Mormon Positions on Slavery

[Anonymous]

I’ve been doing a bit of research on the priesthood ban and came across some interesting information about the Mormon position on slavery in the 1830’s. Mormons were both anti-slavery and anti-abolition. At first, it seems like a strange position, but after reading Newell Bringhurst’s book Saints, Slaves, and Blacks, it makes a little sense. Bringhurst notes that other denominations had a similar position.

Mormons didn’t like slavery, but they didn’t want to be associated with Abolitionists either. Abolitionists were seen as radicals back then. Bringhurst notes that the Book of Mormon does not support slavery. Alma 27:9 says “It is against the law of our brethren…that there should be any slaves among them.”

Many saints were from the north, where slavery was unpopular. Yet Abolitionists were unpopular too. Mormons tried to straddle the fence, and Bringhurst states why Mormons and other church groups did not want to be associated with radical abolitionists on pages 20-21.

Quote:

Mormon opposition to abolitionism was primarily motivated by a Latter-day Saint desire to avoid any and all identification with the abolitionist movement. This desire, stemmed, in large part, from Mormonism’s presence in Kirtland, Ohio, on the Western Reserve. This region was a hotbed of abolitionism during the 1830s. Oberlin College, located near Kirtland, was the center for abolitionist actions through the Ohio Valley.36 Such abolitionist activity made Ohio the focal point of more antiabolitionist violence than any other state in the Union.

Because of their close proximity to such violence, the Ohio-based Saints were particularly anxious to avoid the abolitionists. They worried about the parallels that non-Mormons might draw between themselves and the abolitionists…

The Mormons, in avoiding and condemning the abolitionists, were like other northern-based church groups during the 1830s. The official Mormon antiabolitionist resolution of August 1835 was similar to declarations of other northern-based church groups. The Methodists in their 1836 national convention adopted a resolution asserting that their members had “no right, wish, or intention to interfere with the civil and political relation as it exists between master and slave in the slave-holding states of this Union.”43 In a similar fashion, the Baptists, Presbyterians, and Catholics, in national meetings of their respective churches, avoided the issue of slavery and abolition.44 Even the Quakers, who had earlier pushed for gradual elimination of slavery withdrew from active participation in all antislavery movements and condemned abolition in general.45 Several interdenominational organizations, including the Bible, Home Missionary, and Tract Societies, also rejected involvement in the abolitionist movements.

What do you make of being both anti-slave and anti-abolition?

[Anonymous]

Given the volitity of the time, I understand it totally – especially with the issues of state’s rights and the configuration of the country at the time. Taking that stance allowed people to make a moral stand without having to take a political position that could lead to splintering of their denomination.

I don’t like it in theory. I wish the early Church could have been pro-abolition, as well, in its earliest days – but Joseph’s presidential platform did include the elimination of slavery in the US, so the position evolved over time.

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