Title: The Marketplace of Religion in the Early Republic Eileen Luhr eluhr@csulb.edu
1The Marketplace of Religion in the Early Republic
Eileen Luhr eluhr_at_csulb.edu
2- Methodological question for this four-part
series - How can teachers integrate religious history into
social, political, and intellectual history? - Why study religious history?
- ideas about human nature, equality, freedom,
community - intersection with non-religious ideas in
economics, politics, and culture - interactions between social groups religion
included groups who were excluded from the
political process, including non-elites, white
women, and slave men and women. - revival religion
- Problems for studying religious history
- The jack in the box theory of religion
3Content standards for presentation
- 11.1 Students analyze the significant events in
the founding of the nation and its attempts to
realize the philosophy of government described in
the Declaration of Independence. - 1. Describe the Enlightenment and the rise of
democratic ideas as the context in which the
nation was founded. - 2. Analyze the ideological origins of the
American Revolution, the Founding Fathers
philosophy of divinely bestowed unalienable
natural rights, the debates on the drafting and
ratification of the Constitution, and the
addition of the Bill of Rights. - 11.3 Students analyze the role religion played in
the founding of America, its lasting moral,
social, and political impacts, and issues
regarding religious liberty. - 1. Describe the contributions of various
religious groups to American civic principles and
social reform movements - 2. Analyze the great religious revivals and the
leaders involved in them, including the First
Great Awakening, the Second Great Awakening.... - 5. Describe the principles of religious liberty
found in the Establishment and Free Exercise
clauses of the First Amendment, including the
debate on the issue of separation of church and
state. - 12.1 Students explain the fundamental principles
and moral values of American democracy as
expressed in the U.S. Constitution and other
essential documents of American democracy. - 2. Discuss the character of American democracy
and its promise and perils as articulated by
Alexis de Tocqueville. - 12.2 Students evaluate and take and defend
positions on the scope and limits of rights and
obligations as democratic citizens, the
relationships among them, and how they are
secured. - 1. Discuss the meaning and importance of each of
the rights guaranteed under the Bill of Rights
and how each is secured (e.g., freedom of
religion, speech, press, assembly, petition,
privacy). - 12.5 Students summarize landmark U.S. Supreme
Court interpretations of the Constitution and its
amendments. - 1. Understand the changing interpretations of
the Bill of Rights over time, including
interpretations of the basic freedoms (religion,
speech, press, petition, and assembly)
articulated in the First Amendment and the due
process and equal-protection-of-the- law clauses
of the Fourteenth Amendment.
4Historical and Social Sciences Analysis Skills
- Chronological and Spatial Thinking
- 2. Students analyze how change happens at
different rates at different times understand
that some aspects can change while others remain
the same and understand that change is
complicated and affects not only technology and
politics but also values and beliefs. - Research, Evidence, and Point of View
- 4. Students construct and test hypotheses
collect, evaluate, and employ information from
multiple primary and secondary sources and apply
it in oral and written presentations. - Historical Interpretation
- 1. Students show the connections, causal and
otherwise between particular historical events
and larger social, economic, and political trends
and developments.
5Focus questions for todays presentation
- Four sub-questions and sections to presentation
- 1. How did the "marketplace of religion" alter
religious beliefs and institutions prior in the
late 18th century? - 2. How did the Enlightenment alter religious
beliefs and institutions? - a) Virginia Act for Religious Freedom
- b) the Constitution
- 3. How did disestablishment affect religion in
the early Republic? - a) Focus on universal morality over
denominational identity - b) Institutional proliferation
- 4. How did these issues carry forward into the
late 20th century? - a) American religious diversity
- b) school court cases
6Four key concepts for today
- The marketplace of ideas Through case studies,
well examine the changes religious beliefs
underwent in the 18th century, particularly
during the Great Awakening the Revolution.
Well look at the role that religion played in
the cultural marketplace. - 2. Individual autonomy, religion, and the
Enlightenment The Great Awakening, like the
Enlightenment, placed the individual at the
center of the search for truth. Both traditions
encouraged colonists to question traditional
authority (Lambert, 10). - Consequences of disestablishment.
Disestablishment created what historian Jonathan
Butler has described as a spiritual hothouse
for religion. The result was the proliferation
of religious groups that were, for the first
time, distinctly American. In the words of
historian Nathan Hatch, the early republic
witnessed the democratization of American
Christianity. Believers enthusiasm led them to
become involved in benevolent work that included
home visits, temperance movement, and, in some
cases, abolition. At the same time, religious
disestablishment also meant that Americans
worried about maintaining a moral citizenry.
Both issues carried forward into the late
twentieth century. - Religion in the late 20th century. The first
three issues discussed in todays
presentationthe marketplace of ideas individual
autonomy religious diversity and concerns about
moralitycarry forward into the late 20th
century. We can see these issues in Supreme
Court decisions about the role of religion in
primary and secondary schools.
7Question 1 How did the "marketplace of
religion" alter religious beliefs and
institutions during the late 18th century?
- questions
- How did the First Great Awakening alter religious
beliefs and attitudes about established
religions? - How did new markets people affect religious
beliefs? - How did religious beliefs and practices influence
the American Revolution? - key concept the marketplace of religion and the
marketplace of ideas In the early years of
colonization, it was easier for religious
authorities to maintain religious uniformity in
their colony. The First Great Awakening occurred
during a period when new ideas and markets
challenged these religious beliefs. Historians
now suggest that religions had to compete within
the marketplace of ideas. This concept points
toward disestablishment
8How did the First Great Awakening alter religious
beliefs and attitudes about established religions?
- A historian describes the process
- The original planters had vowed to keep
divergent ideas out of their settlements, a task
that became ever more difficult with a growing
population pushing against town borders and an
expanding commerce bringing hawkers and peddlers
with their new goods and ideas. In the end,
defenders of local institutions and traditions
failed, as many within their communities eagerly
embraced the newcomers and their wares.
Insistent upon exercising choice, consumers,
whether considering manufactured goods or
religious notions, demanded the right to choose
for themselves. The result was a new, more
expansive definition of religious freedom, one
characterized by religious competition among the
sects. The world of the settled ministry was
turned upside down. No longer able to count on a
monopoly within their parishes, clergyman had to
woo individuals who were now empowered to decide
religious matters for themselves. - Frank Lambert, The Founding Fathers and the Place
of Religion in America (Princeton UP, 2003), p.
124.
9marketplace of religionPeter Annet, A Discourse
on Government and Religion (Boston, 1750)
- Religion, like Trade, ought to be free. It is
best dealing at an open market by that means we
have a more reasonable rateWhy should not every
man chuse for himself in spirituals, as well as
in temporals, and buy those wares he likes best,
or thinks he has most need of, seeing he must pay
for them.
10Religion the First Great Awakening
- Forty years before the American Revolution, a
religious revolution swept through the colonies
in a spiritual revival known as the Great
Awakening, and thousands of evangelical
Dissenters embraced the radical notion that
individual experience, not church dogma or
government statute, was authoritative in
religious matters. Salvation, they argued,
occurred through the outpouring of God's grace in
what they called spiritual New Birth. Thus
empowered, converted men and women, called New
Lights, challenged both church and state
authority in matters of faith. Many left their
own congregations and started Separate Churches
or joined with such radical sects as Baptists.
They insisted that religion was strictly
voluntary, and that no government could compel an
individual to subscribe to any belief or
practice. The result was a new place for
religion, a religious marketplace in which
individual men and women chose among voluntary,
competing sects. (Lambert, 8)
11Example 1 The Marketplace of Religion in Virginia
- South Quay Baptist Church, built 1775
Christ Church, built c.1735
12Interior of Anglican Baptist churches
- Interior, Mt. Shiloh Baptist, built c.1770s
13Example 2 The Marketplace of Religion in New
York New York, 1730
14The Marketplace of Religion in New York New
York, 1771
15Example 3 George Whitefield, itinerant
evangelist trafficking in the Lord (Lambert,
127)
16Benjamin Franklin describes the preaching of
George Whitefield in 1739
- In 1739 arrived among us from Ireland the
Reverend Mr. Whitefield, who had made himself
remarkable there as an itinerant preacher. He was
at first permitted to preach in some of our
churches but the clergy, taking a dislike to
him, soon refus'd him their pulpits, and he was
oblig'd to preach in the fields. The multitudes
of all sects and denominations that attended his
sermons were enormous, and it was matter of
speculation to me, who was one of the number, to
observe the extraordinary influence of his
oratory on his hearers, and bow much they admir'd
and respected him, notwithstanding his common
abuse of them, by assuring them that they were
naturally half beasts and half devils. It was
wonderful to see the change soon made in the
manners of our inhabitants. From being
thoughtless or indifferent about religion, it
seem'd as if all the world were growing
religious, so that one could not walk thro' the
town in an evening without hearing psalms sung in
different families of every street. - He had a loud and clear voice, and articulated
his words and sentences so perfectly, that he
might be heard and understood at a great
distance, especially as his auditories, however
numerous, observ'd the most exact silence. He
preach'd one evening from the top of the
Court-house steps, which are in the middle of
Market-street, and on the west side of
Second-street, which crosses it at right angles.
Both streets were fill'd with his hearers to a
considerable distance. Being among the hindmost
in Market-street, I had the curiosity to learn
how far he could be heard, by retiring backwards
down the street towards the river and I found
his voice distinct till I came near Front-street,
when some noise in that street obscur'd it.
Imagining then a semi-circle, of which my
distance should be the radius, and that it were
fill'd with auditors, to each of whom I allow'd
two square feet, I computed that he might well be
heard by more than thirty thousand. This
reconcil'd me to the newspaper accounts of his
having preach'd to twenty-five thousand people in
the fields, and to the antient histories of
generals haranguing whole armies, of which I had
sometimes doubted. - By hearing him often, I came to distinguish
easily between sermons newly compos'd, and those
which he had often preach'd in the course of his
travels. His delivery of the latter was so
improv'd by frequent repetitions that every
accent, every emphasis, every modulation of
voice, was so perfectly well turn'd and well
plac'd, that, without being interested in the
subject, one could not help being pleas'd with
the discourse a pleasure of much the same kind
with that receiv'd from an excellent piece of
musick. This is an advantage itinerant preachers
have over those who are stationary, as the latter
can not well improve their delivery of a sermon
by so many rehearsals. -
- source Benjamin Franklin, The Autobiography of
Benjamin Franklin (New York Collier Son,
1909), pp.104-108. Originally published
1771-1788.
17Focus question 2How did the Enlightenment alter
religious beliefs and institutions?
- Key Concept Both the Great Awakening the
Enlightenment placed the individual at the
center of the search for truth. Both traditions
encouraged colonists to question traditional
authority (Lambert, 10). - Historians describe this process
- Gordon Wood, Evangelical America and Early
Mormonism, New York History (October 1980)
358-86 Once ordinary people found that they
could change traditional religion as completely
as they were changing traditional politics, they
had no need for deism or infidelityEvangelical
Christianity and the democracy of these years,
the very democracy with which Jefferson rode to
power and destroyed Federalism, emerged together
and were interrelated. - Historians R. Laurence Moore and Isaac Kramnick
describe a Godless constitution they argue
that the founders envisioned a nation with a
godless Constitution and a godless politics.
Religions influence was to rest in directing
the customs of the community and in regulating
domestic life without subjecting it to the
fortunes of a political faction (22). The liberal
states function was to protect rights, not
establish truths. As Frank Lambert suggests, the
founders believed that true religion was
located through free rational inquiry rather
than church doctrine or government fiat (3).
Finally, as Moore and Kramnick point out, for
nearly two hundred years religious critics
complained that the Constitution failed to use
the word God.
18- John Locke, Letter Concern Toleration (1689)
- the state seems to me to be a society of men
constituted only for the procuring, preserving,
and advancing their own civil interests. Civil
interest I call life, liberty, health, and
indolence of body and the possession of outward
things, such as money, lands, houses, furniture,
and the like. It is the duty of the civil
magistrate, by the impartial execution of equal
laws, to secure unto all the people in general,
and to every one of his subjects in particular
the just possession of these things belonging to
this life.Every man has commission to admonish,
exhort, convince another of error, and, by
reasoning, to draw him into truth but to give
laws, receive obedience, and compel with the
sword, belongs to none but the magistrate. And
upon this ground, I affirm that the magistrates
power extends not to the establishing of any
articles of faith, or form of worship, by the
force of his laws. Excerpted from Isaac
Kramnick and R. Laurence Moore, The Godless
Constitution, pp. 75-6 - Oliver Ellsworth, delegate to Constitutional
Convention (1787) - To come to the true principalThe business of
civil government is to protect the citizen in his
rightscivil government has no business to meddle
with the private concerns of the peopleI am
accountable not to man, but to God, for the
religious opinions which I embraceA test law
isthe offspring of error and the spirit of
persecution. Legislatures have no right to set
up an inquisition and examine into the private
opinions of men. (source Kramnick and Moore, p.
42). - Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia,
Query XVII (1781) - (O)ur rulers can have no authority over such
natural rights, only as we have submitted to
them. The rights of conscience we never
submitted, we could not submit. We are answerable
for them to our God. The legitimate powers of
government extend to such acts only as are
injurious to others. But it does me no injury for
my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no
god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my
leg. If it be said, his testimony in a court of
justice cannot be relied on, reject it then, and
be the stigma on him. Constraint may make him
worse by making him a hypocrite, but it will
never make him a truer man. It may fix him
obstinately in his errors, but will not cure
them. Reason and free enquiry are the only
effectual agents against error. Give a loose to
them, they will support the true religion, by
bringing every false one to their tribunal, to
the test of their investigation. They are the
natural enemies of error, and of error only.
19- Virginia Act for Establishing Religious Freedom
(1786) (excerpt) - Well aware that Almighty God hath created the
mind free - that all attempts to influence it by temporal
punishments or burdens, or by civil
incapacitations, tend only to beget habits of
hypocrisy and meanness, and are a departure from
the plan of the Holy Author of our religion, who
being Lord both of body and mind, yet chose not
to propagate it by coercions on either, as was in
his Almighty power to dothat the impious
presumption of legislators and rulers, civil as
well as ecclesiastical, who, being themselves but
fallible and uninspired men, have assumed
dominion over the faith of others, setting up
their own opinions and modes of thinking as the
only true and infallible, and as such endeavoring
to impose them on others, hath established and
maintained false religions over the greatest part
of the world, and through all time... that our
civil rights have no dependence on our religious
opinions, more than our opinions in physics or
geometry that, therefore, the proscribing any
citizen as unworthy the public confidence by
laying upon him an incapacity of being called to
the offices of trust and emolument, unless he
profess or renounce this or that religious
opinion, is depriving him injuriously of those
privileges and advantages to which in common with
his fellow citizens he has a natural
right...be it enacted by the general assembly
that no man shall be compelled to frequent or
support any religious worship, place, or ministry
whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained,
molested, or burdened in his body or goods, nor
shall otherwise suffer on account of his
religious opinions or belief but that all men
shall be free to profess, and by argument to
maintain, their opinions in matters of religion,
and that the same shall in nowise diminish,
enlarge, or affect their civil capacities.
20- Religion in the Constitution
- Preamble We the People of the United States, in
Order to form a more perfect Union, establish
Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for
the common defence, promote the general Welfare,
and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves
and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this
Constitution for the United States of America. - Comparison to the Declaration of Independence?
- Article VI The Senators and Representatives
before mentioned, and the Members of the several
State Legislatures, and all executive and
judicial Officers, both of the United States and
of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or
Affirmation, to support this Constitution but no
religious Test shall ever be required as a
Qualification to any Office or public Trust under
the United States. - - Oath or Affirmation some may object to oaths
or invoking the name of a deity they did not
believe in no religious test for federal office - First Amendment Congress shall make no law
respecting an establishment of religion, or
prohibiting the free exercise thereof or
abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press
or the right of the people peaceably to assemble,
and to petition the government for a redress of
grievances. - Establishment Clause AND free exercise clause
21- Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations (1776)
- Of the Expence of the Institutions for the
Instruction of People of all Ages - The interested and active zeal of religious
teachers can be dangerous and troublesome only
where there is, either but one sect tolerated in
the society, or where the whole of a large
society is divided into two or three great sects
the teachers of each acting by concert, and under
a regular discipline and subordination. But that
zeal must be altogether innocent where the
society is divided into two or three hundred, or
perhaps into as many thousand small sects, of
which no one could be considerable enough to
disturb the public tranquillity. The teachers of
each sect, seeing themselves surrounded on all
sides with more adversaries than friends, would
be obliged to learn that candour and moderation
which is so seldom to be found among the teachers
of those great sects, whose tenets, being
supported by the civil magistrate, are held in
veneration by almost all the inhabitants of
extensive kingdoms and empires, and who therefore
see nothing round them but followers, disciples,
and humble admirers. The teachers of each little
sect, finding themselves almost alone, would be
obliged to respect those of almost every other
sect, and the concessions which they would
mutually find it both convenient and agreeable to
make to one another, might in time probably
reduce the doctrine of the greater part of them
to that pure and rational religion, free from
every mixture of absurdity, imposture, and
fanaticism, such as wise men have in all ages of
the world wished to see established but such as
positive law has perhaps never yet established,
and probably never will establish in any country
because, with regard to religion, positive law
always has been, and probably always will be,
more or less influenced by popular superstition
and enthusiasm.
22The origins of the secular traditionThomas
Paine, The Age of Reason (1794)
- I believe in one God, and no more and I hope
for happiness beyond this life... -
- I do not believe in the creed professed by the
Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek
church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant
church, nor by any church that I know of. My own
mind is my own church... -
- It is a contradiction in terms and ideas, to
call anything a revelation that comes to us at
second-hand, either verbally or in writing.
Revelation is necessarily limited to the first
communication after this, it is only an account
of something which that person says was a
revelation made to him and though he may find
himself obliged to believe it, it cannot be
incumbent on me to believe it in the same manner
for it was not a revelation made to me, and I
have only his word for it that it was made to
him. -
- When Moses told the children of Israel that he
received the two tables of the commandments from
the hands of God, they were not obliged to
believe him, because they had no other authority
for it than his telling them so and I have no
other authority for it than some historian
telling me so. The commandments carry no internal
evidence of divinity with them they contain some
good moral precepts, such as any man qualified to
be a lawgiver, or a legislator, could produce
himself, without having recourse to supernatural
intervention.
23Focus question 3How did disestablishment affect
religion in the early Republic?
- key concept
- Institutional proliferation and creating a
moral citizenry. Disestablishment created what
historian Jonathan Butler has described as a
spiritual hothouse for religion. The result
was the proliferation of religious groups that
were, for the first time, distinctly American.
In the words of historian Nathan Hatch, the early
republic witnessed the democratization of
American Christianity. Moreover, believers
enthusiasm led them to become involved in
benevolent work that included home visits,
temperance movement, and, in some cases,
abolition. At the same time, religious
disestablishment also meant that Americans
worried about creating moral citizens. - A historian describes this process
- The ideology of the Revolution aggravated this
social disintegration but at the same time helped
make it meaningful. The egalitarianism of the
Revolution explained and justified for common
people their new independence and distance from
one another. The change and disruptions were
offset by the Revolutionary promise for the
future of the countryTraditional structures of
authority crumbled under the momentum of the
Revolution, and common people increasingly
discovered that they no longer had to accept the
old distinctions that had separated them from the
upper ranks of the gentry. -
- As the traditional connections of people fell
away, many Americans found themselves in a
marginal or what anthropologists call a liminal
state of transition and were driven to find or
fabricate new ways of relating to one
anotherPeople were urged to transcend their
parochial folk and kin loyalties and to reach out
to embrace even distant strangers. The
Enlightenments stress on modern civility came
together with the traditional message of
Christian charity to make the entire period from
the Revolution to the Age of Jackson a great era
of benevolence and communitarianism. -
- The Enlightenment was not repudiated but
popularized. The great democratic revolution of
the period forged a new popular amalgam out of
traditional folk beliefs and the literary culture
of the gentry...Like the culture as a whole,
religion was powerfully affected by these
popularizing developments. Subterranean folk
beliefs and fetishes emerged into the open and
blended with traditional Christian practices to
created a wildly spreading evangelical
enthusiasm. Ordinary people cut off from
traditional social relationships were freer than
ever before to express publicly hitherto
repressed or vulgar emotions -
- The American Revolution itself was invoked by
this evangelical challenge to existing authority,
and Christianity for some radicals became
republicanized. As in government so in religion.
The people were their own theologians and could
no longer rely on others to tell them what to
believe (Gordon Wood, 366-74)
24Concerns about moral citizensexample 1 Alexis
de Tocqueville discusses the role of religion
- Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America
(1831), chapter XVII - The sects that exist in the United States are
innumerable. They all differ in respect to the
worship which is due to the Creator but they all
agree in respect to the duties which are due from
man to man. Each sect adores the Deity in its own
peculiar manner, but all sects preach the same
moral law in the name of God. If it be of the
highest importance to man, as an individual, that
his religion should be true, it is not so to
society. Society has no future life to hope for
or to fear and provided the citizens profess a
religion, the peculiar tenets of that religion
are of little importance to its interests.
Moreover, all the sects of the United States are
comprised within the great unity of Christianity,
and Christian morality is everywhere the same. -
- It may fairly be believed that a certain number
of Americans pursue a peculiar form of worship
from habit more than from conviction. In the
United States the sovereign authority is
religious, and consequently hypocrisy must be
common but there is no country in the world
where the Christian religion retains a greater
influence over the souls of men than in America
and there can be no greater proof of its utility
and of its conformity to human nature than that
its influence is powerfully felt over the most
enlightened and free nation of the earth. -
- I have remarked that the American clergy in
general, without even excepting those who do not
admit religious liberty, are all in favor of
civil freedom but they do not support any
particular political system. They keep aloof from
parties and from public affairs. In the United
States religion exercises but little influence
upon the laws and upon the details of public
opinion but it directs the customs of the
community, and, by regulating domestic life, it
regulates the state.
25Concerns about moral citizensexample 2
Catharine Beecher discusses womens role in a
democracy
- Catharine E. Beecher, A Treatise On Domestic
Economy (1843) - ...The success of democratic institutions, as
is conceded by all, depends upon the intellectual
and moral character of the mass of the people. If
they are intelligent and virtuous, democracy is a
blessing but if they are ignorant and wicked, it
is only a curse, and as much more dreadful than
any other form of civil government, as a thousand
tyrants are more to be dreaded than one. It is
equally conceded, that the formation of the moral
and intellectual character of the young is
committed mainly to the female hand. The mother
forms the character of the future man the sister
bends the fibres that are hereafter to be the
forest tree the wife sways the heart, whose
energies may turn for good or for evil the
destinies of a nation. Let the women of a country
be made virtuous and intelligent, and the men
will certainly be the same. The proper education
of a man decides the welfare of an individual
but educate a woman, and the interests of a whole
family are secured. -
- If this be so, as none will deny, then to
American women, more than to any others on earth,
is committed the exalted privilege of extending
over the world those blessed influences, which
are to renovate degraded man, and "clothe all
climes with beauty."
26institutional proliferation the camp
meetingsource P.S. Duval, ca. 1801, from Joseph
Smith, Old Redstone
27other religious sects and traditions that
originated or grew during the Second Great
Awakening
- Existing religions that grew
- Baptists (origins of Southern Baptists)
- Methodists
- New religions
- Mormons
- Disciples of Christ
- Millerites (Seventh-Day Adventists)
- Communitarian groups
- Finneyite revivals
- Transcendentalism Unitarianism
28Focus question 4 How did these issues carry
forward into the late 20th century?
- key concept
- Religion in the late 20th century. The first
three issues discussed in todays
presentationthe marketplace of ideas individual
autonomy and religious diversity and concerns
about moralitycarry forward into the late 20th
century. We can see these issues in Supreme
Court decisions about the role of religion in
primary and secondary schools.
29American religious diversity the eight leading
church bodies in the United States by County,
2000 (measures church membership, not belief)
30the marketplace of religion
31Religion in the schools
- Establishment cases? 1960s-90s
- - Engele v. Vitale (1962)
- - Abington School District v. Schempp (1963)
- - Wallace v. Jaffree (1985)
- - Lee v. Weisman (1992)
- Free exercise cases?1980s/00s
- - Westside Community Board of Ed. v. Mergens
(1990) - - Rosenberger v. Rector Visitors of UVA (1995)
- - Good News Club v. Milford Central School
(2001)
32Primary Sources on the webDivining America
http//www.nhc.rtp.nc.us/tserve/divam.htmReligio
n and the Founding of the American Republic
http//lcweb.loc.gov/exhibits/religion/African
American Odyssey http//memory.loc.gov/ammem/aaoh
tml/exhibit/aointro.html Selected secondary
sourcesPatricia Bonomi, Under the Cope of
Heaven Religion, Society, and Politics in
Colonial America (Oxford UP, 1986). Frank
Lambert, The Founding Fathers and the Place of
Religion in America (Princeton UP, 2003)Rhys
Isaac, The Transformation of Virginia, 1740-1790
(University of North Carolina Press, 1982).
Isaac Kramnick and R. Laurence Moore, The
Godless Constitution A Moral Defense of the
Secular State (W. W. Norton Company, 1996).R.
Laurence Moore, Selling God American Religion in
the Marketplace of Culture (Oxford UP, 1994).