Chapter 42: A clash over slavery divides the Methodist and Baptist Churches

In June 1844 the Methodist Church, by far the nation’s largest congregation with 20 million members, breaks apart over a challenge to its clergymen owning slaves. This results in two regional wings: the Wesleyan Methodist Church in the North and the Methodist Episcopal Church in the South.

A year later the second leading denomination, the Baptists some 12 million strong, suffers a schism over the same “ownership” issue. Efforts to heal policy differences fail and what emerges is the Southern Baptist Church versus the Norths Triennial Convention.

Two senior statesmen comment on the outcome, with Henry Clay saying:

The sundering of the religious ties which have hitherto bound our people
together, I consider the greatest source of danger to our country.

And John C. Calhoun striking an even more ominous note:

 Now nothing will be left to hold the states together except force.