'A most democratic class': New York Catholics and the early American republic

This dissertation is a political study of Catholics in New York, primarily New York City, from the colonial period through about 1820. After Leisler's Rebellion in the late seventeenth century, Catholics were denied all political and religious rights as Protestants built a pluralistic society around, in part, a fear of Catholics. At the outset of the revolutionary crisis, Patriots used anti-Catholic rhetoric to condemn all who supported British authority in New York. The Patriot alliance with France caused them to de-emphasize anti-Catholicism. Catholics were granted religious freedom in 1777. Loyalists, the defenders of New York's old order, appropriated anti-Catholicism as they accused the Patriots of betraying their Protestant heritage.;Catholics opened their first church in New York City in the 1780s. Agrarians in the state legislature, however, nearly disenfranchised Catholics in 1787 but were thwarted by a party led by Alexander Hamilton. The next year, Anti-Federalists did prohibit Catholics from holding state office. During the 1790s, the Catholic clergy became concerned that the anti-clericalism of the French Revolution would influence American republicanism. Nationalist Republicans in New York City were suspicious of immigrants and Catholics. Federalists, despite their claims to be the defenders of Christianity, failed to forge an alliance with Catholics, despite their earlier support for Catholic political rights. Federalist class and ethnic biases toward Irish Catholics first became evident in the 1790s, and Republicans capitalized to woo Catholics to their side in the crucial 1800 election.;In the early nineteenth century, a faction of Republicans led by DeWitt Clinton and exiled radicals worked with mobilized Catholics to overturn the ban on their holding state office. Federalists and nationalist Republicans then united around opposition to immigrants and Catholics, but failed to defeat the Clintonians in New York City. When nationalist Republicans gained control of the party in New York City, they continued to discriminate against Catholics. Not until the War of 1812 did nationalist Republicans drop their reservations against Catholics. By 1821, Catholics no longer faced legal prohibitions and were firmly part of the Republican Party, who were now being called the Democrats.