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This is the slavish doctrine taught to the Catholics of Poland. The people, instead of having power or rights, are according to this catechism mere passive slaves, born for their masters, taught by a perversion of the threatenings of religion to obey without murmuring, or questioning, or examination, the mandates of their human deity, bid to cringe and fawn and kiss the very feet of majesty, and deem themselves happy to be whipped, to be kicked, or to die in his service.
Is it necessary to say that there is not a Protestant sect in this country that holds such abject sentiments, or whose creed inculcates such barefaced idolatry of a human being? [CIAS comment: Today Protestants flirt with the Papacy as if they have totally forgotten what it stands for.]
Protestantism, on the contrary, at its birth, while yet bound with many of the shackles of Popery, attacked, in its earliest lispings of freedom, this very doctrine of divine right. It was Luther, and by a singular coincidence of day too, on the 4th of July, who first, in a public disputation at Leipzig with his Popish antagonist, called in question the divine right of the Pope.
Let us now examine in contrast other political rights, liberty of conscience, liberty of opinion and liberty of the press. Austrian and the United States on these points as widely as on the fundamental question. Austria not only has the press in her own territory under censorship, but intermeddles to control the press in neighboring states on the principle of self preservation. "In Saxony," says Dwight, "the press is fetterd by Austria and Prussia, who allege this reason, `that all the works published in Saxony, which are not on the proscribed list, are freely admitted into our dominions. For our happiness, therefore, and the stability of our thrones, it is necessary that the press should be fettered!!" As to liberty of opinion, political and religious, in Austria, no one dreams of the existence of such a thing; the dungeon is a summary mode there of obtaining a most happy uniformity of opinion throughout all the imperial dominions. It is our glory, on the contrary, that all these rights are secured to us by our institutions, and freely enjoyed, no only without the least danger to the peace of the state, but from the very genius of our government, they are esteemed among its most precious safeguards.
What are the Catholic tenets on these points?
Shall I go back some three to four hundred years, and quote the pontifical law which says, [Art. 9.] "The Pope has the power to interpret Scripture and to teach as he pleases, and no person is allowed to teach in a different way."
Or to the fourth Council of Lateran in 1215, which decrees,
"That all heretics, (that is all who have an opinion of their own) shall be delivered over to the civil magistrate to be burned."
Or shall I refer to the Catholic Index Expurgatorius to the list of forbidden books, to show how the press is still fettered? No! it is unnecessary to go farther than the present day.
The reigning pontiff Pius VIII. (1831-1846) shall again answer the question. He has most opportunely furnished us with the present sentiments of the Catholic church on these very points. In his encyclical letter, dated Sept. 1832, the Pope, lamenting the disorders and infidelity of the times, says,
"From this polluted fountain of `indifference,' flows that absurd and erroneous doctrine, or rather raving, in favor and defence of `liberty of conscience,' for which most pestilential error, the course is opened to that entire and wild liberty of opinion, which is every where attempting the overthrow of religious and civil institutions; and which the unblushing impudence of some has held forth as an advantage to religion. Hence that pest, of all others most to be dreaded in a state, unbridled liberty of opinion, licentiousness of speech, and a lust of novelty, which, according to the experience of all ages, portend the downfall of the most powerful and flourishing empires."
"No means must be here omitted, says Clement XIII. (1769-74), our predecessor of happy memory, in the Encyclical Letter on the proscription of bad books - no means must be here omitted, as the extremity of the case calls for all our exertions, to Exterminate the fatal pest which spreads through so many works; nor can the materials of error be otherwise destroyed than by the flames, which consume the depraved elements of evil."
Now all this is explicit enough, here is no ambiguity. We see clearly from infallible authority that the Catholic of the present day, wherever he may be, if he is true to the principles of his sect, cannot consistently tolerate liberty of conscience, or liberty of the press. Is there any sect of Protestants in this country, from whose religious tenets doctrines so subversive of civil and religious liberty can be inferred? If there be, I am ignorant of its name. The subject will be pursued in the next chapter.
Chapter IV .. p. 45
The cause of Popery and Despotism identical - A striking difference between Popery and Protestantism as they exist in this country - American Protestantism not controlled by foreign Protestantism - American Popery entirely under foreign control - Jesuits, the foreign agents of Austria, bound by the strongest ties of interest to Austrian policy, not American - Their dangerous power, unparalleled in any Protestant sect - Our free institutions opposed in their nature to the arbitrary claims of Popery - Duplicity to be expected - Political dangers to be apprehended from Popish organization - American Popery uncontrolled by Americans, or in America - Managed in a foreign country by a foreign power for political purposes - Consequences that may easily result from such a state of things.
Chapter IV
I exposed in my last chapter the remarkable coincidence of the tenets of Popery with the principles of despotic government, in this respect so opposite to the tenets of Protestantism; Popery, from its very nature, favoring despotism, and Protestantism, from its very nature, favoring liberty. Is it not then perfectly natural that the Austrian government should be active in supporting Catholic missions in this country? Is it not clear that the cause of Popery is the cause of despotism?
But there is another most striking and important difference between Popery and Protestantism, in their bearing upon the liberties of the country. No one of the Protestant sects owns any head out of this country, or is governed in any of its concerns by any men or set of men in a foreign land. All ecclesiastical officers are nominated and appointed or removed by the people of the United States. No foreign body has any such union with any sect of Protestants in the United States, as even to advise, much less to control any of its measures. Our Episcopalians appoint their own bishops without consulting the church of England; our Presbyterians are entirely independent of the church of Scotland; and our Wesleyan Methodists have no ecclesiastical connection with the disciples of Wesley in the old world.
But how is it in these respects with the Catholics?
The right of appointing to all ecclesiastical offices in this country, as every where else, is in the Pope, (now a mere creature of Austria.) He claims the power, as we have seen, by divine right. All the bishops, and all the ecclesiastics down to the most insignificant officer in the church, are from the genius of the system entirely under his control. And he, of course, will appoint non to office but those who will favor the views of Austria. He will require all whom he appoints, to support the agents whom Austria is sending to this country for the accomplishment of her own purposes.
And who are these agents?
They are, for the most part Jesuits, an ecclesiastical order, proverbial through the world for cunning, duplicity, and total want of moral principle; an order so skilled in all the arts of deception that even in Catholic countries, in Italy itself, it became intolerable, and the people required its suppression. They are Jesuits in the pay and employ of a despotic government, who are at work on the ignorance and passions of our community; they are foreigners, who have been schooled in foreign seminaries in the doctrine of passive obedience; they are foreigners under vows of perpetual celibacy, and having, therefore, no deep and permanent interest in this country; they are foreigners, bound by the strong ties of pecuniary interest and ambition, to the service of a foreign despot. [400] Is there no danger to our free institutions from a host commanded by such men, whose numbers are constantly increasing by the machinations and funds of Austria?
[CIAS comment: Today it is much worse. They will succeed to further their cause in America.]
Consider, too, the power which these Jesuits and other Catholic priests possess through the confessional, of knowing the private characters and affairs of all the leading men in the community; the power arising from their right to prescribe the kinds and degrees of penance; and the power arising from the right to refuse absolutions to those who do not comply with their commands. Suppose such powers were exercised by the ministers of any other sect, the Episcopalian, the Methodist, the Presbyterian, the Baptist, &c. what an outcry would be raised in the land! And should not the men who possess such powers be jealously watched by all lovers of liberty?
Is it possible that these Jesuits can have a sincere attachment to the principles of free institutions? Do not these principles oppose a constant barrier to their exercise of that arbitrary power, which they claim was a divine right, and which they exercise too in all countries where they are dominant? Can it not be perceived, that although they may find it politic for the present to conceal their anti-republican tenets, yet this concealment will be merely temporary, and is only adopted now, the better to lull suspicion? Is it not in accordance with all experience of Popish policy, that Jesuits should encroach by little and little, and preserve till they have attained to plenitude of power. At present they have but one aim in this country, which absorbs all others, and that is to make themselves popular. If they succeed in this we shall then learn, when it is too late to remedy the evil, that Popery abandons none of its divine rights. The leaders of this sect are disciplined and organized, and have their adherents entirely subservient to their will. Here then is a regular party, a religious sect, ready to throw the weight of its power, as circumstances may require, ready to favor any man, or set of men, who will engage to favor it.
And to whom do these leaders look for their instructions? Is it to a citizen or body of citizens belonging to this country; is it to a body of men kept in check by the ever jealous eyes of other bodies around them, and by the immediate publicity which must be given to all their doings? No, they are men owning no law on this side of the ocean; they are the Pope and his Consistory of Cardinals, following the plans and instructions of the imperial cabinet of Austria, - plans formed in the secret councils of that cabinet, instructions delivered in secret, according to the modes of despotism, to their obedient officers, and distributed through the well disciplined ranks in this country, to be carried into effect in furtherance of any political designs the Austrian cabinet may think advantageous to its own interests. And will these designs be in favor of liberty? With a party thus formed and disciplined among us, who will venture to say that our elections will not be under the control of a Metternich, and that the appointment of a President of the United States will not be virtually made in the Imperial Cabinet of Vienna, or the Consistory of Cardinals at Rome? Will this be pronounced incredible? It will be the almost certain result of the dominion of Popery in this country.
But we need not imagine that it will always be deemed expedient to preserve the name of President, or even the elective character of our chief magistrate. How long would it take the sophistry that deludes the mind of its victim into the belief of a man's infallibility, and fixes the delusion there indelibly, binding him soul and body to believe against the evidence of his reason, and his senses; holding him in the most abject obedience to the will of a fellow-man; how long, I say, would it take such sophistry to impose the duty of acknowledging the divine right of an emperor over the priest conquered vassals of this country - vassals well instructed in the Russian Catechism, and prepared to worship, love and obey as their Lord and Master, some scion of the House of Hapsburg, - the Emperor of the United States?
Chapter V .. p. 51
Points in our political system which favor this foreign attack - Our toleration of all religious systems - Popery opposed to all toleration.[500] - Charge of intolerance substantiated - The organization of Popery in America connected with and strengthened by foreign organization - Without a parallel among Protestant sects - Great preponderance of Popish strength in consequences - The divisions among Protestant sects nullifies their attempt at combination - Taken advantage of by Jesuits - Popish duplicity illustrated in its opposite alliances in Europe with despotism, and in America with democracy - The laws relating to immigration and naturalization favor foreign attack - Emigrants being mostly Catholic and in entire subjection to their priests - No remedy provided by our laws for this alarming evil.
Chapter V
What I have advanced in my previous chapters may have convinced my readers that there is good reason for believing that the despots of Europe are attempting, by the spread of Popery in this country, to subvert its free institutions; yet many may think that there are so many counteracting causes in the constitution of our society, that this effort to bind us with the cast-off chains of the bigotry and superstition of Europe cannot meet with success. I will, therefore, in the present chapter, consider some of the points in our political system, of which advantage has already been taken to attack us, by the wily enemies of our liberties.
It is a beautiful feature in our constitution, that every man is left to worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience, that the church is separated from the state, and that equal protection is granted to all creeds. In thus tolerating all sects, we have admitted to equal protection not only those sects whose religious faith and practice support the principle on which the free toleration of all is founded, but also the unique, that solitary sect, the Catholic, which builds and supports its system on the destruction of all toleration. Yes, the Catholic is permitted to work in the light of Protestant toleration, to mature his plans, and to execute his designs to extinguish that light, and destroy the hands that hold it. It is no refutation of the charge of intolerance here made against Catholics as a sect, to show that small bodies of them, under peculiar circumstances, have been tolerant, or that in this country, where they have always been a small minority, they make high professions of ardent love for the republican, tolerant institutions of our government. No one can be deceived by evidence so partial and circumscribed, while the blood of the persecuted for opinion's sake, stains with the deepest tinge every page of the history of that church, aye, even while it is still wet upon the dungeon floors of Italy; while the intolerant and anti-republican principles of Popery are now weekly thundered from the Vatican, and echoed in our ears by almost every arrival from Europe.[510]
Let me not be charged with accusing the Catholics of the United States with intolerance. They are too small a body as yet fully to act out their principles, and their present conduct does not affect the general question in any way, unless it may be to prove that they are not genuine Catholics. The conduct of a small insulated body, under the restraints of the society around it, is of no weight in deciding the character of the sect, while there are nations of the same infallible faith acting out its legitimate principles uncontrolled, and producing fruits by which all may discern, without danger of mistake, the true nature of the tree. If Popery is tolerant, let us ask Italy and Austria, and Spain, and Portugal, open their doors to the teachers of the Protestant faith; let these countries grant to Catholics, leave to disseminate their doctrine trough all classes in their dominions. Then may Popery speak of toleration, then may we believe that it has felt the influence of the spirit of the age and has reformed; but then it will not be Popery, for Popery never changes; it is infallibly the same, infallibly intolerant.
The conspirators against our liberties who have been admitted from abroad through the liberality of our institutions, are now organized in every part of the country; they are all subordinates, standing in regular steps of slave and master, from the most abject dolt that obeys the commands of his priest, up to the great master-slave Metternich, who commands and obeys his Illustrious Master the Emperor.[550]
They report from one to another, like the sub-officers of an army, up to the commander-in-chief at Vienna, (not the Pope, for he is but a subordinate of Austria [570].) There is a similar organization among the Catholics of other countries, and the whole Catholic church is thus prepared to throw its weight of power and wealth into the hands of Austria, or any Holy Alliance of despots who may be persuaded to embark for the safety of their dynasties, in the crusade against the liberties of the country which, by its simple existence in opposition to their theory of legitimate power, is working revolution and destruction to their thrones.
Now, to this dangerous conspiracy what have we to oppose in the discipline of Protestant sects? However well organized, each according to its own manner, these different sects may be, there is not one of them that can by any possibility derive strength through its organization, from foreign sects of the same name. Nor is this a matter of regret; it is right that it should be so; no nation can be truly independent where it is otherwise. Foreign influence, then, cannot find its way into the country through any of the Protestant sects, to the danger of the State. In this respect Catholics stand alone. They are already the most powerful and dangerous sect in the country, for they are not confined in their schemes and means like the other sects, to our own borders, but they work with the minds and the funds of all despotic Europe.
And not only are each of the Protestant sects deprived of foreign aid, they are weak collectively, in having no common bond of union among themselves, so far as political action is concerned. The mutual jealousies of the different sects have hitherto prevented this, and it is a weakness boasted of by Catholics, and of which advantage is and ever will be taken while the unnatural estrangement lasts. Catholics have boasted that they can play off one sect against another, for in the petty controversies that divide the contending parties, the pliable conscience of the Jesuit enables him to throw the weight of his influence on either side as his interests may be; the command of his superiors, and the alleged good of the church, (that is the power of the priesthood,) being paramount to all other considerations.
This pliability of conscience, so advantageous in building up any system of oppression, religious or political, presents us with strangely contradictory alliances. In Europe Popery supports the most high-handed despotism, lends its thunders to awe the people into the most abject obedience, and maintains at the top of its creed, the indissoluble union of church and state! while in this country, where it is yet feeling its way, (oh! how consistent!) it has allied itself with the democracy of the land, it is loudest in its denunciations of tyranny, the tyranny of American patriots! it is first to sent out oppression, sees afar off the machinations of the native American Protestants to unite church and state! and puts itself forth the most zealous guardian of civil and religious liberty! With such sentinels, surely our liberties are safe, with such guardians of our rights, we may sleep on in peace! [CIAS comment: ... because the fox is guarding the hen house.]
Another weak point in our system is our laws encouraging immigration, and affording facilities to naturalization. [580] In the early state of the country liberality in these points was thought to be of advantage, as it promoted the cultivation of our wild lands, but the dangers which now threaten our free institutions from this source more than balance all advantages of this character. The great body of emigrants to this country are the hard-working mentally neglected poor of Catholic countries in Europe, who have left a land where they were enslaved, for one of freedom. However well disposed they may be to the country which protects them, and adopts them as citizens, they are not fitted to act with judgment in the political affairs of their new country [CIAS comment: That has changed for the better in many instances since.], like native citizens educated from their infancy in the principles and habits of our institutions. Most of them are too ignorant to act at all for themselves, and expect to be guided by others. These others are of course their priests. Priests have ruled them at home by divine right; their ignorant minds cannot ordinarily be emancipated from their habitual subjection, they will not learn nor appreciate their exemption from any such usurpation of priestly power in this country, and they are implicitly at the beck of their spiritual guides. They live surrounded by freedom, yet liberty of conscience, right to private judgment, whether in religion or politics, are as effectually excluded by the priests, as if the code of Austria already ruled the land. They form a body of men whose habits of action, (for I cannot say thought,) are opposed to the principles of our free institutions, for they are not accessible to the reasonings of the press, they cannot and do not think for themselves.
Every unlettered Catholic emigrant, therefore, that comes into the country, is adding to a mass of ignorance which it will be difficult to reach, (and I have no doubt most of them are so,) yet from the nature of things they are but obedient instruments in the hands of their more knowing leaders to accomplish the designs of their foreign masters. Republican education, were it allowed freely to come in contact with their minds, would doubtless soon furnish a remedy for an evil for which, in the existing state of things, we have no cure. It is but to continue for a few years the sort of immigration that is now daily pouring in its thousands from Europe, and our institutions, for aught (??) that I can see, are at the mercy of a body of foreigners, and held completely under the control of a foreign power. We may then have reason to say, that we are the dupes of our own hospitality; we have sheltered in our well provided house a needy body of strangers, who, well filled with our cheer, are encouraged by the unaccustomed familiarity with which they are treated, first to upset the regulations of the household, and then to turn their host and his family out of doors.
Chapter VI .. p. 61
The evil from immigration further considered - Its political bearings - The influence of emigrants at the elections - This influence concentrated in the priests - The Priests must be propitiated; by what means - This influence easily purchased by the demagogue - The unprincipled character of many of our politicians favor this foreign attack - Their bargain for the suffrages of this priest-led band - A church and state party - The Protestant sect obnoxious to no such bargaining - the newspaper press favors this foreign attack; from its want of independence, and its timidity - An anti-republican fondness for titles, favors this foreign attack - Cautious attempts of Popery dignify its emissaries and to accustom us to their high-sounding titles - A mistaken notion on the subject of discussing religious opinion in the secular journals, favors this foreign attack - Political designs not to be shielded from attack because cloaked by Religion.
Chapter VI
I will continue the consideration of some of the points in our political system, of which the foreign conspirators take advantage in their attacks on our liberties. We have seen that from the nature of the case the emigrant Catholics generally are shamefully illiterate, and without opinions of their own. They are and must be under the direction of their priests. The press, with its arguments for or against any political measures, can have no effect on minds taught only to think as the priest thinks, and to do what the priests commands. Here is a large body of ignorant men brought into our community, who are unapproachable by any of the ordinary means of enlightening the people - a body of men who servilely obey a sect of priests imported from abroad, bound to the country by none of the usual ties, owing allegiance and service to a foreign government, depending on that government for promotion and reward, and this reward too depends on the manner in which they discharge the duties prescribed to them by their foreign master; which is, doubtless for the present, to confine themselves simply and wholly to increasing the number of their sect and the influence of the Pope in this country. It is men thus officered and of such character, that we have placed in all respects on a level at our elections with the same number of native patriotic and intelligent citizens.
The Jesuits are fully aware of the advantage they derive from this circumstance. They know that a body of men admitted to citizenship, unlearned in the true nature of American liberty, exercising the elective franchise, totally influenced by the ordinary methods of reasoning, but passively obedient only to the commands of their priests, must give those priests great consequence in the eyes of the leaders of political parties; they know that these leaders must esteem it very important that the priests be propitiated. And how is a Catholic priest to be propitiated? How, but by stipulating for that which will increase his power or the power of the church, for be it always borne in mind, that they are identical. The Roman church is the body of priests and prelates; the laity have only to obey and to pay, not to exercise authority. The priest must be favored in his plans of destroying Protestantism, and building up Popery. He must have money from the public treasury to endow Catholic institutions; he must be allowed to have charters for these institutions which will confer extraordinary powers upon their Jesuit trustees; [600] he must be permitted quietly to break down the Protestant Sabbath, by encouraging Catholics to buy and sell on that day as on other days; in one word, he must have all the powers and privileges which the law or the officers appointed to administer the law can conveniently bestow upon him. The demagogue or the party who will promise to do most for the accomplishment of these objects, will secure all the votes which he controls. Surely there is great danger to our present institutions from this source, and men as skillful as are the Jesuits we may be sure will not fail to use the power thus thrown into their hands to work great mischief to the republic.
The recklessness and unprincipled character of too many of our politicians give a great advantage to these conspirators. There is a set of men in the country who will have power and office, cost what they may; men who, without a particle of true patriotism, will yet ring the changes on the glory and honor of their country, talk loud of liberty, flatter the lowest prejudices, and fawn upon the powerful and the influential; men who study politics only, that they may balance the chances of their own success in falling in with, or opposing, this or that fluctuating interest, without caring whether that interest tends to the security or the downfall of their country's institutions. To such politicians a body of men thus drilled by priests, presents a well fitted tool. The bargain with the priest will be easily struck. "Give me office, and I will take care of the interests of your church." The effect of the bargains upon the great moral or political interests of the country, will not for a moment influence the calculation. Thus we have among us a body of men, a religious sect , who can exercise a direct controlling influence in the politics of the country, and can be moved together in a solid phalanx; we have a church interfering directly and most powerfully in the affairs of state. There is not in the whole country a parallel to this among the other sects. What clergymen of the Methodists, or Baptists, or Episcopalians, or of any other denomination, could command the votes of the members of their several congregations in the election of an individual to political office? [650] The very idea of such power is preposterous to a Protestant. No freeman, no man accustomed to judge for himself, would submit even to be advised, unasked, by his minister in a matter of this kind, much less dictated to.
Connected with these evils, and assisting to increase them, we have a Press, to an alarming extent, wanting in independence. Most of our journals are avowedly attached to a particular party, or to particular individuals, they are like council retained for a particular cause; they are to say every thing that makes in favor of their client, and conceal every thing that makes against him. Does a question of principle arise, of fundamental importance to the country? - the inquiry with a journal thus pledged is not, how are our free institutions, how is the country affected by the decision, but how will the decision affect the interests of our particular party or favorite? How few are there among our newspaper editors who dare to take a manly stand for or against a principle that affects vitally the constitution, if it is found to bear unfavorably upon their party or their candidate? A press thus wanting in magnanimity and independence is the fit instrument for advancing the purposes of unprincipled men; and editors of this stamp, and they are confined to no particular party, whether they have followed out their conduct or not to its legitimate results can easily be made the tools of a despot to subvert the liberties of their country.
Again we have, still unsubdued, some weaknesses (perhaps they belong to human nature,) of which advantage may be taken, to the injury of our republican character, and in aid of despotism, and which may seem to some too trivial to merit notice in connection with the more serious matters just considered. One of these weaknesses is an anti-republican fondness for titles; [660] and whoever has lived in the old world, and knows the extraordinary and powerful influence which mere titles of honor exercise over the minds of men, and their tendency to keep in due subjection the artificial ranks into which despotic and aristocratic power divide the people, subduing the lower orders to their lords and masters, will not think it amiss in this place to draw attention to the subject. Republican was we are, I fear we are influenced, in a greater degree than we are aware, by the high sounding epithets with which despotism and aristocracy surround their officers, to awe into reverence the ignorant multitude, A name having half a dozen titles for its avant couriers, and as many for its rear guard, swells into an importance, even in the estimation of our citizens, which the name alone, and especially the individual himself, could never assume. Let Mr. Brown, or Mr. Smith, or any other intelligent, upright, active citizen, be elected president of a benevolent society, does he excite the gaze of those who meet him, or inspire awe in the multitude? No one regards him but as a respectable, useful member of the community. But let us learn that a gentleman, not half as intelligent, or upright, or active, is to land in our city who is announced as the "Most Illustrious Archduke and Eminence his Imperial Highness the Cardinal and Archbishop of Olmutz, Rudolph, (this last is the gentleman's real name) Highest Curator of the Leopold Foundation," and although not half as capable in any respect as Mr. Brown, or Mr. Smith, or ten thousand other honest, untitled citizens among us, I very much fear that the Battery would be thronged, and the windows in Broadway would be in demand, and the streets filled with a gaping crowd to see a man who could have such a mighty retinue of glittering epithets about him. Yet this title-blazoned gentleman holds the same office as Mr. Brown or Mr. Smith. Poor human nature? Alas, for its weakness? [670]
Who is not struck with the difference of effect upon the imagination, when we describe a person thus: "Mr.___, a good-hearted old gentleman, rather weak in the head, who finds in the manufacture of sealing-wax one of the chief and most agreeable employments of his time," and when we should describe a man thus: "His Imperial Majesty Francis I. (1804-1835), Emperor of Austria, King of Jerusalem, Hungary, Bohemia, of Lombardy and Venice, Dalmatia, Croatia, Sclavonia, Galizia, and Lodomiria, Archduke of Austria, Duke of Lorena, Salzburg, Sturia, Carinthia, and Carniole, Grand Prince of Hapsburg, and Tyrol,", etc. - - and yet these two descriptions belong to one and the same individual.
There used to be a sound democratic feeling in the country, which spurned such glosses of character and frowned out of use mere glory-giving title. Austria, however, is gradually (as fast as it is thought safe) introducing these titled gentlemen into the country. Bishop Fenwick, a Catholic priest, is "his Grace of Cincinnati," Mr. Vicar-General Rese, another priest, is only "his Reverence," and Bishop Flaget, and all the other Bishops, are simple Monseigneurs, this title in a foreign language being less harsh at present to republican ears than its plump, aristocratic English translation, "My Lord Bishop of New-York," "My Lord Bishop of Boston," "My Lord Bishop of Charleston,", etc., etc.
As we improve, however, under Catholic instruction, we may come to be quite reconciled even to his Eminence Cardinal, so and so, and to all the other graduated fooleries, which are so well adapted to dazzle the ignorant. The scarlet carriage of a Cardinal, too, bedizened (bedecked) with gold (Rev. 18:11,12), and containing the sacred person of some Jesuit, all scarlet and humility, as is at this day often seen in Rome, may yet excite our admiration as it rolls through the streets, and even a Pope, (for in these republican times in Italy, who knows but his Holiness may have leave of absence,) yes, even a Pope, a Vicegerent of God, the great divinely appointed appointor of Rulers, the very center from which all titles emanate, may possibly in scarlet and gold and jewel-decked equipage, astonish our eyes, and prostrate us on our knees as he moves down Broadway. To be sure of his republican friends, now in strange holy alliance with his faithful subjects here, might find their Protestant knees at first a little stiff, yet the Catholic schools which they are encouraging with the votes and their money and their influence, will soon furnish them good instructors in the art of reverential gesture, and genuflexion (to kneel).
Again, there are some minds of a particularly sensitive cast, that cannot bear to have the subject of religious opinion mooted in any way in the secular journals. They use a plausible argument that satisfies them, namely, that religion is too sacred a subject to be discussed by the daily press. I agree to a certain extent, and in a modified sense, with this sentiment, but it should be remembered that all is not religion which passes under that name. The public safety makes it necessary sometimes to strip off the disguise, and show the true character of a design which may have assumed the sacred cloak, the better to pass unchallenged by just such feeble hearted objectors. Were such objections valid, how easy would it be for the most dangerous political designs, (as in the case we are considering,) to assume a religious garb, and so escape detection. The exposure I am now making of the foreign designs upon our liberties, may possibly be mistaken for an attack on the Religion of the Catholics, yet I have not meddled with the conscience of any Catholic; if he honestly believes the doctrine of Transubstantiation, or that by doing penance he will prepare himself for heaven, or in the existence of Purgatory, or in the efficacy of the prayers and masses of priests, to free the souls of his relatives from its flames, or that it is right to worship the Virgin Mary, or to pray to Saints or keep holy days, or to refrain from meat at certain times, or to go on pilgrimages, or in the virtue of relics, or that none but Catholics can be saved, or many other points; however, wrong I may and do think him to be, it is foreign from the design of these chapters, to speak against them. But when he proclaims to the world that all power temporal as well as spiritual exists in the Pope, (denying of course the fundamental doctrine of republicanism;) that liberty of conscience is a "raving," and most pestilential error," that "he execrates and detests the liberty of the press;" when his intolerant creed asserts that no faith is to be kept with heretics, (all being heretics in the creed of a Catholic who are not Catholics,) and many other palpable anti-republican as well as immoral doctrines, he has then blended with his creed political tenets that vitally affect the very existence of our government, and no association with religious belief shall shield them from observation and rebuke. It would indeed be singular of these mere "ravings" (the Pope's phrase is appropriate here,) subversive of the fundamental principles of our government, should be shielded from exposure because misnamed religios. If incendiaries or robbers should ensconce (hide) themselves within a church, from the windows and towers of which they were assailing people, the cry of sacrilege shall not prevent us from attempts to dislodge them, though the walls which protect them should suffer in the conflict.
Chapter VII .. p. 73
The political character of this ostensibly religious enterprise proved from the letters of the Jesuits now in this country - Their antipathy to private judgment - Their anticipations of a change in our form of government - Our government declared too free for the exercise of their divine rights - Their political partialities - Their cold acknowledgment of the generosity, and liberality, and hospitality of our government - Their estimate of our condition contrasted with their estimate of that of Austria - Their acknowledged allegiance and servility to a foreign master - Their sympathies with the oppressor, and not with the oppressed - Their direct avowal of political design. [Their true character exposed here.]
Chapter VII
Let me next show the political character of this ostensibly religious effort, from the sentiments of the Austrian emissaries expressed to their foreign patrons. The very nature of conspiracy of this kind precludes the possibility of much direct evidence of political design; for Jesuit cunning and Austrian duplicity would be sure to tread with unusual caution on American ground. Yet if I can quote from their correspondence some expressions of antipathy to our free principles, and to the government; some hinting at the subversion of the government; prevailing partialities for arbitrary government; and siding with tyranny against the oppressed; and some acknowledgments of POLITICAL EFFECTS to be expected from the operations of the society, I shall have exhibited evidence enough to put every citizen who values his birthright, upon the strict watch of these men and their adherents, and to show the importance of some measures of repelling this insidious invasion of the country.
The Bishop of Baltimore writing to the Austrian Society, laments the wretched state of the Catholic religion in Virginia, and as a proof of the difficulty it has to contend with, (a proof doubtless shocking to the pious docility of his Austrian readers,) he says:
"I sent to Richmond a zealous missionary, a native of America. He traveled through the whole of Virginia. The Protestants flocked on all sides to hear him, they offered him their churches, courthouses, and other public buildings, to preach in, which however is not at all surprising, for the people are divided into numerous sects, and know not what faith to embrace. In consequence of being spoiled by bad instruction, they will judge every thing themselves; they, therefore, hear eagerly every new comer,", etc.
The Bishop, if he had the power, would of course change this "bad instruction" for better, and, as in Catholic countries, would relieve them from the trouble of judging for themselves. Thus the liberty of private judgment and freedom of opinion, guaranteed by our institutions, are avowedly an obstacle to the success of the Catholics. Is it not natural that Catholics should desire to remove this obstacle out of their way? [700]
My Lord Bishop Flaget, of Bardstown, Kentucky, in a letter to his patrons abroad has this plain hint at an ulterior political design, and that no less that the entire subversion of our republican government. Speaking of the difficulties and discouragements the Catholic missionaries have to contend with in converting the Indians, the last difficulty in the way he says, is "their continual traffic among the whites, which cannot be hindered as long as the republican government shall subsist!"
What is this but saying, that a republican government is unfavorable in its nature to the restrictions we deem necessary to the extension of the Catholic religion; when the time shall come that the present government shall be subverted, which we are looking forward to, or hope for, we can then hinder this traffic?
Mr. Baraga, the German missionary in Michigan, seems impressed with the same conviction of the unhappy influence of a free government upon his attempts to make converts to the church of Rome. In giving an account of the refusal of some persons to have their children baptized, he lays the fault on this, "Too free (allzu frei) government." In a more despotic government, in Italy or Austria, he would have been able to force compulsory baptism on these children. [720]
These few extracts are quite sufficient to show how our form of government, which gives to the Catholics all the freedom and facilities that other sects enjoy, does from its very nature embarrass their despotic plans. Accustomed to dictate at home, how annoying it is to these Austrian ecclesiastics to be obliged to put off their authority, to yield their divine right of judging for others, to be compelled to get at men through their reason and conscience, instead of the more summary way of compulsion! The disposition to use force if they could, shows itself in spite of all their caution. The inclination is there. It is reined in by circumstances. They want only strength to act out the inherent despotism of Popery.
But let me show what are some of the political partialities which these foreign emissaries discover in their letters and statements to their Austrian supporters. They acknowledge their unsuspicious reception by the people of the United States; they acknowledge that Protestants in all parts of the country have even aided them with money to build their chapels and colleges and nunneries, and treated them with liberality and hospitality, and - strange infatuation!! - have been so monstrously foolish as to intrust their children to them to be educated! - so infatuated as to confide as to confide in their honor and in their promises that they would use no attempts to proselyte them! And with all this, does it not once occur to these gentlemen, that this liberality, and generosity and openness of character are the fruits of Protestant republicanism? Might we not expect at least that Popery, were it republican in its nature, would find something in all this that would excite admiration, and call forth some praise of a system so contrasted to that of any other government; some acknowledgments to the government of the country that protects it, and allows its emissaries the unparalleled liberty even to plot the downfall of the state? But no, the government of the United States is not once mentioned in praise. The very principle of the government, through which they are tolerated, is thus slightly noticed: "The government of the United States has thought fit to adopt a complete indifference toward all religions." [740] They can recognize no nobler principle than indifference.
Again, of the people of our country they thus write: "We entreat all European Christians to unite in prayer to God for the conversion of these unhappy heathen, and obstinate heretics." We are spoken of as a country "on which the light of faith has hitherto not shined." "A vast country, destitute of all spiritual and temporal resources." But if Austria is mentioned, what are the terms? "You Society, (the Leopold Foundation) which is an ornament to the illustrious Austrian Empire," - "the noble and generous inhabitants of the Austrian empire." "Of many circumstances in our condition, few perhaps in your happy empire can form a correct notion;" and again, "Here are many churches, if you may so call the miserable wooden buildings, differing little from barns of your happy land!" Austria, happy land!! How enthusiastic, too, is another Bishop, who writes, "we cannot sufficiently praise our good Emperor (of Austria) were we to extol him in the third heaven!" Such are the political partialities which are discovered in various parts of these documents. Are they in favor of our republican darkness, and heathenism, and misery, or of Austrian light, and piety and happiness?
In the struggles of the European people for their liberty, do these foreign teachers sympathize with the oppressor or with the oppressed? "France no more helps us." (Charles X., 1824-1830, had just been dethroned,) "and Rome, beset by enemies to the church and public order, is not in a condition to help us." And who are these men stigmatized as enemies of public order? They are the Italian patriots of the Revolution of 1831, than whom our own country in the perils of its own Revolution did not produce men more courageous, more firm, more wise, more tolerant, more patriotic; men who had freed their country from the bonds of despotism in a struggle almost bloodless, for the people were with them; men who, in the spirit of American patriots, were organizing a free government; rectifying the abuses of Papal misrule, and who, in the few weeks of their power, had accomplished years of benefit. These are the men afterwards dragged to death, or to prison by Austrian intruders, and styled by our Jesuits, enemies of public order! Austria herself uses the self-same terms to stigmatize those who resist oppression.
I will notice one extract more, to which I would call the special attention of my readers. It is from one of the reports of the society in Lyons, which society had the principal management of American missions under Charles X. When this bigoted monarch was dethroned, and liberal principles reigned in France, the society so languished that Austria took the design more completely into their own hands, and through the Leopold Foundation she has the enterprise now under her more immediate guardianship.
"Our beloved king (Charles X.) has given the society his protection, and has enrolled his name as a subscriber. Our society has also made rapid progress in the neighboring states of Piedmont and Savoy. The pious rulers of those lands, and the chief ecclesiastics, have given it a friendly reception."
Charles X., be it noticed, and the despotic rulers of Piedmont and Savoy, took a special interest in this American enterprise. The report goes on to say - "Who can doubt that an institution which has a purely spiritual aim, whose only object is the conversion of souls, desires nothing less than to make whole nations, on whom the light of faith has hitherto not shined, partakers of the knowledge of the gospel; an institution solemnly sanctioned by the supreme head of the church: which, as we have already remarked, enjoys the protection of our pious monarch, the support of archbishops and bishops; and institution established in a city under the inspection of officers, at whose head stands the great almoner (one who dispenses alms for another), and which numbers among its members, men alike honorable for their rank in church and state; an institution of which his excellency the minister of church affairs, lately said, in his place in the Chamber of Deputies, that, independent of its purely spiritual design, IT WAS OF GREAT POLITICAL INTEREST."
Observe that great pains are here taken to impress upon the public mind the purely spiritual aim, the purely spiritual design of the society, and yet one of the French ministers, in the Chamber of Deputies, states directly that it has another design, and that it was of "GREAT POLITICAL INTEREST."
He gives some of these political objects - "because it planted the French name in distant countries, caused it, by the mild influence of our missionaries, to be loved and honored, and thus opened to our trade and industry useful channels," etc. Now if some political effects are already avowed as intended to be produced by this society, and that too, immediately after reiterating its purely spiritual design, why may not that particular effect be also intended, of far more importance to the interests of despotism, namely, the subversion of our Republican institutions?
Chapter VIII .. p. 83
Some of the means by which Jesuits can already operate politically in the country - By mob discipline - By priest police - Its great danger - Already established - Proofs - Priests already rule the mob - Nothing in the principles of Popery to prevent its interference in our elections - Popery interferes at the present day in the political concerns of other countries - Popery the same in our country - It interferes in our elections - In Michigan - In Charleston, S.C. - In New York - Popery a political despotism cloaked under the name of Religion - It is Church and State embodied - Its character at head-quarters in Italy - Its political character stripped of its religious cloak.
Chapter VIII
But some of my readers, notwithstanding they may be convinced that it is for the interest of despotism to subvert our institutions, and are even persuaded that this grand enterprise has been actually undertaken, may be inclined to ask in what manner can the despots of Europe effect, by means of Popish emissaries, anything in this country to counteract the influence of our liberal institutions? In what way can they operate here?
With the necessity existing of doing something from the instinct of self-preservation, to check the influence of our free institutions on Europe, with the funds provided, and agents on the spot interested in their plans, one would think it needed but little sagacity to find modes and opportunities of operating, especially too, when such vulnerable points as I have exposed, (and there are many more which I have not brought forward,) invite attack.
To any such inquirers, let me say, there are many ways in which a body organized as are the Catholics, and moving in concert, might disturb (to use the mildest term) the good order of the republic, and thus compel us to present to observing Europe the spectacle of republican anarchy. Who is not aware that a great portion of that stuff which composes a mob, ripe for riot or excess of any kind and of which we have every week or two, a fresh example in some part of the country, is a Catholic [800] population; and what makes it turbulent? Ignorance, an ignorance which it is for the interest of its leaders not to enlighten; for enlighten a man and he will think of himself, and have some self-respect; he will understand the laws and know his interest in obeying them. Keep him in ignorance, and he is the slave of the man who will flatter his passions and appetites, or awe him by superstitious fears. Against the outbreakings of such men, society, as it is constituted on our free system, can protect itself only in one of two ways: it must either bring these men under the influence and control of a sound republican and religious education, or it must call in the aid of the priests who govern them, and who may permit, and direct, or restrain their turbulence, in accordance with what they may judge at any particular time to be the interest of the church. Yes, be it well remarked, the same hands that can, whenever it suits their interest, restrain, can also, at the proper time, "let slip the dogs of war." In this mode of restraint by a police of priests, by substituting the ecclesiastical for the civil power, the priest-led mobs of Portugal and Spain, and South America, are instructive examples. And start not, American reader, this kind of police is already established in our country! We have had mobs again and again, which neither the civil nor military power have availed any thing to quell, until the magic `peace, be still' of the Catholic priest has hushed the winds, and calmed the waves of popular tumult.[820] While I write, what mean the negotiations, between two Irish bands of emigrants, in hostile array against each other, shedding each other's blood upon our soil, settling with the bayonet miserable foreign feuds which they have brought over the waters with them? Why have not the civil and military power been able to restore order among them, and obedience to our laws, without calling in the priests to negotiate and settle the terms on which they will cease from violating our laws![840] Have the priests become necessary in our political system? Have the emissaries of a foreign despotic power stolen this march upon us? Can they tell their foreign masters, "we already rule the mob?" Yes, and facts will bear them out in their boasting.[860]
And what now prevents the interference of Catholics as a sect directly in the political elections of the country? They are organized under their priests: Is there anything in their religious principles to restrain them? Do not Catholics of the present day use the bonds of religious union to effect political objects in other countries? Did not the Pope interfere in Poland in the late revolution, and through the priests command submission to the tyranny of the Czar. At the moment I am writing, are not monks and priests leaders in the field of battle in Spain; in Portugal? Is not the Pope encouraging the troops of Don Miguel, and exciting priests and people to arms in a civil contest? Has Popery abandoned its ever busy meddling in the politics of the countries where it obtains a foothold?[870]
Will it be said, that however officious in the old countries, yet here, by some strange metamorphosis, Popery has changed its character, and is modified by our institutions; that here it is surely religious, seeking only the religious welfare of the people, that it does not meddle with the state?[880] It is not true that Popery meddles not with the politics of the country. The cloven foot has already shown itself. Popery is organized at the elections! For example: In Michigan the Bishop Richard, a Jesuit, (since deceased,) was several times chosen delegate to Congress from the Territory, the majority of the people being Catholics. As Protestants became more numerous, the contest between the bishop and his Protestant rival was more and more close, until at length by the increase of Protestant immigration the latter triumphed. The bishop, in order to detect any delinquency in his flock at the polls, had his ticket printed on colored paper; whether any were so mutinous as not to vote according to orders, or what penance was inflicted for disobedience, I did not learn. The fact of such a truly Jesuitical mode of espionage I have from a gentleman resident at that time in Detroit. Is not a fact like this of some importance? Does it not show that Popery, with all its speciousness, is the same here as elsewhere; it manifests, when it has the opportunity, its genuine disposition to use spiritual power for the promotion of its temporal ambition. It uses its ecclesiastical weapons to control an election.
In Charleston, S.C., the Roman Catholic Bishop England is said to have boasted of the number of votes that he could control at an election. I have been informed, on authority which cannot be doubted that in New York, a priest, in a late election for city officers, stopped his congregation after mass on Sunday and urged the electors not to vote for a particular candidate, on the ground of his being an anti-Catholic; the result was the election of the Catholic candidate.
It is unnecessary to multiply facts of this nature nor will it be objected that these instances are unworthy of notice, because of their local or circumscribed character. Surely American Protestants, freemen, have discernment enough to discover beneath them the cloven foot of this subtle foreign heresy, and will not wait for a more extensive, disastrous, and overwhelming political interference, ere they assume the attitude of watchfulness and defence. They will see that Popery is now, what it has ever been, a system of the darkest political intrigue and despotism, cloaking itself to avoid attack under the sacred name of religion. They will be deeply impressed with the truth, that Popery is a political as well as a religious system; that in this respect it differs totally from all other sects, from all other forms of religion in the country? Popery embodies in itself THE CLOSEST UNION OF CHURCH AND STATE. Observe it at the fountain head. In the Roman States the civil and ecclesiastical offices are blended together in the same individual. The Pope is the King. A Cardinal is Secretary of State. The Consistory of Cardinals is the Cabinet Council, the Ministry, and they are Viceroys in the provinces. The Archbishops are Ambassadors to foreign courts. The Bishops are Judges and Magistrates, and the road to preferment to most if not all the great offices of State is through the priesthood. In Rome and the patrimony of St. Peter the temporal and spiritual powers are so closely united in the same individual, that no attack can be made on any temporal misrule, without drawing down upon the assailants the vengeance of the spiritual power exercised by the same individual. Is the Judge corrupt or oppressive; and do the people rise against him, the Judge retires into the Bishop, and in his sacred retreat cries "Touch not the Lord's anointed."
Can we not discern the political character of Popery? Shall the name of Religion, artfully connected with it, still blind our eyes? Let us suppose a body of men to combine together, and claim as their right, that all public and private property, of whatever kind, is held at their disposal; that they alone are to judge of their own right to dispose of it; that they alone are authorized to think or speak on the subject; that they who speak or write in opposition to them are traitors, and must be put to death; that all temporal power is secondary to theirs and amenable to their superior and infallible judgment; and the better to hide the presumption of these tyrannical claims, suppose that these men should pretend to divine right and call their system Religion, and so claim the protection of our laws, and pleading conscience, demand to be tolerated. Would the name of Religion be a cloak sufficiently thick to hide such absurdity, and shield it from the frown of public indignation? Take then from Popery its name of Religion, strip its officers of their pompous titles of sacredness, and its decrees of the nauseous cant of piety,[890], and what have you remaining? Is it not a naked, odious Despotism, depending for its strength on the observance of the strictest military discipline in its ranks, from the Pope, through his Cardinals, Archbishops, Bishops, etc., down to the lowest priest of his dominions? And is not this despotism acting politically in this country?
Let us suppose, for the sake of illustration, that the Emperor of Russia, in a conceited dream of divine right to universal empire, should parcel out our country into convenient districts, and should proclaim his intention to exercise his rightful sway over these States, now not owning his control. Should we not justly laugh at his ridiculous pretensions? But suppose he should proceed to appoint his Viceroys, Grand Imperial Dukes, giving to one the title of "his Grace of Albany" to another the "Grand Duke of Washington," and to another "his Imperial Highness of Savannah," and should send them out to take possession of their districts, and subdue the people as fast as practicable to their proper obedience to his legitimate sway. And should these pompous Viceroys, with their train of sub-officers, actually come from Russia, and erect their government houses, and commence by compliant manners and fair promises to procure lands and rental to hold in the power of the Emperor, and under the guise of educating the rising generation should begin to sap the foundations of their attachment to this government, by blinding their reasoning faculties, and by the Russian catechism instilling the doctrine of passive obedience and the divine right of the Emperor, what should we say to all this? Ridiculous as the first conceited dream of imperial ambition appeared, if matters got to this pass, we should begin to think that there was something serious in the attempt, and very properly too, be a little alarmed. Suppose then further that the Emperor's cause, by Russian emigration, and the money supplied by the Emperor, had become so strong that the Viceroys were emboldened in a cautious way, to try their influence upon some of the local elections, that the Russian party had become a body somewhat formidable, that its foreign leaders had their passive obedience troops, so well under command as to make themselves necessary in the police of the country, that we feared to offend them, that the secular press favored them; [894] and the unprincipled courted them; to what point then, in the process of gradually surrendering our liberties to the Russian Czar, should we have come; and how near to their accomplishment would be those wild dreams of imperial ambition, which we had in the first instance ridiculed?
And is this a caricature? What is the difference between the real claims, and efforts, and condition of Popery at this very moment in these United States, and the support claims, and efforts, and condition of the Russian despotism? The one comes disguised under the name of Religion, the other, more honest and more harmless, would come in its real political name. Give the latter the name of Religion, call the emperor, Pope, and his Viceroys, Bishops, interlard the imperial decrees with pious cant (??), and you have the case of pretension, and intrigue, and success too which has actually passed in these United States! Yes, the King of Rome, acting by the promptings of the Austrian Cabinet, and in the plenitude of his usurpation, has already extended his scepter over our land, he has divided us up into `provinces, and appointed his Viceroys who claim their jurisdiction, [896] from a higher power than exists in this country, even from his majesty himself, who appoints them, who removes them at will, to whom they owe allegiance, for the extension of whose temporal kingdom they are exerting themselves, and whose success let it be indelibly impressed on your minds, is the certain destruction of the free institutions of our country.
Chapter IX .. p. 95
Evidence enough of conspiracy adduced to create great alarm - The cause of liberty universally demands that we should awake to a sense of danger - An attack is made which is to try the moral strength of the Republic - The mode of defence that might be consistently recommended by Austrian Popery - A mode now in actual operation in Europe - Contrary to the entire spirit of American Protestantism - True mode of defence - Popery must be opposed by antagonist institutions - Ignorance must be dispelled - Popular enemy of general education - Popish efforts to spread education in the United States delusive.
Chapter IX
Is not the evidence I have exhibited in my previous numbers sufficiently strong to prove to my countrymen the existence of a foreign conspiracy against the liberties of the country? Does the nature of the case admit of stronger evidence? or must we wait for some positive, undisguised acts of oppression, before we will believe that we are attacked and in danger? Must we wait for a formal declaration of war? The serpent has already commenced his coil about our limbs, and the lethargy of his poison is creeping over us; shall we be more sensible of the torpor when it has fastened upon our vitals? The house is on fire; can we not believe it, till the flames have touched our flesh? Is not the enemy already organized in the land? Can we not perceive all around us the evidence of his presence? Have not the wily maneuverings of despotism already commenced? Is he not intriguing with the press. Is he not usurping the police of the country, and showing his front in our political councils? Because no foe is on the sea, no hostile armies on our plains, may we sleep securely? Shall we watch only on the outer walls, while the sappers and miners of foreign despots are at work under our feet, and stealthily advancing beneath the very citadel? Where is that unvarying vigilance which the eloquent Burke proclaimed to be the characteristic of our fathers, who did not wait to feel oppression, but "augured misgovernment at a distance, and snuffed the approach of tyranny in every tainted breeze?" Are we their sons, and shall we sleep on our posts? We may sleep, but the enemy is awake; he is straining every nerve to possess himself of our fair land. We must awake, or we are lost. Foundations are attacked, fundamental principles are threatened, interests are put in jeopardy, which throw all the questions which now agitate the councils of the country into the shade. It is Liberty itself that is in danger, not the liberty of a single state, no, nor of the United States, but the liberty of the world. Yes, it is the world that has its anxious eyes upon us; it is the world that cries to us in the agony of its struggles against despotism, THE WORLD EXPECTS AMERICA, REPUBLICAN AMERICA, TO DO HER DUTY.
Our institutions have already withstood many assaults from within and from without, but the war has now assumed a new shape. An effort is now (in the) making that is to try the MORAL STRENGTH of the Republic. It is not a physical contest on the land, or on the water. The issue depends not on the strength of our armies or navies. How then shall we defend ourselves from this new, this subtle attack?
"Defend yourselves!" cries the Austrian papist, "you cannot defend yourselves;" your government, in its very nature, is not strong enough to protect you against foreign or domestic conspiracy. You must here take a lesson from legitimate government. [CIAS comment: Someone please translate this for our president and presidential candidates!] We alone can teach the effectual method of suppressing conspiracies. You say you have a body of conspirators against your liberties, a body of foreigners who are spreading their pernicious heresies through your land, and endangering the state. The weakness of republicanism is now manifest. What constitutional or legal provision meets the difficulty? Were are your laws prohibiting Catholics from preaching or teaching their doctrines, and erecting their chapels, churches, and schools? Where is your Passport system, to enable you to know the movements of every man of them in the land? Where is your Gens d'armerie, your armed police, those useful agents, whose domiciliary visits could ferret out every Catholic, seize and examine his papers, and keep him from further mischief in the dungeons of the state? Where are your laws that can terrify, by the penalty of imprisonment, any man that dares to utter an opinion against the government? Where is your judicious censorship of the press, to silence the Catholic journals, and stifle any Catholic sentiments in other journals? Where is your Index expurgatorius, to denounce all unsafe books, that no Catholic book may be printed or admitted into the country? Where is your system of espionage, that no Protestant may read a Catholic publication, or express in conversation a single sentiment unfavorable to Protestantism, without being overlooked, and overheard by some faithful spy, and reported to the government? Where are the officers in your post-office department for the secret examination of letters, so that even the most confidential correspondence may be purified from dangerous heresy? Where is your secret Inquisitorial Court for the trial and condemnation of apostate Protestants? Without these changes in the constitution and laws of your government, you can oppose no efficient obstacle to the success of this conspiracy.
And what shall I reply to this consistent Papist? The methods he would prescribe have the sanction of successful experiment for some centuries. They are in sober truth the very means that Popery employs at this very day, in the countries where it is dominant, to prevent the spread of opinions contrary to its own dogmas.
But are these the methods that commend themselves to American Protestants? Does not such a cambrous machinery of chains, and bolts, and bayonets, and soldiers, to hold the mind in bondage, seem rather a dream of the dark ages, than a real system, now in actual operation in the nineteenth century (or now in the 21st Century - for Rome never changes)? Away with Austrian and Popish precedent. American Protestantism [CIAS: is asleep and aligns itself and is in a love relationship with Romish Catholicism] is [was] of a different school. It needs none of the aids which are indispensable to the crumbling despotisms of Europe; no soldiers, no restrictive enactments, no index expurgatorius, no Inquisition. This war is the war of principles; it is on the open field of free discussion; and the victory is to be won by the exercise of moral energy, by the force of Religious and Political Truth. But still it is a war, and all true patriots must wake to the cry of danger. They must step up, and gird themselves for battle. It is no false alarm. Our liberties are in danger. The Philistines are upon us. Their bonds are prepared, and they intend, if they can, to fasten them upon our limbs. We must shake off our lethargy [and come back to the truth of the Bible], and like the giant awaking from his sleep, snap these shackles asunder. We are attacked in vulnerable points by foreign enemies to all liberty. We must no longer indulge a quiet complacency in our institutions, as if there were a charm in the simple name of American liberty sufficiently potent to repel all invasion. For what constitutes the life of our justly cherished institutions? Where is the living principle that sustains them? Is it in the air we breathe? Is it in the soil we cultivate? Is our air or our soil more congenial to liberty than the air and soil of Austria, or Italy, or Spain? No! The life of our institutions! It is a moral and intellectual life; it lies in the culture of the human mind and heart, of the reason and conscience; it is bound up in principles which must be taught by father to son, from generation to generation, with care, with toil, with sacrifice. Hide the Bible for fifty years - (we will not ask for the hundred years so graciously granted by the autocrat to stifle liberty) - hide the Bible for 50 years [CIAS: which is going on now and has been for a while] and let our children be under the guidance of men, whose first exercise upon the youthful mind is to teach that lesson of old school sophistry, which distorts it forever, and binds it through life in bonds of error to the dictation of a man; a man whom, in the same exercise of distorted reason, he is persuaded to believe infallible; let these Jesuit doctors take the place of our Protestant instructors, and where will be the political institutions of our country? Fifty years would amply suffice to give the victory to the despotic principle, and realize the most sanguine wishes of the tyrants of Europe.
The first thing to be done to secure safety, is to open our eyes at once to the reality and the extent of the danger. We must not walk on blindly, crying "all's well." The enemy is in all our borders. He has spread himself through all the land. The ramifications of this foreign plot are everywhere visible to all who will open their eyes. Surprising and unwelcome as is such an announcement, we must hear it and regard it. We must make AN IMMEDIATE, A VIGOROUS, A UNITED, A PERSEVERING EFFORT TO SPREAD (true Bible faith) RELIGIOUS AND INTELLECTUAL CULTIVATION THROUGH EVERY PART OF OUR COUNTRY. Not a village, nor a log-hut of the land should be overlooked. Where Popery has put darkness, we must put light.
Where Popery has put darkness, we must put light. Where Popery has planted its crosses, its colleges, its churches, its chapels, its nunneries, Protestant patriotism must put side by side college for college, seminary for seminary, church for church. ... We must send our hundreds of thousands, aye our millions (of dollars), if necessary, to redeem our children from the double bondage of spiritual and temporal slavery, and preserve to them American light and liberty. The food of Popery is ignorance. Ignorance is the mother of Papal devotion. Ignorance is the legitimate prey of Popery. - But some one here asks, are not the Roman Catholics establishing schools and colleges, and seminaries of various kinds, in the destitute parts of the land? Are not they also zealous for education? May we not safely assist them in their endeavors to enlighten the ignorant? Enlighten the ignorant? Does Popery enlighten the ignorant of Spain, of Portugal, of Italy, of Ireland, of South America, of Canada? What sort of instruction is that, in the latter country, for example, which leaves 78,000 out of 87,000 of its own grown up scholars signers of a petition by their mark, unable to write their own names, and many of the remaining signers, who write nothing but their names. What sort of light is that which generates darkness? Popery enlighten the ignorant? Popery is the natural enemy of General education. Do you ask for proof? It is overwhelming. Look at the intellectual condition of all the countries where Popery is dominant. If Popery is in favor of general education, why are the great mass of the people, in the papal countries I have named, the most ill-informed, mentally degraded beings of all the civilized world, arbitrarily shut out by law from all knowledge but that which makes them slaves to the tyranny of their oppressors? No! look well to it! If Popery in this country is professing friendship to general knowledge, it is a feigned alliance. If it pretends to be in favor of educating the poor, it is a false pretence, it is only temporizing. It is conforming for the present, from policy to the spirit of Protestantism around it, that it may forge its chains with less suspicion. If it is establishing schools, it is to make them prisons of the youthful intellect of the country. If the Papists in Europe are really desirous of enlightening ignorant Americans, by establishing schools, let them make their first efforts among their brethren of the same faith in Canada and Mexico. - Do our fellow citizens at the South and West ask for schools, and are there not funds and teachers enough in our own land of wealth and education to train up our own offspring in the free principles of our own institutions? or are we indeed so beggared as to be dependent on the charities of the Holy Alliance, and the Jesuits of Europe for funds and teachers to educate our youth - in what? The Principles of Despotism? Forbid it patriotism? Forbid it religion! - Our own means are sufficient; we have wealth enough, and teachers in abundance. We have only to will it with the resolution and the zeal that have so often been shown, whenever great national, or moral interests are to be subserved, and every fortress, every corps of Austrian darkness would be surrounded: the lighted torches of truth, political and religious, would flash their unwelcome beams into every secret chamber of the enemies of our liberty, and drive these ill-omened birds of a foreign nest to their native hiding-place."
Chapter X .. p. 105
All classes of citizens interested in resisting the efforts of Popery - The unnatural alliance of Popery and Democracy exposed - Religious liberty in danger - Specially in the keeping of the Christian community - They must rally for its defence - The secular press has no sympathy with Protestants; in this struggle it is opposed to them - The Political character of Popery ever to be kept in mind and opposed - It is for the Papist not the Protestant to separate his religious from his political creed - Papists ought to be required publicly and formally and officially to renounce foreign allegiance and anti- |
Does this heading, `The first impressions of the improbability of a Foreign conspiracy considered,' seem singular? What, it will be said, is it at all probable that any nation or combination of nations, can entertain designs against us, a people so peaceable, and at the same time so distant? Knowing the daily increasing resources of this country in all the means of defence against foreign aggression, how absurd in the nations abroad to dream of conquest on this soil? Let me, nevertheless, ask attention, which I humbly offer my reasons for believing that a conspiracy exists, that it plans are already in operation, and that we are attacked in a vulnerable quarter which cannot be defended by our ships, or forts, or our armies.
The Pope has given it his apostolic benediction, and "His Royal Highness, Ferdinand V. (1830-1848), King of Hungary, and Crown Prince of the other hereditary states, has been most graciously pleased, prompted by a piety worthy of the exalted title of an apostolic king, to accept the office of Protector of the Leopold Foundation." Now in the present state of the war of principles in Europe, is not a society formed avowedly to act upon this country, originating in the dominions of a despot, and holding its secret councils in his capital, calculated to excite suspicion? Is it credible that a society got up under the auspices of the Austrian government, under the superintendence of its chief officers of state, supplying with funds a numerous body of Jesuit emissaries who are organizing themselves in all our borders, actively passing and re-passing between Europe and America; is it credible, I say, that such a society has for its object purely a religious reform? Is it credible that the manufacturers of chains for binding liberty in Europe, have suddenly become benevolently concerned only for the religious welfare of this republican people? If this Society be solely for the propagation of the Catholic faith, one would think that Rome, and not Vienna should be its headquarters! that the Pope, not the Emperor of Austria, should be its grand patron! It must be allowed that this should be a subject of general and absorbing interest. If despotism has devised a scheme for operating against its antagonist principle in this country, the strong hold, the very citadel of freedom, it becomes us to look about us. It is high time that we awake to the apprehension of danger. I propose to show, why I believe this ostensibly religious society covers other designs than religious.
In documents thus prepared by Jesuits, (the most wary order of ecclesiastics,) to draw forth more liberal supplies of money from abroad, and then submitted to the revision of the most cautious cabinet of Europe, that so much only may be published as will attain, their object in the Austrian dominions, while all that might excite suspicion in the United States is concealed, we must expect to find great care to avoid any unnecessary exposure of covert political designs. The evidence therefore of a concerted political attack upon our institutions, which I conceive to lurk under the sudden and extraordinary zeal of Austria for the religious welfare of the United States, will not depend altogether on the information derived from these documents. Such an attack is what might be expected from the present political attitude of the European nations, in regard to the principles of despotism and liberty; from the powerful and unavoidable effect which our institutions exert in favor of the popular principle; and also from the known political character of Austria.
Abject principles of Popery illustrated from the Russian Catechism - Protestantism from its birth in favor of Liberty - Luther on the 4th of July attacks - the presumptuous claim of divine right - Despotism and Popery united against liberty of conscience, liberty of opinion and liberty of the press - The anti-republican declarations of the present Pope Pius VIII. (1830/31-1846)
He claims, and attempts the exercise of this plentitude of power and asserts his divine right. The document I quote is fresh from the Vatican, scarce four months old, a document in which the Pope interferes directly in the political affairs of Portugal against Don Pedro IV. (1826, Maria II. 1826-1853) "How can there be unity in the body," says the Pope, "when the members are not united to the head and do not obey it? And how can this union and obedience be maintained in a country where they drive from their sees the bishops, legitimately instituted by Him to whom it appertains to assign pastors to all the vacant churches, because the DIVINE RIGHT grants to Him alone the primacy of jurisdiction and the plentitude of power." [350] The [Russian] Catholic catechism now taught by Catholic priests to the Poles in all the schools of Poland, and published by special order at Wilna (Vilnius, ca. 25.3° & 54.3°), 1832, is very conclusive of the character of Catholic doctrine. The following questions and answers are propounded: