The Democratic Dilemma - 9780521301831

The Democratic DilemmaReligion, Reform, and the Social Order in the Connecticut River Valley of Vermont, 17911850\nAuthor(s): Randolph A. Roth\nFormat: Hardback\nPublisher: Cambridge University Press, United Kingdom\nImprint: Cambridge University Press\nISBN-13: 9780521301831, 978-0521301831\nSynopsis\nThe Democratic Dilemma seeks to explain Vermonters' extraordinary faith and idealism. It argues that Vermonters, as the most radical democrats of the Age of Revolution and conservators of New England's traditions, faced a dilemma: how to reconcile their commitment to competition, toleration, and popular sovereignty with their desire to defend an orderly and pious way of life. By embedding democratic ideals in their institutions and their society. Denominations and political parties clashed, townspeople and church members proved ungovernable, and young people grew wayward and rebellious. An economic and demographic crisis in the 1830s and 1840s compounded these problems by denying many .