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was contained the following provision: “And such money [i. e., money raised by taxation] shall never be appropriated to any religious sect for the maintenance, exclusively, of its own school.”
After a prolonged debate in the convention, that article was made a portion of the proposed Constitution substantially by the vote of the Whigs, aided by some Coalition voters who styled themselves “Native Americans.”
This provision was understood to be aimed at the Roman Catholic schools and intended to deprive that Church of the possibility, in the near future, of having any of the school money of the State appropriated either by endowment or otherwise to the schools wherein the Roman Catholic faith should be taught to the pupils.
With the unwisdom that has not unfrequently appeared in the proceedings of the Romish priesthood, and with a want of foresight that proved disastrous to their school system, under the lead of the Bishop of Boston everything was done to prevent the Catholics from voting for the adoption of the Constitution, and their votes caused its rejection at the polls.
Thus were sacrificed all the provisions for the benefit of the common people which the party of Free-Soil and Democracy had engrafted upon the Constitution and hoped to have made permanent, and all because of an inconsiderate and unwise act of one religious sect in arraying itself against all others in an endeavor to make the common school education a religious education This article of the proposed Constitution applied to all religious sects, and under it no peculiar doctrine could ever be taught in the common schools.
This performance, which struck down the Constitution invoked a bitterness among the people against the Catholic religion, such as had never before been, to any considerable degree, either felt or foreshadowed in the State of Massachusetts.
It caused for a time a substantial obliteration of all parties save the “Native American” party, familiarly called the Know-Nothing party, which came into power in January, 1855.
This bigoted and most unscrupulous party, held together in secret organization through secret oaths, had grown up during the preceding year, like a mushroom in the night, and elected Henry J. Gardner, a young Boston banker, by a majority such as had never before been heard of. This movement broke down the Whig party,
A. M. Thayer and Co. 1892.
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