No, those were the protestant democrats in the south...hated blacks and Catholics...remember the KKK...no Catholics at all in that all American group....and the Salem witch trials...I don't recall a lot of Catholics being involved in that....both sides have their idiots but please don't put the Catholics down...ever...without Catholicism there wouldn't be the advanced western civilization that we have. When the protestants revolted against Christ's church, the world was a relatively advanced civilization...there were churches, schools, hospitals, monastaries, libraries, museums, ALL provided to you by the Catholics....say thanks Catholics.
The Spaniards brought the first Africans. You apparently are unaware of that. Last time I checked the Spanish are still Catholic. They had no problem wiping out entire groups in the Americas, and their slave problem still pervades the Caribbean.
As far as the South goes, 95% of the people who lived there were Protestants who didn't own slaves. And as far as the KKK goes, perhaps you weren't aware that the largest Klan groups were in Indiana in the '20s. The Northerners weren't fighting for black freedom, they fought to get rid of competition from slave labor. Remember "Free Labor, Free Soil"? It was about economics. Even before the War the State of Indiana imposed bonds on Freedmen:
Blacks were not allowed to vote or to serve in the militia. They could not testify in court cases involving whites. Black children were not allowed to attend public schools. After 1831, black settlers in Indiana were required to register with county authorities and to post a $500 bond as a guarantee of good behavior.
Didn't know that? But they were anti-Slavery Protestants, they just didn't consider Africans as part of their nation. And if you knew anything about American history, you'd know that the Radical Republicans - my ancestors also - were the principal opposition to Slavery.
And last time I checked, Greece and Rome invented "civilization"...heavy on the Greece part. The Reformation provided the push out of the Catholic Dark Ages, where anyone with a different opinion was subjected to ostracism and torture. It was only when Catholic gangsterism was ended in Northern Europe that natural science and political science took off, leading to the Enlightenment.
So get it, Padre? Reformation -> Enlightenment -> America
America - the one you got to live in - is a Protestant idea. Comes precisely from the notion that dogma is for trogs. Ask questions and force those in power to prove their legitimacy, not just assert it with the force of arms.
As for your assertion that all the good stuff was provided by Catholics, that's hilarious. The Huguenot of France were the elite of the country. When they were forced out, France went backwards, fast. To this day, the most Catholic countries of Europe - Spain, Italy and Portugal - are the technical laggards. That's what happens when you suppress a culture of critique and inquiry in favor of dogma.
So I see no reason to thank you. You murdered people in my family and drove us overseas, and then when our civilization was clearly superior, you followed us here - and with your buddies in South America, it's clear you plan to destroy what was created, and take us back into the night, along with your Spanish speaking allies.
Gosh won't it be great for you when the U.S. is just another miserable South American Religious Oligarchy?
All "Thanks" to you. Good job, Papists.
Here ya go, Slick: Read all about it. Apparently your schools up there in the Catholic ghettos of the formerly industrial Midwest never heard of the reason all those factories used to exist: The Enlightenment"
The Renaissance rediscovered much of Classical culture and revived the notion of humans as creative beings, and the Reformation, more directly but in the long run no less effectively, challenged the monolithic authority of the Roman Catholic Church