New Thoughts
Content in this assignment is from American History: From Pre-Columbian to the New Millennium by the Independence Hall Association, used under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
An Explosion of New Thought
What did it mean to think like an American? Once the colonists had thrown off the burdens and controls of England, the possibilities for political, social and artistic creativity and experimentation seemed limitless. People felt optimistic and determined that a new order would be brought to bear, not just on government but on all institutions of social interaction. So, from the beginning of the 1800s until the first gunshot of the Civil War, the American experiment unfolded like an epic. Opportunity, heightened by political freedom and a surge of nationalism, caused most citizens to believe that the experiment might actually work. Thus, a uniquely American tradition in literature, art, thought, and social reform emerged.
Religion was renewed through a Second Great Awakening. Evangelists on a “divine mission” believed that churches were the proper agents of change, not violence or political movements. Ardent believers in the perfectibility of society tried communal living with distinctly utopian goals, convinced that ultimately their small fellowships would grow into larger, more influential gatherings for the common good of all. Women began to explore the possibility of individual rights and equality with men. Their agenda was quite vast and included not only the right to vote but also such diverse problems as prohibition and world peace. Reformers, sure that the dire human conditions in prisons, workhouses, and asylums were the result of bad institutions and not bad people, made gallant efforts to alleviate pain and suffering. Hopes were high that cures for social disorders in America caused by rapid expansion, population growth, and industrialization would work.
In addition, a new school of artists sought to depict a love of nature and the feeling for our place in it by painting the grandeur and panorama of an unspoiled American landscape. And the new American thinkers? They exhorted each citizen to: “Hitch your wagon to a star!” The Transcendentalists and literary lights wanted to remind everyone who he or she was and might become. Their philosophy celebrated individualism, the goodness of humankind, and the benevolence of the universe.
It was an exciting era to live in. But, like any other, it inevitably developed problems for which neither optimism nor expansion, religion nor reform could provide answers. The tragic flaw in the American experiment would slowly reveal itself in the widening breach between the North and the South over the issue of slavery. As the tone of the abolitionist cause became more and more shrill, it began to drown out moderation, compromise and good feelings. Americans had previously been willing to argue about everything from women’s rights to the virtues of homemade bread, yet rarely did they lose sight of another American’s right to disagree. But the unprecedented divisiveness of the institution of slavery and the resultant catastrophe of the Civil War brought down the curtain, in the words of Abraham Lincoln: on “the better angels of our Nature.”
Religious Revival
Standing on a hilltop in upstate New York, with the breeze blowing lightly through his hair, the Reverend Charles Grandison Finney surveys his audience. He is about to say something startling. In his grand baritone, he begins by exhorting them to listen carefully; he is about to change their lives. The message delivered by Finney focused on salvation. It stated that salvation is the beginning of a life of good works here on earth. Finney believed man can, therefore, achieve his own salvation. He preached about a merciful and loving God. Finney encouraged his audience to go forth, and do as well as believe.
His flock was duly astounded. This was a unique and welcome message coming from the mouths of Reverend Finney and other American evangelists who began spreading the news of the Second Great Awakening from New England to the West from approximately 1795 to 1835. This was a message of hope and opportunity. Religion wasn’t only revived it was being transformed. Gone were the warnings that man was totally depraved; that he was “predestined” to salvation or damnation; that God was angry and full of vengeance. The amazing assurance that life on earth had its own rewards and was not just a way station on the road to heaven (or hell) touched people’s hearts. And they rushed to hear it.
Thus, the revolt against Jonathan Edwards’s strict Calvinism produced many new sects. The area around central New York and along the Erie Canal was a fertile ground for Pentecostal fervor and conversion so intense it was referred to as the “burned-over district.” William Miller founded the Adventist sect based on the notion that he could pinpoint the exact day when the Messiah
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