The United States of America we know and love has always been built on the foundation of freedom of religion, or has it? The Founding Fathers wrote in the 1st Amendment of the Bill of Rights that everyone has the freedom of religion and later on in the 9th Amendment that rights, like freedom of religion, should never be infringed upon. This Bill of Rights, along with our Constitution, has attempted to build a functioning country where everyone has rights. However, there have been many instances in the formation of this nation where freedom of religion ceased to exist and was even endorsed by local and state governments.
Although the Federal Government abided by the Constitution for the most part and kept itself secular, many local and state governments and leaders chose to do the opposite during the 19th century. For the most part, this was due to anti-Catholic sentiments rising as many Catholics immigrated to the United States. These immigrants came from Germany and Ireland as a result of poor economic conditions, such as the Irish Potato Famine in Ireland. These Catholic immigrants were often despised by the majority Protestant population of the United States and this can be seen in legislation and protests. For example, during the 1850s, the United States witnessed the creation of the short-lived “Know Nothing Party,” a political party which opposed immigration and were generally anti-Catholic. We see similar sentiments again during the Bible Riots of 1844, which were held in Philadelphia. During this riot, houses were destroyed, Catholic churches burned down, and 20 people were killed in the process.
The “Know Nothing Party” and the Bible Riots are clear examples of more extreme attitudes towards anti-Catholics, but silently, many state and local governments limited the rights of Catholics and other minority religions. For example, in 1777, New York’s constitution banned Catholics from public office and this would continue until 1806. Similar notions also existed in other states such as Maryland, where Jews did not have full civil rights, and Delaware, where they required an oath of office affirming belief in the Trinity. States continued to restrict religious freedom for several decades without much repercussions from the federal level until the creation of the 14th amendment, which prevented states from enacting legislation that would limit or advance the religious freedoms of its people.
Even though these events happened so long ago, the sentiments against minority religions have never faded away, unfortunately. The United States still faces problems of religious discrimination due to generalizing and stereotyping of minority religions, such as Islam. The only way to fight these issues is to first fully acknowledge that they exist and to do that, American citizens need to realize that our Constitution isn’t as perfect as we think it is and that change is needed regularly to polish our country’s laws.
Sources:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/americas-true-history-of-religious-tolerance-61312684/
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/09/when-america-hated-catholics-213177
https://billofrightsinstitute.org/founding-documents/bill-of-rights/
https://www.history.com/topics/united-states-constitution/freedom-of-religion
This is a really interesting point that I haven't seen a lot. The US was founded on a lot of ideals that seemed great in theory but ended up only working if you agreed with the majority. Plus there is the undertones of racism and nationalism as the American rejected wave after wave of immigrants with different religions.
ReplyDeleteI found this to be a very interesting issue that I think more people should be more aware of. We, as US citizens, believe that religious freedom and toleration is a given natural right. But in reality, the constitution has flaws that does not protect all religions being practiced and flaws that produces pieces of racism and other types of discrimination in our nation.
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