Romanticism

Faust makes a convincing case that the formation of Confederate Nationalism was heavily influenced by the rise of romanticism.  This case for romanticism as a core element of Southern identify relied heavily on the Bible to provide the requisite mythology and common cause needed by all burgeoning nations, especially nations with diverse peoples and religions.  The privatization and individualism seen in American Christianity needed the Bible to provide cohesion.  Appeals to Southern myths like chivalry and a “Southern superior way of Life” paled in comparison to the value of religious righteousness.   It also becomes clear from the readings that romanticism affected the Northern use of Scriptures as well.  I, at first, conceptualized a type of literalism and quasi-scientific reliance on the Bible during the prelude to civil war, however that idea is incorrect.  The arguments made by both Fuller and Wayland were well structured and considered.  Both illustrated their cases while being careful not to abrogate or exclude aspects of the Bible.  Effectively, the Bible as a whole needed to be associated with the belligerents.  Cutting any part of the Bible neutered its authority.  Romantic influences demanded a righteous motivation and a historical relevance.  The Bible held a virtual monopoly on both.  So much so that the “abolitionists” ‘must give up the New Testament authority, or abandon the fiery course which they are pursing’…But that same interpretation led him (Moses Stuart) to view the threat from the Bible denying abolitionism as greater that the South’s failure to move toward voluntary emancipation.”  (Noll 39).  The necessity of the Bible as a societal symbol outweighed the heinous existence of slavery to the North and made war much more likely than voluntary abandonment of slavery.  The greater risk than continued conflict with the South, at least to Stuart, would be to render the Bible irrelevant to society by challenging its legitimacy.