How did the United States, founded as colonies with explicitly religious aspirations, come to be the first modern state whose commitment to the separation of church and state was reflected in its constitution? Frank Lambert explains why this happened, offering in the process a synthesis of American history from the first British arrivals through Thomas Jefferson's controversial presidency. Lambert recognizes that two sets of spiritual fathers defined the place of religion in early America: what Lambert calls the Planting Fathers, who brought Old World ideas and dreams of building a "City upon a Hill," and the Founding Fathers, who determined the constitutional arrangement of religion in the new republic. While the former proselytized the "one true faith," the latter emphasized religious freedom over religious purity. Lambert locates this shift in the mid-eighteenth century. In the wake of evangelical revival, immigration by new dissenters, and population expansion, there emerged a marketplace of religion characterized by sectarian competition, pluralism, and widened choice. During the American Revolution, dissenters found sympathetic lawmakers who favored separating church and state, and the free marketplace of religion gained legal status as the Founders began the daunting task of uniting thirteen disparate colonies. To avoid discord in an increasingly pluralistic and contentious society, the Founders left the religious arena free of government intervention save for the guarantee of free exercise for all. Religious people and groups were also free to seek political influence, ensuring that religion's place in America would always be a contested one, but never a state-regulated one. An engaging and highly readable account of early American history, this book shows how religious freedom came to be recognized not merely as toleration of dissent but as a natural right to be enjoyed by all Americans.

Acknowledgments xiINTRODUCTION 1
PART ONE: Religious Regulation
CHAPTER 1
English Heritage 21
The Crown and the Church 23
The Age of Faith 31
The Act of Uniformity, Religious Liberty, and Dissent 39
CHAPTER 2
Transplanting the Church of England in the Chesapeake 46
"Nursing Fathers" of the Church 48
A Gentleman's Religion 58
Religious Outsider 67
CHAPTER 3
Puritan Fathers and the "Christian Common-wealth" 73
"the religious design of [the Puritan] Fathers" 76
"Shields unto the Churches of New-England" 82
"a well-bounded Toleration" 89
CHAPTER 4
A "Holy Experiment" in Religious Pluralism 100
The "Holy Experiment" 102
"a great mixt multitude" 109
Religion, Politics, and the Failure of the "Holy Experiment" 114
PART TWO: Religious Competition
CHAPTER 5
"Trafficking for the Lord" and the Expansion of Religious Choice 127
Regulated Parishes 129
"a Sett of Rambling Fellows" 136
"as tho 'they had their Religion to chuse" 145
CHAPTER 6
Deists Enter the Religious Marketplace 159
The New Learning 162
Science and Religion 167
Founder and "True" Religion 173
CHAPTER 7
Whigs and Dissenters Fight Religious Regulation 180
Whig and Dissenting Traditions 182
Warning against "Spiritual Directors" 187
Dissent against the Standing Order 194
PART THREE: Religious Freedom
CHAPTER 8
The American Revolution of Religion 207
Religion and Independence 210
Opposing Massachusetts's "oppressive establishment of religion" 219
Triumph of Religious Freedom in Virginia 225
CHAPTER 9
Constitutional Recognition of a Free Religious Market 236
Religious Factions and the Threat to Union 241
The "Godless Constitution" 246
Ratification Contingent upon Religious Freedom 253
CHAPTER 10
Religion and Politics in the Presidential Campaign of 1800 265
"...govern ...in the name of the Lo: Jesus Christ" 268
"JEFFERSON--AND NO GOD" 276
"one God, three Gods, no God, or twenty Gods" 280
Epilogue 288
Notes 297
Index 323