Gotham_ A History of New York City to 1898 - Edwin G. Burrows [798]
Protestants also feared that Catholic political power menaced republican liberties, an old worry recently revived by Pope Pius IX’s Syllabus of Errors (1864), eighty in all, that condemned such tendencies of the bourgeois era as naturalism, rationalism, separation of church and state, liberty of conscience, and (error number eighty) the notion that “the Roman Pontiff can and ought to reconcile himself and come to terms with progress, liberalism and modern civilization.” The Times suggested that Catholics intended to set up a state church and drive Protestants “to take shelter in holes and corners,” and Thomas Nast, cartoonist for Harper’s, fashioned images of mitred crocodiles slithering up on the beaches of America.
“The American River Ganges: The Priests and the Children,” by Thomas Nast, Harper’s Weekly, September 30, 1871. (General Research. The New York Public Library. Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations)
These anxieties had been boosted by Tammanyite Mayor Abraham Oakey Hall, who had taken to reviewing the St. Patrick’s Day parade in full Irish regalia, showing up at balls in bottle-green flytail coats and emerald silk shirts, and jocularly claiming his initials really stood for “Ancient Order of Hibernians.” Tweed and company had, moreover, authorized state and city aid to parochial schools and Catholic private charities: the Church got nearly $1,500,000 from public sources between 1869 and 1871. To the Tribune it seemed quite apparent that the Irish, “under the leadership of Mr. William M. Tweed, had taken possession of this City and State.” Superintendent Kelso’s order banning the Orange Parade seemed brutal confirmation of this.
Protestants also fought the banning order because it gave comfort to Irish nationalists, Fenians chief among them. After the war, the Fenians had come up from underground, declared themselves a sovereign government-in-exile, and hoisted their harp-and-sunburst flag over the old Moffat mansion (opposite Union Square), now their capitol. A faction led by William R. Roberts, a wealthy New York dry-goods merchant, pushed to capture British Canada and hold it hostage for Irish independence. This would hopefully embroil the United States in an Anglo-American war, during which Ireland could break for freedom.
This program roused tremendous enthusiasm among New York’s working-class Irish. In March 1866 over a hundred thousand turned out for a Fenian rally in Jones’ Woods—despite the opposition of Archbishop McCloskey. The savings of domestics and longshoremen (not, for the most part, the more conservative Irish middle classes) helped purchase a cache of arms from the U.S. government. But money, enthusiasm, and some tacit support from American officials still fuming at England’s Confederate leanings were no substitute for military competence, and the Fenian invasion forces were easily routed by Canadian militiamen.
This invasion fiasco stimulated the growth of the Clan na Gael (founded 1867), a far more disciplined and secretive organization. Because Irish nationalists retained broad popular support, they were vigorously wooed by Tammany politicians, and Grant Republicans gave them federal jobs in New York City. But leading Irish exiles aligned themselves with the International, which strongly supported Irish independence. Ford of the Irish World linked the nationalist cause to radical enthusiasms by denouncing the “money interest” as “a huge boa constrictor” that “has wound itself about the nation, crushing its bones and sucking the life blood from its heart.”
This combination of concerns about Commune-style radicalism, Irish Catholicism’s growing power in the city, and the emergence of left-leaning Irish nationalism generated intense elite pressure on Tammany to reverse its stand and let the Orangemen