Claims about religious disloyalty became claims of racial inferiority

Evidence

Mormons, ultimately, faced the same criticism leveled at Jews and Catholics: they were unfit for self-government—a euphemism for racial inferiority. The Mormons’ prophet, Smith, articulated a vision of government that limited power to the godly whose authority superseded civil government, thereby granting a Council of Fifty the authority to govern all Mormons. Mirroring antipapist propaganda at the time, Mormons’ obedience to their church, even if it meant disobeying the federal government, rendered them a separate race incapable of democracy. — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim, 323

Categorization

• XREF: The ‘unfit for self-government’ trope as racial euphemism echoes the reader’s library on how the same accusation was deployed against Irish, Black, and colonized populations. — connects to: Defending a Christian nation has meant defending the racial order — Andrew L. Whitehead, American Idolatry, 476; Muslims were constituted as an inferior race via the figure of Homo islamicus.; Political membership exclusions historically rest on naturalistic claims of inferiority. — Douglas A. Kysar, Regulating from Nowhere: Environmental…, 478 (+2 more)