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Notes -
Christianity.
The Second Great Awakening was a hell of a drug.
The timing for that doesn’t work out at all. The Second Great Awakening burnt out by the 1830s–40s, several generations before most states eliminated or severely restricted the death penalty. Also, Christians support the death penalty at higher rates than non-Christians, at least in the United States.
The surge in the 70s depends on Supreme Court jurisprudence which probably couldn’t have occurred before the New Deal. But I think capital punishment advocacy does date back to the 1800s. States like Michigan banned it early with explicitly Christian arguments.
Today’s split probably has more to do with partisan habits than with religion.
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