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This book uses the discourse of religious liberty, often expressed
as one favoring a separation between church and state, to explore
racial differences during an era of American empire building
(1750-1900). Discussions of religious liberty in America during
this time often revolved around the fitness of certain ethnic or
racial groups to properly exercise their freedom of conscience.
Significant fear existed that groups outside the Anglo-Protestant
mainstream might somehow undermine the American experiment in
ordered republican liberty. Hence, repeated calls could be heard
for varying forms of assimilation to normative Protestant ideals
about religious expression. Though Americans pride themselves on
their secular society, it is worth interrogating the exclusive and
even violent genealogy of such secular values. When doing so, it is
important to understand the racial limitations of the discourse of
religious freedom for various aspects of American political
culture. The following account of the history of religious liberty
seeks to destabilize the widespread assumption that the dominant
American culture inevitably trends toward greater freedom in the
realm of personal expression.
Ryan P. Jordan explores the limits of religious dissent in
antebellum America, and reminds us of the difficulties facing
reformers who tried peacefully to end slavery. In the years before
the Civil War, the Society of Friends opposed the abolitionist
campaign for an immediate end to slavery and considered
abolitionists within the church as heterodox radicals seeking to
destroy civil and religious liberty. In response, many Quaker
abolitionists began to build "comeouter" institutions where social
and legal inequalities could be freely discussed, and where church
members could fuse religious worship with social activism. The
conflict between the Quakers and the Abolitionists highlights the
dilemma of liberal religion within a slaveholding republic.
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