KNOWNOTHINGISM
077
ENOWNOTHINGISM
oiscience of God and the human knowledge of Christ
(cf. Bonav. in III., dist. 13, a. 2). Soon, however, the-
ologians began to hmit the human knowledge of Christ
to the range of the scientia risionis or of all that
actually has been, is, or will be, while God's Omni-
science embraces also the range of the possibles.
Peter Lombard. Liber Sent.. III. dist. 13-14, and St. Thomas, St. Bonaventure, Scotus, Dionysius the Carthusian on this passage; Siimma, III, QQ. viii-xii, and xv. a. 2. and Valent., SuAREZ, Salmeron, on these chapters: Melchior Canus, Dc Locis. XII,xiii;PETAVius, I, i sqq.; Thomassin, VII; Legrand, De Incarn., dissert, ix, c. ii; JIaldonatus, a Lapide, Kna- benbauer, etc.,onZ.i(Af.ii, 52, and .WarA-. xiii, 32; Franzelin, De Verb. Incarn., p. 426. A numberof works have been quoted during the course of the article. A. J. MaaS.
Knownothingism. — This was a name applied to a
mo\ement in American politics which attracted a
large share of public attention during the period from
1851 to 1S.58. It was the revival or re-appearance
under a new name of the Native American movement
which, during the preceding quarter of a century, had
made various organized efforts to engraft its principles
upon the legislation and policy of the American govern-
ment. These principles briefly stated, were (1) the
proscription of those who professed the Roman Catho-
lic faith and, (2) the exclusion of foreign-born citizens
from all offices of trust and emolument in the govern-
ment, whether fetleral, state, or municipal. It may
be added that Roman Catholics of Irish origin, whether
native or foreign-born, were at all times the special
object of Native American hostility, and that the
"foreigners ", contemptuously so called, against whom
the Knownothing denunciations were levelled, and who
were to be excluded from the rights of citizenship,
were for the most part Irish immigrants to the United
States professing the Roman Catholic faith. This
Native American spirit may be traced back to the
very beginning of the National Government. In
many of the colonies there were penal laws which for-
bade the practice of the Roman Catholic religion, and
these laws remained on the Statute Books down to the
time of the War of Independence.
With the organization of government and the adoption of a written Constitution, the question of religious toleration naturally arose, and the principle of freedom of religion was incorporated in the Federal Constitution (.\rt. VI) which declared that "no re- hgious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States". This liberty of conscience was further assured by an amendment adopted in 1791, which declared that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establish- ment of religion or prohibiting the free e.xercise there- of." Wliile the policy of the National Government was thus defined, and its law-making power was re- strained from legislation hostile to the principle of freedom of religion, the individual states had reserved the right to regulate the question of religion and of a state C'hurch within their respective jurisdictions, and the elimination from the Constitutions of the various states of the religious disqualifications which they contained affecting Roman Catholics was accom- plished slowly and not without much resistance on the part of a considerable portion of the population. Thus, it was not until 18.3.3 that the union betw'een Church and State in the Commonwealth of Massa- chusetts was dissolved, and Catholics were relieved from having to pay taxes for the support of the state (Protestant) Church. New Jersey retained its anti- Catholic Constitution until 1844, and only in 1877 did New Hampshire expunge from its Constitution the provision disqualifying Catholics from holding office in that state. These, with instances from other states which might be added, show that the spirit of intoler- ance of the Roman Catholic religion still survived. Freedom of religion as asserted in the Federal Consti- tution was not by any means universally accepted in theorj', still less in practice.
The Tory element in the population, composed al-
most wholly of adherents of the Church of England,
was most prominent in its resistance to that principle.
Many of these were secretly opposed to the total inde-
pendence of the colonies. In New York, where they
were most numerous, they had been the governing
class; theirs was the state Church: their wealth and
social standing gave them a large share in the direction
of public affairs which they rightly judged would be
lost to them by the establishment of the republic on
the principles of freedom and equality declared by
Thomas Jefferson, and, when their mother country was
compelled to acknowledge the independence of the
colonies, over 30,000 of these Tories voluntarily de-
ported themselves, most of them to England and
Canada. Those w-ho remained became identified with
the political party known as the Federalists. Success-
ful for a time in retaining the control of the newly-
organized government, the leaders of that party
"strove to preserve the political ascendency of Prot-
estantism in the states both by Federal legislation
affecting the naturalization of emigrants and by pre-
venting legislation in their respective states for the
relief of Catholics from their religious disabilities
which was necessary to give effect to the liberal spirit
and purpose of the Constitution" (see "U. S.
Catholic Historical Records and Studies", Vol. Ill,
p. 95).
Thus, John Jay, of New York, who afterwards be- came Chief Justice of the Ignited States, succeeded in fastening upon the Constitution of his own state a provision which denied the jarivilege of citizenship to every foreign-born Catholic unless he would first abjure and renounce all allegiance to the pope in matters ecclesiastical. This provision remained in force until 1821, when the power and influence of the Federal party had well nigh disappeared. During the administration of the Federalist president, John Adams, 1798-1802, that same party forced the pas- sage of the Alien Act, under which the president might expel from the country all aliens whom he might re- gard as disaffected towards the Government, as well as that other Act reciuiring a residence of fourteen years in the country before any foreign-born person could be admitted to citizenship. In brief, the Feder- alists were the Native Americans of their day, and Knownothingism, as the latest and, because of its excesses, the most odious manifestation of the Native American spirit, may be said to have had its genesis in the prejudices nursed by the Federalists against foreign-born citizens and in their intolerance of their fellow-citizens professing the Roman Catholic faith. These offensive, not to say unlawful, sentiments found numerous advocates, not only among political dema- gogues and aspirants for public office, but also in the pulpit and in the religious press of those days. The tide of immigration which had set in was largely Irish and soon became distinctively Catholic in character. One of the inducements to this immigration was the hope it held out of release from the ci\'il disabilities and the religious proscription under which the immi- grants had laboured in their native land. When, therefore, a powerful party was found exerting itself to exclude these immigrants from the privilege of citizenship because of their race and creed, it was most natural that they and their co-religionists of whatever race shoukl, as they did, ally themselves with the opposing political party which supported those princi- ples of political equality and freedom of religion which had been proclaimed as distinctive principles of the American scheme of government. The growing im- migration and the increase in the number of natural- ized citizens strengthened the party with which these immigrants had become identified, and the extension of their political influence, as shown at the elections, was used by the advocates of proscription as a justifi- cation of their policy. Throughout the various Native
