Religion, Race, and the Making of Confederate Kentucky, 1830-1880

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.

• Introduction; 1. The challenge of immediate emancipationism: the origins of abolitionist heresy, 1829–35; 2. Heresy and schism: the uneasy gradualist-proslavery ecclesiastical alliance, 1836–45; 3. The limits of Christian conservative antislavery: white supremacy and the failure of emancipationism, 1845–59; 4. The abolitionist threat: religious orthodoxy and proslavery unionism on the eve of civil war, 1859–61; 5. Competing visions of political theology: Kentucky Presbyterianism's civil war, 1861–2; 6. The end of neutrality: emancipation, political religion, and the triumph of abolitionist heterodoxy, 1862–5; 7. Kentucky's redemption: confederate religion and white democratic domination, 1865–74; Epilogue: the antebellum past for the postwar future.

'Harlow makes a significant contribution to our developing understanding of the unfortunate historical relationship between evangelical Christianity, slavery, and race throughout America … [A] masterful telling … Each assertion and point of analysis is amply documented, and the end result is both refreshingly source-based and absolutely convincing. In every way that matters, Religion, Race, and the Making of Confederate Kentucky, 1830–1880 is a seamless monograph.' The American Historical Review