1650 and Puritan govern- ments were highly democratic. "As the doc- trine of popular sovereignty gradually spread to most of the English colonies, it shaped Ameri- can mores, embedding the 'spirit of liberty' deep within the American character."
the 1830s, Tocqueville observed, that spirit of freedom had overcome the "spirit of religion" within Christianity itself. Orthodoxy became far less important, zealotry gave way to toleration, and the miraculous and other- worldly aspects...