ABSTRACT
Baird's conception of the main tradition of religion in the United States, as his whole historical work made clear, was of evangelical Protestant denominationalism organized according to the voluntary principle but constituting a broadly homogeneous religious culture. Immigrants who were religiously outside this main tradition, especially Roman Catholics, were thus in need of being Americanized. The changing character of immigration in the 1830s and 1840s was thus perceived as an obstacle, even a growing threat, to the character of America's religion, Baird's genteel expression of this view was, in a more extreme form, translated into salacious anti-Catholic literature and mob action against a convent, Catholic churches and immigrant Irish Catholic homes. One factor in producing these destructive results was undoubtedly the intolerance bred by the quantitative success of the Second Great Awakening.
