As the Americans entered an era of transition and instability, they sought to expand democratic ideals in the society, where sudden changes were occurring and traditional values were being challenged, through various reform movements during 1825-1850. The rise of religious revivals, movements for equal rights and protecting liberties of different social groups, and desire to bring order and control helped reform the society to live up to the nation¡¯s founding ideals,

The rise of popular religion and series of religious revivals reinforced American democracy and liberty. The Second Great Awakening, series of religious revivals, was accompanied by revival meetings, the erection of new churches, and the founding of colleges and universities; it was part of the impetus behind the other reform movements. It also raised the moral standard in the society. Charles G. Finney was one of the educated Presbyterians who dominated revivals in the East and spread the idea that the reformation of church will bring the salvation of sinners and reformation of all the ab

The movements for equal rights and protecting liberties of different social groups expanded the democratic ideal which based solely on the equalitarianism. In the 1830s, the anti-slavery movement increased. William Lloyd Garrison started his paper, The Liberator, and began advocate total and immediate emancipation. He founded the New England Anti-slavery Society in 1832. Many abolitionists like Garrison led such influential anti-slavery movements to change the mind of people in the nation about the abolishing slavery and give equal rights to blacks. Women in the 1830s began fighting for their rights which revolved around the conviction that differences of gender were unimportant and incidental. In the Seneca Falls, New York, meeting in 1848, and its ¡°Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions,¡± women asserted that all men and women are created equal and whatever is right for man is right for woman also. (Doc I) Through a picture of a kneeling slave woman imploring, ¡°Am I Not a Woman and a Sister?¡± Garrison tried to stress the peculiar degradation of women under slavery. It showed how female slaves were treated with the worst cruelty in the society and sought to provide them with better treatments and living standard. (Doc C) In order to cure crime, reformers created substitutes for parental discipline and built a new penitentiary in Auburn, New York. It was built not to just punish, but to rehabilitate. Th

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