On Good Citizenship

Election Day approaches. Let us, in the fine tradition of our forebears, hie ourselves to the polls. But first--the campaigns! In the finest traditions of the Founding Fathers, let us speak of the qualities of our opponents:

In the wake of a significant shift in Catholic voters, let us recall the Founding generation's opinion of the Catholic presence in the colonies:

...Alexander Hamilton decried the Quebec Act as a diabolical threat. "Does not your blood run cold to think that an English Parliament should pass an Act for the establishment of arbitrary power and Popery in such an extensive country?…Your loves, your property, your religion are all at stake." He warned that the Canadian tolerance in Quebec would draw, like a magnet, Catholics from throughout Europe who would eventually destroy America.

Sam Adams told a group of Mohawk Indians that the law "to establish the religion of the Pope in Canada" would mean that "some of your children may be induced instead of worshipping the only true God, to pay his dues to images made with their own hands." The silversmith and engraver Paul Revere created a cartoon for the Royal American Magazine called "The Mitred Minuet." It depicted four contented-looking mitred Anglican Bishops, dancing a minuet around a copy of the Quebec Act to show their "approbation and countenance of the Roman religion." Standing nearby are the authors of the Quebec Act, while a Devil with bat ears and spiky wings hovers behind them, whispering instructions.

The Continental Congress took a stand against the Catholic menace. On October 21, 1774 it issued an address "to the People of Great Britain", written by John Jay, Richard Henry Lee and William Livingston, which expressed shock that Parliament would promote a religion that "disbursed impiety, bigotry, persecution, murder and rebellions through every part of the world." It predicted that the measure would encourage Canadians to "act with hostility against the free Protestant colonies, whenever a wicked Ministry shall choose to direct them." Once Americans were converted to Catholicism, they would be enlisted in a vast Popish army to enslave English Protestants.

We've come a long way since then. Get out and vote!