luke E. Harlow argues that the ongoing conflict over the meaning of Christian 'orthodoxy' constrained the political and cultural horizons available for defenders and opponents of American slavery.

Product details

• Authors: Luke E. (University of Tennessee Harlow, Luke E Harlow, Luke E. Harlow
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press ELT
• Content: Book
• Product form: Hardback
• Publication date: 21.04.2014
• Subject: Non-fiction book > History > Miscellaneous; Humanities, art, music > History > Regional and national histories
• EAN: 9781107000896
• ISBN: 978-1-107-00089-6
• Pages: 258
• Series: Cambridge Studies on the American South; Cambridge Studies on the American South
• Subjects: Modern history to 20th century: c 1700 to c 1900, HISTORY / United States / 19th Century, Kentucky, c 1800 to c 1900, 19th century, c 1800 to c 1899, 18th century, c 1700 to c 1799, History of the Americas