’ Series editor: John C. Seitz, Associate Professor, Theology Department, Fordham University; Associate Director for Lincoln Center, Curran Center for American Catholic Studies This series aims to contribute to the growing eld of Catholic studies through the publication of books devoted to the historical and cultural study of Catholic practice in North America, from the colonial period to the present. As the term “practice” suggests, the series springs from a pressing need in the study of American Catholicism for empirical investigations and creative explorations and analyses of the contours of Catholic experience. In seeking to provide more comprehensive maps of Catholic practice, this series is committed to publishing works from diverse American locales, including urban, suburban, and rural settings; ethnic, postethnic, and transnational contexts; private and public sites; and seats of power as well as the margins. Series advisory board: Emma Anderson, Ottawa University Paul Contino, Pepperdine University Kathleen Sprows Cummings, University of Notre Dame James T. Fisher, Fordham University (Emeritus) Paul Mariani, Boston College Thomas A. Tweed, University of Notre Dame Map of the Upper Mississippi and Ohio River valleys, ca. Inventing America’s First Immigration Crisis Political Nativism in the Antebellum West Luke Ritter : Edward Weber & Co. Map shewing the connection of the Baltimore and Ohio-Rail-Road with other rail roads executed or in progress throughout the United States. [Baltimore Lith. of Ed. Weber & Co. –?, ] Map. https://www.loc.gov/item/gm /. Copyright © Fordham University Press All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other—except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher. 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To my bouncing boys, Louis and Peter: You are the future. I will always love you. Introduction The Valley of Decision Culture War The Power of Nativist Rhetoric ­ The Order of Know-Nothings and Secret Democracy Crime, Poverty, and the Economic Origins of Political Nativism ­ From Anti-Catholicism to Church-State Separation The Specter of Anti-Catholicism, New Nativism, and the Ascendancy of Religious Freedom Notes Introduction concern about immigration at some times but not at others? In pursuit of an answer, this book W examines America’s rst nativist movement. Open immigration and citizenship persist in the United States because Americans have historically believed their principles are universal. The founding generation made it radically easy for immigrants to become full American citizens. Boards of education pro- vided free public schooling for foreign-born children. A host of benevolent orga- nizations raised enormous amounts of money to assist newcomers to the states. U.S. cities announced to the world that they were open for business. Citizens made these eorts to spread the American gospel of “Capitalism, Protestantism, and Republicanism.” Political nativism—the exception—replaced tolerance— the rule—when Americans panicked that assimilation, conversion, and eco- nomic progress were not happening quickly enough. The rst self-proclaimed nativists in the United States seized the reins of political power at the national level for only a few years between and , but the tactic they employed, namely identifying “outsiders” as the source of their various anxieties, has per- sisted as a useful political tool. Nativism is the idea that a certain group of people can be identied as original to, or the rightful heirs to, a geopolitical territory; consequently, “natives” claim the privilege of deciding who belongs and who counts as an “outsider” based on supposed foreign connections. The case could be made that nativism in this sense is universal. Nativist movements stress the interests of the locally born as a priority over nonnative, or foreign-born, people (for example, “Americans First”). Political nativism describes the coming together of nativism—the belief in inheritance—and a nativist movement—the reemphasis on “natives rst”—to induce measurable political changes. At its core is the innate human desire to feel at home. What people need to feel “at home” varies across time and space but oen entails economic stability and some combination of uniform behaviors, values, religious beliefs, language, or race. It must be noted that nativism does not always entail racism, although the intensication of race-based ideas and acts oen corresponds to a rise in political nativism. Nativists fashion themselves as Introduction protectors of local attributes against perceived foreign threats in their midst and are oen willing to take extreme actions. America’s rst nativist movement responded to the rapid inux of roughly . million European immigrants between and . Immigrants com- posed up to percent of the total population of the United States. These gures do not take into account second-generation immigrants—that is, children born to immigrant parents on American soil. Most of these newcomers were German or Irish. Not only did they speak dierent languages, but they also harbored diverse cultural customs and ideas, approached politics in alternative ways, and worshipped within dierent religious traditions. While the vast majority of white Americans born on American soil worshipped in Protestant Christian churches, approximately percent of all Irish immigrants aer were Cath- olic, while more than percent of Germans were as well. Political nativism gradually emerged within the ranks of the American Re- publican, or “Native American,” Party in the mid- s, the Know-Nothing Order in the s, and the National American, or “Know-Nothing,” Party be- tween and . In the election of , the presidential candidate running on behalf of the American Party received roughly percent of the popular vote. The American Party thus became the second-largest third party in American history. Its ocial platform demanded raising the residency requirement for citizenship from ve to twenty-one years, supported only native-born Ameri- cans for oce, and resisted all who would pledge a higher allegiance to a for- eign church or state than to the U.S. Constitution. Certain anti-immigrant thought patterns in the antebellum era have since been repeated, especially amid demographic changes due to immigration, yet much of the historical context for American nativism, and thus its meaning, has varied across time and place. Before the s, much of the relevant scholarship disregarded antebellum nativist propaganda as mere cultural panic or xenophobia. In the classic book on the subject, The Protestant Crusade, - ( ), historian Ray Allen Billington argued that American nativism originated in and was driven by English prejudices and religious fanaticism. Historian Richard Hofstadter famously equated political nativism to paranoia. With Strangers in the Land ( ), historian John Higham inaugurated a more nuanced line of inquiry about what American nativism has revealed about society across time and place. He argued that Americans are more likely to endorse political nativism when they perceive threats to their social status within the nation. ­ Higham changed the way scholars treated American nativism, historian Jason McDonald observed, as “not just the preserve of ‘crackpots’ but a major characteristic of American public Introduction opinion.” Rather than religious fanaticism, a common desire to identify and so- lidify proper roles within the nation motivated these movements. Much of the scholarship