Citizens or Papists?: The Politics of Anti-Catholicism in New York, 1685-1821

Chapter 7: ‘‘The Great Chain of National Union’’: Catholics and the Republican Triumph

c ha pt er 7 ‘‘The Great Chain of National Union’’ Catholics and the Republican Triumph In a brief summary of the history of Catholicism in New York, written in 1810 by an anonymous writer in a distinctly self-congratulatory tone, the ambiguous political status of Catholics in the state went unmentioned. The occasion was the printing of a second edition (the first was published in 1744) of Judge Daniel Horsmanden’s The Trial of John Ury. During the slave conspiracy of 1741, Ury had been executed as a Catholic priest. In the 1810 preface to Horsmanden’s account of the trial, the writer remarked that ‘‘after a lapse of nearly three quarters of a century, we look back with astonishment at the panic occasioned by the negro plot, and the rancorous hatred that prevailed against Roman Catholics.’’1 The animosity toward Catholics at that time stemmed not only from Europe, the writer noted, but from New York’s unique history. ‘‘Our Dutch forefathers, glowing with all the zeal of the early reformers ,’’ the writer continued, were encouraged in their antipathy toward Catholics by ‘‘the policy of the English government’’ in the province. The colony’s ‘‘exposed situation’’ on the frontier of British America, the proximity of the French (‘‘the natural and ever enduring enemy of England’’) to the immediate north, and the appeal of Catholic rituals and mysticism to the ‘‘senses of the rude savage’’ all contributed to anti-Catholicism in New York having a special inten161 162 Citizens or Papists? sity. New Yorkers ‘‘born and educated before the American revolution , will recollect how religiously they were taught to abhor the Pope, Devil and Pretender.’’2 Living in the ‘‘more favored and enlightened’’ era that followed the American Revolution, as the writer had it, New Yorkers had now supposedly transcended their earlier hostility to Catholicism. Not all Catholics agreed, however, that New Yorkers had progressed so dramatically in their attitudes toward their religion. Joseph Coppinger complained in 1813 that there remained many ‘‘illiberal Protestant ministers (who) sought to keep the flames of superstition alive’’ and did so by deriding Catholicism from their pulpits ‘‘with all the low buffoonery of holy ridicule.’’ Optimism about the present was most credible when the standard for the status of Catholicism in New York was the hysteria that prevailed in 1741. Just a few years before the republication of Horsmanden’s book, however, a mob had menaced St. Peter’s Church. And in politics, there was still a price to be paid for being a Catholic. Although the horror of 1741 survived only as a memory, the legacy of Jacob Leisler’s crusade against Catholics had not yet passed entirely into history.3 cat holi cs an d the war o f 181 2 In large part due to the divisions among Republicans, the Federalists won a decisive victory in 1812 in New York City. At the outset of that year, in which the second war between the United States and Britain broke out, Republicans in New York remained at odds. In addition to the usual disagreements, DeWitt Clinton, with Federalist support, was challenging Republican incumbent James Madison for the presidency. For the first time in New York City, Atlantic and nationalist Republicans each put forward their own slates of candidates . The former nominated Francis Cooper and Thomas Addis Emmet for the Assembly; the latter put up no Catholic or Irish candidates . ‘‘The Great Chain of National Union’’ 163 Two rival camps of Republican ‘‘adopted citizens’’ also emerged that year. The competing immigrant groups met in different venues; the nationalists gathered at Martling’s Tavern, long a pro-Tammany establishment, while the Atlantic group favored Andrew Dooley’s Long Room. Religion was one of the primary ways in which they divided. The Atlantic faction was led by William MacNeven and Dennis McCarthy, both Catholics and members of St. Peter’s; the other faction supported the nationalists and was dominated by Protestants, including Robert Swanton, an Irish immigrant. The latter accused William MacNeven of splitting the immigrant vote and thereby helping the Federalists, maintaining that the former United Irishman was as ‘‘active in his adopted country to divide Republicans, as he was in his native to unite them!’’ The Atlantic ‘‘adopted citizens’’ promoted their ticket in the pages of the Shamrock. Edward Gillespy, an Irish immigrant who advocated Irish independence and Catholic emancipation , had founded the newspaper that same year. It was in...