Blaine and anti-Catholicism.

I wish to comment on the article "Separation Isn't Anti-Catholic, Attorney Tells Civil Rights Panel" (July/August Church & State). I would like to believe, also, that the issue was not anti-Catholic. However, the mood at that time was anti-Catholic, with a wave of Catholic immigrants coming to the United States.

The Blaine Constitutional Amendment of 1875 was ratified by the House and failed in the Senate. After the Civil War, the Republicans were anxious to wave a bloody shirt, and slavery could no longer be used. Instead, the Republicans chose to capitalize on anti-Catholic sentiment.

Most historians would agree that the Blaine Amendment was directed against Catholics. The pervasive feeling at that time in the United Sates was the great melting pot and that Catholics reported to the pope. The book, Strangers in the Land: Patterns of American Nativism, 1860-1925 by John Higham, provides a clear understanding of those times.

After the failure to amend the Constitution, Congress added Enabling Acts to require new states entering the Union to add a clause separating church and state in their state constitution. This was based, very sadly, on the anti-Catholic sentiment in our country.

--Robert L. Finkelstein

Reston, Va.

Editor's Note: It is important to recall that Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and other framers strongly believed that taxpayers should not have to support churches and church schools. Their motive in the First Amendment (and many subsequent state constitutional provisions) was freedom of conscience for all, not anti-Catholicism. The "no government aid to religion" principle they laid down predated the anti-Catholicism that was certainly a factor in 19th-century American politics. Discussions about the Blaine Amendment and its state equivalents need to be placed in full historical context.