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The Puritans as Founders: The Quest for Identity in Early Whig Rhetoric*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 June 2018

Extract

In looking at the politics of the opening decades of the nineteenth Century, scholarly attention has been drawn to the self-destruction of the Federalists, the ascendancy of the Jeffersonian Republicans, or the emergence of the Jacksonian Democrats. What gets lost in the way scholars view this political drama is the coalescence of an American Whig identity, forged in the decade of the 1820's. At least part of this inattention can be explained by scholarly appraisals of the Whig party as intellectually incoherent, politically cynical, and, ultimately, unsuccessful.

The Whig position was, indeed, a curious one: the Whigs heralded the growth of the modern capitalist market that would unleash the forces of entrepreneurial individualism, yet they decried the loss of the precommercial values of deference, virtue, and hierarchical Community; they embraced the prosperity brought about by commerce, yet they feared the corruption of virtue that resulted from the pursuit of interest; and they looked forward to a capitalist economy while glancing back at an antidemocratic Federalism and Puritan moralism.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture 1996

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Footnotes

*

My thanks to Richard Ellis and Major Wilson for their helpful comments on this essay, to Heather Wolak and Nanette Graddy for their research assistance, and to the Franklin and Marshall College Committee on Grants for providing funds to aid in this research.

References

Notes

1. This discussion of Whiggery follows the work of Howe, Daniel Walker, The Political Culture of the American Whigs (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979).Google Scholar For an analysis of Whiggery in the South, see Seilers, Charles Grier Jr., “Who Were the Southern Whigs?American Historical Review 59 (January 1954): 335-46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2. See Marshall, Lynn L., “The Strange Stillbirth of the Whig Party,” American Historical Review 72 (January 1967): 445-68CrossRefGoogle Scholar, who argues that the “key element in the formation of the Whig party was party organization, not ideology” (445). Sellers, Charles, The Market Revolution: Jacksonian America, 1815-1846 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), 360 Google Scholar, refers to the “non-committal politics of White and Harrison” as successes upon which the Whigs chose to build. See also Van Deusen, Glyndon G., The Jacksonian Era, 1828-1848 (New York: Harper & Row, 1959), 96.Google Scholar

3. See Formisano, Ronald P., The Birth of Mass Political Parties: Michigan, 1827-1861 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1971).Google Scholar His chapter on the Whigs deals exclusively with their moralistic aspects.

4. See Welter, Rush, The Mind of America, 1820-1860 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1975)Google Scholar, who can barely contain his revulsion for the Whigs; Schlesinger, Arthur M. Jr., The Age of Jackson (Boston: Little, Brown, 1945)Google Scholar, who depicts the Whigs as Federalists in a new guise; and Meyers, Marvin, The Jacksonian Persuasion: Politics and Belief (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1960), 257-58Google Scholar, who discusses what appears as an almost pathetic attempt by the Whigs to master a democratic rhetoric.

5. See Benson, Lee, The Concept of Jacksonian Democracy: New York as a Test Case (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1961).Google Scholar

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8. Howe, , Political Culture of the American Whigs, 2.Google Scholar

9. The focus of this article is on early Whig rhetoric in an attempt to understand the process of identity formation as the Whig culture began expressing itself politically. Many of the Speeches I have identified as Whig occur before the actual formation of the Whig party in 1834.1 see the formation of the party not as the beginning of American Whiggery but as one expression of a Whig culture that was becoming identifiable in American politics in the preceding decade. This is consistent with Howe, who draws upon Speeches and writings of Whigs in the years before the naming of the Whig party. See Howe, Political Culture of the American Whigs, and Howe, Daniel Walker, The American Whigs: An Anthology (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1973).Google Scholar This is also consistent with Statements by the Whigs themselves. For example, in an 1842 speech before the Massachusetts Whig Convention, Daniel Webster declared, “I am a Whig, I always have been a Whig, and I always will be one.” He furthermore saw himself as having battled the Whig cause for “five-and-twenty years.” Daniel Webster, “Reception at Boston, September 30, 1842,” in The Papers of Daniel Webster: Speeches and Formal Writings, Volume 2, 1834-1852, ed. Charles M. Wiltse (Hanover, N.H.: University Press of New England, 1988), 341.

10. Meyers, , Jacksonian Persuasion, 257 Google Scholar, refers to the “mock conversion” of the Whigs to democracy in the 1840 election. See also Sellers, , Market Revolution, 350, 362.Google Scholar

11. See Benson, Concept of Jacksonian Democracy, and Formisano, Birth of Mass Political Parties. There is much I am sympathetic to in what has become known as the ethnocultural interpretation of voting behavior, including the importance these interpreters place on the role of Symbols in mobilizing the electorate. I would be reluctant, though, to separate symbolic politics from the Substantive concerns of the electorate to the extent seen in ethnocultural interpretations. For a discussion of ethnocultural interpretations, see McCormick, Richard L., “Ethno-Cultural Interpretations of Nineteenth-Century American Voting Behavior,” Political Science Quarterly 89 (June 1974): 351-77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Kohl, Politics of Individualism, is a notable exception to the tendency to ignore rhetoric.

12. Percy, W., “The Symbolic Structure of Interpersonal Process,” Psychiatry 24 (1961): 3952 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed, quoted in Geertz, Clifford, The Interpretation of Cultures (New York: Harper, 1973), 213.Google Scholar

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14. “The New England Character,” North American Review 44 (January 1837): 138.

15. “Bancroft's History ofthe United States,” North American Review 40 (January 1835): 117, 101-2. This view of history helps to explain the Whig appreciation of the Democrat Bancroft's History and the Whig's corresponding dislike for English historian James Grahame's The History of the United States of North America, till the British Revolution in 1688 (Boston: Russell, Odiorne, and Co., 1833).

16. Wills, Garry, Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words that Remade America (New York: Touchstone, 1992), 51.Google Scholar

17. See Craven, Wesley Frank, The Legend of the Founding Fathers (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1956), 11, 43.Google Scholar

18. Hutchinson, Thomas, The History of the Colony and Province of Massachusetts-Bay, 3 vols., ed. Mayo, Lawrence Shaw (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1936; New York: Kraus Reprint, 1970), l:xxix.Google Scholar

19. Buell, Lawrence, New England Literary Culture: Front Revolution Through Renaissance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 197-98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar The contributions of other states and regions were recognized, as in David Ramsay's description of Massachusetts and Virginia as the “two mother states of the union.” In an oration in New York, Charles Hadduck, a Dartmouth professor, picked up on this depiction but went on to note that New England was dominant in not only population, commerce, and religion but also that “our distinctive national features—are New England” while “the Virginian belongs more to the Old World.” See Ramsay, David, History of the United States from their First Settlement as English Colonies … (Philadelphia: M. Carey, 1816), 66 Google Scholar; and Hadduck, Charles, “The Elements of National Greatness” (1841), in The New England Society Orations: Addresses, Sermons and Poems Delivered before the New England Society in the City of New York, 1820-1885, 2 vols., ed. Brainerd, Cephas and Brainerd, Eveline Warber (New York: Century, 1901), 272.Google Scholar

20. Trumbull, Benjamin, A General History of the United States of America from the Discovery in 1492, to 1792 … (Boston: Farrand, Mallory, & Co., 1810), 1, 113.Google Scholar

21. Buell, , New England Literary Culture, 195.Google Scholar

22. Dwight, Timothy, Travels in New England and New York, 4 vols., ed. Solomon, Barbara Miller (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press, 1969), 4:369, 372-73.Google Scholar

23. Westbrook, Perry D., The New England Town in Fact and Fiction (London: Associated University Presses, 1982), 26.Google Scholar

24. [Catharine Sedgwick], A New-England Tale; or, Sketches of New-England Character and Manners (New York: Bliss and White, 1822), 31, 13.

25. Hannah Adams seems to favor the character of the Pilgrims over the Puritans largely because of the Puritan zealousness in their persecution of dissenters. Yet, Adams minimizes these Puritan “imperfections” by pointing to the “wise and benevolent principles” that guided them. See Adams, Hannah, A Summary History of New-England (Dedham, Mass.: Mann & Adams, 1799), 2122, 36.Google Scholar Adams quotes from John Adams's Canon and Feudal Law in justifying Puritan excesses.

26. Emerson, Ralph Waldo, “Historical Discourse, at Concord … Sept. 12, 1835,” in The Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, 14 vols. (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, & Co., 1883), 11:42, 44, 75.Google Scholar

27. Emerson, Ralph Waldo, “The Method of Nature, 1841,” in The Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, 5 vols. (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press, 1971), 1:135.Google Scholar

28. Bancroft, George, History of the United States of America, From the Discovery of the Continent, 6 vols. (New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1888), 1:322, 320.Google Scholar

29. Belknap, Jeremy, American Biography, or, an Historical Account&, 2 vols. (Boston: Thomas & Andrews, 1798), 2:341.Google Scholar Belknap is writing about John Winthrop but also expresses his dissatisfaction with the persecutions conducted by the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

30. “The New England Character,” 238.

31. I tend to agree with Buell, who sees the invocation of the Puritans more as “a mood inspired by Special occasions than a constant, indwelling magnetic force.” See Buell, , New England Literary Culture, 195.Google Scholar

32. Sellers, , Market Revolution, 32 Google Scholar; Jefferson, Thomas, The Life and Selected Writings of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Koch, Adrienne and Peden, William (New York: Modern Library, 1972), 377 Google Scholar; Ashworth, John, ‘Agrarians’ and ‘Aristocrats’: Party Political Ideology in the United States, 1837-1846 (Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Humanities Press, 1983), 27 Google Scholar; Bartlett, Joseph, An Oration, Delivered at Biddeford, on the Fourth of July, 1805 (Saco, Maine, 1805), 14 Google Scholar; Irving, John Treat, Oration Delivered on the 4th of July, 1809, Before the Tammany Society … (New York, 1809), 23 Google Scholar; Alden, Augustus, An Address, Delivered at Augusta, on the Thirty-Fourth Anniversary of American Independence, July Fourth, 1809 (Augusta, 1809), 8.Google Scholar

33. Jefferson, , Life and Selected Writings, 324.Google Scholar

34. Ashworth, ‘Agrarians’ and ‘Aristocrats’, 135. See also Sellers, , Market Revolution, 35.Google Scholar

35. Ashworth, , ‘Agrarians’and ‘Aristocrats’, 3031.Google Scholar

36. Fisk, Theophilus, “Capital against Labor. An Address delivered at Julien Hall before the mechanics of Boston on Wednesday evening, May 20, 1835,” in Social Theories of Jacksonian Democracy: Representative Writings of the Period 1825-1850, ed. Blau, Joseph L. (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1954), 201.Google Scholar

37. Rufus Choate draws this exact connection in an 1834 address. See Choate, Rufus, “The Colonial Age of New England,” in The Works of Rufus Choate with a Memoir of His Life, 2 vols., ed. Brown, Samuel Gilman (Boston: Little, Brown, 1862), 1:353-56.Google Scholar

38. There is a long and illustrious debate on this subject, beginning with Max Weber's The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, trans. Talcott Parsons (New York: Charles Scribner, 1958). For important contributions to this debate, see Little, David, Religion, Order and Law: A Study of Pre-Revolutionary England (New York: Harper & Row, 1969)Google Scholar; Bercovitch, Sacvan, The American Jeremiad (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1978)Google Scholar; Rutman, Darrett B., Winthrop's Boston: A Portrait of a Puritan Town, 1630-1649 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1965)Google Scholar; and Walzer, Michael, “Puritanism as a Revolutionary Ideology,” History and Theory 3, no. 1 (1964): 5990.CrossRefGoogle Scholar For an extension of this discussion into Connecticut, see Lucas, Paul R., Valley of Discord: Church and Society along the Connecticut River, 1636-1725 (Hanover, N.H.: University Press of New England, 1976).Google Scholar

39. Cotton, John, Christ the Fountaine of Life (London, 1651), 119-20Google Scholar, quoted in Miller, Perry and Johnson, Thomas, eds., The Puritans: A Sourcebook of Their Writings (New York: Harper and Row, 1963), 61 Google Scholar; Cotton Mather, Magnalia Christi Americana, in Mather, Cotton, Selections, ed. Murdock, Kenneth B. (New York: Hafner, 1960), 115.Google Scholar

40. Mather, Richard, A Farewel-Exhortation to the Church and People of Dorehester in New-England (Cambridge, Mass., 1657)Google Scholar, quoted in Miller, Perry, The New England Mind: From Colony to Province, (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press, 1953), 4 Google Scholar; John Whiting, “The Way of Israels Welfare; or an Exhortation to be with God, that He may be with us” (May 13, 1686), in The Puritan Sermon in America, 1630-1750, 4 vols., ed. Ronald A. Bosco (Delmar, N.Y.: Scholars' Facsimiles and Reprints, 1978), 2:16-17.

41. Beecher, Lyman, The Memory of our Fathers, a Sermon Delivered at Plymouth, on the Twenty-second of December, 1827 (Boston, 1828), 21, 8.Google Scholar

42. William Bradford's chronicle of the early struggles of the Pilgrims, Of Plymouth Plantation 1620-1647, new ed. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1966), was already well known. Contemporary histories that portrayed the enterprising nature of the early settlers include Bancroft's History, Grahame, History of the United States of North America; Pitkin, Timothy, A Political and Civil History of the United States of America, vol. 1 (New Haven: Hezekiah Howe and Durrie & Peck, 1828)Google Scholar; Palfrey, John Gorham, History ofNew England during the Stuart Dynasty (Boston: Little, Brown, and Co., 1858), x Google Scholar; and Trumbull, , General History of the United States of America, 106-7.Google Scholar

43. See “The New England Character,” 237-38; and Edward Everett, “The Settlement of Massachusetts, delivered at Charlestown Lyceum on June 28, 1830,” in Orations and Speeches on Various Occasions, 2d ed., 4 vols. (Boston: Little and Brown, 1850), 1:237-39.

44. Choate, “Colonial Age of New England,” 365; Everett, “Settlement of Massachusetts,” 1:244. For similar Statements, see Edward Everett, “First Settlement of New England, delivered at Plymouth, December 22, 1824,” in Orations and Speeches, 2d ed., 1:46; and Edward Everett, “Fourth of July at Lowell, delivered on July 5, 1830,” in Orations and Speeches, 2d ed., 2:58.

45. Adams, John Quincy, “Address held at the Little Falls, near Georgetown, District of Columbia, July 4, 1828,” in Trumpets of Glory, ed. Hawken, Henry A. (Granby, Conn.: The Salmon Brook Historical Society, 1976), 116-17Google Scholar; Edward Everett, “A Discourse on the Importance to Practical Men of Scientific Knowledge, and on the Encouragement to its Pursuit,” compiled by Everett in 1836 from speeches made in 1827, 1829, and 1830, in Orations and Speeches on Various Occasions, ed. Edward Everett (Boston: American Stationers', 1836), 248.

46. Adams, “Address held at the Little Falls,” 116, 118 (quoting Bishop Berkeley).

47. Everett, “Settlement of Massachusetts,” 1:243. See also Hadduck, “Elements of National Greatness,” 271.

48. Adams, “Address held at the Little Falls,” 118.

49. Edward Everett, “Principles of the American Constitutions,” in Orations and Speeches, 2d ed., 1:129.

50. Everett, “Settlement of Massachusetts,” 1:233, 235.

51. Mason, William Powell, An Ovation Delivered Wednesday, July 4, 1827 (Boston, 1827), 13.Google Scholar

52. Somkin, Fred, Unquiet Eagle: Memory and Desire in the Idea of American Freedom, 1815-1860 (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1967), 7.Google Scholar

53. See Rantoul, Robert Jr., “Oration at Scituate, Delivered on the 4th of July, 1836,” in Memoirs, Speeches and Writings of Robert Rantoul, Jr., ed. Hamilton, Luther (Boston: John P. Jewett & Co., 1854), 252-53, 288.Google Scholar

54. Rantoul, , “Oration at South Reading, delivered … on the Fourth of July, 1832,” in Memoirs, ed. Hamilton, , 173.Google Scholar

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56. The term is from Taylor, George Rogers, The Transportation Revolution, 1815-1860 (New York: Rhinehart, 1951).Google Scholar

57. Sellers, , Market Revolution, 43.Google Scholar

58. Everett, “First Settlement of New England,” 1:54.

59. Shaw, John A., An Oration Delivered Before the Citizens of Plymouth, July 4, 1828 (Boston, 1828), 11.Google Scholar

60. “Story's Constitutional Law,” North American Review 38 (January 1834): 69. Story wrote that, though early efforts at forming confederacies were “abortive,” these efforts “prepared their minds for the gradual reconciliation of their local interests, and for the gradual developement of the principles, upon which a union ought to rest, rather than brought on an immediate sense of the necessity, or the blessings of such a general government.” Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, abridged ed. (Boston: Hilliard, Gray, and Co., 1833), 74-75. The argument that the “confederation of the four New England colonies, served as the basis of the great confederacy afterwards formed between the thirteen states of America” is also made by Pitkin, , Political and Civil History, 52.Google Scholar

61. See Welter, , Mind of America, 206-7.Google Scholar

62. For a clear Statement of this, see Winthrop, John, The History of New England from 1630 to 1649, 2 vols., ed. Savage, James (New York: Arno Press, 1972), 2:229-30.Google Scholar

63. David Ramsay, for example, notes that, though “the religion of many of the first settlers was tinctured with enthusiasm,” a euphemism for bigotry, “it is equally true, that, without a portion of that noble infirmity, no great enterprize was ever accomplished.” See Ramsay, , History of the United States, 54.Google Scholar

64. Trumbull, , General History, 108.Google Scholar For obvious biblical reasons, the Puritans were depicted as occupying a desert that was a wilderness.

65. Dwight, , Travels, 4:328.Google Scholar

66. Quoting Bancroft, in “Bancroft's History,” 111.

67. Dwight, , Travels, 4:371-72.Google Scholar

68. Everett, “Principles,” 130; Webster, Daniel, “The Landing at Plymouth, delivered on Dec. 22, 1843,” in Writings and Speeches of Daniel Webster, 3:205 Google Scholar; Everett, “Discourse on the Importance to Practical Men,” 250, 257.

69. Howe, , Political Culture of the American Whigs, 102-4.Google Scholar

70. Everett, “Fourth of July at Lowell,” 2:63-64.

71. Ibid., 63-65.

72. Miller, Randall M., “Daniel Pratt's Industrial Urbanism: The Cotton Mill Town in Antebellum Alabama,” Alabama Historical Quarterly 34 (Spring 1972): 11, 22, 9.Google Scholar See also Griffin, Richard W. and Standard, Diffee W., “The Cotton Textile Industry in Ante-Bellum North Carolina, Part II: An Era of Boom and Consolidation, 1830-1860,” The North Carolina Historical Review 34 (April 1957): 131-64.Google Scholar Somewhat ironically, while New England in their origin, these factory communities were often justified as a way for the South to free themselves from dependence on the North.

73. Jefferson, , Life and Selected Writings, 488.Google Scholar

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76. Everett, “Settlement of Massachusetts,” 1:216.

77. “Kingsley's Historical Discourse,” North American Review 47 (October 1838): 480-81.

78. Trumbull, Benjamin, A Complete History of Connecticut (Hartford: Hudson & Goodwin, 1797), 2.Google Scholar Daniel Webster, too, would contrast the clearness of American Puritan origins with the foundings of other countries that are “obscured in the darkness of antiquity.” Webster, “First Settlement,” 1:198.

79. “Kingsley's Historical Discourse,” 481-83. Though the nation was born of an “original compact,” it was not a contract of individuals pursuing their own interests but a compact to forge the bonds of Community. The Whigs, thus, sought to combine more modern notions of consent with traditional organic images of Community.

80. Choate, “Colonial Age of New England,” 352-53. See also Beecher, Lyman, A Plea for the West (Cincinnati, 1835)Google Scholar, in The American Whigs: An Anthology, ed. Howe, where he states that “the puritans … laid the foundations of the republican institutions of our nation” (142).

81. Choate, “Age of the Pilgrims,” 374. In this speech, Choate refers to the Puritans as “an authentic race of founders” (374). In his famous speech at Plymouth, later repeated before the Senate, Daniel Webster compared the Pilgrims favorably to other founders. Ancient Greek settlers, as an example, did not possess sufficiently elevated principles or purposes to motivate them as did the Pilgrims in their desire for civil and religious liberty. Roman settlements were based on “power and dominion” with no sustaining principle independent of Rome. Asian colonies were based solely on trade and, thus, rarely attained the Status of self-governing political entities. And in the West Indies, as commerce was built on slavery, the owners of capital never developed attachments to the land or the country. Webster, “First Settlement,” 193- 94, 196.

82. Choate, “Age of the Pilgrims,” 360-61. See also George Cheever's oration in New York in which he identifies the “inheritance of liberty through trials” from our Pilgrim ancestors as essential to our “National Greatness.” Cheever, George, “Address” (1842), in New England Society Orations, ed. Brainerd, and Brainerd, , 291.Google Scholar

83. Webster, “First Settlement,” 186; Willard, Joseph, An Oration Delivered at Lancaster, Mass. in Celebration of American Independence, July, 1825 (Boston, 1825), 7.Google Scholar

84. Shaw, , Oration Delivered Before the Citizens of Plymouth, 22.Google Scholar

85. See, for example, Everett, Alexander, An Oration: Delivered at the Request of the City Government, Before the Citizens of Boston, on the 5th of July, 1830 (Boston, 1830)Google Scholar; Loring, Charles, An Oration, Pronounced on the Fourth of July, 1821, at the Request of the Inhabitants of the Town of Boston, in Commemoration of the Anniversary of National Independence (Boston, 1821)Google Scholar; and Lyman, Theodore Jr., An Oration Delivered at the Request of the Selectmen of the Town of Boston, on the Anniversary of American Independence, in the year 1820 (Boston, [1820]).Google Scholar

86. Beecher, , Memory of our Fathers, 2, 67, 15.Google Scholar The Second Great Awakening, through its emphasis on moral responsibility, accountability, individual grace, and collective redemption, is important in providing the moral impetus behind Whig ideology. See Howe, , Political Culture of the American Whigs, 9.Google Scholar

87. Brackenridge, Thomas, Oration Delivered at the Columbian College, in the District of Columbia, July 5, 1824 (Washington City, 1824), 17 Google Scholar; Cary, Thomas G., An Oration Delivered at Brattleborough, Vermont, July 4, 1821 (Brattleborough, Vt., 1821), 7 Google Scholar; Stetson, Caleb, An Oration Delivered at Lexington, on the Fourth of July, 1825, (Cambridge, Mass., 1825), 11 Google Scholar; Rev. Bisbe, John, An Oration Pronounced at Dudley, Mass., July 4, 1820, it being the Anniversary of American Independence (Worcester, Mass., 1820), 22 Google Scholar; Brackenridge, , Oration Delivered at the Columbian College, 14 Google Scholar; Stetson, , Oration Delivered at Lexington, 18.Google Scholar

88. North American Review, 36, n.s., no. 11 (July 1822): 22.

89. See Miller, The New England Mind: From Colony to Province.

90. Heimert, Alan, Religion and the American Mind: From the Great Awakening to the Revolution (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1966), 15.Google Scholar

91. Bercovitch, Sacvan, The Puritan Origins ofthe American Self (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1975), ix Google Scholar; Bercovitch, , American Jeremiad, 28.Google Scholar

92. For an overview of the rather heated controversy about how one can identify Puritanism, see Greaves, Richard L., “The Nature of the Puritan Tradition,” in Reformation, Conformity and Dissent: Essays in Honour of Geoffrey Nuttall, ed. Knox, R. Buick (London: Epworth Press, 1977), 255-57Google Scholar. A number of approaches have been taken to depict Puritanism. For an example of understanding Puritanism through its orientation to ecclesiastical and civil polity, see Christianson, Paul, “Reformers and the Church of England under Elizabeth I and the Early Stuarts,” Journal of Ecclesiastical History 31 (October 1980): 463-82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Examples of understanding a Puritan “essence” as primarily theological can be found in New, John F. H., Anglican and Puritan: The Basis of Their Opposition, 1558-1640 (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1964)Google Scholar; and Hall, Basil, “Puritanism: The Problem of Definition,” Studies in Church History, vol. 2, ed. Cuming, G. J. (London: Ecclesiastical History Society, 1965).Google Scholar For examples of identifying Puritanism by its soteriology, see Miller, , The New England Mind: The Seventeenth Century (Boston: Beacon Press, 1961)Google Scholar; Trinterud, L. J., “The Origins of Puritanism,” Church History 20 (March 1951): 3757 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rutman, Darrett, American Puritanism: Faith and Practice (New York: J. B. Lippincott, 1970)Google Scholar; Hambrick-Stowe, Charles E., The Practice of Piety: Puritan Devotional Disciplines in Seventeenth-Century New England (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1982)Google Scholar; and Stout, Harry S., The New England Soul: Preaching and Religious Culture in Colonial New England (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986)Google Scholar. Examples of the class basis of Puritanism include Hill, J. E. C., Society and Puritanism in Pre-Revolutionary England (London: Secker and Warburg, 1964)Google Scholar; and Walzer, Michael, The Revolution of the Saints: A Study in the Origins of Radical Politics (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1965).Google Scholar Examples that depict Puritanism by its particular spiritual characteristics include Nuttall, Geoffrey F., The Holy Spirit in Puritan Faith and Experience: The Puritan Spirit (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1946)Google Scholar; Simpson, Alan, Puritanism in Old and New England (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1955)Google Scholar; Greaves, “Puritan Tradition”; Breward, Ian, “The Abolition of Puritanism,” The Journal of Religious History 7 (1972-73): 2034 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Lamont, William, “Puritanism as History and Historiography: Some Further Thoughts,” Past and Present 44 (1969): 133-46CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Cohen, Charles, God's Caress: The Psychology of Puritan Religious Experience (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986).Google Scholar For examples of writings that attempt to locate Puritanism on a spectrum that combines these different categories, see Finlayson, Michael G., “Puritanism and Puritans: Labels or Libels?Canadian Journal of History 8 (1973): 203-23CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Collinson, Patrick, “A Comment: Concerning the Name Puritan,” Journal of Ecclesiastical History 31 (October 1980): 483-88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

93. Foster, Stephen, Their Solitary Way: The Puritan Social Ethic in the First Century of Settlement in New England (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1971), xiv.Google Scholar

94. See Greene, Jack P., Pursuits ofHappiness: The Social Development of Early Modern British Colonies and the Formation of American Culture (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1988).Google Scholar Important works that have examined regional differences and contributions to American culture include Fischer, David Hackett, Albion 's Seed: Four British Folkways in America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989)Google Scholar; and Isaac, Rhys, The Transformation of Virginia, 1740-1790 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1982). 95.Google Scholar

95. With all of the attempts to trace a Puritan cultural lineage into the nineteenth Century, few scholars have looked at the actual rhetorical invocations of the Puritans by political statesmen. Instead, a Puritan legacy has been formulated almost exclusively through recourse to political sermons, pamphlets, or literature. See Heimert, Religion and the American Mind; Weber, Donald, Rhetoric and History in Revolutionary New England (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988)Google Scholar; Stout, New England Soul, in which Stout devotes less than three pages to lay orations; Hatch, Nathan O., The Sacred Cause of Liberty: Republican Thought and the Millennium in Revolutionary New England (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1976)Google Scholar; Bailyn, Bernard, The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press, 1967)Google Scholar; Miller, Perry, “From the Covenant to the Revival,” in The Shaping of American Religion, vol. 1, ed. Smith, James Ward and Jamison, A. Leland (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1961)Google Scholar; and Bercovitch, American Jeremiad.