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Abraham Lincoln's “Last, Best Hope of Earth”: The American Dream of Destiny and Democracy*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 April 2011

Sidney E. Mead
Sidney E. Mead
Affiliation:
University of Chicago
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Extract

Our freer, but yet far from freed, land is the asylum, if asylum there be, for the hope of man; and, there, if anywhere, is the second Eden to be planted in which the divine seed is to bruise the head of Evil and restore Man to his rightful communion with God in the Paradise of Good.

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 23 , Issue 1 , March 1954 , pp. 3 - 16
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1954

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References

1. Bronson Alcott, quoted in Tyler, Alice Felt, Freedom's Ferment. Minneapolis: The University of Minnesota Press, 1944. p. 172.Google Scholar

2. The American Spirit, vol. IV of The Rise of American Civilization. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1948. p. v.

3. “Eeply to Mrs. Eliza P. Burney, Sept. [28], 1862,” in Stern, Philip Van Doren (ed.), The Life and Writings of Abraham Lincoln. New York: The Modern Library, 1940. p. 728.Google Scholar Quotations from Lincoln below are from this collection, hereafter referred to as “M.L.”.

4. “Annual Message to Congress, December 1, 1862,” in M.L., p. 745.

5. “Message to Congress in Special Session, July 4, 1861,” in M.L., p. 668.

6. Santayana, George, Character and Opinion in the united States. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1921. p. 168.Google Scholar

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8. Ibid., p. 53.

9. Ibid., p. 61.

10. ‘The Religious Impulse in the Founding of Virginia: Religion and Society in the Early Literature,” William and Mary Quarterly, 3d series, vol. 4 (Oct. 1948), pages 492–522; and VI (Jan., 1949), pages 24–41. The quotations are in order from V (Oct. 1948), pages 509, 503, 493, 510.

11. See Hertz, Karl H., “Bible Commonwealth and Holy Experiment,” Ph.D. Dissertation, Committee on Social Thought, The University of Chicago, 1948. p. 69.Google Scholar

12. Ibid., pages 65 and 91.

13. Miller, Perry, op. cit., p. 514.Google Scholar

14. See e.g., John Winthrop's “A Modell of Christian Charitie Written on Boarde the Arabella, on the Attlantic Ocean … 1630,” conveniently found in abbreviated form in Perry Miller and Johnson, Thomas H., The Puritans. New York: American Book Company, 1938. pp. 195–99.Google Scholar

15. “Winthrop's Conclusions for the Plantation in New England,” in Old South Leaflets. Boston: Directors of the Old South Work, n.d. Vol. II, no. –50. Compare William Bradford's chapter 4, “Showing the Reasons and Causes of Their Bemooval” in Bradford's History of Plymouth Plantation 1606–1646, William T. Davis (ed.), New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1908, pp. 44–49. One of the volumes of Original Narratives of Early American History, J. Franklin Jameson, (general ed.).

16. Miller, Perry, op. cit., p. 515.Google Scholar

17. Collingwood, R. G., An Mssay on Metaphysics. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1940. pages 188, 225–26.Google Scholar And note Ralph Gabriel's conclusion that “The foundation of this democratic faith was a frank supernaturalism derived from Christianity.” And “…in the United States in the middle years of the nineteenth century, the existence of a moral order which was not the creation of man, but which served as the final guide for his behavior, was almost universally assumed by thinking men.” The Course of American, Democratic Thought. New York: The Ronald Press, 1940. pages 14, 15.

18. “Meditation on the Divine Will, Sept. [30], 1862,” in M.L., p. 728.

19. Locke, John, Second Treatise of Civil Government, chap. xix.Google Scholar And see Mead, Sidney E., “The People,” The Chicago Theological Seminary Record, XXXIX (Jan. 1949), pp. 20–26.Google Scholar

20. Quoted in Tyler, , Freedom's Ferment, p. 1.Google Scholar

21. “Notes on Religion, Oct., 1776 [?],” in Padover, Saul K. (ed.), The Complete Jefferson. New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, Inc., 1943. p. 944.Google Scholar

22. Lincoln, , First Inaugural, in M.L., p. 655.Google Scholar

23. Madison, James, “A Memorial and Remonstrance on the Religious Rights of Man,” in Blau, Joseph L. (ed.), Cornerstones of Religious Freedom in America. Boston: The Beacon Press, 1944, p. 81.Google Scholar

24. “Annual Message to Congress, Dec. 1, 1862,” in M.L., p. 745.

25. Message to Congress in Special Session, July 4, 1861,” in M.L., p. 668.

26. Paul Williams, J., What Americans Believe and How They Worship. New York: Harper and Brothers, Publishers, 1952. p. 371.Google Scholar