William Calmes Buck: Slavery

(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.