1. Democracy in America, ed. J. P. Mayer (New York: Anchor Books, 1969), p. 455.Google Scholar

2. Mead, Sidney E., The Lively Experinent (New York: Harper and Row, 1963),Google Scholar especially chap. 7, “Dsnominationalism: the Shape of Protestantism in America.” See as well Sandeen, Ernest R., “Freedom and Denominationalism in the Thought of Sidney B. Mend,” Journal of Religion 44 (10 1964): 328–334.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3. The full stenographic text of the conference was published: Alliance, Evangelical, Report of the Proceedings of the Conference… London,… 1846 (London: Partridge and Oakey, 1847), 607 pp.Google Scholar (hereafter cited as EA Proceedings). The 1846 meeting of the Alliance is noted in Ewing, John, Goodly Fellowship (London: Marshall, Morgan and Scott, 1946)Google Scholar; this centennial memorial volume is not helpful nor particularly accurate. Although more scholarly, the chapter on the Alliance meeting in Rouse, Ruth and Neill, Stephen C., eds., A History of the Ecumenical Movement, 1517–1948 (London: SPCK, 1954),Google Scholar is not entirely adequate; Rouse, who is the author of the chapter, seemed too eager to puff the Alliance as the ancestor of the World Council and not sensitive enough to the frustration and calamity of the session. Two dissertations on the Alliance in the U.S. touch upon the 1846 meeting, but neither sees the possibilities for eross-cultural comparison; see Jamison, Wallace N., “A History of the Evangelical Alliance for the United States of America” (Ph. D. diss.: Union Theological Seminary, 1946),Google Scholar and Jordan, Philip D., “The Evangelical Affiance for the United States of America” (Ph. D. diss.: University of Iowa, 1971).Google Scholar For the seriousness of sectarian strife in Britain, see Chadwick, Owen, The Victorian Church, 2 vols. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1966, 1970), 1:60–63Google Scholar; I do not think that American historians would dispute the generalization for the United States.

4. Edward Biekersteth suggested, in fact, that the eredal basis of the Alliance was introduced in part to neutralize the criticism that British leaders had devised the Alliance as a political crusade against Catholicism (EA Proceedings, p. 77). In addition to Chadwick, Victorian Church, see also Cahill, Gilbert A., “The Protestant Association and the Anti-Maynooth Agitation of 1845,” Catholic Historical Review 42 (10 1957): 273–308Google Scholar; and Machin, G. I. T, “The Maynooth Grant, the Dissenters and Disestablishment, 1845-1847,” English Historical Review 82 (01 1967): 61–85,CrossRefGoogle Scholar this latter article being especially helpful.

5. Both Jainison and Jordan describe the events leading tip to the conference. A good primary source is [David King( ?) ], Historical Sketch of the Proposed Evangelical Alliance, a fugitive pamphlet which probably contains the text of the address on the history of the Alliance read on the first day of the conference (EA Proceedings, p. 17). One copy uf this pamphlet is found in the library of Union Theological Seminary in New York City where I have found the best collection of literature relating to the Alliance.

6. EA Proceedings, p. 64.

7. Ibid., p. 74.

8. Ibid., p 179.

9. Ibid., p. 100 and 177.

10. Ibid., pp. 149–150.

11. Ibid., pp. 138–145.

12. Ibid., p. 26.

13. Ibid., p. 35.

14. American evangelicals were able to respond to the call for a meeting of the Alliance on such short notice because they had already been preparing for some kind of ecumenical movement within the United States. Indeed, it was in part due to a letter of American Freebyterian leader William Patton that British evangelicals proceeded as quickly as they did to organize the 1846 meeting this letter is published in Essays on Christian Union (London: Hamilton Adams, 1845), pp. 223–225.Google Scholar But the most significant ecumenical leader among American evangelicals was Samuel S. Sehmucker, a Lutheran and a professor of theology at Gettysburg Seminary. The publication of his book, Fraternal Appeal to the American Churches with a Plan for Catholic Union, in 1838 marked the beginning of s campaign to bring about some accommodation between traditionally feuding denominations. But as in Scotland, the spirit of ecumenism was matched (and possibly stimulated?) in increasing intra- as well as interdenomiuational friction. By 1846 Congregationalists, Baptists, Presbyterians, and Methodists had split.

15. The debate over slavery covered four days and was spread over pp. 290–459 of the Proceedings. Moderate abolitionists such as Lewis Tappan watched the Alliance warily and felt that some Americans were behaving far more militantly toward slavery in Britain than they ever did in America; see Abel, Annie H. and Klingberg, Frank J., A Side Light on Anglo-Ainercan Relations 1839–1858 (Lancaster, Pennsylvania: Association for the Study of Negro Life and History, 1927), pp. 263–264.Google Scholar William Lloyd Garrison, not content to observe from afar, was actually present in London during the whole conference, although he was not permitted into the sessions.

16. The members of the conference all signed a roster which is printed in EA, Proceedings, pp. lxvii–xcviiGoogle Scholar; a summary of this data is reproduced in the Appendix.

17. For the World's Temperance Convention, see the New York Evangelist, 10 November 1846. Joshua V. Himes, one of the few radical abolitionists represented among the Americans, traveled to Britain especially to aid British Adventists; see Louis Billington, “The Millerite Adventists in Britain, Great, 1840–1850,” Journal of American Studies (1967): 191–212.Google Scholar

18. Millennial Harbinger, 3d ser., 3, 8 (08 1846): 446.Google Scholar

19. Chorley, Edward, Men and Movements in the American Episcopal Church (New York: Scribners, 1946), p. 133–167.Google Scholar

20. Nichols, James H., Romanticism in American Theology (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961), pp. 64–83.Google Scholar Schaaf changed his mind about the Evangelical Alliance after the Civil War; see Jordan, , “The Evangelical Alliance,” p. 109.Google Scholar

21. Meyers, Marvin, The Jacksonian Persuasion (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1957), p. 34.Google Scholar

22. An especially good example of this is found in the speech of the Rev. Stephen Olin at the Alliance (EA Proceedings, pp. 36–49).

23. James, Henry, Hawthornc (New York: Harper, 1879), pp. 42–43.Google Scholar

24. Bushnell, , “Evangelical Alliance,” New Englander (01 1948), p. 104.Google Scholar

25. Ibid.

26. Melville, Herman, Moby Dick (New York: Rinehart, 1948), p. 413.Google Scholar

27. Jonathan Edwards, An Humble Attempt to Promote… Visible Union, quoted in Heimert, Alan and Miller, Perry, eds., The Great Awakening (Indianapolis: Bobbe, Merrill, 1967), pp. 569–570.Google Scholar

28. Burleigh, J. H. S., A Church History of Scotland (London: Oxford University Press, 1960), pp. 261–405Google Scholar; and Mathieson, William L., Church and Reform in Scotland: A Hictory from 1797–1845 (Glasgow: J. Mealehose and Sons, 1916).Google Scholar In view of their influence on the American Calvinistic tradition, it seenis incomprehensible that American historians so seldom cite any of this history. The same is true, at least until recent years, for the influence of Scottish Common Sense philosophy. It would appear that we Americans have simply reflected the anti-Scottish bia of English historiography.

29. Burleigh, pp. 325–328; Essays on Christian Union, a volume of contributions mostly from Scots, stemming from the tercentenary celebration of the Westminister Assembly, and often cited as having an influence upon leaders of the Alliance of 1846; Chalmers, Thomas, On the Evangelical Alliance (Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1840),Google Scholar wherein Chalmers explained his reservations.

30. All my estimates of the size of British religious groups depend, as must every scholar's for this period, upon the 1851 religious ceusus. For a discussion of this controversial survey see Gay, John P., The Geography of Religion in England (London: Duckworth, 1971), pp. 45–63.Google Scholar For the evangelicals in the Church of England, see Chadwick, , Victorian Church, 1:440–455.Google Scholar

31. Machin, , “The Maynooth Grant,” p. 65.Google Scholar

32. McLoughlin, William G., New England Dissent, 1630–1833 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971), 2:1189–1206.Google Scholar

33. Chadwick, , Victorian Church, 1: 391–395Google Scholar; Bickersteth's comment was: “I camaot but hope that one good effect will arise, amidst numerous evils, from the Dissenters' Chapel Bill. It will bring the true children of God of all denominations, who hold the Head, more to real unity.” Quoted in Birk, T. R., Memoir of the Rev. Edward Bickersteth (London: Seeleys, 1851), 2: 280.Google Scholar

34. Everitt, Alan, Pattern of Rural Dissent: The Nineteenth Century (Leicester: Leiceater University Press, 1972), p. 6.Google Scholar

35. Ibid.

36. EA Proceedings, p. 260 ff.

37. Ibid., p. 267.

38. de Tocqueville, , Democracy in America, p. 513.Google Scholar

39. The list might easily have been made twice as long. Not even half of these associations were affiliated with the Church of England; see Birks, , Memoir, 2:276, 364,Google Scholar and passim.

40. Theiwail, Algernon S., Proceedings of the Anti-Maynooth Conference (London, 1845).Google Scholar

41. Norman, E. R., The Conscience of the State in North America (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968).Google Scholar