The Case for Christian Nationalism
10. The Foundation of American Freedom | III. Religious Liberty in the Founding Era (Part 3)
Previously:
After meeting at the State House yard and adopting a resolution that charged Catholics with attempting to remove the Bible from schools, a nativist mob marched back into Kensington and began damaging homes. They were confronted by an equally riotous and armed mob of Irish Catholics and a full scale conflict broke out; by nightfall, over thirty Irish homes were burned to the ground. The next day, the mob had grown to such ferocity that entire blocks of homes were set ablaze, and the militia, which had ended the fighting the night before, was powerless to stop the violence. Much like black business owners in Los Angeles did, during in the 1992 riots, Protestants placed signs on their doors declaring that they were “Native Americans”, in the hope of saving their property from the torch.1
Next, the nativist mob set their sights on Saint Michael’s church, for rumor had it that arms were stored within. After finding no weapons, but setting the church ablaze anyway, they moved to Saint Augustine’s church with similar intent. The mayor, who, instead of rushing to the scene at the outset, had been busy celebrating his daughter’s birthday, made it to Saint Augustine’s just in time to address the mob. He told them that the building had no arms and that he had the key, but this only assured the mob that they were free to break in. Having been given word that the militia would not intervene, they burned that church, as well. Approximately fourteen people were killed during the course of the riot.2
The mob was so extreme in its actions that even the Native American wrote, “No terms that we can use are able to express the deep reprobation that we feel for this iniquitous proceeding; this wanton and uncalled for desecration of the Christian altar.” Though the majority of violence ceased after several days, smaller groups continued to destroy Catholic property and the bishop, fearing violence, closed churches that Sunday. What peace there was to be had was short lived. On July 4 nativists organized a procession of carriages containing the widows and children of those on their side who had been killed; seventy thousand people escorted them through the streets of Philadelphia. The reinvigoration of emotions resulted in a second riot, the next day.3
Rumor was that weapons were now being stored in the Church of Saint Philip de Neri in the suburb of Southwark; the sheriff arrived before the mob, who demanded an investigation. This time the rumor was true, and over eighty guns and a supply of ammunition were found, but the investigators kept this knowledge to themselves and dispersed the crowd. News leaked the next morning, and a multi-day standoff, with several breakout skirmishes took place over the next few days. At one point the mob procured a cannon and fired it at the Irish militiamen guarding the door of the church. By the time peace was restored, at least thirteen people had been killed and over fifty wounded.4 There was little self-reflection and no accountability for the violence. As Billington writes:
Although Philadelphia publicly mourned its dead and openly deplored its period of carnage, many even among the more substantial citizens were secretly exultant. Quaker merchants, who spoke indignantly of the outrage in public, returned to their shops to express the sincere belief that “the Papists deserve all this and much more,” and, “It were well if every Popish church in the world were leveled with the ground.” Official inquiries reflected this same spirit of intolerance. A city investigating committee laid the blame for the riots entirely on the Irish who had broken up a peaceful procession of American citizens.5
Catholics are no longer a religious minority in the United States, in fact they far outnumber members of any single Protestant denomination and are only slightly exceeded in number by the broad category of “Evangelical Protestant”. But roughly one out of every hundred and forty Americans are Hindu, nearly one out of a hundred are Muslim, and one out of sixty-two are Mormon.6 These people are not going away and, as with the Irish Catholics of Kensington, they would likely not accept their Protestant neighbors forcing their religion onto their children, let alone a whole system of “theocratic Caesarism”. Even Wolfe’s most “tolerant” and “prudent” version of Christian Nationalism would almost assuredly result in tensions boiling over, as they did in Philadelphia in 1844.
Next:
Ray Allen Billington, The Protestant Crusade,1800-1860, First Paperback (Chicago, Illinois: Quadrangle Books, 1964), 225.
Ibid., 266; Amanda Beyer-Purvis, “The Philadelphia Bible Riots of 1844: Contest Over the Rights of Citizens,” Pennsylvania History: A Journal of Mid-Atlantic Studies 83, no. 3 (2016): 366-367, https://doi.org/10.5325/pennhistory.83.3.0366.
Ray Allen Billington, 226-227.
Ibid., 228-229; Michael Williams, Shadow of the Pope (New York: Whittlesey House, McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1932), 76.
Ray Allen Billington, 230.
“Religious Landscape Study,” Pew Research Center’s Religion & Public Life Project (blog), accessed March 17, 2023, https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/religious-landscape-study/.