This is the image used on the cover of Sacred Liberty. This illustration depicts what were called “the Bible Riots,” which took place in 1834 in Philadelphia and killed 30 people. These days we tend to think of religion-in-schools fights being about believers vs. secularists. But for most of our history it was a fight between Protestants and Catholics. In Philadelphia, Protestants insisted that school children read from the King James Version – which Catholic families viewed as the wrong one (their version, Douay-Rheims Version had more books and commentary). Catholics wanted children to have a choice. The Protestant Banner newspaper warned that if Catholics prevailed it meant “erecting the cross of the antichrist over our common school houses.” The Episcopal Recorder asked, “Are we to yield our personal liberty, our inherited rights, our very Bibles…to the will, the ignorance or the wickedness of these hordes of foreigners, subjects of a foreign despot.…?” In this painting, the men in the top hats were Protestant activists attacking the state militia who had been called in to protect the Catholics and break up the riots.

Source: Artist unknown. Riot in Philadelphia, July 7th, 1844 lithograph (DAMS Record #1720), H. Bucholzer, HSP medium graphics collection [V64], call number: Bb 892 B921, Historical Society of Pennsylvania.