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Between Scylla and Charybdis: religion and the meaning of Union in the border states, 1861–1865

ABSTRACT This article explores how some preachers in the loyal border slave states – Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, and Delaware – endorsed the Union throughout the American Civil War. A comparative analysis of their sermons reveals that they often espoused themes compelled by the region’s unique cultural and geopolitical context, a phenomenon that the author terms “rhetorical indigenisation.” These “local” leitmotifs de-Northernised Unionism by emphasizing the border’s mediating potential, by stressing the transcendent covenantal obligations of all Americans, and by making fidelity a fulfilment of Southern ideals like honour, masculinity, and paternalism. Above all, such sermonic responses displayed an unyielding conservatism that rejected the immoderation of both North and South.