The Reorientation of American Protestantism, 1835–1845

In March 1835 Charles Finney told a gathering in New York City: “If the church will do all her duty, the millennium may come in this country in three years.” This statement has often served as an epigram for the era, the motto of that movement for revivalism and social reform that, having already swept the churches, was to so infuse the culture with its moral imperatives as to make a Civil War against slavery inevitable and the hegemony of evangelical Protestantism secure. On this reading Finney's declaration marks the midpoint in a story of triumph—triumph for revival religion, and triumph for a nation that aspired to righteousness.