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Article: Religion and Religious Affiliation
- Article from:
- Dictionary of American History
- Author:
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RELIGION AND RELIGIOUS AFFILIATION
RELIGION AND RELIGIOUS AFFILIATION.
When European scholars and church leaders visited early-nineteenth-century America, they were quick to comment on the religious freedoms of the new nation. Reporting on his 1831
–
1832 visit in the now famous
Democracy in America,
Alexis de Tocqueville wrote that the "religious aspect of the country was the first thing that struck my attention." Tocqueville was not alone. Francis Grund from Austria, Andrew Reed from England, Philip Schaff of Germany, and many others commented on the "voluntary principle" of religion, the peculiar "religious economy," and the religious "exceptionalism" of the new nation. In ...