essay 3

W4745067:
TMA03
Compare and contrast the accounts by Mark Noll (study Guide 3, Reading 1) and Alexis De Tocqueville (Study Guide 3, Reading 2) of the role of religion in political life in the United States in the early nineteenth century.
How important was Christian Identity to the development of American Nationhood by 1865?
Word Limit 1500-2000 words.

The first thing to note is that the texts are differing types of Sources. Reading 2 is a primary reflective source of evidence of someone who visited America and examined the state of the United Sates and in particular its Roman Catholic (esp Fench Community), possibly as a diplomat or spy for the French Republic cementing the alliance between France and the United States from 1778 and the American war of independence. This differs from Nolls reading 1’s more analytical reprinted report from 2002.[1] Noll sought to use census and building data to argue about the structure of the discussed evangelical surge and change of the composition of the denominations in the United States as in the first decades Anglicanism declined as a result of movement away from the USA or change of denomination (in particular New England) and the casualties of the war of independence.

Noll starts by saying “No other period of American History ever witnessed such a dramatic rise in religious adherence and corresponding religious influence on the broader national culture.” This agrees in part with Tocqueville who observes that the Catholic influx, predominantly from Ireland, “..made proselytes, so that [then] more than a million Christians professing the truths of Rome are to be found within the Union.” So both Evangelicals and Catholics sought to expand their numbers through conversion of what had been British America and emigration from Europe to settle in it. As such both had the potential for a large impact on The United States political life as while the Protestants were undoubtedly numerically more, The Catholics were clustered in the urban centres.

Tocqueville notes that the American republic was founded by men who had shaken off the authority of the pope[2], so that the new republic was founded in a way in which
W4745067 pg.2
politics and religion were separate. This agrees with and supports Noll’s assertion that there was an evangelical surge and church building programme so that 59-91% of the population could be seated in them and his argument that one of the denominations that was successful was the Methodists (schisms into differing groupings notwithstanding[3]). However Tocqueville sees Catholicism as equally supportive of the republic as “…the most republican and democratic class of the United States.[4]” He also observes that most of the Catholics are poor and as such the democratic system allows them to engage with the system and flourish.

Tocqueville’s argument on that is that apart from the priest, Catholic doctrine ensures that all men are equal (Para 4) and that sometimes they take their part with the governing classes (in the old world) or sometimes the side of the democracy (In America) as while faith and doctrine were unquestionable, political truths are open to free enquiry and thus “It may be asserted then, that in the United States no religious doctrine displays the slightest hostility to democratic and republican institutions.”

Tocqueville highlights the common ground as that all the clergy of the different sects here hold the same language; “…their opinions are in agreement with the laws, and the human mind flows onwards, so to speak in one undivided current[5]” as all the churches require the state and church to be separate to maintain the integrity of their own congregation in a secular republic of all churches. The best synopsis of his thinking that thus highlights the common ground between the readings is in paragraph 24 of Tocqueville:
“The Americans combine the notions of Christianity and of liberty so intimately in their minds that it is impossible to make them conceive the one without the other, and with them this conviction does not spring from that barren, traditionary faith that seems to vegetate rather than to live in the soul.”

This suggests that religion was a support to the rule of law and that Judeau-Christian values from whichever church underpinned the rule of law and democracy. However
W4745067 pg. 3
it is also important to note that Noll’s analysis covers a full fifteen years more than Tocqueville as he finishes in 1845 whereas Nolls evidence goes up to 1860. When Chidester looks at the disagreements over slavery within the states of the American Republic and between Northern and Southern Baptists of the time he takes the analysis up to the Beginning of the American Civil War in 1860.

In his Discussion with Professor Woolfe in Audio CD 3 Chidester notes that no one religion is allowed to be established under the American system of governance. In his book[6] he notes this rational form of Christianity as a form of Enlightenment Deism and that new forms of post American independence Christianity were “…innovations in democracy” Citing the written work of Jefferson and Paine in which the former sought to create “The most sublime and benevolent code of morals which has ever been offered to man.” Paine sought to suppress the free exercise of reason under the weight of orthodoxy and tradition which meant it wasn’t ‘open to every man alike’ which in Paines opinion made them “human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind and monopolize power and profit.” As such religion had to be founded on reason and not dogma or revelation or plain fear of the Catholic Quebecequois in the St Lawrence Valley to the North[7]. This makes for a challenge to both Noll’s contention for an evangelical surge and Tocquevilles notion that Catholicism was open to all in a democracy as both are sectional and biased to their denominations.

However a better analysis might be that co-existence after the conflict of the American war of independence made logical sense under that rationalist framework of the Constitution. Chidester also notes that those who still dissented such as the Mormons moved west so expansion into the Louisianna purchase and the turning of the American Zion into farmland and railroads, loosely characterised by Hollywood as ‘how the west was won’ occurred. This creation of new states sought to create freedom for dissension with the coalition of states that made up the American union. However this allowed for the retention of segregation post 1865 and by implication a flaw in the unions ideal that ‘all men are created equal[8]’ This differs markedly from
W4745067 pg. 4
the English religious settlement discussed in Block 2 whereby the established church keeps the country together under Parliament with other churches advising ministers of
the crown or lawfully constituted offices of the state. Civic action programmes therefore work differently in both states even if their objectives are the same because of the differing nature and interpretations of the constitution by differing churches and now other faiths depending on their interpretation of the constitution. Hence the ideals of a rational faith, science and the rule of law within governance are as important now as they were in Tocquevilles day trying to unify North America as an ally of France.

Word Count: 1151

Bibliography
OU Course AA307 Study Guide 3, Readings 1 and 2:
Reading 1: Noll,
Reading 2:

OU Course AA307 Study Guide 2, Chronology

Chidester, David A Global History (Penguin 2000)

Woolfe, John, ed. Religion in History: Conflict, conversion and coexistence pgs. 110-112.

Transcript of Course AA307 CD 3.
[1] Noll, Mark A Americas God: From Jonathan Edwards to Abraham Lincoln, (2002, Oxford University Press)
[2] Para 2, reading 2 Toqueville
[3] Para 8, reading 1 Noll
[4] Op Cit Para 3 reading 2 Toqueville
[5] Paragraph 9, Reading 2, Study Guide 3, Toqueville
[6] Ch 23 American Zion in Chidester, David, Christianity, A Global History.
[7] Pg. 111-2 Woolfe, John ed Religion in History, Conflict, Conversion, Coexistence.
[8] Preamble, American Constitution