Chapter 2: Nation Summary and Analysis

Emerson said that old time religion was virtually dead. And to put a period at the end of religion in the new nation, Emerson proclaimed that nothing was there to take its place. But perhaps that reality was just in Emerson's head. There were more churches than ever before. Fifty thousand or more were built between the Revolutionary and Civil Wars. Christians grew in number faster than the population itself. For the visiting French political observer and historian, Alexis de Tocqueville, he disagreed with Emerson's assessment and was struck by the religious atmosphere in the country. In 1843, German theologian Philip Schaff noted that Christianity "had greater power over the mind" (p. 48) in America than in Europe. Frances Trollope, an English visitor on a zoological expedition, thought that women were especially religious.

What everyone noticed and agreed was that government...