Henry Laurens and the Enlightenment in South Carolina

Henry Laurens and the Enlightenment in South Carolina

Regarding to the historical studies on Henry Laurens, various historians have already made their great contributions in helping us to understand his world. Focusing on his business activities from 1747 to 1771, Warner O. Moore discusses his successes as a Charleston merchant. Like him, David R. Chesnutt also considers his business, although he pays more attention to his business activities in the 1760s Georgia. Through exploring the penetration of his business activities in Georgia, he considers the economic communications between Georgia and South Carolina and the policies of the British Empire on these two colonies.

Rather than focus on his business activities, some historians are more interested in exploring his inner mind.
Assuming Laurens was a devout Christian and strict moralist, Laura P. Frech examines how republicanism worked on him and what it was mean to him. According to her, “as a republican in the English radical tradition, his abhorrence of British political and social ‘corruption’ and his belief that political reform could not succeed without moral regeneration are the essence of American republicanism.” Frech also considers his religious enthusiasm, which she assumes that “Laurens preferred the pietism of the German sects and the evangelism of the English preacher, George Whitefield, to the more rationalistic religion to be found among many Christians in the eighteenth century.” Moreover, in order to further our understanding of Laurens’s significance and his contributions as President of the Continental Congress in creating a new republic, Frech pays special attention to the political career of Henry Laurens in the Continental Congress from 1777 to 1779.