A Community Study of Mecklenburg County
THE CHURCH
“Ministers are as much Watchmen [of Public Evils] as Magistrates”
Charles Woodmason, 1771
Presbyterians, Methodists, and Baptists had disciplinary systems to monitor the actions of their congregation members.
Presbyterians had the most formal regulation system, for they tried misbehaving members at session meetings. The session was an assembly of the minister and the ruling church elders. Session records recount the various misdeeds committed by church members, the session’s deliberation, and the ultimate decision.
Church Discipline of Public Activities
During the eighteenth century, southern evangelical churches frequently disciplined actions that challenged family unity. Crimes like bigamy, adultery, fornication, and abuse dominated church records, along with public misconduct like gambling and intoxication. But, with the rise of revivalism in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, the focus of these proceedings shifted.
After 1800, evangelical churches increasingly prosecuted white male members for activities the southern code of honor considered respectable. This code stated that the pastimes of drunkenness, fighting, swearing, and gambling—all important to elite social culture—bestowed respect. However, these actions dominated evangelical church discipline in the nineteenth century.
The church moved from targeting transgressions within the home to misconduct within society. The church still disciplined familial offenses, just to a lesser degree. Worldly amusements, defined by evangelical religions as “those exercises of the mind and body, which have no natural connection with religion; and which are generally pursued by those persons whose thoughts and actions are of an earthly character,” gradually met more church judgment. These activities challenged the pure exterior of both the church and its members.
Mecklenburg County churches followed the southern change in enforcement patterns. In line with the shift toward prosecuting public disorderly behavior, the Presbyterian Synod of the Carolinas ruled in 1789 that “dancing, reveling, horse racing and chard [sic] playing are wrong and that the practisers of them ought not to be admitted to sealing ordinances until they be dealt with by their spiritual rulers.” These activities were central to the dominant culture of elites. Evangelical religions often renounced such behavior that traditionally brought the dispersed society together, for they viewed dancing, gambling, and carousing as sustenance to a disorderly, vulgar society.
Of the thirty-three cases recorded between 1826 and 1839, seventy-six percent were charges for public misconduct and worldly amusements. The remaining twenty-four percent of cases were for the sexual offenses of adultery and fornication. These statistics demonstrate that in the early antebellum period—particularly during the late 1830s—Philadelphia Presbyterian, Sugaw Creek Presbyterian, and Bethel Presbyterian targeted the same sinful acts as other evangelical religions across the South, particularly drunkenness.
Temperance
Evangelical religions took a particular interest in discouraging drunkenness. These Protestant groups had always condemned intemperance and considered the act of excessive drinking a sin, but during the antebellum period, a religious and later political movement emerged to dissuade alcoholic consumption. The temperance movement did not gain a stable foothold in the South until 1827 when a temperance society formed in Eaton, Georgia. At that point, the political aspects of the movement began to spread throughout the region.
Presbyterians supported the temperance movement early on, but the Methodists and Baptists eventually followed suit. Often times, evangelical groups permitted temperance societies to hold meetings in their churches and in some cases, certain congregations mandated complete abstinence from alcoholic beverages. In the 1820s and 1830s, temperance societies consisted either of church congregations organized into societies or secular groups. By the mid-1840s, the movement gained political traction. Many evangelicals came to believe that moral persuasion would not convince alcohol consumers to drop the activity, and instead began to support the restriction of licensing laws and later prohibition.
During the 1830s and 1840s, evangelical denominations increasingly held their members accountable for acts of public drunkenness, alongside other amusements in public spaces. The church authorities held their members accountable for community activities and employed disciplinary measures to ensure that their members used self-restraint to uphold a godly countenance in the public sphere. The Mecklenburg County church records demonstrate that these congregations worked to enforce the expectation of temperance, and in some cases further defined their definitions of intoxication.
In Mecklenburg, a number of factors likely contributed to the local churches’ amplified attack on intoxication, in addition to the national movement. The evangelical churches did view drunkenness as a sin, for inebriation slowed the body and distracted the mind from doing God’s work. Churches also feared the influence of worldly pleasures and their effects on the congregations’ reputation. Furthermore, the county court failed to prosecute intemperance, and so drunkards roamed the streets freely without facing punishment required by law. In line with the transition toward a political temperance movement and the enforcement patterns in other backcountry counties, Philadelphia Presbyterian and Sugaw Creek Presbyterian actively prosecuted drunkenness in the 1820s and 1830s, which intensified dramatically in the late 1830s.
Local newspapers often publicized the national Temperance Movement and carried editorials from local residents who complained of their relatives' drinking habits. The above article is an example of such an editorial.
Clearly, 1837, 1838, and 1839 were years of increased chastisement of drunkenness. Whether more individuals drank excessively or the church chose to actively discipline members, sixty-two percent of the cases prosecuted from 1826 to 1839 saw trial in 1838 and 1839. Improved record keeping likely sparked the appearance of this change, for in these years there were no documented revivals. Accused congregation members may have repeatedly returned to session, either for multiple offenses or because they denied the allegations. Regardless, Mecklenburg County churches coincided with the trend of escalated intoxication enforcement, and these cases presented many obstacles to the churches.