This chapter considers an unlikely trio of groups who opposed the Evangelical Protestant mainstream in nineteenth-century America: the Unitarians, the Quakers, and the Shakers. Each had to navigate two different forms of dissent: the external and the internal. When deciding how best to revise or contradict the hegemonic forms of Protestantism, these groups had certain goals and methods for interacting with those outside their fellowship. In time, they each also had to face a more pernicious adversary, the second generation of dissenters that grew within their own ranks. While these disparate traditions may appear to have little in common, each body faced many of the same questions as they asserted their distinct form of external cultural and religious correction. When articulating a theological vision that went against the mainstream, they had to determine how to serve that particular vision in a culture that did not share their theological views. Some withdrew from contact with outsiders and used their enclaves as a way to practise and preserve their vision of orthodoxy and orthopraxy. On the other hand, there were groups that deliberately sought to model correct religion for others, and thereby hoped to transform other religious groups by disseminating their theological vision beyond the confines of any type of self-imposed seclusion. As the decades passed, though, both sorts of groups were surprised by the inevitable challenges to their founding orthodoxy from within their own membership. This dissent among dissenters was, of course, an outgrowth of the very impulse that stood behind the earlier establishment of the group. Subsequent generations of membership often failed to realize that belonging to a group of dissenters might require adherence to a detailed theological vision. This tension between founding theology and ongoing interpretation could leave a Dissenting group hierarchy in the awkward position of having to restrict innovation, an irony not lost on subsequent generations of members. This chapter asks how Unitarians, Shakers, and Quakers in nineteenth-century America addressed these two aspects of Dissent: external and internal. How did each group perceive their relationship to American culture and other more mainstream religious groups? How did they encounter and negotiate dissent from within their ranks? In each group there was an evolution over the course of the nineteenth century that complicates any interpretation of these multifaceted embodiments of Protestant Dissenting traditions in the United States.
