Historian examines Irish Catholic immigrants' views on slavery

Published: 2006-01-25

PHILADELPHIA (CNS) -- Although most Irish Catholic immigrants were seen as indifferent to slavery or sympathetic to the pro-slavery position in the decades leading up to the Civil War, a professor at Salve Regina University told his fellow Catholic historians that the prime shaper of their attitude on the subject was political affiliation, not economics. John F. Quinn, who teaches history at the Catholic university in Newport, R.I., presented excerpts from a forthcoming paper at the American Catholic Historical Association's annual meeting in Philadelphia in early January. Irish Catholic immigrants' support for or indifference to slavery was credited to the fact that they were on the lowest rung of the economic ladder before the Civil War, and many believed that freed slaves would compete for their jobs and perhaps drive already low wages down, Quinn said in his Jan. 5 address. But he said there were other reasons for Irish indifference on the slavery issue and, in fact, there was some Irish support for emancipation in Philadelphia and elsewhere.

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