Robert J. Breckinridge and the Slavery Aspect of the Presbyterian Schism of 1837

The stories of the great Methodist and Baptist slavery schisms have found a place in the general histories of the United States. That there was, also, a major schism in the decade of the thirties in the Presbyterian church is fairly well known, yet few students of American history have demonstrated much discriminating knowledge of the two large bodies of Presbyterians that existed for thirty years after, and as the result of this schism. The great cleavage in the Presbyterian church, known as the Old School-New School schism, has been presented as the result of a struggle which was concerned almost exclusively with doctrine and ecclesiastical government. The struggle was, to a large degree, of a theological nature. Opposition to the New England influence, operating through the once popular Plan of Union, goes far to account for the fury with which Robert J. Breckinridge and others who represented the Scotch-Irish element in the church battled against more liberal tendencies. The upshot of the fight, the “cutting off” of two-fifths of the church in 1837–38, need not be recounted here.