Rev. James Craik was an important figure in the Episcopal church in the United States at the time of the Civil War. He was an Episcopal priest who led the national Episcopal House of Delegates during the war and for part of Reconstruction. Craik was the grandson of George Washington’s physician and he became the pastor of Christ Church in Louisville, Kentucky. The Kentucky Episcopalians have submitted a memorial statement drawing attention to the defense of slavery of Rev. Craik. “The clergy and people of Christ Church Cathedral and the Diocese of Kentucky have undertaken steps to repent of, and continue to reckon with and repudiate, the horrific words contained in this pamphlet, and engage in ongoing healing and reconciliation,” wrote Bishop Terry White, the head of the Diocese of Kentucky.
James Craik was born in Virginia in 1806. His grandfather James Craik was physician to George Washington and his father George Washington Craik was secretary to Washington during his second term of office. He became a lawyer and practiced in Charlestown in what is now West Virginia. In 1841, he became an Episcopal priest and in 1844 he moved to Louisville, Kentucky. He was president of the House of Deputies of the General Convention in the Episcopal Church from 1862 to 1874. He was a popular preacher and his two books were used to train Episcopal youth for years.
Before the Civil War, Rev. Craik was both an opponent of secession and a strong defender of slavery. On December 19, 1859 he gave a speech to the Kentucky House of Representatives in which he said that Divine Providence had given the “Teutonic Race” power over America:
Craik made much of the Founding Fathers doing God’s work in establishing a government that could be seen as being revolutionary and democratic, but which had at its core a conservative protection for the rights of property, including the right to own other human beings.
The American people were ONE people before the Revolution and they remained ONE people after the Revolution. From God, the Founders endorsed the “partial sovereignty” of the states and the Union of the states into a mighty nation. To “dissolve the Union of the states is TREASON,” said the priest. Under the current situation, says Craik, the Abolitionists haven is Canada, more than 500 miles from any slave state, however if the Union is dissolved, “Canada” will be on the north side of the Potomac encouraging slaves to flee their bondage.
So, Craik makes a number of arguments for continuing in Union. There is the Divine Providence granting our government to the Teutonic Race. The legacy of the Founding Fathers, particularly Washington. The protection of property of the Conservative element of the Constitution. And the likely Abolitionist haven in the North if the United States is torn asunder.
In 1862 after the newspapers published a letter from a “citizen of Boston” saying that the ultimate cause of the Civil War was slavery, Craik published a response (which the modern Episcopalians of Kentucky want the Church to denounce). His argument is extensively with the New York Tribune publisher Horace Greely. Craik opens with this:
Craik says that whites had the choice in subjugating Blacks of either making them slaves or of killing them off entirely. Slavery was the more humane choice.
Craik says that slavery is an evil, but its victim is the white population since it is “the most expensive labor in the world.”
Craik addresses the frequent Northern criticism of the separation of slave families, with spouses sold off and children taken away from their parents. What Abolitionists ignore, says Craik, is that Southern whites are also subject to family separation for the same reasons:
So, in 2024, a diocese of the Episcopal Church has denounced this pamphlet 162 after it was published.
Note: The feature photo shows James Craik.
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