Between 1776 and 1830, few immigrants came to the United States. Then, increasing population and poverty in Europe prompted the migration of hundreds of thousands of Germans (both Catholics and Protestants) and Irish Catholics. The sudden arrival of foreign Catholics amidst the intense Protestantism of the Second Great Awakening led to religious riots, the formation of the nativist American Party, and sharp debates in the public press. Contemporary pamphlets and books offer historians access to the public rhetoric (and the private passions) of the time.

Lyman Beecher

Catholicism Is Incompatible with Republicanism

Lyman Beecher (1775–1863) was a leading Protestant minister and the father of a remarkable family: the influential minister Henry Ward Beecher and authors Harriet Beecher Stowe (Uncle Tom’s Cabin) and Catharine Beecher (A Treatise on Domestic Economy). In A Plea for the West (1835), Lyman Beecher warned Protestants of the powerful priestly hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church and its opposition to republicanism. Papal encyclicals issued by Pope Gregory XVI (Mirari Vos, 1832) and Pope Pius IX (Quanta Cura, 1864) condemned republicanism, freedom of conscience, and the separation of church and state as false political ideologies.

Since the irruption of the northern barbarians, the world has never witnessed such a rush of dark-minded population from one country to another, as is now leaving Europe, and dashing upon our shores. … They come, also, not undirected. … [They] are led or followed quickly by a Catholic priesthood, who maintain over them in the land of strangers and unknown tongues an [absolute] ascendancy. …

The ministers of no Protestant sect could or would dare to attempt to regulate the votes of their people as the Catholic priests can do, who … have almost unlimited power over the conscience as it respects the performance of every civil or social duty.

There is another point of dissimilarity. … The opinions of the Protestant clergy are congenial with liberty — they are chosen by the people who have been educated as freemen, and they are dependent on them for patronage and support. The Catholic system is adverse to liberty, and the clergy to a great extent are dependent on foreigners [the pope and European bishops] opposed to the principles of our government.

Nor is this all. … How many mechanics, merchants, lawyers, physicians, in any political crisis, might [the priests] reach and render timid … ? A tenth part of the suffrage of the nation, thus condensed and wielded by the Catholic powers of Europe, might decide our elections, perplex our policy, inflame and divide the nation, break the bond of our union, and throw down our free institutions. …

[Catholicism is] a religion which never prospered but in alliance with despotic governments, has always been and still is the inflexible enemy of Liberty of conscience and free inquiry, and at this moment is the main stay of the battle against republican institutions.

Source: Lyman Beecher, A Plea for the West (Cincinnati: Truman & Smith, 1835), 72–73, 126, 59–63, 85–86, 59.

Orestes Brownson

Catholicism as a Necessity for Popular Government

Like Lyman Beecher, Orestes Brownson was born into the Presbyterian Church, but he quickly grew dissatisfied with its doctrines. After experimenting with Unitarianism, communalism, socialism, and transcendentalism, Brownson converted to Catholicism in 1844. A zealous convert, Brownson defended Catholicism with rigorous, provocative arguments in this article, “Catholicity Necessary to Sustain Popular Liberty” (1845).

Without the Roman Catholic religion it is impossible to preserve a democratic government, and secure its free, orderly, and wholesome action. … The theory of democracy is, Construct your government and commit it to the people to be taken care of … as they shall think proper.

It is a beautiful theory, and would work admirably, if it were not for one little difficulty, namely, the people are fallible, both individually and collectively, and governed by their passions and interests, which not unfrequently lead them far astray, and produce much mischief.

We know of but one solution of the difficulty, and that is in RELIGION. There is no foundation for virtue but in religion, and it is only religion that can command the degree of popular virtue and intelligence requisite to insure to popular government the right direction. … But what religion? It must be a religion which is above the people and controls them, or it will not answer the purpose. It cannot be Protestantism, [because] … the faith and discipline of a [Protestant] sect take any and every direction the public opinion of that sect demands. All is loose, floating, — is here to-day, is there tomorrow, and, next day, may be nowhere … according to the prejudices, interests, or habits of the people. …

Here, then, is the reason why Protestantism, though it may institute, cannot sustain popular liberty. It is itself subject to popular control, and must follow in all things the popular will, passion, interest, ignorance, prejudice, or caprice.

If Protestantism will not answer the purpose, what religion will? The Roman Catholic, or none. The Roman Catholic religion assumes, as its point of departure, that it is instituted not to be taken care of by the people, but to take care of the people; not to be governed by them, but to govern them. The word is harsh in democratic ears, we admit; but it is not the office of religion to say soft or pleasing words. … The people need governing, and must be governed, or nothing but anarchy and destruction await them. They must have a master. …

Quote our expression, THE PEOPLE MUST HAVE A MASTER, as you doubtless will; hold it up in glaring capitals, to excite the unthinking and unreasoning multitude, and to doubly fortify their prejudices against Catholicity … [even as you] seek to bring the people into subjection to your banks or moneyed corporations. …

The Roman Catholic religion, then, is necessary to sustain popular liberty, because popular liberty can be sustained only by a religion free from popular control, above the people, speaking from above and able to command them.

Source: Orestes A. Brownson, Essays and Reviews, Chiefly on Theology, Politics, and Socialism (New York: D. & J. Sadlier, 1852), 368–370, 372–373, 376, 379–381.