Book Review: That Blessed Liberty
Miles Smith, IV, and Adam Carrington. That Blessed Liberty: Episcopal Bishops and the Development of the American Republic, 1789–1860. Prolego Press, 2025. 179 pp.
Between the surrender at Yorktown and the first shots at Sumter, the United States did more than construct a constitutional order. It also quietly and often anxiously reshaped its religious life. The former Church of England in America, suddenly severed from crown and Parliament, faced an existential question: would it fade as a relic of royalism, or could it refound itself as a church at home in a republic?
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The answer did not come in theory alone. It emerged in the lives of bishops as organizers, missionaries, and educators who refashioned Anglicanism for a new political world.
In That Blessed Liberty: Episcopal Bishops and the Development of the American Republic, 1789–1860, Miles Smith, IV, and Adam Carrington offer a lucid and engaging guide to these figures. Smith, Assistant Professor of History at Hillsdale College, and Carrington, Associate Professor of History and Political Science at Ashland University, argue that the Episcopal Church did not merely survive the American founding but helped interpret and institutionalize it.
The Patriarch: William White
Smith and Carrington begin with William White (1748–1836), whom they aptly call the “patriarch of the American Episcopal Church.” At the Revolution’s end, Anglican clergy carried a compromised reputation: their bishops resided in England, and their ordination vows had included allegiance to George III. Could episcopacy function in a republic suspicious of hierarchy?
White answered with remarkable constitutional creativity. In 1782, he proposed a representative framework for church governance that included both clergy and laity in a “General Convention” held every three years. Consecrated Bishop of Pennsylvania in 1787, he embodied a new kind of episcopacy, that is, authority exercised within constitutional limits.
His settlement achieved three lasting results. First, it allowed the church to disestablish without disintegrating: no longer a state church, it nevertheless retained historic episcopacy. Second, it institutionalized lay participation—an ecclesial analog to American federalism. Third, it stabilized national unity by binding disparate dioceses into a coherent structure.
White was not dramatic; he was deliberate. In making episcopacy compatible with republican government, he ensured the church’s survival.
Securing Identity: Hobart and Doane
If White secured survival, John Henry Hobart (1775–1830) secured identity. As Bishop of New York, Hobart resisted the temptation to dissolve into generic Protestantism. He insisted that the Episcopal Church was not merely one denomination among many but the American expression of the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church. Through energetic preaching and prolific writing, he articulated a confident sacramental and apostolic theology. His role in founding the General Theological Seminary in 1817 helped professionalize clerical formation and gave institutional form to his convictions. In an increasingly competitive religious marketplace, Hobart sharpened Anglican distinctiveness. He ensured that adaptation would not mean dilution.
George Washington Doane (1799–1859) brought yet another dimension: imagination. A poet, educator, and Bishop of New Jersey, Doane embraced the aesthetic and educational renewal associated with Tractarianism. He championed church schools, most notably St. Mary’s Hall, and advanced Gothic Revival architecture, convinced that beauty itself instructed the soul. For Doane, Anglicanism was not simply a set of doctrines; it was a culture capable of shaping citizens. Liturgy, education, and art were not ornamental but formative.
Expansion Westward: Kemper and Chase
As the Republic expanded westward, so did the church. Jackson Kemper (1789–1870), consecrated in 1835 as the first missionary bishop, carried episcopacy into the Old Northwest. Traveling through Indiana, Missouri, Iowa, and Wisconsin, he organized parishes in frontier settlements and later founded Nashotah House to train clergy for demanding conditions. Kemper transformed the image of a bishop from settled overseer to apostolic missionary. Anglicanism was no longer an East Coast inheritance; it was becoming a continental communion.
Philander Chase (1775–1852) shared that frontier vision but expressed it through education. He founded Kenyon College in Ohio and later Jubilee College in Illinois, understanding that durable expansion required intellectual infrastructure. He tirelessly raised funds in the East and abroad, planting institutions that would outlast the volatility of frontier life. Chase did not simply plant churches; he planted colleges. In doing so, he tied Anglicanism to the educational development of the young Republic.
Southern Roots and Evangelical Energy
In the South, James Hervey Otey (1800–1863) consolidated diocesan life in Tennessee and helped lay the groundwork for what would become the University of the South at Sewanee. His episcopate reveals how deeply Anglicanism took root in regional cultures, especially in a slaveholding society increasingly strained by sectional tensions.
John Stark Ravenscroft (1772–1830), Bishop of North Carolina, demonstrated that Anglicanism could thrive even amid the revivalism of the early nineteenth century. A convert with evangelical instincts, he combined doctrinal seriousness with pastoral urgency. In a landscape dominated by Baptists and Methodists, he proved that episcopacy need not be genteel or complacent.
Theological Tensions and the Coming Crisis
Theological tensions within the church grew more pronounced as the century progressed. Charles McIlvaine (1799–1873), Bishop of Ohio, represented the evangelical wing and resisted the Oxford Movement’s Tractarian emphases. For McIlvaine, Anglicanism’s Protestant identity remained essential. When the sectional crisis intensified, he aligned firmly with the Union, linking ecclesial and national unity in the North.
John Henry Hopkins (1792–1868), Bishop of Vermont, illustrates the tragic complexity of the era. A liturgical scholar and defender of episcopal order, he nonetheless argued during the secession crisis that slavery was not intrinsically sinful. His position placed him at odds with many Northern churchmen and exposed the painful fracture between shared worship and divergent moral judgment.
The story concludes with William Meade (1789–1862), who rebuilt the once-dominant but post-Revolutionary church in Virginia. Through pastoral labor and disciplined oversight, he revived parishes and restored clerical standards. Virginia, formerly Anglicanism’s colonial heartland, had nearly collapsed after disestablishment. Meade’s work symbolized renewal amid political upheaval.
An American Church, Then and Now
Taken together, these bishops presided over profound transformations. White’s constitutionalism enabled episcopacy to survive without state sponsorship. Kemper and Chase extended its reach across the continent. Hobart and Doane deepened its catholic identity; McIlvaine and Meade reinforced its evangelical energies. Otey, Hopkins, and others reveal how closely the church’s life tracked regional loyalties and sectional divides.
By 1861, the same Prayer Book was being prayed by men who would soon find themselves in opposing nations.
The bishops of the early Republic show Anglicans today how to adapt without losing their core. William White reshaped church governance for life in a republic while preserving historic episcopacy, and John Henry Hobart defended a clear Anglican identity in a crowded religious world. Their example is plain: reforms and new ministry ideas are healthy when they stay rooted in Scripture, the creeds, and the sacramental life of the church.
They also teach that lasting renewal comes from formation and mission. George Washington Doane and Philander Chase built schools and seminaries because strong churches need well-taught clergy and laity. Jackson Kemper pushed into new territories instead of waiting for perfect conditions. Anglicans today likewise need deeper teaching, richer worship, and the courage to plant churches in new places and among new people.
Finally, their disagreements remind us that shared worship does not remove hard moral questions. The clash between Charles McIlvaine and John Henry Hopkins over slavery shows how cultural loyalties can cloud Christian judgment. Modern Anglicans must speak clearly yet charitably, love their countries without confusing them with God’s kingdom, and explore every avenue to stay united even when they disagree.
Adaptation and Conviction
Between Yorktown and Sumter, the Episcopal Church became unmistakably American. Federal in structure, expansive in mission, confident in identity, and, like the nation itself, divided in conscience. At the center of that transformation stood bishops who understood a hard truth: in a republic, institutions must adapt to survive, but they must also know who they are.
Survival requires adaptation, but identity requires conviction. Anglicanism thrives when it remembers who it is, grows wisely, and holds fast to Christ, to Word and Table, and to one another.
Image: That Blessed Liberty, © 2025 Prolego Press.
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