In a letter of 1850 the Swiss Jesuit John Bapst declared that “the United States is the freest country in the world”. Bapst had only arrived in America two years earlier but was already convinced that he could “establish here as many schools as I can wish, and no one will interfere with me”. He even envisaged preaching “the doctrine of the Catholic religion in the most Protestant town before an audience composed entirely of Protestants, and I feel sure that I would not suffer a single interruption”.