KNOX
680
ENOX
selves in various directions to secure legislation hostUe
to Catholics, expecially to Irish immigrants, then
mostl}' of that faith. In the legislatures of sorne of the
states bills were proposed to authorize the visitation
and inspection of convents and other religious institu-
tions by state officials, and in Massachusetts, in 1854,
such a "law, known as the Nunneries Inspection Bill,
was actually passed. Under this a legislative com-
mittee made a tour of inspection and in a very offensive
manner visited several Catholic colleges and convents.
In several states, notably in New York, church prop-
erty bills were proposed which were designed to de-
stroy the title to Catholic church property, which for
the most part stood in the name of the bishop, there
being then no law for the incorporation of Catholic
churches by which such title might be securely held.
In Congress efforts were made to restrict the benefits
of the Homestead Laws to those who were actual
citizens of the United States, and the old-time propo-
sal to extend the period of residence to twenty-one
years before a person could be admitted to citizenship
was constantly agitated. Of lesser importance were
the laws and ordinances passed in Massachusetts dis-
banding various volunteer militia companies bearing
the name of some Irish patriot and composed for the
most part of Catholic Irislimen.
These different measures were advocated in the newspaper organs, both secular and religious, of the Ivnownothing party. The New York Church Prop- erty Bill evokeil the newspaper controversy between Archbishop Hughes and Senator Brooks which at- tracted attention all over the country. In addition, many books and pamphlets were put in circulation in support of the Knownothing claims. Much of tliis literature was grossly insulting to Catholics and espe- cially to the Irish members of that Church, and the Catholic press of those days was busily engaged in meeting the charges made against the Church. Speak- ing of Knownothingism, the authors (Nicolay and Hay) of the "Life of Lincoln" (Vol. II, p. 357) say: "Essentially it was a revival of the extinct Native American faction based upon a jealousy of and dis- crimination against foreign born voters, desiring an extension of their period of naturalization and their exclusion from office; also based upon a certain hostility to the Roman Catholic religion."
Schouler, another non-Catholic historian, says (History of the United States, Vol. V, p. 305): "They [the Knownothings] revived the bitter spirit of intoler- ance against the Roman Catholic Church such as ten years before had been shown in the riots of Charles- town and Philadelphia, by representing it as foreign, the handmaid of popular ignorance and bent on chain- ing Americans to the throne of the Vatican
Catholic churches were assaulted every now and then by some crowd of Bible bigots helped on by the brawny friends of free fight inflamed by street preach- ers and the revelations of 'converted Jesuits' and 'escaped nuns ' etc." Speaking of the partisans of the movement, Bishop J. L. Spalding said (Life of Arch- bishop Spalding, p. 174) they were "the depraved portion of our native population". He added: "It was not the American people who were seeking to make war on the Church, Iiut merely a party of reli- gious fanatics and unprincipled demagogues who as little represented the American people as did the mobs whom they incited to bloodshed and incendiarism. Their whole conduct was un-American and opposed to all the principles and traditions of our free institu- tions".
Brownson spoke of their prejudices as "contempti- ble"; "The Nativc-.\mcricanParty ", said he (Essays and Reviews, p. 42S), "is not a party against admit- ting foreigners to the rights of citizenship, but simply against admitting a certain class of foreigners. It does not oppos(! Protestant flermans, Protestant Englishmen, Protestant Scotchmen, not even Protes-
tant Irishmen. It is really opposed only to Catholic
foreigners. The party is truly an anti-Catholic party,
and is opposed chiefly to the Irish, because a majority
of the emigrants to this country are probably from
Ireland, and the greater part of these are Cathofics."
Spalding, The Life of the Most Rett. M. J. Spalding (New York, 1873) ; Hassard, Life of the Most Rev. John Hughes (New York, 186ti); Complete works of the Most Rev. John Hughes (New York, 1866); Spalding, Essays and Reviews (New York. 1877): United States Catholic Historical Records and Studies, II, III. IV, V (New York, 1901-1909); ScHARr and Westcott, History of Philadelphia (Philadelphia, 1886); Sanderson, Re- publican Landmarks (Philadelphia. 1856); The Works of the Rt. Rev. John England (Baltimore, 1869) ; Cooper and Fenton. American Politics (Chicago, 1884) (non-partisan); O'Donnell, History of the Diocese of Hartford (Boston, 1900); De Codrcy, The Catholic Church in the United States (New York, 1857); Spalding, Miscellanea (Baltimore, 1S94): Flynn, The Catholic Church in New Jersey (Morristown, 1904); Cornelison, The Relation of Religion to Civil Government (New York, 1895); Shea, The Catholic Church in Colonial Days (New York, 1886); Baird. Religion in America; The Whig Almanac (New York, 1855); New England Magazine, XV (Boston, Sept., 1896); Nicolay and Hay, The Life of Abraham Lincoln (New York, 1890); Schouler, History of the United States (New York, 1891); Files of r/ie TrufA and Boston Pitof; Norton, StortHnfl Fads for American Protestants (New York, 1852); Whitney, A Defence of the American Policy (New York, 1856); Life of Mother M, Xavicr Wardc (Boston, 1902).
Peter Condon.
Enox, John, Scotch Protestant leader, b. at Had- dington, Scotland, between 1505 and 1515; d. at Edinburgh, 24 November, 1572. All the older biog- raphies assign his birth to 1505, but recent authori- ties (Lang, Hay Fleming, etc.) give grounds for the later date from contemporary evidence, and from certain facts in his career. Nothing authentic is known of his ancestry or kinsfolk, excepting that his mother was a Sinclair; his father was probably a small farmer. Educated at the Haddington burgh school, he is not known to have graduated at any university, though both Glasgow and St. Andrews have claimed him. His own WTitings testify to his knowledge of Latin and French, and his acquaintance with the works of some of the Fathers, and he seems to have acquired a smattering of Greek and Hebrew in later life. His mastery of vernacular Scotch is shown in his "Hi-story", as well as the fact that he had studied law, for his citations from the Pandects are apt and not infrequent. We know from his own words that he was a priest— "one of Baal's shaven sort ", as he expresses it — and practised as a notary by ecclesiastical authority. In a still extant document he is styled "Johannis Knox, sacri altaris minister, sancte Andrete diocesis auctoritate apostolica nota- rius." Nothing whatever is known of his ecclesiasti- cal career; and we can only surmise that he had already begun to doubt, if he had not actually repu- diated, the Catholic tenets by 1540, when we first find him engaged as private tutor to certain "bairns", a profession in which he continued until 1547. The names of some of his pupils have come down to u.s, but we know nothing of the details of his life until 1545, when his own "History of the Reformation", written some eighteen years later and largely auto- biographical in character, first brings him before us.
The most prominent exponent of the new doctrines in Scotland at this time was George Wishart, who had come home from his travels in Germany a confirmed Protestant, and was expounding his tenets in Had- dington and other parts of the Scottish Lowlands. Bitterly hostile to Cardinal Beaton, the great cham- pion of the C:ith(ilic cause, Wishart (whose most devoted adherent and disciiilo at this time was Knox) was deeply involved in the intrigues of the Protest.ant party with Henry Vll I of Kngl;ind for the kidnapping or murder of the c;ir(lin;d. Wishart was arrested in January, 1546, and burned at St. Andrews on 1 March; and on '20 May Beaton w;is minxlered at the same place in revenge for Wishart 's death. The assassination was al)pr()ved and applauded l)y Knox, who describes
