AMERICAN NATIVISM
On the article the main issue that was discussed was regarding the discrimination against Catholics and free African Americans in the United States until the Civil War. It discussed the plight and the role of the Catholics and free African Americans. Discrimination against Catholics and free African Americans in the United States until the Civil War has been the case many years ago and even in the recent years there is still race discrimination on these people. From north down to the south, discrimination is the major issues in the article. There are also discussions on how these issues have changed slowly over time. They provided a critical exploration of African American history as well as Samuel Morse’s experience that encompassed the global implications for past and contemporary nativism struggles.
The experience of discrimination
Catholics and free African Americans in the United States before the Civil War were continuously plagued with various religion and race-related problems of extremely escalating severity. For example, many Catholics and free African Americans during that time were considered as less desirable employees and are less likely hired in most jobs. There was a notion that Catholics and free African Americans should be separated and accorded different treatment from the rest of the population because of their racial and religious inferiority. Catholics and free African Americans have until now labored under binary oppositions: slavery vs. freedom, equality vs. inequality, accommodation vs. agitation.
Historical stories about Catholics and free African Americans typically cover only the period immediately before the Civil War when the Underground Railroad was firmly established and freedom was getting closer. Most stories about discrimination take place in the South. The long fight for equality for Catholics and free African Americans is not over yet until the present time.
In the past, the White Americans has owned the Catholics and free African Americans, their body and their soul. They had them as their slaves, gave them physical punishment, and even treated them inhumanly. Moreover, they referred the Catholics and free African Americans as objects that can be owned.
Describe the reasons advanced to justify discrimination against Catholics and free African Americans in the United States until the Civil War.
The description of nativism and its impacts have been investigated by a number of people, starting from (1935) investigation into the nativist potential for equality among Catholics and free African Americans to the large-scale studies conducted under the guidance and influence of the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History (1930; 1927).
Despite this early flurry of scholarship, however, more recent efforts in social history have often focused on the institution of nativism itself rather than its legacy, while examinations of nativism’s consequences have emphasized aggregate, macro level effects. Lacking longitudinal analysis at the micro level, the legacy of Catholics and free African Americans before the Civil War remains poorly understood until this time
After the Civil War the discrimination of Catholics and free African Americans ended temporarily. But either way the mistreatment of the Catholics and free African Americans continued. In the time that they can own Catholics and free African Americans as their slaves, they tried not to go beyond there anger in order to not to kill their slaves because they thought it would be a great loss to them like an asset that is lost.
The Catholics and free African Americans were not only injured and treated inhumanly but rather even brutally murdered. The excuse was that the necessity of the white immigrants to repress and stamp out alleged race riots. The second excuse happened during the reconstruction. Moreover, Catholics and free African Americans had to be killed to avenge their assaults upon women.
Discrimination of Catholics and free African Americans before the Civil War indicated a dissimilarity in treatment anchored on the personal attributes of a person, like race or sex, regardless of whether that person’s profile corresponded to the prerequisite of a specific position in the company. This dissimilarity in treatment placed Catholics and free African Americans at a drawback or constrained their admission to gains and chances obtainable to other members of society.
How did Nativists define being an American?
Discrimination of the Catholics and free African Americans before the Civil Ware was in fact direct or indirect. It became direct when imperatives and ways openly prohibited or gave partiality to Catholics and free African Americans exclusively on the foundation of their membership of a certain group. These types of discrimination against Catholics and free African Americans anchored in prejudices and unfair discernments of the capabilities or work ethics of people acquiring to specific groups, regardless of their actual abilities and work experience. Such typecasting was discriminatory for the reason that it unconditionally forced Catholics and free African Americans during that time to replicate the features frequently attributed to people from society’s prevailing group.
This was one of the situations of the United States that made , endeavor for a position in politics so as to take a hold of crucial government decisions like the matters of discrimination of Catholics and free African Americans. It was true that during the onset of discrimination of the Catholics and free African Americans in the United States there was nothing that these people could do than watch at first. However, their experiences and what they saw had gratified them to take a stand about the issue.
Before the Civil War, the United States had undermined the freedom of the immigrants and expanded the power of the state; at the same time, the US had sunk in international influence. The agenda of Morse, Saunders and Beecher was to restore the traditional nativism values of personal freedom and self-reliance, to recall the philosophical basis of earlier success, and so to change the direction in which US society appeared to be headed.
Samuel Morse’s close touch of the issue of nativism came when he lost in the elections for mayoralty of New York. At the time, immigration and race were still the factors that divide US and no bill was yet to be formulated to cure the controversial issue. Because of this, there were several acts that aimed at integrating nativists like Morse and the making of the legislation that was against discrimination.
Samuel Morse was on the Nativist Party that hoped to aim at regulating immigration in the United States where most Catholics and free African Americans live in. During the rivalry of the Nativist and Immigrants, the latter have been found to be the foremost source of racist sentiment and were also the hindrance to both white and black workers in the struggle for democratic US.
However, the rise of Morse, Saunders and Beecher created a political shift and indicated the Nativist movement a period of decline and confrontation. Their period of influence adopted the nativist policies and language. Their narrow-minded standpoint against immigration have drawn off many votes from the members of the Nativist Party yet won and send off the ticket to political insignificance. The situation became worse when initiatives went down which shoved off the atmosphere in which nativist and immigrant ideas can gain support and Catholics and free African Americans be blamed for the evil results.
Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com
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