ABSTRACT
James Henley Thornwell (1812-1862) was perhaps the most intellectually distinguished of Southern religious spokesmen on the eve of the Civil War. Long associated with, and eventually President of, South Carolina College, he was also well known as a powerful controversialist within Southern Presbyterianism. His sermon, delivered in the aftermath of Lincoln's election in 1860, makes a case for seeing the potential conflict between North and South as a visitation by God upon Americans as sinners. Yet, arguing from religion as the necessary basis of a government of laws, the sinfulness entailed in broken political covenants is seen to fall largely on the North. Even so, South Carolinians could not escape examining and reforming their institution of slavery to avoid the imputation of sin.
