Secularists, Religion and Government in Nineteenth-Century America

Timothy Verhoeven is Senior Lecturer in the School of Philosophical, Historical and International Studies at Monash University, Australia. He is the author of Transatlantic Anti-Catholicism: France and the United States in the Nineteenth Century (Palgrave, 2010) as well as many articles on the history of church-state relations.

"Verhoeven offers a rich survey … . Verhoeven captures this repeated dialectic with admirable balance. … Verhoeven effectively shows the broader popular appeal of the separationist logic in the nineteenth century … .” (Leigh E. Schmidt, Church History, Vol. 89 (1), March, 2020)“Secularists, Religion and Government in Nineteenth-Century America is a comprehensive, convincing, and readable account of church-state attitudes during the ‘forgotten century.’ It should be on any instructor’s list as a text in an undergraduate or graduate course on American church and state.” (Steven K. Green, Journal of Church and State, Vol. 61 (4), 2019)“The author’s ‘bottom-up’ approach gauges popular opinion by examining petitions to Congress from secularists and evangelicals over a range of issues. … Summing Up: Recommended. Advanced undergraduates and above.” (W. B. Bedford, Choice, Vol. 56 (12), August, 2019)“Secularists, Religion and Government in Nineteenth-Century Americais a remarkable book, showcasing a relish in the historian’s craft and offering a compelling new vision of a major and pressing theme in US history. Scholars in religious and political history alike will find themselves in Verhoeven’s debt for a long time to come.” (Michael G. Thompson, Australasian Journal of American Studies, Vol. 38 (2), July, 2019)

• 1. Introduction.- 2. "Stepping Stone to an Establishment": The 1785 Campaign Against the Religious Tax in Virginia.- 3. “Prostrating our rights on the altar of superstition and bigotry”:The Sunday Mail Controversy in the Early Republic.- 4. “Exposing priestcraft and all its cognate -isms”: Chaplains, Temperance and Sunday Travel.- 5.  “God’s Vice-Regents”: Political Preachers and the Crisis over Slavery.- 6. How Christian Were the Founders? God and the Constitution After the Civil War.- 7. The Bible Wars: Religion, Morality and Schools in an International Age.- 8. “Sunday clubs for wealthy people”: Taxing the Churches.- 9. “A professedly national secular show”: The World’s Fair Sunday Opening Controversy.- 10. Conclusion.