Posted on 09/09/2014 10:52:49 AM PDT by Pelham
It is a common, even clichéd saying that the American Civil War pitted "brother against brother." Certainly, the conflict divided the nation as the seceded Southern states fought for independence, while the Northern and Border states fought to preserve the Union. Even within the sections, there were politicians, civilians, and soldiers who sympathized with the other "side." The issues of Slavery, "States-Rights," and the meaning of the Federal Constitution created passions and hatreds, which leapt from the ballot box to the battlefield. Even churches— especially churches— were prone to this division. Each section, denomination, and parishioner believed God to be on their side.
The sectional conflict of the 1860s over slavery and union collided with other heated socio-political struggles of the 19th century. America's pastoral Protestant society, so praised by Alexis de Tocqueville, with its patchwork of Yankee Pilgrims, Anglican planters, and Scotch-Presbyterian yeomanry was becoming more urban, immigrant-filled, and Catholic. Southern and Border states had already assimilated a small gentry of French and English Catholics but would not see drastic ethnic and religious change. Instead, the newcomer Catholics from Germany and Ireland chose to settle in the port cities and factory towns of the northeast and Midwest. They spoke with foreign accents, crammed tenements, performed manual labor, and backed big city political machines. Indeed an entire political faction arose to counter the influx of refugees from the Irish potato famine and German political revolutions of the 1840s. They were officially known as the American Party but were famously nicknamed Know Nothings for their secretive ways. They campaigned, among other things, to close saloons, limit Catholic immigration, restrict political office to Protestants, and require a 21-year wait for citizenship. The Know Nothing movement exploded in popularity during the 1850s as its candidates captured the mayoral elections of Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia,
(Excerpt) Read more at acton.org ...
“As long time Freepers we know that reading the article in question is rarely a requirement for posting something...”
I rarely post without reading the full post or the full article before posting...especially when my post might (and usually I hope it does) cause either admiration or criticism.
My posts aren’t mindless, and there is no Catholic bashing in them.
Look to your own posts for strange, hostile, mindlessness, and personal attacks.
Your posts that deal with the Catholic Church, which is not your faith, are always negative. I’ve never read a reply from you that was positive towards the Catholic Church. Never. So yes, your posting are anti-Catholic and that’s the primary reason for you replying to a post that deals with Catholicism.
On this thread about American history and immigration, and on which you posted to me for no reason, I made some posts.
While your posts have been hostile and insulting and full of name calling and personal attacks, which of mine have been anti-Catholic?
Only someone inherently dishonest and deliberately deceptive would routinely exclude black folks from the numbers they use for the "Evangelical Voters" but include Hispanics in their numbers for "Catholic Voters".
How did white folks who are Catholic sort out in 2012, for instance?
Have that number at your fingertips since that's a case of comparing white Evangelical apples to white Catholic apples?
The title of the thread is Onward Catholic Soldiers: The Catholic Church during the American Civil War
So here’s the truth about Catholics and their contributions in the American Civil War.
http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/history/us/ah0029.htm
“When the war began, there were 2.2-million Catholics in the United States, 1.6-million of them Irish. The U.S. Sanitary Commission reported that 144,221 Irish served in the Union armed forces: 51,206 from New York, 17,418 from Pennsylvania, 12,041 from Illinois, 10,007 from Massachusetts, 8,129 from Ohio, 3,621 from Wisconsin, and 4,362 from Missouri. Approximately 40,000 German-Catholics served as did 5,000 Polish immigrants. Catholics became prominent in the officer corps, including over fifty generals and a half-dozen admirals.
In the North, prominent Catholics included General William D. Rosecrans, Generals Hugh and Charles Ewing, and General Philip Sheridan. General Grant referred to Sheridan as a man who had no superior as a general, either living or dead, and perhaps no equal.
In the South, at least 40,000 Irish served in the Confederate Army. Catholic officers included General Pierre Beauregard, General James Longstreet, General William Hardee, and Admiral Rafael Semmes.
By the end of the war, the Church’s prestige was greatly enhanced. She had remained unified; her soldiers had fought bravely, and Americans had witnessed uncountable acts of Catholic charity. The Daughters of Charity, the Sisters of Mercy, and other religious orders helped the wounded and distraught, and made a great impression on the public. Catholics and non-Catholics living, marching, and fighting together overcame many old prejudices.
In October 1866, the American hierarchy held a plenary council in the nation’s first episcopal see, Baltimore, in an effort to demonstrate this unity. Seven archbishops, thirty-seven bishops, and two abbots led the opening procession. President Andrew Johnson and Washington’s mayor attended the closing session – a clear tribute to the role Catholics played in the war and to the growing Catholic presence in America”.
You seem to just make up your outrage, and dishonest claims about other people.
Blacks are counted as part of the Protestant vote, but why would you even start raging that was left out, when the post was only about immigration and Hispanic voters?
Before the famine the Irish, self described, were Scots Irish and Protestant. These Irish started heading West in the 18th century due to the Rack Rents and impositions by the Anglican Church on their faith. This accounts for the many of the Irish families in the south.
Then there were the very early Irish Catholic families in New England who became Protestant because belonging to a Church was required, mainly servants, so they converted.
There’s a character in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn who converts to “better” her children. My family never did but they did grow into the middle and upper middle class eventually.
My mother's father's family converted from Judaism to Catholicism in the late 19th century. Don't know why, unfortunately. I have a feeling Americans always did what ever they wanted, government and authorities be damned!
I sent my kid to Community Collage to see if she was serious, she was. Now for the big hit, the real deal.
She looked around and decided on UA, so we go on a tour and we meet up with a little bill, last name, from Virginia so we compared genealogies, cousins.
Seems he was the director of Graduate Studies, seems that AL was closing a policy that gave out of State students in State tuition if they became residents, done deal.
You’re either a smart man...or a smart woman.
Today, about a third of the Irish in America are Catholic.
“One of the problems that many have is the definition of Irish and the label of Catholic. Before the famine the Irish, self described, were Scots Irish and Protestant. “
That’s true to an extent, particularly concerning the use of the name Irish, but there were some Irish Catholics in the colonies. I have both Protestant Scots Irish ancestors and Catholic Irish ancestors who came to the colonies before the Revolution.
The Scots Irish had helped the English defeat the native Irish and had settled in Ulster. IIRC after being double crossed by the English many of them left Ulster for British North America. They were a mixture of Scots and northern English and were Presbyterian.
My Irish Catholic ancestors were gentry who owned estates somewhere near Cork but they had their property confiscated by Cromwell. I’m sure that the theft of their property prompted them to leave for America. This exodus wouldn’t be well remembered because it happened in the late 1600s and the numbers wouldn’t have been large. And at some point they might have become Protestants like my family line did.
White southern baptists...me...vote around 90% GOP
White Protestants...70%
White catholics around 54%
Per Reuters...
There are liberal white non Catholic denominations
Reformed Lutheran
United Church of Christ
Likely Episcopalians...what’s left of them
I guess if include people who haven't been in a Catholic Church since they were baptized as an infant and who now attend some non-Catholic Church, as in "have you ever been Catholic", maybe you could get 54% but I seriously doubt it.
The larger point is lost in whether it's 54%, 45%, or 69%, the point is that some people use one definition for a given group they want to make look superior in one case so they have a number they like, but do not apply the same standard to other groups in the same case.
The example I referred to was one posted shortly after the last election that had Evangelicals as a completely separate group from Black folks but included Hispanics in the Catholic group. Knowing that black folks went for Obama by 95% or better, they were excluded from the preferred group but knowing Hispanics went heavily for Obama didn't rate their being excluded from the Catholic group. That's the point, cherry picked, bogus numbers.
Even with people who haven't been in a Catholic Church since they were baptized as an infant included in the Catholic group, Hispanics excluded, there's no excuse for Catholics voting so heavily democrat and still claiming to be Catholic. Defending the way one group or another votes or doesn't misses the point entirely.
The point is that some people pretend to deal in fact when in reality they have no problem dealing in self serving fabrications.
Old guy.
I did some research and found that the Scots side of my family were originally English, Maxwell and that my sons Father in laws family were also English, Sandlin.
Both notorious Border Reviers.
Yeah the fact that the ‘Scots Irish’ included some English lines cleared up something that I had wondered about. My paternal grandmother always insisted that her family, Stroud, was Scots Irish but the name is English and goes back to the Norman conquest. But I do have some Armstrong and Donald ancestors that were indeed Scots.
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