The result was that although religion took no part in government, it was ‘the first of their political institutions’, providing the moral base of civic society, what he called its ‘habits of the heart’. It created communities, strengthened families and motivated philanthropic endeavours. It lifted people beyond what he saw as the great danger of democracy – individualism, the retreat of people from public life into private satisfaction. Religion strengthened the ‘art of association’, the underlying strength of American society.
