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"The Bible condemns all oppression. American slavery is systematically oppressive, as essential to its existence. Therefore the Bible condemns American slavery." (William Henry Brisbane, 1847)
Brisbane's "Slaveholding Examined in the Light of the Holy Bible" is an especially important primary source in understanding antebellum Baptist debates over chattel slavery. https://www.google.com/books/edition/Slaveholding_Examined_in_the_Light_of_th/55wRAAAAIAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0
Brisbane's own biography is not incidental either. He was a Baptist minister and part of the slaveholding planter class in lowcountry South Carolina, born in 1806.
Brisbane had been among the loudest pro-slavery voices among South Carolina Baptists, publishing his arguments in The Southern Baptist & Intelligencer, an early Baptist newspaper he established. https://www.loc.gov/item/sn93067960/
But he gradually came to the conviction that the Bible not only did not sanction slavery, but that it condemned it. He emancipated those he'd enslaved and went back to SC to redeem slaves he'd previously sold.
His ministry had broad impact, but unfortunately fell on deaf ears and hard hearts in his native state and among Southern Baptists. He was threatened and slandered. But he and his family actively worked with the Underground Railroad, helping fugitive slaves find freedom.
His pastoral ministry took him to Arena, Wisconsin. But when the Civil War erupted, he resigned his pastorate to serve as chaplain to the 2nd Wisconsin Cavalry, but poor health prevented him from active service.
He received an appointment by his friend and US Treasury Secretary Salmon Chase to go back to SC as a direct tax commissioner, especially as part of the Port Royal Experiment.
In a moment only explainable by providence, Brisbane was there to publicly read the Emancipation Proclamation on Jan 1, 1863 in his native district. As he read it, announcing freedom to some 4,000 enslaved men, women & children, he saw one of his former slaves in the crowd.
By all accounts, this was the one slave he'd been unable to locate years before, unable to redeem him from slavery. But on that day, Brisbane was a messenger of freedom for that man.
BTW, this is not unknown among Baptist historians. See Brent Norris' excellent 2010 journal article. https://www.jstor.org/stable/23057414?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents
All that to say, pro-slavery theological arguments by Southern Baptists were not in a vacuum. They co-existed alongside voices like Brisbane, who argued from Scripture against the wickedness of the "peculiar institution."
As the old hymn puts it, "though the wrong seems oft so strong, God is the Ruler yet." God has his witnesses in every generation and His inspired Word is indeed sufficient to the task.
