Sources
The Library of America (LOA) is commemorating the sesquicentennial
of the American Civil War (1861 – 1865)
in four volumes, plus one.
The Civil War: The
First Year Told By Those Who Lived It was published in 2011. Companion
volumes, covering the second and third year of the war, were published in 2012
and 2013. The final year of the war will be covered in a volume planned for
next year. Each book contains letters, diaries, speeches, articles and other documents
that give a firsthand account of “our greatest national drama…our Iliad.” This
publication is comparable to Ken Burns’ PBS series, The Civil War, surpassing Mr. Burns in primary sources, but lacking
the beguiling voice and visage of Shelby Foote.
In addition, the LOA published American Antislavery Writings: Colonial Beginnings to Emancipation
in 2012. This anthology presents theological, moral and economic arguments that
were made against slavery by obscure colonial Quakers, Founding Fathers,
slaves, clergy, novelists and philosophers.
What will not be found in the above anthologies is any
writing by the Reverend Dr. Carl Ferdinand Wilhelm Walther (October 25, 1811 –
May 7, 1887), the founding president of what now is known as The Lutheran
Church – Missouri Synod.
Dr. Walther’s writings will not be found in the Library of
America’s Civil War series because as an immigrant from the Kingdom of Saxony,
he wrote exclusively in German and for the most part addressed only the
adherents of his obscure Lutheran sect. Dr. Walther’s name does not appear in
the LOA antislavery volume either. Dr. Walther thought “the
Abolitionist-Republican party” was the instigator of the Civil War. As he
understood it, states had a right to secession under the United States Constitution.
Most importantly, Dr. Walther saw nothing in Scripture that forbade slavery.
The late Dr. August R. Suelflow documents Dr. Walther’s
position on nineteenth-century American slavery in his essay, “Walther the
American.” The essay is in C. F. W.
Walther: The American Luther; Essays in Commemoration of the 100th
Anniversary of Carl Walther’s Death.
Dr. Suelflow was the series editor for Selected Writings of C. F. W. Walther. That series is comprised of
six slender volumes of Dr. Walther’s letters, treatises, essays and sermons,
translated, edited and in many cases, condensed, for the edification of the
faithful. Selected Writings may be
viewed as The Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod’s “official edition” of Walther’s
work. At 126 years after his death, no critical, scholarly edition of Dr.
Walther’s writings exists.
In 1978, the Evangelical Lutheran Synod (ELS) published The Word of His Grace: Occasional and
Festival Sermons. This book presents translated and edited sermons that Dr.
Walther had previously published in German. One of these sermons the editors
indicate was preached “On The Annual Day Of Humiliation And Prayer” during the
Civil War. No date is given, but Dr. Walther states therein that “…nearly two
years of war …” had transpired.
The above are the chief, but not exclusive, sources for the
following discussion of Dr. Walther’s ostensibly Christian response to the
greatest political and moral issue of his day.
C. F. W. Walther was part of an immigrant Lutheran sect from
the Kingdom of Saxony. They arrived at the port of New Orleans on 5 January
1839. These Saxons together with other recent German immigrants formed Die Deutsche Evangelisch-Lutherische Synode
von Missouri, Ohio und anderen Staaten, on 26 April 1847 in Chicago, Illinois.
Dr. Walther was the first president. He would serve in that office from 1847 to
1850 and again from 1864 to 1878. In addition, Dr. Walther would serve as head pastor
of four St. Louis congregations, professor and president of the Synod’s
seminary, and editor of two German language journals. For many years, he would
serve these several offices simultaneously.
Dr. Walther opposed the Unionists and the policies of the
first Republican president, Abraham Lincoln, on theological, Constitutional and
political grounds.
“Walther maintained two positions which, to him, appeared
completely Scriptural. First, on the basis of Romans 13:1-7, he upheld the
principle that the Christian owes obedience to the state. On the other hand,
however, he felt that Scripture nowhere says that slavery in itself is a sin”
(Suelflow, p. 24).
With regard to slavery, Dr. Suelflow quotes from a late 1869
letter of Walther: “What God permits the Christians in the New Testament to do
and does not command them to put aside, but rather to control, cannot be sinful
in itself. That is what God does with regard to slavery…. Insofar as this was
ordered by law in America, American slavery was not sinful” (Suelflow, p. 25).
Note this is after the end of the Civil War in 1865. (Unfortunately, the full
letter and most of what Dr. Walther wrote concerning the Civil War and slavery
are missing from the official Selected
Writings of C. F. W. Walther edited by Dr. Suelflow.)
Dr. Walther’s idea of “obedience to the state” is closely
bound up with his understanding of the state. Dr. Suelflow cites one of
Walther’s letters: “I am a Missourian and therefore will never be moved to
separate my fortune from that of my state unless I am forced.” Dr. Walther, as
a recent immigrant from the Kingdom of Saxony, had no understanding of the Union
formed by the U. S. Constitution.
“Walther’s European homeland consisted of disunited states,
churches, and kingdoms such as the Kingdom of Saxony, the Kingdom of Prussia
and many others” (Suelflow, p. 25). There would be no united Germany until 18
January 1871. For this reason Dr. Walther’s Scriptural understanding of his
loyalty as a citizen ended at the borders of the state of Missouri.
Scripture and the Constitution contended with politics in
the mind of Dr. Walther.
Not all nineteenth-century German immigrants were pious Lutherans…
or even devout Roman Catholics. There were the “48ers,” socialist and communist
revolutionaries. There were in fact “godless communists” who settled in German
enclaves in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and St. Louis, Missouri. These radicals
became the Red Republicans, opposed to slavery and a whole lot more. Among
these Reds was Heinrich Boernstein, the St. Louis publisher of the Anzeiger des Westens. Dr. Walther often
complained of Herr Boernstein’s influence on his flock.
“Very slowly our congregation members themselves began to
read the Constitution of the United States and of the State of Missouri and
thus to compare this state of affairs and to form their own convictions. Up to
now most of them have only been influenced by the Boernstein politics” (Suelflow,
p. 22).
Dr. Walther and the
Reds
Dr. Walther’s observance of the presence of “atheistic
communism” in the Republican Party cannot be gainsaid. Karl Marx (1818 – 1883)
looked upon the American Civil War as an expression of the struggle of the
working class against Capitalist Southern landowners. On 17 October 1862,
Marx’s “On Events in North America” appeared in the Viennese newspaper Die Presse. Marx wrote, “The figure
Lincoln is sui generis in the annals
of history. No initiative, no idealistic eloquence, no buskin, no historic
drapery. He always presents the most important act in the most insignificant
form possible.” Marx called the Emancipation Proclamation “… the most
significant document in American history since the founding of the Union…” (The Lincoln Anthology, LOA, p. 49).
Upon Abraham Lincoln’s reelection in 1865, the International
Workingmen’s Association sent congratulations. “If resistance to the slave
power was the reserved watchword of your first election, the triumphant war cry
of your reelection is ‘Death to slavery’” (The
Annals of America, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., vol. 9, p. 543). The
officers of the First International, including Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels,
signed this declaration of support.
In addition to Karl Marx and the Red Republicans that
surrounded Dr. Walther in St. Louis, mention should be made of Carl Schurz
(1829 – 1906). Mr. Schurz was a “48” revolutionary who fled Europe for the
United States in 1852 to settle first in Wisconsin. There he campaigned for the
Republican Party and was an early supporter of Abraham Lincoln. He served as
minister to Spain in 1861. In 1862, he joined the Union Army and commanded
divisions at Second Bull Run, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg and Chattanooga. In
1864, Major General Carl Schurz resigned his commission to campaign among the
German-Americans for Mr. Lincoln’s reelection. After the war, Schurz served as
a Republican Senator from Missouri from 1869 to 1875 (The Lincoln Anthology, LOA, p. 330. John C. Waugh, Reelecting Lincoln: The Battle for the 1864
Presidency, p. 311).
Let this suffice to demonstrate that the first Republican
president, the cause of the Union and abolitionism were all promoted by
socialists, communists and even Karl Marx himself. It is understandable that
the pious Dr. Walther had little in common with these radicals. Unfortunately, he
did not see beyond these “atheistic” participants in the public square to
understand that slavery was wrong. Dr. Walther failed to understand that the
defense of the Union was the defense of the rule of law under the Constitution.
Dr. Walther and the Constitution
of the United States of America
We have already noted that Dr. Walther was an immigrant from
the Kingdom of Saxony, well before the establishment of the Second German
Reich. Some might think it would be presumptuous to expect that he would know
the history of the United States from the Revolution to the Articles of
Confederation and Perpetual Union (1781) and the subsequent adoption of the United
States Constitution (1789).
However, Dr. Walther made his own presumptions. “[W]e cannot
see why the state does not have the right of secession according to the United
States Constitution and according to their own constitution; and partly we have
declared that if a state secedes from the Union, naturally the individual
citizens will not revolt but will either immigrate or will subject themselves
to the seceding state government, according to the Bible passage: ‘Be obedient
to the power that has authority over you’”(Suelflow, pp. 23, 24).
Dr. Walther here presumes to know the Constitution and
proceeds to sanctify his understanding with a passage of Scripture. Later he
would preach and teach against the Union. Since he used the Office of the Holy
Ministry to promote his political views, he had an obligation to know the Constitution
and arguments for the Union. In this, he failed.
First, he failed to understand that the South had no just
cause to secede. Abraham Lincoln won the presidential election on 6 November
1860. Immediately secession began in South Carolina. Before Mr. Lincoln’s
inauguration on 4 March 1861, Federal forts were seized throughout the South
and the Confederate States of America formed, with Jefferson Davis elected
president and Alexander Stevens vice president.
“Mr. Lincoln has been constitutionally elected and, much as
I deprecate his success, no alternative is left me but to yield to the
Constitution,” wrote Sam Houston, the hero of Texas independence (The Civil War: The First Year, LOA, p. 39). The secessionists were not fighting
against any unconstitutional law. No move had been made to free slaves. No
Federal force had come against them. Mr. Lincoln had done nothing to incur
their wrath. The secessionists were rebelling against a constitutionally legal
election. When Sam Houston refused to pledge allegiance to the Confederate
States of America, he was removed from office on 16 March 1861. On 12 April
1861 the rebels fired on Fort Sumter, South Carolina, and the Civil War began.
Even without a thorough knowledge of the Constitution, Dr.
Walther should have understood that the South had no just cause to instigate
rebellion.
Secondly, Dr. Walther failed to understand that under the
Constitution no single state had the right to secede without the consent of the
whole. After the Revolution, the original thirteen colonies existed as
independent states. Those colonies voluntarily joined under the Articles of
Confederation and Perpetual Union (1781). Later, it became necessary to “form a
more perfect Union” with the Constitution of the United States. The colonies
that voluntarily joined in “perpetual” union under the 1718 Articles strengthened that perpetual union with the ratification of the Constitution of the United
States.
This is not merely an “Abolitionist-Republican” argument
against secession. This argument was published by the Democratic, and
consistently anti-Lincoln, New York Daily
News on 16 November 1860 (The Civil
War: The First Year, LOA, p. 34). If Dr. Walther had studied the
Constitution as he claimed, he should have known this argument.
Thirdly, while the original thirteen states had surrendered whatever
right of secession they might have had with the ratification of the
Constitution, the states that followed never had such a right. The territories
for those states had been purchased by the treasury of the whole nation. Dr.
Walther was a loyal citizen of Missouri. He failed to understand that the state
of Missouri was brought into the Union as a consequence of the 1803 Louisiana Purchase.
He owed allegiance to both the state and the Federal government. The case of
the secession of Texas was exceedingly reprehensible as it was purchased by
“both blood and treasure” of the Federal government in the Mexican-American War
and peace treaty that followed (Ulysses
S. Grant: Memoirs and Selected Letters, LOA, p. 146).
Dr. Walther claimed to have studied both the U. S.
Constitution and the constitution of Missouri. He clearly understood neither.
His ignorance is excusable. His animus toward the Red Republicans is
understandable. It is reprehensible, however, that his animosity toward
political opponents and ignorance of American polity shaped his preaching of
Scripture. On the greatest moral and political problem of his day, Dr. Walther
was thoroughly wrong.
Dr. Walther, Slavery
and Scripture
It has already been noted that Dr. Walther, finding no
prohibition in Scripture, declared that slavery “cannot be sinful in itself.”
Sadly, Dr. Walther was not the only Christian to hold this view.
James Henry Thornwall of the General Assembly of the
Presbyterian Church in The Confederate States of America held much the same
view. “Slavery is no new thing,” he wrote for the General Assembly. “It has not
only existed for ages in the world, but it has existed, under every dispensation
of the covenant of grace, in the Church of God.” Mr. Thornwall, in the same
address, stated, “As long as [the African race] in its comparative degradation,
coexists, side by side with the white, bondage is its normal condition” ( Annals of America, Encyclopaedia
Britannica, Inc., vol. 9, p. 301).
Vice president of the CSA Alexander Stephens preached much
the same sermon.
“Many governments have been founded upon the principle of
the subordination and serfdom of certain classes of the same race; such were
and are in violation of the laws of nature. Our system commits no such
violation of nature’s laws. With us, all the white race, however high or low,
rich or poor, are equal in the eye of the law. Not so the negro. Subordination
is his place. He by nature, or by the curse of Canaan, is fitted for that
condition which he occupies in our system” (The
Civil War: The First Year, LOA, p. 228).
The South’s “peculiar institution” of slavery did not exist
“in itself” as Dr. Walther termed it. It was not some benign category for
scholastic discussion. Slavery in the United States of America was racist.
Dr. Walther appears to have been ignorant of racism and the
other attendant evils of slavery.
In the undated sermon preached “On The Annual Day Of Humiliation
And Prayer” during the Civil War, Dr. Walther states that God uses war to
chasten and punish nations. Those nations that are chastised and do not repent
are punished. Then he accuses his congregation of not receiving the war as
chastisement. “Have we not rather applauded those who in this war saw nothing
but the birth-pangs of a new age of complete freedom and equality? Instead of
fashioning our views of this war according to the infallible Word of God, have
we not rather derived them from ungodly, atheistic newspapers?” He then warns
them of God's punishment (The Word of His
Grace, ELS, pp. 149, 150).
On a later National Day of Humiliation and Prayer, 4 August
1864, late in the war, Dr. Walther preached, “Isn’t it known within our city
and throughout the land that there are unscrupulous people who actually do not
want peace? Who want to continue the war? Some want to continue the war in
order to further their party politics” (Suelflow, p. 27).
We must be clear. In the first sermon Dr. Walther attacks
those who look for “a new age of complete freedom and equality.” While he is
obviously attacking Abolitionist-Republicans, there is no evidence that he
subscribes to the racism of Mr. Thornwall and Mr. Stephens. In the second
sermon, it is clear that Dr. Walther did subscribe to the propaganda directed
against President Lincoln by his opponents in the 1864 election. President Lincoln
was constantly accused of aspiring to tyranny. In sum, while no evidence has
been presented here that shows Dr. Walther to be a racist, he was willing to be
associated with their noxious, Scripture-perverting doctrines rather than have
any connection with Red Republicans.
What Does This Mean?
Disciples of the Reverend Dr. Carl Ferdinand Wilhelm Walther
often present him as “The American Luther.” In fact, he was nothing more than a
German pietist who aspired to Lutheran Orthodoxy and failed.
Martin Luther was a Biblical theologian who rejected the
Scholasticism of his day and influenced the development of Western Civilization
in the process. He was the last man of the Middle Ages and the first man of the
Modern Age. Whatever one finally thinks about Martin Luther, he cannot be
ignored when attempting to understand our time.
Walther was a Saxon who aped the Scholasticism of the second-generation Lutherans and had little influence beyond nineteenth-century
German-American immigrants. This is the reason much of Walther’s writing
remains untranslated. The cost-cutting effect of advancing technology may bring
more of his work into publication. However, this will only prove that Dr.
Walther is less than what his disciples think him to be. One can ignore Dr.
Walther and still achieve a comprehensive understanding of the history of the
United States of America.
What Dr. Walther presents us with is failure. He failed to
preach an uncompromised Word of the Lord concerning the most important moral
problem of his day. He failed to bring a Christian witness to the public
square. His failure is a caution to faithful Christians today… who will listen.
