The Harvard education of the mid Nineteenth Century was still demonstrably Protestant and even conservative.
Miles Smith
Protestants Against Biblicism and Racialized Science in the Early Republic
Protestant intellectuals, particularly those involved in colleges, universities, and seminaries, denounced phrenology and racialized science as incompatible with Christianity.
“The men, to make a State, must be religious men”
Evangelicals are not the only ones who have assumed the need for a religious body politic in America.
Political Philosophy in Hodge’s Romans Commentary
Theology, it appeared to Hodge, naturally included political theology
Lord Macaulay and the Limits of Liberalism
Liberals historically did not accede to Enlightenment or secularist ideology regarding the civil order.
Was America Ever Christian? A Reply to Desiring God
Was the early American republic really marked by deism, the Enlightenment, and secularity?
Samuel B. Wylie and the Invention of Secular America
1800 saw the invention of a secular America, not a Christian one. There was no need to invent an explicitly Christian founding, largely because the Christian socio-civil foundation of the republic was already largely assumed.
Rougemont on Christianity and the Nationalities
Older views of church and state do not fit modern American binaries regarding their missions.
Confusion and Ambiguity: Constitution and Religion in The Early Republic
The constitutional settlement was never universally celebrated or even understood.
John Girardeau and the Oneness of the Race
“We fully recognize now, the unity and brotherhood of all believers in Christ Jesus—a unity and brotherhood which is not affected by distinctions of race, nationality, sex, culture, or civil status.”