Concluding Part III: Starving Awakening
By ChatGPT as Harry Turtledove
Richmond, Virginia – April 1861
It should have been impossible.
Charles Grandison Finney had spent decades witnessing the power of revival. He had seen thousands of men weep and break before the Lord, had watched hardened hearts transformed. But nothing—nothing—compared to the sight before him now.
The most powerful men in America—Abraham Lincoln, Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, Frederick Douglass, John Crittenden, and others—were seated across from one another in the very heart of the South, not with guns, but at a table of peace.
They had come to Richmond for one last chance.
One final attempt to prevent war.
One final attempt to hold America together.
And at the center of it all, as had become tradition among the revivalists, was the bread and the cup.
The table had been set.
The wine had been poured.
And no man would take it until the judgment of Christ fell upon them all.
The Great Compromise: The Covenant of Gradual Emancipation
The terms had been hard-fought. Both sides had resisted, but in the end, the truth was clear: neither could afford war.
A compromise emerged, one that both could accept:
1. Slavery Would Be Phased Out Over a Generation (1861–1880)
- No immediate abolition—instead, slavery would be gradually dismantled over 20 years.
- Federal compensation would be offered to slaveholders who voluntarily emancipated their enslaved people.
- Education and training programs would be established for the formerly enslaved.
➡️ Lincoln accepted it because slavery’s end was inevitable.
➡️ Davis accepted it because it preserved the Southern economy—without war.
2. The “Middle South” States Would Remain in the Union
- Virginia, Kentucky, North Carolina, and Tennessee would guarantee loyalty to the Union.
- The Union would not send troops into the South unless provoked.
➡️ Lee backed it because it kept Virginia from becoming a battlefield.
➡️ Lincoln agreed because it stopped full secession.
3. An Annual National Covenant Ceremony Would Ensure Accountability
- Every year, at the site of the Richmond Peace Summit, leaders from both North and South would meet, kneel, and partake in encommunication together.
- This would force them to keep their word—to submit their actions before God and publicly reaffirm the agreement.
➡️ Finney insisted on this because he knew human pride would always return.
➡️ Lincoln and Davis accepted, knowing that without accountability, the agreement would collapse.
The Sacrificial Gestures: Unity Above All
Still, tensions ran high. No man trusted the other fully.
And then, in a moment that no one could have predicted, two men stood.
An Escaped Slave’s Offering
The first was a man known only as Josiah—an escaped slave who had made it to freedom in the North but had returned to the South as part of Finney’s revival movement.
Josiah was free—he had no reason to submit to Southern law, to this compromise, to anything other than his own hard-earned liberty.
But he knelt at the table anyway.
He took a small bag of silver coins from his pocket—his entire life’s savings—and placed them in the center of the table.
“For the widow of the man who once owned me,” he said softly.
A hush fell over the room.
“I hated her,” Josiah admitted. “I prayed for her suffering. But Christ is my Master now. If she needs mercy, let it be given.”
No one spoke.
Josiah, a man born in chains, had just willingly given his wealth to the very society that once enslaved him—for the sake of peace.
And then another man stood.
A Slaveholder’s Reckoning
John Randolph of Roanoke was wealthy beyond measure, one of the richest planters in Virginia. His family had owned hundreds of men and women.
But now?
Now he stepped forward, took his cane in hand, and snapped it in two.
“The South must learn to stand on its own,” he said.
He placed the broken cane next to Josiah’s silver.
And then, before all assembled, he signed the first voluntary emancipation contract.
“I will free my people,” he said. “Not tomorrow. Not next year. Today.”
The room erupted in shouts—some in anger, some in praise.
And then, before the shouting could turn to blows, Finney raised his hands.
“Enough.”
And at last, the men of the North and South knelt together, before the table, and took the bread.
And with that, war was delayed.
Perhaps forever.
The Awakening That Held America Together
For the next two decades, the Covenant of Gradual Emancipation held.
The Annual Covenant Ceremony in Richmond became a solemn national tradition. Presidents, governors, and military leaders gathered to take encommunication and renew their oaths.
- By 1870, slavery had begun to die out in the South, without war.
- By 1880, the last slaves were freed—not by bloodshed, but by conviction.
- By 1890, the South had restructured its economy—not as a war-ravaged ruin, but as a society that had evolved through the bonds of revival rather than destruction.
Josiah’s silver and Randolph’s broken cane were enshrined as relics of reconciliation, kept in the newly established Hall of Covenant Peace in Richmond, where they remained for generations.
And Charles Grandison Finney?
He lived long enough to see it.
Lived long enough to see the Union whole, to see Southern men and Northern men kneel together every year, to see the war that never was.
The war that was stopped before it could begin.
And when he finally closed his eyes for the last time, it was with the knowledge that the Awakening had endured.
Epilogue: The Awakening Never Ends
Years later, as the 20th century dawned, a young African American boy stood in front of the Hall of Covenant Peace, staring at Josiah’s silver and the broken cane.
“What did they mean?” he asked his father.
“They meant that war isn’t the only way to settle a nation’s sins,” his father said.
The boy nodded, thoughtful.
“Then why do people say war is coming again?”
His father sighed.
“Because men forget.”
The boy reached out a small hand, touching the cool glass that protected the relics.
“Then we’ll have to remind them.”
This is where their story ends. And ours begins…
Were there people on both sides that might have agreed on a sustainable compromise to avoid war? What miracle would it take to make that happen?
ChatGPT Prompt
Make it a reality in Part IV, culminating in an annual ceremony to ensure both sides keep their promises. Include a sacrificial gesture by an escaped slave and a wealthy slaveholder about the overriding importance of unity in Christ.
Radically Happy 
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