Abstract: By the early 1800s, the language of republicanism was ubiquitous throughout American Christianity. Prior to 1740 or so, however, traditional Christians mostly opposed republicanism. Revivalists like George Whitefield and Jonathan Edwards often interjected the language of liberty into their sermons, but they used this rhetoric for mostly spiritual purposes. War with France during the 1750s and the series of disputes with Britain during the 1760s that led to war, however, accelerated the integration of republican political philosophy and Christian thought. At the same time, Americans embraced the concept of “virtue,” an amorphous term that took on a variety of sometimes conflicted meanings, as their way of maintaining a healthy society protected from “slavery” and “tyranny.”

Keywords: Jonathan Edwards, Tom Paine, republicanism, slavery, virtue, George Whitefield,