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The Religious Feelings of the American People, 1845-1935: A British View1
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 July 2009
Extract
British travelers have swarmed along American shores in vast numbers ever since the early years of the new republic. During the nineteenth century they erected a model of the United States, resembling Tocqueville's, with which they nearly always came to understand America. It was built around two generalizations. First, Americans believe in the principle of equality, or more precisely, the belief that all men deserve equal opportunities to rise, no matter what their inherited rank in society. And, second, Americans make an heroic effort to incorporate this principle into the daily institutional fabric of their national life—into the public schools, into family relationships in the homes, into a political life which revolves around the universal ballot, into their adoring attitude towards women and children, into their respectful treatment of “help,” and into the fluid class structure itself.
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- Copyright © American Society of Church History 1966
References
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