The ardent reform campaigns had given ordinary northerners a sense that their country was what Turgot had called the “hope of the human race.”[22] As European countries retreated from democracy, the United States seemed more and more exceptional as a self-governing people dedicated to securing inalienable rights for all.[23] Northern soldiers fought to save the union as described in the Declaration of Independence. Halting the extension of slavery had unified them; abolishing slavery came about through fighting the war. Evangelical Christians with their intense reforming zeal supplied the energy for the reform movements of the 1830s, 1840s, and 1850s. Fusing the social ideals of liberty and equality with the personal ones of seeking redemption, they had narrowed the scope for compromise. They had also fortified Northerners to fight for their values as keenly as those in the South fought for theirs.