It's always interesting to learn something new about the evolution of Protestantism in the United States, especially because of how much religion weighs on our politics (past and present):
Probably one of History's double edged swords.
Radical protestantism has give us both Mega churches and socialism.
IMO, a lot of it has to do with the material roots. If you are a slave owner, the exploitation and brutality of fellow fellow humans, within a few hundred yards of your beautiful study and cellar of fine French wines; that requires you to bend and meld your "personal relationship with Christ (and by extension, God himself), into a justofication for slavery and one can cherry pick from the Bible justifications for slavery.
Meanwhile, the New Englanders, who benefited from slavery but who were physically removed from it, could claim moral superiority. Not only would Christ/God approve of their frequent rituals of mutual consent and public acceptance of outcasts; but so would John Calvin.
They were indeed religious nuts but ultimately for the right reasons. In the 17th century they'd buy a few enslaved people as servants. By the 18th century, that practice was largely shunned by fellow New England Puritans. In the first half of the 19th Century, we had young men, especially men with "higher" education, forming militias, called the
Wide Awakes. Most of these Northern young men had never even seen a Black person, but they were willing to fight and die for them.
Certain Protestant denominations abhor all forms of captivity, let alone coerced labor. For my vanguardist ancestors, the mission was clear: eliminate all slave holders and the institutions that come with them. For about 1/6 of the Union Army were New England abolitionists and a lot OG anti nobility German, whom had been been defeat during the 1848 uprising in Europe and who had immigrated to the US. (interestingly enough Marx and Engels were a hair's breadth away from immigrating to Texas, at which point History changes drastically. Imagine Marx a professor at UT and Engels as an owner of beer halls and cattle herds in Southern Texas. Who knows, maybe it would have helped communism take over the US in 1919, after all it's not some foreign, Slavic, Russian import, it's just good ole' home grown Texas common sense).
When I ever seen New England and West Coast people, say, no matter how enlightened they are, I almost always that s say that if you had been born in South Carolina circa 1800, they'd be be pro slavery. It pisses them off to no end. But it's true.
