The Social and Political Base of Millennial Literature in Late Eighteenth-Century America

Abstract

HOW AMERICANS OF THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD ENVISIONED THE FUTURE has long been a matter of lively historical debate. No sooner was the Revolution underway than an argument arose about whether its goal was to recover the past or to initiate a new age. On various levels of public and scholarly discourse, this discussion has continued into the present. Among recent historians, it has increasingly revolved around the question of millennialism.' Did many patriots believe that history was leading to the millennium? If not, what hopes, if any, did they entertain about the future? Did they look ahead with a pragmatic commonsense realism, with a confident liberal belief in progress, or with a classical republican fear of future decline? The many answers to these questions reflect deep disagreements about the relationship of religion to the American nation. How religious beliefs affected the formation of republican consciousness in the late eighteenth century is both a vital and persistently troublesome historical question. It is vital, not only because the Revolution was such a critical event, but also because the relationship of popular religion to American democracy has remained a fundamental issue in American society. And it is troublesome, because like the religion and the politics it concerns, this question has bred contradictory