A BATTLE NOT MANS BUT GODS - ORIGINS OF THE AMERICAN TEMPERANCE CRUSADE IN THE STRUGGLE FOR RELIGIOUS AUTHORITY

Major theories of the origins of American temperance have emphasized m aterialist explanations without taking seriously enough the independen t role of ideas-and, in particular, religious ideas-in stimulating the reform. This article develops a new interpretation, focusing on the r eligious origins of temperance in a ''crisis of contested authority'' that befell the Protestant denominations descended from Puritanism dur ing me early years of the 19th century. One outgrowth of the crisis ov er the authority of traditional religious ideas was a new theology foc used on religious salvation through the suppression of vice. This new religious ideology provided a core of beliefs and powerful justificati on for organizing a public crusade to ''exterminate'' vice, and one th at for ideological reasons ultimately narrowed its focus to the specif ic vice of intemperance. The crusade against vice in the early republi c offered clergymen a ''solution'' to their problems of contested auth ority by providing new strategies and an organizational base of volunt ary societies for carrying out what they perceived to be their sacred duties: winning souls to God, guarding collective salvation and levera ging government to promote obedience to religious prohibitions on vice . At least initially, temperance was part of a new kind of effort to a ssert the authority of religious ideas in the public sphere, and to re group religious forces under auspices outside the church.