Saving the "Slaves of Kings and Priests": The United States, Manifest Destiny, and the Rhetoric of Anti-Catholicism

This paper seeks to demonstrate how anti-Catholicism, like other domestic issues such as race, economics, and politics, influenced U.S. foreign policy toward Latin America during the first half of the nineteenth century. Catholicism, the Roman Catholic Church, and monarchism/despotism were all seen by U.S. elites as interconnected forces that undermined the growth and stability of republicanism in Latin America. U.S. politicians were able to manipulate anti-Catholic rhetoric in order to justify certain U.S. diplomatic policies toward Latin America. Anti-Catholic rhetoric could be separated into missionary and exclusionary arguments. Followers of Manifest Destiny utilized missionary anti-Catholic rhetoric to sanction U.S. territorial expansion while opponents relied on exclusionary anti-Catholic rhetoric to justify halting the further acquisition of territory. Regardless of how they were used, both missionary and exclusionary anti-Catholic rhetoric resonated with Americans because they reaffirmed already held beliefs of American exceptionalism and Latin American inferiority.

Name thesis:degree_name

MA

Level thesis:degree_level

Immediate Access

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

History

Year dc:date.available

2009

Author dc:creator

• Solomon, Michael

Contributors dc:contributor

• John Dwyer
• Holly Mayer

• anti-Catholicism
• Manifest Destiny
• Texas Annexation
• U.S.-Mexican War
• U.S.-Latin American Relations
• Catholic Church

Language dc:language

English

Repository record dc:identifier

https://dsc.duq.edu/etd/1225

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dsc.duq.edu:etd-2241