The Second Disestablishment: Church and State in Nineteenth-Century America

by Steven Green

Debates over the proper relationship between church and state in America tend to focus either on the founding period or the twentieth century. Left undiscussed is the long period between the ratification of the Constitution and the 1947 Supreme Court ruling in Everson v. Board of Education, which mandated that the Establishment Clause applied to state and local governments.

Steven Green illuminates this neglected period, arguing that during the 19th century there was a "second disestablishment." By the early 1800s, formal political disestablishment was the rule at the national level, and almost universal among the states. Yet the United States remained a Christian nation, and Protestant beliefs and values dominated American culture and institutions. Evangelical Protestantism rose to cultural dominance through moral reform societies and behavioral laws that were undergirded by a maxim that Christianity formed part of the law. Simultaneously, law became secularized, religious pluralism increased, and the Protestant-oriented public education system was transformed. This latter impulse set the stage for the constitutional disestablishment of the twentieth century.

The Second Disestablishment examines competing of evangelical Protestants who sought to create a "Christian nation," and of those who advocated broader notions of separation of church and state. Green shows that the second disestablishment is the missing link between the Establishment Clause and the modern Supreme Court's church-state decisions.

472 pages, Hardcover

First published April 12, 2010

Reviews

[Joanna · Rating 2 out of 5]

Green presents a fascinating argument on the relation of church and state throughout 19th century America and backs it up with an impressive amount of legal cases as examples. However, there was no apparent thought on Green's part to present only the information about each case that is relevant to his argument. Instead, he infodumps every detail on each case, which very quickly gets overwhelming for the reader, and he also fails to clearly prove why each case supports his argument. Furthermore, his writing style is unnecessarily dense, spends far too much time discussing things that are at best barely related to the central point of the work, and makes far to generous assumptions regarding the reader's background knowledge of the subject. Overall, Green's work is a case in point as to how gatekeeping aspects of academic writing are hindering lay interest in educated discourse, steering away potential readers that fail to fit the scholarly mold he unwittingly caters to.

[Alyse · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall this is a good telling of exactly how church and state were separated between the 1700-1900s in the US. A little hard to struggle through at some points, but overall I would say read it if it is what you are looking for!

[Adam Sweatman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thoughtful and thorough, can get a bit dense, but is useful for thinking about the process of negotiating church and state interactions in the 19th century.