Religious Resurgence.

Visiting the United States in the 1830s, Alexis de Tocqueville observed, "there is no country in the world in which the Christian religion retains a greater influence over the souls of men." While his statement probably seemed accurate to most of his contemporaries, just thirty years earlier the situation had been vastly different. In the immediate aftermath of the American Revolution the disestablishment of the state churches, the religious radicalism of prominent revolutionaries such as Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine, and the demands of forming a new nation had left church membership at an all-time low. Over the first third of the nineteenth century, however, Americans joined churches and religious organizations with unprecedented enthusiasm as a series of religious revivals, collectively known as the Second Great Awakening, swept the nation. Beginning with camp meetings on the Western frontier and spreading into both the South...