The Benevolent Empire was
the result of the fusion of religion and reform.
The religious side of this
movement was fueled by the Second Great Awakening, which began around 1790 and
continued into the early 1800s. Some key religious leaders involved in the
movement were Charles Grandison Finney (a Presbyterian minister) and Samuel
Hopkins (a Congregationalist minister). Hopkins advocated the idea of
"disinterested benevolence" by Christians -- in other words, that godly
people show kindness equally toward everyone without thinking about who should
get their benevolence, because the whole community was their concern. These
movements in religion also coincided with social reform movements that were
occurring in the American political landscape during the same time frame.
