Prior to the Civil War, the United States was emerging as the epitome of grandeur, as it had finally found itself a somewhat worldly eminent ranking.  Once the idea of expansionism became paramount, individuals began to realize certain communal faults and pious traditions plaguing the nation.  These comprehensions influenced a great number of social and religious reforms throughout the United States.

A dramatic increase in the population and municipal industrialization of the nation influenced many of the reforms preceding the American Civil War.  The post-Revolutionary thirteen colonies had morphed into thirty-three states by 1860.  Comparing a population of roughly 4,000,000 (cumulative of whites and non-whites) in 1790 to a population of approximately 31,000,000 in 1860, a growth of exponential magnitude was palpable.  This positive augmentation was explained by the acceptance of immigrants, such as the Irish and Germans, into the nation at a high rate...