Friday, March 29, AD 2024 2:55am

Lincoln and the Jesuits!

 

Lincoln Shocked!

I am not a Know-Nothing. That is certain. How could I be? How can any one who abhors the oppression of negroes, be in favor of degrading classes of white people? Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid. As a nation, we begin by declaring that “all men are created equal.” We now practically read it “all men are created equal, except negroes.” When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read “all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and catholics.” When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretence of loving liberty-to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocracy .

Abraham Lincoln, letter to Joshua Speed, August 24, 1855

 

 

Presidential assassinations attract nut cases like bribes attract politicians.  The original presidential assassination conspiracy theorist was Charles P.T. Chiniquy, a Catholic priest from Quebec, who came to Kankakee County in Illinois circa 1850 to serve a colony of French Canadians who had settled there.  In 1860 he left the Church with some of his parishioners, having run afoul of his Bishop.  Eventually he became a Presbyterian Minister and made a living from publishing anti-Catholic books and tracts and giving anti-Catholic lectures

Chiniquy had used Lincoln’s services as a lawyer in a slander case in 1856.  From this slight association, after Lincoln’s assassination he created a fable of the Jesuits having been behind Lincoln’s death and putting anti-Catholic sentiments in the mouth of a man who knew no religious bigotry.  Chiniquy’s lies have been exposed for well over a century by historians.  One of the best eviscerations of Chiniquy was undertaken by Professor Joseph George, Jr. in an article which appeared in the Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society in 1976:

In 1891 John G. Nicolay, Lincoln’s former secretary, received a note  from Benedict Guldner, a Jesuit priest in New York, asking for information about a “libellous pamphlet” printed in Germany.   The pamphlet, according to Guldner, was a translation of a work “originally written in this country … in which the author maintains that the assassination of President Lincoln was the work of Jesuits.” Nicolay and John Hay, another former secretary to the President, had not mentioned the allegation in their biography of        Lincoln, and Guldner wished to know if they had heard the charge and if they considered it false. [1]         Nicolay consulted Hay, and then replied:        

          To [y]our first question whether in our studies on the life of Lincoln we came upon the charge that “the assasination of President Lincoln was the work of Jesuits”, we answer that we have read such a charge in a lengthy newspaper publication.  To your second question, viz: “If you did come across it, did the          accusation seem to you to be entirely groundless?”, we answer Yes. It seemed to us so entirely groundless as not to merit any attention on our part.  [2]        

        

        Perhaps the decision of Nicolay and Hay to ignore the charge of a Jesuit conspiracy against Lincoln was unwise. A prompt and firm denial might have prevented further publication of the story.  [3]        

        The originator of the conspiracy theory was Charles P.T. Chiniquy, a former Catholic priest who claimed to be a close friend and confidant of Abraham Lincoln’s.   According to Chiniquy, “emissaries of the        Pope” were plotting to murder Lincoln for his defense of Chiniquy in an 1856 trial.   Chiniquy’s autobiography, Fifty Years in the Church of Rome, published in 1885,  attributes remarks to the President on a variety of subjects, particularly religion. [4]  Most of Chinquy’s stories are so foreign to what is known about the Sixteenth President that scholars  have ignored them. Nevertheless, many of the less sensational portions of Chiniquy’s reminiscences have been used by serious students of Lincoln’s life, and the most sensational passages have been widely quoted and disseminated by writers engaged in anti-Catholic polemics.

Go here to read the rest.  The conclusion of the article says it all:

It is clear that Charles Chiniquy met Lincoln in 1856 in Urbana and engaged his legal services. The facts of the case differ significantly, however, from those reported in Chiniquy’s autobiography. As to the  three separate interviews in Washington, it is reasonable to assume that the first two never took place. If a third did occur, it was for the purpose of obtaining a charitable contribution from the President. One may also conclude that Lincoln never offered Chiniquy a post in the foreign service, nor did he engage the former priest in long conversations about the Bible and assassination plots. [44]       

        As the by-no-means-exhaustive list of pamphlets and books cited in this essay suggests, Chiniquy’s charges against the Catholic church will be kept alive by sectarian battlers disposed to believe what was said in Fifty Years in the Church of Rome. [45] Scholars, however, even when tempted to use less sensational passages from Chiniquy’s book, should be wary. There is no evidence to support his  claim that he was a close friend of the Sixteenth President.

 

 

 

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T. Shaw
T. Shaw
Sunday, July 14, AD 2013 8:38am

Sounds like the basis for the screenplay for the sequel of the movie “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Slayer.”

Anzlyne
Anzlyne
Sunday, July 14, AD 2013 12:32pm

Does Dan Brown know about this guy?

Thomas Collins
Thomas Collins
Sunday, July 14, AD 2013 2:44pm

Any chance Chiniquy became shortened/Angilicsed into Chick, as in Jack Chick?

Joseph
Joseph
Monday, July 15, AD 2013 11:29pm

I am passingly familiar with the Chiniquy story, mainly from Jack Chick’s comic books. I have read them mainly for amusement.

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Thursday, July 18, AD 2013 12:02am

[…] Deceit – Joseph Meaney, Crisis Magazine The Tragedy in Texas – Joseph Jablonski, Ignitum Today Lincoln and the Jesuits! – Donald R. McClarey JD, The American Catholic Late-Term Abortions Face Challenges – Joan Frawley […]

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