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Ray Allen Billington in his *The Protestant Crusade, 1800-1860: A Study of the Origins of American Nativism* (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1964, reprint of 1938 original) writes of an incident in the history of American anti-Catholicism that is almost totally forgotten today, but which created an enormous furor when it occurred: the "Champlain Bible burning" of 1842. As Billington notes, the incident must be seen in the context of the bitterness caused in the early 1840's by Catholic objections to the reading of the King James Bible in the common schools:

"...Americans accepted without question the propagandists' assertion that the school controversy clearly demonstrated Rome's enmity to the Scriptures. To Protestants there was only one Bible; because Catholics had objected to the King James version, they must oppose the reading of any portion of God's word...

"Further evidence that Rome was hostile to the Scriptures was provided in October, 1842, when an overzealous missionary priest in Carbeau, New York, justly angered at the distribution of Protestant Bibles among his parishioners by Bible societies, gathered several copies of the Scriptures, and publicly burned them. This 'Champlain Bible burning,' as it was promptly labeled, immediately was elevated to a national issue by Protestants. Indignation swept the country, fanned particularly by the bold declaration of [Bishop] Hughes' own paper, the *Freeman's Journal*:

'To burn or otherwise destroy a spurious or corrupt copy of the Bible, whose circulation would tend to disseminate erroneous principles of faith or morals, we hold to be an act not only justifiable but praiseworthy...'

"One editor, with more enthusiasm than accuracy, prophesied that the '27th of October, 1842, will be remembered in the United States as long as the Gunpowder Plot of the 5th of November, 1605, will be remembered in England' and another professed to believe that 'the embers of the late Bible conflagration in Carbeau may kindle a flame that shall consume the last vestige of Popery in this land of ours.' For a time it appeared that these extravagant claims might be realized. Public meetings of protest were held, books depicting and condemning the affair were hurriedly published, and speakers toured the country arousing Protestants against this latest Catholic outrage. Tales of Catholic attempts to burn Bibles in other states further increased native resentment." (pp. 157-8)

Question: What would be necessary to make the editor's prediction about October 27 long being remembered more accurate? In OTL nativism [1] was discredited by the Philadelphia riots of 1844, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philadelphia_Nativist_Riots and by the time the revulsion against those riots had passed, new issues had arisen to absorb the energies of the American people--the Mexican War, the Wilmot Proviso, the controversy over slavery in the territories, etc. During the late 1840s nativism was in eclipse, and by the time it had re-emerged with the rise of the Know-Nothing movement in the early-to-mid 1850s, October 27 had generally been forgotten. If nativism could have been sustained in the late 1840s, October 27 would have been a good symbol for it, especially since it came a few days before Election Day (or at least the most prominent Election Day--elections were still scattered among various days in that era, but already there was a tendency to have the most important ones in early November) and thus could be used to bolster the prospects of nativist candidates. (To be sure, other days could serve the same purpose. In colonial times, Guy Fawkes Day had been celebrated in America as "Pope Day," and that practice could be revived, and if need be, it could be celebrated a few days early for political purposes. There was also October 31, "Reformation Day," which was the occasion for anti-Catholic political sermons as late as the 1960 presidential election.) But the Bible burning was especially provocative because "it recalled Foxean images of Protestant martyrs reading in the flames and was even proclaimed a revival of the Spanish auto-da-fe in the United States." https://books.google.com/books?id=Fm5l000EmoAC&pg=PA11)

It does occur to me that perhaps we have been too quick to assume that if the Texas controversy and the Mexican War would have been avoided, American politics would center on the differing economic policies of the Whig and Democratic parties. It may be that the temporary suppression of the slavery issue would instead make non-economic issues like nativism and temperance more prominent.

[1] I know that nativism and anti-Catholicism are not exactly synonymous but at least in the 1840's were closely intertwined.
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