A ‘sentinel(s) of our liberties’: Archbishop John Hughes and Irish-American intellectual negotiation in the Civil War era

Abstract

The first Archbishop of New York City served his tenure at one of the classic political junctures in American history. By the 840s, the culture teemed with contending voices, as the spheres of politics, religion, and ethnicity articulated powerful imperatives against a backdrop of Jacksonian expansionism, the impending darkness of sectionalism, and other key crosscurrents in American public life. Growing threats to the security of the Union competed for attention with the onslaught of the Irish Famine influx in the major east coast cities, particularly in New York. Within the burgeoning metropolis, Irish-born John Joseph Hughes rose to prominence as a leader who forcefully engaged with issues of Church and state, religion and ethnicity, and status and power in the expanding urban milieu. That he achieved such prominent status by the 1840s is remarkable enough, in the first instance, but that he succeeded to national and international standing at a point when a slew of conflicting forces conspired against him rendered Hughes's trajectory all the more compelling. His distinctive persona eventually came to epitomise Catholic power in the city during the tumultuous 1840s and 1850s, despite intense opposition throughout. While scholarly works addressing his contributions to the contemporary religious and political world have referenced his complex and turbulent character, and although Hughes's impact in mid-century New York religious and political culture has received some attention in American and Irish-American history fields, several aspects of his life and public output remain virtually unexplored. One such focus centres on his role as a prime contributor to nineteenth-century Irish-American intellectual culture. As the first Irish-born leader to sustain national renown through critical decades in the mid-nineteenth century, the Irish-Catholic archbishop demonstrated atypical precociousness as an intellectual powerhouse. Deeply invested in resolving city education battles in his denominational favour, and committed to the rising national discourse on sectional loyalties and slavery, Hughes's keen, combative style marked him as an indefatigable spokesman during an era of heightened nativist antagonism and increasingly divisive political affiliations. This article aims to address current gaps in our understanding of Hughes as an unabashed ethnic leader who integrated faith-based political activism with an intellectual agenda elevating him to ethnic leadership, at a point when contemporary social and cultural constraints ought to have precluded his progression in these directions. As Martin L. Meenagh observed in 2004, ‘Hughes was a fascinating personality and deserves to be integrated back into discussions of U.S. public culture and modernity, so great was his impact’ (Martin L. Meenagh, ‘Archbishop John Hughes and the New York Schools Controversy of 1840–43’, American Nineteenth Century History 5, no. 1 (2004): 33).

Keywords:

• Archbishop John Hughes
• New York Irish
• Famine Irish
• Irish-American History
• Irish and Civil War

Notes

  1. For updates, see ‘The Current State of Intellectual History: A Forum’, including Wickberg's ‘Is Intellectual History a Neglected Field of Study?’; and Hollinger's ‘Thinking is as American as Apple Pie’. Hughes quotation cited in Terry Galloway, ‘Wanting it Both Ways’, America 193; no. 13 (October 2005):5.

  2. See perspectives in Lee and Casey, Making the Irish American.

  3. Higham discussed ‘states of mind’ in his ‘American Intellectual History’. See also Miller's ‘Intellectual History after the Earthquakes’; and Foner's Politics and Ideology in the Age of the Civil War, 9; also Lorenz, ‘Some Afterthoughts on Culture and Explanation in Historical Inquiry’.

  4. Ebest's Private Histories offers insight on this focus.

  5. See Meenagh, ‘Archbishop John Hughes and the New York Schools Controversy of 1840–43’.

  6. Shaw, Dagger, 1–2.

  7. Carey, American Catholic Religious Thought, 32–5.

  8. Kevin Kenny names Scotch-Irish leaders and men such as Matthew Carey and Thomas Addis Emmet who arguably contributed to the Irish-American intellectual foundation, but the majority of these colonial and Famine-era contributors were Protestant. Kenny, The American Irish, 41, 55.

  9. Shaw, Dagger John, 57–8.

 10. Connor, ‘The American Catholic Political Position at Mid-century’, 249.

 11. Hughes, Letter to the Reverend Dr Delaney, an editor of the Church Register, 14 July 1829, in Kehoe, Complete Works of the Most Rev. John Hughes, 2: 378.

 12. See Hughes's A discussion of the questions, is the Roman Catholic religion, in any or all its principles or doctrines, inimical to civil or religious liberty?: and of the questions, is the Presbyterian religion, in any or all its principles or doctrines, inimical to civil or religious liberty?

 13. Sharrow, ‘Northern Catholic Intellectuals and the Coming of the Civil War’, esp. 40–1.

 14. Shaw, Dagger John, 123, 124, 128.

 15. Brann, Most Reverend John Hughes, First Archbishop of New York, 57.

 16. Shaw, Dagger John, 134–6.

 17. Brann, Most Reverend John Hughes, 66.

 18. Whelan addresses Hughes's background in ‘Religious Rivalry and the Making of Irish-American Identity’, 278.

 19. ‘The Slave’ is referenced in Shaw, Dagger John, 22–3; in Brann, Most Reverend John Hughes, 145–7; and in Hassard, Life of the Most Reverend John Hughes, First Archbishop of New York. With Extracts from his Private Correspondence.

 20. ‘Life of the Most Reverend John Hughes, D.D.’, in Kehoe, The Complete Works of the Most Rev. John Hughes, 1: 7.

 21. See Doyle's ‘The Irish in North America, 1776–1845’, 201–2; and Shaw, Dagger John, 137.

 22. Daniel O'Connell, at a Loyal National Repeal Association meeting in Conciliation Hall, Dublin, 1845. O'Connell, The Irish Patriot, 28.

 23. See Tate, ‘Confronting Abolitionism’.

 24. Meagher, ‘The Fireman on the Stairs’, 634.

 25. Connor, ‘The Northern Catholic Position on Slavery and the Civil War’, notably 36–7; Quinn, ‘“Three Cheers for the Abolitionist Pope!”’.

 26. Sharrow, ‘Northern Catholic Intellectuals’, 45.

 27. These clerics are cited by McAvoy in ‘American Catholics and the Slavery Controversy’, a review of Madeleine Hooke Rice's American Catholic Opinion in the Slavery Controversy. See Carey, American Catholic Religious Thought, 73, and McAvoy's ‘Orestes A. Brownson and Archbishop John Hughes in 1860’.

 28. Author's emphasis. McGee, A History of the Irish Settlers in North America from the Earliest Period to the Census of 1850, 126. For new perspectives, see Gleeson's ‘Irish Civilians and the Confederate States of America’, this issue.

 29. Tate, ‘Confronting Abolitionism’, 373–7, 382, 392–3.

 30. Saunders and Rogers, ‘Bishop John England of Charleston’, 322. Burton discusses ‘the centrality of religion in peoples’ lives' in ‘Is there Anything Left to be Said about Abraham Lincoln?’

 31. Saunders and Rogers, ‘Bishop John England’, 322.

 32. Sharrow, ‘Northern Catholic Intellectuals’, 43–4.

 33. See McGreevy's summary of this issue in Catholicism and American Freedom, 56.

 34. Kenny, ‘Race, Violence, and Anti-Irish Sentiment in the Nineteenth Century’, 372.

 35. Brann, Most Reverend John Hughes, 155–6.

 36. Hassard, Life of the Most Reverend John Hughes, 215–16, 434–6. Quotation, 435, author's emphasis.

 37. Meenagh, ‘Archbishop John Hughes’.

 38. Kehoe, Complete Works, 1: 9, 11. On John Cardinal McCloskey, see James J. Haley's entry in Glazier, The Encyclopedia of the Irish in America, 573–4.

 39. Carey, American Catholic Religious Thought, 275.

 40. Shaw, Dagger John, 169.

 41. A reference to the signature cross Hughes incorporated into his name; used by his detractors.

 42. Brann, Most Reverend John Hughes, 85–6.

 43. Letter from Hughes to Mayor Harper, 17 May 1844, in Kehoe, Complete Works, 1: 115–16.

 44. Shaw, Dagger John, 216–18.

 45. Letter from Bishop Hughes to Mayor Harper, 17 May 1844, in Kehoe, Complete Works, 1: 125.

 46. McGee, A History of the Irish Settlers, 135.

 47. Hughes, A Lecture on the Antecedent Causes of the Irish Famine in 1847, Delivered under the auspices of the General Committee for the Relief of the Suffering Poor of Ireland By the Right Rev. John Hughes, D.D., Bishop of New York At the Broadway Tabernacle, March 20th, 1847.

 48. A contemporary opinion popular among classic liberals that, as an Act of God, the Famine served as a much-needed Malthusian check on Ireland's pre-industrialised population.

 49. Shaw, Dagger John, 248–9.

 50. Brann, Most Reverend John Hughes, 174.

 51. Shaw, Dagger John, 250–1.

 52. Fisher, Communion of Immigrants, 49.

 53. A collective of secular, Trinity-based intellectuals and political activists, whose break with Daniel O'Connell's pacifist Repeal agenda in the 1840s fomented strains of radical nationalism on both sides of the Atlantic.

 54. Connor, ‘Archbishop Hughes and the Question of Ireland, 1829–1862’, 20–1.

 55. Hassard, Life of the Most Reverend John Hughes, 338–9; Shaw, Dagger John, 255–6.

 56. Casey addresses the Bank's ‘creation story’ and Hughes's role therein in ‘Refractive History’, esp. 314–15.

 57. Hughes, ‘Sermon on St. Patrick's Day, 1852’, in Kehoe, Complete Works, 2: 179.

 58. Andrews, ‘Slavery Views of a Northern Prelate’, 61.

 59. Sharrow, ‘John Hughes and a Catholic Response to Slavery in Antebellum America’, 255.

 60. Hughes, ‘Sermon in St. Francis Xavier's Church, New York, January 7th, 1853’, in Kehoe, Complete Works, 2: 187.

 61. Hughes, Letter ‘to the Honorable Horace Greeley’, 21 November 1851, in Kehoe, Complete Works, 2: 466.

 62. Meagher, ‘The Fireman on the Stairs’, 629.

 63. See Hofstadter, Great Issues in American History, vol. II on ‘The Lincoln–Douglas Debates, 1858’, 370–81.

 64. Sharrow, ‘John Hughes and a Catholic Response’, 256–8, 265.

 65. Goetzmann, Beyond the Revolution, 327.

 66. Shaw, Dagger John, 337.

 67. Sharrow, ‘John Hughes and a Catholic Response’, 266.

 68. ‘The Slave Trade’, The New York Times , 2 May 1854, 4.

 69. Kenneth Moss addresses Hughes on ‘memory and identity’ in ‘St. Patrick's Day Celebrations and the Formation of Irish-American Identity, 1845–1875’.

 70. Dolan, ‘A Critical Period in American Catholicism’, 531. See also Dolan's The Immigrant Church, New York's Irish and German Catholics, 1815–1965 and other works on American Catholic history.

 71. Hershkowitz, ‘The Irish and the Emerging City’, 33–4.

 72. Sharrow remarks that ‘To the Archbishop, life was tragic …’, in ‘John Hughes and a Catholic Response’, 262.

 73. ‘The Irish Question’, The New York Times , 9 September 1854, 3.

 74. Connor, ‘Archbishop Hughes and the Question of Ireland’, 22.

 75. Hughes, ‘Reflections and Suggestions, In Regard to What is Called the Catholic Press in the United States’, November 1856, in Kehoe, Complete Works, 2: 692.

 76. Hughes, ‘Lecture on the Present Condition and Prospects of the Catholic Church in the United States, Delivered before the Young Catholics’ Friend Society, at Baltimore, January 17, 1856', in Kehoe, Complete Works, 2: 131.

 77. Kehoe, Complete Works, 1: 12; also in ‘Great Catholic Ceremony’, The New York Times , 16 August 1858, 1; and in Shea, A History of the Catholic Church in the United States, 468.

 78. Fisher, Communion of Immigrants, 49.

 79. Connor, ‘The Northern Catholic Position’, 38–9.

 80. See reference in Shea, History of the Catholic Church, 472.

 81. Hassard, Life of the Most Reverend John Hughes, 436, author's emphasis.

 82. Paula Kane cites Hughes's ‘proslavery’ leadership stance in ‘The Supernatural and Slavery’, 201.

 83. Sharrow, ‘Northern Catholic Intellectuals’, 37–9.

 84. McAvoy, ‘Orestes A. Brownson’, esp. 23–5. Brownson's Quarterly Review operated between 1855 and 1864.

 85. McAvoy, ‘Orestes A. Brownson’, esp. 23–5. Brownson's Quarterly Review operated between 1855 and 1864, 19–20.

 86. ‘Archbishop Hughes on the War’, The New York Times , 4 September 1861, 8.

 87. Fisher, Communion of Immigrants, 56–7.

 88. Miller, ‘Catholic Religion, Irish Ethnicity, and the Civil War’, 261–96, esp. 271.

 89. See Andrews' ‘Slavery Views of a Northern Prelate’, 78.

 90. Hughes, ‘Lecture on St. Patrick, Delivered in Irving Hall, New York, on Sunday Evening, March 17th, 1861’, in Kehoe, Complete Works, 2: 149.

 91. Diner, ‘“The Most Irish City in the Union”’, 87–106, specifically 100–1.

 92. Shaw, Dagger John, 345–9.

 93. ‘The Causes of War’, The New York Times , 10 January 1862, 3. Sharrow notes: ‘Much to his chagrin …’ in ‘John Hughes and a Catholic Response’, 256.

 94. McGreevy, Catholicism and American Freedom, 67.

 95. For coverage, see Kelly, The Shamrock and the Lily, 134–8.

 96. Hughes, ‘Interview with the Committee of the National Brotherhood’, in Kehoe, Complete Works, 2: 527.

 97. Connor, ‘Archbishop Hughes and the Question of Ireland’, 23–4.

 98. Hassard, Life of the Most Reverend John Hughes, 482–4.

 99. Hughes, ‘The Address of the ‘Nationalists’, 2 August 1862, in Kehoe, Complete Works, 2: 530.

100. ‘War Sermon by Archbishop Hughes’, The New York Times , 18 August 1862, 5.

101. ‘The Priest, the Soldier, and the War’, The New York Times , 19 August 1862, 4. See Spann's ‘Union Green’, 193–209, esp. 194.

102. Kehoe, Complete Works, 1: 14.

103. Connor, ‘The Northern Catholic Position’, 43.

104. The New York Times, 16 January 1863, 3.

105. Brann, Most Reverend John Hughes, 168–9; Hassard, Life of the Most Reverend John Hughes, 495–7.

106. Brann, Most Reverend John Hughes, 170.

107. Hassard, Life of the Most Reverend John Hughes, 499–500.

108. Shaw, Dagger John, 369–70.

109. Hughes, ‘The Conscription – The Riots’, Letter to the Editor of the New York Herald, 14 July 1863, in Kehoe, Complete Works, 2: 548.

110. Fisher, Communion of Immigrants, 56.

111. Hassard, Life of the Most Reverend John Hughes, 503.

112. Kehoe, Complete Works, 1: 24.

113. Sharrow, ‘John Hughes and a Catholic Response’, 255.

114. See Higham's ‘American Intellectual History’ and intellectual-field sources cited above.

115. Curran, ‘Prelude to “Americanism”’, 51.

116. Carey, American Catholic Religious Thought, 72.

117. Goetzmann, Beyond the Revolution, 381–2.