Republicans manufactured anti-Catholic issues to replace discredited Reconstruction themes

Evidence

The controversy spilled over into politics in the mid-seventies, when the Republicans desperately needed a new issue to replace their now discredited Reconstruction policies and to distract the public from the scandals of the Grant régime. Running for governor of Ohio in 1875, Rutherford B. Hayes worked fiercely to smear the Democrats as subservient to Catholic designs. — John Higham, Strangers in the Land, 173

Categorization

• XREF: A concrete historical case of manufactured external enemy used to sustain party solidarity once an old rallying cause (Reconstruction) collapsed — parallels the reader’s solidarity-maintenance question. — connects to: Anti-Catholicism resurged from the left while anti-radicalism resurged from the right. — John Higham, Strangers in the Land: Patterns of…, 1055

Broader Connections

• Anti-Catholicism resurged from the left while anti-radicalism resurged from the right. #corroborates (0.75) — John Higham, Strangers in the Land, 1055