Book Review

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Book Review | The Journal of American History, 86.2 | The History Cooperative

Necessary Virtue: The Pragmatic Origins of Religious Liberty in New England. By Charles P. Hanson. (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1998. x, 277 pp. $35.00, isbn 0-8139-1794-8.)

Over thirty years ago Alan Heimert's controversial study, Religion and the American Mind (1966), challenged historians to reconsider how religious forces influenced the American Revolution and the new republic. Since then Rhys Isaac, Nathan Hatch, Jonathan Clark, and Barry Shain—to name but a few—have further expanded our understanding of the religious dimensions of this era in fruitful and provocative ways. With this gracefully written, cogent examination of Protestant New England's reaction to the pragmatic realities of relationships with Quebec Catholics and Catholic France during the Revolution, Charles P. Hanson makes a significant contribution to the discussion. 1

For the Yankees at Lexington in 1775, anti-Catholicism was a principled matter of religious integrity. Within a few years, however, New Englanders accommodated to a contrary perspective that would surely have amazed their ancestors. The invasion of Canada and the subsequent coalition with Louis XVI's France forced a monumental reconsideration that strengthened the hands of those who wished to limit the authority of New England's standing order and expand religious toleration. . . .

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