Abstract: By the middle of the nineteenth century, the Methodists were the largest American denomination. But as they grew, so also did their theology Americanize. In the years following the death of Francis Asbury in 1815, Methodists grew closer to other denominations as they embraced American standards of commonsense moral philosophy and republican political thought. Still, it was not until the denomination divided over slavery in 1844 that the Methodists would come to look like most other American Protestant denominations in their embrace of commonsense and republican principles.

Keywords: Nathan Bangs, Wilbur Fisk, Holiness, intuitive reasoning, Luther Lee, Phoebe Palmer, Asa Shinn, Daniel D. Whedon,