{"product_id":"wellspring-of-liberty-how-virginias-religious-dissenters-helped-win-the-american-revolution-and-secured-religious-liberty-9780195388060","title":"Wellspring of Liberty: How Virginia's Religious Dissenters Helped Win the American Revolution and Secured Religious Liberty","description":"Before the American Revolution, no colony more assiduously protected its established church or more severely persecuted religious dissenters than Virginia. Both its politics and religion were dominated by an Anglican establishment, and dissenters from the established Church of England were\u003cbr\u003esubject to numerous legal infirmities and serious persecution. By 1786, no state more fully protected religious freedom. \u003cbr\u003eThis profound transformation, as John A. Ragosta shows in this book, arose not from a new-found cultural tolerance. Rather, as the Revolution approached, Virginia's political establishment needed the support of the religious dissenters, primarily Presbyterians and Baptists, for the mobilization\u003cbr\u003eeffort. Dissenters seized this opportunity to insist on freedom of religion in return for their mobilization. Their demands led to a complex and extended negotiation in which the religious establishment slowly and grudgingly offered just enough reforms to maintain the crucial support of the\u003cbr\u003edissenters. \u003cbr\u003eAfter the war, when dissenters' support was no longer needed, the establishment leaders sought to recapture control, but found they had seriously miscalculated: wartime negotiations had politicized the dissenters. As a result dissenters' demands for the separation of church and state triumphed over\u003cbr\u003ethe establishment's efforts and Jefferson's Statute for Establishing Religious Freedom was adopted. \u003cbr\u003eHistorians and the Supreme Court have repeatedly noted that the foundation of the First Amendment's protection of religious liberty lies in Virginia's struggle, turning primarily to Jefferson and Madison to understand this. In Wellspring of Liberty, John A. Ragosta argues that Virginia's religious\u003cbr\u003edissenters played a seminal, and previously underappreciated, role in the development of the First Amendment and in the meaning of religious freedom as we understand it today.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e John A. Ragosta\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Oxford University Press, USA\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 05\/19\/2010\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 272\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eBinding Type:\u003c\/b\u003e Hardcover\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 1.14lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 9.49h x 6.25w x 0.92d\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780195388060\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eReview Citation(s): \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eChoice\u003c\/i\u003e 02\/01\/2011\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eJohn A. Ragosta\u003c\/strong\u003e is an instructor at the University of Virginia School of Law and received his PhD in history from the University of Virginia.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eThis title is not returnable\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Oxford University Press, USA","offers":[{"title":"Hardcover","offer_id":39930776977523,"sku":"9.78E+12","price":46.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0555\/9255\/0515\/products\/img_b83ef869-0c38-41cc-99c9-c6294eeec954.jpg?v=1647699530","url":"https:\/\/bookstorenmore.com\/products\/wellspring-of-liberty-how-virginias-religious-dissenters-helped-win-the-american-revolution-and-secured-religious-liberty-9780195388060","provider":"Bookstore N More","version":"1.0","type":"link"}