Not Even Wrong

If you want to understand the hostility that greeted the Irish Catholics who immigrated to the United States in the first half of the nineteenth century you need only consult the headlines in recent daily newspapers. On April 23 just past, the New York Times carried a story under the headline “Far From the Sea, Another Crisis Of Migration” that told of the hostility – expressed through arson and vandalism – of portions of the resident population in Germany, Sweden and other nations of Europe toward immigrants. On the same day, the Wall Street Journal carried a similar story under the headline “Refugee Surge Presses on German Villages”.

At the time of the American Revolution, the Catholic population in the rebellious colonies was about 35,000 or a little more than one percent of the total population. The Catholic clergy in America were under the supervision of the bishop in London, but at the conclusion of the peace with Britain they petitioned the pope and were granted the right to select a superior from among their own numbers. The United States was established as a single prefecture in 1784; Baltimore was elevated to a diocese (with a bishop) in 1789 and to an archdiocese (with an archbishop) in 1808. The Maryland colony was established as a haven for Catholics, and although shifting political tides saw Catholicism outlawed even there for periods before the Revolution, Maryland possessed the largest Catholic population in the early days of the republic.

The country remained a single ecclesiastic province under the supervision of the Archbishop of Baltimore until 1847 when the diocese of Saint Louis was elevated to an archdiocese. In 1850 archdiocese were created in New York, Cincinnati, New Orleans and Oregon City (now Portland). By 1860 the Catholic population in the United States was about 4.5 million or one sixth of the total, and about half of that number were Irish.

The Irish started coming to the United States in large numbers even before the famine, which began in 1845. These came principally from the rural areas, and despite the general poverty in Ireland they were wealthy enough to afford the passage (or had relatives or friends who could help), but many were otherwise destitute of resources, formal education and skills, which limited their options and opportunities in American society.

The United States in 1860 and the years preceding was a predominantly Protestant country, and the longstanding history of mutual animosity between Protestantism and Catholicism stoked the suspicion and fear that may await any newcomers to a community, especially those that arrived in large numbers and were of different background, experience, beliefs, appearance and customs.

The prejudice manifested itself in a variety of ways including acts of violence against individuals and institutions such as churches. The Native American Party, also known as the American Party and the “No Nothings”, started as a secret membership society of Protestants and develop into a minor national party in the mid-1850s dedicated limiting the political influence of the Catholic community, for example by restricting immigration and mandating long periods for naturalization.

Members of the Irish-American community share a cultural memory of seeing signs reading “No Irish Need Apply” posted in hiring offices. A scholarly article asserts that the evidence of such signs is lacking, although scattered newspaper advertisements for household servants and errand boys use the phrase or, depending upon the jurisdiction, state a preference for a Protestant, German or American, which is much the same thing. The Irish who lacked skills competed for the lowest paying jobs, such as the laborers who dug the canals and built the railroads, and employers who excluded them would have denied themselves the benefit of this cheap labor pool.

Just how pervasive the animosity was cannot be gauged accurately, but it was expressed by members of Protestant society of all levels, including the laity and the clergy. In the 1830s, two distinguished members of the Protestant and Catholic clergy in Philadelphia held an extended public debate in print on the question “Is the Protestant religion the religion of Christ?” Not long after, a further extended public debate between members of the clergy explored the topic “Is the Roman Catholic Religion, in Any or in All its Principles and Doctrines, Inimical to Civil or Religious Liberty?”

While the nineteenth century may have may have regarded the discussion of these questions as a deadly serious matter, from the viewpoint of the twenty-first century the answers that they imply are described aptly by the phrase attributed to the physicist Wolfgang Pauli: they are “not even wrong”.