Higher Laws, Racial (In)Equality, and Democratic Violence: Theodore Parker's Abolitionist Theology

Abstract: This essay traces the evolution of Theodore Parker's ideas concerning religion and abolition from his start as a minister in the 1830s until his untimely death in 1860. It uses Parker's private and public writings to demonstrate how his embrace of a radical stance against slavery, which culminated in the justification of extralegal violence, both drew from and spread a populist movement that came to dominate northern politics on the eve of the Civil War, even as he maintained a commitment to pseudo-scientific views concerning racial hierarchies. Special attention is given to religion's role in the cultural realignments that followed the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act. Parker's life and popularity demonstrates how religious ideas continued to play a central role in the sectional crisis even after denominations and ecclesiastical institutions splintered.