Charles Hodge challenged the abolitionist view that slavery was always sinful so effectively that his essay was included in the pro-slavery compendium Cotton is King . Mark Noll points out that the editor deleted Hodges dire prophecies about the future of American slavery (this in 1835): “The South . . . has to choose between emancipation by the slow and holy influence of the gospel, securing the elevation of the slaves to the stature and character of freemen, or to abide the issue of a long continued conflict against the laws of God. That the issue will be disastrous there can be no doubt.”
