In preparation for tomorrow's exam, I reread Anderson's essay regarding Kulturkampf and the history that followed. Here is what I have interpreted.
(*In relevance to the upcoming exam, maybe you'll want to go on ahead and tell me if you agree.)
In a nation with a more democratic system of electing officials, allegations surrounding the motives and power of the Catholic church are likely to surface.
Non-Catholic districts fined public houses for holding discussions, outlawed open-air protests, debates, and political meetings, and placed physical boundaries and trespassing orders making it physically impossible for a poor male to vote (Because candidates still had to produce and distribute ballots themselves) for anyone other than the squire's choice. However, Catholic districts were just the opposite. The Catholic institutions that were already in place, namely the school system, allowed pastors and priests to expedite ballot distribution via teachers. While it was not a teacher's job to do so, it certainly turned out to be this way. This gave Catholicism's mass appeal towards this new democratic process (Because priests tended to be from their neighborhoods, new the issues at hand, and thus could easily be elected).
Obviously, conservatives took notice of this and Bizmarck would put into place the School Supervision Laws of 1872, in order to weaken the church's power by replacing religious supervisors with secular ones.
But, on a bigger level (And this is the point I'd like to see some kind of criticism or confirmation thereof), it seems like these factors come back to Anderson's argument that the new voting system is what caused the culture war to surface and really gain momentum.
Any thoughts?
JS
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Josh, you are exactly right. The crux of her argument is that the Center party tapped into the system of universal suffrage more effectively than older parties. She argues that this political success influenced the development of the Kulturkampf since many of the early laws sought to weaken the ability of the Church to sway voters away from older authorities.
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