At Peace with All Their Neighbors: Catholics and Catholicism in the National Capital, 1787-1860In 1790, two events marked important points in the development of two young American institutions—Congress decided that the new nation's seat of government would be on the banks of the Potomac, and John Carroll of Maryland was consecrated as America's first Catholic bishop. This coincidence of events signalled the unexpectedly important role that Maryland's Catholics, many of them by then fifth- and sixth-generation Americans, were to play in the growth and early government of the national capital. In this book, William W. Warner explores how Maryland's Catholics drew upon their long-standing traditions—advocacy of separation of church and state, a sense of civic duty, and a determination "to live at peace with all their neighbors," in Bishop Carroll's phrase—to take a leading role in the early government, financing, and building of the new capital. Beginning with brief histories of the area's first Catholic churches and the establishment of Georgetown College, At Peace with All Their Neighbors explains the many reasons behind the Protestant majority's acceptance of Catholicism in the national capital in an age often marked by religious intolerance. Shortly after the capital moved from Philadelphia in 1800, Catholics held the principal positions in the city government and were also major landowners, property investors, and bankers. In the decade before the 1844 riots over religious education erupted in Philadelphia, the municipal government of Georgetown gave public funds for a Catholic school and Congress granted land in Washington for a Catholic orphanage. The book closes with a remarkable account of how the Washington community, Protestants and Catholics alike, withstood the concentrated efforts of the virulently anti-immigrant and anti-Catholic American nativists and the Know-Nothing Party in the last two decades before the Civil War. This chronicle of Washington's Catholic community and its major contributions to the growth of the nations's capital will be of value for everyone interested in the history of Washington, D.C., Catholic history, and the history of religious toleration in America. |
From inside the book
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... native American church and its first fol- lowers in the District of Columbia . Trinity Church , as it was simply known for so long in its history , was at the center of the first Catholic presence in the national capital area . Born in ...
... Native Tongue will be attended to , no less than the Learned Languages . " To this end Carroll wrote incessantly to his clos- est friend and most faithful correspondent , the British Jesuit Charles Plowden . The proposed academy was ...
... native of Port Tobacco in southern Maryland , Doyle had come to Georgetown in the early 1780s . He is best known as the publisher of the George- Town Weekly Ledger , which he and his brother James took over from its first owners in 1791 ...
... native tongue " as much as the classics— also did much to gain immediate acceptance for the college . From the first day of classes , students were entered either as " English scholars " or " Latin schol- ars . " The college account ...
... native Marylanders like himself who had endured the long rigors of study and ordination abroad . As early as June 1785 we find him imploring his friend Charles Plowden in Eng- land for the return of Charles and Francis Neale , Leonard ...
Contents
3 | |
15 | |
33 | |
For Nation and Town | 55 |
The Church | 79 |
A Church So Crowded | 81 |
St Patricks St Peters St Marys and More | 100 |
The Nations Capital | 121 |
Daniel Carroll of Duddington | 166 |
The Passing Storm | 189 |
Time of Wonder Time of Trial | 191 |
A Final Test | 213 |
Acknowledgments | 231 |
Abbreviations | 233 |
Notes | 234 |
Bibliography | 289 |