17. Many mid-19th Century Protestants in the United States believed in a Catholic plot to seize the American nation and impose tyranny
Remembered primarily for his contributions to the development of the eponymous telegraph code, Samuel Morse was also a prominent exponent of anti-Catholic conspiracy theories during the mid-19th century. Running unsuccessfully for Mayor of New York in 1836 as the candidate for the Nativist Party – an extreme anti-immigration party opposed to foreigners – the year before Morse had published Foreign Conspiracy Against the Liberties of the United States. Claiming in his work of a Papist plot to seize control of the United States, Morse detailed an extensive conspiracy to impose the political will of the Vatican over that of the American Constitution.
Not the sole source of “Romanist” conspiracy theories, anti-Catholic sentiment gave way throughout the mid-century to wild accusations of intrigue and secret covenants. Triggered chiefly by the mass immigration of Irish and German Catholics between 1830 and 1860, Pope Pius IX’s suppression of the liberal Revolutions of 1848 provided fuel to already heightened Protestant fears in America. Resulting in the creation of several organizations, including the Order of the Star Spangled Banner and the Know-Nothing Party, these groups came to represent a surprisingly mainstream opinion in the United States that Catholics were seeking to undermine and destroy the Protestant way of life.