Scene at the Signing of the Constitution of the United States, Howard Chandler Christy

America had been founded primarily for religious purposes, and the Great Awakening had been the original dynamic of the continental movement for independence. The Pilgrims Fathers had come to America precisely because England had become immoral and irreligious. They had built the 'City on the Hill.' Again, their descendants had opted for independence and liberty because they felt their subjugation was itself immoral and irreligious and opposed to the Providential Plan. The Declaration of Independence was, to those who signed it, a religious as well as a secular act, and the Revolutionary War had the approbation of divine providence. They had won it with God's blessing and, afterwards, they drew up their framework of government with God's blessing, just as in the 17th century the colonists had drawn up their Compacts and Charters and Orders and Instruments, with God peering over their shoulders.