Reprint of the original, first published in 1875.

Martin Burke traces the surprisingly complicated history of the idea of class in America from the forming of a new nation to the heart of the Gilded Age. Surveying American political, social, and intellectual life from the late 17th to the end of the 19th century, Burke examines in detail the contested discourse about equality—the way Americans thought and wrote about class, class relations, and their meaning in society. Burke explores a remarkable range of thought to establish the boundaries of class and the language used to describe it in the works of leading political figures, social reformers, and moral philosophers. He traces a shift from class as a legal category of ranks and orders to socio-economic divisions based on occupations and income. Throughout the century, he finds no permanent consensus about the meaning of class in America and instead describes a culture of conflicting ideas and opinions.

What did Protestants in America think about capitalism when capitalism was first something to be thought about? The Bible told antebellum Christians that they could not serve both God and mammon, but in the midst of the market revolution most of them simultaneously held on to their faith while working furiously to make a place for themselves in ...

A relatively unexplored subject in the social and intellectual history of our country is the contribution made by the moral philosophers, the social scientists of their day. What was their place in the academic and practical world? What was the nature of their social ethics? Did they have a real voice in public affairs? What brought about the decline of their influence? These questions are dealt with in Professors and Public Ethics. In particular, Professor Smith discusses the beliefs and careers of some of the leading moral philosophers—William Paley, John Daniel Gros, Francis Lieber, Charles B. Haddock, Francis Wayland, James Walker, and others. Their writings and their views upon moral questions and the moral aspects of leading questions of their time are presented; among the problems dealt with are abolition of slavery, state rights, the Mexican War, Know-Nothing politics, agriculture and farm problems, the tariff, free trade, savings banks, recessions and booms, repudiation of state debts, and prison reform. Historians, as well as present-day social scientists and church leaders, should find Professors and Public Ethics a sound, thoughtful, and valuable contribution to our knowledge about the mid-nineteenth century.