The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 79, July 1975 - April, 1976 Page: 165
528 p. : ill. (some col.), maps, ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Religious Newspapers in Antebellum Texas
consequently, the well being of the social compact." Carnes, who was the
Methodist editor as the controversy heightened into war, became increas-
ingly vocal before the Texas Christian Advocate ceased publication. Where-
as editors of religious papers in the upper South and some in the South
Atlantic States tended to hold back temporarily in endorsing the secession
movement while maintaining their support for slavery, Texas editors did
not. Baptists and Methodists in Texas used their papers as did their brethren
in the Gulf States generally-in supporting secession as soon as the results
of the election of i86o were known and assimilated. All that took place
in the succeeding months seemed only to confirm the basis for their hos-
tility and their determination to back the Confederacy.45
The religious newspapers in Texas were not strong enough to survive
material shortages, high costs, and the distractions of war. The demise of
antebellum religious newspapers is not the only reason for choosing the
war as a cut-off point, however. Religious weeklies developed a new format
and emphasis after the war, when they dropped the largely secular or
general function of the newspaper for a more exclusively religious purpose.
Religious editors apparently decided that whatever advantages had accrued
to their journals and to their churches in the past from catering to the
public interest in general news no longer obtained.
Hill, "Reaction of the Baptist Press to the Slavery Issue From 1856 to the Civil War"
(M.A. thesis, Lamar University, 1966), 21, 31-38; Edmund Lacey, "Reaction of Major
Protestant Denominations to the Kansas-Nebraska Bill of 1854" (M.A. thesis, Lamar
University, 1965), 88-95.
45The Texas Baptist (Anderson), April 15, 1856; September 13, 186o; January 3,
1861; Barron, "History of the Texas Christian Advocate," 19g; Texas Wesleyan Banner
(Houston), August 3, 185o; January 25, 1851 (quotations); Smith, In His Image, 184-
188; Stroupe, Religious Press, 30-32; Texas Christian Advocate (Galveston), November
I5, I860.165
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 79, July 1975 - April, 1976, periodical, 1975/1976; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101203/m1/197/: accessed March 28, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.