"A Most Democratic Class: New York Catholics and the Early American Republic"

Jason Duncan, Univeristy of Iowa
February 22, 2001, 3:30-5:30, Newberry Library

Except for references to colonial Maryland, Catholics usually do not appear in general narratives of American history until the large scale immigration of the Jacksonian period. Focusing on the struggle to overturn an anti-Catholic plank in the state's constitution, this paper places Catholics and Catholicism at the center New York politics during the early years of the Republic. In the 1780s Federalists had thwarted an effort by Anti-Federalists to disenfranchise Catholics. But by 1800 Catholics had formed an alliance with a faction of the Republicans. This faction was internationalist in outlook and viewed discrimination against Catholics in the context of British imperialism in Ireland. For their part, New York Federalists abandoned their earlier defense of Catholics voting rights and fell back on old arguments that mixed class and ethnic prejudices.

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