THE POINT BEING THAT A CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT WOULD BE REQUIRED:

Maine Representative James G. Blaine (1830-93) was born to a Catholic mother and a father who later converted to Catholicism; as a child, he apparently was baptized in the Catholic Church. As an adult, however, he had presidential ambitions. He does not seem to have harbored anti-Catholic animosity, and he refused to be drawn into "any avowal of hostility or unfriendliness to Catholics." But in an era of profound anxieties about Catholics, including fears about their voting power and about the danger of their introducing papal tyranny, he was eager to be elected. He therefore proposed a constitutional amendment in late 1875 that would have rewritten the First Amendment--applying it to the states, and adding that "no money raised by taxation in any State for the support of public schools ... shall ever be under the control of any religious sect."

For decades, states had used taxes to support public and private schools controlled by Protestants, with the goal not merely of Americanizing but of Protestantizing Catholic children. 

Tweet   @brothersjudd