He was one of
the most popular preacher in American in the middle 1800s.
He was the brother of
Harriett Beecher Stowe, who wrote the anti-slavery novel
Uncle Tom's Cabin in 1852.
His name was
Henry Ward Beecher.
He purchased the chains that held John Brown in prison, dragging them across the stage and stomping on them as he preached against slavery.
Beecher also supported
women voting and
Chinese immigration.
A graduate of Amherst College,
Henry Ward Beecher had thousands attend his enormous
Plymouth Church in
Brooklyn, New York, including
Abraham Lincoln, Walt Whitman and
Mark Twain.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., wrote a limerick about Henry Ward Beecher.
"The Reverend Henry Ward Beecher,
Called a hen an elegant creature,
The hen, pleased with that,
Laid an egg in his hat,
And thus did the hen reward Beecher."
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle mentioned him in
a Sherlock Holmes mystery novel.
Gutzon Borglum, creator of
Mount Rushmore, sculpted a statue of him.
To highlight the evils of slavery,
Henry Ward Beecher held simulated auctions in which his congregation donated money to buy freedom for real slaves.
One young slave girl,
Pinky, was actually liberated by
Beecher's congregation which collected her purchase price of $900.
Prior to the Civil War, the
Kansas-Nebraska Act let the issue of slavery be determined by the "choice" of the people in the Kansas territory by popular sovereignty.
Soon, a rush of
pro-slavery Democrat "Border Ruffians" flooded into Kansas, unleashing a wave of bloody violence.
A
Border War erupted between raiding bands of
Jayhawkers and Bushwackers.
The territory was referred to as
"Bleeding Kansas."
Two different Kansas state legislatures were organized:
- a Pro-slavery government met in
Pawnee;
and
- an
Anti-slavery "Free State" government met in
Topeka.
The blood-shed escalated with many atrocities:
-The Wakarusa War started in November of 1855.
-Lawrence, Kansas, was ransacked on May 21, 1856, and later massacred by Quantrill's Raiders
- Pottawatomie Massacre, May 24, 1856.
- Battle of Black Jack, June 2, 1856.
- Battle of Fort Titus, August 16, 1856,
- Battle of Osawatomie, August 30, 1856.
- Marais des Cygnes Massacre, May 19, 1858.
- Osceola, population 3,000, was burned to the ground, 200 slaves were freed and 9 citizens executed without a trial, September 23, 1861.
-Violence resulted in the Federal troops ordering
all residents evacuated from four colonies in rural, western Missouri.
Get the book America's God and Country Encyclopedia of Quotations
John Brown came to fight slavery in Kansas in October of 1855.
Republican Senator Charles Sumner condemned the Democrats bringing slavery into Kansas, May 19, 1856:
"Not in any common lust for power did this uncommon tragedy have its origin.
It is the rape of a virgin Territory, compelling it to the hateful embrace of slavery; and it may be clearly traced to a depraved desire for a new Slave State, hideous offspring of such a crime, in the hope of adding to the power of slavery in the National Government."
Two days later,
Democrat Congressman Preston Brooks beat
Senator Sumner nearly to death on the floor of the Senate.
From 1854 to 1858,
Henry Ward Beecher and his church bought hundreds of the
new Sharps Rifles and shipped them to anti-slavery Free Soil supporters and abolitionist Republicans in Kansas.
These rifles had new 1850 patented innovations of breech-loading and self-priming, which offered quick loading, speed in firing, and accuracy in distance.
Recommending them as effective weapon to fight pro-slavery Democrats,
The New York Tribune printed February 8, 1856, that
Henry Ward Beecher:
"... believed that the
Sharps Rifle was a truly moral agency, and that there was more moral power in one of those instruments, so far as the slaveholders of Kansas were concerned, than in a hundred
Bibles ...
... You might just as well ... read the Bible to Buffaloes as to those fellows who follow Atchison and Stringfellow; but they have a supreme respect for the logic that is embodied in
Sharp's rifle."
The
Sharps Rifle soon became known as a
"Beecher's Bible."
As Federal and State authorities forbade shipping arms to the region, rifles were packed in wooden crates marked as "Books."
When pro-slavery Democrats intercepted a case and took the guns,
Beecher began to personally pass out rifles to abolitionist settlers who were headed to Kansas.
In 1855, seventy settlers founded a town in northeast Kansas named Wabaunsee, also called New Haven or the
"Beecher Rifle Colony."
It became a stop of the Underground Railway for escaped slaves.
Their church still exists -- the
Beecher Bible and Rifle Church.
When the Civil War started,
Beecher raised and equipped a volunteer Union infantry regiment.
He became largely responsible for
pressuring Republican President Lincoln to issue the
Emancipation Proclamation.
When Union forces retook Fort Sumter in 1865,
President Abraham Lincoln selected Henry Ward Beecher to give the speech commemorating the event.
Immensely popular,
Beecher has been viewed as
second only to Lincoln in
shaping post-war America's
public opinion.
Henry Ward Beecher stated:
"I educated myself to
speak ... my moral convictions; and though, in later days, it has carried me through places where there were
some batterings and bruisings, yet I have been supremely grateful that I was led to adopt this course ...
... I would rather
speak the truth to ten men
than blandishments and lying to a million.
Try it, ye who think there is nothing in it!
Try what it is to speak with God behind you,--to speak so as to be
only the arrow in the bow which the Almighty draws."
Get the book America's God and Country Encyclopedia of Quotations
Henry Ward Beecher, and his sister
Harriett Beecher Stowe, drew their convictions from their father,
Lyman Beecher.
In 1833,
Lyman debated for 18 days in a row at Lane Seminary in favor of ending slavery. Pro-slavery Democrats from Kentucky threatened to burn the campus down.
Lyman Beecher died JANUARY 10, 1863.
He was a renowned New England clergyman who d
efended the doctrine of the Trinity, thus curtailing the spread of Unitarianism.
He and his wife championed the
education of women, advocated ending dueling, and helped found
a temperance society, condemning the evils of profiting from substance abuse.
"Intemperance is the sin of our land, and ... is coming in upon us like a flood ... If anything shall defeat the hopes of the world, which hand upon our experiment of civil liberty, it is that river of fire which is rolling through the land, destroying the vital air and extending around an atmosphere of death."
In
The Spirit of the Pilgrims, 1831,
Lyman Beecher wrote:
"
The Government of God is the only government which will hold society
against depravity within and temptation without."
Lyman Beecher was quoted in
McGuffey's Eclectic Sixth Reader, 1907:
"While most nations trace their origin to barbarians, the foundations of
our nation were laid by civilized men, by Christians."
In his
Plea for the West, 1835,
Lyman Beecher wrote:
"
If this nation is, in the
providence of God, destined to lead the way in the moral and political emancipation of the world,
it is time she understood her high calling, and were harnessed for the work.
For mighty causes, like floods from distant mountains, are rushing with accumulating power to their consummation of
good or evil."
Three SECULAR Reasons Why America Should be Under God
Schedule Bill Federer for informative interviews & captivating PowerPoint presentations: 314-502-8924 [email protected]
American Minute is a registered trademark. Permission is granted to forward, reprint or duplicate with acknowledgement
