| This dissertation explores the interaction between the General Assembly of Illinois and the major religious societies operating within the state. Special focus is devoted to significant church-state issues and controversies which developed and to the specific ways in which the legislature attempted to sponsor and enhance the religious, moral and educational developments of its citizens by giving benefits directly to denominational groups. This study attempts to explain this legislative support in part on the basis of its commitment to the promotion of "classical republican" ideologies inherited from the late eighteenth century Revolutionary era, specifically the promotion of public order and civic virtue.;Special consideration is given to the constitutional and legal backgrounds and developments in support of religious freedom, legislative attempts to limit sectarian influences in the development of the common school system and the chartering of religious societies and their educational institutions, legislative examples of direct support to religious societies, denominational attempts to influence state authorities to promote Sabbath observance, temperance and anti-slavery reforms, state accommodations with religious societies in the engagement of legislative and institutional chaplains, and Mormon challenges to legislative authority through the expansion and abuse of the city of Nauvoo Charter provisions and to the body politic in the use of bloc-voting.;Governmental supports to religious societies generally worked more to the advantage of Protestant Christians as seen in the lay trusteeship provision of the incorporation statute of religious societies, in the curriculum and staffing of the common schools, in the drawing of student tuition rebates from the Common School Fund, and in the selection of legislative and institutional chaplains.;Evidence suggests that most Illinois lawmakers, in attempting to promote public virtue and morality by supporting religion and religious societies, saw little or no discrepancy between maintaining and protecting religious freedom and governmental aid to religion. With the major exception of the Mormons, this pattern of direct support, and of an amiable and complementary relationship between church and state, would not be appreciably altered during this antebellum period. |
