[T]he political and moral perfectionism of antebellum Protestants created standards of public morality that “threatened the core ideals of the commercial republic” that the Constitution was drafted to engender and protect. That is, evangelicals wanted to regulate public morality in ways that impinged upon commercial and business practices that had been legal, if not always favorably smiled upon, since the country’s founding. ...
[John] Compton’s thesis demonstrates that within the many ironies of history, the social and political instruments a perfectionist movement deploys may be easily co-opted for ends and purposes never imagined in their development.
