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

Chapter 4: ‘‘Federalists and Tories Carrying Everything With A High Hand’’: Catholics and the Politics of the 1790s

c ha pt er 4 ‘‘Federalists and Tories Carrying Everything With A High Hand’’ Catholics and the Politics of the 1790s That Catholics in New York had determined that their political interests at the outset of the republic governed by the new Constitution lay with the federal government, and not with the state of New York, was evident at the ceremonies marking the inauguration of George Washington as the first president of the United States. There was a noticeable Catholic presence at the festivities, as the leaders of St. Peter’s Church moved easily among those who gathered in New York in April 1789. The European ambassadors to the United States, many of whom were Catholic, and Dominick and Joana Lynch, attended a ball held in honor of Washington. Charles Carroll of Maryland, elected as a U.S. Senator from that state to the first federal Congress, was on a joint House–Senate committee charged with arranging the inauguration. The residences of the Spanish and French ambassadors to the United States were brightly lit, and a French warship, the Galviston, welcomed Washington to the city. In the months following Washington’s inauguration, there was more evidence of the close social ties between New York’s lay Catholic leadership and members of the new federal establishment. In the summer of 1789, Daniel Carroll, a U.S. Representative from Maryland, became godfather to 81 82 Citizens or Papists? Margaret Lynch, another of the children of Dominick and Joana Lynch.1 Dominick Lynch was among a group of prominent American Catholics, all supporters of the new federal government, who sent congratulations to George Washington after his inauguration as president. John Carroll did so on behalf of the Roman Catholic clergy of the United States, and four men joined with him as spokesmen for the Catholic laity. Three of them—Daniel and Charles Carroll of Maryland and Thomas Fitzsimons of Pennsylvania—were wellknown political figures who had signed either the Declaration of Independence or the U.S. Constitution. Fitzsimons and the Carrolls had all been elected to the first Congress under the federal Constitution. After reminding Washington of the support of Catholics for the American Revolution, the Carrolls, Lynch, and Fitzsimons told the new president that Catholics in some of the United States still faced discrimination. Among that group, only New York pointedly excluded Catholics, and Catholics alone, from state office. Although they did not mention any state by name, New York must have been prominent in their minds, as in Maryland and Pennsylvania, Catholics faced no legal restrictions on their political rights. Dominick Lynch, unlike Thomas Fitzsimons and Charles and Daniel Carroll, held no office, and under the laws of New York, he was not eligible for state elective positions. The New York Catholic and his colleagues told Washington that regarding political rights for Catholics, ‘‘we pray for the preservation of them, where they have been granted; and expect the full extension of them from the justice of those States, which still restrict them.’’ During the American Revolution and shortly afterwards, several states mandated religious tests for office, which the United States Constitution did not. Georgia, New Hampshire , New Jersey, North and South Carolina, and Vermont all restricted state officeholding to Protestants alone, thus excluding Jews as well as Catholics. Pennsylvania and Delaware, with their strong Quaker roots, had no religious tests, as was the case with the frontier ‘‘Federalists and Tories Carrying Everything With A High Hand’’ 83 states of Kentucky and Tennessee. Massachusetts and Maryland (the latter had a significant Catholic minority) denied state office to all those who were not Christians.2 In his reply to the Catholic spokesmen, Washington acknowledged the efforts of Catholics on behalf of the revolution, and conceded that indeed, not all of the fruits of that victory were currently available to them. He offered only the vague hope that Catholics one day would be more fully integrated into American political life, proposing that ‘‘as mankind becomes more liberal, they will be more apt to allow, that all those who conduct themselves as worthy members of the community are equally entitled to the protection of civil government .’’ Washington, who had been a strong supporter of the Constitution , saw Catholics as entering a probationary period of sorts; if they acted in an acceptable manner, then they could expect to reap the full benefits of citizenship. The same year...