(Continuing posts about William Calmes Buck)
Virginia was a slave state and Wm. C. Buck grew up at a time
when slavery was the norm. His parents
and grandparents were slave owners. He
worked in the fields with slaves, went to church with slaves and was baptized
alongside a slave. He probably owned
slaves himself at one time in his life.
In 1849, Buck wrote a series of editorials in his newspaper,
“The Baptist Banner”, regarding slavery.
In his typical fashion, using the Bible, definitions and logic, he wrote
that slavery benefited the slave who was unable to govern himself. Moreover, he wrote that there was a class of
slave owners whose chief concern was “to instruct them into the knowledge of
salvation by Christ Jesus.” Although
Buck’s book (actually a pamphlet) is sometimes used to imply that he endorsed
slavery as it existed, this is not the case.
In fact, he believed that slavery had degenerated into evil and should
gradually be abolished. He suggested that
the government buy slaves from their owners and return them to Africa.
James M. Pendleton, a friend and colleague of Wm. C. Buck,
disagreed with his editorials on slavery and wrote his own series of letters
intended for publication in the Baptist Banner.
However, Buck would not publish Pendleton’s letters. Pendleton then had his letters published in
an emancipationist newsletter, the Louisville Examiner.
Wm. C. Buck’s editorials on slavery became a book, The
Slavery Question which was published by Harney, Hughes & Hughes in Louisville,
Kentucky, 1847. This book is now
considered to be a documentation of the early 1800s beliefs regarding
slavery. It is available from Amazon.
