The Catholic Threat to American Politics

SAMUEL F. B. MORSE, Foreign Conspiracy Against the Liberties of the United States (1855)

European immigration was on the rise in the 1830s, when Samuel Morse published in book form his editorials first serialized in the New York Observer. By the time the seventh edition was published in the mid-1850s, immigration had increased even more, spurred on by the revolutions in Europe in 1848. Morse, who is better known for the telegraphic code he invented, was a nativist who justified his opposition to Catholic immigration as a defense of constitutional liberties and republican government against papal conspiracies directed from Rome. His understanding of the Constitution powered such antebellum political movements as the Nativist or Know-Nothing Party of the 1840s and 1850s.

[S]ome of my readers … may be inclined to ask in what manner can the despots of Europe effect, by means of Popish emissaries, any thing in this country to counteract the influence of our liberal institutions? In what way can they operate here?

With the necessity existing of doing something, from the instinct of self-preservation, to check the influence of our free institutions on Europe, with the funds provided, and agents on the spot interested in their plans, one would think it needed but little sagacity to find modes and opportunities of operating; especially, too, when such vulnerable points as I have exposed (and there are many more which I have not brought forward) invite attack.

To any such inquirers, let me say there are many ways in which a body organized as are the Catholics, and moving in concert, might disturb (to use the mildest term) the good order of the republic, and thus compel us to present to observing Europe the spectacle of republican anarchy. Who is not aware that a great portion of that stuff which composes a mob, ripe for riot or excess of any kind, and of which we have every week or two a fresh example in some part of the country, is a Catholic population? And what makes it turbulent? Ignorance — an ignorance which it is for the interest of its leaders not to enlighten; for, enlighten a man, and he will think for himself, and have some self-respect; he will understand the laws, and know his interest in obeying them. Keep him in ignorance, and he is the slave of the man who will flatter his passions and appetites, or awe him by superstitious fears. Against the outbreakings of such men, society, as it is constituted on our free system, can protect itself only in one of two ways: it must either bring these men under the influence and control of a sound republican and religious education, or it must call in the aid of the priests who govern them, and who may permit and direct, or restrain their turbulence, in accordance with what they may judge at any particular time to be the interest of the church. Yes, be it well remarked, the same hands that can, whenever it suits their interest, restrain, can also, at the proper time, “let slip the dogs of war.” In this mode of restraint by a police of priests, by substituting the ecclesiastical for the civil power, the priest-led mobs of Portugal and Spain, and South America, are instructive examples. And start not, American reader, this kind of police is already established in our country! We have had mobs again and again, which neither the civil nor military power have availed any thing to quell, until the magic “peace, be still,” of the Catholic priest has hushed the winds, and calmed the waves of popular tumult.…

And what now prevents the interference of Catholics, as a sect, directly in the political elections of the country? They are organized under their priests: is there any thing in their religious principles to restrain them? Do not Catholics of the present day use the bonds of religious union to effect political objects in other countries?…

It is not true that Popery meddles not with the politics of the country. The cloven foot has already shown itself. Popery is organized at the elections! For example: in Michigan, the Bishop Richard, a Jesuit (since deceased), was several times chosen delegate to Congress from the territory, the majority of the people being Catholics. As Protestants became more numerous, the contest between the bishop and his Protestant rival was more and more close, until at length, by the increase of Protestant emigration, the latter triumphed. The bishop, in order to detect any delinquency in his flock at the polls, had his ticket printed on colored paper! … Does it not show that Popery, with all its speciousness, is the same here as elsewhere? It manifests, when it has the opportunity, its genuine disposition to use spiritual power for the promotion of its temporal ambition. It uses its ecclesiastical weapons to control an election.…

It is unnecessary to multiply facts of this nature.… Surely American Protestants … will see that Popery is now, what it has ever been, a system of the darkest political intrigue and despotism, cloaking itself, to avoid attack, under the sacred name of religion. They will be deeply impressed with the truth, that Popery is a political as well as a religious system; that in this respect it differs totally from all other sects, from all other forms of religion in the country. Popery imbodies in itself THE CLOSEST UNION OF CHURCH AND STATE.…

Can we not discern the political character of Popery? Shall the name of Religion, artfully connected with it, still blind our eyes? Let us suppose a body of men to combine together, and claim as their right, that all public and private property, of whatever kind, is held at their disposal; that they alone are to judge of their own right to dispose of it; that they alone are authorized to think or speak on the subject; that they who speak or write in opposition to them are traitors, and must be put to death; that all temporal power is secondary to theirs, and amenable to their superior and infallible judgment; and the better to hide the presumption of these tyrannical claims, suppose that these men should pretend to divine right, and call their system Religion, and so claim the protection of our laws, and pleading conscience, demand to be tolerated. Would the name of Religion be a cloak sufficiently thick to hide such absurdity, and shield it from public indignation? Take, then, from Popery its name of Religion; strip its officers of their pompous titles of sacredness, and its decrees of the nauseous cant of piety, and what have you remaining? Is it not a naked, odious Despotism, depending for its strength on the observance of the strictest military discipline in its ranks, from the Pope, through his Cardinals, Archbishops, Bishops, &c. down to the lowest priest of his dominions? And is not this despotism acting politically in this country? …

What is the difference between the real claims, and efforts, and condition of Popery at this moment in these United States, and the supposed claims, and efforts, and condition of the Russian despotism? The one comes disguised under the name of Religion, the other, more honest and more harmless, would come in its real political name. Give the latter the name of Religion, call the Emperor, Pope, and his Viceroys, Bishops, interlard the imperial decrees with pious cant, and you have the case of pretension, and intrigue, and success, too, which has actually passed in these United States! Yes, the King of Rome, acting by the promptings of the Austrian Cabinet, and in the plentitude of his usurpation, has already extended his sceptre over our land; he has divided us up into provinces, and appointed his Viceroys, who claim their jurisdiction from a higher power than exists in this country, even from his majesty himself, who appoints them, who removes them at will, to whom they owe allegiance; for the extension of whose temporal kingdom they are exerting themselves, and whose success, let it be indelibly impressed on your minds, is the certain destruction of the free institutions of our country.

Samuel F. B. Morse, Foreign Conspiracy Against the Liberties of the United States (New York: American and Foreign Christian Union, 1855), 89–96, 98–99.

READING AND DISCUSSION QUESTIONS