FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES OF THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES, DRAWN
FROM THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST—ROME CANNOT THRIVE AND STAND IN THE UNITED
STATES WITHOUT DESTROYING THEIR PRINCIPLES OF FRATERNITY, EQUALITY AND
LIBERTY, WHICH ARE THE FOUNDATION OF THE REPUBLIC—MY FIRST VISIT TO
ABRAHAM LINCOLN TO WARN HIM OF PLOTS I KNEW AGAINST HIM—ROMISH PRIESTS
CIRCULATE THE NEWS THAT HE WAS BORN IN THE CHURCH OF ROME—LETTER OF
THE POPE TO JEFF DAVIS—MY LAST VISIT TO THE PRESIDENT—HIS ADMIRABLE
REFERENCE TO MOSES—WILLING TO DIE FOR HIS NATION’S SAKE.
EQUALITY AND FRATERNITY OF MEN PROCLAIMED
BY CHRIST.
“Be ye not called Rabbi. For one is your Master, even Christ. And all ye
are brethren.” (Math. 23:8.)
“God is no respecter of persons. But in every nation, he that feareth
Him and worketh righteousness is accepted with Him.” (Acts 10:34-35.)
“Jesus called them unto him and said: Ye know that the princes of the
Gentiles exercise dominion over them, and they that are great exercise
authority upon them:
“But it shall not be so among you. But whosoever will be great among
you, let him be your minister: And whosoever will be chief among you,
let him be your servant.
“Even as the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister,
and give his life a ransom for many.” (Math. 20:25-28.)
PRINCIPLES OF LIBERTY PROCLAIMED BY
CHRIST.
“If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed, and ye
shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. If the Son
shall make you free, you shall be free indeed.” (John 8:32.)
“The spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to
preach the Gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the
broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of
sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised.” (Luke
4:18.)
“Where the Spirit of God is, there is liberty.” (2 Cor. 3:17.)
TOLERANCE AND LIBERTY OF CONSCIENCE
PROCLAIMED BY CHRIST.
“And they did not receive him (Christ) because his face was as though he
would go to Jerusalem. And when his disciples James, and John, saw this,
they said: Wilt thou that we command fire to come down from heaven and
consume them, even as Elias did?
“But he turned and rebuked them, and said: Ye know not what spirit ye
are of.
“For the Son of Man is not come to destroy man’s life, but to save
them.” (Luke 9:53-56.)
“Then Simon Peter, having a sword, drew it, and smote the high priest’s
servant, and cut off his right ear. The servant’s name was Malchus.
“Then said Jesus unto Peter, put up thy sword into the sheath: the cup
which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it? For all they that
take the sword, shall perish with the sword.” (Matt. 26:52. John 18:10.)
It is no wonder that the people of Judea, filled with admiration at
these sublime doctrines of equality, fraternity, liberty and tolerance,
should exclaim. “Never man spake like this man!”
Is it on those admirable principles that the Church of Rome is founded?
No! for she has, thousands of times, proclaimed that her mission was to
destroy them all, even if she had to wade in the blood of those who
support them.
But just as the Catholic Church is not only the very antipodes and the
most implacable enemy of those admirable doctrines and principles, so
the constitution of the United States, is the ripe fruit of this divine
seed, sown by the Son of God himself in the bosom of humanity, eighteen
hundred years ago, to save the world.
Yes, in reference to those principles of fraternity, equality, liberty
and tolerance, the constitution of the United States is to the Gospel of
Christ what the fruit is to the tree which has given it. And this is the
verdict given by the whole world, the Church of Rome excepted.
Why is it that the poor, the bruised, the wounded and the oppressed from
every land, turn their eyes, their hearts and their steps, towards this
country? It is because all the echoes of heaven and earth have told them
that the United States Republic is, _par excellence_, the land of
fraternity, fair-play, equality and liberty, as the Saviour of the world
has revealed them.
The Pope of Rome and his Jesuits know this better than any one. Hence,
their constant and supreme efforts to destroy this Republic. Believing
and preaching that it is their duty to exterminate the individuals who
differ from them in religion, they assume that it is their duty to
destroy the governments and the nations who refuse to submit to their
yoke, when they can do it safely.
The mission of Rome being, to teach that the inferior, the people, must
obey his superior, just as the corpse obeys the hand which moves it, or
as the stick obeys the arm which directs it, she knows well that she
cannot fulfill her mission, and attain her object so long as this
government of a free, sovereign people, stands; she is, then, bound to
oppose, paralyze and destroy that government when she finds her
opportunity.
With lynx’s eye, she watched that opportunity: and with anxiety and rage
she spied from her cradle the onward march of this young giant Republic.
She knew that it was in the bosom of every true citizen of the United
States to propagate those accursed, (by her) principles of equality,
fraternity and liberty, all over the world. She saw that the
irresistible influence of those principles were felt on the most distant
nations, as well as on the poor, miserable, Irish people, she was
keeping under her heavy and ignominious yoke; she understood that there
was a real danger for her very existence, if those principles would
continue to spread; that her slavery star would go down as the liberty
star would rise on the horizon. In a word, Rome saw at once that the
very existence of the United States was a formal menace to her own life.
Already she had seen the chains of two millions of her Irish slaves
melted at the simple touch of the warm rays of liberty which had fallen
from the stars and stripes banners. From the very beginning, she
perfidiously sowed the germs of division and hatred between the two
great sections of this country, and she felt an unspeakable joy when she
saw that she had succeeded in dividing its South from the North, on the
burning question of slavery. She looked upon that division as her golden
opportunity. To crush one party by the other, and reign over the bloody
ruins of both, has invariably been her policy. She hoped that the hour
of her supreme triumph over this continent was come. She ordered her
elder son, the Emperor of France, to keep himself ready to help her
crush the North, by having an army in Mexico ready to support the South,
and she bade all the Roman Catholic bishops, priests and people to
enroll themselves under the banners of slavery, by joining themselves to
the party of Democracy. And everybody knows how the Roman Catholic
bishops and priests, almost to a man, obeyed that order. Only one bishop
dared to disobey. Above everything, it was ordered to oppose the
election of Lincoln at any cost. For, from the very first day his
eloquent voice had been heard, a thrill of terror had gone through the
hearts of the partisans of slavery. The Democratic press, which was
then, and is still now, almost entirely under the control of the Roman
Catholics, and the devoted tool of the Jesuits, deluged the country with
the most fearful denunciations against him. They called him an ape; a
stupid brute, a most dangerous lunatic, a bloody monster, a merciless
tyrant, etc., etc. In a word, Rome exhausted all her resources of
language, she ransacked the English dictionary to find the most suitable
expressions to fill the people with contempt, hatred and horror against
him. But it was written in the decrees of God that the honest Abraham
Lincoln should be proclaimed President of the United States, the 4th of
March, 1861.
At the end of August, having known from a Roman Catholic priest, whom,
by the mercy of God, I had persuaded to leave the errors of Popery, that
there was a plot among them to assassinate the President, I thought it
was my duty to go and tell him what I knew, at the same time giving him
a new assurance of gratitude for what he had done for me.
Knowing that I was among those who were waiting in the ante-chamber, he
sent immediately for me, and received me with greater cordiality and
marks of kindness than I could expect.
“I am so glad to meet you again,” he said: “you see that your friends,
the Jesuits, have not yet killed me. But they would have surely done it,
when I passed through their most devoted city, Baltimore, had I not
defeated their plans, by passing incognito, a few hours before they
expected me. We have the proof that the company which had been selected
and organized to murder me, was lead by a rabid Roman Catholic, called
Byrne; it was almost entirely composed of Roman Catholics; more than
that, there were two disguised priests among them, to lead and encourage
them. I am sorry to have so little time to see you; but I will not let
you go before telling you that, a few days ago, I saw Mr. Morse, the
learned inventor of electric telegraphy; he told me that, when he was in
Rome, not long ago, he found out the proofs of a most formidable
conspiracy against this country and all its institutions. It is evident
that it is to the intrigues and emissaries of the pope, that we owe, in
great part, the horrible civil war which is threatening to cover the
country with blood and ruins.
“I am sorry that Prof. Morse had to leave Rome before he could know more
about the secret plans of the Jesuits against the liberties and the very
existence of this country. But do you know that I want you to take his
place and continue that investigation? My plan is to attach you to my
ambassador of France, as one of the secretaries. In that honorable
position, you would go from Paris to Rome, where you might find, through
the directions of Mr. Morse, an opportunity of reuniting the broken
threads of his researches. ‘It takes a Greek to fight a Greek.’ As you
have been twenty-five years a priest of Rome, I do not know any man in
the United States so well acquainted as you are with the tricks of the
Jesuits, and on the devotedness of whom I could better rely. And, when
once on the staff of my ambassador, even as one of the secretaries,
might you not soon yourself become the ambassador? I am in need of
Christian men in every department of the public service, but more in
those high positions. What do you think of that?”
[Illustration]
“My dear President,” I answered, “I feel overwhelmed by your kindness.
Surely nothing could be more pleasant to me than to grant your request.
The honor you want to confer upon me is much above my merit; but my
conscience tells me that I cannot give up the preaching of the Gospel to
my poor French-Canadian countrymen, who are still in the errors of
Popery. For I am about the only one who, by the Providence of God, has
any real influence over them. I am, surely, the only one the bishops and
priests seem to fear in that work. The many attempts they have made to
take away my life are a proof of it. Besides that, though I consider the
present President of the United States much above the Emperors of
France, Russia, and Austria, much above the greatest kings of the world,
I feel that I am the servant, the ambassador of One who is as much above
even the good and great President of the United States, as the heavens
are above the earth. I appeal to your own Christian and honorable
feelings to know if I can forsake the one for the other.”
The President became very solemn, and replied:
“You are right! you are right! There is nothing so great under heaven,
as to be the ambassador of Christ.”
But, then, coming back to himself, with one of his fine jokes, which he
had always ready, he added:
“Yes! yes! You are the ambassador of a greater Prince than I am; but he
does not pay you with as good cash as I would do.”
He then added: “I am exceedingly pleased to see you. However, I am so
pressed, just now, by most important affairs, that you must excuse me if
I ask you to give your place to one of my generals who is, there,
waiting for me. Please come again, to-morrow, at ten o’clock, I have a
very important question to ask you, on a matter which has been
constantly before my mind, these last few weeks.”
The next day, I was there, at the appointed hour, with my noble friend,
who said:
“I could not give you more than ten minutes, yesterday, but I will give
you twenty, to-day; I want your views about a thing which is exceedingly
puzzling to me, and you are the only one to whom I like to speak on that
subject. A great number of Democratic papers have been sent to me,
lately, evidently written by Roman Catholics, publishing that I was born
a Roman Catholic, and baptized by a priest. They call me a renegade, an
apostate, on account of that; and they heap upon my head mountains of
abuse. At first, I laughed at that, for it is a lie. Thanks be to God, I
have never been a Roman Catholic. No priest of Rome has ever laid his
hand on my head. But the persistency of the Romish press to present this
falsehood to their readers as a gospel truth, must have a meaning.
Please tell me, as briefly as possible, what you think about that.”
“My dear President,” I answered, “it was just this strange story
published about you, which brought me here, yesterday. I wanted to say a
word about it; but you were too busy.
“Let me tell you that I wept as a child when I read that story for the
first time. For, not only my impression is, that it is your sentence of
death; but I have from the lips of a converted priest, that it is in
order to excite the fanaticism of the Roman Catholic murderers, whom
they hope to find, sooner or later, to strike you down, they have
invented that false story of your being born in the Church of Rome, and
of your being baptized by a priest. They want by that to brand your face
with the ignominious mark of apostacy. Do not forget that, in the Church
of Rome, an apostate is an outcast, who has no place in society, and who
has no right to live.
“The Jesuits want the Roman Catholics to believe that you are a monster,
an open enemy of God and of his Church, that you are an excommunicated
man. For, every apostate is, _ipso facto_ (by that very fact)
excommunicated. I have brought to you the theology of one of the most
learned and approved of the Jesuits of his time, Bussambaum, who, with
many others, say that the man who will kill you will do a good and holy
work. More than that, here is a copy of a decree of Gregory VII.,
proclaiming that the killing of an apostate, or an heretic and an
excommunicated man, as you are declared to be, is not murder; nay, that
it is a good, a Christian action. That decree is incorporated in the
canon law, which every priest must study, and which every good Catholic
must follow.
“My dear President, I must repeat to you here what I said when in
Urbana, in 1856. My fear is that you will fall under the blows of a
Jesuit assassin, if you do not pay more attention than you have done,
till now, to protect yourself. Remember that because Coligny was an
heretic, as you are, he was brutally murdered in the St. Bartholomew
night; that Henry IV. was stabbed by the Jesuit assassin, Revaillac, the
14th of May, 1610, for having given liberty of conscience to his people,
and that William the Taciturn was shot dead by another Jesuit murderer,
called Girard, for having broken the yoke of the Pope. The Church of
Rome is absolutely the same to-day, as she was then; she does believe
and teach, to-day, as then, that she has the right and that it is her
duty to punish by death any heretic who is in her way as an obstacle to
her designs. The unanimity with which the Catholic hierarchy of the
United States is on the side of the rebels, is an incontrovertible
evidence that Rome wants to destroy this republic, and as you are, by
your personal virtues, your popularity, your love for liberty, your
position, the greatest obstacle to their diabolical scheme, their hatred
is concentrated upon you; you are the daily object of their
maledictions; it is at your breast they will direct their blows. My
blood chills in my veins, when I contemplate the day which may come,
sooner, or later, when Rome will add to all her other iniquities, the
murder of Abraham Lincoln.”
When saying these things to the President, I was exceedingly moved, my
voice was as choked, and I could hardly retain my tears. But the
President was perfectly calm. When I had finished speaking, he took the
volume of Bussambaum from my hands, read the lines which I had marked
with red ink, and I helped him to translate them into English. He, then,
gave me back the book, and said:
“I will repeat to you what I said at Urbana, when for the first time you
told me your fears lest I would be assassinated by the Jesuits. ‘Man
must not care where and when he will die, provided he dies at the post
of honor and duty.’ But I may add, to-day, that I have a presentiment
that God will call me to him through the hand of an assassin. Let His
will, and not mine, be done!” He then looked at his watch, and said: “I
am sorry that the twenty minutes I had consecrated to our interview have
almost passed away; I will be forever grateful for the warning words you
have addressed to me about the dangers ahead to my life, from Rome. I
know that they are not imaginary dangers. If I were fighting against a
Protestant South, as a nation, there would be no danger of
assassination. The nations who read the Bible, fight bravely on the
battle-fields, but they do not assassinate their enemies. The Pope and
the Jesuits, with their infernal Inquisition, are the only organized
power in the world which have recourse to the dagger of the assassin to
murder those whom they cannot convince with their arguments, or conquer
with the sword.
“Unfortunately, I feel more and more, every day, that it is not against
the Americans of the South, alone, I am fighting, it is more against the
Pope of Rome, his perfidious Jesuits and their blind and blood-thirsty
slaves, than against the real American Protestants, that we have to
defend ourselves. Here is the real danger of our position. So long as
they will hope to conquer the North, they will spare me; but the day we
will rout their armies (and the day will surely come, with the help of
God), take their cities, and force them to submit; then, it is my
impression that the Jesuits, who are the principal rulers of the South,
will do what they have almost invariably done in the past. The dagger or
the pistol of one of their adepts, will do what the strong hands of the
warriors could not achieve. This civil war seems to be nothing but a
political affair to those who do not see, as I do, the secret springs of
that terrible drama. But it is more a religious than a civil war. It is
Rome who wants to rule and degrade the North, as she has ruled and
degraded the South, from the very day of its discovery. There are only
very few of the Southern leaders who are not more or less under the
influence of the Jesuits, through their wives, family relations and
their friends. Several members of the family of Jeff Davis belong to the
Church of Rome. Even the Protestant ministers are under the influence of
the Jesuits without suspecting it. To keep her ascendency in the North,
as she does in the South, Rome is doing here what she has done in
Mexico, and in all the South American Republics; she is paralyzing, by a
civil war, the arms of the soldiers of Liberty. She divides our nation,
in order to weaken, subdue and rule it.
“Surely we have some brave and reliable Roman Catholic officers and
soldiers in our armies, but they form an insignificant minority when
compared with the Roman Catholic traitors against whom we have to guard
ourselves, day and night. The fact is, that the immense majority of the
Roman Catholic bishops, priests and laymen, are rebels in heart, when
they cannot be in fact; with very few exceptions, they are publicly in
favor of slavery. I understand, now, why the patriots of France, who
determined to see the colors of Liberty floating over their great and
beautiful country, were forced to hang or shoot almost all the priests
and the monks as the irreconcilable enemies of Liberty. For it is a
fact, which is now evident to me, that, with very few exceptions, every
priest and every true Roman Catholic is a determined enemy of Liberty.
Their extermination, in France, was one of those terrible necessities
which no human wisdom could avoid; it looks to me now as an order from
heaven to save France. May God grant that the same terrible necessity be
never felt in the United States! But there is a thing which is very
certain; it is, that if the American people could learn what I know of
the fierce hatred of the generality of the priests of Rome against our
institutions, our schools, our most sacred rights, and our so dearly
bought liberties, they would drive them away, to-morrow, from among us,
or they would shoot them as traitors. But I keep those sad secrets in my
heart; you are the only one to whom I reveal them, for I know that you
learned them before me. The history of these last thousand years tells
us that wherever the Church of Rome is not a dagger to pierce the bosom
of a free nation, she is a stone to her neck, and a ball to her feet, to
paralyze her and prevent her advance in the ways of civilization,
science, intelligence, happiness and liberty. But I forget that my
twenty minutes are gone long ago.
“Please accept my sincere thanks for the new lights you have given me on
the dangers of my position, and come again, I will always see you with a
new pleasure.”
My second visit to Abraham Lincoln was at the beginning of June, 1862.
The grand victory of the Monitor over the Merrimac, and the conquest of
New Orleans, by the brave and Christian Farragut, had filled every heart
with joy; I wanted to unite my feeble voice to that of the whole
country, to tell him how I blessed God for that glorious success. But I
found him so busy that I could only shake hands with him.
The third and last time I went to pay my respects to the doomed
President, and to warn him against the impending dangers which I knew
were threatening him, was on the morning of June 8th, 1864, when he was
absolutely besieged by people who wanted to see him. After a kind and
warm shaking of hands, he said:
“I am much pleased to see you again. But it is impossible, to-day, to
say anything more than this. To-morrow afternoon, I will receive the
delegation of the deputies of all the loyal states, sent to officially
announce the desire of the country that I should remain the President
four years more. I invite you to be present with them at that
interesting meeting. You will see some of the most prominent men of our
Republic, and I will be glad to introduce you to them. You will not
present yourself as a delegate of the people, but only as the guest of
the President; and that there may be no trouble, I will give you this
card, with a permit to enter with the delegation. But do not leave
Washington before I see you again; I have some important matters on
which I want to know your mind.”
The next day, it was my privilege to have the greatest honor ever
received by me. The good President wanted me to stand at his right hand,
when he received the delegation, and hear the address presented by
Governor Dennison, the President of the convention, to which he replied
in his own admirable simplicity and eloquence; finishing by one of his
most witty anecdotes. “I am reminded in this convention of a story of an
old Dutch farmer, who remarked to a companion, wisely, ‘that it was not
best to swap horses when crossing a stream.’”
The next day, he kindly took me with him in his carriage, when visiting
the 30,000 wounded soldiers picked up on the battle-fields of the seven
days battle of the Wilderness, and the thirty days battle around
Richmond, where Grant was just breaking the backbone of the rebellion.
On the way to and from the hospitals, I could not talk much. The noise
of the carriage rapidly drawn on the pavement was too great. Besides
that, my soul was so much distressed, and my heart so much broken by the
sight of the horrors of that fracticidal war, that my voice was as
stifled. The only thought which seemed to occupy the mind of the
President was the part which Rome had in that horrible struggle. Many
times he repeated:
“This war would never have been possible without the sinister influence
of the Jesuits. We owe it to Popery that we now see our land reddened
with the blood of her noblest sons. Though there were great differences
of opinion between the South and the North, on the question of slavery;
neither Jeff Davis nor any one of the leading men of the Confederacy
would have dared to attack the North, had they not relied on the
promises of the Jesuits, that, under the mask of Democracy, the money
and the arms of the Roman Catholics, even the arms of France, were at
their disposal, if they would attack us. I pity the priests, the bishops
and the monks of Rome in the United States, when the people realize that
they are, in great part, responsible for the tears and the blood shed in
this war; the later the more terrible will the retribution be. I conceal
what I know, on that subject, from the knowledge of the nation; for if
the people knew the whole truth, this war would turn into a religious
war, and it would, at once, take a tenfold more savage and bloody
character. It would become merciless as all religious wars are. It would
become a war of extermination on both sides. The Protestants of both the
North and the South would surely unite to exterminate the priests and
the Jesuits, if they could hear what Professor Morse has said to me of
the plots made in the very city of Rome to destroy this Republic, and if
they could learn how the priests, the nuns, and the monks, who daily
land on our shores, under the pretext of preaching their religion,
instructing the people in their schools, taking care of the sick in the
hospitals, are nothing else but the emissaries of the Pope, of Napoleon,
and the other despots of Europe, to undermine our institutions, alienate
the hearts of our people from our constitution, and our laws, destroy
our schools, and prepare a reign of anarchy here as they have done in
Ireland, in Mexico, in Spain, and wherever there are any people who want
to be free, etc.”
When the President was speaking thus, we arrived at the door of his
mansion. He invited me to go with him to his study, and said:
“Though I am very busy, I must rest an hour with you. I am in need of
that rest. My head is aching, I feel as crushed under the burden of
affairs which are on my shoulders. There are many important things about
the plots of the Jesuits that I can learn only from you. Please wait
just a moment, I have just received some dispatches from General Grant,
to which I must give an answer. My secretary is waiting for me. I go to
him. Please amuse yourself with those books, during my short absence.”
Twenty-five minutes later, the President had returned, with his face
flushed with joy.
“Glorious news! General Grant has again beaten Lee, and forced him to
retreat towards Richmond, where he will have to surrender before long.
Grant is a real hero. But let us come to the question I want to put to
you. Have you read the letter of the Pope to Jeff Davis, and what do you
think of it?”
“My dear President,” I answered, “it is just that letter which brought
me to your presence again, day before yesterday. I wanted to come and
see you, from the very day I read it. But I knew you were so overwhelmed
with the affairs of your government, that I would not be able to see
you. However, the anxieties of my mind were so, that I determined to go
over every barrier to warn you again against the new dangers and plots
which I knew would come out from that perfidious letter, against your
life.
“That letter is a poisoned arrow thrown by the Pope, at you personally;
and it will be more than a miracle if it be not your irrevocable warrant
of death. Before reading it, it is true that every Catholic could see by
the unanimity of the bishops siding with rebel cause, that their church,
as a whole, was against this free Republican government. However, a good
number of liberty-loving Irish, German and French Catholics, following
more the instincts of their noble nature, than the degrading principles
of their church, enrolled themselves under the banners of Liberty, and
they have fought like heroes. To detach these men from the rank and file
of the Northern armies, and force them to help the cause of the
rebellion, became the object of the intrigues of the Jesuits. Secret and
pressing letters were addressed from Rome to the bishops, ordering them
to weaken your armies by detaching those men from you. The bishops
answered, that they could not do that without exposing themselves to be
shot. But they advised the Pope to acknowledge, at once, the legitimacy
of the Southern Republic, and to take Jeff Davis under his supreme
protection, by a letter, which would be read everywhere.
“That letter, then, tells logically the Roman Catholics that you are a
bloody tyrant! a most execrable being when fighting against a government
which the infallible and holy Pope of Rome recognizes as legitimate. The
Pope, by this letter, tells his blind slaves that you are an infamous
usurper, when considering yourself the President of the Southern States;
that you are outraging the God of heaven and earth, by continuing such a
bloody war to subdue a nation over whom God Almighty has declared,
through his infallible pontiff, the Pope, that you have not the least
right; that letter means that you will give an account to God and man
for the blood and tears you cause to flow in order to satisfy your
ambition.
“By this letter of the Pope to Jeff Davis you are not only an apostate,
as you were thought before, whom every man had the right to kill,
according to the canonical laws of Rome; but you are more vile, criminal
and cruel than the horse thief, the public bandit, and the lawless
brigand, robber and murderer, whom it is a duty to stop and kill, when
we take them in their acts of blood, and that there is no other way to
put an end to their plunders and murders.
“And, my dear President, the meaning I give you of this perfidious
letter of the Pope to Jeff Davis, is not a fancy imagination on my part,
it is the unanimous explanation given me by a great number of the
priests of Rome, with whom I have had occasion to speak on that subject.
In the name of God, and in the name of our dear country, which is so
much in need of your services, I conjure you to pay more attention to
protect your precious life, and not continue to expose it as you have
done till now.”
The President listened to my words with breathless attention. He
replied:
“You confirm me in the views I had taken of the letter of the Pope.
Professor Morse is of the same mind with you. It is, indeed, the most
perfidious act which could occur under present circumstances. You are
perfectly correct when you say that it was to detach the Roman Catholics
who had enrolled themselves in our armies. Since the publication of that
letter, a great number of them have deserted their banners and turned
traitors; very few, comparatively, have remained true to their oath of
fidelity. It is, however, very lucky that one of those few, Sheridan, is
worth a whole army by his ability, his patriotism and his heroic
courage. It is true, also, that Meade has remained with us, and gained
the bloody battle of Gettysburgh. But how could he lose it, when he was
surrounded by such heroes as Howard, Reynolds, Buford, Wadsworth,
Cutler, Slocum, Sickles, Hancock, Barnes, etc. But it is evident that
his Romanism superseded his patriotism after the battle. He let the army
of Lee escape, when it was so easy to cut his retreat and force him to
surrender, after having lost nearly the half of his soldiers in the last
three days’ carnage.
“When Meade was to order the pursuit, after the battle, a stranger came,
in haste, to the headquarters, and that stranger was a disguised Jesuit.
After a ten minutes’ conversation with him, Meade made such arrangements
for the pursuit of the enemy, that he escaped almost untouched, with the
loss of only two guns!
“You are right,” continued the President, “when you say that this letter
of the Pope has entirely changed the nature and the ground of the war.
Before they read it, the Roman Catholics could see that I was fighting
against Jeff Davis and his Southern Confederacy. But now, they must
believe that it is against Christ and his holy vicar, the Pope, that I
am raising my sacrilegious hands; we have the daily proofs that their
indignation, their hatred, their malice, against me, are an hundredfold
intensified. New projects of assassination are detected almost every
day, accompanied with such savage circumstances that they bring to my
memory the massacres of the St. Bartholomew and the gunpowder plot. We
feel, at their investigation, that they come from the same masters in
the art of murder, the Jesuits.
“The New York riots were evidently a Romish plot from beginning to end.
We have the proofs in hand, that they were the work of Bishop Hughes and
his emissaries. No doubt can remain in the minds of the most incredulous
about that bloody attempt of Rome to destroy New York, when he knows the
easy way it was stopped. I wrote to Bishop Hughes, telling him that the
whole country would hold him responsible for it, if he would not stop it
at once. He, then, gathered the rioters around his palace, called them
his ‘dear friends,’ invited them to go back home peacefully, and all was
finished! so Jupiter of old used to raise a storm, and stop it with a
nod of his head!
“From the beginning of our civil war, there has been, not a secret, but
a public alliance, between the Pope of Rome and Jeff Davis; and that
alliance has followed the common laws of this world’s affairs. The
greater has led the smaller, the stronger has guided the weaker. The
Pope and his Jesuits, have advised, supported, and directed Jeff Davis
on the land, from the first gun shot, at Fort Sumter, by the rabid Roman
Catholic, Beauregard. They are helping him on the sea, by guiding and
supporting the other rabid Roman Catholic pirate, Semmes, on the ocean.
And they will help the rebellion when firing their last gun to shed the
blood of the last soldier of Liberty, who will fall in this fratricidal
war. In my interview with Bishop Hughes, I told him, ‘that every
stranger who had sworn allegiance to our government by becoming a United
States citizen, as himself, was liable to be shot or hung as a perjured
traitor, and an armed spy, as the sentence of the court martial may
direct. And he will be so shot and hanged accordingly, as there will be
no exchange of such prisoners.’ After I had put this flea in the ears of
the Romish bishop, I requested him to go and report my words to the
Pope. Seeing the dangerous position of his bishops and priests when
siding with the rebels, my hope was that he would advise them, for their
own interests, to become loyal and true to their allegiance and help us
through the remaining part of the war. But the result has been the very
contrary. The Pope has thrown away the mask, and shown himself the
public partisan and the protector of the rebellion, by taking Jeff Davis
by the hand, and impudently recognizing the Southern States as a
legitimate government. Now, I have the proof in hand that that very
Bishop Hughes, whom I had sent to Rome that he might induce the Pope to
urge the Roman Catholics of the North at least, to be true to their oath
of allegiance, and whom I thanked publicly, when, under the impression
that he had acted honestly, according to the promise he had given me, is
the very man who advised the Pope to recognize the legitimacy of the
Southern Republic, and put the whole weight of his tiara in the balance
against us, in favor of our enemies! Such is the perfidy of those
Jesuits. Two cankers are biting the very entrails of the United States,
to-day: the Romish and the Mormon priests. Both are quietly at work to
form a people of the most abject, ignorant and fanatical slaves, who
will recognize no other authority but their supreme pontiffs. Both are
aiming at the destruction of our schools, to raise themselves upon our
ruins. Both shelter themselves under our grand and holy principles of
liberty of conscience, to destroy that very liberty of conscience, and
bind the world before their heavy and ignominious yoke. The Mormon and
the Jesuit priests are equally the uncompromising enemies of our
constitution and our laws; but the more dangerous of the two is the
Jesuit—the Romish priest, for he knows better how to conceal his hatred
under the mask of friendship and public good; he is better trained to
commit the most cruel and diabolical deeds for the glory of God.
“Till lately, I was in favor of the unlimited liberty of conscience, as
our constitution gives it to the Roman Catholics. But now, it seems to
me that, sooner or later, the people will be forced to put a restriction
to that clause towards the Papists. Is it not an act of folly to give
absolute liberty of conscience to a set of men who are publicly sworn to
cut our throats the very day they have their opportunity for doing it?
Is it right to give the privilege of citizenship to men who are the
sworn and public enemies of our constitution, our laws, our liberties,
and our lives?
“The very moment that Popery assumed the right of life and death on a
citizen of France, Spain, Germany, England, or the United States, it
assumed to be the power, in the government of France, Spain, England,
Germany, and the United States. Those states then committed a suicidal
act by allowing Popery to put a foot on their territory with the
privilege of citizenship. The power of life and death is the _supreme
power_, and two _supreme powers_ cannot exist on the same territory
without _anarchy_, riots, bloodshed and civil wars without end. When
Popery will give up the power of life and death which it proclaims as
its own divine power, in all its theological books and canon laws, then,
alone, it can be tolerated and can receive the privileges of
citizenship, in a free country.
“Is it not an absurdity to give to a man a thing which he is sworn to
hate, curse and destroy? And does not the Church of Rome hate, curse and
destroy liberty of conscience, whenever she can do it safely?
“I am for liberty of conscience in its noblest, broadest, highest sense.
But I cannot give liberty of conscience to the Pope and to his
followers, the papists, so long as they tell me, through all their
councils, theologians and canon laws, that their conscience orders them
to burn my wife, strangle my children, and cut my throat when they find
the opportunity!
“This does not seem to be understood by the people, to-day. But sooner
or later, the light of common sense will make it clear to every one,
that no liberty of conscience can be granted to men who are sworn to
obey a Pope, who pretends to have the right to put to death those who
differ from him in religion.
You are not the first to warn me against the dangers of assassination.
My ambassadors in Italy, France and England, as well as Professor Morse,
have, many times, warned me against the plots of the murderers whom they
have detected in those different countries. But I see no other safeguard
against those murderers, but to be always ready to die, as Christ
advises it. As we must all die sooner or later, it makes very little
difference to me whether I die from a dagger plunged through the heart
or from an inflammation of the lungs. Let me tell you that I have,
lately, read a passage in the Old Testament which has made a profound,
and, I hope, a salutary impression on me. Here is that passage.”
The President took his Bible, opened it at the third chapter of
Deuteronomy, and read from the 22nd to the 28th verse.
“22. Ye shall not fear them; for the Lord your God shall fight for you.
“23. And I besought the Lord at that time, saying:
“24. O Lord God, thou hast begun to show thy servant thy greatness, and
thy mighty hand; for what God is there, in heaven or in earth, that can
do according to thy words, and according to thy might!
“25. I pray thee, let me go over and see the good land that is beyond
Jordan, that goodly mountain, and Lebanon.
“26. But God was wroth with me for your sakes, and would not hear me:
and the Lord said unto me, let it suffice thee: speak no more unto me of
this matter:
“27. Get thee up unto the top of Pisgah, and lift up thine eyes westward
and northward, and southward and eastward, and behold it with thine
eyes: for thou shalt not go over this Jordan.”
After the President had read these words with great solemnity, he added:
“My Dear Father Chiniquy, let me tell you that I have read these strange
and beautiful words several times, these last five or six weeks. The
more I read them, the more, it seems to me that God has written them for
me as well as for Moses.
“Has he not taken me from my poor log cabin by the hand, as he did of
Moses in the reeds of the Nile, to put me at the head of the greatest
and the most blessed of modern nations, just as he put that prophet at
the head of the most blessed nation of ancient times? Has not God
granted me a privilege, which was not granted to any living man, when I
broke the fetters of 4,000,000 of men, and made them free? Has not our
God given me the most glorious victories over our enemies? Are not the
armies of the Confederacy so reduced to a handful of men, when compared
to what they were two years ago; that the day is fast approaching when
they will have to surrender.
“Now, I see the end of this terrible conflict, with the same joy of
Moses, when at the end of his trying forty years in the wilderness; and
I pray my God to grant me to see the days of peace and untold
prosperity, which will follow this cruel war, as Moses asked God to see
the other side of Jordan and enter the Promised Land. But, do you know
that I hear in my soul, as the voice of God, giving me the rebuke which
was given to Moses?
“Yes! every time that my soul goes to God to ask the favor of seeing the
other side of Jordan, and eating the fruits of that peace, after which I
am longing with such an unspeakable desire, do you know that there is a
still but solemn voice, which tells me that I will see those things only
from a long distance, and that I will be among the dead, when the
nation, which God granted me to lead through those awful trials, will
cross the Jordan, and dwell in that Land of Promise, where peace,
industry, happiness and liberty will make everyone happy, and why so?
Because he has already given me favors which he never gave, I dare say,
to any man in these latter days.
“Why did God Almighty refuse to Moses the favor of crossing the Jordan,
and 'entering the Promised Land? It was on account of his own nation’s
sins! That law of divine retribution and justice, by which one must
suffer for another, is surely a terrible mystery. But it is a fact which
no man who has any intelligence and knowledge can deny. Moses, who knew
that law, though he probably did not understand it better than we do,
calmly says to his people: ‘God was wroth with me for your sakes.’
“But, though we do not understand that mysterious and terrible law, we
find it written in letters of tears and blood wherever we go. We do not
read a single page of history, without finding undeniable traces of its
existence.
“Where is the mother who has not shed tears and suffered real tortures,
for her children’s sake?
“Who is the good king, the worthy emperor, the gifted chieftain, who
have not suffered unspeakable mental agonies, or even death, for their
people’s sake?
“Is not our Christian religion the highest expression of the wisdom,
mercy and love of God! But what is Christianity if not the very
incarnation of that eternal law of divine justice in our humanity?
“When I look on Moses, alone, silently dying on the Mount Pisgah, I see
that law, in one of its most sublime human manifestations, and I am
filled with admiration and awe.
“But when I consider that law of justice, and expiation in the death of
the Just, the divine Son of Mary, on the mountain of Calvary, I remain
mute in my adoration. The spectacle of the crucified one which is before
my eyes, is more than sublime, it is divine! Moses died for his people’s
sake, but Christ died for the whole world’s sake! Both died to fulfill
the same eternal law of the divine justice, though in a different
measure.
“Now, would it not be the greatest of honors and privileges bestowed
upon me, if God, in his infinite love, mercy and wisdom, would put me
between his faithful servant, Moses, and his eternal Son, Jesus, that I
might die as they did, for my nation’s sake!
“My God alone knows what I have already suffered for my dear country’s
sake. But my fear is that the justice of God is not yet paid: When I
look upon the rivers of tears and blood drawn by the lashes of the
merciless masters from the veins of the very heart of those millions of
defenceless slaves, these two hundred years: When I remember the
agonies, the cries, the unspeakable tortures of those unfortunate people
to which I have, to some extent, connived with so many others, a part of
my life, I fear that we are still far from the complete expiation. For
the judgments of God are true and righteous.
“It seems to me that the Lord wants, to-day, as he wanted in the days of
Moses, another victim—a victim which he has himself chosen, anointed and
prepared for the sacrifice, by raising it above the rest of his people.
I cannot conceal from you that my impression is that I am the victim. So
many plots have already been made against my life, that it is a real
miracle that they have all failed, when we consider that the great
majority of them were in the hands of skillful Roman Catholic murderers,
evidently trained by Jesuits. But can we expect that God will make a
perpetual miracle to save my life? I believe not. The Jesuits are so
expert in those deeds of blood, that Henry IV. said that it was
impossible to escape them, and he became their victim, though he did all
that could be done to protect himself. My escape from their hands, since
the letter of the Pope to Jeff Davis has sharpened a million of daggers
to pierce my breast, would be more than a miracle.
“But just as the Lord heard no murmur from the lips of Moses, when he
told him that he had to die, before crossing the Jordan, for the sins of
his people, so I hope and pray that he will hear no murmur from me when
I fall for my nation’s sake.
“The only two favors I ask of the Lord, are, first, that I may die for
the sacred cause in which I am engaged, and when I am the
standard-bearer of the rights and liberties of my country.
“The second favor I ask from God, is that my dear son, Robert, when I am
gone, will be one of those who lift up that flag of Liberty which will
cover my tomb, and carry it with honor and fidelity, to the end of his
life, as his father did, surrounded by the millions who will be called
with him to fight and die for the defence and honor of our country.”
Never had I heard such sublime words. Never had I seen a human face so
solemn and so prophet-like as the face of the President, when uttering
these things. Every sentence had come to me as a hymn from heaven,
reverberated by the echoes of the mountains of Pisgah and Calvary. I was
beside myself. Bathed in tears, I tried to say something, but I could
not utter a word.
I knew the hour to leave had come, I asked from the President permission
to fall on my knees, and pray with him that his life might be spared;
and he knelt with me. But I prayed more with my tears and sobs than with
my words.
Then I pressed his hand on my lips and bathed it with my tears, and with
a heart filled with an unspeakable desolation, I bade him Adieu! It was
for the last time!
For the hour was fast approaching when he was to fall by the hand of a
Jesuit assassin, for his nation’s sake.