Denmark Vesey's Bible by Jeremy Schipper

Author:Jeremy Schipper
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: 2021-11-25T00:00:00+00:00

In addition to its request for a day of public humiliation and thanksgiving, the earlier letter, from September 1822, to Governor Wilson’s predecessor had a second objective. Acknowledging the fear in the white community that enslaved people who had read the Bible would find inspiration in its pages for future insurrections, the letter observed that this fear led some in the community to seek legislation “to prevent their learning to read [the Bible], or to use it freely.”4 The letter sought to address this fear and argue against such legislation. “The Scriptures,” argued the letter’s authors, “are given to Man (without respect of Persons) to make him wise unto Salvation.”5

Furman and the other coauthors took the phrase “wise unto Salvation” from 2 Timothy 3:15: “And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.” Exposure to the Bible, in other words, is essential if one is to embrace Christianity. Furman and the Charleston Bible Society’s board of managers believed that all people, regardless of their race or station in life, should have the opportunity to become Christians. As noted in the previous chapter, Benjamin Morgan Palmer, one of the vice presidents of the Charleston Bible Society, preached a sermon the day before the letter was written, arguing that Christianity benefited everyone. Thus, it is not surprising that the letter would declare, “all are required, by Divine Authority to read them [the scriptures]; because they contain the Words of Eternal Life. To prohibit the use of them therefore, in respect of any man or class of men, is to contradict & oppose the Divine Authority.”6

Despite its use of biblical phrases like “wise unto salvation,” the September 1822 letter explicitly quotes only one biblical text, and only in a footnote. While acknowledging that many people believe “that the Doctrines of Holy writ are unfavourable to the holding of Slaves,” the authors assert that slavery’s “lawfulness is positively stated in the Old Testament, & is clearly recognized in the New. In the latter a luminous Exhibition is given of Slaves.”7 Yet the letter’s authors do not identify the specific texts from the Old Testament that they have in mind. The sole New Testament text, consigned to a footnote, is 1 Timothy 6:1–2. (As noted in the previous chapter, this text figured prominently in Benjamin Palmer’s Religion Profitable. As Palmer was also a vice president of the society’s board of managers, it is very likely that this citation reflects his influence. Although the letter is signed collectively as “Your Obedient Humble Servants” and the biblical references suggest Palmer’s input, its main architect was Richard Furman.)8 In the very next sentence after they footnote 1 Timothy 6:1–2, the authors argue that although slaveholders and the enslaved enjoyed “Membership together in the Christian Church,” slaveholders are not obligated “to emancipate their Slaves, but to give them the things which are just, and equal, forbearing Threatening, & remembering that they also have a Master in Heaven.

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