CONGREGATIONAL CHURCHES
Showing distribution of the 4447 Congregational Churches in the United States. Figures indicate number of churches in shaded areas in which there are too many to be shown by dots and circles. As the Congregational Church is largely identified with New England, the map shows in a general way the westward movement of people of New England origin.
The principle of the Know Nothing party was opposition to the political power of the large masses of newly arrived aliens. This was especially directed against the Catholic Church, because it was felt that their establishment of parochial schools was inimical to the public-school system, which the Americans of that time regarded as the palladium of their liberties. This hostility to Catholics was aggravated by the attempted use of public funds derived from general taxation for parochial schools and even more by the exemption claimed and often obtained from taxation of large ecclesiastical institutions as well as churches.
Further opposition to aliens arose from their organization into compact political units which quickly demoralized our municipal governments, a scandal which has existed down to this day.
All this led to the widespread belief that these immigrants, now arriving in large numbers, refused to accept wholeheartedly the customs, principles, and institutions of the country in which they had sought refuge. This belief still persists and has given rise in each generation since the days of the Know Nothing party, to similar powerful and secret anti-foreign organizations. Our alien elements are to this day extremely sensitive to the public discussion of any of these matters. In this respect, Americans probably have less freedom of speech and freedom of press than exist in any of the countries of Europe.
During the colonial period the natural increase of the Anglo-Saxon stock in New England had made it a continual source of population for the rapidly opening West. No one State, however, contributed such a large element of the population of the subsequent United States as did Virginia, the largest and most populous of the thirteen Colonies. One cannot read the history of the movement westward of the American frontier without being impressed by the importance of the Old Dominion in supplying settlers for the West, first to Kentucky, thence to the States of the upper and lower Mississippi Valley, later to the Great Plains, and finally to the Southwest and the Pacific Coast.
But if Virginia has been the most fertile source of settlers, New England has more nearly put its stamp on American civilization; and this was made possible largely because there was an available emigrant stock in Massachusetts and her sister States, to carry this impress in person. Before the Civil War, however, the birth rate of the old white stock in New England had declined to the point where it was probably not replacing its own numbers.
In 1860 the religious unity of the United States had been somewhat impaired. The unity of language was as yet scarcely menaced. The unity of institutions, traditions, and culture was breached only temporarily. The racial unity of the country was little changed from 1790. The United States was still nine-tenths Nordic.