The Pope Did It?

[JMadonna]

It should be remembered that the civil war not only divided north and south over slavery but also religions. Jews and Catholics generally supported the North. Presbyterians divided their church into Old and New School factions in 1837 over roughly sectional lines. The Old School was the branch more accommodating of slavery.Baptists and Methodists divided their respective denominations into Northern and Southern branches between 1844 and 1845, they were unequivocal that the main object of contention was slaveholding.

The Pope refused to step in and stop Irish immigration whose Catholic manpower was essential to the North. It is not surprising that the Catholics and Jews would become scapegoats.