Ross, Fred A. Slavery Ordained of God. New York: Negro Universities Press, 1969. Reprint Edition. ISBN: 0837111420. [10523]
Brown cloth, gilt title to spine, no dust jacket (as issued), 6 3/4 x 5 inches. Price sticker on ffep. 186 clean pp., tight. Very good. Hardcover.
Originally published in 1859, this is a facsimile reprint of the original in a sewn cloth binding. It consists of speeches before the General Assembly at Buffalo and at New York, a Letter to Rev. A. Blackburn, the essay What is the Foundation of Moral Obligation? and four Letters to the Rev. Albert Barnes.
Frederick Augustus Ross (1796-1883), b. Cumberland Co., Virginia; d. Huntsville, Alabama. Ross was educated at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pa., and became a Presbyterian minister of the New School persuasion. Ross emancipated his own slaves in 1818, when he entered the ministry, yet held the view that slavery was ordained by God and perfectly within the moral bounds of Christianity. During his ministry he was the pastor of Presbyterian churches at Kingsport, Tennessee, and at Huntsville, Alabama.
Ross was one of the editors of The Calvinistic Magazine (1826-1832 & 1847-1849). His book, Slavery Ordained of God, was written in response to Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin. Abraham Lincoln referenced Ross's book in his debates with Stephen Douglas over slavery as an example of how slavery owners and advocates benefit from the "peculiar institution." See Douglas Volk, What Lincoln Read (1931).
