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Anticipating The Brethren: The Reverend Charles Nisbet Critiques The French Revolution, David Robson

David W. Robson

Charles Nisbet, a Presbyterian minister who emigrated to Pennsylvania in 1785 from Scotland, spoke out against the French Revolution long before other American clergy. Nisbet believed the American Revolution had created democratic excesses that threatened the American religious, political, and social hierarchy, and feared the same would happen in France, and eventually the rest of Europe and Great Britain. Although he came to America impressed with the revolutionary spirit of the people and leaders, Nisbet quickly became disillusioned with religious and social attitudes influenced by uncontrolled democracy and the preference for autonomy over deference to leaders like himself. Although American …