Overview

In a clear and original treatment of a controversial topic, historian James H. Hutson describes the rise of organized religion in America and its interaction with government from the arrival of Protestant and Catholic groups in New England and the middle Colonies in the early 17th century to the establishment of new religious groups in the early decades of the 19th century. By interpreting the Puritans' arrival in New England in the context of European religious persecution, he lays the groundwork for his examination of the evolving relationship between church and state in America. The history of Rhode Island Baptists and Pennsylvania Quakers prefigured the principles of religious freedom and separation of church and state laid down in the founding documents of the US. Hutson describes the founding of the federal and state governments and the founders' attitudes toward religion's role in government. Hutson's own expertise and the Library of Congress's rich documentation of this period give particular weight and interest to this period.

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9780844409481

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Reviews

Religion and the Founding of the American Republic . . . offers a bracingly original if selective survey of the religious foundations of the American republic . . . [it] enhances our understanding of the past through a felicitous confluence of visual image and written interpretation . . . [and] provides instructive insights and overviews, nearly all relating to separation of church and state. Dee E. Andrews, The William and Mary Quarterly

Author Information

JAMES H. HUTSON is chief of the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress. His most recent book is The Sister Republics: Switzerland and the United States from 1776 to the Present (1991). JON BUTLER's most recent book is Awash in a Sea of Faith (1990).

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