Define Puritanism and Democracy and show how they were a mixed legacy.

From Inequality to Equality In "Puritanism and Democracy: A Mixed Legacy," Stephen Foster shows how, despite their assumptions of inequality, the government established in Massachusetts by the Puritans, evolved into something that was never intended; a government based on democracy. To be a Puritan was to be a member of "simply the most important body of people since the Apostles" (pg 23). Puritans felt it was their job, their divine duty, to establish a pure society …

…law making in order to keep everyone honest. The Puritans never intended to be considered democratic. What came out of the seventeenth century Puritanism does not in any way resemble what they were trying to achieve. The beginnings of democracy that we can now recognize were necessary to them because of their mistrust of themselves. Puritans never intended to leave the legacy of a democratic form of government, yet that was exactly what they did.