Papal Intrigues--Catholic Persecution--Protestant
Persecution--Catholics in the Revolutionary War--In the late
Rebellion--Catholic Enmity to Civil and Religious Liberty--
An Alliance formed for the Subversion of the American
Republic--The Duke of Richmond's Letter--Catholic
Immigration--Progress of Catholicism--Its Consequences--The
Republic in Imminent Danger--Union Only Means of Salvation--
Conclusion.
That the papal pretensions have been a fruitful source of the seditions
and wars which, like successive tornadoes, have swept in fearful
rapidity over Christendom, the records of history furnish the most
unquestionable evidence; yet still no one will venture the assertion
that popish machinations have been the sole cause of political discords.
Treason and popular disaffection have revolutionized and annihilated
government after government long before the throne of St. Peter was
established; yet since that unfortunate period it cannot be denied,
that whenever the causes of civil or foreign war became active, the
sacerdotal monarchs have inflamed or soothed them according to the
dictates of their interests. Through their intrigues the exterminating
sword of Charlemagne compelled the Saxons to be baptized; and that
of Otho I. compelled the Danes to accept the same rite. Through their
intrigues Clovis was induced, by his Catholic wife, to consent to be
baptized; and his troops who had followed him to the field of slaughter,
were led to follow him also to the baptismal fount. By the same means
Ethelbert, who wished to marry Bertha, daughter of Carobert, King of
Paris, was persuaded to agree to matrimonial stipulations allowing her,
upon becoming his wife, to bring her bishop with her, and permitting him
to establish a Catholic church in the kingdom for her convenience. By
the same artful means Ethelwolf was led to confer on the clergy the
tithes of all the produce of the land; Alfred the Great, to expel from
his kingdom all the Danes that refused to be baptized; Edward to accept
the title of saint and confessor in lien of an heir to his throne, and
to consent to abstain from nuptial congress with his queen; Edward IV.
to promulgate a law committing to the flames all persons convicted
of the heresy of the Lollards; and Mary I., a person of good natural
qualities and administrative abilities, to imprison Protestant bishops
for high treason, to confine princess Elizabeth in the tower, to
execute Lady Jane Gray and her husband Guilford Dudley, to provoke the
insurrections of Cave and Wyat, to commit to the flames two hundred and
twenty-seven of her innocent subjects, and to render herself a terror to
her nation. By the same disgraceful and impertinent intrigues the reign
of Queen Elizabeth was perpetually disturbed with efforts to overthrow
her government. The popes excommunicated her; denied her legitimacy;
endeavored to supplant her with Mary Queen of Scots; induced the French
to support Scotland in a rebellion against her government; created a
sedition in the north; incited Spain to promote a conspiracy against
her, assisted by Florentine merchants, the Bishop of Ross, and the
Scotchmen residing in England; and when all these efforts proved
abortive, to organize a conspiracy to have her assassinated by Anthony
Babbington. By the same disastrous intermeddling the reign of Queen
Ann was disturbed with efforts to restore the succession to James the
Pretender, the pope's tool for the recovery of England; under that of
George I. the Duke of Marleborough was led to proclaim the Pretender in
Scotland; Cardinal Alberoni, minister of Spain, to form an alliance in
his favor with Russia, Sweden, France and Spain; and Atterbury, Bishop
of Rochester, to engage in a conspiracy for the same object. Similar
papal machinations have interfered with the peace of France, Germany,
Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Sweden, Russia, Poland, China, Japan, Egypt,
Abyssinia, and of many other governments, all of which were fearfully
productive of sedition, anarchy, war and revolutions.
Besides these intermeddlings with the national affairs of all
governments, the Catholic church assails all non-Catholics with the most
execrable persecution, openly when she dares, secretly when she must.
In her fiendish malice she counsels the violation of every principle
of justice, of every obligation of humanity, of all contracts, of all
pecuniary engagements, of all oaths, and urges as a duty the persecution
and extermination of all unbelievers, by means of corporeal punishment,
by imprisonment, banishment, murder, fire, swords, racks, stakes and
scaffolds. Hear the truth of these assertions from the sanctified lips
of the holy mother herself:
"The Catholics believe that the Pope's authority is not only ministerial
but supreme, so that he has the right to direct and compel, with the
power of life and death."--_Ecc. Jacob. Mag., But. Reg. Oppos._ c. 138.
"Two swords were given to Peter, the one temporal, the other
spiritual."--_Bernard de Corned. Lib_. 4: c. 3.
"She (the church) bears, by divine right, both swords, but she exercises
the temporal sword by the hand of the prince, or the magistrate. The
temporal magistrate holds it subject to her order, to be exercised in
her service, and under her direction."--_Bronsons Rev., Jan_., 1854.
"Both swords are in the power of the Pope, namely, the spiritual and the
temporal sword; but the one is to be exercised by the church, the other
for the church; the one by the hands of the priest, the other by
the hands of the king and the soldiers, but as the sword of the
priest."--_Pope Boniface, Corp. Jur. Con. ed. Bocher_, tome 11: p. 1139.
"Civil contracts, promises, or oaths of Catholics with heretics, because
they are heretics, may be dissolved by the Pontiff."--_Pope Innocent X.,
Caron. 14._
Engagements made with heretics and schismatics of this kind, after such
have been consummated, are inconsiderate, illegal, and in law itself
is of no importance, (although made, per chance, by the lapse of those
persons into schism, or before the beginning of their heresy), even if
confirmed by an oath, or one's honor being pledged."--_Pope Urban VI.,
Bymer_ 7: 352.
"Though sworn to pay he may refuse the claims of a debtor who falls
into error or under excommunication. The debtor's oath implied the tacit
condition that the creditor, to be entitled to payment, should remain in
a state in which communication would be lawful."--_St. Bernard, Maynooth
Report_, 260.
"There are various punishments with which ecclesiastical sanctions and
imperial laws order heretics to be punished. Some are spiritual, and
effect the soul alone; others are corporeal, and effect the body...
Among the corporeal punishments, one which very much annoys heretics
is the proscription and confiscation of their property."--_Alphonso ae
Castro, cap_. 5: p. 98.
"Another punishment," says he, "is the deprival of every sort of
preeminence, jurisdiction and government, which they previously had over
all persons of all conditions; for he who is a heretic is, _ipso jure_,
deprived of all things."--_Ib., cap_. 7: p. 1055.
"The last punishment of the body for heretics," he informs us, "is
death, with which we will prove, by God's assistance, heretics ought to
be punished."--_Ib. i cap_. 12: p. 123.
But it will be said that Protestants have been guilty of persecution as
well as Catholics. This assertion is unquestionably true. We confess,
with regret, that Protestantism, although she admits the right of
private judgment, has proved a foe to civil and religious liberty, But
unlike Catholicism, she has made concessions; reluctantly, indeed,
but still she has made them. Guizot confesses that her practice has
necessarily been inconsistent with her profession of toleration. She,
however, claims not, like Catholicism, to be the source and supreme
controller of all political power; nor to be the sole disposer of crowns
and kingdoms; nor has she elaborated a policy, adopted a systematic
course of measures, and organized a clerical force for the acquisition
of supreme and universal temporal and spiritual dominion. She has no
central head, with spies penetrating all domestic and national secrets,
and communicating to it the information they have acquired. She has no
political-machinery ramifying every part of Christendom, and acting in
concert for the promotion of her interests. She has no convents,
nor nunneries; nor monastic vows; no father confessors; no religious
confessional; no religious orders, no military knights; and no spiritual
guides. She imposes no oaths of allegiance on her priests, requiring
them to adopt every available method of subjugating all government
under her authority. She has no inquisition, no rack and torture for
her opponents; no pretensions to absolve subjects from their oaths of
allegiance; no interdicts to alarm superstitious minds by the suspension
of religious worship in disaffected kingdoms. She has never interfered
between rulers and their subjects, concocting treason, fomenting
sedition, and producing anarchy. She has never organized armies for the
extension of her dominion, and for the subjugation of kingdoms to her
authority. She has never butchered whole cities for unbelief, nor in
one day put one hundred thousand heretics to death. She has done none of
these things, yet her hands are not unstained with innocent blood. Would
they were. Henry VIII., of England, persecuted with equal severity
those who believed in the pope's right to temporal power, and those
who disbelieved the other dogmas of Catholicism. The Church of England,
under Charles I., inflicted the most atrocious punishment on the Irish
Catholics; under James I., on the Puritans; and under Elizabeth, it
oppressed both Catholics and dissenters with tyrannical measures, and
illiberal disabilities. The Puritan Cromwell persecuted both Catholics
and Episcopalians. In Ireland he wasted the Catholics with fire and
sword; in Scotland he put whole garrisons of dissenters to death; and
as his schemes for obtaining the royal dignity suggested, persecuted
Covenanters, Republicans, and Puritans. When Charles II. was elevated to
the throne he deprived 2000 dissenting clergymen of their livings; and
by his five-mile act prohibited them from approaching within five miles
of their former parishes. But the rigor of Protestantism eventually
relaxed its severity. Under William III. some of the disabilities which
oppressed the dissenters were removed; and under that of George III.
additional toleration was accorded. Still it must be admitted that the
ablest agents in extorting these concessions to religious liberty
were the Free Thinkers of that age. Yet the Quakers, always the most
respectable body of citizens, and the professors of the most harmless of
all creeds, were still punished with fines, confiscation, imprisonment
and death. All who disbelieved in the holy trinity were also subject
to similar persecutions. Not until 1813 did Protestant England cease
to punish a belief in Unitarianism with imprisonment, and legal
disabilities. John Calvin, at the head of the Consistory of Geneva, had
John Guet beheaded on a charge of attempting to overthrow the doctrines
of the Calvinistic church; and Micheal Servetus arrested and burnt alive
for having attacked the doctrine of the holy trinity. Even in republic
America, under the elevating influence of liberal institutions, the
intolerant spirit of religious bigotry predominates more or less over
the mind of the Christian republic. In Massachusetts Baptists and
Quakers were once fined, imprisoned, and burnt alive. In Virginia all
Quakers that disbelieved in the holy trinity, and all persons that
refused to have their children baptized were scourged, confined,
banished or put to death. In Pennsylvania, under the charter of William
Penn, all Atheists were excluded from official position. In Maryland
disbelief in the holy trinity was declared to be a capital offence;
and not until recently was any person, who professed not to believe in
Christianity, unless a Jew, eligible to any office of trust or profit in
the State; nor even to this day is any person eligible who disbelieves
in a God. The statute books of every Protestant country bear testimony
to the same illiberality. Humboldt, Cuviert Buffon, La Place, Gibbon,
Voltaire, Hume, Jefferson, and other eminent scholars and patriots
would, by the provisions of almost every State constitution in the
Union, be debarred from filling the lowest office that they create. In
fact the history of no religious sectary indicates it to be a bond of
love, union, or concord. Every Protestant creed, sectary or conclave,
is a perpetual source of mutual jealousy, animosity and persecution,
The same intolerant spirit breathes its malignancy over the pages of the
religious press. "If we are not Christians," says the _Church Union_,
"let us make no hypocritical pretensions of founding governments on
Christian principles. If we are, I believe that they should predominate
over our whole life; let us have them incorporated in the basis of our
government, and the national policy shaped by them. Let no one hold an
office of trust or profit whose life is not conformably thereto."
These holy ravings remind us of an attempt once made by the Puritans to
incorporate the Bible into the British constitution. "The wrestlers
with God," as they called themselves were, deliberating upon a motion
to repeal the laws of England, and substitute in their place the laws
of Moses and the prophets. But Cromwell averted the calamity by a
peremptory dissolution of parliament, and a command to "the wrestlers"
to go home; nor did he think it prudent to call them together again. The
religious politics of the Methodist _Home Journal_ are similar in tone
with that of the _Church Union_. This infuriated orthodox theologian
says: "They that deny the doctrines of Christianity, ignore the basis on
which our government is founded. Can they be regarded as citizens? Ought
any man who holds to this position be admitted to--or permitted to
hold Christian citizenship under this government? We hold that to be
consistent with ourselves. Infidelity should not be tolerated in our
country, much less encouraged by those who openly profess and teach its
doctrines." These assertions are the evident irrepressible ebullitions
of innate treason to the republic. They ignore the basis on which our
government is founded, and, according to the logic of this fanatic the
sect that holds them ought not to be regarded as citizens, nor permitted
to hold Christian citizenship under this government. But the knife with
which this mad-man would cut his own throat Infidelity would wrest from
him. The sacred basis of our government is equal political and religious
rights. Had Methodism been chosen as the basis of our government, would
a republic have been thought of? Never! Did not John Wesley, its founder
and spirit, oppose the American revolution? Did he not write against
it, preach against if, and labor publicly and privately to arrest its
progress? Was there a man in England that inflicted deeper injury
on the American cause? While English Infidels aided the struggle for
independence with their pens, money and valor,--while English statesmen
blushed at the barbarous conduct of their government,--this bigoted
priest, a fugitive of justice from the State of North Carolina, defended
it without shame or compunction. Even at this day Protestant priests
have dared to assert that Infidels have no rights which they are bound
to respect; but such miscreants have no rights, (for they surrender
them by their assertions,) which any person is bound to respect. Such
self-accursed, self-outlawed bigots, in conjunction with unprincipled
demagogues and political aspiring judges, are to-day laboring to
incorporate in the national constitution the fanaticism of the _Church
Union_ and of the Methodist _Home Journal_. When their holy treason
shall have become a success, liberty will forsake her desecrated abode;
despotism will occupy her temple; and, we fondly hope that, in the
course of coming events the fanatics will not discover that they have
legalized their own extermination. Had Constantine the Great, though
frenzied with ambition and crimsoned with guilt, beheld the boundless
ocean of gore which was destined to flow from an incorporation of
Christianity with the civil power, and to roll its heavy surge over all
future time, he would have been more obdurate than a fiend had he not
cowled his head in horror at the frightful vision, and dropped in mercy
the pen already inked to inaugurate the tremendous catastrophe. Yet
how sickening is the thought that the example of this ambitious tyrant,
loaded with the curses of ages, is now attempted to be imitated by
Protestant priests, political judges, and United States officials. But
thanks to nature, the play of the natural principles of liberty in the
minds of some priests, have been too strong to be repressed by dogmatic
creeds. Gloriously inconsistent with their principles, they have
inscribed their names in imperishable honor on the scroll of liberty.
Thankful for the few names blazoned there, freedom must drop a tear over
the smallness of the number.
It will be asked, perhaps, notwithstanding the facts which have been
adduced showing the political nature and designs of the Catholic church,
what has the American republic to apprehend from it? It will be asked,
Did not Catholics fight for the establishment of a free government in
the revolutionary war? Did they not fight to defend it in the war of
1812? Did they not fight to preserve its unity in the late rebellion? No
well informed person will answer these questions in the negative; and
no candid person will fail to acknowledge the distinguished valor and
liberality which they displayed on these occasions. Catholics are
men; and the love of liberty is a natural principle of the human
constitution. Ignorance may blind it; prejudice mislead it; and
superstition overawe it; but when the natural vigor of its disposition
is aroused it will assert its rights in defiance of creeds, shackles and
stakes. It is not the nature, but the education of Catholics, and the
religious despotism with which they are enthralled, that has so often
deprived freedom of their homage and allegiance. The frequent opposition
of Catholic princes to the policy and measures of the popes, the
numerous leagues which they have formed, and the vast armies which they
have raised in their support, abundantly show how often their reverence
for the pope has been displaced by defiance to his authority, and
contempt for his pretensions. The liberal minded people of France have,
from an early date, boldly opposed the pope's claim to temporal power.
St. Louis IX., in 1269, declared in a pragmatic sanction, that the
temporal power of France was independent of the jurisdiction of Rome.
Charles VIII., of France, in a pragmatic sanction issued in 1433,
asserted for France, in conformity with the canons of the Council of
Basle, independence of Rome in all temporal matters. Louis XIV., in 1682
convened a national council of the clergy at Paris, which decided that
the Pope of Rome had no power to interfere, directly or indirectly, in
the temporal concerns of princes and sovereigns; that the usages of the
French church are inviolable; that the authority of the general councils
is superior to that of the pope; and that the pope is not infallible in
matters of faith. The popes, by the means of bulls, have attempted
to nullify these acts, but nevertheless they form the distinctive
principles of the Gallican Church, and also of other Catholic churches
in different; kingdoms of Europe. The Fenian order is another happy
instance of the predominance which patriotism may gain, in the minds of
Catholics, over their reverence for the church and its despotism.
If Catholics have at various times chastised the pope, deprived him of
temporal authority, assaulted his person, imprisoned and deposed him,
it is not surprising that they fought in the defence of the independence
and freedom of America, No one that has an adequate conception of the
papal policy, will be much astonished that the Catholics were prominent
leaders in the revolutionary war. It was a cause in which the pope
himself, in perfect consistency with his pretensions, might have
personally engaged. The pope claims England as his fief, and denounces
her kings as usurpers. The success of a revolt intended to deprive
England of her colonies was as gratifying to his revenge as it was
flattering to his ulterior designs on the colonies themselves. In a
republic he could plant his machinery, build up at will his monastic
penitentiaries, erect his strong castle-like and secret-celled churches,
leisurely select and occupy eligible and strategic points for citadels,
and collect from every kingdom his most faithful and reliable subjects.
Bishop Hughes asserted that Catholicism was friendly to republics, for
they allowed its free development. But the development of Catholicism
involves the subversion of republics, and the establishment in their
place of political and religious despotism.
The insincerity of any proposed attachment to the American republic by
popes or priests, is attested by the very occurrence of the Southern
rebellion. Had the pope and priests been opposed to it a Catholic rebel
would scarcely have been known; and had not the Catholics North and
South been in favor of the rebellion, it could not have taken place.
That singular and unnecessary intestine collision, in which the South
gained nothing but disgrace, the North nothing but depopulation and
empoverishment, and at the mystery of which leading secessionists were
so much puzzled that they declared it to be the effects of a general
lunacy, was nevertheless in perfect harmony with the profound and
masterly policy of the Roman See, which comprehends in its toils the
events of ages, and from the first projection of a plot to its final
consummation, shapes every intervening circumstance to the fulfilment of
its grand design. The Catholics North supported the cause of the Union,
and the Catholics South the cause of the rebellion with votes, money and
men; the rebellion, therefore, was not contrary to the teachings of the
church. The depopulation of the native element of the North, the influx
of foreign Catholics, the creation of an oppressive national debt,
the demoralization consequent on civil war, the engenderment of civil
antipathies, and the supplanting of colored servants by white Catholic
servants, were all known prospective results of the rebellion; were all
in harmony with the papal designs; and to realize which the Catholics
of the North, and the Catholics of the South were stimulated by their
priests to meet each in deadly conflict.
But dismemberment could not possibly have been intended by the secret
projectors of the rebellion. It was an impracticable idea. The
geography of the country interposed to its success an insurmountable
obstacle. It was also inconsistent with the papal designs. But monarchy
was not an impracticable idea. It encountered no difficulty in the
country's geography. It was in harmony with the policy of the Roman See.
The Catholic blood which was poured out in such torrents in the civil
conflicts was not intended to effect dismemberment, but to create the
elements conducive to the establishment of a monarchial government.
Shortly after the close of the rebellion this soil, hallowed by the
blood, and consecrated by the sepulture of millions of freemen,
Catholic as well as non-Catholic, was attempted to be desecrated by the
establishment of presses for openly advocating that execrable treason;
and it has been asserted by the leaders of the late rebellion, that the
civil war is not at an end; but that it will again break out, and
then the battle field will not be the South, but every State, city and
village in the Union. Perhaps they mean to intimate that it will be a
repetition of the massacre on St. Bartholomew's eve.
To those who fondly dream that the republic of America has nothing to
fear from the pretensions of the Pope of Rome, and his loyal subjects,
we submit the following extracts:
"Heresy (Protestantism) and Infidelity have not, and never had, and
never can have any right, being, as they undoubtedly are, contrary to
the law of God."--_Bronson's Rev., Jan_., 1852.
"Heresy (Protestantism) and unbelief are crimes, and in Christian
countries, as in Italy and Spain for instance, where the Catholic
religion is the essential law of the land, they are punished as other
crimes."--_Bishop Kendrich_.
"Protestantism of every form has not, and never can have any right,
where Catholicism is triumphant; and therefore we lose all the breath
we expend in declaiming against bigotry and intolerance, and in favor of
religious liberty, or the right of any one to be of any religion, or of
no religion, as best pleases him."--_Catholic Rev., Jan_., 1852.
"Religious liberty is merely endured until the opposite can be carried
into effect without peril to the Catholic world."--_Bishop O'Connor; of
Pittsburg_.
"If the Catholics ever gain, which they surely will, an immense
numerical majority, religious freedom in this country will be at an
end."--_Archbishop of St. Louis_.
"Catholicity will one day rule America, and religious freedom will be at
an end."--_Bishop of St. Louis_.
"The Catholic church numbers one-third of the American population; and
if its membership shall increase for the next thirty years as it has for
the thirty years past, in 1900 Rome will have a majority, and be bound
to take the country and keep it."--_Seeker_.
"Should the said church go on increasing for the next twenty years,
the papists will be in a majority of the people of the United
States."--_William Hogan_.
"St. Thomas Aquinas, in his second book, chapter 3, page 58, says:
'Heretics (non-Catholics) may justly be Killed.' But you will answer,
there is no danger of this. They can never acquire them power in this
country to sanction that doctrine. How sadly mistaken are you! How
lamentably unacquainted with the secret springs or machinery of
popery."--_William Hogan_.
Quoting from an author Hogan writes:
"America is the promised land of the Jesuists. To obtain the ascendency
they have no need of Swiss guards, or the assistance of the holy
alliance, but a majority of votes, which can easily be obtained by the
importation of Catholic voters from Ireland, Austria, and Bavaria.... I
am not a politician, but knowing the active spirit of Jesuitism, and the
indifference of the generality of Protestants, I have no doubt that in
ten years the Jesuists will have a mighty influence over the ballot box,
and in twenty will direct it according to pleasure. Now they fawn, in
ten years they will menace, in twenty command."--_Synopsis, p_. 106.
In the above quoted authorities we have a unanimous declaration of
Catholic bishops, priests and periodicals, that the Catholic church is
radically opposed to religious liberty; that she regards Protestants and
Infidels as criminals; that whenever she obtains the political power she
punishes them as such; and that the success of her policy and measures
in this country has been sufficient to justify her expectation, that in
1900 she will be enabled to accomplish all her bloody and treasonable
designs. That these hopes are not altogether chimerical, we have also
the reluctant and alarming concessions of her opponents. Those who abuse
liberty should be deprived of its benefits; and those abuse it most who
take advantage of its generous indulgence to plot for its destruction.
The rights of toleration subsist only by mutual consent; their
obligations are reciprocal; and whenever the silent compact is violated
by one party, the other is exonerated from its obligations. No man
possesses a right which is not possessed by another; nor has he any
authority for claiming for himself that which he does not concede
to others. When, therefore, the Catholic priests proclaim that
Protestantism in any form has no right where Catholicism is triumphant,
they surrender their rights where Protestantism in any form is
triumphant. When they assert heresy and unbelief are crimes, and where
the Catholic religion is the essential law of the land, are punished as
crimes, they authorize heretics and unbelievers to consider Catholicism
a crime, and where heresy and unbelief are the essential law of the
land, to punish Catholics as criminals. When they say that Catholicity
will one day rule America, and then religious liberty will be at an end,
they appeal to the instincts of self-preservation, and justify freemen
in adopting any measure that is necessary to render their avowed treason
and destructive designs abortive. They assail the fundamental principles
of the Constitution, and forfeit all right to its protection. Neither
Protestants nor Infidels may be disposed to avail themselves of the
privileges of these concessions, while forbearance is a virtue; but they
may be provoked to consider the further tolerance of the Jesuists
in this country as inconsistent with the peace and stability of the
republic.
As the treasonable designs of the Catholic priests are undeniable, it
is important to understand by what means they expect to accomplish
their infamous purposes. The subjoined letter of the Duke of Richmond,
formerly Governor-General of Canada, will explain their policy, their
system of measures, and the co-operation which they are to receive
from the sovereigns of Europe. "_It (the American republic) will be
destroyed_" says he, "_it ought not, and will not be permitted to
exist_. The curse of the French revolution, and subsequent wars and
commotions of Europe, are to be attributed to its example, and so long
as it exists no prince will be safe on his throne, and the sovereigns of
Europe are aware of it, and _they are determined on its destruction, and
they have come to an understanding on the subject, and have decided
on the means to accomplish it_; and they will eventually succeed, by
subversion rather than by conquest. All the low and surplus population
of the different nations of Europe will be carried into that country. It
is, and will be, the receptacle of the bad and disaffected population of
Europe, when they are not wanted for soldiers or to supply navies; and
the governments of Europe will favor such a cause. This will create a
surplus majority of low population, who are so very easily excited, and
they will bring with them their principles, and in nine cases out of ten
adhere to their ancient and former governments, laws, manners, customs
and religion, and will transmit them to their posterity, and in many
cases propagate them among the natives. These men will become citizens,
and by the constitution and laws be invested with the right of suffrage.
Hence discord, dissension, anarchy and civil war will ensue, and some
popular individual will assume the government, restore order, and the
sovereigns of Europe, the immigrants, and many of the natives will
sustain him. _The church of Rome has a design on this country\ and
it will in time be the established religion, and it will aid in the
destruction of the republic_. I have conversed with many sovereigns and
princes of Europe, and they have unanimously expressed their opinion
relative to the government of the United States, and their determination
to subvert it." According to this admonitory letter an alliance has been
formed by the European powers and the Pope of Rome, for the subversion
of the American republic, the substitution of a monarchy in its place,
and the establishment of Catholicism as the national religion. Had the
Duke of Richmond been silent, still no well informed person could doubt
that all the European sovereigns, whether Protestant or Catholic, would
act upon the avowed principle of the Holy Alliance in their conduct with
regard to North America. Would England consent, it may be asked, to ally
herself with the papal despot? Why not? She has done so before; in the
recent troubles of the Roman See she sent her war vessels to protect the
pope; and she assented to the principles of the Holy Alliance, which was
for the extinguishment of all freedom in Europe. The good sense of the
English people would never have recognized a policy which inevitably
involved their own destruction; but they are a cypher in the great
account of the short-sighted government. That England heartily
co-operates with the papal priests in their infamous work, may be
learned from the subjoined extract of the _Dublin Evening Mail_,
elicited by the news from America that certain teachers had been
dismissed from a school of the West on account of their foreign birth,
&c.: "The foreign birth and Roman Catholic proclivities of the teachers
thus dismissed," says he, "are sufficient evidence that they have been
imported into the United States by the Church of Rome, with a view
to pervert the secular education of the country to the purposes of
proselytism. They are, in fact, emissaries of the _College de Propaganda
Fide_, and have been trained and qualified, no doubt, by its education,
to carry out abroad the principles it has been so successful in
disseminating here in Dublin. _The pope has not a more efficient
free-handed institution at his back than the imperial parliament of the
united kingdom_, which spares no expense to furnish his holiness with
zealous and well informed agents for the spreading of his dominion over
the face of the globe. Does he require priests to publish and extend it
wherever the English language is spoken, the halls and dormitories of
Maynooth are enlarged, and their larder abundantly replenished to keep a
constant supply of young ecclesiastics for his service. Do these in turn
send home a requisition for more teachers to assist them in their work,
_the Chancellor of the Exchequer adds some ten thousand pounds for
his yearly estimate for national education in Ireland_, and continued
re-enforcements of propagandists are thus maintained, in readiness to
move in obedience to the call, whenever Rome may need their service."
According to the Duke of Richmond's letter, one of the means by which
the tyrant of Rome and his colleagues have adopted for accomplishing
the downfall of the government of the United States, is that of foreign
immigration. Let us examine the operation of this device. The editor
of the _Louisville Journal_, in discussing the question of foreign
immigration, makes the following statement: "In 1850 our native white
population was about 17,300,000. In the same year our foreign population
was about 2,300,000. In 1852 the immigration was about 398,170. At that
rate it would take only about six years to double the foreign population
here in 1850. This is about five times our population's increase, which
is in a ratio of three or four per cent, per annum, while the increase
of foreigners is from fourteen to sixteen per cent, on the census of
1830, 1840, and 1850.
"In 1852 our presidential vote was about 3,300,000. In 1848 it was about
2,880,000. In 1852 our foreign arrivals, as shown, were about 400,000,
and 240,000 of these were males, thus showing that in one year, the
arrivals of foreign males into this country, was nearly as great as the
increase of our whole voting population during four years."
IN THE UNITED STATES.
The foreign arrivals by sea alone were--
"In 1850 315,333
"1851 403,828
"1852 398,470
"1853 400,777
From Canada and Mexico during the same
period about 700,408
2,118,408
It appears from the census of 1850 that the total aggregate of foreign
population of the United States in 1849 was 2,210,829. If the tide of
immigration has added but two millions to the number of the foreign
population every four years since 1849, it must have amounted, in 1869,
to 7,210,829.
All the immigrants are not, however, Catholics. Some are Protestants,
some Infidels, and some Radical Republicans. The Turners, the Free
Germans, and the members of the Revolutionary League are all firm
friends of free governments. The proportion of Catholics among the
immigrants, at a fair computation, is presumed to be about three-fourths
of the entire number. They must, therefore, add to the Catholic
numerical strength about 3,750,000 at every decade, besides the
numerical augmentation of the Catholic church through the medium of
foreign immigration, there are other appliances acting powerfully in its
favor. "It is not long," says William Hogan, "since I saw a-letter from
the Catholic bishop Kendrick, of the diocese of Massachusetts, in which
he informs the authorities of Rome that he is making converts of some of
the first families in the diocese."--_Synopsis_, p. 169. "I have often
conversed," says he, "with American Protestants on this subject,
and regret finding many of them--especially those of the Unitarian
creed--are strong advocates of popery, and in favor of its introduction
among the people." John L. Chapman, a Methodist clergyman, in a work
written before the Southern outbreak, says in substance, according to
my recollection, that a Methodist preacher cannot now address his
congregation upon the subject of Catholicism with the same freedom he
could formerly; that those who imagine a Methodist preacher can now
utter in the pulpit, or at a tract or bible meeting, the sentiments of
John Wesley respecting popery, are entirely mistaken; and that those
who suppose that an editor of a Methodist periodical can now assail
the errors of Catholicism without the loss of subscribers, are laboring
under a great delusions. While the pulpits, revivals, and evangelical
enterprises are making no converts of any account among Catholics, the
confirmation services of the Catholic bishops show the great number of
adult non-Catholics which they are adding to their church. The number of
children kidnapped, and the extraordinary number confirmed by Catholic
bishops, might suggest a suspicion that the church has not abandoned
its historic mode of adding to its members. Every non-Catholic child
educated in a Catholic school becomes a Catholic, or strongly biassed
in favor of that church. We hear of Protestant priests, and sometimes of
Protestant bishops, and of whole bodies of theological students becoming
Roman Catholics.
It is an undeniable fact that the annual increase of the Catholic
population far outstrips that of the non-Catholic population; and that
at some future period its numerical strength will be capable of deciding
in favor of the church every election that takes place. When that
unfortunate hour arrives every policeman, councilman, mayor, judge,
governor, delegate, congressman, senator, president, civil official,
army or naval officer will be a Catholic. Then the non-Catholics will
be powerless, and at the mercy of those who believe they have no rights.
Then, by the secret operation of the papal machinery, one faction
will be inflamed against another, and one section of the land
against another. Then rapine, violence, assassination, sedition,
massacre--everything that can render life and property insecure--will
distract every state, city and village in the Union. Then, amid the
anarchy and confusion thus produced, some Catholic tyrant will arise,
and--the civil disorders subsiding at the bidding of the pope--will be
proclaimed dictator. Supported by the Catholic and Protestant kings
of Europe, he will abolish the republic, and establish in its place a
Catholic monarchial government. Then, according to Bronson, heresy
and Infidelity will be declared to have no rights. Then, according to
Archbishop Kendrick, Protestantism will be declared to be a crime,
and punished as such. Then, according to the archbishop of St. Louis,
religious liberty will no longer be endured. Then, according to Hecker,
the Catholic church will be bound to take the country, and keep it. Then
inquisitions will be introduced, and stakes erected. Then the darkness
of the middle ages will settle over the land. Then the school-houses,
the colleges, the asylums, and the churches built with Protestant
funds will be applied to Catholic purposes. Then the fortunes which
non-Catholics have amassed will be confiscated. Then the territorial
acquisitions of the Government, all its resources, all the advantages
it has acquired by arms and treaties, its navy and its army, will become
the property of the papal monarchy, and applied to its defence and
extension, Then it will be the business of Americans, not to create
magistrates, but to obey despots; not to share in the sovereignty of the
government, but to toil in slavery to support an execrable despotism.
Then liberty of speech and freedom of the press will be no more. Then
the ecclesiastical dungeons, which the supineness of Americans have
allowed Catholicism to erect among them, will be the homes and graves of
freemen. Then will arise a government constructed of schemes for public
plunder; where an aristocracy are privileged robbers; where moral worth
and dignity are the helpless victims of power and injustice; where
laws are made for subjects, not for rulers; and where the people are
inherited by royal heirs, like so much land and cattle. Then will the
monarchial demon, the God of slaves and aristocrats, seated on the
people's throne, with his feet on the people's neck, quaff blood like
water; and eye with scornful indifference the squalid millions whom he
has doomed by an enormous taxation to huddle in hovels, without light
or air, with clothing scarcely enough to hide their nakedness, with food
scarcely enough to sustain life, or fire scarcely enough to keep them
from freezing.
When the pope shall have succeeded in his attempts to establish such a
monarchy over the American people, he will next proceed to enlarge its
dominions by the annexation of Canada, Mexico, all South America,
and all the Pacific and Atlantic islands. With such a dominion, such
resources, such an army and navy, he will be master of the land and the
ocean. He will then proceed to plunder and discrown the very kings that
had assisted him in erecting his colossal power. He will then enforce,
by the thunders of American monitors and war steamers, his claim to
the crowns of England and Russia; his claim to be the disposer of all
crowns; his claim to be the only monarch that ought to wear the token
of royalty; in fine, his claim to the supreme temporal and spiritual
monarchy of the world. Then England will awake, but it will be in the
vengeful folds of a serpent crushing out her life. Then the European
despots will awake, but it will be amid the crumbling of their thrones.
Then the papal allies will awake, but it will be to find their limbs
fettered, and the foot of the sacerdotal monarch placed in malignant
triumph upon their necks. Then the world will awake, but it will be to
find that it has suffered the extinction of the last star of liberty,
and involved itself in a night of despotism without the hope of a morn.
But the spirit of freedom is immortal; its conflict with despotism will
be eternal. Bolts, dungeons, shackles cannot confine it; racks, flames
and gibbets cannot extinguish it. To annihilate it, the most formidable
efforts of bigotry, the most ingenious arts of statesmen, the combined
power of church and state, have been applied in vain. Though the blood
of freedom's sons have streamed in torrents, and the smoke of their
stakes have darkened the face of heaven, yet their spirit has still
walked abroad over the world. So it has been in the past; so it will be
in the future. If the Catholic demon should massacre all the freemen in
one age, they will rise up more powerful in the next; and successively
as time rolls on, shake with their energy the accursed throne. Hence
civil war will never cease, fields will eternally reek with gore,
burning cathedrals and convents will illuminate the night, till the
world, instructed by its past errors, will unite in a natural union for
the extinguishment of Catholicism.
We have now alluded to the dangers which begin to blacken our political
firmament. Can the storm be averted? We believe it can. A union of the
Protestants, Jews, Spiritualists, Free Religionists, Infidels, Atheists,
Turners, Free Germans, and of all non-Catholics, without regard to
creed, race or color, on a basis of universal civil and religious
liberty, with a judicious policy, and a corresponding system of
measures, will prove adequate to the emergency. Such an organization, if
sufficiently liberally constituted, might command the support of
Gallic and Fenian Catholics. The life, liberty and welfare of all
non-Catholics, if not, indeed, of the Fenians and Gallicans themselves,
are in equal danger, and why should they not organize for mutual safety?
Does prejudice forbid it? Millions of lives must be sacrificed if
a union be not effected. Who would, then, hesitate to sacrifice a
prejudice that it may be effected? A tyrant may demand concessions
without rendering an equivalent, but freemen can not. Can Americans
sleep in peace, while the clang of the hammers that are forging their
chains are sounding in their ears, and the pillars which support their
government are tottering over their heads? It seems impossible. Their
obligations to their country, to posterity, to the world, demand union.
Union or slavery; union or confiscation; union or the rack, the stake,
the gibbet. One or the other is inevitable. Which do you now chose? A
few more years hence you will have no choice.
Every citizen knows that under the present form of government his merits
have rewards, and his industry has encouragements enjoyed by no people
in any country, or under any other form of government. The poorest and
the richest are here accorded equal chances, equal privileges; and
an equal voice in selecting legislators, judges and rulers. They
are equally untrammelled by legal impediments in seeking the highest
positions in the government. Each citizen is an integral part of the
sovereignty of the nation; he participates in its management, and
shares its greatness and glory. It is a consolation enjoyed only by an
American, that if fame nor fortune should gratify his ambition, he can
still bequeath to his children a richer inheritance than that of either
fame or fortune, the inheritance of a free government. Judging of the
future by the past, it is his privilege to believe that the republic
will continue to grow in power and greatness with each succeeding age,
until the light of her glory shall fill the earth; until despots shall
tremble before the majesty of the people; until the clank of slavery,
and the groan of the oppressed shall no more be heard; and until
the united world shall rise to the majesty and greatness of equal
privileges, equal rights and equal laws.
Such are the blessings guaranteed, and the expectations warranted by
the continuance of the republic; but monarchy, like a deadly blast,
annihilates them all. With the liberty, it lays the greatness and glory
of the nation in the grave. Intolerance will then re-establish its
racks and torture. Industry will then be oppressed, and enterprise
annihilated. This land, which has so long resounded with the song of
liberty, will then reverberate with the clanking irons of servitude.
This nation, which is now the wonder and glory of the earth; which is
so powerful and prosperous; this nation will be no more. Her life and
splendor will have departed with her freedom. History may record her
eventful story; her sons may clank in chains around her tomb; future
freemen may curse the degenerate sons who wanted the valor or unanimity
to transmit to their posterity the government which they inherited from
their ancestors; but these will not call her to life and glory again.
Like a wave she will have rolled away; like a dream, she will have
departed; like a thunder peal, she will have muttered into eternal
silence. Like these she had but one existence, and that will then have
ended.