for JEFFERSON—AND NO GOD,” the Jeffersonian victory would provoke “the just vengeance of insulted heaven.” Notwithstanding, Jefferson took 53 percent of the electoral vote in the election of 1800, and the world did not end. If anything looked like being close to its end in 1800, it was orthodox Christianity in America. Although many of the British North American colonies were settled by religious communities—such as the Quakers of Pennsylvania or the Puritans of Massachusetts Bay—the potential of