American civil religion

and a strengthened economy. However, on the other had, industrialization didn’t come without cons. For one, this system promoted a widening gap between the rich and the poor. Monopolies sprang up, stealing money out of the pockets of working class americans. These laborers were forced to work long grueling hours, in often unsafe conditions, just to be rewarded with hardly enough money to live off of. To make matters worse, the government had no system in place to protect these vulnerable…

conflict over slavery; should slavery be legal, or abolished? The Second Great Awakening was a religious reform in the early nineteenth century America, preachers like Charles Finney travelled around the world to lecture people about the importance of religion. These preachers lectured to their audience that their sins could be cleansed forever. Many other reforms such as temperance, abolition, and women’s rights also formed during the Second Great Awakening. Henry Clay created the Missouri…

longe” and the summers are more “fervent in heat than in England”. Johnson describes the winters as “harsh” and mentions the horrible effects such as scurvy and death. Winthrop does a great job at explaining the political system in the colony. The “civil government is mixt: the freemen choose the magistrates every year… and at 4 courts in the year 3 out of each town (there being 8 in all) do assist the magistrates in making laws, imposing taxes, and disposing of lands”. As Johnson included…

in mind when he wrote the opening line we can look at the context of history to infer who he most likely was thinking of. At this point in American history slavery was legal and African Americans were considered property, with little to no rights. Most of the founders, Jefferson included, owned slaves. Given these facts, it is unlikely that African Americans were included when Jefferson wrote “all men are created equal.” Another group that most likely also wasn’t included in this idea was women.…

During the rather controversial period of the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln was looked upon as the Great Emancipator, but further evidence has been gathered that leaves historians questioning Lincoln’s true character and motives. One man in particular, Lerone Bennett Jr., an African American scholar and social historian, argues that Lincoln had no passion or intention of ultimately ending slavery in his article “Lincoln, a White Supremacist (1968).” The period in which Bennett was writing could…

of slavery, representation and other controversies were settled by way of compromise. But by 1860, this was no longer feasible because so many disagreements and heat between the North and the South had occurred. Consequently, the hullabaloo led to civil war. Though manifest destiny was becoming a reality via westward expansion, it triggered the start of disagreements slavery would bring. In 1819 the United States contained eleven free states and eleven slave states which led to a balance in…

ohn Wilkes Booth Student Name Institution Synopsis John Wilkes Booth was an American actor who was one of the most auspicious of his time. He was part of the Booth theatrical family and by 1860s he had already earned himself a good reputation in the acting career.He joined the No-Nothing Party in the 1850s and during the period of the civil war he became a secret Confederate agent. He vehemently denounced Abraham Lincoln and strongly opposed the eradication of slavery in the…

As a result of many slaveholders practicing religion, Douglass is correct in the assumption that the Christianity of the slaveholders is hypocritical and used to justify their actions as expressed in his novel Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave written by himself. Douglass supports his claim by first explaining the conversion of one of his slaveholders, and second by describing the twistedness of the American church. Douglass’s purpose is to use sympathetic and…

As a category of American religious history, African-American religious life and the history behind it has often forgotten or briefly summarized in most historians’ work. Prior to the 1970’s, most history written on African-American religion was vague, often just trivial paragraphs in textbooks and considered irrelevant to our nation’s religious history. But as time progressed, history was revisited to show African-American’s having a more prominent voice in America’s religious culture. One…

Neal Dow was a man who contributed to many causes during his time. He was a general for the union during the Civil War and was also very active in the cause of abolishing Negro Slavery. He was also a presidential candidate in 1880 for the Prohibition party. “Among additional social causes, he interested himself in crime prevention, prison reform, and women's rights” (Neal Dow Prohibition Presidential Candidate 1880). The cause he is most known for is the temperance movement which is the…