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224HOPKINS, JOHN HENRYIndeed, he was one of the leading slavery defenders in his denomination. In 1851he delivered a lecture in Buffalo, New York, with three major points: (1) slaverywas not a sin because it was not forbidden in the Bible or in the teaching of theearly church; (2) slavery was nonetheless a moral evil that should be eliminated;and (3) the abolition of slavery should be accomplished by purchasing slaves andby transporting them to Liberia. This plan, he emphasized, could only be effectedwith the consent of slaveholders in the southern states. Hopkins returned to theseideas on several occasions over the next decade. By the late 1850s, he becameconcerned that abolitionists in the North were pushing the southern states towardsecession. To prevent disunion, he expressed his sympathy for slavery as it existedin the South, arguing that it was not cruel or immoral except in a few specialcases. These comments led Alonzo Potter, the bishop of Pennsylvania, to commentthat Hopkins’s defense of slavery was “unworthy of any servant of JesusChrist.”During the Civil War, Hopkins was loyal to the Union, but he had strongpersonal and professional ties to the South. At the General Convention of 1862,he tried to block efforts to censure southerners for seceding from the Union. Healso strongly opposed the adoption of a pastoral letter supporting the Union causebecause he believed the church should not take sides in the national conflict.Determined to prevent the dissension and bitterness that had earlier torn apart thePresbyterian, Methodist, and Baptist denominations, he had the names of hisabsent southern colleagues read at every vote taken in the House of Bishops.Hopkins became the presiding bishop of the church in January 1865. When thewar ended a few months later, he was successful in reconciling the northern andsouthern dioceses without mentioning the moral and political issues over whichthe American people had been bitterly fighting. At the 1865 General Convention,southern bishops and deputies were officially welcomed to take their accustomedseats, and by 1866 all of the southern dioceses had returned to the EpiscopalChurch.Hopkins died in Rock Point, Vermont, in January 1868.BibliographyA. Christianity Vindicated (Burlington, Vt., 1833); The Primitive Creed (Burlington, Vt.,1834); The Primitive Church (Burlington, Vt., 1835); Essay on Gothic Architecture(Burlington, Vt., 1836); History of the Confessional (New York, 1850); A Scriptural,Ecclesiastical and Historical View of Slavery (New York, 1864); The Lawof Ritualism (New York, 1866).B. ANB 11, 176; BB, 98–99; DAB 9, 212–13; DCA, 553; EDC, 254; MM, 373–76; JohnHenry Hopkins III, “John Henry Hopkins, First Bishop of Vermont,” HMPEC 6(1937): 187–206; DuBose Murphy, “The Spirit of Primitive Fellowship: The Reunionof the Church,” HMPEC 17 (1948): 435–48; Ronald Levy, “Bishop Hopkinsand the Dilemma of Slavery,” Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography91 (1967): 56–71; Robert Bruce Mullin, “Ritualism, Anti-Romanism, and the Lawin John Henry Hopkins,” HMPEC 50 (1981): 377–90; John Henry Hopkins Jr.,The Life of the Late Right Reverend John Henry Hopkins (New York, 1873);