Protestant churches in the U.S., unable to agree on what God's Word said about slavery, ended up with schisms between Northern and Southern branches: the
Methodist Episcopal Church in 1844, the
Baptists in 1845, and the
Presbyterian Church in 1857. These splits presaged the subsequent split in the nation: "The churches played a major role in the dividing of the nation, and it is probably true that it was the splits in the churches which made a final split of the nation inevitable." The conflict over how to interpret the Bible was central:
