Page 302 - American Stories, A History of the United States

of Christ’s sermon on the Mount. Finney expressed such a hope himself, but he concentrated on
individual religious conversion and moral uplift, trusting that the purification of American society 12.1
and politics would automatically follow. Other religious and moral reformers, however, were inspired
to crusade against those social and political institutions that failed to achieve Christian perfection.
These reformers attacked such collective “sins” as whiskey, war, slavery, and even government. 12.2
Religiously inspired reformism cut two ways. On the one hand, it imposed a new order and
cultural unity on divided and troubled communities like Rochester. but it also inspired more radi-
cal movements or experiments that threatened to undermine established institutions that failed 12.3
to live up to the more idealistic reformers’ principles. One of these movements—abolitionism—
challenged the central social and economic institution of the southern states and helped trigger
political upheaval and civil war.

The Rise of evangelicalism

12.1 How did the evangelical revivalism of the early nineteenth century spur reform
movements?
A merican Protestantism was in ferment during the early nineteenth century.

Denominations turned to revivalism to strengthen religious values and
increase church membership. Mobilization of the faithful into associa-
tions to spread the gospel and reform American morals often followed
spiritual renewals.

The second Great Awakening

The Second Great Awakening, a wave of religious revivals, began in earnest on the Second great awakening evan-
southern frontier around 1800. In 1801, nearly 50,000 people gathered at Cane Ridge, gelical Protestant revivals that
Kentucky. According to a contemporary observer: swept over America in the early
nineteenth century.
The noise was like the roar of Niagara. The vast sea of human beings seemed to be
agitated as if by a storm. I counted seven ministers all preaching at once. . . . Some
of the people were singing, others praying, some crying for mercy . . . while others
were shouting most vociferously. . . . At one time I saw at least five hundred swept
down in a moment, as if a battery of a thousand guns had been opened upon
them, and then followed immediately shrieks and shouts that rent the heavens.
Emotional camp meetings, spontaneous religious gatherings organized usually
by Methodists or Baptists but sometimes by Presbyterians, became a regular feature
of religious life in the South and lower Midwest. On the frontier, the camp meeting
filled social and religious needs. In the sparsely settled southern backcountry, it was
difficult to sustain local churches with regular ministers. Methodists sent out circuit
riders. Baptists licensed uneducated farmers to preach to their neighbors. But for many
people, the only way to get baptized or married or to have a communal religious experi-
ence was to attend a camp meeting.
In the South, Baptists and Presbyterians eventually deemphasized camp meetings
in favor of “protracted meetings” in local churches that featured guest preachers hold-
ing forth day after day for up to two weeks. Southern evangelical churches, especially
Baptist and Methodist, grew rapidly in membership and influence during the first half
of the nineteenth century and became the focus of rural life. Although they fostered
societies to improve morals—to encourage temperance and discourage dueling, for
example—they generally shied away from social reform. The conservatism of a slave-
holding society discouraged radical efforts to change the world.
Reformist tendencies were more evident in the distinctive revivalism that originated in
New England and western New York. Northern evangelists were mostly Congregationalists
and Presbyterians, influenced by New England Puritan traditions. Their greatest successes
were not in rural or frontier areas but in small- to medium-sized towns and cities. Their
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