Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/18-1195_g314.pdf
Page Number: 37

Cite as:  591 U. S. ____ (2020) 

3 

ALITO, J., concurring 

prompted by virulent prejudice against immigrants, partic-
In  effect,  the  amendment 
ularly  Catholic  immigrants. 
would  have  “bar[red]  any  aid”  to  Catholic  and  other  “sec-
tarian” schools.  Mitchell v. Helms, 530 U. S. 793, 828 (2000) 
(plurality  opinion).  As  noted  in  a  publication  from  the
United  States  Commission  on  Civil  Rights,  a  prominent 
supporter of this ban was the Ku Klux Klan.1 

The Blaine Amendment was narrowly defeated, passing 
in the House but falling just short of the two-thirds majority 
needed in the Senate to refer the amendment to the States. 
See 4 Cong. Rec. 5191–5192 (1876) (House vote); id., at 5595 
(28 yeas, 16 nays in the Senate).  Afterwards, most States 
adopted provisions like Montana’s to achieve the same ob-
jective at the state level, often as a condition of entering the 
Union.  Thirty-eight  States  still  have  these  “little  Blaine
Amendments” today.  See App. D to Brief for Respondents.
This  history  is  well-known  and  has  been  recognized  in
opinions of this Court.  See, e.g., Locke v. Davey, 540 U. S. 
712, 723, n. 7 (2004); Mitchell, 530 U. S., at 828–829 (plu-
rality opinion); see also ante, at 15–16; Zelman v. Simmons-
Harris, 536 U. S. 639, 720–721 (2002) (BREYER, J., dissent-
ing).  But  given  respondents’  and  one  dissent’s  efforts  to
downplay  it  in  contravention  of  Ramos,  see  Brief  for  Re-
spondents 16–23; post, at 4–5, n. 2 (SOTOMAYOR, J., dissent-
ing), it deserves a brief retelling.

A wave of immigration in the mid-19th century, spurred 
in part by potato blights in Ireland and Germany, signifi-
cantly increased this country’s Catholic population.2  Nativ-
ist  fears  increased  with  it.    An  entire  political  party,  the 
Know Nothings, formed in the 1850s “to decrease the polit-

—————— 

1 See  U. S.  Commission  on  Civil  Rights,  School  Choice:  The  Blaine 

Amendments & Anti-Catholicism 36 (2007). 

2 See  T.  Anbinder,  Nativism  and  Slavery: The  Northern  Know  Noth-

ings and the Politics of the 1850s, pp. 6–8 (1992).