Yet again American religion was proving to be a modernizing force but this time it supported the capitalist ethos while at the same time articulating a healthy criticism of the system. During the 1820s, Evangelicals threw themselves into moral crusades to hasten the coming of the Kingdom, campaigning against slavery, urban poverty, exploitation, and liquor, and fighting for penal reform, the education of the poor, and the emancipation of women. There was an emphasis on the worth of each human being, egalitarianism, and the ideal of inalienable human rights.
