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Protestant Clergymen and American Destiny: II. Prelude to Imperialism, 1865–1900

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 August 2011

John Edwin Smylie
John Edwin Smylie
Affiliation:
Occidental College, Los Angeles, California
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Extract

If in the Civil War God was preserving American nationality, giving the nation a baptism of blood, after that sacramental rebirth the question naturally arose, why had nationality been preserved, and what purpose was the regenerated nation to serve? In asking the question Protestant clergymen assumed that history had meaning, a plot, and that the United States would play a role in it. When they looked forward, what did they see ahead for America on the world stage? Upon investigation that forward look emerges as more than a blurred daydream. Leaders of Protestant thought analyzed American destiny in terms of sophisticated contemporary interpretations of history. From their analysis grew serious intellectual ideas of destiny which in retrospect appear as a prelude to later imperialism.

Type
Research Article
Information
Harvard Theological Review , Volume 56 , Issue 4 , October 1963 , pp. 297 - 311
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1963

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References

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