Very rare and important sermon preached by New Orleans Presbyterian, B. M. Palmer, in response to the election of President Abraham Lincoln.
In the sermon, he pronounced that the election had brought to the forefront one issue – slavery – and that this issue required him to speak out. Slavery, he explained, was a question of morals and religion, and was now the central question in the crisis of the Union. The South, he went on, had a “providential trust to conserve and to perpetuate the institution of slavery as now existing.” The South was defined by slavery, he observed. “It has fashioned our modes of life, and determined all of our habits of thought and feeling, and molded the very type of our civilization.” Abolition, said Palmer, was “undeniably atheistic.” The South “defended the cause of God and religion,” and nothing “is now left but secession.”
Some 90,000 copies of a pamphlet incorporating the sermon were distributed and it was considered a great help in rallying men for the formation of the Confederate Army.
Palmer, B. M. The South: Her Peril, and Her Duty. A Discourse, Delivered in the First Presbyterian Church, New Orleans, on Thursday, November 29, 1860. New Orleans. Printed at the Office of the True Witness and Sentinel. 1860. 16pp.
A good + copy, bound in wraps, lightly shaken, with handled pages and title as shown.
