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 CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 GIFT OF 
 
 L. D. Saisco 
 
Cornell University Library 
 JK2341.A7 1856 .C31 
 
 The great American battle; 
 
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 1924 030 484 848 
 
The original of this book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
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 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
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 'The Woman that Saved the Union.'' See page 249. 
 
THE 
 
 GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE; 
 
 OR, THE CONTEST BETWEEN 
 
 CHRISTIANITY AND POLITICAL ROMANISM. 
 
 BY 
 
 ANNA ELLA CARROLL, 
 
 OF MARYLAND. 
 
 " The name of America must always exalt the just pride of patriotism." 
 
 Washington's Farewell Address. 
 
 NEW YORK AND AUBURN: 
 MILLER, ORTON & MULLIGAN. 
 
 New York : 25 Park Row.— Atodhn : 107 Genesee St. 
 
 1856. 
 ,6 
 
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year One Thousand Eight Hundred 
 and Fifty-six, by 
 
 FREDERICK S. WINSTON, 
 
 In the Clerk s Office of the Dit-trict Court for the Southern District uf New York. 
 
 E. 0. JENKINS, 
 
 ^rinttr sub Stir eof g jjjtr , 
 
 No. 2(J Feankjoet Steekt. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 " 0, Bay I does the Star -Spangled Banner yot wave, 
 O'or the Land of the Froo and the Home of tho Brave?" 
 
 What a burst of life and principle does the very name of America 
 introduce I — bubbling with ever-springing sap, and glorying in the 
 fact that her anatomy is before us. 
 
 The land for which generation after generation have spent their 
 substance, their energy, and their virtue — which contains the 
 bones of their dead, who died for it — their savings and their nour- 
 ishment. 
 
 And when influences deep, palpable, and universal, are striving 
 with marked celerity to arrest her chief work, it is not wonderful 
 she should feel it. Glorious movement, what heart shall not re- 
 spond to it 1 The hand that guides this light is a Divine one — it is 
 none other than the hand of God. 
 
 America has done, and is doing, the world's work, in establishing 
 the only true principles of liberty the world has ever known. If 
 she is thus important to universal man, how much more so to 
 America ? Alone with her blood she has watered the tree that she 
 planted ; and it has flourished because of its closeness to the root 
 from which it sprouted. 
 
 Our lives, our country, our homes, our hearts — this sympathy 
 and love constitute the genius, the wealth, and the strength of 
 America. 
 
 (si 
 
IV PEEFACE. 
 
 She will never be pardoned for the exhibition of this sparkling 
 liberty, which attempts to give the world freedom. She started 
 with blood-stained energy, and incorruptible virtue, and must be 
 solid and constant as the globe. For Americans the first country 
 must be America — the second, America — all, America ! Our first 
 and last motto is, Hope ! 
 
 The balanced moment has come, and in the language of expiring 
 faith, let us call out for light, more light, Lord. We are sustain- 
 ing the greatest weight ever laid on human life. And who that 
 has caught but the feeblest ray of this liberty is willing to re- 
 nounce it ? 
 
 The American spirit must imbue the American sentiment, and 
 the goal should be fixed before the starting-point is taken, by all 
 who press American soil. To give life and durability, which shall 
 implant, by education, the country in the heart of the child, is the 
 means at America's command for her salvation. And America, to 
 be saved thus, must be saved in her infancy. Before the child in- 
 creases and enlarges, it must exist. This is the inspiration of the 
 American mind ; and believing God had raised this independent 
 Nation upon which to foster his own glorious Truth, let man from 
 his birth recognize Him in his own beloved country. Who by 
 origin and adoption is in her — is of her — is enshrined in her, must 
 live and die in her. 
 
 America has a mission to teach the world, in her language, her 
 history, and her laws. Her great heart and soul were found in a 
 feeble body, which gave it independence — it was the instinct, the 
 inspiration, the energy, which made the heroes of our liberties. 
 
 No mere formulas, religious or political, can bind America — we 
 can, without spade, or mattock, or pick, lay her bare to her found- 
 ations — and, alive, or concealed in the coffins or charnel-houses, and 
 in the bones of the dead, faithfulness to the Constitution and laws 
 which seal our liberties, may be found inscribed. The brave deeds 
 of our fathers speak to us — the thought of freedom is in their 
 blood. 
 
PREFACE. V 
 
 The power of sacrifice was the spirit which carried them to tri- 
 umph ; and all that concrete living spirit yet survives. No Gor- 
 dian knot, consecrated by absurdity did they fearj£_dweuss ; no 
 problems of political sages escaped their logi<v'"lt was the heroism 
 of inspiration which led them to love our' country ; and American 
 patriotism would survive were it engulfed in the bosom of despot- 
 ism — the soul of America and Americans is an instinct which can 
 never perish. 
 
 For the first time I appear before the public. As a woman, I 
 shrink with timidity and distrust. I have no affiliations with any 
 principles which place her in a sphere at variance with that refined 
 delicacy to which she is assigned by Nature. I have no aspirations 
 to extend her influence or position. And from the Press, the accom- 
 plished and enlightened Editorial Corps of the country, who are 
 assured I have no political, religious, or personal animosities to 
 resent, I bespeak kindness, generosity, courtesy, and forbearance. 
 
 In my friends, who are distinguished by associations with all par- 
 ties, and sects, and creeds, I have all confidence that, however 
 much they may differ, they will neither resent nor grow cold. 
 
 Connected as I am with those holding the Roman Catholic as well 
 as Protestant faith, who came to this land to enjoy fortune and not to 
 seek it ; alike imbued with the spirit and instinct of Liberty, which 
 led them to take refuge under our Institutions, which they assisted 
 to perpetuate — it would not be consonant with reason or taste to 
 arraign them ! — and though myself a Protestant, communing, in 
 the faith of Protestants, with our common Eedeemer, I honor that 
 paternal ancestry, of which I in common descended, with the anriV 
 ble, distinguished, and worthy Archbishop who bore my name, the 
 first in the United States, and one of the heroic signers of our Inde- 
 pendence, of which abundant proof is at hand. Yet it is not with 
 my family relations, Protestant or Catholic, with which the public 
 feel interest or concern ; but only in the merits or importance of 
 the subjects discussed. And when I reflect upon America's great 
 end and errand, and see the necessity of passing through the domain 
 
VI PREFACE. 
 
 of equilibration, to avail ourselves of the thought which must pene- 
 trate and burn, if we wish to perpetuate our freedom, I feel that the 
 truth and earnestness which have brought out the American party, 
 will make it pardonable in all eyes to plead for the Protestant 
 Institutions, which shall foster, sustain, and cherish the principles 
 of liberty and the free government of the United States of America 
 as an incomparable blessing, to whose allegiance, in spirit and in 
 truth, the American only feels and acknowledges responsibility. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 TO THE AMERICAN PUBLIC : 
 
 By a Friend of the Authoress. 
 
 Byron, on the eve of the war of Greece, says : "It is time to 
 act ; and what signifies self, if a single spark of that genius which 
 would be worthy of the past can be bequeathed unquenchably to 
 the future ? It is not one man, nor a million, but the spirit of 
 liberty which must be spread." 
 
 It is this spirit which breasted the Straits of Thermopylae ; it is 
 this which nerved the arm of Tell, when, with his unerring bow, he 
 shot off the apple, and reserved the remaining arrow for Geisler, the 
 tyrant of his country ; it is this which gathered the little band in 
 the Mayflower, and planted them on the eternal rock of Plymouth ; 
 it is this which moved, like the waves of the sea, the breasts of the 
 colonists, and unsheathed the sword of Washington ; it is this 
 which planted the " Eagle" over the " Cross of St. George," and 
 made the " Lion and the Unicorn" crouch beneath the " Stars and 
 Stripes ;" it is the same spirit that now animates their Protestant 
 descendants, and which says to the encroachments of the Papacy, 
 " Pass not the Rubicon which guards the portals of Freedom from 
 the tread of Despotism. We know you — well painted in the 
 
VU1 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Apocalypse— you have the face of a man, but the hoofs and horns 
 of a ' dragon.' " And yet this " dragon" is here ; his presence is 
 felt ; his breath is diffusing its poison ; his touch has wounded, and 
 already partially withered our schools, the ballot-box, and the 
 Bible. "Why is this ? Is Freedom less dear than when it first 
 lifted its banner in 1776? But the spirit of party reigns— the 
 power of the Papal priesthood is invoked, and the votes of the nu- 
 merous subjects of the Pope are demanded for aspirants for office. 
 Is it not an anomaly — is it not one of the most singular facts in 
 this Protestant free country, that there can be found an individual 
 who professes to be a Protestant, whatever the party bias or edu- 
 cation may be, that can barter the true principles of American 
 Liberty for priestly influence or Papal despotism ? To prevent so 
 baneful an evil, we must have an independent and patriotic Press, 
 and books of the right American stamp. And we rejoice to find 
 that the true Protestant spirit is neither apathetic nor dead. To 
 foster and invigorate this spirit, this book has been prepared ; and 
 how ought all who are born in this Protestant land of liberty, and 
 who enjoy, untrammeled by Papal tyranny and priestcraft, the light 
 of science and of Bible truth, to welcome every publication calcu- 
 lated to spread information, dissipate the clouds of mental and 
 moral darkness, and restore the poor, blinded Papists, in bondage 
 to priestcraft, to their native, orignal right of freedom of con- 
 science — freedom of Bible Eepublican independence. Thousands 
 in every section of our vast territory, and many of our statesmen 
 and active politicians, are still in the dark on the subject of Popery. 
 lbant obscuri sub node. 
 The subject of this book is no fiction. It is no evanescent tribute 
 
INTRODUCTION. IX 
 
 to a prurient taste, developing the ingenious plot of a silly 
 love-tale, decorating some imaginary hero in false colors, and by 
 the charm of its drapery, and splendor of its style, throwing a "bril- 
 liant halo around fashionable vice, to please and recreate the loung- 
 ing moments of a Custom-house clerk, or to beguile from more in- 
 structive and innocent reading a boarding-school Miss. Many of 
 the authors, especially of the modern school, may say, in the 
 words of a celebrated writer, 
 
 " Oar busy pens have lighted fools 
 The way to dusty death." 
 
 This just accusation will not apply to this book. This work is 
 founded on fact, real, historical, and of transcendent importance to 
 every citizen of this country. .The Authoress, Miss Anna Ella 
 Carroll, is a Protestant, of the family of the Carrolls of Maryland 
 being the daughter of ex-Governor Carroll, of Maryland, the history 
 of whose immediate ancestors, as well as his own, is conspicuous 
 in the annals of that State. 
 
 The Authoress has been induced, by the request of friends, in 
 view of the dangers which, at present and prospectively, surround 
 her beloved country, to write a series of chapters, conveying her 
 thoughts on various momentous subjects, addressed to America 
 and Americans, with the design to revive the memories of their 
 noble Revolutionary sires, to rekindle an emulation, to imitate their 
 virtues, to remind them of their heroic deeds, to cherish and main- 
 tain inviolate the charter of their liberties, to beware, in the lan- 
 guage of Washington's Farewell Address, of " foreign influence ;" 
 to resist the false pretensions, the artful intrigues, and bold aggres- 
 sions of the emissaries of Borne, and to transmit the magnificent 
 
X INTRODUCTION. 
 
 legacy left them by their fathers, unimpaired, to future generations. 
 
 There is nothing in this book to give the slightest offence, for it 
 is free from sectarian motives, from political or party aims, from 
 any acerbity of feeling towards Roman Catholics ; it is the system 
 of Popery against which it warns, not individuals. It is the pro- 
 duction of a young lady of refined education, and of a high order of 
 intellect. It conveys the purest lessons of ethics and of wisdom, in 
 "thoughts that breathe, and words that burn;" abounding in 
 sprightly humor, thrilling reminiscences, luminous descriptions of 
 historical incidents and character, and the most vivid and touching 
 appeals to the heart and the understanding. Inheriting the love 
 of country, the social and noble virtues, the heroic chivalry of her 
 ancestry, the authoress illustrates these traits with a pen dipped in 
 " Castalian dews," glowing with the bright colors of the rainbow, 
 and in a style of surpassing beauty and intellectual power, exhibits 
 the principles of a sound and lofty patriotism, and the most sublime 
 expositions of the rights and duties of American citizens. "Would 
 that there were a thousand such talented female pens, glowing with 
 emotions of love and devotion to their country, and throwing their 
 burning eloquence over the hearts of the fathers and mothers, the 
 sons and the daughters, to awaken the slumbering energies, and to 
 revive the exalted emotions of native, primitive patriotism. 
 
 The authoress has carefully avoided to touch upon the sectional 
 interests of North, or South, or East, or West. She surveys the 
 mighty Union of the States as being under one government, and 
 subject to the same destiny — beautifully embodied in the motto, 
 
 "H PHTBIBTTS ITNITM." 
 
 She leaves the diversified interests of the States to the supervision 
 1* 
 
INTRODUCTION. XI 
 
 and wise legislation of disinterested and magnanimous statesmen ; 
 while, with a heart of the gentlest kindness, but earnest and impres- 
 sive arguments, she advocates the cause of her whole country. In 
 the language of Miss Hannah Moore, 
 
 " Our country is a whole, 
 Of which we all are parts ; nor should a citizen 
 Began:! his interests as distinct from hers ; 
 No hopes or fears should touch his patriot soul 
 But what affects her honor or her shame." 
 
 This book is well-timed for the important crisis of our country, 
 and it enters on a precious and great mission. It is addressed to 
 all classes of readers, without distinction of name, or creed, or 
 nativity. To all lovers of their country it will be a welcome com- 
 panion and a timely mentor, and especially will it be appreciated 
 by Americans. little mind3, of unworthy and sinister aims, and a 
 Jusuitical press, may express opposition ; and so the peerless cha- 
 racter of "Washington, and the spotless fame of Hancock, were 
 assailed, but which their own shining virtues repelled at an immeas- 
 urable distance, and their virtues only appeared more conspicuous 
 by such attempts ; so this book, by its own intrinsic excellence and 
 faultless beauties, will carry the seal of its own worth and sterling 
 and unquestioned patriotism along with it wherever it is read. 
 
 We feel a pride that our Authoress has added one more literary 
 gem to works of merit ; that, amid the busy cares, the varied and 
 noisy vicissitudes, and, too often, discordant tumults of public opin- 
 ion, a star of no ordinary brightness has arisen in our firmament, to 
 shed the rays of genius over our civic landscape ; to disperse the 
 clouds that cast their ominous shadows ; to inspire with new vigor 
 
xil INTRODUCTION. 
 
 and life our countrymen, and to adorn the literary galaxy of her 
 country. Let the young men who value their privileges, and as- 
 pire to an honorable rank among the wise and good, and as patriots 
 in society, read this book, and imbibe its spirit and maxims. Let 
 the women of America, and especially the daughters, who would 
 emulate all that is lovely and matronly in the noble virtues of the 
 Mothers of the Eevolution, occupy their leisure hours, with an 
 earnest interest, over these pages, and drink in their salutary 
 lessons. 
 
 " Education," said Burke, " is the cheap defence of nations." So 
 we commend this book, as one of those happy and sterling produc- 
 tions which will illustrate the same aphorism, and throw a safe- 
 guard around the edifice of our liberties, more precious and enduring 
 than the materials of stone and brass which constitute its tempo- 
 rary and pregnable fortifications. 
 
 HOEACE GALPEN. 
 
 New Yoke, 1855. 
 
■iL^CC-e^- <^< 
 
 OF Zf.ARYJtANJ? 
 
CHAPTEE I. 
 THE WOMEN OF AMERICA. 
 
 " American "Women, be faithful and brave, 
 Tour Liberty's perilled, your Bible's to savel 
 Then the Star-spangled Banner will continue to wave, 
 O'er the Land of the Free, and the Home of the Brave." 
 
 "When America was born in the depth of the winter, 
 m the thick of snow-storm and drift, amidst poverty, 
 famine, danger, and oppression, woman hovered over 
 its destinies like a shadow, and gave freely her sacri- 
 fice, her sustenance, and her nourishment. And when 
 yet an infant in the world, who more than she should 
 come again to its succor ? when pale and ill, it needs 
 her active sympathy and her encouraging smile. The 
 blood of America was poured out for woman, her 
 home, her altar, and her fireside ; it has given its soul 
 to her, and it cannot die but with her. And as the 
 soul disappears but once from its mortality, so woman 
 but once can save America. America in eternity, is 
 in eternity forever. God has given to woman to en- 
 lighten America, and to America to light the world. 
 When night closes on all beside, America sees, and 
 
 (13) 
 
14 THE GKEAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 while God and -woman are with her, she must be in- 
 vincible to the world. 
 
 Hence, when a fearful eclipse is threatening to hide 
 her from the face of the sky, who, more than woman, 
 should interpose between the shadow and the sun? 
 And it is the high destiny of the Am erican woman 
 now to lay her hands on this young world, and save 
 it from a crisis which portends her glory or her fall. 
 Who can say it is a low lot, to put honor on that 
 country for which our mothers thought it glory to live 
 and suffer, to toil or die ? And now, when Ameri- 
 ca's religion and political regeneration are staked, does 
 woman need a rougher instruction to bind her to the 
 cause which has so pre-eminently blessed her; does 
 she want labor, or toil, or hunger, terror, or doubt, to 
 make the path of duty plain ? " The Fate of the 
 child," said Napoleon, " is the work of his mother." 
 The Fate of America is the work of America's daugh- 
 ters. On their stern virtue, their cultivated intelli- 
 gence, their faithfulness to duty, to God, and their 
 country, depend America's salvation now. 
 
 "Washington did not hesitate to ascribe to these 
 qualities of his mother, all his greatness and his tri- 
 umphs, just as the Gracchi, Coriolanus, and Napoleon 
 did. It is the spirit of the women of 76 that 
 should now circulate and diffuse like a wave over 
 the nation. Who believes, had women then been be- 
 guiled into indifference, slothfulness, misapprehension, 
 or distrust, wavering in faith to her God and duty to 
 her country, the liberties of America would ever have 
 
WOMEN OF AMERICA. 15 
 
 been achieved? "Who doubts the efficacy of that 
 energy and virtue, of those prayers and tears, of that 
 vehemence and pertinacity, which woman pressed into 
 the American cause ? With the blood of the first hero 
 which watered Bunker Hill, sprang the desire for 
 independence in every woman's heart; and loving 
 ardently what she felt so holy, she threw into our 
 revolutionary struggle her feelings, her principles, her 
 imagination, and her substance. She enkindled the 
 name which spread through all the Colonies, and carried 
 its light into the depths of the people ; and when 
 her unselfish love was seen, interposing for freedom, it 
 bound together tightly all former clashing interests — 
 it awoke the nation into life, and men saw and felt 
 liberty carved before their eyes, on the earth and in the 
 sky. Sparta, Greece, and Eome, furnish bright illus- 
 trations of woman's heroism and devotion to country, 
 but only in America has woman, enlightened by the 
 Gospel of Jesus Christ, bearing the standard of the 
 Word of God, been dignified with the true mission of 
 freedom, which is to bless the world. 
 
 Summon your resolution, said the women of Caro- 
 lina to their husbands, brothers, and sons ; yield not 
 to the fury of tyrants — hesitate not to prefer* prisons 
 to infamy ; you are martyrs to a cause most grateful 
 to Heaven — most sacred to men. Thus, teaching 
 patriots to be more than patriots, they ground all diffi- 
 culties to dust, and, in an hour of deep despair, when 
 the obtuse nature of human perception hid our fortunes 
 in a cloud, when men saw only in lumps and masses, 
 
16 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 •were blundering and quarrelling with weak vehemence 
 and superlativeness, woman appeared, as the angel of 
 hope, to the American cause, and infused a thrill of 
 joy by her deep sacrifices and her rocky faith in the 
 God of battles. Thus a new impetus was felt in the 
 whole fibre of the Colonies ; their hearts swelled, their 
 veins thickened, as the thought of freedom rushed 
 into their blood. They communed with it in their 
 eyes and in their brain; and ever after, vanquished 
 or victorious, that thought of securing it was upper- 
 most — " We were not born to die !" The same spirit 
 that the women of South Carolina displayed, blazed 
 over the nation. Women felt their mission freighted 
 Avith the weightiest convictions which encompassed 
 two worlds. Heaven and America were of God ! 
 And whilst every selfish thought was surrendered, 
 they neither sighed nor wept without meaning ; but 
 with accuracy, skill, and truth, they measured the 
 progress of the revolution, and gave their energy, their 
 sympathy, and service, when and where it was needed. 
 They followed their husbands, their fathers, and sons, 
 to the ships, the dungeon, or the battle-field; they 
 sought out American prisoners — nourished, supported, 
 and encouraged them ; and when English tyranny was 
 exercised by banishment or confiscation, they surren- 
 dered home, and comfort, and luxury, and like true 
 women followed, amidst pestilence, famine, or death 
 the fortunes of those with whom their virtuous affec- 
 tions were enshrined. " Where thou goest, I will go ■ 
 where thou diest, I will die " is an instinct in woman 
 
WOMEN OF AMERICA. 17 
 
 as clear and shining as the stars. "Eebel" was an 
 epithet in which our revolutionary mothers gloried, 
 because it illustrated the birth, growth, and omni- 
 present nature of that independence which soared to 
 the skies. After the invasion of South Carolina, a 
 visible change was palpable : the patriot women 
 grasped and appropriated those reverses, until the real 
 took the place of the impossible thoughout the South- 
 ern Provinces. 
 
 When Congress called on all the States to complete 
 their regiments, the patriot women of all the States 
 organized to cany forward the requirement. In a 
 town in Pennsylvania a regiment was furnished, armed, 
 and equipped, exclusively by women; they wrought 
 spirited inscriptions on their banners, and exhorting 
 the regiment never to dishonor their flag, dispatched 
 it for duty to the theatre of danger. There were no 
 pleasure-loving, ease-taking women of the Revolution 
 to affect sympathy in verses, to vapor and play ; but 
 delighting only in what affected the interest of the 
 soldier, or the power and sacredness of the cause, all 
 associations were eschewed, all places of amusement or 
 pastime discarded. The thought of the wounded, the 
 dying, or the dead, engrossed their lives, their souls, 
 their hearts, their activity. They suspended their 
 jewels and their valuables to give bread to. the soldier, 
 who was fighting to shield them — to make pillows or 
 graves for those who kad died for them. 
 
 In Philadelphia an organization was formed at this 
 juncture, and placing the wife of Washington at its 
 
18 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 head, these patriotic women went from house to house 
 to incite liberality to the American cause. And thus, 
 emulated by all the States, in activity and sacrifice, an 
 invaluable strength was added to the pecuniary power, 
 to facilitate and guard the machinery of war. From 
 elegance and opulence women joyously submitted to 
 penury and even beggary ; they wore the same gar- 
 ments summer and winter, often went barefooted, in 
 their self-denying spirit, to give nourishment to the 
 famished or perishing soldier. 
 
 After the battle of Cannae, won by Hannibal, the 
 victor was afraid to come down the walls of Eome. 
 The Senate called the people to sacrifice spontaneously 
 their wealth and jewels ; the women came first to do 
 it ! so true it is that patriotism is intuitively developed 
 by woman in all ages. "Woman has a high political 
 mission to fulfil in America, but it is only as a moral 
 agent — her aim is to develop the child for God and 
 his country. She implants these in the soul; and 
 whilst the morals of the country depend upon her, she 
 may be said to guard the integrity of her country. For 
 this reason she is endowed with that divine spirit of 
 love, antagonistical to selfishness. "Who, then, so fitted 
 to teach honor before gain, principle before duty, inter- 
 est before pleasure, God's work before man's work? 
 
 The Peri, excluded from Paradise, made many 
 efforts to regain it ; the sight of a dying patriot would 
 not do ; the kiss of a faithful girl on the lips of her 
 betrothed, covered over with plague, would not do- 
 but when she brought the first prayer of a man con- 
 
WOMEN OF AMERICA. 19 
 
 verted to charity and brotherly love for his oppressed 
 fellow, the door opened. And only when woman is 
 eminent for the faithful performance of every holy and 
 domestic duty, have her brave deeds and her noble 
 thoughts been properly accepted by the stronger sex ; 
 and hence in Protestant America and with a Protest- 
 ant Bible in her hand, has woman successfully, because 
 worthily, plead, and prayed, and toiled for freedom. 
 
 "We read of the heroine who defended Argos with 
 her valor, when her countrymen were slain ; of the 
 friend of Antigone, who bit off her tongue sooner than 
 betray the fortunes of her country to a political 
 enemy ; of the women of Holland in their struggle for 
 independence ; of the brave maid at the siege of Sara- 
 gossa ; but with what different emotions comes to us 
 the history of that courageous Christian mother of 
 New Jersey, who, relying on her innocence and the 
 cause which endeared her to her husband, was shot in 
 her window, surrounded by her children, who were 
 sprinkled with her blood I Self-sacrificing, self-post- 
 poning, she was solicitous only for her country, when 
 the cruel arm of a fierce Hessian of the British army, 
 aimed his bayonet at her bosom, and summoned her to 
 her God! 
 
 It is the moral, Christian, rather than maternal love, 
 to which all great and good men ascribe the influence 
 of woman — and she only evinces her native dignity, 
 and occupies her true position, as woman, when she 
 seeks and propounds man's moral and ultimate good. 
 The intellect of woman must then be cultivated — her 
 
20 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 first and last refuge is education — it is this which 
 secures respect, confidence, and appreciation, and 
 united with moral power, she becomes an arm of 
 strength to free America. When thus the country is 
 implanted in the heart of the child, the country is se- 
 cure. From the youth of America, the character of 
 American women may be learned — upon them depend 
 the fortunes of her sons, and upon her sons depends 
 America. During the long, fierce, and sanguinary 
 struggle for our liberties, not an instance is recorded 
 where a mother ever withheld a son from battle — 
 whilst thousands exist, in every section of the country, 
 showing how they were incited when they wavered. 
 And if, as we have seen, women have been once a 
 faithful auxiliary to the will of America, how much 
 greater are the incentives which should bring them 
 forward now ! 
 
 On America's great baptismal day, the Spirit of 
 God moved like- a wave over the whole nation; it was 
 Protestant America, and the Bible was the corner- 
 stone on which the mighty structure rested ; and when 
 we inquire what it is that is now shaking America, and 
 attempting to unsettle her basis, and toss her like boys 
 toss a ball, from her foundation,— the problem is 
 solved— she bears on her vast bosom the seal of the 
 Book of Life ! It is to take from her this halo of light 
 and of glory, which surrounds her, to mount the sun 
 and to rob him of his rays, to put Bome's Vicegerent 
 in the place of America's God ! Arrogant mortal, 
 thou dust before the moth, let Borne trust in thee, but 
 
WOMEN OF AMERICA. 21 
 
 the people of America must trust in the living 
 God! 
 
 Nero wished Eome's population were but a single 
 neck, that he might exterminate it at a blow ; so has 
 this Popish Hierarchy but one single aim, and that 
 is, mankind itself. 
 
 It has fomented discord, weakened and oppressed 
 America ; it has poisoned her habits, bit at her free- 
 dom, robbed her of her rights, and undermined her 
 national character. What was -the oppression of the 
 "stamp act"? — what all the consumption taxes of 
 England, which aroused America to her indefeasible 
 rights, and made her a blood-stained child, comparable 
 to the wound now made upon her heart in seeking the 
 destruction of her Bible ? And when her conscience, 
 her religion, all that survives death and the grave are 
 perilled, as well as her honor, her freedom, and her 
 nationality, what less can women do than come now to 
 reveal its vitality ? 
 
 And if the women of America have soul or eye, 
 now or never they must be the pillar of support in the 
 great moral and political revolution, which designs the 
 overthrow of Popish oppression in Protestant America ! 
 — and with a bosom thrilling with the necessities of the 
 moment, a heart filled with the purity of the feeling — 
 a mind balanced on the convictions of the great prin- 
 ciples of the Protestant Bible — in God's name, we 
 say, come ! every nail and every tack has a place in 
 the great structure of human liberty I 
 
 Unprepared because unsuspecting, the expulsion of 
 
22 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 the Bible from our institutions of education has been 
 demanded by intolerant Eome, and yielded by free 
 America. Popish prelates have come with their scis- 
 sors in their hands and lopped out before our eyes, the 
 thoughts and the arguments of American freedom — 
 every truth precious to liberty, which its founders 
 sought to carve in the mountains and hills, and on the 
 plains of America, have been maimed and murdered 
 before the youth of America ! Let woman reassure 
 America that she shall not be the nursery for Papal 
 Eome — that the will of God, and not priestcraft and 
 jugglery, shall govern the mind of America. That 
 the ground on which we stand is not slippery ground ; 
 that the soil which has drank the spirit, and been en- 
 riched by the blood of its heroes and martyrs, that has 
 been fashioned and moulded by iron implements, the 
 plough, the hoe, and the spade, cannot be blotted out 
 by the mere draft of a Papal pencil. 
 
 Our Saviour himself drove out from the halls of the 
 temple those who trod it for desecration, and shall not 
 woman be inspired with resistance, when His foes are 
 already in its vestibule ? 
 
 It is the political feature of the Church of Eome, 
 its aim to unsettle the principles of our liberties, and 
 hence to destroy them, that has agitated America 
 from centre to extreme. The graves of our fathers 
 have been slandered, an unfathomable abyss has been 
 sought to be created between the riving and the dead • 
 but though concealed in their coffins and charnel- 
 houses, they speak to us to-day, and in their thoughts, 
 
WOMEN OF AMERICA. 23 
 
 their deeds, and their blood, they disclaim the asper- 
 sion that any system, religious or political, should be 
 tolerated, that strikes at the foundation of free 
 America. 
 
 An assault on Protestantism is an assault upon our 
 liberties; when the Bible, our foundation stone, is 
 struck, how can the building stand? It was the 
 beam, the spindle, the shuttle, which warped and wove 
 our freedom. The descendants of Luther and Calvin, 
 the Puritans and Penn, came to America, to have a 
 Church without a Pope, and they made a government 
 without a throne. 
 
 Like the temple of Solomon, reared without sound 
 of hammer, has been the long and silent preparation for 
 Liberty's overthrow in Protestant America. Sweet- 
 meats, cheese, bread, butter, roast beef, and plum pud- 
 ding, have all been set at the base of our political 
 temple, to tempt the taste of Jesuitical rats, who bite, and 
 gnaw, and grow fat in undermining it : every beam, 
 every joint, every stone, and every slab, has its laborer, 
 that riveted and morticed a Popish edifice of despotism 
 and death may rise upon the ruins of free America and 
 her Protestant Bible. To hasten this vast work, Infi- 
 delity, Socialism, and Jesuitism have made equality and 
 fraternity ; every influence, foreign and domestic, has 
 been addressed, every treasury has been taxed. The 
 church, the school, the confessional, the political 
 caucus, and the American ballot-box. It has made 
 for us Legislators, Governors, and Presidents. It has 
 elevated to positions of trust, honor, and power, Jesu- 
 
24 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 itical emissaries. It has founded colleges and con- 
 vents in all the States. The cabinet, the supreme 
 bench, chaplains in our public service, foreign missions 
 and embassies, offices of honor and emolument in the 
 revenue and postal service of the country, — all ! all ! 
 have been affected by this pestilential influence. 
 
 As the captive Hon beats against his cage, does the 
 soul of woman now beat against the sworn foes of God 
 and her country. America without her Bible, her 
 Sabbath School, without God, and without woman, to 
 cherish and uphold these, would not be America. 
 She will never consent to grant to Rome's Vicegerent 
 the disposal of America's blood, and America's hu- 
 manity. She feels it a transaction between Heaven 
 and Hell, between the blessed and the damned ; and 
 only thus can be contemplated America's fall. 
 
 We have seen that the signal of our nationality was 
 the signal of Rome's irrevocable decree to crush us in 
 our might ; and commencing with the honied expres- 
 sions of the tongue and a sardonic smile upon her face, 
 she has received largely and enjoyed long our national 
 confidence and hospitality. "We remembered that it was 
 not the least of America's glory that her Roman 
 Catholic sons fought, and suffered, and perilled for her 
 liberty ; and we did not thus perceive the Jesuitism 
 which now absolutely controls the Church of Rome in 
 the United States, never had anything in common with 
 our institutions, the Declaration of our Independence 
 or our Republican government. There is an eternal 
 hostility between the principles of Washington and 
 
WOMEN OF AMERICA^ 25 
 
 the principles of Popery; between the spirit of Komish 
 priests and prelates, and that of the fathers of onr 
 Kepublic, who owned allegiance only to God, and need- 
 no intercessor but His well-beloved Son. ^h ere -were 
 no surpliced traitors, no perfidious prelates in that 
 great Convention which formed the eternal code of 
 our liberties, and wrote our everlasting principles; 
 but God-fearing, God-depending, God-trusting men, 
 of robust and manly life. It was no vulnerable, con- 
 ceited popinjay — but the spirit which had drawn light- 
 ning from the skies — who arose in that assembly, and 
 to solve doubt, and difficulty, and danger, said "let us 
 pray !" They knelt, the collected wisdom of America, 
 before the God who had given them Independence — 
 that He might guide them to a Constitution wise and 
 holy enough to save it. 
 
 And now, women of America, let the pulsations of 
 one heart arouse you to that Almighty echo of public 
 opinion which has moved the hills and mountains of 
 America — and risen now, with her thundering trum- 
 pet, may it send out her warning notes until this for- 
 eign aggression, this Papal Despotism, this Jericho of 
 human oppression, falls before Protestant America. 
 Eaise high with womanly hands the blazing torch of 
 truth — plear* that the oppressed may be consoled by 
 the "Word of God — plead that the great principles of 
 the American party, founded on the eternal laws of 
 God's immutable truth, shall stand until time shall be 
 no more. 
 
 The American woman lives for others, for her coun- 
 
26 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 try, for the world ; the champion of right against ex- 
 pediency, is the spirit by which her highest triumphs 
 have been won. The son looks for the wife after the 
 model of his mother, so that the women of America 
 now may be said to control the destinies of ages yet 
 unborn ! "How do you manage to rear your family, 
 with your infidel husband ?" said a distinguished min- 
 ister of our country. " I never oppose the father's 
 authority by the mother's, but always with that of God." 
 
 "What honor can woman expect when she ceases to 
 honor her country ? what hope can woman have, when 
 she has ceased to cherish her Bible ? Then, without 
 saintly or prophetic pretension, let her take her eye 
 instead of a telescope, and, from knot to knot, from 
 flower to seed, from seed to kernel, realize Truth as her 
 first and last mission in free America ; let her second 
 the wish and the heart of man in all his holy work ; 
 with the creed of Milton's Eve, let her feel, " God is 
 thy law, thou mine I" 
 
 When the excitement of the " Stamp Act " was in- 
 flaming all sections of the Colonies, the daughter of 
 Dr. Franklin wrote her father thus: " The subject is 
 'Stamp Act,' and nothing else; the Dutch talk of 
 'Stamp tack,' the negroes of the 'tamp;' in short, 
 everybody has something to say." O, cannot the in- 
 troduction of Eome's intolerant Popery so affect us, 
 that news-boys, market-women, cooks, butlers and 
 dairy-maids, hotels, boulevards, and public squares 
 may feel it a real and tangible evil, and not a skip- 
 ping ghost? The patriot women of '76 drank tea 
 
WOMEN OF AMERICA. 27 
 
 no longer than the taxes were imposed; they de- 
 nounced it as a bitter, baneful weed. Can't American 
 women feel their soul's errand strong enough to lead 
 others into the ghastly insight of Papal tyranny? 
 "Liberty, property, and no stamp," may now give 
 place' to " Liberty, the Bible, and no Popery." Where 
 is the blood of those noble spirits, who, amidst unpar- 
 alleled suffering and toil, taught their sons to honor 
 God, their country, and their manhood? "Where are 
 the descendants of that Christian woman who opened 
 her purse to Gen. Greene, after the battle of Cowpens, 
 and surrendered the produce of her toil to her suffer- 
 ing country ? Where those of that southern daughter, 
 who came at the soldier's call, and with powder in her 
 apron freighted afresh their ammunition, and when 
 sought, was found upon her knees at prayer ? Where 
 those of that matron, who, after giving her garments 
 for cartridges, stood at the guns when husband and 
 brothers had fallen ? Where is the spirit of Pocahontas, 
 who saved Virginia by her heavenly heroism ? Where 
 that noble woman, who, under an inspiration of conju- 
 gal and patriotic devotion, rode through an unsettled 
 country at night, and entered the camp in time to 
 dress the wounds of her dying husband, whose fate she 
 had surmised ? 
 
 No screen can hide the light — no snuffers can bring 
 us to the darkness which has too long misled America ; 
 and the quadrupedal idea that salvation and intelli- 
 gence are at war, must be exposed. It is to suppress 
 and exterminate the thought, that the government of 
 
28 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 Eome, and not the Constitution of the United States, 
 governs America — it is to fling back in their faces all 
 this painting, whooping, and tattooing, to unpack their 
 varnished and encrusted subtlety, to heal the erysipelas 
 •which is spreading its contagion over the nation, that 
 the true influences of Gospel Liberty are now sought 
 to be diffused. 
 
 We want no Joans of Arc to make America vascu- 
 lar and alive ; but when Popes, Cardinals, and Bishops 
 have rendered her risky and ticklish, we want faithful 
 and true women, who neither shriek nor protest, but 
 pray ; women who neither mount nor sink ; who are 
 neither heroines nor fools ; but American women, who 
 can stand in their shoes, and take the plain topic of 
 the Bible, and discourse and diffuse it to the depths of 
 the people. 
 
 Our gratitude must be shown in acting out farther 
 and farther what our ancestors began. They did not 
 design that their work should be regarded as an abso- 
 lute thing — like the world's creation, which was per- 
 fected when it was finished — but spreading their Pro- 
 testant Bible and their American Constitution of gov- 
 ernment on the wings of the American Eagle, they 
 left us to burst its pinions, and soar towards the Sun. 
 

 . %. JBpi — -■ n 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 THE MISSION OF THE AMERICAN PRESS. 
 
 " A song for our banner I" the watchword recall, 
 "Which gave the Eepuhlic her station ; 
 
 " United we stand, divided we fall I 
 It made and preserves us a nation I" 
 
 The sun of liberty had gone down in the old world, 
 when its star went up in the new ; and America be- 
 came emphatically the city of right, resting on the 
 vast bosom of God, peopled by those who fled hither 
 to be bound to the Lamb and the Dove, and hence the 
 Heavenly blessing which fell upon it. America, also, 
 became the city of protection, which summons all God's 
 children, without distinction of sect or creed, to come 
 unto her and renew their strength, their hope, and their 
 vitality. But whilst she invites such, she permits no ad- 
 vance, and hurls back from her threshold all who 
 denounce her cherished principles and reject her living 
 truth. 
 
 It is soul liberty, then, which has made America 
 free ; this endangered, all is endangered — this saved, 
 America can never die I And now, when her foes are 
 in league to kill her in her very heart, shall the people 
 
 (29) 
 
30 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 of God-fearing, liberty-loving America be voiceless ? 
 Shall her Press, which is to America what the rainbow 
 was to Noah, the harbinger of life, of light, and of 
 hope, suddenly collapse? 
 
 More than eighty-three years since Franklin laid the 
 foundation of this mighty American edifice, and al- 
 most without competition gave life and force to tatter- 
 ed manuscripts, and hedged around liberty a pres- 
 tige, which was ballad, epic, lecture, and library, as 
 well as newspaper. And from that little structure 
 has grown the great Colossus of America, filled with 
 inexhaustible sap, and undulating and flowing through 
 the heart and in all the arteries and blood-vessels of 
 the nation. 
 
 And now, when America is groaning and suffocat- 
 ing ; when the bloody code of Kome's Inquisition is 
 seeking to trample down her noble Constitution ; 
 when the Cross of Jesus Christ, her national ensign, is 
 being supplanted by the nuncio of a Papal despot, let 
 the shrill trump of the American press summon Ameri- 
 ca to judgment! Let America's action now centre 
 around the mighty power of her press, and its great 
 wheel will roll on and crush by its' hard friction, all 
 the influences which have combined, and conspired 
 America's destruction ! It is a holy mission now of 
 of the youngest of the nations, to raise her voice above 
 all her elders, and through her press, the chosen instru- 
 ment of the Almighty, remind America why she de- 
 served freedom ; how it was won, and how it must be 
 preserved. 
 
MISSION OF THE AMERICAN PRESS. 31 
 
 Never yet has the press entered into a searching ex- 
 amination of this great phenomenon, which works in 
 cloisters, in convents, by puppets, by subtlety, by sophis- 
 try, by cunning ; which hates living and thinking, de- 
 scends downward, presses heavily, is oblique, pene- 
 trates skilfully, enters into detail, inquires, pries, and 
 seeks to govern fhe very soul of America. Each day 
 brings her cause for greater distrust ; with each con- 
 fessional a rampart of America's liberty falls. It is 
 filling houses, enriching coffers, and leaving her great 
 soul empty. It is shutting up and locking the door on 
 the intellect and the energies of America, and bring- 
 ing man to the animal scale, leaves him in doubt 
 whether he is a fungus or mollusca. America needs 
 her press, to unlock men's mouths and open men's 
 hearts, and enlighten men's eyes ; to arouse America 
 to her young elasticity, and her great energy. May it 
 come now, and form an alliance with the people, for 
 the people's regeneration. For seventy-nine years, by 
 its activity and faithfulness it has sustained liberty in 
 all its struggles and triumphs, above all other interests. 
 Shall it yield the past ? Shall it become quiet, as the 
 Popish influence becomes noisy ? Shall its voice be 
 stifled, as the ear and the eye of America becomes 
 more familiar with her danger ? Popery fears but the 
 light of the Press ; at its sight it hangs its head, rolls 
 heavily, falls into mud. Changes which have con- 
 stantly advanced Popery in America have been looked 
 upon by the Press too long as frivolous ; while it 
 soared, the Press was silent, until it has advanced upon 
 
32 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 America with a vast significance, and assumed a visi- 
 ble equality. With their men machines, this Eomish 
 Hierarchy is essentially absorbing and threatening to 
 swallow up America; and springing its shuttle of 
 death across her shores, it pants to be able to water its 
 steed in her great Mississippi. 
 
 Its fly frame with an hundred spindles comes back, 
 as it is thrown off, and conforms itself to the circum- 
 stances of America. It uses whitewash, varnish, and 
 paint, to hold out a seeming light, whilst it is plunging 
 into the thoughts, the dreams, nay, the very illusions 
 of America. It brings into her nothing but death, 
 and cultivates flowers, but to hide us from a sight of 
 God's love. But while Jesuitism plies steam by day 
 and by night, the Press, too, plies its thousands of 
 arms, and is the true instrument, and the real strength 
 of America. 
 
 Shall it allow America to be sunk and lowered by 
 Popish machinery longer ? Shall it look on, unmoved, 
 when the citizens of free America are becoming the 
 low servants of the giants of tyranny? This is the 
 result of its radical corruption. With political waves 
 it comes and goes. Our Saviour suffered devils to 
 enter swine. Let the Press meet the animal as it was 
 met, with Balaam on its back. It is the power, after 
 all, which has the heart of America within its strong 
 grasp, and not to allow a thousand blades of grass to 
 take the place of one, should it longer see shackled the 
 mind of America ; the power and the scandal must be 
 taken from America's great name. When once the 
 
MISSION OF THE AMERICAN PRESS. 33 
 
 Press, racked and toothed, whirls around triumphantly, 
 the whole world will marvel, inert masses will vibrate, 
 oceans cease to roar, and blatant multitudes will be 
 lulled to whisper! America's regeneration is done. 
 The woe to America is being done by collective means, 
 under individual influence ; the Press must cypher this 
 out, and show it a vital thing — show, by its grand re- 
 view, the real condition of America, with a Eomish 
 Hierarchy planted in her soil, avowing its principles 
 and aims antagonistic to American liberty, and brand- 
 ing her whole Protestant population as heretic. The 
 thought and activity of America are equally influenced 
 by her Press ; and to effect the divorce of America 
 from Papal Eome, no power is half so potent. It 
 must take the bandages from the eyes of America, and 
 show that the cat, which emits sparks at night, when 
 touched, is the measure of intelligence Eome confers by 
 her system. And though it speeds where it lists, in 
 the beaten paths of the old world, it cannot step on the 
 Father's throne in free America. Let the Press be the 
 Daniel or Joseph to solve the problem for America 
 now ; before our heroic blood is trampled into dust, 
 the graves of our fathers despoiled, and a void made 
 in the glorious humanity of America the world can 
 never fill. 
 
 Popish prelates, puffed up with self-importance, 
 vanity, and aristocratic longings, despise the infantile 
 of America, and glory in precocious manhood. With 
 glittering pageant, they shrink back and deny 
 
 2* 
 
34 THE GREAT AMERICAN" BATTLE. 
 
 relationship with the people. It is, indeed, a great in- 
 ventor, without life or heart. 
 
 Should America be struck from the roll, as the only 
 free nation the world has ever known, the Press would 
 furnish the bayonets and the ammunition. It is this 
 which can influence America to her impulsive will. 
 It is the judgment-seat of public opinion, and its moral 
 support is all America wants in her great contest for 
 truth and freedom, but begun. Popery has made it- 
 self sovereign of every Papal country on the face of 
 the earth, and what should it do, by its own policy, 
 but sap, if it can, American freedom, and American 
 nationality. Already are Papal officials more depend- 
 ent on the lowest Eomish emissary in America, than 
 the highest political power with which her Constitution 
 entrusts her. In vain the efforts of brave men and 
 true women, in vain the sight of aged, dying patriots, 
 in vain all high and lofty endeavors, if the Press comes 
 not to succor liberty. 
 
 Shall the youth of America feel the morning of 
 life perilled by such a destroyer? Their education 
 abridged, shaped, and murdered by Romish despots ? 
 That sparkling liberty, innately welcome to every 
 American heart, shrouded from the very eyes of Amer- 
 ica? Who would shed a tear over the death and grave 
 of America's eternal foe ? 
 
 The note once sounded will be like the trump at the 
 city of Jericho ! Shall Rome's Vicegerent scourge 
 America for her love of God and liberty ? Let the press 
 
MISSION OF THE AMERICAN PKESS. 35 
 
 of America answer. It alone can translate its dead 
 languages, and pull its laws down from lofty spires, 
 and discourse and diffuse them to the depths of the 
 people. Think of Jesuitism supporting the govern- 
 ment of free America "with its yawning gulf, which 
 makes tragedy for souls! Let the American Press 
 rise ; America expects it, entreats for it, hopes for it. 
 America is incarcerated in the Protestant faith of the 
 Gospel ; give this full force, and she can bear the woes 
 of the world. The Press is the pyramid which the peo- 
 ple have reared to guard America's welfare ; and honor- 
 ing its high destiny, it may rise to that height where 
 man is forbidden nearer to approach his Maker. 
 
 America can die but by suicide. The Press can cut 
 her throat. But will it ? Shall America become a 
 moon to wax and wane amid the sun of the Pope of 
 Pome ? What has Pomish prelates to do with a living 
 God, or His worshippers, but to destroy both ? Shall 
 this Atlas of Perfidy shoulder America, and bring her 
 to dust, by her cold pressure ? Let the Press feel its 
 mission to hurl back — to pull down— to crush this 
 crusade against our liberties. 
 
 The war ships are under sail, to conduct America to 
 prison and to death. Cut but a single artery, and her 
 blood will gush and flow over the land. The foot of 
 the Pope is now treading American soil ; he nods like 
 Jove, and shakes her with his rattling thunder. Then 
 will the Press feel its glorious and divine mission, and 
 take the plague spot from, our borders ? Let it demand 
 the anatomy of property, the anatomy of her aim and 
 
36 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 end in America. Let it stop the rushing wave of Papal 
 usurpation, and become the breakwater of Popery — 
 the guard for the land that Luther and Calvin, the 
 Puritans and Penn, sought out. The despotisms of the 
 world are in league against America — her. liberty is 
 the incubus they cease to cast off. Let the Press 
 take up her cause, before it languishes and dies. Let 
 it teach every son and daughter of America to adhere 
 to her Constitution, her laws, her Bible, before all pas- 
 sion, all interest, and all emolument. Heaven defend 
 us from the mummery existence of Popery, which de- 
 cays by contact ! Popish prelates are sending Cains 
 throughout our beloved Union, to incite fanaticism, to 
 curse our morality, and to walk impiously on the ruins 
 of our liberties. 
 
 Nowhere but in America is there entire freedom of 
 the Press, or freedom of speech, — nowhere beside ! 
 But here even, Papal subjects enjoy it not — the priests 
 deny them the right. 
 
 The Press, then, though it espouses many principles, 
 and speaks as many tongues as were spoken at Babel, 
 is yet sustaining one grand idea in America — its liberty, 
 the people's liberty, their rights, their laws, their Con- 
 stitution, then- freedom, their history, their geography, 
 their interests. The Mission of the American Press 
 emphatically is Liberty ! Let this be above all her 
 monuments, and beneath all her graves. How, then, 
 does it permit the usurper of all human liberty to throw 
 the apple of Bros in free America? Koine feels her 
 mission to rule the world: it remains for America to 
 
MISSION OF THE AMERICAN PRESS. 37 
 
 deny the error. Eome deals in darkness : the Press 
 can drag it from its deep entrenchments and expose it 
 to the gaze of sharp-sighted, light-loving America. It 
 can show its hereditary constitutional habits, its scrof- 
 ula and lymph. And when the people see it, they will 
 be sopped and drugged by this machinery no longer. 
 An open field and fresh laurels are now before the 
 American Press, and when it has shown the Eomish 
 Church in the United States in its true political char- 
 acter — how it stands and serves only to assume and 
 govern — it has cut a lower basin, and given a deeper 
 ray into its opaque sphere, and its history may then be 
 written in American annals. This is the divine mis- 
 sion of the Press, the last act in its nobility and exal- 
 tation. Show America how Eomanism is as the limb 
 to the body, and the breath to the mouth of three mill- 
 ions of human beings, who profess to embrace Ameri- 
 can nationality ! Every forest, and mine, and stone 
 quarry, the man whose property is his axe, his plough, 
 or his wheel-barrow, who has no enthusiasms, no aspir- 
 ings, contented, self-respecting, but wishing to keep 
 the middle way, feels the great question at issue, which 
 is plainly to sever the Church of Eome from the Gov- 
 ernment of the United States of America. 
 
 Liberty of conscience, freedom of will, and the right 
 to worship God thereby, are the principles of America's 
 Bible, on which she wrote her everlasting Constitution ; 
 and while the stars and the stripes- of her national 
 banner float over the Capitol of the American States, 
 
38 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 her people will resist unto death any system which in- 
 terposes her eternal decision. 
 
 Experiences, fortunes, governings, readings, and 
 writings, have at last awoke the nation into life, and 
 called into existence her great American Party, to 
 crush that fanatical zeal which thirsts only for power, 
 and which has succumbed to rituals and pomps, joined 
 in chants and processions, to foster and appropriate its 
 baneful influences for momentary success at the Ameri- 
 can ballot-box. The accident of birth does not unna- 
 tionalize an American citizen — a citizen who has sought 
 refuge for and on account of our free institutions. How 
 many such, now within our temple, are among the 
 brightest ornaments to its walls ; who stand out in bold 
 relief in reference to the building, and would serve as 
 figures by which to model statues of calmness and con- 
 tinence to American liberty! And in the faithful 
 inventory of truly American hearts, which tread her 
 soil to-day, thousands upon thousands of those who 
 beat most fervently to her Bible and her constitutional 
 liberty, have made it the home of their adoption. They 
 stand here for truth, and will not for States, or reve- 
 nues, or churches, or the reputation of all Europe, for- 
 feit American freedom and American nationality. Let 
 the Press, then, the censor of morals and manners, 
 meet the issue fairly, which is the Papal foreign influ- 
 ence attempting to hold the balance of power against 
 America, and not the Protestant foreign influence, 
 which is decidely American. I 
 
MISSION OF THE AMERICAN PRESS. 39 
 
 When the Press shall have cast up the figures, the 
 people will see the foot of the column. Here it has 
 prerogative, not privilege. Here, especially, by its 
 newspaper Press — the most glorious form for men ; s in- 
 terest typography ever assumed — intelligence is brought 
 to the very doors, and set on the tables, and laid on the 
 pillows of the humblest and lowliest of America. In 
 New York City alone, the great commercial metropolis 
 of the nation, the newspaper circulation equals almost 
 that fo the whole of Great Britain ; while those of 
 the American Union exceed the combined presses of 
 the world ! From five to ten millions of newspaper 
 copies are scattering intelligence, and flooding the 
 nation with a vast wave of light. England boasts of 
 her Times, which exerted so powerful an influence upon 
 the great Eeform Bill — France of her Rhenish Mercury, 
 which obtained, by its influence, the name of the Fifth 
 Ally which warred against Napoleon — but what were 
 they in comparison with many of the American news- 
 papers, sending out from thirty to forty thousand copies 
 daily, and coming in contact with the whole mind of 
 America. Perhaps five hundred millions of sheets an- 
 nually emanate from the newspaper Press of America. 
 
 In France and Spain, and wherever Popery has had 
 the ascendant, there has the Press been fettered, and its 
 Editors trammeled. 
 
 The Press — the free Press — the enlightened Press — 
 the political Press — the moral Press — the spiritual 
 Press — nay, the infidel Press of America, come, and 
 give impressive language by national phrases, and. 
 
40 THE GREAT AMERICAN 'BATTLE. 
 
 -without painting or quibbling, move sea and land for 
 America. The Press is the ship America wants for 
 her billows ; the ark which saves Bible, and Sabbath, 
 and Liberty ; a front force, -which will never abandon 
 the adversary while one drop of vital power trickles 
 upon a shrub in America. 
 
 Eome has put her sly paw upon America's great 
 shoulder, snapped at her Constitution, and is pawing 
 and clawing at its vitality. A caterpillar with wings, 
 before America thought it a butterfly I And America 
 craves now the bold, self-relying, self-sustaining power 
 of her Press to show her real life, its sweet, before she 
 smarts and is stung. Let it come to recruit her strength ; 
 to open avenues of new intelligence ; to beat back ad- 
 vancing and opposing armies, and save her graves, her 
 blood, and her humanity. 
 
 " What God in His mercy and wisdom designed, 
 
 And armed with His weapons of thunder, 
 Not all the earth's despots and factions combined, 
 
 Have the power to conquer or sunder ! 
 The union of lakes — the union of lands — 
 
 The union of States none can sever — 
 The union of hearts — the union of hands— 
 
 And the Flag of our Union forever 
 And ever ! 
 
 The Flag of our Union forever I" 
 
CHAPTEE m. 
 THE MEN OF AMERICA. 
 
 " The holiest Bpot a smiling sun 
 E'er shed bis genial rays upon, 
 Is that which gave a Washington, 
 Sound the clarion pealB of fame I 
 Te who bear Columbia's name 1 
 With existence, freedom camel" 
 
 With irresistible will America sprang the chasm 
 between two worlds, and started into life ; and with a 
 ray of glory on her brow, she opened her young arms 
 to mankind, and oifering them her life, her truth, her 
 hopes and her humanity, called all men brethren. 
 Eight was her father, Justice her mother, and God, 
 who made these, her religion. And now, when God 
 is urging forward her salvation, she calls on man, Avho 
 is her column and her arch, to bear her onward — to 
 cut the cable — to drop the link which has bound her 
 to a foe who has kissed her dust but to curse and 
 crush her. 
 
 Let her sons never forget her star — that star of vic- 
 tory which gave her independence, and a government 
 to preserve it. And when her doves are moaning and 
 
 («) 
 
42 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 groaning, and her robin and thrush are driven back 
 for pelican and stork, America calls aloud for that Je- 
 rusalem of manly hearts to shiver off, to tear away, to 
 fling afar, the source of these stifled groans and dis- 
 tressing sobs, which is taking all the lustre from her 
 eye and paralyzing the very limbs of America. 
 
 It was the inextinguishable spark in the souls of her 
 real men that made her struggle from her birth. It 
 was chartered rights then ; it is chartered rights now. 
 American men would not be taxed without their con- 
 sent, and this was the initial step to America's freedom. 
 They contended for the cause of Hampden and Sidney, 
 for trial by jury, for the Habeas Corpus and the Magna 
 Charta. England resisted: her Parliament was de- 
 clared omnipotent ; courts of admiralty to try Ameri- 
 can men enacted ; the charter of Massachusetts Bay 
 revoked ; the port of Boston shut up, and armies and 
 navies to teach America submission, answered her long 
 and earnest remonstrance. The blood of Lexington 
 and Bunker Hill showed American lions, and made 
 American martyrs. Union ! Union ! rent the air, the 
 sky, and the rocks of America. Independence burst 
 upon her with sun-like centrality, and acknowledging 
 responsibility only to the Supreme Ruler of the uni- 
 verse, they became one people, and the church-bells 
 rang America one people, ever and forever ! 
 
 The Declaration of Independence, then, was the work 
 of American men. They said they were, and of right 
 ought to be, free. It was issued on the authority of 
 all the people in their collective character, and, de facto, 
 
MEN OF AMERICA. 43 
 
 every enfranchised citizen of America was a signer of 
 that immortal charter of American liberties. America 
 was not saved by pen and paper, but by the living 
 faith of her living people, which worked through fire, 
 and undaunted and steadfast they fathomed the rapid 
 and invincible tide which was rising to overthrow her. 
 Each man seemed a legion ; he held the ramparts, de- 
 fied the musketry, and subdued England's great artil- 
 lery. These men held Bibles, not tapers, in their 
 hands ; they knelt not on church-steps, nor did pen- 
 ance, but with prostrate hearts they implored the liv- 
 ing God. 
 
 They were men of one faith — one oath ; not men 
 who held the ballot-box for America, and the oath of 
 fidelity to the Pope of Rome. 
 
 But the articles of confederation could not bear up 
 the principles of America's independence. The debts 
 and current expenses of the Union went unpaid, be- 
 cause there was no power in Congress to enforce them ; 
 and when the States refused, Congress went to France, 
 Holland, and Spain, and made loans to this end ; but 
 amid all this the cause triumphed, and America as one 
 people took her station in the front rank of nations. 
 The heroic leader of her armies surrendered his commis- 
 sion ; her soldiery were disbanded, but unpaid ; muti- 
 ny and clanger threatened ; a single frigate, the rem- 
 nant of her gallant navy, was dismantled and sold ; the 
 expenses of the nation curtailed ; but the people saw 
 that the independence which had been purchased with 
 
44 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 blood and treasure would avail nothing without a gov- 
 ernment formed by themselves. 
 
 America had her men. There was Washington, 
 suffering under the injustice and cruelty inflicted upon 
 his companions-in-arms. There was Madison, Hamil- 
 ton, and Jay. When at Mt. Vernon, in March, seven- 
 teen hundred and eighty-five, the Constitution of the 
 United States of America was conceived. And, as 
 preliminary to its birth, a convention was assembled 
 at Annapolis, Maryland, in seyenteen hundred and 
 eighty-six, from five of the Central States, which pre- 
 pared the way for that of all the States, which met at 
 Philadelphia in seventeen hundred and eighty-seven, 
 when, abolishing the Confederation, on the authority 
 of the people they framed a Constitution in accordance 
 with her Declaration of Independence and her Pro- 
 testant Bible, and joining it to these, made one indi- 
 visible structure, as solid and constant as the globe. 
 And thus, for the first time, was completed the revolu- 
 tion of thirteen years, which achieved and perfected 
 American liberty. At the head of this Convention 
 was Washington, and prominent among its actors 
 Franklin and Sherman, who had signed her Declara- 
 tion. That Constitution has abided sixty-six years. 
 Not one artisan of all the builders survives this im- 
 mortal work, which made her very stones cry out, Oh 
 America, you are saved ! and mankind echoed back, 
 Oh world, you are saved ! It was the breath, the 
 energy, the faith of true men that has wafted America 
 
MEN OF AMERICA. 45 
 
 as a breath of life over a sin-stricken world, and 
 peopled her a living city for a God-submitting race. 
 Thirteen primitive States rallied around her Constitu- 
 tution then, eighteen younger sisters have since rein- 
 forced her. Four millions of souls footed her first 
 census columns, thirty millions now penetrate from the 
 Atlantic to the Pacific shores, and dot the fruitful 
 valleys of her great Mississippi. Friends of right, of 
 independence of mind and soul, panting to break the 
 bonds which bound them to moral tyranny and super- 
 stition, fled to her, because, republican and democratic, 
 she eschewed all authority but the rights of mankind, 
 responsibility to God, and consent of the people. 
 
 Shall the story of that triumphal march of Wash- 
 ington from Mount Yernon to New York ever become 
 stale ; — that civic wreath of American laurels, dropped 
 upon his brow by a blooming boy, significant of his 
 dear America ? Of that band of matrons who welcom- 
 ed him to Trenton, the breakwater of British tyranny, 
 the turning point in the war of Independence, when 
 the women of America strewed flowers and chaunted 
 the song of triumph, in now beholding, as their Pro- 
 tector, the man who had defended and saved their 
 mothers? This was America's great baptismal day, 
 when all the sons of God and liberty sang for joy. 
 Here, then, was the first Executive in America — her 
 President Washington! American sons behold that 
 spectacle ! The first act of the Congress under this 
 Constitution, was to regulate and administer the oaths 
 required by it. The homage of religious faith was 
 
46 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 thus superadded to all obligations of temporal law, 
 and in conformity with the Declaration of Independ- 
 ence, which appealed to God as the Judge of the act 
 and the motives of American men. Two erratic 
 sisters were found among the thirteen States, Ehode 
 Island and North Carolina — the former never partici- 
 pated in the Constitution ; the latter, though repre- 
 sented, never ratified it. But, without either, the 
 Government and Washington moved on, and though 
 treated as aliens, or foreigners, by the first acts of Con- 
 gress, they came, unsolicited, within two years, and 
 were kindly received into America's maternal arms. 
 Nine States alone would have given full force and 
 vitality to this stupendous machinery of Government. 
 
 The establishment of justice with foreign powers 
 thus became entrusted to the men who, of all others, 
 best knew the value and cost of American liberty. 
 Then, truly, America was in the cradle, and her for- 
 eign relations were inconsiderable. The Baltic was an 
 unknown sea to American navigators — the Mediter- 
 ranean was interdicted by the Mahomedan warfare of 
 Barbary powers — the southern parts of France, Spain, 
 Portugal, the Mediterranean, and African Islands, all 
 closed ; and the " old mother" everywhere our rival, 
 excluding us from all commerce with her in American 
 bottoms, which was soon followed by France, who, 
 seeiDg our future greatness shadowed forth under the 
 bright auspices then presented, joined Spam, to debar 
 us from our great Mississippi. 
 
 Yet America was manned with that inextinguishable 
 
MEN OF AMEKICA. 47 
 
 spirit of liberty, which would not suffer her to be 
 smitten on the cheek, or hung between two dogs — and 
 then ask are we men? And she hoisted her Stars and 
 Stripes upon a thirty-ton schooner in the very sight 
 of the city of Taho. Her men did not wait to see the 
 Constitution perfected, but in the same confidence with 
 which they declared Independence before they fought 
 for it and won it, they set about enlarging the domain 
 of commerce and navigation. The Boston merchants 
 started the Columbia and Washington on a voyage of 
 circumnavigation and discovery, which resulted in 
 finding the Columbia river, and in securing the right 
 of extending our territory from the Atlantic to the 
 Pacific shores. The character of Washington's admin- 
 istration gave permanence to that of the government. 
 All that looked painful, difficult, and insurmountable, 
 vanished and was made easy ; children who went 
 astray returned to their mother ; and upon that altar, 
 free from concealment, and in God's sight, one hope, 
 one faith, and one destiny, awaited this one people. 
 Our fathers saw the triumph of right, and left with 
 their sons their speaking actions. Shall the heroic 
 generations of the past be slighted now? We contend 
 against a foe of feverish passions, active, fervent, po- 
 litical, full of intrigue and cunning, not only able to 
 create revolt, but powerful to organize and direct in- 
 surrection. It is the Romish Hierarchy, the Jesuit 
 Priesthood, the political church in America. Her peo- 
 ple fall short in suspecting the reality, the immensity 
 of this danger. The woes and experiences of the past 
 
48 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 cannot be lost, if our free institutions are to be saved. 
 Is America to become the Sodom and Gomorrah for 
 this machinery ? The Babel of Priests and Prelates ? 
 Is she to be martyred for innocence and truth, for the 
 performance of God's work? Our fathers saw (but 
 knew not) their entrance — may the sons see the exit. 
 When America decides, she will reach the goal. 
 
 Her men are her national guard, her troops her 
 power, to. hoist her flag when and where the nation 
 wills it ! To give peace and liberty, American men 
 struck tyrants, and hurled back their thrones, and she 
 cannot harbor enemies within her borders now. Her 
 heroes were invincible then — she has heroes still. 
 
 Our fathers founded liberty on the enfranchisement 
 of the mind. That age abolished all gods of flesh in 
 Church and State, and left no idol and no god but 
 God. 
 
 They counted not numbers but principles, and re- 
 jected restrictions, distinctions and exclusions. If 
 America halts now, she rejects and condemns the very 
 men who gave the whole world America. 
 
 She was born "I am," and started a front force 
 against Popish tyranny and priestly superstition. 
 
 The deeds of America have been great, how much 
 more so the men who conceived them ! Nothing could 
 exhaust their resources, and her sons have but to look 
 to their fathers to see the mirror of humanity which 
 made them heroic, magnanimous, disinterested. 
 
 And though we have lost the witnesses of that great 
 age when America started into life, we have the faith 
 
MEN OF AMERICA. 49 
 
 which hovers between death and the grave. Shall the 
 question, then, be avoided ?— shall men treat it cau- 
 tiously, that they may not compromise their interests ? 
 What interests ? Is it a minor matter to conduct po- 
 liticians to preferment by the courtesy of Eomish emis- 
 saries, and leave Jesus Christ, the living God, dis- 
 honored? — leave home, and family, and domestic 
 hearths, and all the sacred influences which make men 
 happy, to give party chances ? 
 
 Surrender the infant, unarmed and helpless, to satisfy 
 this vast, mute tyrannical empire of perfidy and sin ? 
 The Pope of Eome thus governing America ; putting 
 her out of court without a hearing from mankind I 
 This trifling with liberty, by political tricksters, this 
 ecclesiastical prudence and sagacity of the Eomish 
 Hierarchy ! 
 
 This, then, is a coritest for a principle dearer than 
 that which led the people to dissolve the Confederacy 
 and make the Constitution ; because it judges and de- 
 cides this infant for Heaven or Hell ; it introduces into 
 the blood, and transmits from age to age, an hostility 
 to the liberty of America's soul, and sways all civil 
 institutions, upon which it presses its deadly fangs — 
 it is a frightful wound on America's maternal heart. 
 She has been awoke, glory to God, and will sleep no 
 more until things change ! Her American spirit has 
 aroused her American Party, and a day of justice is at 
 hand. Eight is coming to sit in judgment ; oh, men 
 of America, let it be the day of her deliverance ! 
 
 If what God created with one word could be exter- 
 3 
 
50 THE GREAT AMERICAN, BATTLE. 
 
 minated with one word, the Pope of Rome would anni- 
 hilate America before to-morrow morning ! Oh that 
 God would descend upon their altars in America! 
 This intolerant system which has lived for ages to 
 deny justice, liberty, and God— to implant herself in 
 America and preside over her ballot-box ! And as the 
 ballot-box is the deposit of America's liberty and sal- 
 vation, American men need but to know the discov- 
 ered truth, to make them wary in choosing to whom 
 they intrust it. 
 
 America wants no gold, incense, or myrrh, but her 
 toleration, her liberty, her Declaration of Independence, 
 her Constitution, and her Bible. She is the Colossus 
 of Freedom ! Our dearly-loved country ! Could we 
 be surprised if her crops should fail,"if her land should 
 refuse her increase, and, like a tired, worn-out beast, 
 prefer to lie down and die, sooner than go farther ; 
 while those who profess to hate her are seeking to pos- 
 sess her, soul and body ? —Popish Dives are absorbed in 
 defending. pious foundations, securing mortgages, but 
 neglecting her poor Lazarus ! This bier and coffin of 
 despotism must be buried from the eyes of America. 
 It is blasphemy on her great name. It is a knife to 
 slaughter her freedom. The sun and dew of America 
 can produce no harvests of men where this flourishes 
 and springs forth, to make them machines. With 
 Popery nothing free stands or lives! Oh, what a 
 moment for America's men, when their families, their 
 wives and children, are endangered by an influence 
 which impregnates her air, her temperature. If 
 
MEN OF AMEEICA. 51 
 
 America is to be bound to the earth amidst false 
 friends, false patrons, false protectors, false clergy, her 
 men must furnish the cord and the stakes. It is the 
 American people, American voters, her editors, her 
 printers, her farmers, merchants, lawyers, physicians, 
 preachers, teachers, artisans, operatives, yeomen, that 
 are bound up as one people ; who made the Declara- 
 tion and the Constitution, and the oath to support 
 these, that America wants ; men with the same una- 
 nimity, to crush out a system which curses American 
 liberty, and brands twenty-seven millions of her people 
 heretic ! 
 
 Can America be annihilated? Can her walls, her 
 stones, her sounds, her air, her sky-light, not under- 
 stand? 
 
 Let her dilapidate prisons, and deliver her wretches 
 from death. The captive mind of America suffers — 
 dumb among inferior animals — and musing, like the 
 barbarians of Africa or Asia, in free America. 
 
 With its fathers, let Popery live and be buried, but 
 not with America's soil. Let American men, all who 
 love her, whether by birth or adoption, all who love 
 her pure principles, and bless God for her free institu- 
 tions, organize and work for this great deliverance. 
 She wants all her men, every one of them.; not crying 
 men with pocket-handkerchiefs to their eyes, but men 
 who decide all, and are men. This is the power to 
 strike America's foes — her men who will not be duped 
 by duties, and be blind to their rights, but know both, 
 and who, knowing this, know their empire. 
 
52 THE GREAT AMERICAN" BATTLE. 
 
 It is the men of America who can raise her flag 
 above all mountain summits, and rally Truth and Free- 
 dom around the globe. As a standard of humanity 
 they are invincible to tyrants. 
 
 For seventy-nine years this Eomish Hierarchy has 
 been speaking a language and adopting an instruction 
 hostile to American liberty and American nationality. 
 The people thought they were laboring for souls, sus- 
 pected no wrong, until the crape and the cypress were 
 visible all over the country. The disciples have been 
 worthy of their master, and they are pumping the very 
 sap which springs instinctively into the American 
 heart. They take away her books, take away her 
 pulpits. 
 
 Oh, men of America, make them depart from our 
 temples ; they give no light to the people ; their lamps 
 have gone out ; America wants not a dead but a living 
 religion ! 
 
 Come, sons of America, American freemen; put 
 torches in dark places, and demand light, until it min- 
 gles with the visions of America. 
 
 Men and principles are to be saved — Citizen and 
 Christian ; then crown the apostles of liberty with a 
 civic wreath, and let her American Party discard the 
 tattered robe, and achieve this last but not least of 
 American triumphs. Who will stop to weigh syllables 
 in a scale, or bottle the tears of her joy? 
 
 This is a mighty move ; God's hand is here ; nothing 
 can withstand the storm — it is coming, coming ! The 
 winds blow — the leaves are scattering— the fowls are 
 
MEN OF AMERICA. 53 
 
 flying. Coming, coming ! Gracious God, it has 
 come! 
 
 " Oh, shun with pious awe 
 
 Corruption's least approach, 
 Nor on that sacred fount of law 
 
 Let aught profane approach. 
 Give honor to the great and good, 
 
 And wreathe the living brow, 
 Kindling with virtue's mantling blood, 
 
 And pay the tribute now .'" 
 
CHAPTEK IV. 
 
 AMERICAN OHILDKEN IN ROMAN 
 CATHOLIC INSTITUTIONS. 
 
 " One In the struggle for mankind, 
 
 One in the strife for equal laws; 
 
 One, only one, in heart and mind, 
 
 Forever one, in Freedom's cause. 
 And tyrants might as well enchain 
 
 The billows of the mighty sea, 
 
 As for a moment's space restrain 
 
 Our onward march of destiny." 
 
 When America concentrated all lesser rays, she re- 
 vealed her own great nationality, and became more 
 than nation — the asylum of freemen — the political city 
 — the moral city of the living brotherhood. Her men 
 struggled for her vital heat until they made her the 
 Pontiff of invincible light ; and replete 'with the history 
 of heroes, and rich in the blood of her martyrs, they 
 left her, though an infant, the offspring of Solomon, on 
 the judgment-seat of nations. 
 
 America rose, then, on the promise of Christianity, 
 and under the dogma of its principles. It was a unity 
 of love which made her the land invincible to hope. 
 That alone gave her life, durability, and freedom. Can 
 
 (54) 
 
CHILDREN IN CATHOLIC INSTITUTIONS. 55 
 
 she faint now in the depth of her nature? Shall she 
 die now in the wilderness without seeing the promised 
 land? Can her sons, in the face of all she has done, 
 with the blood she has shed, with the dead rising from 
 their tombs, desert her now? America is the head, 
 the judge, the Praetor of mankind. 
 
 But America is trembling all over. A theological i 
 autocrat, a Eomish despot, has had a great inaugura- ' 
 tion-day under her free sky. And for her imprescrip- 
 tible rights for that truth which God made for man, for 
 which Jesus Christ died, and American liberty strug- 
 gled to protect — she calls out yet for light ; Lord, more 
 light ! 
 
 /■■ "*> A Eomish Hierarchy has entered and mapped Amer- 
 / ica before her eyes — her soil, her geography, her 
 philosophy, her history, her resources, and her men. 
 Sworn foes to freedom, they put their hands on the 
 Star-Spangled banner and their feet on her Bible, and 
 ask, Are we not faithful to American liberty ? Jesuit- 
 ism is working in America as it never has done before, 
 
 , it is digging her up to implant its seed deep in her soil, 
 whetted by obstacle, its whole machine is in activity, 
 its springs all at play, and its thirst is creating pools 
 through all the forest, to drench the very sod of 
 America. And now these Jesuitical artists, who have 
 surveyed America as a sociable angel, to answer the 
 longings of saints and the fears of mortals, decide to 
 resculpture her globe, upset her freedom, and build 
 upon her fair proportions night, death,, and a doleful 
 pit. They open the foreground, and offer their houses 
 
56 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 of education. Education to whom? To American 
 citizens 1 
 
 This it is which makes this love of freedom a grand 
 salutary, durable impression on American children. 
 America thus embraces each child, and warms it with 
 her great soul, speaks to it through her living and her 
 dead, shows it how God has blessed it in America with 
 her blood, her liberty, her Bible. The child thus learns 
 to embrace the image of life, and craves the strong food 
 of the mind, which nourishes the very soul of America. 
 
 Shall these first moments of life, when experience is 
 collecting, and reason applying, when impulses are de- 
 ciding American destiny, be surrendered to a Jesuit 
 priesthood, who kick the Bible out of doors, or burn 
 it before the eyes of their pupils, and call it an immoral 
 book ? Here are decisions made for liberty or death ! 
 Under these teachers Americans acquire their ideas, 
 associate, judge them, learn to love or despise, to desire 
 or avoid, and thus are the opinions transmitted from 
 fathers, mothers, nurses, instructors, and schools. Thus 
 the mind of America becomes saturated with truth and 
 liberty, or filled with error and despotism, thus con- 
 science, the means of reflecting, the means by which I 
 know what I think, and that the thoughts and actions 
 are mine, and belong to me, is cultivated. Thus the 
 American sees his destiny by the objects towards which 
 his energies are directed, thus these teachers show Mm 
 his interest, teach him where to place his felicity ; they 
 are made to love it, to search for it, these American 
 citizens become in their turn the sovereigns of society, 
 
CHILDREN IN CATHOLIC INSTITUTIONS. 57 
 
 the depositories of all political power — the proprietors 
 of America. Education, then, is the instrument of 
 liberty, property and security to America. 
 
 Is it, then, a matter of trifling moment to offer to the 
 sons and daughters of America false ideas of honor, 
 wrong ideas of her glory — to concentrate prejudice 
 before their eyes — which makes them view with dis- 
 gust the very safeguard of liberty, her Bible — and 
 where all inimical to the very existence and well-being 
 of America is derided ? 
 
 The man thus tutored and trained becomes under a 
 moral necessity to obey his heavenly teaching, and \ 
 thus acts under as strong an influence as though the ) 
 axe of the guillotine or the fires of the Inquisition 
 were really before him. The same desire for a bene- 
 diction from the Pope of Eome that made Grecian 
 philosophers burn themselves to excite the astonish- 
 ment and admiration of Grecian assemblies. A man 
 believes he is free, and this is the delusion of Jesuitism. 
 
 It is the imperceptible concealed evils of Jesuitism, 
 until the moment for action is displayed, from which 
 America now suffers. With millions of her young 
 men and young women attached to powers which can- 
 not be foreseen — what a trembling for America ! In 
 every Eomish institution in America, atoms are amass- 
 ing, insensible particles are combining and assembling 
 for that mighty power at Eome, who seeks to scourge 
 us and take away our Nation. 
 
 T-What is man but a machine trained thus ? He can- 
 not answer for his own destiny a single instant; he is 
 
 3* 
 
58 THE GEEAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 ignorant of the causes which acts in the interior of the 
 machine, he has no cognizance of what passes within 
 his own mind, knows nothing of the circumstances 
 which will give them activity, or develop their energy; 
 nevertheless on these causes he feels his life depends. 
 
 Americans, dost thou see the threads by which you 
 enchain your children? Dost thou see the circum- 
 stances which rule and control their destiny ? Dost 
 thou believe thy prayers can arrest- the influence of 
 those to whom thou entrusts thy child? When 
 America becomes old, her fibres rigid, her nerves un- 
 strung, her senses obtund, her sight dim, her ears 
 loose their quickness, her imagination cools ; her 
 memory fails. Oh ! what will her great soul do ? 
 
 But know thou, arrogant mortal, thou vicegerent of 
 Eome, that, though the Washingtons, Franklins, 
 Adams, and that vast concourse of heroes are dead, 
 that the course of America is not arrested, and never 
 can be. America has mourned their loss, but America 
 lives on the fame of their deeds, and a desire to per- 
 petuate them. 
 
 Cato was commended because he would not survive 
 liberty : Curtius, who rode voluntarily into a gap to 
 save his country, a model of heroic virtue. Samson 
 wishing to be revenged on the Philistines, consented 
 to die with them as the only means. And if our 
 country, our liberties, are invaded, by taking away our 
 Bibles, taking away our children for Rome, will we 
 not freely die to arrest it — to save our dearly-loved 
 country ? Oh, God bless her ! 
 
CHILDREN IN CATHOLIC INSTITUTIONS. 59 
 
 Can a man be an American when his opinions shall 
 oblige him to tremble ? Interest is the great prompter 
 of human action — interest alone ought to make a man 
 a true American ; and the happiness of all her people 
 consists in nourishing those principles which gave 
 birth to her liberty. It is the humanity, the compas- 
 sion, the benevolence, the equity of America, those 
 sentiments of attachment and tenderness innate to her 
 soil, that we cultivate and love. Are the sons of 
 America thus tremblingly to champ the feeble bit of 
 Popery which makes them pusillanimous or enthusi- 
 asts — who are rendered unhappy by their opinions, or 
 dangerous by their tenets ? Popery is a dyke to resist 
 all that is light and free. 
 
 Great God ! shall American children be fostered by 
 the sworn enemies of America's freedom, who are 
 destroying their young hearts, filling them with con- 
 tempt for her religion and her liberties, who are wrest- 
 ing all self-respect from their characters — annihilating 
 liberty and justice, breaking the most powerful in- 
 centive, weakening the most efficacious stimulus to 
 urge them to action, and glory, and right — that spur 
 to live for America — taken off. Is it not audacious ? 
 is it not dishonest ? and yet this intrigue is eulogized 
 — this cunning rewarded at the ballot-box ; this love 
 of public weal taxed, and American rights looked at 
 as a bubble. Jesuits clothed in public honors by 
 American suffrages — her punic sorrow laughed to 
 scorn I This faith to America stalks forth unmolested, 
 and is lauded with ovation at the Court of Koine. 
 
60 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 Nothing can compensate the want of virtue in our free 
 America. Alexander required the destruction of 
 empires to content his passion for glory ; Diogenes but 
 a tub to make him look whimsical ; Socrates but dis- 
 ciples to lead to virtue ; but the Pope of Eome wants 
 the liberties of thirty millions of freemen, soul and 
 body, to content his rapacity. All quarters of the 
 globe are thus ransacked to find food to suit the dainty 
 taste of the fastidious of America. 
 
 It is America's sole errand to oppose this ; to con- 
 solidate all virtue and kindness upon her own destiny ; 
 to interest her people in their conservation ; to merit 
 her affections ; to draw respect on her from strangers ; 
 to render harmonious her page of history; to elicit 
 the praise of all nations ; to clothe the orphan ; to dry 
 the widow's tear. 
 
 If America has miscalculated her remedies against 
 this growing evil, they are suitable ; let her but be 
 consulted — her experience cannot be resisted, and 
 Americ'a will not renounce the evidence of her senses ! 
 And when error is demolished, it must be by truth, 
 not prejudice. By not underrating the power of that 
 great curse, which is sapping our foundation, and sink- 
 ing our national standard every day. This is an obli- 
 gation America must not, and dare not longer resist. 
 
 The Laplander adores a rock, the negro prostrates 
 himself before a serpent, and, at least, sees what it 
 adores; the idolater falls down before a statue, and 
 what more does Popery — to the souls of America. 
 Mahomet conversed with the Deity, and promulgated 
 
CHILDREN IN CATHOLIC INSTITUTIONS. 61 
 
 his system to Mussulman, which now imposes on mill- 
 ions of credulous Arabs, and is yet the creed of the 
 Turk. These are the results of education. The Turk 
 would have adored the serpent, or the African the 
 Arab, in the same way by circumstances. 
 
 The worst of all is deified error. He who abandons 
 
 his reason in this, will not likely examine it in anything 
 
 Beside. The Romish Hierarchy says to American sons 
 
 I and daughters, you must seek your happiness in the / 
 
 1 creed of the Romish Church, of which the Pope is the 
 
 \ pillar ; it is, then, in the doctrines they set forth that 
 
 'we expeefmen to look for the model of right ! 
 
 Then America is to be saved by an instruction which- 
 rigorously underrates her reason; and waiting only 
 for time and chance to excite the most rancorous ani- 
 mosity, and separate forever freedom and America. 
 pPopery, then, is armed with this political mission in 
 i America, and she fulfils it through her convents, 
 I schools, and colleges. Citizens of America, give ac- 
 tivity to her movement by giving the souls and bodies 
 of your children to their guidance, and soon will you 
 feel the plunge of their pointed steel and barbed arrows. 
 
 America shrieks with horror at such a havoc — her 
 blood bowing to superstition and idolatry of priestly 
 influence — each child lauded, while his destroyer glo- 
 ries in the crime for which he enlisted his young 
 heart. 
 
 In some countries, mothers have delivered children, 
 to moisten with their blood the altars of the gods — in 
 others, by immolating their victims — in others, by la- 
 
62 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 ceration and torture. Some thirst for blood, some for 
 idolatry — but, gracious God.! is free America to be a 
 pandemonium ? Our dear country ! Shall America's 
 children give their souls and bodies, through their par- 
 ents, to an idolatry which banishes happiness and 
 reason, stifles the cries of nature, renders them barba- 
 rous to themselves, atrocious to their fellow-creatures, 
 to render their zeal acceptable to Eomish priests and 
 priestesses. 
 
 The ethics of Eomish superstition, which shuts up 
 the souls and bodies from the eyes of America, must 
 always be prejudicial to her. Coming here trampling 
 on the dearest rights of nature and freedom, and un- 
 bridling their rancor against Protestants — to obtain the 
 favor of Heaven ! Is America's blood to be polluted 
 and castigated? Priests and prelates, calling them- 
 selves the ministers of Heaven, inflated with pride and 
 covetousness, advancing the cause of Eomish despot- 
 ism and intolerance in free America ? They fix on 
 adamantine rocks, and establish an empire on brass, in 
 America : then send American chddren to her instruct- 
 ors ; they are open to receive them all, every one of 
 them ! It is impossible to serve the Pope of Eome 
 and the Lord Jesus Christ at the same time ! 
 
 Eome's Vicegerent opposes America's God, and has 
 inflicted in all ages the most cruel exaction on those 
 who refused to displace God for him. Professing re- 
 ligion, with no knowledge of morality ! Even Con- 
 stantine found his priestly accompnces, and sovereigns 
 have had no difficulty in atoning for crime, with a good 
 Confessor. 
 
CHILDKEN IN CATHOLIC INSTITUTIONS. 63 
 
 What fruit has Popery ever gathered anywhere? 
 What nation was ever rendered more happy, what 
 sovereign more powerful? — alas, alas ! 
 
 With a monopoly of expiatory indulgences, are they 
 to establish a tariff of pardons for American citizens, 
 to which all fidelity may be forfeited by paying the 
 customs — subjecting them who are favorable to liberty 
 to the heaviest imposts? Thus may America be de- 
 fended, but it is at a dear cost that her Papal sons can 
 touch the hem of her garment I What the priest looks 
 to as sacred — which is the Church — the political ChurcrJ 
 of Eome — no citizen of America, who is with her, can 
 regard as common. Under such a guidance, what can 
 become of America's youth ? Sacrificed to supersti- 
 tion, poisoned with unintelligible jargon, fed on mys- 
 tery, crammed with fables, drenched with absurdities, 
 occupied by puerile pursuits, mechanical devotions, 
 sacred nonsense — until the mind, fascinated, becomes 
 an automaton! Their men and their women chant 
 without one sensible word. Forever prepossessed 
 against truth, they become enemies to reason, and 
 they leave these places, if at all, with manacles on their 
 energies— their spring .gone : too humiliated to soar, 
 the most fertile genius becomes barren, and yields but 
 thorns! Oh, God! shall this be America's education? 
 Are men to revolt thus against God and their country, 
 and ready to cut the throats of all who question the 
 veracity of their faith, while the corrupted minds of its 
 young men and women become fascinated by its pa- 
 geant, and know no duty above this, to self or country? 
 
64 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 Where shall we look for America's strength, when 
 time-serving priests are at every corner, swayed by no 
 other interests than to curse and curb her freedom, and 
 who, maugre all efforts, go on to captivate, and de- 
 stroy. 
 
 It is only by educating our own people in our own 
 schools, that we can counteract this. Let America rise 
 and thus lay her axe at the root of superstition and 
 priestly power. Let America teach one lesson — that 
 superstition is incompatible with liberty, and can never 
 furnish good citizens. Thou vile dust, know America 
 can break thy sceptre, level thy throne to the dust, and 
 God can destroy thee from this land thou hast sought 
 to enslave. 
 
 Popery has a right to be an enemy to reason, for 
 that is to annihilate it. These creeds of imposture must 
 be overturned. Shall America be sacrificed to this 
 frightful delirium? 
 
 When she consults the legitimate desire of her heart, 
 she will find that Eome is against her liberty and hap- 
 piness. 
 
 Infuse courage, then, into those who seek to break 
 this illusion ; console the prejudices of those who have 
 never examined, and dissipate the incertitude of those 
 whom, doubt has made unhappy — take away the enemy 
 who afflicts America's mind, and kindles anger in her 
 neighbor's heart. Snatch from imposture all the chil- 
 dren, that America may no longer blush to be enslaved 
 by this artifice. 
 
 Can a cause so precious — benefits so tangible — be 
 
CHILDREN IN CATHOLIC INSTITUTIONS. 65 
 
 sacrificed to such a hope, with such a convincing expe- 
 rience ? 
 
 The thorns are scattering all along her way-sides. 
 
 Every man and every woman who has the courage 
 to announce truth can attack error, to battle these evils 
 which threaten our liberties. It is glorious to deprive 
 imposture of its influences ; it is loving our neighbor 
 as ourselves, to rid and despoil this Romish tyranny of 
 its empire here. It will evaporate before the sturdy 
 examiner, not by casting opprobrium or discourteous 
 language, that its absurdity can be judged and discrep- 
 ancy shown with our liberty, but by the test of truth, 
 which is ever consistent with itself. There is a marked 
 difference in this system, between the mind and the 
 heart. Priests who fan the flame of discord are rebels 
 to our ruling power. 
 
 Theological autocrats governing American freemen, 
 controlling her legislature, her executive ; assuming to 
 give divine lustre to their persons, while they blind 
 and bend American freemen beneath their galling yoke. 
 
 America owes something to America. This Romish 
 creed prescribes all plighted faith, when it is a question 
 of interest. And the maxim of their church is, "no 
 faith to be held with heretics." 
 
 This Roman Pontiff, it is well known, has the right 
 of relieving all oaths, of annulling all vows. He has 
 arrogated the power of deposing kings, and absolving 
 Americans from obligations of political fidelity, and 
 thus the political church of Rome schools American 
 freemen I Let these haughty prelates become citizens 
 
66 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 and cease to disturb public tranquility — what an im- 
 petus to the mind of America, to sound morality, to 
 the diffusion of truth, to that improved legislation, were 
 this trammel taken off, and unlimited freedom given to 
 thought ! Eomish priesthood is opposing it at every 
 step, taking the children of American sons and daugh- 
 ters, bandaging their faculties, wrapping them in swad- 
 dling clothes — this civil and spiritual mixture must be 
 overthrown. 
 
 It is the outrage perpetrated on American liberties 
 that has aroused the American party to immolate its 
 fame and genius at the shrine of conscience. It has 
 moved to purpose, and will give a verdict. When un- 
 suspecting, tolerant Protestants fled to Bishops and 
 Priests confidingly, for the education of their sons and 
 daughters, they knew not that, with a tenacity which 
 never swerves, every study, invention, and dream, is 
 to make her a dog, or jackal, without her books, her 
 monuments, or her great name. 
 
CHAPTEE V. 
 
 INTERIOR VIEW OF ROMAN CATHOLIC 
 INSTITUTIONS IN AMERICA. 
 
 " The sword of the hero, 
 
 The staff of the sage, 
 "Whose valor and wisdom 
 
 Are 6tamped on the age. 
 Time-hallowed mementos 
 
 Of those who have riven 
 The sceptre from tyrants, 
 
 * The lightning from heaven !' " 
 
 Amebica never had but one Mother, and she it was 
 to whom Solomon gave the child. It knew the gram- 
 mar and rudiments of the Mother tongue, and could 
 read strains of Heavenly music from its birth ; and, 
 lest the glory of its intellect should be too bright for its 
 young eyes, and cause it to stagger under the trance of 
 delight, its Mother, disinterested and kind, taught it its 
 infirmities, and guarded it by her education from the 
 stranger, who, passionless, bloodless, and didactic, 
 might wander around, take the lustre from the land- 
 scapes, the birds out of the garden, the children out of 
 the schools, and leave its soul pining at the sight of 
 living corpses, walking without shrouds! This was 
 seventy -nine years ago, the happiest moment of Amer- 
 ica's life. She was born a Nation. The jubilee was 
 
68 THE GEEAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 great No temple could hold the enthusiastic multi- 
 tude, and they gathered under the canopy of the sky. 
 Men, women, and children, the old on their crutches, 
 the young in their cradles, all were actors — none spec- 
 tators ! Every other interest fled, and all was left to 
 the custody of public faith. America was carried a 
 living flower among all the flowers of the earth, and 
 offered upon the altar of Liberty and Truth. 
 
 She took her civic oath from her Mother's lips on 
 her Bible, and assumed the dignity and humanity of 
 the American Nation ! The child was thus staked for, 
 and sworn for its native land. That great and happy 
 generation who gazed on this sublime spectacle have 
 passed away. But the children were taught and bless- 
 ed on the altar of American Liberty, and in the pres- 
 ence of their heroic fathers and mothers, who breathed 
 into them their living spirit, they were left to extend 
 their living liberty to the world. 
 
 There was one vast, comprehensive affection on that 
 day. Distinctions, fortunes, positions were forgotten. 
 There was one general table — all partook in common — 
 enmities were reconciled — social dissensions ended — 
 believer and philosopher — Catholic and Protestant em- 
 braced each other at the Altar ! All hearts overflow- 
 ed with love. The open air, the free sky, the fertile 
 valley, all showed man had at last reconquered his 
 rights, and re-entered his Nature ! Bivers, mountains, 
 landscapes, all that has nature, mind, and truth, re- 
 vealed liberty on that day. 
 
 The sun burst forth from the clouds — men saw as 
 
ROMAN CATHOLIC INSTITUTIONS. 69 
 
 never before, and with a longing desire to clasp each 
 other in the arms, each felt and saw a spark from God. 
 Then the great family of America was one in heart, 
 and one in embrace. Then was proclaimed to every 
 sea, and every land, that God is with us, and for us. 
 Come I The solemn banquet was made ready, the 
 bread was broken, and all were invited, and on this 
 day of happiness, all humanity was present to the soul 
 and wishes of America. Then has she not reason, at 
 such a moment, to hope for the blessing of God, a right 
 to expect the prayers of mankind ? And, now, with a 
 people generous, heroic, magnanimous, and disinterest- 
 ed, what can impede this miracle, which has brought 
 forth a world? 
 
 But an old man, sitting and trembling upon the 
 great Shield of the Vatican at Eome, has evinced a 
 great desire to control the spiritual and temporal inte- 
 rests of this young world. And, with the most unca- 
 nonical levity, he summoned around him his Cardinals, 
 his Bishops, and his States. How can we, said he, see 
 those millions yonder giving a starting-point to free- 
 dom, an impulse to liberty, which will make her very 
 shadow subjugate my empire, without at once making 
 ready a sepulchre? 
 
 His Jesuit counsellor replied' — You have the royalty 
 of glory, the royalty of divine right, the royalty of 
 money, then blow your breath upon their dead ashes 
 until the old spirit of their Eevolution has been ex- 
 hausted to the last spark. Do it with a hearty good 
 will for them. Do it by art, by history, by charity, 
 
70 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 and kindness, until the old carcase will be rejuvenated, 
 and cold and sterile America will pine away ; suffer, 
 because hungry and thirsty ; and when the children 
 cry out for bread, we will give them a stone ! 
 
 But is not that nourishment exhausted by warfare, 
 said the Pope. Those people will be fed — those old fa- 
 thers, of whom they boast, nourished them with blood and 
 with milk, and the mystery now is to give them bread 
 for the body, and food for the mind, and yet stifle the 
 soul. "Wherever success appears, the vulgar must be- 
 hold wisdom. . Ah, said the Jesuit Bishop, ah, that is 
 the miracle ! But the secret we know. We will go 
 among them in poverty of spirit, and groan in our 
 humiliation; we will inqure' for light on arriving; we 
 will interpose nothing between the mother and the 
 children. 
 
 When they boast of their liberty of conscience, and 
 their great constitution of government, which they say 
 is beyond men ! we will inwardly ejaculate, but not 
 above the Pope, who will destroy it ! We will put all 
 in one ark, their constitutions, their maps, the fruits of 
 America, her ears of corn and her harvests of men. 
 We will get, then, her daughters to make us a cap of 
 liberty, and wear the national cockade of your Serene 
 Highness before their eyes. Holy confidence, said the 
 Pope — if you are loyal to my government, you will 
 build a temple for it, on the ruins- of their Bible and 
 Constitution, and Declaration of Independence. And 
 until this edifice is reared, this altar where I am wor- 
 shiped, has received her gold and precious stones — no 
 
KOMAN CATHOLIC INSTITUTIONS. 71 
 
 more emigrants ; and ye shall be called usurpers of 
 Sovereignty, who wait longer to fuse their freedom 
 and make welcome to them my sceptre. Thus directed, 
 the Emissaries came ; after a little cursing and swear- 
 ing at so much light, they determined to convert every 
 house in America to a fort, and to keep the gates open 
 and the houses without defence. Protestants came and 
 went freely, their honor, piety, and loyalty to the gov- 
 ernment was everywhere highly esteemed ; and soon 
 American Protestants brought their children to them 
 for safe-keeping ; they built their churches, and their 
 schools; their naked purpose was to enjoy our free in- 
 stitutions ; they paraded in biblical plainness, and shut 
 up the mystery of their pages from all sensitive read- 
 ers. But whilst they wrote with a crowquill for 
 American liberty, they were making the shoes to pinch 
 her young feet, and getting her into schools, colleges, 
 and convents. They got an emblematical pair of scales, 
 and ballasting the Bible and Liberty by the Nuncio 
 and Inquisition, they almost jumped out of their skins 
 with delight, and working to attain the equilibrium, 
 they have grown stout, solid and powerful ! They 
 captivate women with little holy playthings, sympathize 
 with their feminine weaknesses, and minister to their 
 arts. They shut up the beautiful and innocent to make 
 vows for Papal Jesuitism in free America. At every 
 rich repast they minister, and are leading armies and 
 training them for the funeral pageant of America's 
 death. When they get the daughters, they want the 
 sons, and in the name of liberty ask for the children. 
 
72 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 They facilitate advantages by the easy terms of admis- 
 sion. Their Propaganda at Rome, at Lyons, in France, 
 and Vienna, in Austria, build colleges, nunneries and 
 monasteries for America, to speculate in her souls, and 
 thus to stifle them, they offer education almost without 
 money or price. This attraction is assiduously murder- 
 ing the soul, the heart, the morals, the best hopes of 
 America ! Oh God, shall these monsters of iniquity 
 come with an axe and a crowbar, and publicly teach 
 that absolute monarchy is the best government to free 
 America! and who have reiterated to the world, in 
 their new profession of faith to the King of the Two 
 Sicilies, that they think and believe, and uphold ab- 
 solute despotism, and regard it illegal to make any 
 other government ; and significantly ask, what else is 
 needed to be done to show they are hostile to all free 
 Institutions? This is the Romish Jesuitical Hierarchy 
 that got into America, because of her religious tolera- 
 tion. This Jesuit priesthood, now interwoven with 
 Popery, is making a religion without God or liberty 
 to govern America's soul and body ! 
 
 They have denounced the public schools of Ameri- 
 can citizens, cursed their Bible, murdered their history, 
 and maimed and mutilated their literature. They teach 
 American children that all the founders of this repub- 
 lic were Papists ; that "Washington, the father of his 
 country died a Roman Catholic, and in his last mo- 
 ments he was assisted, confessed, and communicated by 
 the Romish Bishop of Baltimore, and that the relatives 
 of this great American patriot, fearing Americana' 
 
KOMAN CATHOLIC INSTITUTIONS. 73 
 
 would repudiate their hero, desired the secret never to 
 be disclosed ! The Eomish community knew this con- 
 version, and Washington, our American "Washington, 
 the founder of American liberties, who wanted none 
 but " Americans on guard," is a candidate for beatifi- 
 cation by the Pope of Borne — oh God ! The Frater- 
 nity of Masons, of whom "Washington was one, is de- 
 nounced as the basest of all human Societies, because 
 they sneer against Christ, the cross, and the Holy 
 Mother Church ! The best Eepublicans, they teach, 
 are all Eomanists. Thus the Protestant American 
 youth are made to believe Washington, a true Christian 
 Protestant, died a Jesuit infidel ! While Luther was 
 opening the door to light in the sixteenth century, 
 Eome seized on this valiant soldier, Jesuitism, and 
 gave him her fraternity. Its doctrine of free-will 
 against the election of Protestants made it soon accept- 
 able to a sin-stricken world. Thus they came to 
 America to take liberty by the hand and make it a 
 corpse. This cunning gave attraction to the confes- 
 sional. And they soon saw, to take the children was 
 to secure the parents : their design, by education is to 
 crush the soul, and leave the mind a mere machine. — 
 Like a mother with its nursling, it gives to these dear 
 children little and little. They undertake thus to 
 make the entire man ; take him by education, rule him 
 by preaching, govern him by direction. Their apolo- 
 gists tell us Americans, that the will, like the infant, 
 must be swathed to make it happy, salutary, and sup- 
 ple I Oh, look, Americans, live, walking men and 
 4 
 
74 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 women, with dead wills ! Horses are often made lean 
 to win stakes ; beeves and muttons made fat for their 
 meat ; poultry blind for the same reason, and man has 
 this faculty kept, that lopped off, to suit the views of 
 their Jesuit masters. They bind human souls for 
 action, and keep them isolated at heart. To preserve 
 this ignorance of the degrees is their essential doctrine. 
 Then, again, they create distrust, each of the other — 
 confidence and soul -friendship never germinated under 
 a Jesuit roof! Their artificial education shows to 
 these pupils a false light of America and of the world, 
 and without means of detection, they become immured 
 to a lie. 
 
 This police to Romish education is everywhere in 
 America — in their temples, their schools, their houses. 
 They lay their hands on the religious liberty of Amer- 
 ica to despoil her of her political liberty, liberty of the 
 press, liberty of speech — -this, which is the reward of 
 our fathers' efforts, the fruit of their blood. "When 
 America loses her liberty, what else has she to save? 
 Almighty Father, who ever liveth and reigneth, save 
 our dear native land ! When Priestcraft locks up the 
 minds of America's youth, death will win her. Jesus 
 Christ has never changed his robes, glory to God. 
 These Romish institutions display roses and lilies, but 
 punish with nettles. And now, in the name of Amer- 
 ican liberty, America is besought for God's sake not to 
 let the living children give this demon their free 
 spirits. In some countries of the East, prayers are 
 said by the motion of machinery, and this is the pale 
 
ROMAN CATHOLIC INSTITUTIONS. 75 
 
 light which shines over the frozen souls of this system. 
 It makes heroes of fools, fools of heroes. 
 
 The Eastern lore tells of a man who got into a vessel 
 of bronze, and flapping his wings to reach the poles, 
 fell into the sea. The captive promised the empire to 
 his deliverer ; the next century he promised all the 
 treasure of the earth ; in the next, he said when he got 
 out he would destroy all. See to it, America, that 
 our enemy is kept a captive. This Papal influence 
 came seeking little by little, it assumed, then boasted, 
 and now denounces us. Solomon set his seal upon 
 our blood, our lives, and our free hearts, and we will 
 resist this foreign politician, teaching for freedom, to 
 stab it the more surely. Are American citizens will- 
 ing to take the wormwood and gall to save an item of 
 expense in the footing up of their yearly disburse- 
 ments ? 
 
 Behold the pupils, the confessionals in America, the 
 secrets and mysteries between priests and women who 
 are in conclave, to teach dissimulation, the divine right 
 of the Pope, and his absolute control over the political 
 and religious opinions of all his subjects. 
 
 They are masked before the public, and call God an 
 instrument for good, when it may do them good. They 
 say out of this Church there is no salvation. While 
 America saves her education, she will save her Consti- 
 tution and her Bible, and -truly Catholic, will extend 
 her principles and protection alike to Lutheran and 
 Calvinist, Protestant and Komanist. 
 
 No Protestant sect can avow a creed hostile to the 
 
76 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 salvation of any other — it would be the dying out of 
 all national fame. "Wherever Jesuitism has victims, it 
 has hearths. Whoever teaches in their community 
 must renounce all others. 
 
 The monk says, pray and read, while he stalks forth 
 as though he had all America on a string of beads, 
 carrying a pent-up fire to burn up the suspected and 
 reviled intellects which come near him. 
 
 Jesuitism was born in Spain, reared in France, de- 
 veloped under Papal Eome, and diffused in the United 
 States of America ! It began by desiring the Holy 
 Sepulchre, soon got more practical, and wanted the 
 corpses of all men. The Company of Jesus, now in 
 America, at the disposal of the Pope, is great, power- 
 ful, and oppressive. It is mysterious and demoniacal, 
 defying our science, and weaving its malice over the 
 brightest hopes of the world. 
 
 It measures the time, the breath, the respiration, the 
 suffocation of its votaries — a mere machine of siarhs 
 and sobs. If the business is with the virgin, there is 
 the image ! If you inquire for God, they will address 
 your imagination, and tell you there He is on his 
 knees. Is this the Church founded by God's well-be- 
 loved Son? Oh, that God would speak to them in 
 thunder ! 
 
 When they have ensnared a man, woman, or child, 
 they use no abrupt action; they have trained tactics; 
 they make instruments, not disciples. When the world 
 looks cold, or vices have become great, they say, come 
 and we will do you good! With great care not to 
 
ROMAN CATHOLIC INSTITUTIONS. 77 
 
 overtax in the beginning, secret visits are made, to 
 make the interest more profound. They have the 
 spiritual exercises, and the direclorium. The poor, un- 
 suspecting soul is drawn into the solitude of the cell, 
 and there left to these exercises. The instructor and 
 a silent valet alone appear each day, and then this 
 pious instructor incites to heavenly diligence. When 
 the soul has thus suffocated in silent agony, to use their 
 language, the role changes. The instructor then shows 
 indifference ; the soul is then left to breathe a little — 
 they say there is no need to have it always tortured. 
 When the soul is thus killed, leaving it but enough to 
 have it feel free to make choice, thus shrivelled and 
 shrunken, man, made in the image of his Maker, en- 
 dowed with a living spirit, fitted for all that is noble 
 and elevating to humanity, gathers up its libeett, and 
 surrenders itself to the most unspeakable iniquity that 
 ever cursed humanity ! 
 
 Thus subjugated now, without hope elsewhere, each 
 victim works to glorify, aggrandize, and gild its prison ; 
 they have no mortality outside ; their constitution cuts 
 off life ; and while the sun shines on the outside, they 
 are made within of the remains of the dead. American 
 citizens, are these the institutions to train American 
 men and women? Men, who are to do your voting, 
 your fighting ; to make your laws, to administer your 
 constitution? Women, who are to rear the nursery 
 of American youth ? See to it, see to it ! 
 
 Everything is trusted but the soul's resources. All 
 is done, but to confide in truth and believe in Jesus to 
 
78 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 save man from the judgment due for his sins. In this 
 instituted police, spiritual tranquillity is suspected, and 
 to doubt and denounce is mutual ; the soul must not 
 be alive, this is the danger. And death of the con- 
 science is death of the whole man ! This Eomish Jes- 
 uitical Church has fortunately betrayed its impatience ; 
 it came here to biiild for Rome, but God will turn, its 
 cunning in favor of its foes. 
 
 In all Christian institutions we see God and his 
 creature — there is faith and thought. Here all is pro- 
 vincial fathers, overseers, admonitors. The same legis- 
 lation that makes a porter or a watchman, makes a 
 prefect of spiritual things. Think of laying a law on 
 an altar for eight days, to decide the merits of a cook 
 for hard coarse bread! The name of God is rarely 
 pronounced in these places — everything is mechanical, 
 every day, and hour, and minute, has its policy and 
 appointment. Its manifest object is, to found the 
 political state, to penetrate the people by its principles, 
 to interest them, and bring them under the shadow of 
 Eome — and hence their schools. Discarding the Bible 
 from these public schools was done by the edict of 
 Pius IX. ! He wished, under the form of religious 
 law, to separate the written Constitution from the prin- 
 ciples of its political life, so he goes right at the foun- 
 dation, and demands that the Bible be discarded from 
 the schools of American citizens. In many cases it 
 has been done. And in New York alone, thirty-six 
 schools obeyed His Serene Majesty! Jesuitism has 
 been the basis of polytheism of the Greeks and Ro- 
 
ROMAN CATHOLIC INSTITUTIONS. 79 
 
 mans — of pantheism to the Oriental nations. There is 
 not a true Jesuit in all America who does not feel it his 
 loyal duty to try to destroy the power of opinion the 
 fathers of our liberties sought to bury in the soil. Thus 
 they came to us — as they have to all reigning Govern- 
 ments. Demagogical Whigs, Demagogical Democrats, 
 i to suit the case and the occasion ! They have the priv- 
 ^ ilege of escaping the constitution of America, by the 
 veto of the Pope of Eome ! 
 
 In all the countries it has passed, it has swept death 
 like a sirocco! The nations of the earth who have 
 resisted Popery, showed by marked contrast with Italy, 
 Spain, Portugal, South America, and Poland, what is 
 the worth of the right of conscience, to science, philos- 
 ophy, and literature. In three hundred years we can 
 find no noble thought . or act from that unholy thing. 
 It has persecuted Galileo, and oppressed Columbus. 
 Yet the geography of the heavens, and the discovery 
 of America, was in spite of them. Their first injunc- 
 tion in all their schools is, " let no one even in matters 
 which are of no danger to piety, ever introduce a new 
 question ;" the circle of ideas they teach thus stands 
 without progression, and " absolute rejectionfrom their 
 instruction " is the threat to be executed upon the girl 
 or boy who dares to think ! The very air and tempera- 
 ture of America is so congenial to the development of 
 thought, that not to think we cease to be. The insti- 
 tutions of America oblige this, and while men in other 
 climes revolve only around the circle of ideas which 
 belong to their particular occupation or cast, an Amer- 
 
80 THE GEEAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 ican artizan or operative has, by means of a cheap and 
 free press, and the right of freedom of speech, a dispo- 
 sition to inquire and range over whatever affects the 
 public weal or the rights of humanity. 
 
 With infinite skill this Jesuit priesthood moves off 
 the great of America, and introduces the small. The 
 inmates of their institutions are forbidden to occupy 
 themselves with God, and not to speak of Him at all. 
 Let the thoughts never stop at the idea of a Supreme 
 Being more than two or three times a day; time 
 cannot be occupied, say they, with the liberty or eter- 
 nity of God ! 
 
 Conceive an American citizen with a decapitated 
 mind, dispossessed of all ideas of the living God ! Oh, 
 God, what a thought ! Without Thee ! Henry the 
 Fourth, of France, admitted to Sully that he allowed 
 the Jesuit Priesthood to enter Catholic France only 
 because he feared them ! Philip the Second, of Spain, 
 said the only Order of which I know nothing is the 
 Jesuit. This, interwoven with Popery, is the Roman 
 Catholic Church of the United States. Their doctrine 
 in the Sessions of Trent, and everywhere, is to bring 
 to dust all councils and representative bodies in Chris- 
 tendom, to annul all acts of the people, and to make 
 the horizon hold fast one temporal and spiritual mon- 
 archy for man. They teach humiliation, because they 
 say the Church was born in servitude. Good Heavens ! 
 Therefore they eschew all political change, name, and 
 movement that looks like Liberty ! Their philosophy 
 exalts their orthodoxy. Their art follows after the 
 
ROMAN CATHOLIC INSTITUTIONS. 81 
 
 clatter of unknown tongues. Napoleon said of Italy, 
 " Good God, how rare are men! In eighteen millions 
 I have seen but two !" Shall we say this of our dear, 
 dear native land? Shall gold lace on the coat, make 
 us virtuous republicans ? Shall it allure and beguile 
 us ? Shall we Americans feed children like pigs ? 
 Shall our brave troops run, when the greatest courage 
 alone can save us ? It only remains then, that Amer- 
 ica be loyal to her flag, and once more unitedly rally 
 around her Constitution. Jesus Christ is on her 
 throne, and, in the common brotherhood, let family, 
 soul, country, humanity, and education be one. 
 
 What education, then, does America want ? That 
 which is replete with life, which lies deep in the heart 
 of the mother, who takes the young hand of her boy, 
 and runs to the Star Spangled Banner, blesses him, and 
 tells him to love his dear country. Let the maps be 
 set right before her youth, and under God's eye; let 
 them see their best hopes, their best thoughts are dedi- 
 cated to her service and her safety. 
 
 She wants, to this end, her public schools, which the 
 Jesuit priesthood have dignified by the name of heresy 1 
 And which dreading, they curse and denounce in all 
 their journals. Her public schools, which have nour- 
 ished the patriotic emotions of her Clay, her Webster, 
 her Calhoun, her Cass ! Which have been regarded as 
 the key to this Eepublic, by Washington, Jefferson, 
 Adams, Madison, Van Buren, Jackson, and all her 
 distinguished Protestant sons. 
 
 Here a seed is sown every day, which germs a 
 
82 THE GREAT AMERICAN" BATTLE. 
 
 thought for America's freedom ; here a word is drop- 
 ped which inspires ambitious longings to add to her 
 greatness. Think, then, of this matter, oh, men and 
 women of America, before you give her hope to those 
 who neither speak of God, nor allow His Word to be 
 read or seen. 
 
 It is this science of the Gospel which dispenses afar 
 its treasures, which is prodigal to spread life, rights, 
 and power, to every American citizen — and should be 
 shared by all. Thus - educated, the humble of our land 
 have been made lofty, the poor have been enriched 
 and blessed. 
 
 A sight of our evident danger gave birth to the great 
 party which now bears America's name, and quitting 
 habit, society, and all other interests, for that of coun- 
 try, it comes to appease the persecuting, intolerant act- 
 ings of all who, professing American nationality, shall 
 profess to be governed by any power which defies the 
 supremacy of her Constitutional Government. The 
 spark has been struck, glory to God, and woe to them 
 who stir the ashes I 
 
 " This weapon, Freedom, 
 
 Was drawn by thy son, 
 And it never was sheathed 
 
 Till the battle was won ! 
 No stain of dishonor 
 
 Upon it we see, 
 'Twas never surrendered 
 
 Except to the Free !" 
 
1 ■ 
 
 fS?&<rt<'>£7^-- 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 THE AMERICAN PARTY. 
 
 "Throw out your broad flag! let the undazzlcd eye 
 Of its Eagle look up to the radiant sty ; 
 In his own native air, let him pillow his form, 
 With his breast on the sunbeam, his wiDg on the storm. 
 
 For that eye still undimmed with the vigil of years, 
 From the rampart looks out, and if danger appears ! 
 Those pinions protecting shall freemen behold 1 
 Like the cloud and the flame to the Hebrews of old." 
 
 "What kind of trees are those?" said America to 
 his mother, one morning, as he beheld the prickly 
 foliage and tasted the bitter fruit which was falling and 
 covering all the avenues which led into his garden. "It 
 is in vain to speak of the leaf and the berry," said his 
 mother ; " grafting has been tried to no purpose ; the 
 trees are all exotics and must be uprooted ; for although 
 they grow luxuriously, they draw up all the moisture, 
 and will soon impoverish the growth of the entire gar- 
 den." "Then," said America, " let the axe be laid to 
 the root ; but tell me, mother, how long have they been 
 allowed to spring and nourish in our soil ?" " They came 
 here," said she, "many years before you were born, but 
 were regarded as mere scions in the great nursery of 
 plants ; and while they did not interfere with those of 
 
84 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 real beauty and utility, and appeared to exude no nox- 
 ious influence to our pure atmosphere, we allowed them 
 to remain, and cumber the ground. 
 
 ' 'But of late, ' ' continued she, ' ' the laurel has so largely 
 mixed with the cypress, a charnel breath has so min- 
 gled with our temple incense, that I have grieved to 
 see how the children begin to flee from the gardens, 
 and, without immediate and decided action, we shall 
 soon see them surrendered to the dead ! America, dear 
 America ! it must be thy aim to raise man high in God's 
 sight, and you must keep fresh as- a rainbow — as strong 
 and immovable as your mountains ; and the flowers, 
 the tides, the rising and setting stars, must all har- 
 monize with you. So that, when your great heart 
 beats, the sea and the earth will beat ; the sun shall roll 
 to your pulsations — the sap of all the trees, the blood 
 of all mankind." 
 
 " It shall be so ! it shall be so!" said America, with 
 significant emphasis. "I hear a seer has just arrived, 
 and bears my own great name. They tell me," added 
 America, "he is horsed on a winged steed, and is sus- 
 tained by a dignity that not only honors me, but the 
 human race. They say he has studied spars and metals, 
 until his conversation is lustrous with points and shoots 
 of thought, that sparkle like crystal, in a winter's 
 morning." 
 
 " It is so," said his mother, " it is the great American 
 Party, which though older than yourself, is like you, 
 of Heavenly birth, and has come again, in the good 
 Providence of God, to save your nationality, and to 
 
THE AMERICAN PARTY. 85 
 
 turn out from our yards those skulking dogs, which 
 always hunt in a pack, or like bees only thrive in a 
 hive." 
 
 "Americans, dear, were not made to herd cattle and 
 mind geese, and God will not make of us an animal 
 kingdom. 
 
 " Think, America, what motive first sent your ances- 
 tors to settle this vast wilderness, now our garden, and 
 made danger and hardship welcome. It was to serve 
 the everlasting God of heaven and earth which filled 
 this nation's chant. Though occupied in different pur- 
 suits, that thought of freedom and God, was their 
 common topic of discourse, that gave to their charac- 
 ters energy and manhood, which none ever conceived 
 in the Old World — it was God's hand here! The 
 Stamp Act and the duty on tea," she continued, "hast- 
 ened, but did not originate the American Eevolution ; 
 that was the thought of our dear old fathers, which 
 were then buried in the soil." " Oh, mother," said 
 America, "are we passing through Liberty? Great 
 God, why do I suffer, why do I tremble! I see the 
 vehicles thronging the way-side, filling up all the roads 
 with these Jesuit papists ; are we importing these for- 
 eigners to export our honor, our fame, our virtue, our 
 nationality ?" " This is true, America, but hark ye, the 
 people are aroused, these foes have abused their privi- 
 leges and usurped our rights, but we are able and will 
 oppose their numbers. Have you not learned, my dear, 
 that before seventeen hundred and sixty-three, this land 
 was cursed by a population like the present, sent by 
 
86 THE CHEAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 James I. of England, and thrust into the colony of Vir- 
 ginia, and afterwards extended through the whole coun- 
 try ; remonstrance and resistance were long and violent, 
 but in vain — for our fathers were without our Star Span- 
 gled Banner, and our free Constitution of Government. 
 And George IV. renewed the evil, so that those deemed 
 worthy of death for crime, without benefit of clergy, 
 were cast into the colonies to enjoy one common lot." 
 
 "Indeed, so early as seventeen hundred and fifty, 
 three or four hundred of this distinct nationality were 
 annually turned like beasts into the Colony of Mary- 
 land, and would have drank up her Chesapeake, if they 
 could have stopped the rivers from flowing into it." 
 America looked pale with surprise, and asked, "Were 
 they Eomanists or Protestants?" "Three-fourths of 
 them, at least, were Eomanists; who, though linking 
 their palpable actions with Americans, — then, as now, 
 moved like one engine against the independent wills 
 and enlightened action of Protestants. You remem- 
 ber at the public school, where you were taught," said 
 his mother, " to have learned of the valor and glory of 
 the American arms in the French and Indian wars, 
 which closed with the peace of seventeen hundred and 
 sixty-three, after nearly a century of commotion and 
 danger, and settling down, as they then hoped, for a 
 permanent tranquility, your ancestors set about estab- 
 lishing their common school-system, for the general 
 education of all the Colonies. They saw that ignorance 
 was the weapon of the great Deceiver, who, by persuad- 
 ing from the natural use of tongues might better gloss 
 over the saintly actings in unknown tongues, and hence 
 
THE AMERICAN PARTY. 87 
 
 to save liberty and preserve men and Christians, arose 
 the public school-system first in New England. These 
 people, ever patriotic, were in earnest, in not allowing 
 the graves of their fathers to enshroud the liberty which 
 they had fostered, and left with the impress of the 
 great Creator. 
 
 "So, the study of the Scriptures, reading, writing, 
 diffused Truth, and soon filled the whole mind of the 
 country with the design and nature of their future in- 
 dependence ! Your ancestors, America, differed widely 
 from all other people upon earth: while others yield all 
 personality to the miserable detail of some branch of 
 industry, and are bound a slave to it only, be it a cot- 
 ton ball, a calico print, or the point, head, or shank of 
 a pin ! Your ancestors, and all their descendants, 
 needed food for the soul — nourishment for the mind, • 
 and room for its expansion ! Yes, America, you must 
 think for mankind! And had Great Britain enter- 
 tained a just conception of your fathers, it is very 
 questionable whether she woxild ever have raised her 
 arm against us ! It was the boast of these sires that 
 they were freeholders, and no rent-day ever came! 
 This equality in property, the diffusion of learning, the 
 participation in government, incited that love of liberty 
 which wrought out our independence among the na- 
 tions of the earth. 
 
 "After the blood of your fathers had washed the 
 soil, and annihilated the French power in North Ame- 
 rica, their prosperity excited the jealousy of their most 
 unnatural mother, and she decided to seize and appro- 
 priate their resources. She did this, by enforcing her 
 
88 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 acts of trade, and exacting duties on foreign sugar and 
 molasses. To collect these duties and penalties, offi- 
 cers were directed to call on courts for assistance, to 
 enter even houses as well as shops, to obtain the tyran- 
 nical exactions. The first attempt was made in Salem, 
 Massachusetts, and it instantly set the whole colony on 
 fire — resistance or death was immediately announced — 
 the seed of Independence was threshed out of every 
 crop in the Colonies, and sowed over all other grain ! 
 That was the moment, dear America, when thy Inde- 
 pendence was conceived. The Stamp Act followed, 
 which laid its loops upon newspaper, almanac, ballad, 
 and epic, and wreathing through an everlasting spiral, 
 the Colonies found themselves in the very depth of the 
 laboratory, sitting upon fire. Virginia first blazed 
 forth, the first to assemble in her Colonial power, and 
 she hurled back this arrogated authority, and de- 
 nounced England in tones of thunder. All, in turn, 
 followed. The Press, in most cases, lent its colossal 
 force, and the pens of the American patriots cried out 
 to the people to come and succor Liberty. Our fathers, 
 said they, bought it, at the expense of their ease, their 
 estates, their pleasure, and their blood. 
 
 "The revolution came — it snatched to its embrace 
 the people. One word was enough to fill the soul of 
 your ancestors when and where they were endangered. 
 It fled, circulated, acted, morning, noon, and night; 
 at the markets, on the road-side, at the fire-side, in the 
 counting-room, at the bar, in the pulpit, at the plough, 
 and on the canvas which floats over seas and rivers — 
 everywhere, everywhere. Oh ! what is not to be given 
 
THE AMERICAN PARTY. 89 
 
 for country, the sweat of your brow, the sweat of your 
 blood, dear America. 
 
 " Everything was seen in the Stamp Act to degrade 
 and depress us into servility and dependence. Its de- 
 sign to enslave your ancestors was then, my dear, 
 opened ; step by step, degree after degree had been 
 taken for her subjugation, until they were planting the 
 remnants of their canon and feudal systems upon the 
 liberties of your fathers. True resistance brought 
 about the repeal of these rigorous prohibitory acts, but 
 the people, through their schools, their colleges, and 
 their press, were attaining the elements essential to 
 unity and success — they felt now the Almighty had 
 created America to be free and independent. These 
 prohibitory acts were viewed by every man, woman, 
 and child as a declaration of "War, and, bursting the 
 shackles of monopoly with which they sought to en- 
 chain us, your fathers opened her ports to all the world 
 except Great Britain's dominions ; and thus disowning 
 further allegiance, at once sought through Congress a 
 government for themselves, with an independence to 
 support it. Congress was convoked, and on the seventh 
 of June, seventeen hundred and seventy-six, the vital 
 question was directly presented by Eichard Henry Lee, 
 of Virginia, and this was a great day for the American 
 party. The resolution was deferred until next day, the 
 eighth, when, in committee of the whole, it was dis- 
 cussed. Oh, God, what a moment in the history of 
 humanity! Divinity was present to mortality — elo- 
 quence had ebbed away, defying all dogmatizing and 
 
90 THE GEEAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 classification, all contingencies and futurities. The 
 whole question seemed to be, are we right by this 
 wrong, and arc they wrong by this right ? On the tenth 
 the resolution was adopted by a bare majority, and to 
 obtain the unanimous sentiment of all the colonies, a 
 postponement was made until July, after leaving the 
 committee to draft a Declaration of Independence. Then 
 did God's spirit seem to move like a wave over the 
 whole nation. The alarm bell was kept ringing, and 
 ringing, and ringing: do the people wish to be saved? 
 do the people wish to be saved ? And all the States 
 implored God, and responded : we do, we do ! Congress 
 paused to ask His guidance and blessing, and until lie 
 gave strength not a man dared to endorse the Declara- 
 tion, which was written upon His everlasting principles. 
 " The Committee reported on the twenty-eighth of 
 June, and on the fourth of July, seventeen hundred and 
 seventy-six, by the final decision before Congress, and 
 the vote of every Colony, this Declaration was en- 
 grossed ; when, on the second of August, all the mem- 
 bers present, and some who became so after the fourth 
 of July, signed it in behalf of all the people. The bells 
 then pealed the advent of Independence, and you, dear 
 America, was born a Nation ! Your birthday was also 
 the baptismal day of the American party. Washington 
 was its godfather, and remained its champion and leader 
 as long as he lived." 
 
 " Oh, God, what a day was that !" said America, 
 " the day I took a stand in the front rank of nations !" 
 
 ;"You see, then, America, that it was the oppression 
 
THE AMERICAN PARTY. 91 
 
 of foreign exaction, the encroachment on sacred rights,/ 
 that awoke the American party, which originated with] 
 your ancestors, and secured the National Independence 
 you enjoy. Now, as then, it arose on the first percep- 
 tion of danger ; each day now, as then, adds to it new 
 strength and fresh glory. They call it, dear America, 
 a ' Know Nothing/ because it knows no interest above 
 that of country. It boasts not now of wealth more 
 than then. It has no aristocratic longings. The child 
 of the people, then, it has had no other associations or 
 aspirings, but to live and die in the embrace of the 
 people. It is truly a hardy soldier, and can live on a 
 few salt olives ; its garments are the same all seasons, 
 and, though it has lived so long, it has adhered to the 
 same fashion all the time. It has never sought ease or 
 elegance, but works in the shop, at the mast, at the 
 counter, or in the field, as well as in the Senate, House, 
 or forum. Called a ' Know Nothing,' it delights all 
 I by its versatility of knowledge and conversation. 
 \ Sometimes you hear it spoken of under the cognomen 
 I of ' Sam.' Dear, modest fellow, he is so honest, all are 
 ' curious to hear him speak, for, in spite of Knowing 
 Nothing, the truth is sure to come. With an imper- 
 turbable temper he makes his dreadful logic sportive, 
 disarms the naivest, gets them into doubt, and, leaving 
 them to escape as they can, he quietly finds his way 
 out. He is a rare combination of drollery and martyr- 
 dom ; the keenest debater in the streets, and the most 
 trusty friend at the ballot box. 
 
 " My dear America, 'Sam' has the finest constitution 
 
92 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 known to men, and is as "whole and sound as a nut. 
 He is sure to say what he means, and just what he 
 means. He does not call a palm a laurel, or a laurel 
 a shamrock — he does no such thing. In a word, my 
 dear, ' Sam ' is not so very young, but he never yet 
 has worn shreds or patches. He always held the bitter 
 in his teeth when little, and therefore never got stran- 
 gled." 
 
 " Mother," said America, after listening with great 
 interest to the account of the American party, " I dis- 
 cover how we have been managed, and I discover 
 something else, mother," said he, throwing his young 
 arms around her well-proportioned but now shrunken 
 neck, and kissing her with enthusiasm. He said : 
 
 "My mother, you made me a man! You taught 
 me to love God in my cradle, and to love my dear 
 country ; don't you remember the little quilt made of 
 the star-spangled banner, with which you covered me 
 at night, after my little knees had bended down before 
 you to ask God to bless us. I wish all the children 
 had such a mother, then our dear country would have 
 patriot sons. They would all belong to the American 
 party." 
 
 A tear came into the old woman's eye ; she brushed 
 it softly off, and taking the hand of her bright, beau- 
 tiful America, proceeded to say : " The first cause why 
 our old friend returns to us arises from the assault 
 made upon Protestantism, which, you know, is the 
 great element of our vitality. This Eomish Jesuit 
 hierarchy has completely centralized this power in 
 
\ 
 
 THE AMERICAN PARTY. 93 
 
 your nation, whilst it has worked day and night to 
 create dissension among all outside the pale of its 
 authority — to increase and make distinct every nation- 
 ality, until the whole foreign influence shall become 
 un- Americanized, and as ready to throw off liberty as 
 I themselves. 
 
 " The ignorance of the masses who seek refuge 
 under your free institutions, and the bigotry of the 
 majority, who come to support the Church and the 
 Government of Rome, under a professed allegiance to 
 your Government, America, is a startling truth. Think 
 of the reinforcements adding to the Romish influence in 
 your nation, every day !" 
 
 " But, mother, what are all the foreign powers which 
 come among us ; am I not America ?" 
 
 " Yes, thou art still a man ; thou art more than 
 nation ; thou art the vital flame which must enkindle 
 truth and freedom around the globe 1 
 
 " But, you see how our fathers repelled these intru- 
 ders from our soil. Washington never omitted to 
 warn us, in your infancy, of this foreign influence. He 
 wrote against it, spoke against it, acted against it, in 
 the camp, in the field, in the Executive of the Govern- 
 ment, and in the retirement of private life. So did all 
 his compatriots. While these Jesuit foes are building 
 for Rome, they cry out as Pitt did to the English man- 
 ufacturers, who plead against the taxes, because of 
 hi""h wages, ' take the children !' and taking them, 
 'they took their Bibles.' They presumed on your 
 toleration, to manifest their intolerance to your liberty 
 
94 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 and your religion ; they fear light, free speech, and a 
 free Press, and that intellectual combat which is the 
 glory of your American liberty ! But is there an 
 American citizen who would not shrink from the em- 
 brace of that old despot at Eome, and direct his thun- 
 der to the Yatican, at the summons of my trump ? 
 Alas, I shrink to tell you that every power at the 
 Capitol of your country is moving in all directions to 
 enlarge the domains of Rome !" 
 
 "And why is this?" said America. "Because the 
 Romish Church holds the balance of power, and has 
 elected, chosen, America, your civil rulers, and is pro- 
 i pitiated to do it again !" " Again," said America ; " oh 
 God, never, never !" " The soil that has soaked in the 
 blood of your heroes and martyrs, and baked under a 
 free sky, for the foundation of that structure ! Who 
 can abide its coming, and wish to live ? Who would 
 not die, America, who would not?" "You remem- 
 ber," said his mother, "how the tyrannical exactions 
 of England oppressed us. But when you became a 
 nation that authority ceased ; this government allowed 
 no union of church and state ; and that great and glo- 
 rious branch of the Protestant vine is filling the nation 
 with praise. Why, then, allow the most odious of all 
 despotisms — the superstitious, persecuting Jesuitism of 
 Eome — to come in, to sink our nationality, and blow 
 out our vitality with the pressure of a compound blow- 
 pipe ? A chapter on American history appears, openly 
 avowing the hostility of your constitutional govern- 
 ment to the interest of Romanism in America and 
 
THE AMERICAN PARTY. 95 
 
 declaring toleration shall end when it has obtained the 
 power ! Think of a Jesuit Bishop, by the authority of 
 the Pope of Rome, cursing your liberty, America, 
 before your eyes, and controlling all actions, soul and 
 body, of all his subjects, who are thus held in duress, 
 to be marshalled to the political caucus, or to the hust- 
 ings, to further the interior actings of this machinery I 
 It was the sight of this that brought the dear old 
 American party back again. 
 
 "It heard, also, of an American born citizen who 
 had yielded his noble powers to the seductive influences 
 of Jesuitism, and through your free Press tells the 
 people of the Divine rights of this Jesuit priestcraft to 
 dictate law to its subjects, and rule rulers in your dear 
 country ; and when inflated by the fact, that one im- 
 pulse governed at Washington and Eome, at the same 
 moment, this vulnerable, conceited hierarchy goes 
 abroad, mixes in all your affairs, and, taking in sail, 
 counting stocks, and husbanding its millions of treasure, 
 it decides to get, to have, to climb right upon your 
 back, dear America. And judge now my son, why 
 our American Party had cause to come among us. 
 
 " But, the other day, another Jesuit bishop speaks 
 through his organ, and justifies Eome in burning here- 
 tics, and defends her bloody deeds in our beloved 
 country — tells us openly, my dear, that the masses 
 should not be educated in your own native land ! 
 
 Do they want to give me dying children, to make 
 me die ?" said America. 
 
 "Why, they have cursed you, my dear, at every con- 
 
96 THE GEEAT AMEBICAN BATTLE. 
 
 fession and mass since the day you were born, and 
 they have grown impudent and arrogant, just as they 
 grew rich and strong." 
 
 "But are they rich?" 
 
 "Not the poor ignorant masses of their subjects, but 
 the Pope is the greatest property-holder in all your 
 dominions ! 
 
 "Like skilful generals, they look well before they 
 plunge, and when in, are as subtle and elusive as 
 Proteus. You know that when the remonstrance of 
 New York against the tyranny of the English Govern- 
 ment was seen, its severity terrified, and no one was 
 found who would dare present it to Parliament ; and it 
 is a singular coincidence, that among all your patriotic 
 sons, America, to-day, none have given more facility 
 to the movement of your great American party than 
 the distinguished sons from your great Empire State. 
 And wherever the principles of this party, which has 
 risen to sustain you or the causes which demand its 
 necessity, are discussed, every patriot heart must be 
 awakened with grateful emotions for your Reynolds 
 and your Brooks! Yes, dear America, they have 
 revealed fearful and potent truths — they have given to 
 your party a conception of beauty, by the exhibition of 
 its real utility, which even the original sculptors could 
 not have embodied." 
 
 "Gracious God!" cried out America, "I love them! 
 I love them !" 
 
 " While one made picture, statue, railroad, steam- 
 engine of the principles which we uphold, without 
 flaw, mistake, or friction, the other has gone through 
 
THE AMERICAN PARTY. 97 
 
 painful drudging, to show the arithmetic of facts, in 
 connection with the millions of property which should 
 belong to the people, which is in the absolute posses- 
 sion of these theological autocrats, who hold it for, and 
 by the right and disposal of, the Pope of Rome 1 Yes, 
 America, this practical and deep logic of your Brooks 
 took the whole nest in a coop. The mustard and 
 pepper bit the tongues of the old deceivers, but wine 
 and tea were eloquent no longer, and the people 
 thanked God to see their heads fall under the weight 
 of truths thus made palpable, and summing up the 
 account, saw some of the ' reasons why your great 
 American party was called again, rather suddenly, into 
 our troubled world 1" 
 
 " One word, dear mother, and I thank you for gen- 
 erous interest, for all the information you have impart- 
 ed ; tell me, if you please, how long since foreigners 
 have interfered in our educational and civil interests !" 
 
 " They have ever done so ; but it was the election of 
 Mr. Jefferson, when they became the balance of power 
 party, and the reward for that was the change of the 
 naturalization laws from fourteen to five years, as they 
 existed under the administrations of "Washington and 
 Adams. There were then some eighty thousand 
 among us, without sympathy in movement or heart, 
 composed of Frenchmen and subjects of Great Britain ; 
 all of whom had a nationality different from our own 
 dear native land." 
 
 " Oh, God !" said America, " thou hast warned us 
 by thy providences, wilt thou deliver now /" 
 5 
 
CHAPTEE TIL 
 
 THK TEA-PAKTY OF THE KNOW- 
 NOTHINGS. 
 
 Everything was propitious for the social gathering 
 of the American family in accordance with the invita- 
 tion of the previous week. The old lady had become 
 invigorated in health, and meeting her young friends 
 in the fullness of her heart, seemed at once to radiate 
 joy and grace to this large and delighted circle. She 
 was indeed the most original and commanding of 
 women, an elemental force of great power, and like a 
 solvent of such range of affinity, as to combine and 
 reconcile heterogeneous spirits into one society. No 
 wonder then, she warmed all within her influence by 
 the tenderness and nobility of her sentiments, which 
 seemed to them like prayers and pictures. The touch 
 of the bell was the signal to the happy crowd for tea, 
 and rushing in great hilarity through the lighted halls 
 were soon around the luxurious table of America, 
 at the head of which his mother already appeared. 
 And whilst the crowd were being seated, the old lady 
 remarked with her usual suavity and sweetness, that 
 among these who had either to climb or crawl this 
 entertainment would seem very unfashionable, but to 
 
 98 
 
TEA-PARTY OF THE KNOW-NOTHINGS. 99 
 
 as, "Know-Nothings," who could afford to be sincere, 
 we recognize the highest rights of personal freedom, 
 and love in all things to trust and revere the social 
 conventions of our fathers, who made worth the only- 
 fig leaf which can make American men and women 
 useful, graceful, or formidable. 
 
 "Now, mother," said America, "in behalf of all 
 our relatives, I am deputed to say, they have come 
 this evening not so much to feast as to learn, and 
 having heard your exordium, we cry out for the ora- 
 tion !" The old lady smiled with her bewitching 
 grace, which age left unapproached, as she calmly 
 balanced her firm countenance and laid aside her 
 glasses. 
 
 " My children," said she, " if this is our vantage 
 ground, let us embrace the favorable circumstances." 
 
 " "We will," uttered all ; " your presence is frank- 
 incense and flowers ; and as we cannot all take part 
 in the serious and searching conversation, will you, 
 dear aunt, merge this social gathering into one soul, 
 and occupy it with with one thought ?" 
 
 " All the qualities, my children, ascribed to kings, 
 every true American appropriates to himself. For 
 you the laws exist, the land was discovered, the blow 
 struck which decided liberty. Nature silently and 
 aloud praises our dear country. Our nationality is 
 learned in every fact — in the running rivers, the rust- 
 ling corn, the stately forests, and the sublime moun- 
 tains. An American feels, and knows that he is 
 greater than all geography and all the governments of 
 
100 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 the world. And with, might and main we can sit 
 here at home and hold it if Ave will, as an anchor, a 
 cable, or a fence, which defies the bullying of despots 
 and theological autocrats. American nationality de- 
 mands that we stamp our own portrait upon all our 
 statutes. And the dear American Party, or the 
 ' Know-Nothings,' insist that we shall see and intro- 
 duce not only what was there and then when it sprang 
 into existence more than seventy-nine years ago, .but 
 what is here and now ! 
 
 " The Know-Nothings, my children, show us our- 
 selves. It is the man not the work which speaks his 
 nationality. It is not the Komish Catholic Church, its 
 crosses, its music, its processions, its confessional, its 
 saints, its image- worship, but it is the clear vision that 
 these causes are working effects which are to soak our 
 soil in blood, and create another inquisition to butcher 
 American citizens ! The very faculties, my children, 
 of an American, point to the world he is to inhabit. 
 
 " America, my son, though young in your nation- 
 ality, you are really older than any nation of the Old 
 World. The thought of your liberty had been pon- 
 dered for ages, and when your fathers, who embraced 
 it, saw it hunted and desecrated, they came here thril- 
 ling with indignation at the outrage, and determined to 
 make it incarnate ! Yes, like the rays of nature, they 
 collected and concentrated that liberty which is now 
 robed and painted all over with wonderful events and 
 experiences. Their motto was then what the Know- 
 Nothings is now — trust thyself— and to it every heart 
 
TEA-PARTY OF THE KNOW-NOTHINGS. 101 
 
 vibrated on cords of iron. Your fathers, dear 
 America, accepted the place thus pointed out by Provi- 
 dence, and under a deep sense of this transcendent 
 destiny became men. And seeing God would not 
 work by cowards, they did not shrink in a corner, 
 but like redeemers and benefactors, they fled to obey 
 the spirit of the Eevolution. They were watched by 
 sympathy or hatred in every abode among men ; but 
 armed then with a nationality which they felt could 
 stand by itself, they moved on without bashfalness or 
 phlegm, bearing immortal palms, and cherishing noth- 
 ing so sacred as the integrity of their minds. My 
 children, you descend from an ancestry who made no 
 capitulation with mitres and crowns and dead institu- 
 tions. It was independence of mind that made you, 
 America, what you are to-day. 
 
 " Your fathers spoke as with cannon ball's, and did 
 right singly, so that their greatness appeals to you all 
 now. It is this ancient virtue which has aroused the 
 Know-Nothings, and we worship their creed to-day, 
 because it is not of to-day. "We love it, my children, 
 because it is of an immaculate pedigree, which is self- 
 dependent, self-derived — it sounds a gong for the 
 nation's deliverance. 
 
 " This Know-Nothing, so called, is a great respon- 
 sible thinker for the truly American citizen. It 
 measures America — her men, her events. It makes 
 all circumstances indifferent — it sees but country, 
 cause, and age. It is no interloper, but a colossal 
 symbol, which shows true loyalty among American 
 
102 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 men. To be an American in this sense is an adver- 
 tisement of your faculties, my children, all over the 
 world. 
 
 " But oh, my son," looking to America with painful 
 solicitude, "do you know," said this dear lady, "that 
 the streets are now filled with your humiliation!" 
 
 Tears came into every eye, and America, choking 
 for utterance, at last recovered himself, and said : 
 
 " After the sight you have given, mother, we will 
 hold on hard to our axis ! we need not wait for further 
 contest, we will conquer our enemies where we stand ! 
 It was not the mere exploit of the field that made our 
 fathers, they were great iu figure as in deed. It was 
 these combined that made our Washington, our Frank- 
 lin, our Hancock, our Lee, and all that glorious and 
 immortal host ! Thank God," added he, "their loud 
 thunder reverberates yet ! Don't you hear it ! ! The 
 Know-Nothing Party, the great American Party, is the 
 response ! It calls aloud to the people not for talent 
 so much as for power to be trusted. It wants men 
 whom God appoints to stand for truth, to test the man- 
 ly force of our own countrymen ! Great God, make 
 them see, hear, feel this ! this native element must 
 circulate and be standard coin once more, my friends," 
 said America ! when three cheers rent the very foun- 
 dation of the house ! 
 
 "Why," added his mother, "these foreigners, these 
 Jesuits, would have chained Washington if they could, 
 and strung the necks of all the patriots like beads. 
 
 "As the magnet turns to the pole, so stands the 
 
TEA-PARTY OF THE KNOW-NOTHINGS. 103 
 
 Know-Nothing Party between American rights and 
 foreign aggression. It is the medium of the highest 
 influence for our real liberty. It is disgraceful, my 
 friends, to be always appealing to events, to confirm 
 the truth or worth of this American Party ; its history- 
 is inseparably interwoven with that of our nationality. 
 
 " The capitalist is satisfied to read the quotations of 
 the value and rise in stocks without forever running 
 to the broker ! And, Americans, if a warm word 
 from my heart could enrich and animate your souls 
 now, I would implore you all, as I have done, my 
 dear Country, to aid boldly, fearlessly, and earnestly, 
 this organization, for the perpetuity of American lib- 
 erty I" 
 
 "Tell us, mother, if you are not fatigued," said 
 America, " what constitutes the strength of our civil 
 edifice?" 
 
 " Eeligious liberty and political equality," my son. 
 "And to destroy these, by the open assault of for- 
 eigners, particularly at the ballot-box, called into 
 action the Know -Nothing Order; as I stated this 
 evening, it is the great American Party of the Eevolu- 
 tion, which has always had existence in the hearts of 
 the truly American people, founded as it was by 
 Washington and other heroes of our liberties! The 
 order, by this name, was first developed in a town in 
 the western part of the State of New York, and, like 
 the advent of all that is great and good in our world, 
 it had a small and humble beginning, but its parentage 
 was of the people, and fostered and nursed by them, 
 
104 THE GEEAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 its strength, power, and influence is daily and hourly- 
 augmenting. It is purely defensive, like that of the 
 Eevolution, and will retire when the aggression of 
 foreigners ceases, and American citizens are restored to 
 the rights asserted by the Declaration of Independence 
 and guaranteed by the Federal Con stitution . Although, 
 numerically, the Eoman Catholic population is less 
 than one-third of those professing Christianity, this com- 
 parative handful deny the name of Christian, and brand 
 as heretic three-fourths of the population of the United 
 States of America. With a rough, rasping friction it 
 has given us its sharp peaks, until it has instilled opium 
 and disaster all over the country ! 
 
 ' " Three-fourths of this population regard the Bible 
 / as more essential to liberty than the Constitution, and 
 - hence every true American feels called to organize for 
 resistance when for this reason it has been made the 
 first subject of attack ! This public burning of God's 
 Word by Popery from the common and free schools 
 of America! Oh, God !" added this lady, with empha- 
 sis, "suffer not our enemies to triumph over us! The 
 oath or vow of every Eomish priest and prelate in this 
 land is one of allegiance to the Pope of Eome ; they 
 swear thus to cherish every influence that shall hasten 
 the destruction of American liberty, and enable them 
 to establish an Inquisition to burn the Protestant pop- 
 v ulation, and then hold a jubilee, enlivened by the firing 
 \jof cannon, as was done by the church of St. Louis after 
 they butchered seventy thousand Protestant Huguenots 
 on their St. Bartholomew's Day. Americans, these 
 
TKA-PARTV OF THE KNOW-NOTHINGS. 105 
 
 vows are antagonistic to liberty and our free govern- 
 ment, and whoever is faithful to them cannot be to 
 America ! The world over, with few exceptions, the 
 same spirit has been evinced by all ! and ignorant or 
 enlightened, could the mere treading the soil of free- 
 dom change the sacred and intolerant dogmas of their 
 own native land? Oh, no, my friends, they are dis- 
 V tinct as Eoman Catholic citizens, and must, while they 
 \ are such, be loyal to the Roman Catholic Church ! — to 
 \its great head, the Pope, as paramount to all other in- 
 terests upon the earth, beneath it or above it ! 
 
 "Why, you know, an American Senator could not, 
 in his position as such, insist upon the right of burial 
 for American Protestants in foreign lands without bring- 
 ing down denunciation upon his patriot head, by an 
 Arch-Bishop in our dear native land ! Think, then, of 
 their Jesuit trick, their impudent knowingness in now 
 resorting to the cry of persecution, with which they en- 
 snare many unwary Protestants, who really believe it I" 
 
 " Believe what !" said America, with much feeling. 
 
 "Believe, my friends, that these key-holders of 
 every castle in America, where a Jesuit is allowed to 
 enter, who, in whatever disguise it may be, is ready to 
 throw them at the feet of the priest, are persecuted by 
 the Know-Nothing party, because they belong to the 
 Eoman Catholic Church." 
 
 " Is it possible," said America, " any true citizen can 
 close the door on his intelligence, and bandage his eyes, 
 to become such a dupe." 
 
 " Would to God, it were otherwise ! but my dear, the 
 5* 
 
) 
 
 106 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 old politicians, who are fox and woodchuck, hawk or 
 snipe, to suit their purposes, feel the devil, dear, at 
 such times, and he gives them counsel gratis, and asks 
 no questions." 
 
 A general roar of laughter ensued, though all felt 
 the old lady had spoken plain truth. 
 
 "We wish," continued she, "to see these Eoman 
 Catholics made Americans, as three-fourths of the 
 .population are to-day, holding religious toleration and 
 political equality, and bowing to the supremacy of our 
 republican government ! Popery thrives on the igno- 
 rance of the masses, Liberty only on their education. 
 Popery governs only by despotism: you, America, only 
 by the majority of the people. Think, dear children, 
 of these Romish Jesuit Bishops attempting to bully 
 legislatures in our free land, into the bestowal of title 
 to all the real estate belonging to their ecclesiastical 
 control. And the whole body of their Church are re- 
 quired to move sea and land to punish, at the ballot- 
 box, the American party, the Know-Nothing members, 
 the patriot sons of the soil, who resisted this tyrannical 
 exaction of the Pope of Rome." 
 
 "What else, mother," said America, "is expected 
 from a foreign priesthood and an ignorant foreign laity, 
 who came among us to destroy us ?" 
 
 "They remember the sentiment of a follower of 
 Loyola: 'Let me teach the children, and I care not 
 who preaches to the people.' So, my friends, they are 
 actually murdering at this moment the souls and 
 bodies of thousands of American children, whose pax- 
 
TEA-PARTY OF THE KXOW-XOTHINGS. 107 
 
 ents, having no sense of right or duty before their eyes, 
 seek these resorts, either for reputation of excellence 
 or for diminution of price." 
 
 " Good Heavens !" said many voices, "if this goes 
 on, they will continue to elect chief magistrates for the 
 American people." 
 
 " Never, never, never I" said America. " These for- 
 eign born or naturalized citizens have been banded 
 together, and carried their purpose thus far, but in the 
 name of all dear to us, will not three-fourths of this 
 great people respond to the cause which leads to life, 
 liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?" 
 
 " These foreign votes have alarmed us : they make 
 the stones cry out, my children ! Our feelings have 
 been outraged by the violation of our naturalization 
 laws and our free Constitution ! And if this foreign 
 element does not acquiesce in the proper meaning of 
 the word ' Citizen,' the American people are strong 
 enough to compel them, and they will do it, my 
 countrymen." 
 
 " Why, mother, did not the Nebraska Act, passed 
 by the joint vote of Congress, confer on all aliens who 
 gave notice of their intention to become naturalized 
 the right to vote in that Territory." 
 
 " To vote I" said many voices. 
 
 " Yes, Americans, the bogs, alms-houses or prisons 
 of Europe can make all their tenants, in six months, 
 voters at the American ballot-box, in many of the West- 
 ern States and Territories. Is there not then a neces- 
 sity for the Know-Nothing party, my friends ?" 
 
I I 
 
 108 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 "It is, it must, it shall be, our salvation," said 
 America. 
 
 "What could have induced this?" inquired several. 
 
 " The demagogues, my children, who pander to the 
 foreign vote of "both political parties, have done this, 
 who have personated, not represented, the American 
 people ; but who suffer now from seeing the public 
 policy of many of the States, and the avowed policy 
 of the Government of the United States, transferred to 
 the hands of aliens, who are swayed chiefly by the 
 Hierarchy of Eome." 
 
 "Oh God!" said America, "save this dear country." 
 
 "Our dear country!" repeated every man and wo- 
 man at the table ! — for so interested had all become, 
 that all consciousness of time and place had been lost 
 — and the old lady, judging from her appearance, lived 
 over her entire life that one night. 
 
 " How could even the educated foreigners at once 
 embrace our nationality?" said America, "their whole 
 teaching at war with American liberty ?" 
 
 " So thought Washington and all the founders of the 
 American party, and who guarded us in our Constitu- 
 tion, by allowing none but a native son to fill the chair 
 of our National Executive. They have in name pre- 
 vented this encroachment, but in reality, behold ! 
 what a spectacle do we present! Was not the last 
 Presidential Election the result of the foreign vote ? 
 Did not the Romish Church contract, bargain, to sell 
 its influence at the ballot-box to cause that result? 
 Was'not the consideration any member of that Cabinet 
 that Church might demand ? Did not it call for the 
 
TEA-PAKTY OF THE KNOW-NOTHINGS. 109 
 
 Postmaster-General, because that officer could best faci- 
 litate their movements ? Did not the Pope name him 
 and have assurance of his appointment, before the 
 American people heard it? Facts, Americans, and 
 proof of all this as strong as holy truth can make it ? 
 Not an election comes without the most flagrant insults 
 to American citizens! The Church -and the. politicians 
 are i ntriguing, plo tting, ^nrl fi^n p _min g for popery ; and 
 when the Pope's Nuncio visited the United States, with 
 what arrogance did he repair to Washington to be re- 
 ceived and entertained at the White House, the man- 
 sion built by the American people to shelter American 
 Presidents, and honor those only who recognized and 
 respected American liberty. Think, Americans ; — I 
 feel faint at the thought that the Nuncio of the Pope, 
 because he represented the Hierarchy of Eome, found 
 a welcome there, that no Protestant ecclesiastic on earth 
 would, as such, receive. 
 
 " Governors of States for a similar influence imitated 
 his reception at the capitol of the country, and, when 
 the indignation of the people was aroused, a national 
 vessel was put at his disposal to escort him from 
 American shores ! Is it wonderful, then, Americans, 
 that this "Know-Nothing" influence should spring 
 and flourish and enlarge the soul of every true son and 
 daughter of this land ? When foreigners, my child- \ 
 ren, are selected over Americans for the political offices 
 in your dear native country, you cannot longer doubt 
 the danger to your own rights and liberties? The 
 very name you bear, my son," turning to America, " is 
 
110 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 -now a reproach among these aliens ! They are organ- 
 izing all over the country in secret societies, and whole 
 regiments of Eoman Catholics are now in the State of 
 New York, and hold a commission from its executive ; 
 while the State funds, your funds, are in part appro- 
 priated to educate these Jesuits, who are making iron 
 consciences to crush out every generous emotion of 
 love of country ! " 
 
 " Congress, too, has done all it could, to give these 
 foreigners real estate, by distributing the public terri- 
 tory, which was purchased by your fathers' love, faith, 
 spirit, and action, to them, to the exclusion of all 
 honest and true Americans! They print then these 
 documents in foreign tongues ; so every one feels his 
 new dignity, and knows the name of the American 
 political trickster who sought by his activity to confer 
 it. And then, there was a bill which failed to pass by 
 only one vote, not long since, exempting all importa- 
 tions of the Bomish Church from payment of duties. 
 And this was the act of the Senate of the United 
 States. 
 
 "As the wind stirs the surges, so does the thought of 
 foreign oppression move the very soul of America. 
 We pity the poor Irish — the oppressed of England, 
 Scotland, Italy, Austria, and Hungary ; but we love 
 our own countrymen better. And as for real substan- 
 tial use, who would give one brave, intelligent, Union- 
 loving Yankee or Southerner for thousands east of the 
 Ehine, or from the bogs and marshes of Ireland ? 
 
 " France consented to aid us in the Eevolution, be- 
 
TEA-PARTY OF THE KNOW-NOTHINGS. Ill 
 
 cause she hated England ; not that she loved America. 
 There may have been, and doubtless were, individual 
 exceptions ; — yet how can men or nations that oppose 
 civil and religious liberty revere the memory and 
 principles of our beloved Washington ? 
 
 " These Roman Catholics may worship as they 
 please, proselyte as they please, but they have waged 
 battle upon our religious and civil freedom ; and while 
 I look to the happiness and glory of my country, I 
 will die to save the humiliation of the American peo- 
 ple." 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE PERMANENCE OF THE PRINCIPLES 
 OF THE AMERICAN PARTY. 
 
 " Our country is a whole, 
 Of which we all are parts ; nor should a citizerj 
 Regard his interest as distinct from hers ; 
 No hopes or fears should touch his patriot soul, 
 But what affects her honor or her shame." 
 
 If angels were to come and chant the chorus of this 
 great American Party, devils would follow on to crip- 
 ple and create discord. As I remarked to you last 
 evening, it at first assumed an humble name to signify 
 resistance to pedantry and high pretension on the 
 part of those who assumed to govern the American 
 people, and hence it was termed ' Know-Nothing,' but 
 now its wisdom has been shown by results like that of 
 the Revolution. It has, therefore, taken its name by 
 the authority of the people, who have defined its prin- 
 ciples, and given it a term more significant of its 
 meaning — the American Party ! Now, friends, what 
 are its foes attempting, but what they did on its origin 
 seventy -nine years ago! This Liberty Party was 
 
 118 
 
114 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 sneered, reviled, and scoffed, until it became a 
 fixed fact, and its principles were forged by steel and 
 flint, and written in blood ! Americans, the princi- 
 ples in which this party are now planted, are not less 
 invincible, as I before said ; its foes call it an infant, 
 but it is the offspring of Solomon on the judgment-seat 
 of this grea.t nation ! And, with absolute truth of 
 speech, and a sense of rectitude which will finally con- 
 centrate not only all that is true to America, but all 
 which is dear to the peace of the world, it will hold 
 up, dear America, your reputation and life in its hands, 
 and dare the gibbet or the mob to strike sail ! Yes, 
 my friends, God has set afloat this great party on all 
 the seas and rivers which encompass your nationality, 
 and sooner will He remove your geographical fines 
 and dry up all your waters, and drive your soil into 
 an arid waste and desert, than permit the American 
 people to desert the law, the principles of this great 
 movement, which is the force, the genius, the very in- 
 stinct of American life." 
 
 A thrill of excitement seemed to penetrate the very 
 table, and every aspiration was for more valor and a 
 purer truth, to execute the will of America and put all 
 his enemies to shame. 
 
 " Mother," said America, " you speak of the eternity 
 of our principles, as an immutable, indestructible law ; 
 will you, to enlighten us all, expound more fully these 
 principles as you represent them?" 
 
 " My children, to be explicit, I know no expositiorj 
 of these which has so fully met the approval of the 
 
PRINCIPLES OF THE AMERICAN PARTY. 115 
 
 American Party, or been so widely commended by the 
 leading journals of Europe, as that promulgated by the 
 Twelfth Council of the Fifteenth Ward, in the city of 
 New York, whose author is one of her most distin- 
 guished patriot sons; it is, indeed, my friends, a 
 document which would honor the purest days of the 
 republic, and could your fathers, who framed the 
 Declaration, and afterwards fought for' it, before its 
 principles were incorporated in our Democratic Con- 
 stitution, rise from their graves and take once more 
 hold on the star-spangled banner, they would swear 
 with more determination than ever before, to die once 
 more by the principles which now actuate and govern 
 the American Party. The leading motive with poli- 
 ticians, my children, is to control the great party or- 
 ganizations of this dear country, that they may, for a 
 time, rule its destinies ! 
 
 " But something higher, deeper, and far more tran- 
 scendant caused the present coming of the American 
 Party. It was the spontaneous movement of the peo-l 
 pie, and without the assistance or the instigation of 
 either party in the country, my dear children. The 
 people revived it for the people. And though it has 
 received, for this reason, insult, and fierce and earnest 
 assault, it has met its revilers without cringing or 
 cowardice, as your fathers did; and in defiance of them, 
 it will stand and reassert the original principles and 
 purposes which made you, America, more than nation V 
 It will revive the spirit which was developed in one 
 thousand seven hundred and seventy-six; it will obey 
 
116 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 the impulses of the people ; it will denounce the factions 
 of men who struggle only for the patronage of the gov- 
 ernment; it will resist at the ballot-box, and if need be, 
 my children, the cartridge-box, the increase of foreign 
 influence in our dearly -beloved country ! Think, oh, 
 think, of not less than half a million being thus annu- 
 ally added to our population, who are ignorant of your 
 institutions, of your language, and your laws, and who 
 are governed, and, in a majority of instances, controlled 
 by a feeling in entire hostility to that which belongs to 
 American citizens, but who scarcely pass through the 
 form of a ceremonial to enjoy all their franchises. 
 Leagued with European powers, with whom they hold 
 nationality, they court every authority in sympathy 
 with them. They attempt to exercise, my children, an 
 undue influence over your free press, the great engine 
 of American liberty, because they know when it suc- 
 cumbs your glory falls!" 
 
 "It never will," said America, "it never will!" 
 " No, my child," added his mother, " it is this which 
 we need to convert judge, jury, soldier, ruler, — it has 
 more than animal and mineral virtue. It blends lib- 
 erty into the very sap of the trees, makes it flow into 
 the rivers, mix in the winds, and light the very stars 
 of Heaven. The Press, then, is inseparably inter- 
 woven with American freedom, and must live or die 
 with it ! And pray, my children, that God will raise 
 high our editors, printers, and publishers, all over the 
 land. 
 
 "A large portion of the foreign population," contin- 
 ued the mother," who are annually scattered over our 
 
PRINCIPLES OF THE AMERICAN PARTY. 117 
 
 domain is Eoman Catholic, who hold allegiance to a 
 foreign absolute despotism, and who are organized for 
 the express purpose of promoting Eoman Catholic ob- 
 jects, at the expense of American liberty, and whose" 
 entire political action is at war with your free institu- 
 tions and the national spirit of the American people. 
 This, in fact, is what our dear American Party 
 rises to suppress, and not from any principle of intol- 
 erance whatever. In former days, my son, when you 
 were in your cradle, I never heard any one inquire 
 whether a member of this party or that was Catholic or 
 Protestant, no more than whether he was sprinkled or 
 dipped in baptism ; but the American citizen can't be 
 blind, when he sees blazing in his eyes, all over the 
 country, the sad experience of abused privileges by 
 aliens and papists. The American Party, at present, 
 have these sights before it, and it will do no half work 
 in concentrating the strength of America once more 
 upon American objects." 
 
 "My friends," said America, "let us toast to the 
 universality of this great American movement, which 
 upholds the purposes from which all other parties have 
 departed I" 
 
 " Yes," added his venerable mother, " it differs from 
 all parties that have risen and degenerated in this, that 
 it came to resist them, — came at the call of the people 
 simultaneously all over the country, without concert 
 or combination 1" 
 
 "Who really began this move?" said many, look- 
 ing to their great Mentor. 
 
 "The Eoman Catholics, my children; it was their 
 
118 THE GEEAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 [ act which got this party out on the American stage I" 
 
 "Ah, ah!" said America; "this is fine, and let 
 Americans note this Jesuit move." 
 
 " How did they manage to spring this trap upon 
 themselves?" 
 
 " They over-reached themselves ; a mistake Jesuits 
 are not apt to make." 
 
 " Thank God they did !" said America. " Yes, Uis 
 hand directs our work." 
 
 " These Eoman Catholics knew very well your rep- 
 utation for freedom from sectarian influence, and that 
 sent them into your public and free schools, to hunt 
 out your Bible, and murder your whole system of 
 American education ! Eomish priests and prelates in- 
 creased yearly in excessive encroachments upon the 
 rights of American citizens ! Distinguished foreigners 
 came to add to the excitement ! Then, the Presidential 
 election came off ! And Rome had a rejoicing on that 
 day, Americans, which far exceeded that of the Al- 
 lied Powers of Europe this moment at the fall of Se- 
 vastopol ! And the Roman Catholics rejoiced not with- 
 out hope ! The Administration at Washington, grate- 
 ful to Rome for its elevation, has faithfully redeemed 
 its promises and pledges to that foreign hierarchy, who 
 thus propitiated, may renew the favor again !" 
 
 The sensation was intense when America said — 
 " Once more, my friends, we are taking the front 
 ranks on the political platform. This war on Protest- 
 ants and Liberty not only has developed the sectarian 
 element, but has shown the system and management of 
 these Romish emigrants, who come as strong political 
 
PRINCIPLES OF THE AMERICAN PARTY. 119 
 
 agitators for the business of converting all their sub- 
 jects into agents to act against the unsuspecting sons 
 of American soil ! This American Party, then, has 
 come from foreign instigation, over-ruled and guided 
 by priests I This American movement is a revolt of i 
 the common sense of the people against all the causes 
 of popular suffering, my children, and it will overcome 
 all other parties that ever have existed, until the Ameri- 
 can people reign in their own sovereignty, and Ameri- 
 cans, not Eomish Priests and foreign influence, shall 
 govern America !" 
 
 " Bemember," continued the mother of America, 
 "it was not until the condition of public affairs had 
 become musty, and drowsiness had overcome the land, 
 that the native sentiment assumed a distinctive politi- 
 cal action. Principles, remember, are like fruit, which 
 should not be plucked until ripe, and the A m erican 
 Party came not to the avowal of theirs until, vascular 
 and alive ; its juice, like blood, would flow when cut. 
 It knew sour, inveterate, dumpish partizans, old 
 riders, who never get out of the saddle, would jump 
 almost out of their skins and play all sorts of antics, 
 to trip its movements, and annihilate it. So it was 
 allowed to germinate in the sincerity and marrow of 
 the people, to incur all the dangerous symptoms of its 
 enemies, until the people met in one temple and joined 
 in the fellowship of one thought, and that, my chil- 
 dren, was the worth and the love for our dear 
 Country." 
 
 America looked pale and tremulous. He essayed 
 to speak, but his mother anticipating him, said : 
 
120 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 " There is nothing incongruous in this foreign rheto- 
 ric, whatever. This American sentiment gives pain 
 to party combinations, and squeezing and pinching 
 them, who can wonder if they would rain bullets 
 on us, or bump out their brains to make the world 
 believe, America, we were a mere parcel of bigots and 
 blockheads." 
 
 "Mother," said America, "let them form alliances 
 to destroy us, but the principles of the American 
 Party are the mathematics and the law, and so the 
 American people will show they apprehend them." 
 
 " Yes, there are those who would crush this party, 
 as there were those who would have hung "Washing- 
 ton and his compatriots by the neck in the Revolution. 
 Such spirits would make heaven itself dull by their 
 presence. One of the chief beauties of this great 
 American Party," continued the mother, " is its spon- 
 taneousness ; it gushes right out fresh from the hearts 
 of the people, and thus differing from all others of 
 which we have knowledge in the governments, not of 
 this country only, but of the world. And creating, as 
 it did, a new public opinion, it required caution and 
 time to measure its adaptation to the desire of the 
 people, to rid it of all periodic errors, to test the brain 
 of its resources, to give it an arm of iron, that it 
 might come from the people to the people, bearing 
 their likeness attested by their sympathy, and entitled 
 to their fellowship and trust. This was the cause, the 
 sole cause, for the secrecy connected with the origin 
 of the present American Party. And answering the 
 inevitable need of the people, original and vigorous, 
 
PRINCIPLES OF THE AMERICAN PARTY. 121 
 
 with an integrity and stoutness which cannot be over- 
 awed, the masses, uncorrupted by selfish political 
 objects, and actuated by the purest motives for the 
 welfare of their country, rushed to be enrolled into its 
 membership, whilst thousands who embrace its doc- 
 trine, as dear to the hope of man, as citizen and Chris- 
 tian, are zealously and efficiently enforcing them all 
 over the country." 
 
 " Mother," said America, " if our times are in God's 
 hands, may we not feel this moment one for the rescue 
 of our dear country ?" 
 
 " Most assuredly ; for we have all seen, my children, 
 the dignity of the country surrendered to the bestow- 
 ment of its patronage. A faithful, unscrupulous party 
 follower is sure to be a successful office-seeker. And 
 the baser the man, the more iiseful to the cause — 
 hands, feet, senses, all give way for party chances. 
 Great Heavens, to what a verge have we come! 
 "Where do we stand, my children, the nation is perish- 
 ing for want of a ruler — it has a carbuncle on it. 
 "What but the American Party and its immutable prin- 
 ciples can take it away ? I know of no other remedy 
 to save our dear country. Why, my children, our 
 entire political system is covered over of late with 
 cracks and blemishes. And this American movement 
 must be the forge, the crucible, and dissecting-room to 
 get at the root of the evil." 
 
 " It will, it will," responded all with much enthusi- 
 asm. 
 
 " I remarked, yesterday, you remember, that our 
 foreign population is annually computed to be half a 
 6 
 
122 THE GEEAT AMERICAN BATTLE, 
 
 million. Now, not one in all this vast number has 
 any real appreciation for the native sentiment, which 
 is the vitality and the durability of our institutions. 
 Not one is prepared to enter upon the rights of Ameri- 
 can citizenship, or support the truly American policy. 
 A large number undoubtedly are respectable, industri- 
 ous, in many instances cultivated and intellectual, who, 
 attracted by the character of your institutions, in 
 marked contrast with those of the Old World, are con- 
 tent to shelter themselves from despotism under the 
 iEgis of American Liberty, and desire only the peace- 
 ful pursuit of industrial occupation, and whose descen- 
 dants thus reared will become in their time imbued 
 with the spirit of American nationality. But, my 
 children, as a bod}-, these aliens and strangers have 
 become a colossal estate, bound together by their dis- 
 tinctive nationality, and cherishing an influence, like 
 one mighty stream, which is fed and swollen every 
 hour by sources as antagonistic to American freedom 
 as is virtue to vice— the blessed to the damned. Like 
 cats, they fall right upon their feet, and ashamed of 
 our compassion, they feel their self-importance, and 
 throwing themselves unhesitatingly on the thought, 
 want nothing of your dear country but to recruit 
 under your star-spangled banner, and march in the 
 front column to your ballot-box." 
 
 The stillness of death pervaded the assembly, and 
 they looked first at the mother and then to America, 
 ghastly and joyless ! 
 
 " Mother," said America, " what can all this accom- 
 plish?" 
 
PKINCTPLES OF THE AMEBICAN PAKTY. 123 
 
 " Our ruin, America, and that speedily, unless things 
 change ! It is, however, through American tricksters, 
 political demagogues, who disgrace their citizenship, 
 that the danger comes I The air is full of sounds, the 
 sky of tokens, the earth with images, my dear Amer- 
 ica, of what you now suffer, by investing aliens and 
 strangers with your highest political blood-bought 
 privileges, in order to subserve the treachery of politi- 
 cal organizations, for selfish aims ! The votes of this 
 foreign population — strangers to our language, our 
 institutions, and our firesides — have controlled our 
 elective franchise, my children, so long and so success- 
 fully, that it arrogantly assumes to govern our national 
 destiny, by the ballot-box, from the President to the 
 humblest employe" in the revenue service of the coun- 
 try! 
 
 "Congress also has ministered to their thirst for 
 power above American citizens, and the alien steps 
 from the ship, fresh from a prison or an almshouse in 
 Europe, into one of your territories, America, with a 
 vote in his hand equal to that your Clay, your Jack- 
 son, or even your Washington would possess I Think 
 of this. God, defend our dear native land I" 
 
 " Mother," said America, '' our friends wish to know 
 if these- foreigners or aliens can obtain the public do- 
 main thus ?" 
 
 " Certainly ; Congress has declared it the heritable 
 habitation for all sorts and conditions of emigrants, 
 without regard to nationality, while it refused to grant 
 it to native American citizens for public improvements 
 and their education 1 Thus bated and bribed, these 
 
124 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 half million of beings come bringing their bodies and 
 leaving their souls and minds the other side of the 
 water. This is the distinct estate which denounces 
 your liberty, my children, and scoffs at your nation- 
 ality." 
 
 "Where is the blood and spirit, the bone and sinew 
 of our fathers, my dear mother?" 
 
 "My child, it is here yet! Yes, the stars, sand, 
 water, fire, trees, rocks, and man himself proclaims this 
 yet! They had their day, and left their speaking 
 deeds, our heritage, and if kept before your eyes will 
 make gingerbread of all such as bear no higher mem- 
 ory of their historic deeds, and hold no loftier ambition, 
 than to appropriate your Anglo-Saxon liberty to the 
 most contemptible end which ever actuated humanity ! 
 The American Party, then, my children, or the great 
 movement of the American people, has sprung from 
 the fact that these old political dogmatizers, in grasp- 
 ing power, have endangered our liberties by giving a 
 frightful influence to this foreign vote, which is known 
 to be under the control of a foreign priesthood ! It 
 did not originate to interfere with the civil or reli- 
 gious rights of any citizen of the country, foreign or 
 native, Catholic or Protestant, but to protest against 
 this wrong ! It opposes, for public stations, my child- 
 ren, all who so undervalue their political rights as to 
 submit their conduct, as citizens, to a Romish hierarchy 
 which claims supremacy in civil as well as religious 
 affairs, over all its subjects everywhere ; and, to compel 
 this, imposes on priests and subjects an allegiance above 
 that, inseparable from citizenship in the United States. 
 
PRIKCIPLES OF THE AMERICAN PARTY. 125 
 r- 
 
 The American Party opposes no man's franchises, 
 interferes with no man's religion, proscribes no man 
 politically because of his religious faith, and means to 
 suppress that interference with our constitutional free- 
 dom which forbids and excludes all connection what- 
 ever between Church and State !" 
 
 There was much excitement at this last remark, but 
 no one interrupted the venerable lady, who playfully 
 said : — " Those who had been great stockholders in sin, 
 could not expect less than to make expiation. Those 
 who have sought to destroy the distinction; not the 
 American Party, are answerable for mingling religious 
 and political rights !" 
 
 "Mother," said America, "our American Party do 
 not proscribe adopted citizens?" 
 
 "Certainly not, my son. It would not abridge a 
 single political or religious privilege they enjoy ; no, 
 nor object to their filling civil offices in the country, 
 but that they owe their allegiance to a foreign poten- 
 tate, where they feel to be supreme, above all our laws, 
 and your great Constitution ! And these emigrants, for 
 a quarter of a century, have thus encroached upon 
 your rights, America ! and the American Party, true 
 to the integrity of the Union, and faithful to the Con- 
 stitution, like Washington and your more familiar ac- 
 quaintances, Jackson, Clay, and Webster, disclaim 
 every principle of intolerance and proscription beyond 
 what is provoked by hostility to your own national 
 fame and Eepublican Government ! My children, we 
 have become a wonderful nation, in spite of all the 
 influences silently and long exerted for our destruc- 
 
126 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 tion ! When you, America, were born, three millions 
 were the beginning ; now you are seventy-nine years 
 old, but a youth yet, my boy !" "When America, throw- 
 ing back his hair, disclosed his matchless forehead 
 and lustrous eye, and a joyous laugh came with some 
 gusto from the national family ! 
 
 " Now, mother, you have been so unfashionable aa 
 to tell our friends the whole truth — say on all you 
 please I" 
 
 "America," answered the old lady, smiling, " I don't 
 mean to show you a prince deserted by his States, but . 
 I wish your friends to mark your wonderful advance 
 in population and resources ! to be impressed with your 
 real greatness ! A population of at least thirty mil- 
 lions, and an area of territory three times your earliest 
 dimensions, is now your possession ! and what is more, 
 my son, every acre in your own name, is yours by con- 
 sideration — it is all paid ! This thrift has excited all 
 the despots of the world against you! and the very 
 sight of you so corrodes their peace, that they would 
 forego all conquests of arms, among themselves, to de- 
 stroy you ! 
 
 "Yes, Americans, we know not the secret machina- 
 tions, the progress of this foreign party in our midst 
 — the extent or power of their revenue to defeat our 
 free government, and wrest it from the will of the 
 people ! This alien papal population are intriguing, 
 cheating, plotting and scheming to overthrow you! 
 0, God ! save us from the weakness which will deliver 
 my dear country to her foes I" 
 
 Tears came into every eye, for there was in these 
 
PRINCIPLES OF THE AMERICAN PARTY. 127 
 
 words an earnestness which seemed to hover between 
 death and the grave. 
 
 " Americans, I suppose you are all intelligently 
 informed as to the real design of the Allied Powers of 
 Europe against Eussia at this moment, which is just 
 for the reason, that she is destined in her progress to be 
 their future rival, by land and sea I And with how 
 much greater cause would they crush you, America ! 
 They had rather transpose the Holy See to the dim re- 
 gions of Old Virginia, or Puritan Plymouth, than to 
 win ten thousand victories, like that of Sevastopol !" 
 
 " Hence it is time that the action and passion of the 
 native sentiment should rise after this I" 
 
 " It has rapidly bubbled up in your American 
 Party, and it springs a sap, I tell you, which is not 
 without pith and substance, and force. These stran- 
 gers are under a government of priests, who put 
 themselves above the government of our dearly -beloved 
 country, and make themselves a distinct people ! They 
 ask for a separate and distinct provision by your 
 Legislatures! — demand unwavering submission on the 
 part of all its subjects in our dear country, and send 
 its shaft into every thought, at the mere flutter of their 
 prelatic robes ! And, what is more, they concentrate 
 in their "holy" hands all the right of property ! This 
 malign influence will reign wherever it rules. It 
 is absolute — purposely framed to excite surprise by 
 the concealment of means, which are designed to 
 rob us of our liberties by its mastodon power, which 
 is the most finished absolutism the world has ever 
 known 1" 
 
128 THE GEEAT AMEKICAN BATTLE. 
 
 "Did this idea always prevail?" said America. 
 
 " It did not. "We all thought for years it was free 
 from the desire, much less the action of evil against our 
 liberties as American citizens ; and while their mission 
 was believed to be for souls, it was respected and hon- 
 ored as all other sects, until it took hold upon the 
 original integrity of the man, and showed its office in 
 America, and displayed its native identity with the 
 darkest despotism that has ever cursed our race. My 
 children, let me not weary you," continued this lady, 
 who seemed to unite, a genius of the largest calibre to 
 a perception as wonderful as America's great nation. 
 
 " No, no !" said all, "never while you reveal what is 
 vital to our existence." 
 
 " I will then continue to impress upon you its im- 
 portance, until you have thoroughly comprehended its 
 magnitude." 
 
 There was perfect agreement in the decision of the 
 noble company, that the American Party did not seem 
 in their thoughts to require further discussion to bring 
 it on the meridian. It came at the cock-crowing, and 
 would watch the rising and setting stars, and like a 
 prophet and lawgiver, would regard as hollow and 
 pompous, the outbursts of charlatans, who can't run the 
 hazard of sincerity. They, plastic to any impression, are 
 the mere chamelions of any party, without regard to the 
 significance of its principles. But the people, thank 
 God! have now fixed their eagle eye upon this self-love. 
 
 "Our time, like the principles we cherish, is precious, 
 and of heavenly import, " and I will remark, there- 
 fore, that the American Party is purely national, and 
 the objects it proposes to accomplish are as wholly so 
 
PRINCIPLES OF THE AMERICAN PARTY. 129 
 
 as were the motives which overruled and guided the 
 ^American Bevolution ! We dare not hesitate to resist 
 / an influence distinct and formidable, as is the foreign 
 \ element, controlled by a foreign despot! Under the 
 1 teaching of a Church professing this foreign allegiance 
 \ to be supreme ! Nine-tenths of this population are op- 
 posed to this presumption, and the natural element 
 must concentrate, must forget past political opinions, 
 must make personal sacrifices, to maintain that separa- 
 tion between Church and State, which our Constitution 
 of Government forbids, and which would be disgrace- 
 ful and discreditable to Americans, if they did not 
 revolt! "We are practical, my children, and readily 
 detect an element which has no other tendency than to 
 endanger us — and looking at the prose of life, we saw 
 the necessity of our action now ! 
 
 "Eoman Catholics are in the political field, fighting N 
 against American liberty; the American Party has 
 come out to meet them in this combat ! In the same 
 manner, it will, at any future period resist any other re- 
 ligious sect, which puts its foot upon our political rights, 
 and saturates our principles with a poison, which will 
 make death the victor ! 
 
 " I say, then, my children, the American Party has 
 planted its action against this political movement of 
 the Eoman Catholic Church in this dear, blood-bought 
 land! And to its principles every native patriotic 
 subject of that Church, every foreign but domesticated 
 citizen, who is rightly inclined with our institutions, 
 cannot but subscribe ! The American Party regards 
 the veracity of its language, which ought to be the type 
 6* 
 
130 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 of all mens' sentiments. It has weighed, measured, 
 and inspected the whole ground, and therefore means 
 what, it says, in lawfully resisting the authority of any 
 influence which shall abridge the privileges of Ameri- 
 can freemen, or render them accoixntable for their re- 
 ligious belief! And hence, my children, it insists on 
 san especial guardianship of your ballot-box ! It insists 
 that Americans shall choose their own rulers ! It de- 
 mands that those selected for official station shall have 
 the fullest impression of all our civic rights, and ac- 
 knowledge the principles of duty which are the con- 
 victions of true American citizens ! It denies that an 
 American citizen can be placed under an obligation to 
 expose the reason of his vote ! It maintains that no 
 obstacle shall interpose to the frank avowal of his opin- 
 ion! And no authority shall exist which rejects equal 
 rights and equal privileges to American citizens ! 
 
 "In a word, my friends, the American Party will 
 have the whole allegiance of this people to the civil 
 government and laws of this country ; it will have all 
 the cream scum from their own tub. Eoman Catholics 
 have demanded of the State to be acknowledged as a 
 distinct element, apart from the mass of American 
 citizens, and require exceptional privileges in the do- 
 mestic concerns of the country. When an election 
 comes off, we behold their tenacity to power, they rise 
 the great estate of the republic and concentrate their 
 strength to elevate Eoman Catholics to official trust, or 
 to confer it only on those whose skulking and dissimu- 
 lation make them grateful beneficiaries. Now, my 
 children, you have the grammar of the American Party. 
 
PRINCIPLES 05" THE AMERICAN PARTY. 181 
 
 You see it disclaims all intolerance to the Roman Catho- 
 lic religion, that it has nothing to do with its faith or 
 doctrine ; and it seems, my children, that every member 
 of that Church who professes your nationality and pro- 
 perly estimates American citizenship, would zealously 
 oppose, as many do, this foreign element in their 
 Church, which wars against all the rights and inter- 
 feres with all the peace, which our free institutions are 
 intended to confer." 
 
 The excitement became thrilling, and every heart 
 was throbbing with emotion ! America gazed on the 
 serene countenance of his mother, but there was a sa- 
 credness in that silence which defied speech. It seemed 
 to dip the assemblage into the freshness of American 
 beauty and bathe them in the light which glances from 
 its heavenly bodies I And they implored their vener- 
 able relative to proceed ! 
 
 " There is one fact I wish, I urge, you would 
 treasure, -that as a sect, the American Party, true to 
 our religious as to our political liberty, would assist 
 and defend the Roman Catholic from assault, and pro- 
 tect it by the bayonet, from such attack ! And it comes 
 now not to invade, but to restore and preserve all that 
 is national in the feeling, and American in the hearts 
 of its true citizens ! To make your country, all 
 America ! 
 
 " Of late we have passed through convulsions which 
 have shaken us, my children, from centre to extreme. 
 Popular opinion has jilted us by its vagaries, section 
 has burned against section, political agitations have 
 given us melancholy days and poured into us a blood 
 8 
 
132 THE GEEAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 which turns into gas, and threatens to inflame us, 
 around our very firesides ! The American Party has 
 come, and insists, by the expressed will of the American 
 people, on a thorough American policy ! To restore the 
 Government to the privileges upon which it was first 
 administered. To cause Americans to govern their 
 own country, and to control all her great interests, in 
 her National Councils. To improve the condition of 
 American labor in all the resources of agriculture, com- 
 merce, manufactures, and the arts. To educate the peo- 
 ple in the native sentiment and principles of republican 
 freedom, to keep close by the Bible, as the stronghold 
 of our religious and political freedom, and to guard the 
 elective franchise, so that it shall preserve the purity 
 of the Government, and protect American principles 
 and American rights. 
 
 "And thus shall our Union stand self-containing, 
 self-preserved, and the American citizen ' has only to 
 feel in his own heart that he approves and adopts our 
 principles, and ready when the star-spangled banner is 
 unfurled, to stand under it and by it. It waved in 
 glorious triumph, when Bainbridge, Decatur, Perry, and 
 Hull broke the charm of British invincibility on the 
 ocean. Stark had it at Bennington, Warren at Bunker 
 Hill, Gates at Saratoga, Sumpter, Marion, and Greene 
 in the South, and Washington bore it aloft, and stood 
 under its ample folds, when he sealed our nation's in- 
 dependence on the plains of Yorktown. It is now as 
 it was then, the emblem of our nationality and power.' 
 
X. K 
 
 f£^±>> 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE AMERICAN PARTY'S DECLARATION. 
 
 There is a silence that is deep as eternity ! It is 
 the march, of intellect, the diffusion of knowledge, the 
 locomotive, the railway, the projectile force of the 
 grand development of human thought. Such seemed 
 the interval between the past and the present. Between 
 the birth and the growth of America. 
 
 And his economical mother had disbursed just 
 enough information on this point to keep the brain 
 transparent and the fact prominent, that the men of 
 God, who purchased our science through battle, cannon, 
 and blood, matured their giant fruit by union ! union ! 
 
 When the family of America reassembled at his hospi • 
 table home, which was many weeks subsequent to the last 
 social gathering, it looked as though the doors of the 
 universe were unlocked, and this had become the city 
 of refuge. But the grandeur of the scene was enhanced 
 by the singular coincidence, that right came in and 
 took precedence over all else, and every signer of the 
 Declaration of Independence, and a majority of those 
 who made the code of our everlasting principles were 
 there represented. 
 
 With fierce haste the Party essayed to recognize the 
 claim of all. It felt itself but a part of this great 
 
 184 
 
THE AMERICAN PARTY'S DECLARATION'. 135 
 
 whole, who had met in a great national perplexity to 
 demand more light for the people — more sanctity for 
 their God-conferred Government. There was a de- 
 licious cup of love mingled and mixed in this moral 
 atmosphere, and the kingdom of the will, inspired one 
 general call upon the mother of America to redeem 
 her late promise as to the resolves or declarations of 
 the great American Party. 
 
 " Remember that among all the heautiful facts rela- 
 tive to the Father of his Country, that of his never 
 having sought or intrigued for one single office is the 
 most striking. Now spoils are claimed as the reward 
 of party success, and thus, Americans, has this Romish 
 Priesthood become a deadly cancer to eat out the 
 very vitals of Republicanism. All over the world 
 it is conceded that a nation has the right to control 
 its own laws, and elect, as it sees fit, its own rulers. 
 And, my countrymen, on this principle of right, com- 
 mon to all, our American Party says, let Americans 
 rule America ! When your ancestors found them- 
 selves trammelled by foreign despots and a hired 
 soldiery, they met as the American Party, in Phil- 
 adelphia, and there drafted that instrument which gave 
 immortality to them, to their country, and to you all ! 
 They made there the crucible and smelting pot, which 
 worked the quarry and forge to their impulsive will ! 
 There I beheld America's wealth, in her original 
 men. They by whose work it is not now a waste ! 
 They came with Liberty enshrined within them, and 
 the memory and record of those men, who stood forth 
 in the front files of that American Congress, like Lee, 
 
136 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 Hancock, Adams, Jefferson, Franklin, Sherman, Liv- 
 ingston, and their co-workers, are the strength, the prop- 
 erty of the American Union and her American Party, 
 forever, and ever, and ever !" 
 
 A gush of tears came unhidden into all eyes, and 
 the noble woman beholding the sensation, paused ! "It 
 was not by gesticulation, not by vehemence, not by 
 heroic desperation, my children, but by natural stuff, 
 originality, invention of character, that your fathers 
 taught that love of country, by actually dying to save 
 it! And to give adamantine force to the principles 
 of seventy-six, which, bare and grand, went into the 
 Constitution of the United States, and by the nuptial 
 union of the American citizen with his own beloved 
 country, made her civil glory his first, his last, his 
 highest human duty ! And my friends, the American 
 Party now declare that this spirit shall uphold and 
 steer it forever and ever. Your ancestors sacrificed all 
 for country! Kindred, fortune, friends, life! They 
 took away the rubbish heaps, and blew away the dust. 
 And the American ballot-box is the artillery and 
 battle thunder, the American Party declares shall save 
 it still ! And my children, ring it all- over the land, 
 until the deafest hear— preach it through the cannon's 
 throat, that Americans only shall rule America I That 
 this fly -buzzing shall move off from your polls. They 
 who chop and murder logic — wrestle *and wriggle, 
 contend and suspect, doomed to a confessional, without 
 head, heart, or any grace or gift, must surrender the 
 privileges to American citizens, who have the ability 
 to read and appreciate the free government of theii 
 
THE AMERICAN PARTY'S DECLARATION. 137 
 
 native country, or who, by a long and familiar associa- 
 tion, cling to the prized reality of American rights 
 and American principles, and is everywhere ready to 
 stand with and by you, my dear America!" 
 
 "Mother!" said he, "show us these blood-tinted 
 shadows in strong light ; we can stand any reality 
 better than the hypocrisy with which they have im- 
 posed upon us." 
 
 " Yes, yes L" exclaimed all, in tones of thunder, "let 
 us dare, and dare, and dare again to the issue those 
 unscrupulous demagogues, who have appropriated 
 these ignorant aliens to subserve their 'selfish ends, and 
 who herd them like cattle, wherever the best pasture 
 may be found !" 
 
 " These immaculate American Pharisees, my child- 
 ren, are the knife-grinders to cut American Publicans 
 by their throats. Can we see so much and stop at so 
 little ? We cannot be stripped of our nationality ; it is 
 inseparable from our birth, and it seems not less dear 
 to thousands of our best and most loyal citizens, who, 
 though not born on the soil, have lived upon it long, 
 and enjoyed, rationally, all its benign influences, until 
 their interests, their affections, and their hopes concen- 
 trate and entwine around us, America. It is for a 
 far different class of the foreign population, that the 
 American Party now comes in its wild, lion strength, 
 to extenuate none, to exaggerate none. It is they 
 who stand jostling you, America, elbowing you, bar- 
 ring you, not by their own blind, stupid wills, but by 
 their foreign masters, who, crabbed and sulphureous, 
 claim them, soul and body! The American Party 
 
138 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 rises, therefore, in part, to make more rigid the terms 
 of citizenship, and resolves to lengthen the probation, 
 or abolish the laws, wholly, which naturalize the man. 
 You remember, my sons," added this dear lady, " when 
 you were little boys, how you wished to be men ; not 
 long, I fancy," looking at the fresh American group, 
 " that you have enjoyed the rights of free American 
 men — you who imbibe the spirit, and are of the same 
 bone, and muscle, and blood-vessel as those who made 
 ns more than country, are just entering upon your 
 political rights, after twenty-one years !" 
 
 " I think," said America, " many of our cousins and 
 friends present have never yet exercised that sovereign 
 power at the ballot-box." 
 
 " No," responded several ; "though we have in many 
 cases followed the sage advice of our immortal Frank- 
 lin, 'that they thrive best who marry earliest,' we 
 have become husbands and fathers before we are 
 voters ! We wait patiently to attain our majority, be- 
 fore we can attain to the privilege of the elective fran- 
 chise, whilst in all things else we feel and look like 
 men," said they, which a slight glance at the trained 
 whisker and moustache seemed to corroborate. 
 
 "You see, then, my children, that the American 
 Party resolves to make this class of foreigners keep to 
 our civic face-course or kick ! Don't the American peo- 
 ple see something ? Do they mean to plant these pines 
 to have burrs sticking all over them like nettles ? Are 
 these richly decorated representatives of a foreign papal 
 hierarchy to strut, and fret, and act, as though they 
 were invincible? The American Party declares the 
 
THE AMERICAN PARTY'S DECLARATION. 139 
 
 American people must storm this redoubt with sharp 
 speech, fierce resolve, and an undaunted courage ! Iu 
 all this, my children, the alien derives his best comfort 
 from the principles your fathers left you to cherish 
 when they blessed you on the altars of their dear coun- 
 try, and told you to love it as strongly as death ! 
 
 "It is in your patience, your real insight, your fair- 
 ness — that flashing eye-sight, that lovingness, that 
 broad freedom which is not shut up in a box and 
 packed away in a garret, which reveals your true na- 
 tionality, and offers to the inhabitants of all climes, 
 who have honesty and virtue, a shelter and protection 
 in any lawful pursuit ! So that the benefits of your 
 free government may be shared by them, as they are 
 by your own mothers, and wives, and daughters 1" 
 
 "But this, mother," said America, "does not seem 
 to meet the fulness of their demands." 
 
 "By no means," said the old lady, "like sunshine 
 in a storm of thunder, they pucker into a simpering 
 smile at American graciousness, turn around and spurn 
 her kind welcome! Now, the American Party, my 
 children, have ever owned us a God-governed people, 
 and in His name resolve there shall be no more delu- 
 sion ! We believe that a light from heaven does still 
 shine on our dear country, and enforce the doctrine by 
 this authority of free religious toleration, the rights of 
 conscience in all their force and power ; and, by this 
 freedom of opinion, to worship God when, where, and 
 as these convictions direct. When your fathers sat for 
 four months in Convention, to frame our great Civil 
 Code, it was proposed that all foreign, ecclesiastical 
 
140 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 as well as civil, interference should be prohibited ; and 
 it escaped only from being so embodied, by its supposed 
 interference with the dearest and most sacred rights of 
 man — which are not only shielded by our Constitution 
 and Declaration of Independence, but every sect and 
 every creed, every society, and every individual mem- 
 ber thereof, is there defended from all menace or as- 
 sault ! Our Washington, my children, sat by and pre- 
 sided over those deliberations ; and the American 
 Party, looking to him as its great head, reiterate these 
 resolves to-day! Is it not audacious to see whole 
 broods of human beings, on American soil, running to 
 the cluck of an old fowl ! We want these papists to 
 have the rights we extend to them ; and let them act 
 by will, not by machinery." 
 
 " Yes," said many, " we want them to let go their 
 hold on our ballot-box, and the American Party will 
 never interfere with their confessional-box!" 
 
 "Thank God," continued the mother of America, 
 who seemed to radiate light by every gesture and 
 movement, " the written word of God is yet kept as 
 the healing of this nation. Not in mere printer's ink 
 and white rag paper, but in the heart and by the act- 
 ings of this great people. 
 
 "The Bible wants no popular applause like that 
 machinery whose end is bedlam and the grave. Popery is 
 ameteor light, which breathes fire, incense, and corrod- 
 ing poison to the nations who surrender to its influence. 
 The American Party saw the apostasy to our blood- 
 bought liberty growing more and more morbid, and 
 depraved. The sons of Mammon, and Belial, and Beel- 
 
THE AMERICAN PARTY'S DECLARATION. 141 
 
 zebub, all combined in a seductive attempt to rear fresh 
 roses for themselves in our Eden. Great God !" 
 
 "Why, indeed," said America, "I would trust an 
 Egyptian crocodile sooner than such patriot sons. 
 Patriots I" And there was a sneer of contempt by 
 the entire company, men and women, which seemed 
 irrepressible. 
 
 To the proposition for adjournment, at this moment 
 all responded — 
 
 "Not yet, not yet," reverberated through the house, 
 for the rooms had not only been packed, but the halls 
 also were stowed, and yet so perfect was the stillness, 
 and so clear and sonorous was the voice of the patriot 
 woman, that all might hear. 
 
 " Your fathers came here Herculean men, my children, 
 and they worked with engines — for what ? That no 
 Babylon should overthrow us — that none should enjoy 
 excepted privileges or prerogatives — that no church or 
 denomination should have exempted rights, and that 
 all concert for political action of any religious sect was 
 dangerous to all equality of civil rights — mere pipes 
 and drums to muster forces against our liberties. But 
 very soon, our American Party saw this hollow and 
 pragmatical action, and resolved not to permit this self- 
 combustion. And then this foreign Hierarchy, acting 
 by its King-Pontiffs and Vicar-Generals, must get into 
 blind man's buff about your school system ; and in 
 this, too, we must worst them, until they look like cor- 
 rected soldiers, with their eyebrows shaved. 
 
 " The American Party is not, my friends, mere wind 
 and hail — made of men who blow, and eat, and run ! 
 
142 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 They came at the first gleam of stormy weather, and 
 they mean to remain and attend to their own business, 
 in lieu of subjecting foreigners to the farther necessity." 
 
 This called forth applause. And the din of excite- 
 ment brought the whole assemblage to their feet. 
 
 The life and soul of American patriotism are de- 
 veloped by discoursing upon its liberty, and arousing 
 the sensations, which none feel like they whose home 
 and happiness are a birth-right gift. And no matter 
 how elevated or how depressed by the circumstances of 
 fortune, there is a glory in the sentiment of our nation- 
 ality that kings could not purchase nor tyrants destroy. 
 The conversation became general, and never did the sons 
 and daughters of the American nation exhibit more giant 
 virtues — more giant energies ; and yet, like their great 
 ancestors, there was no desperation or splenetic acerbity. 
 
 " We present a unique spectacle, my friends," said 
 America, "an assemblage concentrating the soul of the 
 Eevolution. You remember too, that all who signed 
 the Charter of our Independence were never present 
 at any one time. Many who had nothing to do with 
 making or originating it, and who neither voted for 
 the resolutions or for their publication afterwards, be- 
 came members, and signed it. This they were in- 
 structed by their legislatures to do, and which was 
 done from time to time through the year seventeen 
 hundred and seventy-six.'' 
 
 America discovered some surprise on the part of 
 his friends, who had doubtless never known of the 
 distinction ; but in reality, there was as much as be- 
 tween the major-general and a corporal of the army. 
 
 "Cousin," said one of the girls to America, "you 
 
THE AMERICAN PARTY'S DECLARATION. 143 
 
 ought to be wise, with such a teacher as that great 
 mother of yours. It seems to me, once admitted into the 
 heaven of her thought, none could relapse into night." 
 
 Just then the door opened, and the lady presented 
 herself. "Well, mother, just in time for you — and 
 don't you think they have made an old man of me 
 since you left, and called me right out, to tell them 
 of the past." 
 
 "And he has told us much," said they; "but we 
 deny the adj ective he uses, ' ' said many. ' When he offers 
 a good, true, or wise one as a substitute, we will accept 
 it," said they. The old lady smiled at their readiness, 
 and inquired what further they wished her to say ? 
 " Everything, everything about our dear country and 
 our American Party !" 
 
 "I remark, then, that education is the exponent of 
 our nation's vast mind and will ! All men, women, and 
 children must flee to it — it must bless every field, house- 
 hold, and home. Our enemies have sown this system 
 in many places already with sulphur and salt ! This 
 system, which scattered the seed of science and song, 
 and organized the minds of your first men. Had there 
 been no Washington, nor Franklin, nor Adams, there 
 would have been no Jackson, or Clay, or Webster ! 
 Think of this, and remember education and free govern- 
 ment are inseparable. And hence the American Party 
 declare that education is a part of our national character, 
 and shall rise above all creeds or sects, and be the com- 
 mon heritage of all the people. That the Bible, for 
 which your fathers wrestled for many long years, 
 and by which they learned the value of liberty, and 
 
144 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 embraced it as the only true -wisdom and hope for our 
 country and for universal man, the American Party 
 declares shall not be excluded from the school of the 
 country ! 
 
 "America, there are too many Hamans among us, 
 and it saddens my heart to see you, in the flower of 
 your years and the winter of your prospects ! It 
 seems, for some years, to me," she continued, "that a 
 good card was sure to turn up for your enemies, no 
 matter who got the deal." 
 
 " Yes, yes, mother, I feel it ; we all feel it. "What 
 but God can save us? Nothing, nothing, said he!" 
 and the sensation was intense for some minutes. 
 
 " This very influence which stood at the ballot-box 
 and made your present rulers, would stand at the guns 
 as soon as they are out of office, and blow out their 
 brains ! 
 
 " The machinery would blot out our firmament and 
 take out the stars, if they could, for a little whiskey or 
 lager-bier," said America. 
 
 This brought a laugh, but there was not less force 
 in its truth. 
 
 " But the American party, who mean to hit the nail 
 on the head, without striking and striking and strik- 
 ing at it, resolve," said the mother, "to foster and 
 strengthen the Union, and to repel all secret or open 
 assault upon it I 
 
 "My friends, our dear country is in the actual 
 smoke and thunder of the enemy, and what is stranger 
 still, it was blinding and deafening us before we heard, 
 saw, or felt it." 
 
THE AMERICAN PARTY'S DECLARATION. 145 
 
 A hot frenzy of tears came rushing into all eyes, 
 and an earnest terror was visible "which bordered upon 
 madness. 
 
 " My son," continued America's mother, " it was 
 thirteen years after you were born before that consti- 
 tution of government under which we now live was 
 made the bond of our union and the great seal of our 
 nationality. And the American Party declare it 
 shall be construed only as its authors meant it, and its 
 true expounders have understood it. 
 
 "It regards this bond as the great Eeconciler between 
 the States and the General Government, which as 
 sacredly cherished the rights of all as the parent does 
 its offspring. The American Party are on the ladder 
 which leads our dear country up to God — it sees the 
 Constitution in its beam and blaze to glory, and rallies 
 under its banner. Nothing but rectitude, rectitude, 
 ever and ever! 
 
 " My children, to put away all geography and mathe- 
 matics, to heal all dissensions, to check with a strong 
 curb all selfishness and designing influences by which 
 they are created, to plant all over the soil a deeper 
 growth of national love and character, an American 
 sentiment, which, when smitten, will gush patriotism 
 out of our rocks, undulate all our plains, overflow all 
 our cities, this is the aim of the American Party, and 
 this the power they declare shall protect the Union. 
 The strings of the Government were wound up just 
 tight enough to give security and protection to Ameri- 
 can citizens in all their pursuits, and opens the main 
 chance alike to the common sense of all the people. 
 7 
 
146 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 And the American Party declare, my children, that 
 every interest of the country was penetrated and cover- 
 ed by its recorded fundamental law. And to do this, 
 your ancestors scaled and scaled mountain tops, they S. 
 climbed on sharp, flinty, slippery precipices, unseen 
 but by God's eye. And with sinking hearts their feet 
 often got glued with their blood. But resuscitated by 
 a far-reaching hope, they at length came forth, after 
 four months of labor and toil, bearing this immortal 
 palm for their country, the emblem of its victory and 
 life." 
 
 These words seemed to carry the assemblage to the 
 graves of their fathers, and for the moment all looked 
 like mourners. 
 
 Many doubtless wished to speak, but so eminently 
 endowed was the mother, so many miles in advance of 
 all others around in judgment and decision, that none 
 but America himself interposed a question. 
 
 "Does the American Party, mother, advocate the 
 internal improvements of our dear, dear country?" 
 
 "Just as far, my son, as the Constitution does; and to 
 your commerce, inside and outside, to the navigation 
 of all your rivers and rivulets, to your national harbors 
 on sea coast and lakes, to shield your shipping, and pro- 
 tect your gallant mariners ; to build your national roads 
 from ocean to ocean, so as to grasp the territories with- 
 in your mighty realms, are prominent objects with 
 the American Party — not only so, but every product 
 of art, every invention in science, every work of liter- 
 ature, which emanates from the genius of American 
 men or women, is guarded with the tenderness the 
 
THE AMERICAN PARTY'S DECLARATION. 147 
 
 mother feels for its nursling. And to resist and shuD 
 all foreign policy, which is unjust to the American 
 citizen, my children, and acts against the prosperity 
 of the American laborer, is not only the doctrine of 
 the American Party, but they insist that in entire con- 
 sistency with the principles of your government, the 
 American operative should be the chosen instrument 
 of your country to do the work of American men I" 
 
 This sentiment brought roars of applause, which for 
 some minutes was deafening. 
 
 " That is right, that is right I" came from many voices. 
 
 " And it shall be carried out," said America. " I am 
 tired of these old dogmatizers," said he, "mere hacks 
 of routine — who have done everything for foreigners, 
 and wearied and oppressed the native sons of the soil ; 
 every workman of America, man and woman, suffers 
 from this cause. But we will get these enemies in a 
 coop next year." 
 
 " Be sure America," said his mother, " and have it 
 large enough to hold all, the broods as well as the old 
 fowls I" 
 
 "Ay, mother," said he, "after all, it is not the fo- 
 reign so much as the American birds which should be 
 caught." 
 
 " That is true, my son, but they are spotted and 
 speckled, and can easily be known. My friends, I 
 have talked a long time for an old woman, but if I 
 have not wearied you, I will say a few more things 
 before we separate this evening." There was a general 
 response, favorable to her continuing. 
 
 " Then," said she, " to preserve your just rights, and 
 
148 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 maintain your national honor everywhere, the Ameri- 
 can Party advocates strong military and naval forces, 
 and impregnable fortifications for the country — it op- 
 poses all wasteful expenditure in the administration 
 of the government, without that niggard extreme 
 which would be a Chinese wall against American pro- 
 gress! And when, friends, we see that a thousand 
 things, known but to God, are liable to affect our na- 
 tion's weal every day, just as the climate or some 
 casualty affects our physical or mental health, the dear 
 friends who gave us, under God, our high political 
 privileges, wisely left to the American People them- 
 selves to decide through their representatives, who 
 meet to reflect their sentiments, and to legislate for 
 their interests, the decision of these matters by an In- 
 dependent Congress ! 
 
 "The American Party look with horror upon the 
 pallid and panic-stricken forces which have arisen 
 from the Anti- American policy of the present adminis- 
 tration of the government — in cramming the foreigner 
 and starving the American, selecting him for office, 
 and rejecting your men, who would die to save your 
 country and protect her national sentiment and national 
 fame ! No wonder American men of independence in 
 thought and action, who are incorrupt and incorrupt- 
 ible, should create dislike and scoffing, and one stream 
 of juggle and enchantment should come rushing on, 
 to say, "If you can't co-operate, you are mistimed, mis- 
 applied, get out of your places !" And thus the brave 
 goes down, and cowards come up, to flatter and fawn, 
 to hurt and crush us. The American Party of the 
 
THE AMERICAN PARTY'S DECLARATION. 149 
 
 Revolution rejected with battle cannon the encroach- 
 ment of power then, and it did not take off one yoke 
 to put on another. No, my children ! it hung up the 
 crucifix, and took down the mitre and the crown ! It 
 hangs yet, and will, till God calls our nation to judg- 
 ment ! 
 
 "The American Party declares now, resistance to the 
 encroachment of executive power, its interference 
 with the elective franchise by an unlawful exercise of 
 patronage. We insist that the dignity of our nation 
 depends upon the virtue, independence, and integrity 
 of all her sons and daughters. And a citizen dishonors 
 his manhood and brings contempt upon his country 
 who is afraid to express an opinion adverse to that of 
 the ruling power, because he occupies a subordinate place 
 under the Government. God, save us, save us ! 
 
 "In a word, my children, the American Party moves 
 and thinks as Washington acted, spoke, and thought. 
 In foreign matters it wants no intervention or inter- 
 mixing with foreign, European, or other States. We 
 have no business with them, my children, about their 
 matters — this was his direction, and he practised it 
 right before my eyes — but not yours," said she, smiling. 
 "And in domestic, we cannot allow the nurseries of 
 our American freedom to be bereft of the Bible, whose 
 pages instruct for the highest and holiest political 
 trusts I We cannot trade birthright privileges — dare 
 not yield our flag without our liberty. 
 
 " And finally, my children, the American Party 
 advocates the same purity and enlightenment of con- 
 science for the nation as the man ; and such relations 
 
150 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 of amity with all other nations as shall be consistent 
 wholly -with American honor and American nationality. 
 And now, my children, if you, the descendants, are 
 true to your ancestors, nothing can damp this glory, 
 or make it unreasonable to ask of the American people 
 another triumph for their American Party." 
 
 This venerable lady arose, and raising her hands to 
 heaven, implored God to be with them, and without a 
 word more withdrew. 
 
CHAPTEK X. 
 
 AMERICAN NATIONALITY THE 
 
 NATURALIZATION LAWS. 
 
 " Flag of the brave ! Thy folds shall fly, 
 The sign of hope and triumph high 1 
 Flag of the seas ! on ocean wave 
 Thy stars shall glitter o'er the brave ! 
 Forever float that standard sheet 
 "Where breathes the foe, but fags before us I 
 With Freedom's soil beneath our feet— 
 And Freedom's banner streaming o'er us !" 
 
 Inclement weather found this vast American fam- 
 ily again quartered under America's roof; and the next 
 day was the Sabbath ! At an early hour, as was the 
 custom of America's mother, she arose before breakfast 
 and called her family to prayer ! 
 
 " I know not," said she, " my young friends, to what 
 religious sect or creed you may feel individual attach- 
 ment, but I am sure you all cherish that independence 
 of thinking, and reasoning, and worshipping God, Avhich 
 was the essence of the ^Revolution ; and for which tol- 
 eration your fathers grappled, and rattled, faced bat- 
 tle, cannon, and death ! There was a vulture that 
 gnawed hard upon the hearts, and made restless the 
 minds of many who sat in the Convention which made 
 our Constitution — the strength of its sinews all at once 
 seemed to crack — when Dr. Franklin, our great na- 
 
 (151) 
 
152 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 tional schoolmaster in the department of thought, saw 
 the marrow oozing out of the seam, and knowing no- 
 thing but a Creative Power could heal it, arose and 
 said, ' Is it a truth, that not a sparrow falls to the ground 
 without the will of our Heavenly Father, and can 
 nations rise and fall without His blessing ? I move 
 we meet with prayer.' So, Americans, I say, now 
 let us ask that same God to give us gushing hearts, 
 thrilling with the spirit of life, to seek His presence on 
 our little band, that we may not remain, like the fleece 
 of the Hebrew warrior, dry, when the dew of His bless- 
 ing fertilizes all around us !" 
 
 Heaven and hell — righteousness, temperance, and a 
 judgment to come, had a thoroughgoing force in this 
 great woman's soul, and this living energy made these 
 brave hearts beat beneath her burning words which, 
 Heaven ordained, asserted His grandeur and power ! 
 
 "And now," said this Christian mother, "I see 
 before me, my children, an amalgamation of the de- 
 scendants of the Dutch, the Puritans, the Huguenots, 
 the Cavaliers, the Eomanists, and Penn ! I say to you 
 all, keep thou holy the Sabbath day, worship your 
 God, your father's God, as the convictions of your own 
 consciences shall incline you;" and promising to meet 
 them to-morrow, gave them her blessing and retired. 
 
 A bright and beautiful autumn sun next morning 
 covered nature with its rosy tints, and threw its halo 
 over this American gathering, while the pole-stars and 
 load-stars of the firmament seemed to say, As a nation 
 we are yet afloat I 
 
 The mother of America entered, leaning on the arm 
 
AMERICAN NATIONALITY. 153 
 
 of her son ! and as she gazed silently on all around 
 her, her sharp and penetrating intellect seemed to 
 pierce and probe the hearts of all ! And silence now 
 reigned, which would have given a popgun the sound 
 of a cannon I 
 
 "My children, with a stern grasp," said she, "let 
 us keep to our true principles, and rip the seam to the 
 hem, which has been puckered together, to clothe the 
 foreigner with a sceptre upon American soil, to mur- 
 der before your gates and your firesides the only lib- 
 erty which can save your principles and preserve your 
 nationality ! It is for the rights for which your fathers 
 disputed as divine, and for which they died like mar- 
 tyrs, that this Eevolution has begun ! These are the 
 elements to sweep on its wave, until it shall have cov- 
 ered our earth as the waters cover the sea ! 
 
 " It is true, our American nationality came first 
 / by emigration, from many parts of the Old "World, 
 brought by aspirations for a higher dignity, rule, and 
 promotion than could be found under the raving, 
 bestial tyranny by which they were spurned and tramp- 
 led down ! Tne majority of these were of the Ang lo- 
 Saxon o rigin, and hence that language became our 
 national tongue. And you, the children of those emi- 
 grants, are the true Americans ! From this cause you 
 now count three-fourths of your population, and make, 
 in depth of your nationality, that height of vastness, 
 that free, flowing, substantial life, which runs out 
 genially to warm with sympathy universal man ! 
 "By those emigrants, from which you descended, is 
 
154 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 this soil your soil- — this your dear, native land ! And 
 now, when the refuse and scum of other nations are 
 tearing you like a pack of bloodhounds, and the mys- 
 tery of iniquity is hammering out its wit, and planting 
 its batteries so as to defy and destroy you, is it not your 
 right, your duty, your religion, as citizens, as Christians, 
 as men, to stand firm upon your soil and claim this 
 as your country?" 
 
 There was a flash of heat at this remark, from Amer- 
 ioa and all his friends, which would have melted a 
 sword and run its scabbard into dross ! 
 
 The thought that these rebels from their own gov- 
 ernments, these foreign, ungrateful refugees, should fly 
 to their lawful American mother and put themselves 
 in the place of her own legitimate offspriBg ! 
 
 " My dear mother," said America, "what has caused 
 all this?" 
 
 " Your naturalization laws, my son, aided by a pow- 
 erful, foreign church in your country ! And to change 
 these laws, and take this indecent drapery from around 
 you, is one of the grand features of your truly Ameri- 
 can Party ! Americans, we must not cradle these 
 monsters to take away our just inheritance ; you must, 
 and you shall, govern yoiu- own country, and as you 
 please !" 
 
 " In truth," said America, " the charge of our enemies, 
 that the American Party wars against the foreigner, 
 is as untrue as that the ' Know-Nothings' were traitors, 
 because they choose to make ' Sam' keep his brains 
 in his head, instead of carrying them on his back 1" 
 
AMERICAN" NATIONALITY. 155 
 
 The assembly smiled, and seeing the singular intensity 
 of America's thought, begged him to proceed. 
 
 " There is nothing dry or dead in our country, no- 
 thing that shall not be driven out ! And it was the 
 roguery, stupidity, and horror of mixing foreigners 
 into the politics of our country, giving them a voice 
 which has even assumed to silence the native, the only 
 true American, which aroused the thunder tones of 
 our national spirit, and which found its quick response 
 from truth and patriotism all over the land!" 
 
 " You are right, my son ; and now, with head, heart, 
 and hand, rush with all your colossal strength, and 
 rally your country to the defence of her American 
 standard!" 
 
 " We will ! we will !" said all. " Oh ! what is dearer 
 than our country !" 
 
 "Why, my friends," continued the mother, "do 
 we not protect in all their civil and religious rights the 
 foreigner as ourselves — and have they not mingled 
 their energy, their invention, in the arts and sciences ; 
 their industry and capital with your own ; and what 
 more do they want? All our political rights will 
 belong to their sons, and why? — because by birth, 
 education, and national feelings, they are true Ameri- 
 cans. But, my children, there is too much done with- 
 out any appeal to the sense of the people ; unless a man 
 hitches himself to some political faction, he sees his 
 coffin right at his feet ! And so these naturalization 
 laws have been made to be abused, made for loss and 
 gain 1 Thank God, the American Party stands like 
 Aaron's rod for truth and virtue ! And by the resist- 
 
156 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 less engine of the American will, it will take away 
 the" knife which has been insinuated into our ribs, 
 while they thrust their new faces before our eyes, and 
 in terms of candid eulogy, challenge our respect ! 
 
 "It is the thief, the cut -purse, the incendiary, 
 the cast-off pauper, of whom Americans complain — 
 they who, over-ruled by a foreign Papal hierarchy, 
 make our ballot-box a saturnalia of vulgar villainy ! 
 these are the heroes who, from clanking their fetters, 
 and pounding stones for their prisons, have actually 
 been transmuted into American voters!" 
 
 Oh, God!" said America, "save us, save us!" 
 There was always much sensation when the encroach- 
 ment of foreigners was the topic. It was seen and felt 
 in the present sad experience of all ! 
 /"-> " What does the naturalization laws do for the for- 
 eigner ? It makes him an adopted citizen of our coun- 
 try ; but even the foreigner would deny that it changes 
 his nationality. He that is English, is English still ; 
 he that is Irish, is Irish still ; he that is German, is 
 German still ; he that is French, is a Frenchman still ! 
 Americans, the sympathies of these nationalities with 
 their natural mother are as the shell to the snail, a 
 sanctuary no human law can invade! And do you 
 not all glory in the nationality of your fathers ? is not 
 every true American proud of the lineage from whence 
 he is extracted ? 
 . " My friends, it is those aliens and strangers who 
 \say the Pope of Eome is the Lord God, and put him in 
 the place of Jesus Christ, our Eedeemer ; who grasp 
 | hold of you to make your country food for worms ; and, 
 
AMERICAN NATIONALITY. 157 
 
 skilled by their masters, they give your rulers a lift 
 before they give them a throw ! Not content in get- 
 ting under the branches of your Liberty Tree, they 
 perch themselves upon the topmost boughs ! 
 
 " You see, my friends, why Lafayette said Romish 
 priests would be the foes to our Republic, the Judases 
 to betray and destroy us ! You see these, the enemies 
 against whom the ' Father of his Country,' the immor- 
 tal Washington, warned us in his parting address to 
 you all ! You see why your Jackson, with impatient 
 rage, told you, America, that if you persisted in 
 receiving foreign paupers they would make one of 
 you! 
 
 " My children, it tears my brain — it sets my mind 
 on fire, to hear your emigrant fathers called foreigners ! 
 Your country was under the government of the Eng- 
 lish, when they colonized it ; and it was these men 
 of peculiar intellectual firmness, strong and astute, 
 glowing in the faith of the Reformation, which opened 
 their hearts, like a highway, to truth and freedom, who 
 made your Declaration of Independence and your 
 democratic form of government ! And what did they 
 do ? tell us facts," said she, turning to America. 
 /*""Why, verily, they ordained by that instrument 
 ' that none but a son of the soil should be President or 
 Vice-President of our country. And Hamilton, whose 
 giant powers were impressed on that Constitution, and 
 Morris, upon whose bounty the Revolution was nur- 
 tured, and to whom "Washington leaned for succor 
 \ when darkness smote his army, by reason of pecuniary 
 [want, were thus self-excluded from holding the high 
 
158 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 est trust imposed by their own Constitution, because 
 they were foreign-born !" 
 
 " And by whom," inquired several, " was the Consti- 
 tution ratified?" 
 
 " By the people," said America ; " not by their fed- 
 eral Convention ; not by their Congress or Legislature, 
 but by the right which the American people only 
 could confer, that this, greatest structure for human 
 liberty the world ever knew became the bond — the 
 everlasting bond of our National Union 1" 
 
 The excitement was thrilling, and America often 
 paused, by reason of the mass of thought and learning 
 which seemed rushing on with the force of a compound 
 blow-pipe. 
 
 " I wish," said his mother, " the naturalized foreign- 
 ers may appreciate the doctrines of our American 
 Party, which does not disturb a single right they 
 enjoy, and has just the same jealous eye for their com- 
 mon welfare it has for the American born ! Just the 
 same the American Party who made the Constitution 
 had for Hamilton and Morris, when Washington pre- 
 sided over its deliberations. I remember, my child- 
 ren, hearing the illustrious patriot, John Quincy 
 Adams speak of the ignorance abroad, in respect to the 
 true principles of our Eepublicanism, and as an illus- 
 tration, he remarked, that when President of your 
 country he received a letter from a German, who ex- 
 pressed a desire to emigrate among us, and wishing to 
 know if the President could provide him a comfortable 
 office in your country, upon his arrival ! Mr. Adams 
 very politely rebuked this flippancy, and assured him 
 
AMERICAN NATIONALITY. 159 
 
 that he was a little too fast. This correspondence can 
 be found among the national archives of the State 
 Department at Washington." 
 
 "I don't think he would have so much difficulty if 
 he would apply now," said America. 
 
 " Perhaps," said his mother, " many have done so, 
 since they beheld foreigners representing us abroad." 
 
 ""What!" said America; "representing my coun- 
 try !" with a fierce indignity, that was electric. 
 
 " My friends, be calm ; there is a remedy at hand ; 
 you have your American principles, made by the peo- 
 ple, to rectify these matters ; but I was going to tell 
 you that, three or four high foreign ministers, who 
 were not Americans, have been appointed by your 
 President, and confirmed by your American Senate, to 
 represent your American nationality at the courts of 
 Europe I" 
 
 " Great God ! to what are we coming — to what are 
 we coming ?" said all. 
 
 "To ruin — ruin, Americans, unless things soon 
 change I" 
 
 " And they will /" said America, as he jumped up 
 and hastily walked out into the hall. 
 
 The bright sun had now given place to twilight, 
 and though so many hours had been spent by this 
 large 1 assembly in silence, every son and daughter felt 
 they had been nourished by a patriotism which made 
 them wise and bold for action. One feeling of love 
 and harmony was seen in every movement of the 
 American family ; and it seemed to gild with celestial 
 tints the very halls which enclosed them. 
 
160 THE GREAT AMEBICAN BATTLE. 
 
 On meeting in the evening, they thronged around 
 their venerable relative, whose fame all felt as enduring 
 as the nation of her love. 
 
 "I see," said she, "like true Americans, there is no- 
 thing narrow or shallow about you, my friends. And 
 to none do we all feel truer or more unselfish love, 
 than to those adopted citizens who are enshrined within 
 our country, to live for it and die in it and by it ! And 
 think you how startled they would be to know that 
 for fifteen years this influx has averaged more or less 
 than half a million, and, under the foreign priesthood, 
 now forms a distinct estate in your free American 
 country. Why, Americans, two-thirds of the police 
 of New York, and one-half of the entire population of 
 Boston, which rocked the cradle and made the grave- 
 clothes for the first martyrs of your Eevolution, are 
 foreign born! And all your great cities give similar 
 census results ! We see then, why they strive to ruin 
 your free schools by their votes, and demand your 
 funds to build up the system which makes and enlarges 
 their borders. Our dear country for years has seemed 
 sadly out of order," said this Christian patriot ; "it has 
 looked as though our wise men were shut up in insane 
 asylums, to allow these things to be, when the terms of 
 naturalization could have had more sulphur and less 
 lavender in them, or been reprobated altogether ! •But, 
 my children, that thirst for office, that idolatry of mam- 
 mon, has made, always, a majority against any law 
 which would flavor the dish for another table. So 
 these foreigners played hide-and-seek with American 
 demagogues, until our country's greatness seemed to 
 
AMERICAN NATIONALITY; 161 
 
 consist in bearing magnanimously the curse upon her. 
 The people rose, on the summons of this danger, my 
 children, and seeing the American Catholic, and the 
 citizen who claimed our country by adoption, as -well 
 as the native-born sons of America, were all outraged, 
 as one man, and with one mind and one heart, com- 
 bined to resist this aggression, and to recall the true 
 principles of our nationality — and this is our present 
 American Party 1" 
 
 This sentiment brought down a storm of applause, 
 because it looked like the same light from Heaven 
 which directed and guided our original freedom. There 
 was no limping ennui now, but a robust ray of delight, 
 enkindled by hope ! 
 
 The mother signified her wish to discourse upon the 
 slanders upon this Party, and not only to show its hos- 
 tility to all intolerance to religion, but that it is the 
 only arm of defence to the American Catholic, as well 
 as the foreign Protestant ! When America waved his 
 hand to the music, and the band played " Hail, Colum- 
 bia!" 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 FOREIGNEES-PROTESTAXT AND 
 CATHOLIC. 
 
 " Flag of the free ! our hope and home — 
 By angel hand to valor given ! 
 Thy stars have lit the welkin dome — 
 And all thy hues were born in Heaven ! 
 "When Freedom from her mountain height, 
 Unfurled her standard to the air, 
 She tore the azure robe of night, 
 And set the stars of glory there !'' 
 
 The national spirit in this patriotic multitude had 
 now risen to its rugged energy, and lashing together 
 all their forces, they felt strong to dare earth and hell 
 for country I 
 
 " And now," said America, when they were again 
 gathered together, "here we are as plastic to your 
 great impression, as the world was when Adam first 
 beheld it!" There was one universal response to this, 
 which this patriotic woman evidently received with 
 emotion ! Tears came to her relief through a smile, 
 which was ever to them all, as the rainbow of hope ! 
 
 "Americans, " said she, "if the words which have 
 gushed out of my heart, in laying bare before j-our 
 eyes the baseness of accredited infamy, which has fallen 
 like death's pall over your beloved country, shall in- 
 
FOREIGNERS, PROTESTANT AND CATHOLIC. 163 
 
 spire you with greater courage, activity, and zeal, to 
 rally for its rescue, I shall feel my last, have been my 
 best days I" An icicle would now have melted under 
 the burning vitality, which seemed almost to toss the 
 company from their seats ! "I wish," said she, " to show 
 you a picture of the dead, not by making a torchlight 
 procession, and sending you into their charnel-houses ; 
 but in reminding you of that running, glistening pool 
 of blood, into which you are all soon to be dipped and 
 drenched, unless you follow their example, and have 
 recourse to their wisdom. And though out of their 
 bodies, are they not present with us and around us 
 to-day ? 
 
 "I reminded you in my last conversation," she con- 
 tinued, "that it was time you all understood more fully 
 American rights, and valued more highly your own 
 nationality ! looked more closely to that class of for- 
 eigners, who have for many years mocked and insulted 
 your laws, by swearing to submit to your government, 
 while the Priest turns around and absolves them in 
 the next confession ! This is the Jesuit trick, by which 
 you are now sponged, and sopped, and drugged all 
 over! 
 
 "The tree of American Liberty was planted, my 
 friends, to be nourished by virtue of its inward 
 powers ! Your fathers examined and dissected all its 
 roots and fibres before they settled it in the sod, and 
 they declared that the springs were deep enough to 
 moisten and nourish it, in its own soil ! So now, we 
 need no foreign aid to make us more free or more 
 
164 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 happy than they left us ! But, understand, it is of 
 one class, not of all foreigners, Americans complain ! 
 
 " The Protestant foreigner is willingly tolerant of 
 the signal and excellent peculiarities of our lawful 
 goverment, that their children in the first generation 
 may be, as ourselves, true Americans ! They feel that 
 the thing to be appreciated must first be known, and 
 though there may be moods in their mind and feeling 
 incident to their nationality, yet no consumptive hec- 
 tic glows on their cheeks, as they look out from their 
 bogs upon the dawn of your mountain tops ! Ameri- 
 cans, the science of your government comes not from 
 the mere planting or grafting of man, but God-created, 
 it burst forth from the closet and workshop, and shone 
 out upon nature ! It was after all an invisible interest 
 which made us what we are — it was the element of 
 thinking, and reasoning, and inquiring, which gave rise 
 to our longing after right, and freedom, and country ! 
 
 " Your Eevolution would have tumbled your fathers 
 into obscurity and a void inane, but for the Protestant 
 element which was then, as it must ever be, the indivi- 
 duality, the spirituality, the humanity, the organic life 
 of this great edifice of freedom and nationality 1" 
 
 "It is to be deplored that "there is in our country, 
 an infatuated ignorance, which betrays itself in scoffing 
 at the Irish, or the descendants of Irishmen ! It has 
 aroused the indignation of many of our own family, 
 and I have been requested to ask you, in behalf of 
 many relatives now before us, to speak like heat- 
 lightning on this point." 
 
FOREIGNERS, PROTESTANT AND CATHOLIC. 165 
 
 " I feel almost a wild delight, my son," said she, " in 
 looking into the mass of facts, and seeing the blaze and 
 flash of fame with which the Irishman, or his descend- 
 ant covers almost every page of your revolutionary 
 history! My friends, of the fifty-six signers of 
 our Declaration of Independence, in seventeen hun- 
 dred and seventy-six, eight were Irishmen, or their 
 immediate descendants ; and of the thirty-six delegates 
 by whom the Constitution of our Union was presented 
 in its shining garments to the American people and 
 an astonished world, in seventeen hundred and eighty- 
 seven, not less than six were also Irishmen!" This fact 
 carried a thrill of excitement which was echoed and 
 re-echoed, as the speaker, designated their descendants 
 present, and dwelt felicitously upon their burning 
 patriotism and noble daring! "Americans," she con- 
 tinued, "your nationality is more indebted to Ireland 
 than to any other nation upon earth. As early as 
 sixteen hundred and forty-six, the Colonies received 
 hundreds of these Northmen, and early in the seven- 
 teenth century, more than three thousand came annu- 
 ally, bringing their energy, their sympathy, and their 
 substance, and mixing and mingling it into one com- 
 mon crucible and smelting pot — and who ran to obey 
 the first impulses of the Eevolution! And when it 
 came, that impulse did not stop here, but fled and cir- 
 culated through Protestant Ireland, and every heart 
 vibrated in tones of thunder I Five-sixths of the Penn- 
 sylvanian volunteers enrolled at the first note of warn- 
 ing, and their House of Commons steadily refused, to 
 vote any supplies for that war! whilst an Irish 
 
166 THE GEEAT AMERICAN" BATTLE. 
 
 Burke, a Bare, and Sheridan spoke and wrote in 
 England effectually for our cause ! I remember well," 
 she continued, " when our Congress in seventeen hun- 
 dred and seventy-six addressed the Irish people, who 
 had been to our cause as the morning star of hope, 
 when England was striving to keep her armed heel 
 upon your young forehead, America !" 
 
 "I thank God," said many, " that we once more realize 
 the greatness of dear Erin of old !" 
 
 "" Yes, my children, she has been polluted and cor- 
 roded by the accursed power of Popery, and when I have 
 more fully explained to you its evil Dn that once great 
 and noble nation, you will feel more and more I trust 
 in God why you should never allow its ascendency 
 over American liberty ! My children, do you know 
 that Ireland was originally Protestant to the core ! 
 and resisted Rome long after the British and Saxon 
 churches had yielded to her delusion ? Yes, my friends, 
 it was five centuries after England was wrapped in the 
 mysteries of Popery, before Ireland was clutched by 
 the Papal supremacy, and was the very last country 
 in all Europe to submit to its sword !" 
 
 " Why," said many in great ecstasy, " seven-tenths of 
 our population deride the idea that Ireland was ever else 
 than an oppressed, down-trodden country !" 
 
 " I know it, my children, and we their descendants, 
 who have enjoyed the first fruits of their toil, should 
 rise like true Americans, and repel this delusion with 
 our whole strength, if our whole strength be neces- 
 sary ! Ireland always degraded — Ireland the evan- 
 gelist of all Europe ! A whole hemisphere in light, 
 
FOREIGNERS, PROTESTANT AND CATHOLIC. 167 
 
 gifted to an extreme beyond all others ! No, my chil- 
 dren, until Henry the Second of England and Pope 
 Adrian of Eome, resolved by force of arms to annex 
 Ireland, in order to extend the bounds of the Church, 
 she had been for centuries a fiery light for Europe, in 
 science and learning, as well as Christianity." 
 
 " How then did England rise under this degraded 
 servility and superstition?" 
 
 " She threw it off indeed, before she attempted to 
 stand upon her feet ! The glorious light of the Refor- 
 mation snatched her to its embrace under the House 
 of Orange, and healed her wounds, before they had 
 run too deep under the skin, my son ; and when timely 
 succored, she rose, stronger than before, and essayed to 
 hope for peace and honor and length of days ! This 
 great Revolution made her wax fat and kick, so that 
 wheu the same celestial light shed its halo over us, 
 nearly a century later, she sought to gall and hamper 
 your fathers, my children, to prescribe them a course 
 and a goal, as she had done old Ireland, when they 
 put her into a circuitous route, and taught her the fatal 
 error ! That brought to our aid these Protestant Irish 
 spirits, who like St. Paul and his apostles, dwelt as 
 political slaves. And it makes my heart ache to know, 
 that the land which had sent legions to Britain and Gaul 
 to repel Imperial Rome ; the land,which had shed rivers 
 of blood to save us and our rights, my friends, should 
 now bear upon her green sward a . gangrene, which 
 takes all the sunlight from her soul and can be seen but 
 through a paltry chink ! And thus, my friends, our 
 young people see Ireland in America now, as she 
 
168 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 migrates for bread! under the dictum of the same 
 Eomish Hierarchy, which crushed her glory, and made 
 her downs, but a great slaughter-house for Eomel 
 
 " Great God! when we see the mighty death-days 
 of that beautiful and once famed isle; when we see 
 how the dusky, glaring torch of Popery has shaken its 
 serpent hair into terror of terrors, and danced to its 
 neck in Protestant blood, until hidden in some formless 
 depth, all that had head, heart, soul, body and spirit, 
 seemed prostrated for ever ! Should we not strive and 
 pray, that Papal Ireland may not now be a tar-barrel, 
 to light our highways to ruin and death!" 
 
 "Mother," said America, "you have mirrored this 
 truth, so rapidly, gracefully and promptly, our friends 
 will be gratified to have more information of our Irish 
 ancestors who nursed me, when a little infant, in the 
 cradle I" 
 
 ' ' My children, ' ' said the old lady smilingly, ' ' you seem 
 to remember I am a grey -haired, all-experienced woman ; 
 but withal, I trust I may not be a dry-nurse to you." 
 
 " No, no," said many, " you have sent a glitter of sun- 
 light to our souls, made more bottomless, by every 
 word you utter 1" 
 
 " My friends, it was to enthrone the Bible on your 
 soil, and to deliver your national education from that 
 idolatry, from which Ireland perished, that their Pro- 
 testant sons came burning for your deliverance from 
 tyranny and oppression ! I have heard the venerable 
 Dr. Franklin," said she, "contrast open-hearted Ireland 
 with blunt, curled-nosed England ! and allude to his 
 warm reception in their House of Commons, in seven- 
 
FOREIGNERS, PROTESTANT AND CATHOLIC. 169 
 
 teen hundred and seventy-three, when they unani- 
 mously voted him the right within their Bar, which 
 an Englishman, then, would have denied him ! My 
 children, it was by an Irishman that the first daily 
 paper was published in your country ! and in which 
 the first notice of your birth, America, appeared ! He 
 afterwards was the first printer to Congress, and in his 
 columns the declaration first was published! The 
 Secretary to the first Congress, was also an Irishman, 
 who wrote out this great document of your life from 
 Mr. Jefferson's draft; he it was, who delivered to 
 Franklin his instructions, and to Washington the fact, 
 that the nation had made him their ruler ! The gun- 
 powder, cannon, and guns which unfolded the spirit 
 of freedom, on Bunker Hill, and made it a germ of 
 irrepressible force, was in part furnished from the fort 
 of Newcastle, which Irishmen had stormed !" 
 
 As these words were uttered, all present seemed 
 to sparkle nature's fire, the mercury ran high, and all 
 vowed that the American Party had come in God's 
 providence to take away all false eyeglasses, green or 
 yellow, convex or concave, and significantly show, that 
 the foreign Protestant element was now, as it was in 
 the days of America's infancy, wholly in sympathy 
 with us, in heart and soul, and action ! 
 
 " Two brigade generals, and at least one-third of the 
 active chiefs in the first council of war, under "Wash- 
 ington, my friends, were Irishmen ! But," added she, 
 " how could I attempt to name the myriads of this na- 
 tionality who have aided us not only in settling the tree 
 of Independence, but in extending and strengthening all 
 8 
 
170 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 its fibres and radicles ! The brave Montgomery, who 
 fell gloriously at Quebec, and your own Jackson, the 
 hero of New Orleans, were Irishmen, though the latter 
 was born soon after the arrival of his parents in our 
 dear country, and by this fact became eligible to the chief 
 magistracy of the nation , which was twice conferred upon 
 him by the elective franchise ! And, you remember," 
 said the speaker, " what that Irish patriot said about 
 this present Papal rush to our shores ! The Colony of 
 Pennsylvania, under Penn, was for two years governed 
 by Logan, who gave to Philadelphia her first Public 
 Library I And Fulton, who invented your Steamboat, 
 was of the same nationality ! Americans I speak as 
 I do know, and testify to what I have seen ; and I 
 should as soon think of cutting our sphere into halves, 
 and then join them together, by a sticking plaster, as 
 to take out the active Irish patriotism of our Avar of 
 Independence, and call it any Eevolution at all ! Why 
 sugar infuses its sweetness into your tea ! But when 
 Irish and German social democratic associations, in 
 the very land and home of our Washington — Virginia 
 — demand reforms under our general government, as 
 well as the States, for abolishing the presidency — abol- 
 ishing the Senate — reducing the term for acquiring 
 citizenship — and requiring a separate department of 
 government to protect immigration ; it is time to con- 
 sider the foreigners' idea of our American liberty ; it 
 is time for Americans to inquire how far this arrogant, 
 impudent audacity shall be allowed, to demand that 
 liberty of conscience which insists upon the abolition of 
 all laws for the observance of the Sabbath, abolishing 
 
FOREIGNERS — PROTESTANT AND CATHOLIC. 171 
 
 prayers in Congress — abolishing oaths upon the Bible ! 
 Great God, what a country for Americans, with no 
 permanent constitution — no Sabbath — no oaths upon 
 the Bible — no neutrality — no Christian punishment — 
 no national executive to administer American laws 
 and protect our rights against this foreign Jesuit 
 machinery." 
 
 The conversation now became general, and so spirited 
 that it seemed like a powder magazine, ready to flame 
 at the first spark ! The wife, sister, or daughter pres- 
 ent, shared equally in this, for the question being for 
 right and country, it revived all that had been devised, 
 discovered, done, felt, or imagined by their revolution- 
 ary mothers, and awakened and kindled, purified, and 
 enforced it, as their first grand problem, to follow that 
 example I 
 
 America's mother looked all the more holy and 
 lovely, when she discoursed to her friends. And no 
 sound in nature was to them like that melodious melt- 
 ing softness, that came in full volume from her warm, 
 stout heart. 
 
 "Americans, I desire to show you that nations, 
 like individuals, become purer from errors, by suffer- 
 ing from them, as gold is purified by fire I There 
 has been too much improper culture in our tough 
 American soil. The manure has been too fat, there 
 has been entirely too much gardening, and too little 
 digging and ploughing, for the good of your own na- 
 tionality ! And what is the consequence ? Why, your 
 character, America, has been distorted abroad, and in 
 place of your sturdy oaks, which germ from American 
 acorns, they are sending seed and planting artichokes 
 
172 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 all over your dear country ! Why, countrymen, 
 do you mean to make a great potato hole of your 
 American soil ? Do you mean, in the face of all the 
 degradation, that Popery and Jesuitism has done for 
 Ireland, to sit in your provision carts, unwatchfully, 
 stay away from the battle, until all pregnant with life 
 is gone, and your foundation stone tilted right over, 
 and Rome, in wild dinning tumult, re-enacting upon 
 you, her fierce hate and carnage!" 
 
 " I now understand one thing, truly," said America, 
 "that, if ever this foreign Hierarchy has the power, it 
 will set about delivering our dear country from heresy, 
 just as it did Ireland — by deliberately taking the 
 blood of every human soul out of the pale of their 
 church, to the last drop I" 
 
 " Did England suffer," inquired many, "from the 
 interference of Popery in her government?" 
 
 " Suffer, Americans'/ It was a devouring chaos to 
 her, until God sent the House of Orange by her Revolu- 
 tion,^ sixteen hundred and eighty-eight, who hooked 
 its shark of prey and crushed its abominations ! Be- 
 fore, she was as poor old Ireland, and but for this act, 
 my friends, would have been no more the great and 
 haughty empire she is to-day, than j^our own country 
 would be a nation, had your fathers bowed like dogs 
 and cowards, to her tyranny and grasp! And, just 
 as England rose to greatness, by her deliverance from 
 the dominion of a Papal Hierarchy, has Ireland sunk 
 to wretchedness, by its victory over her I" 
 
 " It is time," said America, " that all our sons and 
 daughters should know the truth of this!" 
 
FOREIGNERS, PROTESTANT AND CATHOLIC. 173 
 
 " Yes," said many, " the popular idea is, that Ireland's 
 low condition — the poverty of her people, come from 
 English oppression !" 
 
 "My children, it is no such thing," said the mother, 
 ■,with an independent impatience! "It comes from 
 that Jesuit hunt over her lands, for so many centuries ! 
 Give them but the gift of Protestantism, which is the 
 very instinct of freedom, and soon will she rend from 
 her soil any other exaction or encroachment, upon her 
 civil rights! And of late, it seems as though God 
 was going to take that dear isle from the penal fires, 
 and recal the spirit of freedom and nationality, which 
 fired the souls of her noble patriots, and sent them to 
 breathe it in our dear native land !" 
 
 "It would seem," said America, " that England could 
 not forget that it was Protestant Ireland, who sent her 
 the first glad tidings of salvation, through a divine 
 Eedeemer 1 
 
 "Oh," said America, "mother, I believe in your 
 prayers." " And so do all of us," responded from every 
 voice," " and now pray earnestly that Ireland shall wor- 
 ship once more in the faith of our fathers ! and may 
 once more be dotted with her churches and school- 
 houses, to live and learn for our God!" For some 
 moments there was the stillness of death, for there are 
 mysteries in the soul which are incommunicable ! 
 There was an ornament on the mantel of this American 
 parlor, representing Eve, with her hand on the fatal 
 apple ! And the mother, directing the attention of her 
 young friends to it, inquiringly said, "Are you willing, 
 my children — are you ready, America, to barter your 
 
174 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 paradise, for a similar consideration ? If you are not, in 
 God's name, decide that question now ! You are no 
 longer impregnable to danger. That fatal influence 
 which has made ruin and havoc in the old world, has got 
 into your latitudes and longitudes ! It has offered its 
 golden apple with such winning grace and sociable 
 good-humored politeness, that your ballot-box, bartered 
 with it, on its own terms, which were neither more nor 
 less, than a governmental copartnercy between Washing- 
 ton and Eome ! And now, Americans, I would as soon 
 send any of you to gather blackberries, when the- snow is 
 on the ground, or to catch larks by throwing fresh salt 
 on their tails, as to send you, glowing in all the ele- 
 ments of your great nationality, to sue for favor from 
 this foreign, priestly power ! My friends, this is no 
 canvas-picture, but a hfe-picture, that I have now drawn 
 out before your eyes ! And can you longer doubt the 
 necessity for which the American Party has risen 
 when the true-hearted, noble Americans, who descended 
 from Irish and other Protestant emigrants, are being 
 put in a gap, by this foreign Papal priesthood and laity, 
 who shout loudest with their throats, and bow lowest 
 in their hearts, to every scratch of that Despot's pen, 
 that tends to hitch danger and death to the American 
 name !" 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 AMERICAN PARTY AGAINST RELIGIOUS 
 
 INTOLERANCE. 
 CATHOLICS— FOREIGN AND NATIVE. 
 
 " A rock In the wilderness welcomed our sires, 
 From bondage far oyer the dark rolling sea; 
 On that holy altar they kindled the fires, 
 Jehovah, which glow in our bosoms for thee ! 
 In church and cathedral we kneel one in prayer 
 Their temple and chapel were valley and hill- 
 But God" is the same iu the aisle or the air, 
 And He Is tho Rock that we loan upon still !" 
 
 "Americans, shall we look to God? He is our 
 only hope in trial, let us pray ! Almighty Father, the 
 Creator and everlasting Ruler, the only living and true 
 God, give unto us in our national and in our individual 
 character the same hearts and the same spirit which 
 sent our fathers here to seek and serve thee ! and re- 
 lying upon the merits of Jesus Christ, our Divine 
 Redeemer, as our great High Priest and only Interces- 
 sor, we ask that thy name may be hallowed through- 
 out the length and breadth of this land, until the glad 
 tidings of thy salvation shall come up from every altar 
 and be felt at every fireside." 
 
 " My dear mother," said America, " I no longer 
 wonder why religious blessings protect our civil free- 
 
 (175) 
 
176 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 dom, and every citizen, as well as Christian, should be 
 unwilling to bow to the yoke of spiritual oppression." 
 "There is a word in the Anglo-Saxon tongue called 
 availability, which I beg you, Americans, to eschew 
 from all your vocabularies. It means, and has meant 
 for years, an outward prestige of a man to secure the 
 vote of the Eoman Catholic Church in the United 
 States of America. If it was made evident the Romish 
 Bishops endorsed him, he became, de facto, the man, 
 my friends. If he lacked this influence, he was un- 
 done ; so that the political more than the spiritual con- 
 dition of our dear America has devolved upon this 
 foreign Potentate, who acts through his machinery as 
 though he were personally present! Citizenship of 
 America can't be changed like a garment, dear friends, 
 put on for interest by the foreigner, who, unaltered by 
 the oath of allegiance, the breach and violation of our 
 sacred laws, remains still at heart a foreigner! Oh, 
 America! what shall be said of your native sons who 
 bring this horde to the ballot-box, in spite of your 
 nationality ? Your greatness and glory is in remain- 
 ing as you are. Born for eternity as well as to-dajr, 
 the one cheerful, steadfast hope, which lights the shrine 
 of freedom, and makes it divinely ardent in every 
 American heart ! The moral conviction that the hap- 
 piness and interest of the American people needs a 
 political change, is from their veneration for liberty, 
 its agents, oracles, order, and law which dictated and 
 governed its original life. And separates the Ameri- 
 can Party to-day as completely from all other parties, 
 as is the Caspian from all other seas. The strictness with 
 
CATHOLICS — FOREIGN AND NATIVE. 177 
 
 which your fathers judged themselves, and the liberal 
 ity with which they judged others, that they showed 
 their highest virtue, in their most prosperous fortune ! 
 I knew them well, and their was nothing in their his- 
 tory upon which we cannot look with pride and plea- 
 sure ! It was not by high heads and swelling chests, 
 that their majesty appeared ; and dragged out of their 
 coffins and cemeteries to-day, they would measure 
 their original height, before the eyes of all the people ! 
 I told you yesterday, how the Irish Protestant emi- 
 grants brought to our shores that irradicable longing 
 for the true principles of our Liberty, which they 
 assisted us to achieve ; and in looking over the many- 
 colored stream of your national life, it is wise to dwell 
 upon this as the great turning point in its current!" 
 
 " Mother, we are desirous to know," said America, 
 " if Popery ever has exhibited the national spirit which 
 belongs to us, and is the trumpet, the war-horse, the 
 standard-bearer, in all our triumphs !" 
 
 " That noble sense of truth," my son, " gives a rigid 
 intensity to that question, and I feel it too vital to us 
 all, to give you a counterfeit feature of this matter now. 
 I say then, it is barren mockery even to speak of it 
 in this connection! and the sight of your sunlight 
 excited its old spring of bitterness with new floods of 
 hate, which nothing, nothing but your blood can wash 
 out, Americans. But God is with us!" said she, 
 as all glad thought seemed for the moment to have 
 deserted the assemblage. " God is with us !" she re- 
 peated, and in prayers and tears they poured forth their 
 sorrow. 
 
178 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 " Mother," said America, these foreign Jesuits come 
 to our dear country with shining professions and a 
 •whining good will !" 
 
 " Yes, damning you in their hearts," said she; " and 
 planning your murder, with a weapon so keen, that 
 dark night would overtake you at mid-day ! And, it 
 is an atrocious outrage, against which the true Ameri- 
 can sentiment protests and waxes hot, to identify in 
 anything the intelligent and patriotic Roman Catholic, 
 born on American soil, with those timid, servile ser- 
 pents, those irresponsible obstructions in our political 
 road, which the Pope of Eome and his priesthood have 
 placed upon our national track ! Believe me, the 
 native Roman Catholic feels himself as free to choose 
 the civil government to which he professes allegiance, 
 as the Protestant! and he no more submits to that 
 political dictation, from the See of Rome, than he does 
 to the divinity of Mahomet !" 
 
 " My friends," said America, beginning to cast aside 
 reserve, " our American Party has as much heartfelt, 
 indestructible sympathy for the native Catholic as the 
 Protestant ! And it is nothing but a political horse- 
 race — a mule-race attempt, to force their hatred against 
 us. Thank God, our American men can't run as sheep 
 like idolaters, because others have done so ! No plush 
 and gilded tackle can hang itself around their hearts, 
 or stand as a glass lantern between them and the gov- 
 ernment of their own beloved country." 
 
 " America, you are but expressing what the truly 
 American doctrine has always been, and the American 
 Party's procedure outward and inward, in its whole 
 
CATHOLICS — FOREIGN AND NATIVE. 179 
 
 structure and aspect, has been to grind out from our 
 political action every sediment of religious intolerance 
 which has served to feed deceitful magpies, but cannot 
 nourish your own native eagle ! 
 
 " My children, what gives circulation to your bank- 
 bills in your streets, but the ■ confidence that they arc 
 backed by coffers overflowing with gold? And so 
 would bankruptcy soon overtake your great American 
 nation, but for the confidence that the Constitution is 
 an inexhaustible mine, able and powerful to honor 
 every draft, of true American sentiment, which may 
 be made upon it." 
 
 "And what," inquired many, " does our great Civil 
 Code say on the subject of religion ?" 
 
 " It never but once, Americans, referred to it at all, 
 and that was in relation to the oaths or affirmations to 
 support it. And in the first amendment, so all-impor- 
 tant did your fathers regard this, to the strength of 
 your civil edifice, obtained by musket-volleys and can- 
 non-thunder, that they expressly forbade Congress ever 
 to legislate upon the subject ! So that, the religious 
 creed of the man has no interference with his right to 
 hold any civil office under the government of his 
 country, or the oath, by which he binds himself to its 
 allegiance. And I shall always regret, my friends, 
 that our Constitution had not, in the same peremptory 
 manner, prohibited the States, also, from intermeddling 
 with religious matters. That Constitution is tough 
 and tenacious, and its wise provisions for the religious 
 liberty secured the sacred right of every citizen of your 
 denr country, to adopt any form of doctrine, or to con- 
 
180 THE GEEAT AHEBICAN BATTLE. 
 
 form to any mode of "worshipping God, he might choose, 
 without being abridged in one single civil or political 
 right. And when this great and grand feature in that 
 Constitution is galled and manacled, defaced and thun- 
 der-riven in the broad light of day, is it strange that 
 the principles of the American Party, which based and 
 rooted it, should revive to unfold its original strength, 
 before your country shall become a mere hunting field 
 for that insatiable Demon of Intolerance." 
 
 There was an unornamented force and massiveness 
 in all this great woman said, and sleeplessly and un- 
 weariedly these great souls would merge into to-day 
 what might be given to-morrow. And no motion from 
 her, therefore, was easily carried for adjournment. 
 
 " Will you tell us, to-day, how the temporal power 
 of the Pope of Eome is most dangerously manifested 
 in our country ?" 
 
 "In its control over the property of American citi- 
 zens, America. This has aroused the fire of the native 
 Catholics, who, in many instances, have made a strong, 
 dead pull against this insolent enemy to their peace, 
 and riddled its influence, by the power of American 
 law. 
 
 "The American Catholic, my friends, is a portion 
 of our national sovereignty, and the preservation of 
 our liberties is as dear to him, and his descendants, as 
 to the Protestant." 
 
 " That is true, that is true," exclaimed all ; for in 
 this American gathering were many Catholics who, 
 though regarding the Pope as their spiritual shepherd 
 and king, believed his temporal authority a curse aud 
 
CATHOLICS— FOREIGN AND NATIVE. 181 
 
 poison in our land, and would die rather than discredit 
 the lap of their own mother earth. 
 
 At this moment there was a spontaneous call upon 
 one of these American Catholics. And the mother of 
 America, drawing a chair near herself, that a new 
 interest might be impressed on all, with peculiar 
 earnestness, requested her young friend to accept it. 
 
 "Every truly American heart," said he, "will ap- 
 proach, as the proud gates of Americanism fly open 
 before him, the heaven of patriotism, the cause and 
 fountain of all our national honor." 
 . v " It is not the question, that the Pope of Eome 
 claims the temporal power over his subjects here, but 
 does the native Catholic allow that claim, which con- 
 cerns the common sense of all the people? Does 
 the President of the United States, or any great 
 civil ruler of the world, wait for his dinner until 
 the Khan of Tartary announces, by his valet, that he 
 has dined ? And yet he does this every day ; And 
 no more does the American Catholic acknowledge the 
 Pope in his temporal authority, though he may issue 
 Bull after Bull, and send his foreign criers in demoni- 
 acal rage, to assert and reassert it." 
 
 " I am," continued he, " a native Catholic of Louisi- 
 ana, and I echo the sentiment of that whole State, 
 when I tell you that we would shiver, by bullets, 
 any Papal edict that should dare to infringe upon our 
 blood-bought rights. We saw this foreign Hierarchy 
 claiming through its Bishops all the property and 
 revenue of our American churches, in its sole right, 
 and we sprang upon our feet like men, and put our 
 
182 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 jewel box under the strong lock of our State laws, 
 where, against all their cunningly devised fable, and 
 sharp and fierce opposition, it continues to remain." 
 
 " This property," said the mother, " is the pabulum 
 of the Pope in our country, and but take it all away and 
 the staff of life would be cut right out of his hands. 
 But, my children, in spite of what our friend tells of 
 Louisiana and her glorious example against the See of 
 Eome, we cannot estimate the millions of our national 
 treasure, now actually in possession of the Vicar-Gene- 
 rals of that Church." 
 
 " Some fifteen years ago the curate of the church of 
 Pointe Coupee claimed the administration of its reven- 
 ues, in the name of our Bishop," said this Catholic, 
 "when we appealed to our Supreme State Court, upon 
 whose bench sat three French Catholic Judges, and 
 they decided, that neither Pope or Bishop had any 
 right to control the property of American citizens." 
 
 "If you will excuse detail," he continued, "I will 
 remind you that though the Creole Catholics of Louisi- 
 ana own implicit spiritual obedience to the doctrine 
 and faith of that church of whom the Pope of Rome 
 is the Head, they have shown themselves a sword-blade 
 against his temporal claim on several other noted occa- 
 sions." 
 
 There was a general cry of " Go on." 
 
 " Subsequent to the case to which I have referred, 
 the Bishop himself made a similar claim to the revenue 
 of the church of St. Louis, when the laity, in their 
 true American spirit, resisted this colossal cipher. He 
 withdrew their priests, and threatened to excommuni- 
 
CATHOLICS — FOREIGN AND NATIVE. 183 
 
 cate the flock ; when they sued this Theological 
 Autocrat for the damage from his tyrannical proceed- 
 ing, and obtained one of the most glorious verdicts in 
 favor of the rights of man, ever rendered in this or any 
 country. And when, three years since, the same un- 
 lawful interference was exhibited upon our school sys- 
 tem, it received a similar obituary notice." 
 
 "Would to God," said America, "that the same 
 spirit of independence had been exhibited all over our 
 dear country I" 
 
 " Nothing but that action made us a nation. 
 Nothing less than that can save us as such." 
 
 "And now," said America, "is there an American 
 Catholic, so stiff-starched and hollow, as not to shudder 
 at the sight of that huge wheel which is bobbing over 
 all our highways and byways, to enfeeble our sinews 
 and put us under a torpid nightmare. For what else 
 did the Pope send his Nuncio, two years ago, but to 
 enforce all his canon laws upon our country, and take 
 all the church property of Eoman Catholic citizens 
 from their trustees, when that fearless American 
 feeling, loud and stormful-busy, came rushing, thunder- 
 ing down from the church of Buffalo, in New York, 
 and, by her Legislature, obtained a general law, which 
 bright-rolling freedom has alike granted to all. And 
 although upon Protestantism our civil and religious 
 liberty eternally rests, that Catholic spirit of tolerance 
 is the great feature of its God-directed aim. My chil- 
 dren, the American Party asks, as your fathers did, 
 are you American and constitutional, and only that ? 
 The contest between the Pope and the American 
 
184 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 Catholics for their refusal to violate the lavs of their 
 own country, affirms beyond all further doubt that the 
 Pope claims the same right over his church in the 
 United States of America as he does in Spain or Italy. 
 And it also as strongly proves, that American Catho- 
 lics deny it." 
 
 ""When the unlawful exaction of England was 
 manifested in oppressive taxation upon the American 
 Colonies, and the blood of Lexington and Bunker Hill 
 told the story of their wrongs, their indignation was 
 not measured by the amount of gold and silver they 
 were taxed. The man or woman who had never tasted 
 tea, or been clad in purple and fine linen, rushed with 
 the same ardor for their country, to death and dangeri 
 as they who had all her prizes. 
 
 " And so, when it was seen that all these rites, held 
 dear and sacred by these Eoman Catholic citizens, were 
 denied them — expelled from their church and eternally 
 cursed by its great Head — for being loyal to their 
 government and independent in their wills, Protestant 
 American citizens came to their rescue, in their frater- 
 nal and patriotic spirit, and interposed with heart and 
 soul, and mind, for their temporal redress. 
 
 " Americans, the sweetest moments of my life are 
 those I am now passing with you. I am grateful, 
 profoundly grateful, for your attention and for the 
 garlands you have heaped upon my brow. I tell you, 
 solemnly, I tell you all, my countrymen, that there are 
 charcoal-burners among us now, that will make you 
 see a sinking sun, if God does not mightily interpose 
 for vour -welfare." 
 
CATHOLICS — FOREIGN AND KATIVE. 185 
 
 A ponderous atmosphere for some moments seemed 
 to repress respiration ; when, by previous arrangement, 
 the doors were flung open and a panoramic view of 
 Washington and all his Kevolutionary contemporaries 
 appeared, in their military costume and life-like stature. 
 Every heart fluttered and every voice quivered at that 
 sight ! 
 
 "Look," said the mother, "at that triumph over 
 Time, America.; and remember it was they, who made 
 your country for eternity. I caused this exhibition to 
 come among you now, that you may all feel as united 
 in life, as they are now undivided in death." 
 
 A trembling and frightful sensibility that the evils 
 under which they suffered were spreading wider and 
 wider, seemed to singe the very hearts of all, when 
 the mother, directing the picture to remain, implored 
 God Almighty to throw more light on the soul of this 
 great people, and bade them adieu for the night. 
 
 America rapped early at his mother's door next 
 morning, when he found her at prayer ; and he crept 
 stealthily, upon his knees, beside her. There, on the 
 little table, laid open the old family Bible, which bore 
 all the marks that it had been well, but reverently 
 used, and in which the birth of America was recorded, 
 and all the great events of his national action noted, to 
 the month and day. But what could equal the sublimity, 
 the sacredness of that scene, where, swayed by no 
 impulse, distinct from every human eye — there, in that 
 silent and still chamber, America and his mother were 
 communing with God ! As she rose, America clasped 
 
186 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 her in his arms, and, oh ! what a moment of wild rap- 
 ture to that mother and son ! 
 
 " This, my child," said she, placing her hand upon 
 the Word of God, " is the standard of your nationality ; 
 and the first words I taught you to prattle upon your 
 little knees, as you rested on my lap, were ' Our Father 
 who art in heaven !' " 
 
 America reminding her now that their friends waited, 
 she arranged her cap and descended with him to the 
 parlor. 
 
 " And now, mother," said America, when kissing 
 and joking had given place for solemn thought, "will 
 you send another arrow to the mark, and let us hear 
 about Maryland, and that half-formed opinion, that 
 Eoman Catholic toleration there, was the free gift of 
 the emigrants of that faith." 
 
 " Everything," said she, " sacred in the sentiment, 
 duty, virtue, and affection of our beloved country is 
 now burning for expression — eating like iron rust into 
 the heart of your nation — and with fiery energy and 
 directness I wish to stimulate you, not by stormy 
 threat or bitter denunciation, but by that weapon of 
 Truth (pointing to the picture which stood before 
 them) by which your fathers did effective service in 
 the great battle of freedom. It was by Protestant, and 
 not by Eoman Catholic legislation that religious tolera- 
 tion was enacted in that State. It is madness, it is 
 sheer folly, longer to attempt to coquet the American 
 public on this point, who must be fed on lucid fact) 
 and not winning, simpering, spongy anecdote." 
 
CATHOLICS — FOREIGN AND NATIVE. 187 
 
 " Maryland was first settled by Protestants, my chil- 
 dren, known as Clayborne's Colony, on Kent Island, east 
 of her beautiful and majestic Chesapeake ; and under 
 the authority of the crown of England, it was protected 
 by the government of Virginia, and there represented 
 in her House of Burgesses. This colony, embracing 
 about two hundred souls, continued in an attitude of 
 prosperous ease, and flourished without oscillation, for 
 five years, when the settlers from Lord Baltimore 
 arrived. And of these two hundred emigrants, one- 
 third, also, were Protestants. You see then, that by 
 the rules of our American arithmetic, the Protestants 
 were numerically, as much stronger than Eoman 
 Catholics, as two hundred and seventy is greater than 
 one hundred and forty, giving them the benefit of the 
 fractions. And, indeed, this fact I learned from a 
 Jesuit Father, who accompanied the settlers of old 
 Saint Mary's. And when from a thousand causes this 
 original Clayborne settlement began to disperse, Pro- 
 testant emigrants rushed in from England and Vir- 
 ginia, and kept that element in the Colony of Mary- 
 land ever distinct, powerful, and dominant. It was 
 by a Protestant king of England, that the charter was 
 granted to Lord Baltimore, which secured equal rights 
 and privileges to Marylanders, Catholic and Protes- 
 ant. It was then the voice of a despot, who moulded 
 the action of that Colony. And from beginning to 
 end, all the time, these Catholics never had the force 
 in their numbers, or the power in their charter, to 
 commit any act intolerant to Protestants." 
 
 There were present several Catholics from that 
 
188 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 to relieve her, by showing more of the timber of this 
 beam, -when she waved her lily hand to one near her, 
 she requested him to state the influence by which the 
 Roman Catholic settlers came to Maryland. 
 
 Teeming with striking thought, and strong in the 
 impulse of patriotism, he independently said, " It was 
 not from English persecution that they fled, for 
 although that spirit had poured its fiery fury and 
 hoarded scorn on Puritans, Charles the First scarcely 
 stirred it into action at all, against the Romanists. And 
 they never had smarted from real or imagined wrongs. 
 To impress this fact," said he, " it is only necessary to 
 say, that Lord Baltimore never left that soil; but 
 offered large donations of lands to those who did, 
 which was the true philosophy of that enterprise ! For 
 the same reason that emigrants from all the world 
 crowd into California to light upon her gold, the 
 Roman Catholic adventurers entered Maryland, for 
 pecuniary gain for Lord Baltimore and themselves 1" 
 This plain prose was a majestic edifice in the minds 
 of all present, a statue full of deep and earnest truth ! 
 "It was three months," continued he, "after Charles 
 was beheaded, when that act of religious toleration was 
 passed in Maryland. Oliver Cromwell led the Puritan 
 army of England, aided by a powerful Presbyterian 
 Parliament! And as it is well to gather the chips 
 and shavings, as we go over this ground, I should not 
 omit to tell you, that the Kent Island and Providence 
 Protestants, with an independence of understanding, 
 had moved the sharp, clear intellect of Clayborne, whose 
 pleading tones, in behalf of that Maryland majority, 
 
CATHOLICS — FOREIGN AND NATIVE. 189 
 
 Cromwell had regarded with an approving sympathy ! 
 Lord Baltimore's proprietary power had long tottled 
 like an egg upon its end, and placing a limitation upon 
 his will, he, without repentance or remorse, but with 
 wise foresight, before the death of Charles, changed the 
 government from Catholic to Protestant !" 
 
 " Now," said America, " give us the essence of that 
 noted act, passed in sixteen hundred and forty-nine, 
 by this government of Lord Baltimore, to escape the 
 sting and doom about to come upon it." 
 
 " My friends, it was after all, no more than a mus- 
 quito bar, with a hole in it ! and repealable with the 
 same ease you could empty a pea-pod I But it was 
 pierced through by so much cunning, and buried with 
 such a seeming weight, what was hateful, scornful, and 
 dogmatic, that the discolored hue of toleration got stuck 
 to it, like paint upon the cheek — easy of detection, but 
 hard to wash out I" The fresh and healthful cast of this 
 Revolutionary stock defied criticism, whilst the sturdy 
 sincerity of these noble women radiated a patriotic spark, 
 like electricity, all over the company. No apology then 
 being needed, he continued to shadow forth the real 
 mockery of this act. "Its first clause punished with 
 death, and called for an entire surrender of all land and 
 goods to the Lord Proprietor and his heirs — for disbelief 
 in the Holy Trinity of God, or the speaking of a blas- 
 phemous or irreverent word of Him. And for the same 
 offence against the Virgin Mary, the mother of our Savi- 
 our, His Apostles or Evangelists, the sum of five pounds 
 sterling was to be levied on their property ; and if not 
 fortunate enough to possess that, the sentence was com- 
 
190 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 muted to a public whipping and imprisonment, during 
 the pleasure of the Governor or Lord Proprietor of that 
 Colony ! Again, my friends, the like penalty was im- 
 posed for employing the terms heretic, schismatic, or 
 idolater, towards any sect or creed, and for the viola- 
 tion of the Sabbath ! And lastly, there was a prohi- 
 bition you will discover, securing religious toleration 
 to all who believed in Jesus, according to the spirit 
 and intent of that act !" 
 
 " Why," said America, rising from his seat, " great 
 God, is it possible, is it possible ? This toleration ! this 
 Sodom apple of puff and dust !" 
 
 "Worse than that," added his mother! "it is as 
 bloody as Draco's Code !" 
 
 "Now," said his friend, "we, the native Catholics, 
 have always derided the idea that this was anything 
 else than aggressive I We knew it was no constitu- 
 tional provision, and only made for the time and to 
 suit the occasion. So far from being a brisk, lively, 
 keen, energetic grasp for gospel liberty, it reins in its 
 steed, and is as dead a stoppage to it, as the overthrow 
 of the tea chests in Boston harbor, was a dagger or 
 rapier thrust into a British throne I" 
 
CHAPTEE Xm. 
 
 THE TEMPORAL POWER OF THE POPE 
 IN AMERICA. 
 
 " Freedom spreads her downy wings 
 Over all created things ; 
 Glory to the King of Kings ! 
 Bring the heart before His throne — 
 "Worship Him, and Him alone I 
 He's tho only King we own— 
 And He has made us free 1 " Q-. P. Mohbis, 
 
 With a countenance full of anxiety, America beck- 
 oned to his mother, who had joined her young friends, 
 in a morning walk. She looked at him earnestly, and 
 smiling with unspeakable affection, sat down on the 
 soft sward, and waited his approach. Flowers of all 
 colors sent their sweet perfume to the air, the dark 
 blue mountains were visible in the distance, and a sky 
 so pure, that it was almost blue-black, overshadowed 
 them. 
 
 "You were running away from us, mother,'' said 
 America, with earnestness, as the whole crowd dashed 
 rapidly behind him. She saw his horrid agony and 
 felt his beating heart, and whispered into his ear this 
 one word, " Hope I" 
 
 "It is well," said she, "Americans, to have some 
 
 (191) 
 
192 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 variety in our lives. Your fathers climbed over 
 many huge crags, and passed through many subter- 
 raneous passages, before they arrived at the meadows 
 on the declivities of your mountains. But time hastens 
 on ; I feel it at least, and I can scarcely believe, when 
 I see these ancient speaking rocks and animals and 
 trees, and call to mind the wild tumult of our old 
 Revolution, that this is the same world. 
 
 "And then to be whirled as we are," said America, 
 •'our ship steered by eyeless pilots, and nothing high 
 and convex to be seen! Oh, Heavens! is our dear 
 country so full of sin and error, that she must be 
 thus humbled to the dust ?" 
 
 " No, no I we must lash out this crime upon our 
 liberties, and defend our rights like men and women, 
 and make its goodness glitter with new attraction. 
 That is what your American Party aims to do." 
 There was no sipping, but the whole company drank in 
 the thought with a hearty good will. 
 
 "There is no use now," said America, "in being 
 stingy with our words, and wriggle, and stutter, and 
 be tongue-stabbers. That act of Maryland toleration, 
 whose brains you brought out so well yesterday, 
 mother, is the dunce that Jesuit Papists have been so 
 long raising to the dignity and glory of patriotism, and 
 which has as much soul liberty in it, as that cannon 
 which was fired by the order of the Pope, in honor of 
 his great Protestant massacres throughout the world ! 
 It was a thorn or thistle to all who did not believe in 
 God, just as that government of Lord Baltimore willed 
 it ; that was the judge and executioner to decide the 
 
TEMPORAL POWER OF THE POPE. 193 
 
 belief, and punish the man, for his own pecular view ; 
 and this, too, was passed by an assembly, whose gov- 
 ernor, secretary, and council, with but one exception, 
 were Protestants!" 
 
 "And yet, my son, those Protestants, unsuspect- 
 ing and tolerant, allowed their enemies to tip their 
 arrows with fire, to hit themselves!" 
 
 "I would die a hundred times to save my country 
 from those imps of Moloch and Belial," said he, "whose 
 genius and learning serve no better end than to be 
 benevolent to Eome and malignant to America ; who 
 look unmoved at our national degradation, and talk 
 the language of freedom to parasites, the political sub- 
 jects of the Pope, that they themselves may revel in 
 the realities of public avarice and political reward ! 
 Had the Pope of Eome possessed the power, he would 
 soon have showed the shell and sham of that Maryland 
 toleration, which, had it been enforced in its true mean- 
 ing, would have stained the hearthstones of many a 
 family altar I" 
 
 "That union of Church and State, made by the 
 I temporal authority of the Pope of Eome, will extinguish 
 I the last instinct of your nationality, and honor. It 
 is corrupting, corroding, consuming the vital principles 
 which made your nation. The foreign papist must 
 burst the serf bond, take off the mark, drop the ticket 
 in the ocean, which shows his allegiance to a Soman 
 Pontiff, before he again mixes into our annual politics, 
 or enjoys the first fruits of another Presidential harvest! 
 And, my friends, our American Party is marshalled 
 against principalities and powers, and its mission, under 
 9 
 
19-i THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 God, is to save the free wills and the free hearts of our 
 country. It has a strong death-grapple to make be- 
 tween what now is and what ought to be. And it is 
 madness to delay longer sounding all the depths and 
 the shallows of the influences against us, that all the 
 people, all who love our dear country, by origin or 
 adoption, may rouse in the full freshness of their hearts, 
 and re-affirm our indestructible national life, and prove 
 . the power of our everlasting principles ! The increase 
 ! of this foreign population in the last five years, America, 
 is greater than it was in the whole preceding sixty 
 of your life ! And twice as many now land upon 
 ; your shores every six months, as came in forty-five 
 1 years before the Declaration of Independence, and of 
 course before you were born !" As this master-spirit 
 proceeded, sparks of fire seemed to vibrate in the very 
 air around them. "The three millions who constituted 
 all our Colonial force at the begining of our Eevolution, 
 were, with the exception of between two and three 
 hundred thousand, born upon the soil ! The descend- 
 ants of emigrants — the true Americans. And hence as 
 one people, that national spirit to resist a national 
 wrong, overwhelmed its foaming flood, all over the 
 land. They mingled with the life of their country, 
 its great virtues, and noble aims 1" 
 
 " Was the same spirit evinced by the foreigner then, 
 for our national renown and the success of our battles 
 for Independence, as the native born sons and daugh- 
 ters ?" said America. 
 
 " They did not evince it. There were many glorious 
 illustrious exceptions, of whom I have before spoken, 
 
TEMPOBAL POWER OF THE POPE. 195 
 
 who stood at the guns and furnished the sinews of war, 
 like Morris ; but as a body, they constituted those who 
 opposed the progress of our Independence, and change 
 in our government. Why, my frieuds, did not your 
 tolerant, just, humane, generous, and national Wash- 
 ington, whose principles are yours to-day; he who 
 watched their actions when tyranny with its war 
 pressure was crushing out the life of your country, warn 
 you then, when weak, and wan, and wasted, of the 
 terrible consequences of this foreign entanglement? 
 My children, there is not a faculty of your American 
 mind, not a feeling of your national heart, not an aspira- 
 tion, that gives interest, value, or beauty to its great 
 soul, that is not gripped and foully stained by these 
 grim Kamish wolves, who are as resistless as Niagara 
 over the foreign laity they crowd upon you ! And now, 
 in God's name, let the American Party kindle the liv- 
 ing energy of our own people, run it into one thought 
 for the regeneration of our land, as our fathers and 
 mothers ran their pewter into balls at the first tap 
 of the Eevolutionary drum! Once let your people 
 think, my son, upon this foreign evil, and every true 
 American would start, tingling with the sensation of 
 patriotic sentiment, and leap the universe to save 
 your honor, your religion, your freedom, your nation- 
 ality!" 
 
 "Oh, God!" said America, "shall the footprints of 
 our fathers, who baptized me in fire, and enrolled them- 
 selves in our armies as the great Eevolutionary mar- 
 tyrs, be forgotten now?" Every soul seemed to feel the 
 monarchy of his own power, and yet, fused into unity, 
 
196 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 swore before the canvas picture of those ancestors, that 
 rapturous devotion to country which flamed and blazed 
 again and again ! 
 
 " Who dares deny," said the mother, " that Popish 
 Bull, which is yearly read in Kome, eternally cursing 
 the heretics by name, of every sect or creed on the face 
 of the earth ! Show me the priest who has not sworn 
 that it is necessary for salvation, to be subject to the 
 Pope of Eome, all over the world ! Holy Thursday, 
 Americans, is the day we all receive the Pope's curse 
 from his great cathedral of St. Peter ! It is amusing 
 to observe, how he dares and defies Heaven and Hell 
 then ! With conscious power and no sting of death, 
 the Bull is read in solemn mockery, when a lighted 
 candle is suddenly extinguished, to show the darkness 
 of all us poor heretics, and then begins the firing of his 
 cannon-thunder from his castle of St. Angelo, to make 
 all the heretics of the world tremble!" 
 
 "By this sacred volume," said America, as he 
 snatched up the Bible and pressed it to his bosom, 
 " nothing but this truth shall make us fear." 
 
 " By the registered decrees of Popery, my friends, 
 all earthly sceptres are swayed by its Yicar of God, as a 
 bubble which his breath blows away ! He puts his 
 limitation upon kings and priests, as the machinery 
 of his power. For truth's sake, it unshrinkingly 
 affirms that God granted to Peter, and his success- 
 ors, the spiritual right to judge all earthly governments ! 
 And by this fulness of power over all nations, it ab- 
 solved all the nobles, subjects, and people under the 
 crown of an English Protestant Queen, Elizabeth, and 
 
TEMPORAL POWER OF THE POPE. 197 
 
 all others who had sworn to her, from their oaths, and 
 all duty of fidelity and obedience to her regal govern- 
 ment ! And these Jesuits impose it, as a sacred duty, 
 to rebel against any sovereign who refuses allegiance 
 to the Pope." There was a kind of shuddering sympa- 
 thy for the service Satan had gained over the human 
 mind, and seeing how all this was now threatening our 
 American hearths and homes, there was a wild desire 
 to search into the facts of this temporal authority of 
 that same Pope, who was aiming his fury at our liber- 
 ties with a ferocity of grasp which has worked its 
 singular fascination over so many millions of the race ! 
 "Why Americans, it is maintained by their Bulls, 
 that all power of Christ, the King and Saviour of man- 
 kind, was delegated to the Pope, who acts here in his 
 stead ! And for centuries these Popes reigned as such I 
 Wot less than sixty-four Kings and Emperors have been 
 removed by Popes — for admitting their spiritual and 
 denying their temporal authority !" 
 
 " Great God !" said America. 
 
 " One named Innocent the Third," continued she, 
 " deposed King John of England for refusing to submit 
 to his temporal power. The Pope's Nuncio took away 
 his crown and sceptre, closed the churches, shrouded 
 the bells, and darkened the nation by every supersti- 
 tious action the iniquity of the heart could conceive, 
 Americans," 
 
 "But he did not finally submit?" said America, in- 
 quiringly. 
 
 " Submit!" said his mother, "yes, and like the ser- 
 vile spaniel, crouched at the feet of the Pope's Nuncio, 
 
198 THE GKEAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 in penitence, who gave him back his insignia of power, 
 which for days he had retained !" 
 
 " Did he give nothing to his owner beside his will?" 
 inquired many. 
 
 "Oh, yes, my children, these were business ne- 
 gotiations, and needed the consideration ! And King 
 John presented a sum of money to the Nuncio as the 
 guarantee of his future dependence on the Pope, which, 
 in virtue of necessary contempt, he took, and then 
 trampled under his feet !" 
 
 " Has any decree or Papal Bull ever been issued 
 abridging the power the Pope exercised?" 
 
 " No, no, my children ; it is to the See of Eome, the 
 same yesterday, to-day, and forever !" 
 
 " Then, in God's name," said America, with an 
 energy of spirit that seemed to smite as he uttered 
 it, "why deny that the Pope claims the very same 
 authority in our dear, dear country, over his subjects, 
 as he does over the world? It presupposes that our 
 people are mere geese in the pip, to tell them this is 
 otherwise. It has given us already a transient sting, 
 but we will contest its victory by the fiercest conflict, 
 it has ever had." 
 
 " So far, my countrymen, from extinguishing the 
 claim of the Pope, he actually imposes, this very mo- 
 ment, an oath upon every Romish Bishop, Arch- 
 Bishop, and Priest in our whole country, and through- 
 out the world, to defend the Eoman Papacy, the roy- 
 alties of St. Peter, against all governments and men ; 
 i and that means, my children, to increase his power, so 
 \ that he can annul the ruling government, by his will. 
 
TEMPORAL POWER OF THE POPE. 199 
 
 And so far is lie above all earth beside, that he* cannot 
 be judged by men, and he is an idolater who refuses 
 his commands ! And now, with this oath, his ambas- 
 sadors are among us to-day, my children. I ask you 
 to look at this, and act for your country, and wonder 
 no longer what these emissaries are about!" 
 
 " AVe should hate ourselves, our country, our world, 
 Eeaven itself," said America, " if we permit these fire- 
 pillars now to consume us 1" 
 
 \ "My children," said the mother, "there is nothing 
 God ever made that the Pope craves so much, as our 
 
 , rainbow nation ! And hence, with the oath upon the 
 soul of every Priest, Bishop, and Archbishop, to " de- 
 fend, increase, and advance the royalties of St. Peter," 
 what else could they do, what else dare they do, but 
 use all their force and skill to make your freedom quail 
 and tremble, and in the dust and ashes of humiliation, 
 to lay your Bible, your Declaration of Independence, 
 and your Democratic Constitution at the feet of the 
 Nuncio, as old King John did the crown and sceptre 
 of the English throne !" 
 
 "And yet they, every one of them, swear as adopted 
 
 ., citizens, to hold no temporal allegiance, or support no 
 other temporal authority or power, but the Constitu- 
 tion of these United States !"T "With his mind boiling 
 over with indignation, America, exclaimed, "Great 
 
 , God, what blasphemy in Thy name ! Our country shall 
 
 : not be a mute camel to bear, and bear, and bear this load 
 of infamy ! How could this Eomish Priesthood be true 
 to their adopted country, without incurring the pains 
 of the damned, as perjurers to the oath which placed 
 
200 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 them in and under the service of the Pope of Eome I 
 And are they to come thus and pile rulers upon us, call- 
 ing down flame and thunder upon our free institutions ?" 
 
 The holiest and most tender patriotism seemed to 
 leap over the lips of all; and mercy and justice, wis- 
 dom, beauty, grandeur and love, shone brightly over 
 the American Party.] 
 
 " We now understand why it is that Rome has the 
 honor of matriculating her priesthood in our dear 
 country I" 
 
 "My countrymen, I warn you, I entreat you to 
 believe now, what time will soon announce, that there 
 is one desperate, earnest, death-like equipment among 
 all the despots of Europe to mangle and slash your 
 nation asunder ! And the Hierarchy of Eome, the St. 
 Leopold Foundation in Austria, the Maynooth College 
 of Ireland, and the Propaganda Society of France 
 are the volunteer, life-clutching, cudgel forces, to 
 make our country elongate and collapse, and then 
 crack all to pieces ! And it is the good providence of 
 God, that we have seen the smoke and flame, while 
 the sun of the American Party shines upon the hearts 
 of our whole people, and its morning stars are yet 
 visible in our free skies !" There was always joined to 
 the all-piercing vision of this Christian patriot, a warm, 
 purifying sunlight. She exposed no wound without 
 showing its healing balm ! So there was a boundless 
 appetite and aptitude to catch and appropriate every 
 syllable which fell from her sweet lips ! " Roman Ca- 
 tholics are not all Papists. God forbid ! No, my chil- 
 dren ; there have been Catholic countries in Europe 
 
TEMPORAL POWER OF THE POPE 201 
 
 •which rolled this stone from themselves, and des- 
 perately shook off this rottenness at the cannon's 
 mouth, -within the sound and sight of the Pope. But 
 it was but a handful of dust, for which he tumbled 
 rocks and spent upon them the whirlwind of his 
 curses ! He has not only made ladders of ropes with 
 the people, but has kicked crowns from the heads of 
 princes and kings! Why, Americans, Henry the 
 Fourth of Germany was made by the Pope to stand, 
 with bare head and feet, three days in the open air, 
 for rebelling against his temporal power. Frederick 
 the First acted as his valet, and held his stirrup, for a 
 similar offence ! And you all know, how poor Henry 
 the Second of England was scourged, until he weltered 
 in his own blood, for no other cause ! The entire life 
 of the man, physical, mental, and moral, must not only 
 bend but fall before the Papal supremacy! It has 
 rummaged into civil liberty, wherever one spark smoul- 
 dered, and poured blood on it, and then stirred it into 
 ashes. Thus we see Spain and Italy, and Austria, and 
 Mexico, and South America I The Pope of Eome is 
 
 / to-day the most tyrannical despot in all Europe — I may 
 
 I say, in all the world I" 
 
 "Did this anti-papal power ever become strong 
 enough to take any decided action, independent of this 
 temporal power of the Pope?" inquired America. 
 
 "It did. The Cis- Alpine or Grallican Catholics re- 
 sisted always this civil power of the Pope, and they 
 held a council of Bishops in France, in sixteen hundred 
 and eighty-two, and publicly declared the Pope never 
 did receive from (rod the power to interfere in the 
 9* 
 
202 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 temporal affairs of nations or individuals, and refused 
 to submit to any Bull which affirmed it. And now," 
 continued she, " I do not, I will not believe there is 
 an educated native Catholic, not one who has breathed 
 our atmosphere of freedom, and tested the fireproof 
 nature of our Liberty, who does not equally resist it !" 
 
 " And why, in the name of all dear to us, does not 
 our American Eoman Catholic laity in Maryland, and 
 all the States, speak out as they feel, and as Loiusiana 
 has done?" said America. " They are members of the 
 American Party, its strength and sinew in that State, 
 and like true men made an elephantine laugh at the 
 scarecrow which Jesuits, foreign and native, of all 
 creeds, sought to make, by wilfully, maliciously, and 
 foully slandering the American Party, and making a 
 green cheese out of its bright, full-orbed sun!" 
 
 " Americans, our Bible don't name the Pope from 
 one lid to the other ! It tells of but one mediator be- 
 tween us and God, and He is the King to whom we, 
 as a nation, bow ! You see now why that Book, so 
 precious to us, to our cause, to our country, underly- 
 ing all our political edifice, is hateful to the Eoman 
 Pontiff! God's interest and the Pope's interest, by that 
 Bible, make a thundering, reverberating clash ! 
 
 " This wrenching asunder of civil liberty by putting 
 the desire and will of men and women, by sheer vio- 
 lence, under fetters, my children ; this concealment of 
 the burning energies of the soul, while discontented, 
 weary and broken, it hankers back, beneath a cold 
 exterior, to catch a glimpse of our free and busy world, 
 causes me continually to cry out unto God to arise, 
 
TEMPORAL POWER OP THE POPE. 203 
 
 that the soul of our turtle-dove, this Mount Zion 
 among the nations, may continue the field which he 
 has blessed. When the glorious Eeformation, which 
 had smouldered and fused in secret, burst forth like a 
 meteor upon our dark world, and became the radiant 
 guiding star of the living God to beat back Popery's 
 retreating and advancing armies, do you know what 
 the Pope did? He set right about hunting up its 
 great creation day, when he found it had germinated 
 and ripened from the invisible seed of the Word of 
 God. And he dashed into a blind struggle, by phy- 
 sical violence, to extinguish this light from God. 
 And hence the war upon the Bible." 
 
 " Has he ever since withdrawn that embattled host 
 against it ?" said America. 
 
 "Has your sense of vision changed, my son; can 
 you shut your eyes and see?" 
 
 " I never tried," said America ; "but I fancy it would 
 be a dark scene." 
 
 " And it would be quite as much so to this Papal 
 Vicegerent," said she. 
 
 " No, no, my children, only look at the degradation 
 now of dear old Ireland; and all the countries of the 
 world where this temporal power of the Pope ,sways, 
 and you will find no more mental pith or pulp in 
 nobles or people than in a squeezed potato skin. 
 All that makes them oysters instead of tulips, comes 
 from a faint twilight that has glimmered through 
 the Eeformation ! Pope Leo worked earth and hell 
 then for his civil power! He hurled his first ana- 
 thema at our Bible, because it taught free government 
 
204 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 as the only proper one for man ; and opened all the 
 treasures of 'science and learning for the grasp of the 
 human mind, and set upon it the seal of his eternal 
 hate, which uncompromising hostility can no more be 
 withdrawn, than our beloved country, once under the 
 dominion of his civil power, could continue to be free! 
 Americans, the powers of digestion and secretion were 
 not strong enough in the Pope to relish this know- 
 ledge ; he felt its influence on his civil power would 
 make him sorrow, and he could not do else, in the 
 nature of the case, than to lay upon the Bible, and all 
 other books which emanated from the Eeformation, a 
 fierce prohibitory interdict, from being seen or read ! 
 And to this hour, the richest drapery ever woven by 
 the mind of man, lies moulding beneath the trenches 
 and stone walls of Eome ! The Inquisition, my chil- 
 dren, stifled everything that looked like freedom in 
 thought or action of people or government. It upset 
 the press of every printer who had ever published 
 an heretical work. And by the solemn action of 
 the Pope, from the twenty-third of October, sixteen 
 hundred and forty-one, to March, forty -three, less than 
 two years, one hundred and fifty -four thousand Pro- 
 testants were murdered, according to the confession of 
 their own executioners !" 
 
 "Oh, God!" said many, "will not the citizens of 
 this our beloved country arise, alike Catholic and Pro- 
 testant, and by the strength of our American Party 
 root out this herculean civil invasion upon our Ameri- 
 can rights and free institutions?'' 
 
 "It must and it will," said America; "this people 
 
TEMPORAL POWER OF THE POPE. 205 
 
 were never designed by God and our fathers to be fed 
 with swine's husk I Happiness, virtue, goodness, a 
 living soul, God made," continued he, "the birthright 
 of our American nationality 1" 
 
 This company loved their country much, and they 
 loved it strongly, and were intolerant against all 
 propositions for adjournment. So the social virtues 
 of the mother kept her light shining upon them. 
 
 "Do you know, Americans, that the Pope of Home 
 calls together every three years his Congress of Bishops 
 and Archbishops ? They bear upon them this oath, in 
 our dear country, and in these words — 'I will, by myself 
 in person, visit the threshold of the Apostles every 
 three years, and give an account to our lord of all my 
 pastoral office, and of all things in anywise belonging to 
 the state of my church, to the discipline of my clergy, 
 
 the people, and I will, in like manner, 
 
 humbly receive and diligently execute the apostolic 
 commands.' And why can you, American citizens, 
 wonder, in the face of these astounding facts, why 
 your Bible and Public School systems are assaulted ? 
 Why your public funds are demanded to support their 
 schools ? Why they seek to control your ballot-box ? 
 Why they insinuate themselves into your Cabinet, and 
 represent you at foreign Courts? Why they ask 
 to see your bills before they pass to a third reading 
 in your American Congress ? Why they demand the 
 entire donation of your public domain for foreigners ? 
 Like the insatiable worm in the clod, this priesthood 
 cries out, ' Give, give, give 1' " 
 
206 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 "And, my God! do we grant?" said America. 
 
 ""We have, we have, my son, until a frightful ulcer 
 has grown and is gnawing into the very vitals of your 
 nation. Nothing but the true American sentiment, 
 which has aroused the Revolutionary spirit left by 
 your fathers, can heal and save us;!" 
 
 There was a tone breathed now by this company 
 which it would be impossible to realize ; all that was 
 deep, pathetic, heroic, inexhaustibly patriotic, was 
 visible, and length of years seemed given them, as 
 they glanced at the picture before them, and caught 
 hold of the Standard of the American Party ! 
 
 " Your general insight into truth is the salvation of 
 our cause, and country, America, and our friends 
 want you to tell us what our country has granted to 
 these demands of the Pope of Rome, upon our civil 
 rights?" 
 
 "About all he asked." 
 
 "What, mother?" said America, with a serious, 
 majestic intensity. 
 
 "America, you know the foreign increase in our 
 population has, for years, been alarming to our liberties ; 
 and by the nest census, judging from the past five years, 
 about eleven millions will have entered your ports with- 
 in ten years ! The great majority of these foreigners are 
 ■iicketed for Rome ! the Jesuit Bishops, Archbishops, 
 and Priests receive them as the Pope's subjects, and 
 by a little Jesuit cursing and swearing they are con- 
 verted into use. The Pope then nods his approbation, 
 and his Bishops, with the authority of despots, swell 
 and swagger with passionate greatness and enthusiasm 
 
TEMPORAL POWER OF THE POPE. 207 
 
 for our American liberty! These kings, surrounded 
 by their body-guards, sound their trumpets and show 
 their war-horses, and with their gilt standard-bearers, 
 what feeble politician can resist them ? And thus you 
 see how it has become worse and worse, until so stron° 
 is the balance-power among you, that they have ac- 
 tually set up your country, as your elections come 
 around, to be sold by your own blood-made ballot-box 
 to whatever set of political demagogues bid highest ! 
 And thus, our dearest political rights have been tied 
 hard and fast, hand and foot, and hung upon a peg to 
 vibrate in the royal presence of the Pope of Rome; while 
 with the utmost strictness, he orders these foreign emis- 
 saries to affect, with polished courtesy, snow-white 
 purity, as they march his forces into the front edges 
 of our political battles, and take the shield of our liber- 
 ties right out of American hands !" 
 
 "Oh, my country," said America, "oh my friends, 
 must we own this, disgrace and shame ! own that we 
 have actually sued for the hand of the Pope of Rome, 
 until upon his own terms, he has pitched stones and 
 hurled spears at our liberties, and driven off from our 
 political arena those noble patriot sons who ,have 
 given us, by their deeds of devotion to country and 
 humanity, a world-wide renown!" 
 
 " We thought it hard to endure, my children, when 
 eleven years ago, this foreign influence defeated the will 
 of true Americans, and repulsed from the Presidential 
 office, the nation's favorite son, her own immortal Clay ! 
 The country's wail was stout and restless then, and a 
 
208 THE GREAT AMEBICAN BATTLE. 
 
 deep majestic swelling force was heard to exclaim 
 against it, all over the land ! Your "Webster raised 
 his giant tones in Faneuil Hall, in old Massachusetts, 
 then, and declared it was high time our American 
 organization had begun, when the foreign vote of 
 this foreign power had become the all-sovereign ele- 
 ment in our national politics 1" 
 
 " And why, in God's name," said America, " did they 
 not then change or abolish the naturalization laws, 
 and put giant sentinels at our own posts, who would 
 have been faithful to us unto death ?" 
 
 "Because we have allowed politicians, instead of 
 the American people, to control us ! As this foreign 
 force became yearly stronger, it became also more 
 dangerous, powerful, and formidable, and it would 
 have been easier to have sprouted corn in a limekiln, 
 or raised peaches on persimmon bushes, than to have 
 induced an experiment which might cost these par- 
 tizans their political lives !" 
 
 "Ah, ah!" said all, "native political Jesuits have 
 had a hand, we see, in making our troubles I This 
 is their caricature, counterfeit fidelity to their American 
 nationality !" 
 
 "Leaving our wheat to gather up the cockle," said 
 America, "because it made the largest heap in our 
 ballot-box!" and struggling with a painful sense of na- 
 tional humiliation, begged his mother to speak more 
 of the effect of the Pope's temporal interference in our 
 dear country 1 " Faithful in their mission to 'preserve 
 
TEMPORAL POWER OP THE POPE. 209 
 
 and extend the royalties of St. Peter,' his ambas- 
 sadors have steadily ransacked your whole political 
 structure, and the depth and power of your national 
 resources ; and watching a favorable moment in the 
 history of the State of New York and other States in 
 your great confederacy, to crush the Bible and ex- 
 pel it from your Schools. They fled, hastily, with 
 tidings of great joy to the Pope, who, blessing their 
 fidelity, issued his edict, and it was done ! They got 
 your Bible out of thirty -six schools in that State alone, 
 and commissioners to go into them and erase every 
 truth precious to freedom, which had been spread 
 upon the pages of your history or carved upon the 
 rocks and mountains of your country I They have 
 managed us like cage-singers, kept all dark, and 
 played and played the tune, until quite at ease, 
 they sang right out I No one suspected these bees 
 were in our hive at your last Presidential election, 
 until they had all the honey from us, my children ! 
 And that got our dear country into what miners call a 
 shift, and we were run right upon the rock of St. 
 Peter!" 
 
 "Are we fast yet?" cried many, with a passionate 
 fire, which even overcame the stoical calmness of the 
 mother. 
 
 " We are; and surrounded by a murky pool, cannot 
 be got off, for another twelve months I" 
 
 " If we had weak nerves, or were in any degree 
 sickly, I should have to ask you to defer this conversa- 
 
210 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 tion; but though, it is late," said America, "let us 
 know the worst of it !" 
 
 "That is more than I can tell, how much our 
 original self-subsistent nation will suffer in future 
 years, for past guilt and treachery ! You know, you 
 all fully understand, that it was not the voice of our 
 American men, but the foreign vote controlled by 
 the foreign Papal priesthood, under the edict of the 
 J^ope of Eome, which has made the present rulers 
 for your nation ! This King Pontiff found his tem- 
 poral power too strong to be bartered for a few small 
 official appointments, and it was concluded in his au- 
 gust councils, after a full report of our political pros- 
 pects from his American Prelates, that they should elect 
 the President and Vice-President, and a Cabinet ap- 
 pointment, such as he, the Pope should select, must be 
 staked on the result ! He called for special reasons for 
 the Postmaster-General, and the arrangement was per- 
 fected ! How fully it has been carried out you all 
 feel and know. I would not insult you, nor wound 
 your already lacerated hearts by saying more! It 
 would be like setting hounds afresh on a poor fox 
 already wounded in his hind feet! This 'increase 
 of the royalties of St. Peter' showed an enlargement 
 of his temporal power, which aroused your divine 
 indestructible national sentiment; and feeling a foe, 
 neither trivial nor despicable was within our borders, 
 the people emptied their shops, their counting-rooms, 
 their homes of every thought, but country, and hence 
 the second coming of the American Party !" 
 
\jv ^ttv \ 5^^ o c, Vv3 
 
 or mw york 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 THE AMERICAN PARTY INTERFERES NOT 
 "WITH RELIGIOUS SECT OR CREED. 
 
 " I glory in the spirit 
 Which made our fathers rise — 
 And found our mighty nation, 
 Beneath these "Western skies ! 
 No clime so bright and beautiful, 
 As that where sets our sun — 
 No land so fertile, fair, and free, 
 As that of Washington I" 
 
 That noble bird, hallowed by the fondest sacred 
 associations, was as dear to America as his heart's 
 blood. And there was much patriotic applause, upon 
 seeing it safely reclining, encircled in the majestic folds 
 of the national banner, with which the picture of our 
 Revolutionary fathers had been draped. 
 
 The thought of our sparkling freedom seemed to 
 shoot its scintillations the more its enemies were ex- 
 posed, and it was not wonderful the fire should have 
 caught the eye of this familiar friend ; who, bursting 
 upon Americans with the stars and stripes fast in its 
 tallons, was warmly caressed in their affectionate arms. 
 The storm which has long impended over us, has now 
 broken forth, and amidst its thunder and flash we will, 
 
 012) 
 
THE AMEKICAN PAETY. 213 
 
 with this emblem of nationality clinched in our em- 
 brace, see that Americans rule America. 
 
 " This looks, my children, like a light-gleam, a bine 
 speck in our horizon," said she, "and may forebode that 
 drizzly-dinginess is soon to pass away. I remember 
 in seventeen hundred and eighty-three, when your 
 fathers had conquered like men the peace for which 
 they had fought and bled, the enemy, when about 
 getting out of the way, assumed to hang upon one of 
 your liberty poles in New York, a union jack, and 
 cutting the ropes after greasing it well, proceeded down 
 the Bay. But that spirit which broke their stiff necks 
 knew no goal or barrier to their independent wills, 
 and thus, mounting up to it, literally in sack-cloth and 
 ashes, it was torn violently down before their eyes, 
 and the stars and stripes of our national flag, were left 
 to remind them of their stupidity and folly. And so, 
 in our widest comprehension of the evils which sur- 
 round us now, let us walk up rapidly and promptly, 
 and scale poles or mountains, ford streams, or jump 
 precipices, to snatch from your enemies their flag of 
 triumph, which has been made to wave ignominiously 
 over your national head. 
 
 " My children," said she, pointing to the great can- 
 vas picture which stood out from the wall, " it was 
 that rugged, unseen, indomitable strength which 
 wrestled single-handed, with our Bible and Constitu- 
 tion, for life or death. It was their insatiable desire to 
 spit all gall out of their mouths, and to break loose 
 from all guides but that free, benignant, clear, cloud- 
 
214 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 capt government made by themselves. And thus they 
 designed Americans only to govern America. It was 
 from the depths of sorrow and abasement that you 
 were made invincible, America. Poverty and pain 
 once hung about you, and now, in a realized, life you 
 must put your shoulder to the wheel, every one of 
 you, Americans, and grapple resolutely to help your 
 country. As I remarked to you yesterday, this 
 thought has shivered party and risen above it. It is 
 in the street, in the field, in the market, on the ocean, 
 in the counting-house, in all your legislative halls, and 
 above all, in the press and in the hearts of the people. 
 And from the St. Lawrence to the Eio Grande, from 
 the Atlantic to the Pacific our people respond to their 
 ordained fundamental law, that Americans forever 
 shall rule their own beloved country. 
 
 " Americans, show your nation's bare neck and 
 arms, no matter where you go. Don't be ashamed to 
 own your young mother in the old world ; hang no 
 jewels on to hide the fact, but thank God that you 
 can say, like the proud Roman did of his nationality 
 before the Christian era, ' I am an American citizen!' " 
 
 " Mother," said America, " we are now so largely rep- 
 resented by those of foreign birth abroad, that our own 
 nationality looks like feeble embers among their red 
 heat." 
 
 " My son, I should even feel great hesitancy to call 
 in foreign aid were our old family physician at fault? 
 It might imply want of confidence in his skill in the 
 judgment of the neighbors. And in the same way 
 
THE AMERICAN PARTY. 215 
 
 your dear country is lessened among strangers when 
 scoffers at your nationality and republican simplicity 
 become the mediums of representing your American 
 sentiment. But what else now could be expected 
 when a foreign power controls the government even at 
 home, my children ? We have had no American house- 
 keeping since it began." 
 
 " Except yours," said many, laughing. 
 
 " I suppose," said she, " our butchers still kill 
 beeves, and our earth still rewards the laborer with* 
 the sunshine grain; but you all understand me. I 
 refer to your Chief Eulers, to the entire Anti- Ameri- 
 can feeling which has pervaded the whole policy 
 of the government from one end of the union to the 
 other, rewarding foreign Eoman Catholics with official 
 dignity and trust, and punishing by extermination 
 from office faithful and true American patriot sons, 
 who, startled by the overplus power of the Pope of 
 Eome, felt the danger and expressed it. My children, 
 with the spiritual power of the Pope, his prelates, 
 priesthood, and laity, the American Party has never 
 had any more to do than with making the stone quarry 
 from which the capitol of your country was built. It 
 regards the religion of men and woman, just as the 
 founders of our Eepublic did. They left it with all 
 the rights of conscience, and without the power to 
 interfere between it and God. And it was Eome's in- 
 vasion upon these rights of ours by the aggression of 
 the Pope, which the American people are bound, as 
 men, as citizens, as Christians, to resist until his conclaves 
 
216 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 and imperial diets shall be withdrawn from further 
 exercise under our free skies. And what yon, as Ameri- 
 cans, have seen of this, is but the emblem of the purchase 
 money, the embodied symbols of more momentous 
 secrets. One of the South American States, acting 
 under the entire power of the Pope, sent him their 
 constitution for his approval. It contained a clause 
 securing religious liberty, he chained his Bull to it and 
 sent it back, gored by his indignant rejection; and 
 these people, rising by invincible strength, fired his 
 dogmatic act from a cannon's mouth, and adopted 
 their own form of government. And so, you native 
 or CisAlpine Catholics, should, to maintain your 
 republican equality and the sacred rights of your 
 free institutions. That one virtue which lies at the 
 foundation of all other virtues, in our American 
 order, is the sacred obligations of honor and con- 
 science." 
 
 " Why," said several Eoman Catholics present, " we 
 feel the American Party to be the triumphal chariot, 
 which shall drive us with the Constitution, and wherever 
 it may go. And in that true national feeling, which 
 first lifted America upon her feet, and swept and scoured 
 out all sectarianism with sand and scrub, it. comes 
 back like a fond child, who has long been absent from 
 its mother, to embrace all the people and to see that 
 its Catholic sisters and brothers have the same liberty 
 of conscience that all other Christians have." 
 
 "I have one remark, and you will pardon the 
 interruption," said one of these friends ; " but none 
 
THE AMERICAN PARTY. 217 
 
 feel the everlasting necessity of this national feeling, 
 organizing for country as we do. We know that 
 among us there are those born upon our soil who 
 would extinguish sun after sun if the light glimmered 
 not over their own path ; who would take the dew from 
 all our flowers, and powder the stars of heaven with 
 soot. These influences have brought the reproach of 
 bigotry and intolerance upon this god-directed element, 
 to save our nation in its present peril. "We saw it 
 bleeding for the people, we beheld its cheerful counte- 
 nance pressed and mangled by slanderous tongues, and 
 in tears we lifted our trustful hands to heaven, and in 
 common with all the people snatched it to our hearts." 
 
 With streaming eyes all seemed to feel a thrill of joy 
 in their inmost breasts. After a silence for some mo- 
 ments, which shadowed forth the true national senti- 
 ment, America desired that his mother would give 
 them the juice of a fresh lemon which had been 
 squeezed into our dear country by Pius the Ninth. 
 
 " My son, they come in every steamer, wrapped in 
 some form or other. You might get more informa- 
 tion at their head-quarters about this matter. But the 
 edict publicly given out ought to be observed. The 
 fact is, since this Hierarchy got control in the National 
 as well as State Governments, popish prelates have had 
 a bottomless eye upon everything in our dear country. 
 For their postal facilities have, of course, been extra- 
 ordinary ; and every slab of timber, and every nail, 
 even to a little tack which might be driven by a 
 hammer in the child's play-house, has had due atten- 
 10 
 
218 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 tion. And although, my children, they have burned 
 so many piles of your Bible, expelled it from so many 
 of your free schools, where it can neither be seen or 
 read; and announced through their journals, from day 
 to day, that they ' hate Protestantism, and it ought 
 not to be tolerated,' still they point their black fingers 
 at the light of knowledge our educational system yet 
 diffuses, and consult and implore the Pope for more 
 clouds and ashes to darken our walls and show us the 
 shadow of your national coffin, which vain-gloriously 
 they have hung upon them. The Pope then, to the 
 Archbishop and Bishops of the Province of New 
 York, sends blessing and laudation, for their faithful- 
 ness and zeal in increasing his royalties among us — 
 directs them to spare nothing, nor to ' leave anything 
 untried ' to bring ' unhappy wanderers' into his church, 
 while any ' unbeliever' is to be found among them. And 
 now, in the eightieth year of our nationality, this Pope of 
 Eome, who has declared by his press, upon our soil, 
 that no good government can exist without religion, 
 and that there is no religion without an Inquisition to 
 protect it, thus directs his prelates to set about with 
 increased alacrity exterminating the religion of our 
 fathers, by an active interference, fierce and hot, with all 
 our Protestant faith, which has been nourished by that 
 Bible which is as essential to the preservation of our 
 liberties as the sun is to the firmament above your heads." 
 " Great God I will you, Americans, see this, read 
 this, and hesitate to rush into any organization that 
 saves all that is dear to us, all that can save our coun- 
 
THE AMERICAN PARTY. 219 
 
 try from this stupendous evil. This Eomish Monarch in 
 this same edict, sent about eleven months since, gracious- 
 ly consents that these prelates shall, by one combined 
 effort, raise resources in our country to open a college 
 in the fair city of Eome for American citizens. This 
 Jesuit potentate declares that he does this to secure 
 more ' skilful and industrious laborers in his Ameri- 
 can vineyard.' And he directs these to be ' chosen' in- 
 struments, by prelates, to grow in his nursery there, 
 and to draw an ' excellent education' in the 'method 
 of the church, the mother and mistress of all others ;' 
 so that they return among us ' able properly to shine 
 as an example of life to the people,' ' as teachers, pro- 
 fessors, and parish-priests.' " 
 
 " Has it come to this, has it come to this?" said 
 America, and the heat of a naptha well seemed to burst 
 upon the assembly. " Are we to be drawn closer and 
 closer to that foreign Pontiff, to behold the distant ava- 
 lanche becoming huger and huger ; the sparks flicker- 
 ing around our Protestantism sporting it like fire-flies, 
 demanding the funds and the citizens of our country 
 to be sent to Rome, to bear greater hatred to heretics 
 and the liberties of their country, and be better skilled 
 to imbrue their hands in fratricidal blood? Americans, 
 just look for one moment at the spirit of the press 
 in the service of this foreign potentate in our beloved 
 country. It rejoiced with exceeding great joy when 
 the Protestant chapel at Eome was suppressed eight 
 years ago. ' "We may be thought intolerant,' said they, 
 
220 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 'but we ask, did we ever profess to be tolerant of Pro- 
 testantism, or favor the doctrine, that it ought to be 
 tolerated?' And then reaffirmed their eternal hatred 
 of the religion of twenty millions of our people. ' You 
 inquire,' said another papal organ, 'what the Pope 
 would do were he here, and the Protestants in the 
 minority, in power, if not in numbers? We say,' 
 it continued, ' whatever would benefit the cause of 
 Catholicism ; he would imprison you — banish you — 
 fine you— possibly hang you ; but be assured of one 
 thing, he would never tolerate you for the sake of 
 the ' glorious principles of civil and religious liberty.' 
 And this was just in accordance with that celebra- 
 ted Maryland toleration act, of which I have spoken. 
 The Papal power was in force while Protestants had 
 the majority in numbers. And when they there en- 
 acted that any blasphemy against the Virgin Mary 
 should be punished with fine or public whipping, and 
 an absolute seizure of their lands and goods for Lord 
 Baltimore and his heirs forever, it was on Protes- 
 tants, the heretics, upon whom they had fixed their 
 sharp eyes. That sly and elusive prohibition adverse 
 to uttering a word against the Virgin Mary, reminds 
 me of the gentleman who felt it a duty to civili- 
 zation to cause his arms to be painted and hung on 
 the walls of whatever house had lodged him. It 
 was giving Protestants a cabbage after it had been 
 run up to seed. "What are the words out of their 
 own mouths ? for only by them let us judge how 
 
THE AMERICAN PABTY. 221 
 
 fax our national religious sentiment is ruthlessly 
 invaded." 
 
 " Brownsori 's Review, which is one of the leading 
 journals in the service of this foreign power is con- 
 ducted by an American citizen, who blows a blast at 
 any insinuation against the temporal power of the Papal 
 supremacy, and avows it to be supreme in the hearts 
 of his subjects here, as it is under the shadow of Saint 
 Peter's at Eome ! He says, ' Protestantism, of every 
 form, never can have any rights where Catholicism is 
 triumphant;' that, 'he dares to assert the truth before 
 a lying world, and instead of pleading for his Church 
 at the bar of the State, summons the State to plead at 
 the bar of his Church, its divinely appointed judge.' 
 And, ' I never think of publishing anything in regard 
 to the church, without submitting my articles to the 
 Bishop for inspection, approval, and endorsement I ' 
 says this distinguished Papist." 
 
 " This is manifestly true, Americans, and I feel as 
 though the Lord our God had spared such fearless, 
 acrid, and corrosive spirits to stand for these facts, to 
 bring the incipient lightning before the eyes of our 
 American Union, to make clear and deep the orifice, 
 which must be thoroughly probed before it can be 
 healed!" 
 
 "Oh, my country! my country!" said America, 
 "behold this dark solemn meaning, this danger and 
 death !" 
 
 "My children, who would think you were in your 
 father's land, to read thus: 'Catholicity inserts in her 
 
222 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 catalogue of moral sins, Protestantism of every kind, 
 she endures it when and where she must; but she 
 hates it, and directs all her energies to effect its des- 
 truction!' 'Eeligious liberty,' say they, 'in the sense 
 of a liberty possessed by every man to choose his reli- 
 gion, is one of the most wretched delusions ever foisted 
 on this age by the father of all deceit.' And, 'if 
 Catholics ever gain an immense numerical majority, 
 religious freedom in this country is at an end. So our 
 enemies say, so we believe.' ' The sorriest sight to us,' 
 says their leading journal, 'is a Catholic throwing up 
 his cap and shouting, 'All hail, democracy!' And 
 here is their text, does it want any comment ? to prove 
 to you, Americans, the dark, exasperated, alarming 
 tendency of this dangeT, when every possible expedient 
 to curse your liberties and fasten calumny upon your 
 fair national fame, to laugh, and sniff, and mock you 
 by censors, satirists, and embittered desperadoes, has 
 and is still coming in the strength of the Old World to 
 take your new and once happy homes ! When the 
 declaration of your national birth, America, was so- 
 lemnly announced to your country, what patriot man 
 or woman witheld a struggle until they found their 
 own page in her future history ? They were worship- 
 pers and believers in that freedom which had soared 
 to this as its promised land! And now, when the 
 American Party is ringing its ancient bell, to save this 
 American Liberty, by reasserting our national rights, 
 and declaring to "the people our national wrongs, when 
 it spreads before our eyes that soul-loathing depend- 
 
THE AMERICAN PARTY. 223 
 
 ence of American citizens upon the master-manufac- 
 turer of what is grim and sickly among us, who 
 would not join the American people, and cast aside all 
 the tatters and trappings of party, to cry out, like patriots, 
 ' Only our country !' " 
 
 As this sentiment fell from the patriot's lips the 
 intensity of feeling seemed irrepressible in all, and 
 the noble American women declared in the depth of 
 their patriotism, that they would be willing to re-enact 
 all the suffering and sacrifices of their mothers, as it 
 was really a cause dearer than that which led the 
 American people to the declaration of Independence I 
 There was evident satisfaction on the part of the mo- 
 ther, who had herself participated in that heroic strug- 
 gle for our liberties ! 
 
 " Americans, remember that our dear Washington 
 always spoke of women's action in that Eevolution 
 with a thrill of joy, and expressed his belief that, with 
 their active national sympathy, we had nothing to fear. 
 They did achieve much, but they only did their duty ! 
 and would have fallen short, had they done less!" 
 
 Let no cry of " woman's rights" deter you. That 
 charge has no significance in a work like this. 
 
 A warm female friend of the Revolutionary cause 
 was at that period banished from JSTew York, for suc- 
 coring American prisoners, and in the same way may 
 we be threatened who have hastened to aid our coun- 
 try in the present struggle ! We find that the Popish 
 journal, controlled by the Prelate of New York, is 
 now spitting its venom at your own Fillmore, your 
 
224 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 patriot son, who has illustrated so nobly and so well, 
 that the sentiment of your American Union and its 
 nationality is above all your monuments and beneath 
 all your graves! Thus filling the measure of our 
 national standard, he has commanded respect from 
 European potentates, who are denounced by this organ, 
 as ' great fools for lavishing this indiscriminate atteation 
 upon Americans !' He is then scouted as ' having been 
 only the acting President of this American Union, 
 never having been elected to any other than the in- 
 ferior post of Yice-President !' His great crime, this 
 prelate tells us, was, that the weakness of his adminis- 
 tration excited distrust of American institutions and 
 intentions on the continent of Europe ! while your 
 immortal Webster, he says, so annoyed and worried the 
 Austrian Charge, that he retired until the administra- 
 tion came into other hands ! Then ' these foreign scape- 
 gallows' were silenced !" 
 
 There was a general roar of laughter at this cool 
 audacity and falsity, which caused even the eagle to 
 look around as if in astonishment ! 
 
 " My children, when out in our pastimes, yesterday, 
 did you notice the bell-wether, in the sheep flock ! He 
 led all the forces — sometimes to water and then to pro- 
 vender. I have often tried," said she, "to separate 
 them, but they are cowardly and can't see far off; and 
 for a safe shelter will leap over crags or precipices 
 to follow their wether! And so this great leader, 
 the Pope of Eome, has got now the sweets of our gov- 
 ernment, and his foreign flock have our juicy grass 
 
THE AMERICAN" PARTY. 225 
 
 right between their teeth ! and to keep things all to 
 their own minds, they bleat and butt, skip and leap, en- 
 courage or denounce, be free or busy, just as their bell- 
 wether adroitly directs ! It is the pure music from your 
 Fillmore's national flute, which utters none but strong 
 American tones, that has set the Jesuit press in a 
 horse-gallop after him!" 
 
 "They have sworn upon the altar of their God, eter- 
 nal hostility to every species of tyranny over the mind 
 of man," said America, directing his audience to their 
 Revolutionary fathers still before them ! " And mother, 
 we all go to you, as to the ant, and leave you full of 
 hope, that we are running the race to happiness by 
 our American Party ! Why is it called by our ene- 
 mies, the 'Dark Lantern' Party ?" 
 
 " In seventeen hundred and seventy-six, the Ameri- 
 can troops, learning the British were about to besiege 
 and occupy Bunker Hill, on the night of the eighteenth 
 of June, assembled at Cambridge, under command of 
 Colonel Prescott, and asking the divine presence and 
 blessing by the President of Harvard College, gathered 
 up their working implements and muskets, and with 
 dark lanterns in their hands proceeded silently at 
 night to the peninsula of Charlestown; this light 
 evolved the all-sovereign element, which then expelled 
 the invasion of foreigners and guided and illuminated 
 all your American battles. And when the people saw 
 the Anti- American feeling and action of the present 
 administration at Washington, and the wave of na- 
 tional corruption washing over us at every high wind, 
 10* 
 
226 THE GREAT AMERICAN" BATTLE. 
 
 they caught hold upon this Lantern party, as the only 
 guide to get at the net value of your American nation- 
 ality ! my friends. But for this love of our dear coun- 
 try, which is as the breath to the life of every true 
 American, we should as surely fall by the ferocity of 
 this Papal conquest, as an apple does by the law of gra- 
 vitation." 
 
 "In showing how these foreigners scoffed at the 
 will and silenced the voice of our native sons in de- 
 priving the nation of the Presidential rule of its 
 great Clay; some of our friends present, who loved 
 him dearly (and who did not?)" said America, "would 
 like to know his views on this American question." 
 
 " My children, the Hebrews of old never looked 
 with half the pleasure on the engulfing of Pharaoh and 
 his host in the Red Sea, that the Pope of Eome and 
 his foreign priesthood did in this country, upon their 
 signal triumph over the American will in behalf of 
 Henry Clay ! It infused a satanic energy into all their 
 subsequent actings, a hard, fierce, invulnerable pride 
 at that event, which raised their colossal dominion and 
 prompted their power to stab our nation to the heart ! 
 Our Clay's patriotism was at its highest practical mark, 
 through his whole life, and he cordially subscribed to 
 the greater portion of the Native American creed, as 
 then developed, and whose momentum of moral energy 
 has not only since been determined and onward, but 
 marked by a progress of leaps, in lieu of steps ! It was 
 the fear of the convulsive throe of foreigmsm., eleven 
 years ago, which caused his friends to withhold • this 
 
THE AMERICAN" PARTY. 227 
 
 fact from publicity ; and, Americans, the foreign Pro- 
 testant then voted for him with the same unanimity 
 that the foreign Catholic opposed him ! Had this been 
 known, the entire American vote would have been cast 
 for him, which would have made the top and crowning 
 glory of his political life I" 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 FOREIGN CONSPIRACY AGAINST AMERI- 
 CAN LIBERTY. 
 
 " Up, up icith the signal 1 the foe is in sight, 
 "We cannot be happy if he stays here by right. 
 The signal is waving I in the land of our birth, 
 The holiest spot on the face of the earth — 
 Dear country I our thoughts aro as constant to thee, 
 As the steel to tho star, or the Btrcam to the sea 1" 
 
 "My children," said the mother, 'when the soul 
 of this American throng seemed liquid with human 
 kindness, " we must smash that egg-shell filled with 
 vital bitterness against our American doctrine. It is a 
 most atrocious paradox to know that it arose to resist 
 a foreign power organized to crush the liberties of 
 your country under a religious garb, and then twist 
 it into a hideous caricature, by imputing to it the dia- 
 bolical spirit of persecution and intolerance. It is 
 nothing but Jesuit quackery, my friends, to keep us 
 on their lion track. This rust has eaten long enough 
 into our country, and the American people were not 
 made to shrink or be sensitive when Jesuit tyranny 
 is pouring upon them continually a masked battery of 
 hot shot. And galled and goaded to our present Revolu- 
 tion, we wish our people to see and feel every briar 
 and thistle, every pool and puddle which has and is 
 
FOREIGN' CONSPIKACV. 220 
 
 giving, every day, fresh support and strength to their 
 systematic operations. My children, it would have been 
 useless to have put muskets and Bibles in your hands 
 when too young and tiny to have borne the weight- 
 they -would of course have dropped or tumbled you 
 down in the attempt. And so, twenty years ago and 
 upwards, when an attempt to show the conspiracy 
 which was then, as now, actively laying its icy hand 
 upon your liberties, the people did not understand the 
 mocking, cynical spirit of their foes, and incredulous 
 at the startling enormities a few brave sons had daunt- 
 lessly exposed, it was shoved off by the state of the 
 public mind, which, for lack of knowledge on the sub- 
 ject, could not bear up its weight. 
 
 "Poisoned barbed arrows, winged Avith scorn and 
 keen-edged mockery have been sped at you for doing 
 what no nation upon earth ever did before, in giving 
 to the naturalized foreigner political as well as civil 
 rights. In no other country but yours can an alien 
 dart his porcupine quills against political rights, or 
 grow sleek and fat upon the public crib. In England, 
 they are not only debarred from these privileges, but 
 they conceal from them the motives of their national 
 action. In all other European countries the executive 
 power of the government, decides in every single case 
 the adoption of a citizen. By ten years' residence in 
 France, an alien may be eligible to a seat in the Cham- 
 ber of Deputies, but the limitation of the right of suff- 
 rage takes away the power of mischief. 
 
 " There happened, once upon a time," my dear 
 
230 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 countrymen, after Europe got tired out with the 
 sound and sight of dead bodies and cannon thunder, 
 there came a great long calm, when you might have 
 heard a pin drop on the field of "Waterloo. Suddenly 
 the Sovereigns discovered that in some nook or cranny 
 of their brain something had been stowed away, which 
 for the sake of gentility, they called conscience; so, 
 getting together, they formed a Holy Alliance, and re- 
 affirming their hatred to popular liberty everywhere, 
 and resolving to join all their wits to cuff and kick it 
 out of their way, they fused into a ' general peace.' 
 The element of the Protestant Eeformation was as 
 steel before, but when our American Revolution came, 
 it tingled and glanced at tyrants with heat-lightning, 
 and conspiracy has since run their swords to the hilt 
 to get at the Protestant free spirit, which will finally 
 uncrown them all and make firewood of their thrones. 
 They keep their souls in their heads, Americans ; and 
 heads, eyes, mouth, nose, and teeth rigbt on your 
 American nation. Every fresh action under the influ- 
 ence of our constitutional government is anticipated by 
 each steamer, and with spectacles already on their 
 eyes, they snatch open your news budget, hoping to 
 find that some popular insurrection has occurred which 
 may hasten you down to the bottomless pit. Austria 
 has run to the most insane excess for the destruction 
 of your American freedom. It flashed its lightning 
 at Eepublican liberty, which it ascribed to the Pro- 
 testant Eeformation ; and in the black depths of its 
 mind, and its merciless malignity to us and our institu- 
 
FOREIGN CONSPIRACY. 231 
 
 tions, your country is denounced as ' the great nursery 
 of these destructive principles, (our democratic liber- 
 ty). The great Eevolutionary school for Prance and 
 the rest of Europe is North America.' Thus un- 
 bridled in their speech, they set about by their acts send- 
 ing death to struggle with our nation's vitality ; and 
 Popery already here got a sly, keen, shrewd lift by a 
 grand consolidated union, ostensibly 'to promote the 
 greater activity of Catholic missions in America,' 
 but really to use Popery more effectively in the des- 
 truction of our Eepublican Government. And this is 
 the St. Leopold's Society, organized twenty-five years 
 since expressly to send money, Jesuits, and Eoman 
 Catholic emigrants to chuckle at and exult over, to 
 thwart and destroy your God-created nation. And this 
 same ' St. Leopold Society,' embraces not only the great 
 Austrian Empire, but Hungary, Italy, Piedmont, Sa- 
 voy, and Catholic Prance. These foreign rulers are 
 men actively interfering against your government, and 
 by money and agents are nourishing within your borders 
 a system, which, if not speedily arrested, will as cer- 
 tainly make your nation's grave as that the Almighty 
 made you." 
 
 Self-devotion, serf-sacrifice, the desire to forget all 
 but country was earnestly demonstrated. But so much 
 was to be said, and time was marching so steadily on- 
 ward, that the mother was entreated to lose not a 
 moment. 
 
 " Americans, are you to allow this burst and thrill 
 of foreign interference in anything and in any way ? 
 
232 TDK GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 ,/Are you to be deterred from instant hostile resistance 
 ' because they slanderously call it religion? Their head- 
 quarters are at Vienna, in Austria ; their emissaries, 
 /the Jesuits, are in our midst, who, from their extraordi- 
 ; nary vows of fidelity to the Papal Supremacy, are 
 / styled 'the Pope's body-guard.' It was this same 
 ■r Austrian influence which elected the present Pope of 
 ,■ Eome ; and imagine the thrill of joy with which these 
 I same Jesuits made the President of your American 
 States. And who are these Jesuits ? ' They are edu- 
 cated men, prepared and sworn to start at any moment, 
 in any direction, and for any service, commanded by 
 the general of their order, bound to no family, com- 
 munity, or- country by the ordinary ties which bind 
 men, and sold for life to the cause of the Roman Pon- 
 tiff.' This Jesuitism is and always was a political 
 organization, whose dogma is, 'that the mass of 
 the human family are born not to govern, but to 
 be governed;' that has been confided 'to the privi- 
 ledged classes to which the multitude cannot rise.' 
 "With these doctrines they speciously affect to spread 
 the Roman Catholic religion here, and as such, claim 
 protection and toleration from our American laws. 
 The American sentiment revolts at the spiritual and 
 temporal union in government, but with an adaman- 
 tine will, it insists upon the right to discuss the politi- 
 cal tendency of every religious creed, Christian or 
 Mahommedan. It was in the Roman Catholic that the 
 Jesuit has mixed and mingled, because it opposed 
 from its very nature every element of religious or 
 
FOIiEIGX CONSPIRACY. 233 
 
 political liberty ; and that their action in our country 
 may be swift, sharp, and sure, they use the foreign 
 Roman Catholic to penetrate our high and pure 
 American nature through their myriads of churches, 
 schools, colleges, convents, and nunneries, supported 
 by the Emperor of Austria, Prince Metternich, and all 
 other despots in their ' society ;' who send often in their 
 own vessels Eoman Catholic emigrants, as poisonous 
 masses to weaken and disease, by falsehood, the 
 strong native American minds, ever eager for action 
 and thirsty for truth. Let me show you another 
 significant fact, that among all the varieties of for- 
 eigners, the Eoman Catholic creed is one trained un- 
 der the Despot of Despots, who assumes to be their 
 Lord God, and made to feel but his machinery, who 
 can bind or loose their souls ; they come set on fire of ■ 
 hell against your freedom, and bearing this stamp and 
 seal of their own nationality. 
 
 "Now, what in the name of reason is naturaliz- 
 ation to them? Does it make them any less blindly 
 subservient to their Bishops, Priests, or Vicar-Gen- 
 erals ? My children, they are your coffin-makers ; 
 without knowing a word of the mystery of will, or 
 the intelligent love of God or country. "We came 
 fresh and plastic from the hand of God. Oh, let 
 lis remember the glad morning of your existence, 
 America, and continue to mould your country beauti- 
 ful, brave, generous, joyous, and free as your fathers 
 left it. That patriot son," said she, pointing to the 
 picture of Jefferson, "when you were only five years 
 
234 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 old, America, predicted that this ' foreign importation 
 would be a hoof-print to mar and disfigure you.' ' They 
 will bring with them,' said he, ' the principles of govern- 
 ment imbibed in their early youth, or if able to throw 
 it off, it will be in exchange for an unbounded licen- 
 tiousness. In proportion to their numbers they will 
 share with us the legislation, they will infuse into it 
 their spirit, warp and bias its direction, and render it 
 a heterogeneous, incoherent, distracted mass.' And 
 could his foot-prints now track our enemies, he would 
 see their giant strength, and realize the power of that 
 life-giving thought which truth now exalts and conse- 
 crates." 
 
 '"What would France do,' said he, 'with twenty 
 millions of Americans suddenly imported into their 
 empire ?' And what can America now do, if upwards 
 of ten millions are added in a single census count, 
 three-fourths of whom are Roman Catholics, distributed 
 as the Despots of Europe direct, under the Jesuit 
 government they have ordained in America ?" 
 
 "And now, my children, strengthen every vein, 
 bone, muscle, and sinew, before your nation gets a 
 hemorrhage in its lungs, and is sent by the Pope to a 
 Jesuit Infirmary. Why is the American Party, which 
 baptized you, America, and enrolled around you that 
 glorious army of martyrs there on that canvas to have 
 a storm of popguns aimed at its head? Because it has 
 come to attend to the bodily health of your nation, 
 which has grown pale and sickly from a foreign gastric 
 juice which is stopping the digestion of its civil and 
 
FOBEIGN CONSPIRACY. 235 
 
 religions liberty. Our party lias nothing to do, I re- 
 peat, my children, with any religious creed, as religion. 
 But when this foreign political conspiracy against the 
 government of our country took hold on the foreign 
 Eoman Catholic church, and planted its root in our 
 soil, to stifle and kill us, the American Party asserts 
 the true American feeling, to scrutinize, discuss, and 
 expose its political action upon the liberties of Ameri- 
 can freemen, which it is burning to subvert. And had 
 the same union which exists between foreign despots 
 and the Church of Kome been made with any Protes- 
 tant sect in this country, with the same sleepless 
 devotion to our national greatness and glory, the 
 American Party would have risen to rally the patriot- 
 ism of every Protestant element in the land, to crush 
 out this invasion upon our constitutional liberty and 
 our dearest political rights. This world-wide sym- 
 pathy of Protestantism for right and free-wills, and 
 free-hearts, has made the throne of St. Peter to feel 
 its invincibility only by the most entire unity of the 
 body, and annihilation of the mind. My friends, these 
 Jesuit emissaries sent here by the Holy Alliance" are 
 the fierce, firm enemies of the emigrant ; they instil 
 the idea of superiority to the native sons of the soil, 
 and the very name ' American' is regarded as an here- 
 ditary disease, to be pitied and loathed like the scrofula 
 or consumption. They take up your Declaration of 
 Independence, that hallowed symbol of our precious 
 freedom, and tell these misgoverned emigrants that 
 they are thus made free, as Washington, who led the 
 
236 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 battles of his country, and who, they teach in their 
 schools, died a Roman Catholic, and is a candidate for 
 beatification from the Pope of Rome. But thank God, 
 the instructive sagacity of our dear American mind 
 has seized all the people, and the American Party 
 has rushed in for this emergency. Oh, what shall we 
 not give for country, what would your lives be with 
 your liberty gone ?" 
 
 There was a pause for some moments, and a hot 
 frenzy of tears came like a river to the relief of all. 
 
 " What makes the peaks and mountains of your 
 danger higher, Americans, is the course of native 
 traitors; they conspire with naturalized foreigners, 
 not naturalized citizens, but foreign Roman Catholics 
 for our democratic liberty. And I tell you, that 
 question, whether foreigners, not yet out of the ships, 
 are longer to control our ballot-box, in the face of 
 what we all see and know, is the vital question to be 
 decided now. This emigrant accession is weakening 
 you, America, every day, filling your country with 
 self-distrust by the priest-ridden troops of the Holy 
 Alliance, who are now organized in military compa- 
 nies, with the costume ©f their county, controlled by 
 Jesuit tricksters, in the Austrian service, against us. 
 Oh, my children, look at the vastness of this St. Leopold 
 foundation of despots and tyrants, embracing twenty- 
 three millions of people, helping their Jesuit agents 
 night and day. And there are not less than three 
 other similar societies for the same end; in Italy, 
 France, and Ireland which exist and co-operate, all 
 
FOREIGN CONSPIRACY. 237 
 
 around our press, in our schools, our property, and 
 at the ballot-box, until the tones of our Independence 
 bell again tolls, ' do the people wish to be saved, do 
 the people wish to be saved !' and the American Party, 
 true to its Eevolutionary spirit, responded the only 
 American sentiment, and cried out, like true Ameri- 
 cans, ' "We do, we do 1' " 
 
CHAPTEE XVI. 
 
 AMERICA BAPTIZED IN PROTESTANT 
 BLOOD BY JESUIT PAPISTS. 
 
 " They never fail who die 
 In a great cause ; the ground may soak their gore, 
 Their heads may sodden in the sun; their limbs 
 Be strung to city gates or castle "walls ; — ■ • 
 But still their spirits walk abroad. Though years 
 Elapse, and others share as dark a doom, 
 They but augment the deep and sweeping thoughts 
 "Which overspread all others, and conduct 
 The world at last to freedom." 
 
 To fill a void in nature, to impart dignity to the for- 
 tunes of mankind, to give deep significance to trie occur- 
 rences of trie world, our Divine Creator saw fit to dignify 
 ■woman "by the name of " Mother," when he gave her 
 to the companionship and comfort of man. It was in 
 this sense that she became the Eve to the American fa- 
 mily, to impart these salutary lessons of her melancholy 
 experience, and to vindicate the injured character of her 
 own beloved country. And, having awakened a gene- 
 rous sympathy in the truly American heart, by an in- 
 sight into the craft and guile by which our liberties have 
 been attacked and lacerated ; we leave her to* sublime 
 repose, while with grasping, bleeding hands, we hold on 
 to our title-deed, and cling still to our own native land. 
 
 The heroic magnitude of the American mind sus- 
 
AMEE1CA BAPTIZED IN" PROTESTANT BLOOD. 239 
 
 tained by nerves which never shrank from endurance 
 and a courage which rose on difficulty, and exulted 
 in the sight of danger, woman first illustrated upon 
 American soil, with an inflexible understanding of her 
 own conclusion of right, and a native energy of will, 
 which defied the quiver of the keenest and most en- 
 venomed shafts. Pocahontas, at the tender age of 
 twelve years, threw her arms around the neck of the 
 first Christian adventurer into this American nation, 
 and cast her body upon the stone between the victim 
 and the executioner, as the first sacrifice of Anglo- 
 Saxon liberty ! Two hundred and fifty years ago, Cap- 
 tain Smith came in sight of. the American coast the 
 natives fell prostrate before his cannon thunder, and 
 taking their idol image captive, he soon treated with 
 them upon his own terms. But mists gathered round 
 him, and the leer betokened by the loud laugh-storm 
 of the Indians was at hand, when lovely and full of 
 love, this American girl in tears and groans, engraved 
 on her father's stern soul, by looks, by words, by ges- 
 tures, you cannot tear me from this thought ; he was 
 not born to die ! That gaze shot a cross-bow to the 
 chieftain's heart, and his gentle, dutiful daughter, in 
 wild rapture made vocal music, which first melted into 
 emotion that devotion to liberty which we, as a nation, 
 have never ceased to expose. Unlike the fable of iEsop, 
 where the dog left in charge of the butcher's tray, and 
 unable to defend it from other curs, concluded he might 
 as well have his share of the meat — this American 
 heroine, the child of the barbarian, who understood 
 the thorny cuffs of her own formulas, still hovered in 
 
240 THE GKEAT AHEKICAN BATTLE. 
 
 love and mercy over the colony of Virginia, and 
 became again and again, the chains and the iron door 
 to keep it from the entrenchments of her father and 
 to save its founder from becoming the fagot for his fire. 
 She was thus the prize by which that colony's salva- 
 tion was attained, and in love, humility, and -gran- 
 deur, singularly blended in this American spirit, Vir- 
 ginia became the magnificent acqueduct to slake the 
 thirst of Anglo-Saxon liberty. And thus disembar- 
 rassing that majestic desert, and linking her noble race 
 with the children of God, the bosom of this American 
 woman became the first sanctuary of American liber- 
 ty — the first ornament and pride of the American 
 name. And if, through the bravery of one gentle 
 spirit, a hostile wilderness was encountered and subdued, 
 how strong and shrill ought now to be, that American 
 voice which must command the tempest, and battle 
 with the present roar of contending elements ! Forty 
 years before the advent of Virginia's colony, the city 
 of St. Augustine, in Florida, had been reared in pros- 
 trate submission to the See of Eome ; excluded from 
 light, and debarred from all exercise of its mental 
 limbs, it was taunted by a humiliation which it dared 
 not reject. Pedro Melendez was the desperate vehicle 
 to win new glory for the Spanish government, who 
 took it into formal bondage, in the name of Phillip the 
 IX, as king of North America, and sealed his claim by 
 solemn services for the Eomish faith. This Satanic 
 representative had been so scourging, tearing and tor- 
 menting in the wars against protestant Holland, that 
 his scandalous and astounding vices had brought upon 
 
AMERICA BAPTIZED IN PROTESTANT BLOOD. 241 
 
 him the frown of the Spanish king — when to recover 
 his fallen fortunes, he offered to extend the pithy creed 
 of papacy, by carrying its faith in full caparison into 
 the province of Florida, And to expiate his former 
 crimes and minister to the depraved appetite of the 
 king, five hundred slaves were to be imported to has- 
 ten the deliverance from Protestantism. Kindled by 
 the desire and earnest in the purpose to seek " freedom 
 to worship God," a French Huguenot band had already 
 fled to the American wilds, and vainly thought they 
 felt the sunshine upon their little colony near the 
 banks of the St. Johns. When, like a brood of hard- 
 drinking ducks, Melendez appeared, with a " collected 
 force of more than twenty-five hundred soldiers, sail- 
 ors, priests, Jesuits, married men, laborers and me 
 chanics," who drank the puddle of liberty to the last 
 spoonful. He had no sooner dedicated his city to its 
 patron, Saint Augustine, than these Huguenots were 
 sought out through intelligence from the natives, 
 and found at Fort Caroline, which they had built under 
 Landonnier, near the mouth of the St. Johns river. 
 The sight of the Spanish flag was a sombre mystery, 
 a mute dream of evil and disaster, and servitude 
 seemed at hand. With beating hearts they inquired the 
 occasion of the mission, when the brute-man sank into 
 the beast — replied : "I am Melendez, of Spain, sent 
 with orders from my king to gibbet and behead all 
 the Protestants in this region. Frenchmen, who are 
 Catholics, I will spare — every heretic shall die!" 
 Having declared his intention to mat the Florida set- 
 tlers into one Jesuit feather, he entered his new city 
 11 
 
242 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 fresh from the blessing of priests and moist in the holy 
 •water of Eome, and screwed together tightly his chosen 
 forces with which he set out on his wilderness march 
 of eight days, for the banks of St. Johns near the 
 Protestant colony of Fort Caroline ! The struggle to 
 these people was between wakefulness and sleep; 
 their eyes swam in the void, and the dawn of their fu- 
 ture glimmered in the twilight of death. Melendez, 
 without truce or cessation, looked diabolically at this 
 weeping colony, while hell seemed to say, deliver up 
 God's worshippers. Silence reigned at this moment, 
 which betokened terror even to the beasts of the for- 
 est, and the stag affrighted, ceased to stalk it. The 
 lowing herd stood mute, while Melendez "kneel- 
 ing and praying for success," that he might open a new 
 sphere to the death pain of Protestants, rose in fierce 
 hate to his work of carnage, which merged into slug- 
 gishness all other tides that ever ebbed and flowed 
 with human blood. And the new-born hope to wor- 
 ship God was here prostrated and perished in its im- 
 movable faith forever ! Citizen and soldier, the old 
 on their crutches, the young in their cradles and in the 
 arms of their mothers, were all reaped by the scythe 
 of death; and left to welter in gore upon the sod which 
 they had dressed for the strong life of Liberty which 
 boiled in their souls. 
 
 This earthquake and wind touched as it swept, and 
 eighty-sis warm-hearted champions for the glory of 
 God were walled into one common tomb, for yielding 
 that submission to Him, which Popery, drunk with 
 the power of the throne, the sceptre and the keys, had 
 
AMERICA BAPTIZED IN PROTESTANT BLOOD. 243 
 
 arrogated to its own supremacy throughout the world ! 
 A few of these great spirits shrank into holes and cor- 
 ners, but only to be dragged out and die upon the 
 gibbet, and, suspended by their necks on the nearest 
 tree, they were left as booty for carrion eaters. This 
 popish emissary, glowing in the faithful performance of 
 duty, and secure in the reward of his monarch, raised 
 high a tablet to his fame upon the spot, carved with 
 the inscription — " Not as Frenchmen but heretics." 
 
 When he again reached St. Augustine, he was 
 hailed as a conqueror by priests and people who went 
 out to meet him. Te Deum Avas solemnly chanted. 
 The holy work which crowned his mission had been 
 fully done. The Protestant light was all extinguished, 
 except a few, who, jaded and enervated by shipwreck, 
 had fled to the sands and the beach, and finally 
 found a resting place in the inlet of Matanzas. The 
 blood now spilt, was the wine of new malignancy to- 
 wards Protestants, and it created a new thirst for the 
 last drop ! Like the ferocious shark, which swallows 
 with the same eagerness iron or stone, delicacy, inno- 
 cence, feebleness and grace, were now but pile-heaps 
 for the budding splendor of the royalties of St. Peter, 
 in the colony of Florida. 
 
 " Angry," says Bancroft, " that any should have es- 
 caped, the Spaniards insulted the corpses of the dead 
 with wanton barbarity." And, to strengthen the force 
 of his machinery, it was needful to fire and overwhelm 
 them with fanaticism. So, amid the thick fogs which 
 arose from the ground where their hot blood still 
 lay unabsorbed, the ensign of Popery was set up with 
 
244 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 the desecrated cross, and the scene of execution made 
 the foundation for a new church edifice. And to enter 
 alive into damnation, as Melendez thought, the sur- 
 viving remnant of the French Protestants of East 
 Florida, he jumped streams and took cross-roads to 
 their retreat — and moving gently, that' he might en- 
 snare more easily, he inspired the majority with 
 confidence, who, without suspicion or distrust in his 
 integrity, were immediately thrown into boats and 
 sent across the river to the Spaniards. To bend 
 their souls, they corded their limbs, and clutched 
 their hands in iron bands behind them, and, as a beast- 
 like drove, they were marched towards the city of St. 
 Augustine. When in sight of the fort a signal was 
 made, with military energy and cowardly recklessness, 
 and without deliberation or discussion, the throats of 
 these unsuspecting Protestants were all cut, and under 
 the blast of thundering artillery, the strong sap of 
 Liberty again washed in gore American soil ! "Not as 
 Frenchmen but heretics," was also engraved on this 
 monument, so that all might see and bear witness to 
 this special light in the western world, which, in faith- 
 fulness to the Popish creed, that "no faith shall be 
 kept with heretics," had been the first to drench with 
 the blood of Protestant victims the land which we hal- 
 low, as baptized and sanctified by the only true princi- 
 ples of freedom which have ever blest universal man. 
 In God's providence, some few Protestants, suspi- 
 cious of this amalgamation of audacity, assumption, 
 and cruelty, escaped, while the French nation looked 
 pitilessly, like hard statuary, at the dying blow 
 
AMERICA BAPTIZED IN PROTESTANT BLOOD. 245 
 
 which had fallen upon their unprovoking subjects. 
 "History has been more faithful,' in the language 
 of our American Bancroft, " and has assisted human- 
 ity, by giving to the crime of Melendez an infamous 
 notoriety." This dear occasion of suffering opened 
 now a new whirlwind of pain. De Gourgas, a 
 Eoman Catholic and a Frenchman, inspired by the 
 fiery vices of Spanish bigotry, arose from privacy 
 and retirement, which he had sought after a long 
 and illustrious public service, and doffing the citizen's 
 coat, he took the sabre and musket, the uniform and 
 colors of his country, at his private cost, and with 
 well-assorted comrades, sailed for the mouth of tlie St. 
 Johns, in Florida. Between 1569 and 1574, he gained 
 the coast, stormed several out-works, and urging on his 
 forces, entrenched Fort Caroline, now a Spanish colony. 
 The spectacle he first beheld was not a fancy 
 painting — a mere canvas scene of the violence and 
 brutality of the assault upon his murdered friends, but 
 there, free from the concealment of the grave, the trees 
 had become their charnel-houses — there decayed and 
 dried, their bones driven and riven by the tempest's 
 power, were still mouldering and swinging before his 
 eyes. And there, to invite the attention of the stranger, 
 still stood Melendez's monument to tell the tale ! With 
 bleeding hearts, all that was left of these broken frag- 
 ments were reverently gathered together and interred. 
 When De Gourgas, ordering his battery to "charge," 
 it shook the death-rattle over the heads of these 
 Spaniards, and amidst shrieks and bowlings, hung al- 
 most every one on the same trees upon w r hich his cap- 
 
246 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 tive countrymen had been found dissolving. And 
 having obtained the redress and indemnity which out- 
 raged humanity demanded, he inscribed, in defiance of 
 arrogant sovereignty, "Not as Spaniards but mur- 
 derers !" when, strong in his confidence of right, he 
 hastened back to France. 
 
 Thus Protestantism had its first birth and growth in 
 the southern section of these United States by the Hu- 
 guenots of France. And in the romance of forests and 
 the singular beauty of wild landscapes, this little fold 
 of God, free from cupidity and ambition, had matured 
 on the far-off coast of Florida that affectionate home 
 which the fierce Spaniard soon delivered to the lion 
 paw of Borne. This thrashing-flail was pushed with 
 such iron speed upon the early infancy of religious 
 liberty in these American States, that to save further 
 blood, no attempt by Protestants was made to seek it 
 upon this soil, until a new benediction and an invisi- 
 ble strength lighted the Puritan altar from Plymouth 
 Kock, and without constraint, struck from that stone- 
 bound coast a cord of love to God and good will to 
 man, to which the nation vibrated in tones of silver. 
 
 The Spanish Jesuit, who murdered this Protestant 
 colony, dwelt twelve years in St. Augustine, and as- 
 sisted by Franciscan monks, erected the horrible Span- 
 ish Inquisition. The present United States' barracks 
 occupies the site of a monastery then dedicated to that 
 work. The irresistible intelligence of the American 
 people in honoring their national dignity and trust, 
 can no longer make a shameful application of the 
 crushing vengeance of this Papal Inquisition, which 
 
AMERICA BAPTIZED IN PROTESTANT BLOOD. 247 
 
 has agonized with blood, and exhaled its death vapors 
 from the first Protestant settlement upon American land. 
 Is it not enough to arouse their independent action, to 
 know that the sickening contagion of foreign Jesuit 
 Popery which now infests America, and is every mo- 
 ment endangering the principles on which our nation 
 rests, has made its dark stains, and tarnished the earliest 
 beams of glorious liberty which ever shone beneath 
 our American skies ? 
 
 Drake, twenty years later, captured St. Augustine, 
 and burnt and plundered it under the sympathy of a 
 Protestant Queen of England. A Frenchman seems 
 to have been spared from the Protestant massacre, 
 to quicken the pulse of this action. The Span- 
 iards' fortune became the prey of stratagem and spoil, 
 as they, who had grown grey in devouring piety 
 and innocence, fled from their death-grapple. Before 
 another quarter of a century, the Florida natives razed 
 the city to the ground. And then, as if to avenge 
 slaughtered innocence, came the impatient Davis, 
 in wild madness, and with his menacing forces, after 
 the city had been founded for eighty years, kept a per- 
 petual watch over the actions of those corrigible men, 
 and gained over them a final, though ignoble victory. 
 At the commencement of the eighteenth century, 
 Spain had so damaged by crime and usurpation the 
 new world, that the Pope, who watched the wind and 
 the tide of success, dignified that government as "the 
 Defender of the Faith," and warmed by that venerable 
 and pompous distinction, nothing like the enjoyment of 
 life, property and conscience could be tolerated. These 
 
248 THE GREAT AMEKICA2T BATTLE. 
 
 had been already snuffed out of Florida; and the main- 
 spring and fountain of Papal power was exercised all 
 over these dominions. The Anglo Saxon and Protest- 
 ant liberty were too feeble to contend effectually against 
 this gorgeous hierarchy — and with the vassalage of 
 mind and feeling, supported by sumptuous pageantry 
 and splendid solemnities, tyranny and force were fast 
 rooting out, by horror and the vulgar atrocity of In- 
 dian aid, the blood and faith of the American colonies. 
 The slaves were enticed from Georgia into the wilds of 
 Florida by the Governor of St. Augustine. Bound, as he 
 declared, in conscience, to draw to themselves as many 
 negroes as they could, in order to convert them to the 
 faith of the Eomish Church. And in the rash ambi- 
 tion of these Jesuits, they had prepared a scheme of 
 brutal profligacy to exterminate all the Protestant 
 colonists, when a signal Providence threw them into 
 terrible disorder, and prevented again their horrible 
 abominations from being reduced to practice. In de- 
 fiance of their sinning, suffering and action, the English 
 retained possession of Florida for twenty years, when, 
 in 1784 it was ceded back to Spain. The Anglo-Ameri- 
 can and Protestant remembering the devouring gulf 
 which had drank in the free Protestant spirit at Fort 
 Caroline, saw its yawnings still, and leaving all but 
 life, sought instant escape from the danger and licen- 
 tiousness of Jesuit punishment. The terror and ex- 
 cesses of popular insurrection had now become so full 
 of warning, that no new channel was provided for the 
 natural-operations of Popery, until the American war 
 of 1812. But within, a train was laying to fill the 
 
AMERICA BAPTIZED IN PROTESTANT BLOOD. 249 
 
 mine with an explosive element. The prosperous 
 march of American institutions was silently working 
 destruction to the stability of Papal power, and its arbi- 
 trary government. "When, intoxicated to sympathy by 
 the rights and privileges exercised by Americans, and 
 a war arose, and under the fiery burnings of popu- 
 lar enthusiasm, St. Augustine was again in ferocious 
 struggle, and the flush and tumult of victory, taken out 
 of Spanish rule. The American government, sound, 
 steady and erect, lifted its hand, to Florida's parched 
 lips, and in deep-minded, truth-loving sincerity, became 
 its purchaser from the King of Spain, and it was at 
 length clasped in the maternal arms of these United 
 States ! And now, with the lance, sword, and free 
 space, the stars and stripes of American nationality 
 were unfurled from the Castle on the 17th of 
 June, 1821, and under the government and promis- 
 ing auspices of our American General, Andrew Jack- 
 son, St. Augustine glided into Anglo-American sun- 
 light, and threw off the torpid slumber of bigotry, in- 
 tolerance and despotism. 
 
 No longer like weak lamps in the night, her sons 
 and daughters rushed into the old State capitol, and in 
 the overflowing delight of a bridal feast, gave evidence 
 of their living energy in the right of " freedom to wor- 
 ship God," which Popery, for centuries had not only 
 repelled from Florida, but settled by the entire exter- 
 mination of Protestants, in the shedding of their blood. 
 Churches of various sects and creeds now were reared 
 under Protestant influence, and the city was soon re- 
 generated by influences favorable to religious freedom, 
 11* 
 
250 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 A Methodist minister, it is stated, suiting the action 
 to the word, made plain and direct efforts at once, to 
 scatter light among the people. As he went from 
 house to house, in his mission of- mercy and good will, 
 he was accosted by a priest for such impertinent inter- 
 ference, who significantly threatened to frustrate his 
 purpose. Without the altercation of words, he pointed 
 the Pope's minion to the American flag, which then 
 proudly waved over the Castle, and now, for the first 
 time, silenced its oppression, and thus reminded him. 
 that under that, our fathers had stood, until all owned 
 it the invincible shield of their power which can never 
 be shivered while American men have a grain of grate- 
 ful appreciation for that highest of all privileges, the 
 " freedom to worship God." 
 
&S/C tr^i <y^i-?, 
 
 or nsmrsyzimrj 
 
CHAPTEE XVII. 
 
 THE ORDER OB 1 UNITED AMERICANS. 
 THE UNITED DAUGHTERS OF AMEEIOA. 
 
 "Our Country's glory is our chief concern: 
 For this we struggle and for this wo hum ; 
 For this we smile, for this alone we sigh ; 
 For this we live, for this would freely die. 11 
 
 The ardent desire of the Anglo-Saxon to see the 
 light of the American sun, and to convert the Indians' 
 patch garden into liberty's paradise, caused benignant 
 manifestations from the English monarch, for the sin- 
 gular vicissitudes through which his Virginia adventur- 
 ers had passed. And especially for the first visible and 
 palpable league which was made in the cause of free- 
 dom, by the remarkable exercise of Christian forgive- 
 ness under such felicitous and touching circumstances ! 
 A costly scarlet robe, with a jewelled crown, and other 
 appendages were sent over by that government, as in- 
 dicative of grateful and generous appreciation, to their 
 great Indian king, Powhatan, who assured by his son 
 and daughter, that it was no surrender of power, but in- 
 dicated only harmonious action, he was induced to put 
 
252 THE GREAT AMERICAN' BATTLE. 
 
 on all but the crown, and this he viewed with such 
 evident dissatisfaction, that no persuasion or entreaty 
 could induce him to bend the head or knee, and it was 
 only by pressing his shoulders with affectionate force, 
 that they at last succeeded in placing it on his brow ! 
 Thus eloquent in homage to liberty, and disdainful 
 to tyranny, has ever seemed the very soil, the woods, 
 the beasts, and the birds of America 1 Under the same 
 sweet feeling of freedom did the national spirit rise in 
 the "United Order of Americans," when they saw its 
 blessings fluctuating and the national sentiment about 
 to flee away. And in the heat of America's youthful 
 blood, laid claim to the favor of the good, the protec- 
 tion of the powerful, the help of the active, and the 
 love of the patriotic. After an informal meeting at the 
 residence of E. C. Boot, Esq., in the city of New York, 
 early in December, 1844, this American brotherhood 
 assembled by agreement, on the 21st of the same 
 month, to consider the vast import of our national life. 
 And as a precursor to a more profound rapture and 
 reverence for country, by a singular coincidence just 
 thirteen sons then appeared, as though to represent the 
 original thirteen States, to open a more accessible field 
 for our independence as Americans, and to impart more 
 glorious images of those divine principles which are to 
 our country its imperishable good. These were : 
 
 James Harper, E. C. Boot, 
 
 Simeon Baldwin, E. D. Eoot, 
 
 G. B. Barker, T. B. Minor, 
 
 William Atkinson, G-. W. Barsons. 
 
THE ORDER OF UNITED AMERICANS. 2o3 
 
 C. A. Whitney, Daniel Talmage, 
 
 Thomas E. Whitney, G. E. Belcher, 
 
 L. D. Burling. 
 
 This Order, so angularly and beautifully conceived 
 in fervid, thoughtful, energetic patriotism, is now a 
 bright appearance for the boundless happiness of the 
 American people ! Its patriotic chivalry has widened 
 its domain, and the cheerful devotion of woman to its 
 principles and purposes, fills with gay and graceful 
 images the patriot heart, and pushes aside gloom and an- 
 ger and sadness, at the sight of her heroic action. This 
 organization holds no ferula or horn-book of party in its 
 hands. It is neither hampered or hemmed by a strug- 
 gle for power or place, but venturing boldly into their 
 secret recesses, it demands investigation, and contends 
 with activity for the salvation of our country and the 
 stern culture of all her interests. " To control, like 
 Washington, that party spirit — the bane of free govern- 
 ment," and "shut up every avenue of foreign influ- 
 ence," as he directed and advised; to unite in one har- 
 monious choir, the Protestant Bible and Constitutional 
 Liberty, and to maintain the indestructible vitality of 
 both, is the helmet of this great action, and to 
 put away the wrangling violence and distrust, which 
 so alarmingly prevails within our national borders. 
 That fair flowering patriotism which blossomed far 
 and wide around our Washington, and on whom 
 depended its growth and life, has at length been 
 broken by the stem. Its leaves have languished 
 and threaten to droop and wither away, and to keep 
 
254 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 close to the tree from whence it sprouted, this order 
 make him still their culminating star in patriotic aspir- 
 ings, and fashion their visible and entire action by his 
 guidance ; as the expressive characteristic of that full 
 life, which must occupy the void left by an overruling 
 God, in the memory of every son and daughter of 
 the American soil! All that is worthy and lovely 
 echoes through the national heart at the mere mention 
 of his name, and teaches that the very inspiration of 
 liberty should keep his ashes hot, and thus will its 
 boughs remain in their green freshness, and America 
 the rallying point for freedom throughout the world. 
 
 By a faith which deepens by free daring and heroic 
 constancy, we have stood in the brunt of battle and 
 smote the enemy of our liberties with giant strokes 
 and prowess, until it sued our hand and owned our 
 nation, the summit and key-stone of civil and religious 
 blessing. Washington was truly a skyey messenger 
 to take a fresh step into our American world, and 
 wilder deeds and more superhuman actions have fol- 
 lowed his advent, than in any similar period connected 
 with the dignity and destiny of man. The Georgia 
 Charter, the last of the old thirteen colonies, was not 
 a trivial or insignificant event of the same epoch, of 
 "Washington's birth, for with it came the "Wesleys, the 
 great pioneers of Protestant faith, in the western world. 
 Virginia, which, in 1607, had first been snatched from 
 the Indian breast, and nursed with Christian milk, had 
 now grown to a population of sixty thousand. 
 
 New York walked five years later in the same rocky 
 path, and amid groves and shady thickets, and mur- 
 
THE ORDER OF UNITED AMERICANS. 255 
 
 muring water-falls cut a channel which gushed liberty 
 out of its native rocks. Eight years later came Massa- 
 chusetts, with her Puritan band, whilst the rack was 
 sweeping stormfully across the heavens, the ocean roll- 
 ing its chafed waters into heaps, and the forest only 
 sounded in the breeze. And in deep enthusiasm for God, 
 and freedom to worship Him, it hid the magnitude of 
 its great struggle in the completeness of that victory. 
 And this leaven element, which was nourished with- 
 out faltering or irresolution, soon infused a spirit 
 into all the Colonies, which could not be bent by the 
 yoke of an enemy. The aggregate amount of souls, 
 then in the thirteen colonies, at the birth of Washing- 
 ton, was about half a million, less than the present 
 annual immigration into the American States ! The 
 earliest American war was waged by France against 
 England in 1744, and terminated four years after by 
 the peace of Aix la Chappelle. The American colon- 
 ists then filled with the grand disinterestedness and 
 noble desires for country, struck back the invader 
 and "the strongest fortress of North America cap- 
 itulated to an army of undisciplined New-England 
 mechanics, farmers, and fishermen." But when 
 France sought supremacy over our fertile Mississippi 
 valley, and to weave a thread between Canada and 
 the Gulf of Mexico, the American soil became 
 the great battle-field ! The Anglo-American and the 
 Englishman could not be wrenched asunder, and in 
 one faith and one hope, they defied France and her 
 Colonists until her banner could float no longer in a 
 North American breeze! "Washington, though a 
 
256 THE GREAT AMEBICAN BATTLE. 
 
 stripling, was in the fire of this controversy at arms, 
 and to Braddock's refusal to be advised by so young 
 a guide, was the beam and glory shorn from the banks 
 of the Monongahela ! Thus, in 1763, the second Ameri- 
 can war closed and the next epoch dates in our national 
 annals! One hundred and twenty-five years were 
 consumed in gathering together the American material 
 which then gave greatness and glory to American valor 
 and the American name. No murmuring in the wil- 
 derness, no painful longings to track with the eye, or 
 by the nose, the directions and intersections of tyranny 
 from whence they had fled. The rivers of blood, the 
 receding of the waters and the voice of Almighty God, 
 were to our fathers the out- works and abutments by 
 which they reached the pinnacle of our greatest glory. 
 And did freedom in its highest clearness ascend 
 their temple height as despotism passed out ? Oh no ! 
 It was first hj making Americans a peculiar people, 
 that they became zealous of good works ! They were 
 a drilled soldiery for the battle of freedom before the 
 Revolution came, and the primary movement was the 
 general education of all the people, so that the mighty 
 tide of cultivated thought, sanctified and purified by a 
 heavenly sun, blossomed in brightness at every altar, 
 and around every hearth-stone ! Power was then the 
 emblem of goodness, there was no stumbling and cry- 
 ing for help, but in the faithful worship of God, the 
 image of activity and self-reliance was before the eyes 
 of all, and with these practised senses grew that inde- 
 pedence in thought and that consciousness of religious 
 and political equality, to which they responded in the 
 
THE ORDER OF V KITED AMERICANS. 257 
 
 Declaration of Independence of 76, and secured thirteen 
 years later in the great Constitutional Code, which 
 fathomed and found out the only self-subsistent govern- 
 ment, and gave the first and last demonstration of that 
 liberty which we believe is destined to bless the uni- 
 versal world ! This is the incarnation of Americanism, 
 the thought which must arch all her temples, and rise 
 to equal height, in every native or adopted bosom. To 
 make more thankful all her sons for this glorious free- 
 dom, which shines for all. To stamp and label our 
 dear country for eternity, by teaching first the soul to 
 shun the traitorous demagogues, scheming despots, and 
 designing Jesuit Papists, foreign or native, and in one 
 manly universal American brotherhood, plant, count, 
 will, breathe, act, purely for country until its national 
 love in one stream of patriotic affection, shall roll and 
 swell, and flow all over the land. This is the sole aim 
 of that great organization of "United Americans," 
 which arose from that little assembly of thirteen sons, 
 and which, like the thirteen original States, has within 
 eleven years, reflected its bright genial rays from the 
 Atlantic to the Pacific shores. And when the ques- 
 tion came: "Is this nation to last; is it to glorify God 
 throughout all ages ; is it set up as the pattern by which 
 all others are to be framed?" It made its holy appeal 
 to birth-place and showed by the uninterrupted flow 
 into the current of American blood, the true elevation 
 of our great nationality. And standing in the same 
 cohesive steadfastness and valor for our freedom, and 
 simultaneous in origin with the " United Americans," 
 were the two powerful auxiliaries,the "Sons of America" 
 
258 THE GREAT AMERICAN- BATTLE. 
 
 and the " United American Mechanics," distinguished 
 for the same obstinate haughtiness for American lib- 
 erty and girded with a harness as bright as it is powerful 
 amid conflict or defeat, they will make no compromises 
 with the enemy, but though maimed and impoverished, 
 warrior-like, in thoughtful and manly sensibility for 
 American life, will march to the last fight for victory 
 and triumph. This reverence for God above us, the 
 sparkling liberty around us, and the sod which covers 
 our fathers' tombs beneath us, brought an out-fit of love 
 from the depth of woman's heart, and, staggered at the 
 sight of the foe, she could no longer hide her sorrow 
 from the sight of liberty, and without quaint device, 
 again appeared on its exterior edifice ! To mingle her 
 affections and specialities, not with this or that party, 
 but for God and her country, her own dear native 
 land! 
 
 For ten years the "United Daughters of America" 
 have been professed helpers, in leading the nation out 
 of its moral obstructions into light and peace. Their 
 calmness reveals the vastness of their yet unmeasured 
 strength, and coming not unsought, but as humble co- 
 workers for truth, freedom, and an earnest effort to 
 open to the world, all the grandeur and glory of their 
 country, and to render imperishable the goodness and 
 virtue, which are characteristic of our republican 
 institutions. 
 
 This order numbers nine flourishing chapters in the 
 city of New York alone, and invoking no stately pre- 
 sence, its equity, mercy, and serene humanity are en- 
 dearing it to the hearts of their American Sisters, who, 
 
THE ORDER OP UNITED AMERICANS. 259 
 
 perceiving its sacred lineaments, have organized in 
 various States, and are entertaining their pure prin- 
 ciples, by actively emulating their devotion to country 
 throughout our wide-spread union. There is no mine 
 of the Kevolution from whence the smallest particle of 
 the spirit of liberty was smelted, whose inward spring 
 and deepest obscurity had not been penetrated by the 
 patriotic love of woman. The innocent blood of Miss 
 M'Crea and her mother, shed by a savage foe in the 
 early struggle for our national Independence, put that 
 solemn garb upon the people which doubled their 
 hearts, flowed over all doubts and swept hosts into the 
 ranks of the American army. To unstring the sinews 
 of the enemy's strength, by the daring and danger of 
 espionage, was the painful mission of woman, often 
 performed without a fainting heart throughout the war 
 of American Independence. 
 
 In the voluminous and interesting researches of 
 Colonel Thomas L. McKenny, the former efficient head 
 of the Indian department of the government, we find 
 the largest imbibing of the Aboriginal character and 
 heart. And the wave and surge of civilization, de- 
 velop there the same innate desire to live and work 
 for kindred, home, and country. 
 
 At the Chippeway treaty of cession, in 1820, anar- 
 chy threatened annihilation, authentic signs had passed, 
 and darkness floated on the ground of the Indians' in- 
 terest, when Mrs. Johnson, the daughter of their great 
 chief, Wa-ba-jick, summoned to her council in silence 
 and concealment, the Indians who had resisted the 
 United States commissioner, and exposed the nature 
 
260 THE GEEAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 of this crisis, which was about to try the edge of their 
 axes with such singular and shining power, that they 
 felt the effect of her own nobleness and the treaty was 
 unanimously signed the same evening. To this more 
 than regal act, General Cass attributed his entire suc- 
 cess in accomplishing the designs, with which he had 
 been entrusted. 
 
 The Arch Chancery of the Order of United Ameri- 
 cans held its annual session in the city of New York, 
 on Tuesday, November 20, 1855, when the following 
 officers were elected for the current year :— 
 
 A. B. Ely, Esq., of Massachusetts, A. G. S. 
 J. B. Ceveland, of New Jersey, A. G. 1st C. 
 G. W. Smith, of Connecticut, A. G. 2d C. 
 E. B. Dearborn, of Massachusetts, A. G. C. of C. 
 W.W. Osborn, of New York, A. G. C. C. 
 William Hunt, of New York, A. G. F. C. 
 J. H. Purdy, of Pennsylvania, A. G. C. of E. 
 Wm. S. Arentz, of New Jersey, A. G. S. at A. 
 Eev. J. W. B. Wood, of Brooklyn, N. Y, A. G. C. 
 
CHAPTEE XVIII. 
 
 ST. TAMMANY AND OTHER AMERICAN 
 ORGANIZATIONS. 
 
 "Oh Heaven our bleeding oountry Bavc 1 
 la there no arm on high to shield the brave? 
 Yet though destruction sweep those lovely plains, 
 Kise fellow-men ! Our country yet remains 1 
 By that dread name we wave the flword on high 
 And swear with her to live — with her to die 1" 
 
 As the dimensions of the tree are rarely regulated 
 by the size of the seed, so the consequences of our 
 American Party, like that of our American Kevolu- 
 tion, have even now excelled the apparent magnitude 
 of the causes by which it made its present appearance 
 before the American people. And that they may 
 know all that is certain and reject all that is doubtful, 
 it seems best on this occasion to take the shortest, but 
 the clearest road to truth. 
 
 The St. Tammany Society, or Columbian Order, was 
 so called, from Tammanard, a renowned Delaware 
 Chief. It originated immediately after the formation 
 of our present Constitution in 1788, and hence was the 
 first native American Order in these United States. 
 The cardinal doctrines of its creed were the exclusion 
 of foreigners from all political interference whatever 
 with the affairs of our country, as in manifest conflict 
 
 261 
 
262 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 with our Republican Liberty and the American policy. 
 The Sons of the KevoTution were the founders of this 
 Order, and it was under the teachings of Washington, 
 the leader of those armies, which under God, conducted 
 our nation to victory and glorious freedom,addedto then- 
 own experience and observation, that they saw the 
 necessity at that early period of a purely national or- 
 ganization, to uphold the true principles of American 
 faith and practice, and in the language of our country's 
 Father, to prevent the evil of the foreign action of 
 "these men, who have no attachment to the country, 
 further than interest binds them." And here Ameri- 
 cans before the eyes of Washington and under the 
 light of his countenance, this national society had the 
 zealous cooperation of the heroes of the Revolution, 
 his companions in battle, and flourished under its strin- 
 gent restrictions for ten years previous to his death. 
 
 The sublime idea of deliverance from foreign influ- 
 ence, was thus for years advantageously cherished by 
 them. But, money-loving, spoils-devouring, office- 
 seeking politicians began to join them, and the day of 
 dispensation was at hand. The first foreigner who 
 thus opened the door Avas a Scotchman, others fol- 
 lowed before it closed, until they had so multiplied, 
 that they actually held the balance of power, and com- 
 pelled the majority to yield to their demands, or would 
 threaten to go over to the minority. They first re- 
 quired one member of the Legislature, which was 
 granted; then two, they were yielded. And then, 
 whatever they wished and as they plealed. In a 
 meeting of this Society, the Loco Foco party had 
 
AMERICAN ORGANIZATIONS. 263 
 
 its origin. The foreigners had become so powerful 
 and domineering that the Americans resisted their 
 votes and blew out the lights! The foreigners re- 
 lighted them by Loco Foco matches, and carried the 
 measure by their own votes. This was the fatal mo- 
 ment when Americans went over to Romanism. Sub- 
 sequent to the formation of the Tammany Society, but 
 at the same epoch in our national history, was the 
 Order of Cincinnati, another strong political society, 
 which made ineligible to membership, any American 
 who was not a native born son of the soil. AVashing- 
 ton himself was President-General of that Order, to 
 the close of his life. As Andrew Jackson had been a 
 leader of the Tammany before its degenerate days. 
 
 In 1839, the Pope's agent, Bishop Hughes, called a 
 public meeting at Carroll Hall, in the City of New 
 York, lectured his people and nominated his own 
 political ticket. The Democrats with whom he usually 
 cooperated, had not that year made selections suited 
 to his peculiar taste, and he determined to prove them, 
 where the balance power was deposited. 
 
 Having failed to get a portion of the School Fund, 
 appropriated by the Legislature, this wily Jesuit had 
 the daring audacity, relying on his influence over the 
 ballot-box with mercenary politicians of all parties, to 
 obtain a committee, appointed by himself, to go into 
 the Public Schools of New-York, and wherever books 
 inimical to the Romish Creed were found, to expunge 
 all objectionable passages from the same. 
 
 That act aroused the sentiment of American nation- 
 ality in the native sons which was demonstrated by 
 
264 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 petitions, processions, inflammatory banners, and de- 
 nunciatory meetings, and drove from the ballot-box in 
 disgust and contempt many of the noblest and truest 
 American men. 
 
 In 1843, a few Democrats met by accident in a black- 
 smith's shop, in the 11th Ward of New York city, and 
 canvassing the palpable evils perpetrated upon us by 
 the foreign hierarchy of Eome, resolved to do some- 
 thing to arrest it. A meeting was soon after called, 
 over which Mr. John Culiver presided, and after 
 adopting rules to govern their action, and organizing 
 the 11th Ward, they caused a similar movement in 
 the 17th, both strong Democratic Wards, and thus con- 
 tinued their proceeding, until this organization existed 
 in a majority of the Wards in New York city. It was 
 not until after the first powerful Democratic Wards 
 had originated the idea and embodied it into action 
 and energy, that a single Whig had joined their ranks. 
 These meetings were then in secrecy, not only to save 
 their destruction, but the lives of the parties who were 
 engaged in them. And when they had advanced by 
 their operations to the grand harmony of action, they 
 called a public meeting at the 14th Ward Hotel, the 
 heart of an Irish district in the city, and publicly pro- 
 claimed and ratified their principles ! 
 
 In the following November election, Messrs. Jesse C. 
 Wood and Mangle M. Quackenboss, old Tammany Hall 
 leaders, in the days of Andrew Jackson, were pre- 
 sented as their candidates. Military Hall in the 
 Bowery, opposite Spring street, was the established 
 head-quarters of this party, and Mr. Alexander Cope- 
 
AMERICAN ORGANIZATIONS. 265 
 
 land, another distinguished Tammany Hall leader, was 
 elected chairman of the executive committee, beside 
 many other prominent officers, who, unwilling to be 
 duped, had turned away in pity and disgust on the 
 discovery of the "Veiled Prophet!" As that ma- 
 chinery is most ingenious which contains principles 
 for correcting its own imperfections, so this American 
 organization continued to improve upon experience 
 and its fall development in the succeding winter, 
 months secured the nomination and election the fol- 
 lowing spring, 1844, of Mr. James Harper, as their 
 Mayor, with a majority of the Common Council. 
 
 The pride of having taken from our national shield 
 some of the misfortune inflicted by our enemies, in- 
 duced the call of a meeting by the Americans, at the 
 Park, to give expression to their joy. When Bishop 
 Hughes, writhing under the friction of defeat, wrote to 
 the mayor and advised him not to allow that meeting 
 to take place, or it would end in bloodshed ! The 
 warning menace of the Pope's officer, caused its aban- 
 donment ! But the American people, who are to their 
 country, as the law to the sword, are resolved by God's 
 mercy and strength to-day, evermore to direct its 
 stroke and temper its force! It was then that Mr. 
 Jesse C. Wood, a valiant soldier in the American 
 cause, volunteered in the spirit of the heroes and mar- 
 tyrs of '76, to risk life to extend this American or- 
 ganization over the State, and amidst danger, difficulty 
 and eminent personal peril, he succeeded in Albany, 
 Troy, Schenectady, Syracuse, Auburn, and Buffalo, 
 and made provision for a State Convention, the suc- 
 12 
 
266 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 ceeding fall, which nominated its State Ticket at Utica. 
 Mr. Thomas E. Woodruff and Judge Campbell were 
 thus sent to the House of Representatives of the United 
 States, with a majority of delegates to the Assembly 
 from the city of New York, and Mr. George Folsom 
 to the Senate of that State. Mr. Wood, free from am- 
 bitious aspirations and above the desire or expectation 
 of pecuniary reward, still continued his patriotic labors, 
 and in the winter of that year organized a majority of 
 the towns of Westchester, the entire counties of Putnam 
 and Dutchess, half of Columbia, and several in Orange 
 and Sullivan counties, in that State. These are the 
 services which will command the lasting approbation 
 and love of the American people, and place the actors, 
 in the elevation of humanity, above the reach of 
 Bishops with their mitres, or kings with their sceptres I 
 The butchery of Americans, perpetrated in Philadel- 
 phia by the Irish Jesuits, next advanced on the move- 
 ment of Bishop Hughes in New York. But in using 
 the tools they cut their own fingers, and out of it arose 
 the "Native American Party,"of that city. The "shoot- 
 ing down" Americans for the exercise of freemen's 
 privileges, aroused simultaneouly the spirit of resist- 
 ance in Boston, the old Cradle of Liberty, which had 
 that magnificent tea party, of whom all patriots have 
 heard. The " Order of United Americans" had then 
 seven lodges there, and the " Sons of America" also, 
 their "encampment," the "Shiftier Club," which had 
 been formed about this period, guided and directed by 
 the true instincts of American nationality, announced a 
 meeting at Fort Hill, in the centre of the Jesuit foreign 
 
AMERICAN ORGANIZATIONS. 267 
 
 population of Boston, upon which their Priests procured 
 five hundred muskets and other warlike equipments, 
 and following the illustrious example of their New 
 York Archbishop, threatened insurrection and blood, 
 if the Americans carried out their programme. A vast 
 army, numbering some ten to fourteen thousand, arose 
 at this signal of defence, composed of young men of 
 every avocation, clerks, mechanics, and farmers, from 
 the adjoining towns, who marched in procession, armed 
 with the Stars and Stripes of our country waving over 
 their heads, and there gave expression to national sen- 
 timents and American principles and purposes. While 
 Bishop and Priests combined, these men were neither 
 "cowards nor the sons of cowards," but bravely faced 
 their foes. The prominent speakers on that occasion, 
 were Messrs. Gowan, Oxton, Hildreth, Foster Bryant, 
 Jesse Mann, and William Scudder Tisdale, of New 
 York city. Noble sons of worthy sires ! 
 
 More than eight years subsequent to the great 
 and patriotic Order of United Americans, and fif- 
 teen after the first Native American Association, 
 the germ of the Know-Nothing Order arose, from 
 whence has been developed the national party, which 
 in God's providence has revealed itself, not only in 
 capital cities, but has crowded every highway, and 
 entered every hut and hamlet in our land, and is now 
 the balm of mercy to our suffering country. 
 
 A few individuals residing in the city of New York, 
 who had hived the facts in connection with the cruci- 
 fiers of American liberty in that city, and could no 
 longer endure the chiding, insult, and neglect of the 
 
268 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 native-born citizens, who, brushed aside and thwarted 
 by the political parties with which they had inflexibly 
 cooperated, for foreigners who were enriched and re- 
 warded by the honor and emoluments of office, until 
 becoming the balance power and standing perpen- 
 dicularly upon American rights and prerogatives, had 
 announced the fatal fact, with an insolent audacity, 
 which irresistibly aroused the power and thunder of 
 the national thought. Hence, an alliance was then 
 formed of native born sons of all parties, animated by the 
 determined principle to prevent foreigners from holding 
 any office, political station, and manifesting especial 
 hostility to the foreign Catholic or Papist, as infinitely 
 least American in his sympathies, more scornful and 
 arrogant, the most servile and degraded, both from 
 ignorance and bigotry. This organization was intended 
 to operate only upon the municipal affairs of the city 
 of New York, and to bring her native born-citizens to 
 see the consuming fire, with such deep earnestness as 
 to place themselves, at least upon a level with the 
 alien. Its rugged sterling worth gained it rapid 
 strength, and a few " Councils," or " Wigwams," 
 bound by secret rites and obligations, were formed, 
 and exerted in some of the Wards a powerful and im- 
 portant influences in the municipal elections of that 
 city. 
 
 The alien Catholic population had spoken in the mean- 
 while in unmistakable and emphatic verdict against us 
 by concerted associations of that entire portion of the 
 population, and in some of the cities of the adjoining 
 States, such had been the violence of attack upon the 
 
AMERICAN ORGANIZATIONS. 269 
 
 Bible, the legal observance of the Sabbath, and the 
 greatest glory of our peculiar institutions — the Public 
 Schools — that the want of some such organization be- 
 came a feeling with the American people ! Learning of 
 the existence of the new association in New York, citi- 
 zens of different States when visiting that city, embraced 
 the occasion to be admitted to membership, who, on 
 returning to their homes, quick and resolute, instigated 
 the .establishment of similar associations to resist the 
 foreign influence in their own municipalities. The clear 
 graphic sight of the vigorous action of this system, 
 now developed the idea of a national organization for 
 national ends. It was truly the bursting fire, as if by 
 accident, which God had overruled to pierce the mar- 
 row of our national troubles. After difficulty and 
 disorder, the leaders of this great movement, agreed 
 for the common benefit, to divide their sceptre, and the 
 act of separation was so decreed. The one party call- 
 ing its subordinates "Wigwams," and "Lodges," were 
 assigned the North and East, as the field of their oper- 
 ation, while the other, bearing the title of "Council," 
 were destined to the South and West. New York 
 was the head-quarters of both, and the " State Wig- 
 wam" and the " State Council" of the State of New 
 York were respectively regarded as the national heads 
 of their sections, until five State Wigwams or Councils 
 had been formed, when a congress of delegates from 
 these would constitute a national body. 
 
 The sweet native graces of these principles began 
 immediately to melt and inflame the national heart, 
 and subordinate Councils or Wigwams were formed in 
 
270 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 New Jersey, in April, 1853 ; Maryland, the following 
 May ; Connecticut, in July ; Ohio, in October ; Penn- 
 sylvania, in December of the same year. The gen- 
 erous, all-embracing love of country, soon knit without 
 mystery an extended American brotherhood and strong 
 in understanding, as American in character, a conven- 
 tion composed of one delegate from every Council, 
 Lodge, and Wigwam in the United States, was con- 
 voked. On the 14th of May, 1854, at 81 East- 
 Broadway, New York city, the Empire State of New 
 York, with New Jersey, Maryland, Massachusetts, 
 Virginia, Ohio, and the District of Columbia, thus res- 
 ponded to the call, and looking to a closer and firmer 
 growth, a consolidated union was the result, and under 
 the name of " Grand Council" of the United States, a 
 meeting was appointed for the 14th of June, in the 
 same year. The light in the mean while had found its 
 way through small apertures, in Indiania, New Hamp- 
 shire, Maine, Kentucky, Georgia, Alabama, Ehode 
 Island, Illinois, and Michigan, and in the order named. 
 When, therefore, the Grand Council assembled on the 
 14th of June, at the former place, it was found neces- 
 sary to remove to the Odd Fellow's Hall, to accommo- 
 date the increased number of delegates. A striking 
 portrait in this feature of the movement, was that this 
 Council was a representation from thirteen States ! It 
 now became thoroughly compacted into harmonious 
 life and action, and after a most exciting session of 
 three days, their Constitution and Eitual were adopted 
 on the 17th of June. As if to catch the essence and 
 rapture of Liberty, at every progress this happened to 
 
AMERICAN ORGANIZATIONS. 271 
 
 bo also, the anniversary of the battle of Bunker Hill ! 
 Under that enactment, with such subsequent amend- 
 ments as time has shown to be expedient, this Order 
 has since been established in every State and Territory 
 which is sheltered under the American Union. 
 
 Thus free from ambitions yearnings, and advancing 
 comparatively under an uncertain guidance, has a seem- 
 ing trivial event become, under a beneficent destiny, 
 the cornucopia of power and effort and wise action, for 
 the second deliverance of the American people. 
 
 The officers of the first Grand Council were as fol- 
 lows: — 
 
 James W. Barker, Esq., New York City, President. 
 
 W. W. Williamson, M.D., Alexandria, Va., Vice-Pres. 
 
 Charles D. Deshler, New Brunswick, N. J., Cor. Sec. 
 
 James M. Stephens, Esq., Baltimore, Md., Eec. Sec. 
 
 Henry Crane, M.D., Cincinnati, 0., Treasurer. 
 
 The officers of the present National Council are : 
 
 E. B. Bartlett, Esq., Covington, Ky., President. 
 
 Charles D. Freeman, Esq., Philadelphia, Pa., Vice-Pres. 
 
 Charles D. Deshler, New Brunswick, N. J., Cor. Sec. 
 
 James M. Stephens, Esq., Baltimore, Md., Eec. Sec. 
 
 Henry Crane, M.D., Cincinnati, Ohio, Treasurer. 
 
CHAPTEE XIX. 
 
 THE JESUITICAL ATTEMPT TO DESTROY 
 THE AMERICAN NAVY. 
 
 " Oil for a tongue to curse the slave, 
 "Whose treason, like a deadly blight, 
 Comes o'er the ' Councils of the brave,' 
 To blast them in their 'hour of might.' " 
 
 Has America indeed a paralysis of the heart ? Can 
 she no longer penetrate the mystery which began her 
 life and heat ? Has she surrendered her recruiting force, 
 and become lost to sensibility, by the exhaustion put 
 upon her by the Eomish Hierarchy, the Anti- American 
 government which now afflicts and saddens her peo- 
 ple ? Thank God, we have yet a claim ! and the wail 
 and clamor of complaint and sorrow which has gone 
 out in thunder tones must arouse the national heart, 
 and shake its strong foundation from centre to extreme ! 
 
 The pride of our country has been broken, our 
 American navy, which has so nobly, fearlessly, and 
 majestically illustrated the honor and dignity of Ameri- 
 can liberty, and linked her sparkling glory to admira- 
 tion and wonder, in all lands and climes, has suddenly 
 been collapsed — crushed, and placed under the curse 
 of humiliation and punishment, not merely by the 
 lower agents, "the Eetiring Navy Board," but by the 
 
'■ a 
 
 07C 
 
 c--c 0^ 
 
ATTEMPT TO DESTROY AMERICAN NAVY. 273 
 
 President of the United States, the Secretary of the 
 Navy, and the same un-American influence which has 
 given and supported the original distinction of the 
 present National Executive ! A frightful parricide has 
 thus been made upon America's maternal heart, and 
 "without the solemn grace of dying like men, two hun- 
 dred and one officers have been struck off in a single 
 flake, and at least five hundred American families, who 
 were wrapped but yesterday in the laugh of security 
 and triumph, in the faith of American integrity, are 
 now bowed down under the shock of surprise, which 
 the secret sword of malice or caprice has sent into their 
 throbbing, unsuspecting bosoms. 
 
 An act ostensibly to promote the efficiency of the 
 navy, but really to destroy it, was by carnal weapons 
 and worldly devices, thrust upon the country during 
 the last hours of the former Congress, and approved 
 on the 28th of February, 1855. 
 
 It bore from its inception only the brightness of the 
 grave, and so conscious were its factors of its want of 
 mercy, dignity, and strength, that it escaped prostration 
 by party tactics, and was borne through the two houses 
 of Congress by attaching it to the Appropriation bill, 
 and thus, unnoticed, because unseen and unobserved, 
 made its foot-print silently over that political race- 
 course. This act of Congress then provided "the 
 finding of a Judicial Commission of fifteen officers of 
 the Navy, selected by the Groverment to carry out the 
 law, which "finding" was approved by the President 
 and Secretary of the Navy, under whose " instructions" 
 the whole matter was perfected. And thus by a " Bill" 
 12* 
 
274 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 which senators and members now frankly acknowledge 
 they had neither digested nor read, have the noblest 
 American citizens been betrayed, their honor sullied, 
 and their dearest rights as officers and men, shamefully 
 outraged and trodden under foot. It was by the votes 
 of a Democratic Congress that the act was passed, and 
 by the Secretary of the Navy and President Pierce's 
 sanction and approval, that the scythe was whetted by 
 that Board of "fifteen," which has mowed the flower 
 of the Navy from American soil. No culprit, advocate 
 or accuser was seen at that bar, from whence these 
 American men have been knocked off from the service 
 of their country, and tyranny and cruelty could inflict 
 no greater torture than to condemn freemen without fur- 
 nishing a charge, or permitting a defence ! More absolute 
 power than has thus been arrogated, was never exercised 
 by any government on the face of the earth. Why has 
 the American Navy been withered by this sweeping 
 execution, stripped of its just domains, when the 
 country's appeals to its force, as its right arm of defence, 
 was never more determined? "Why are her brave 
 spirits, whose intense labor and endurance in the 
 service of the people, whose blood and language, and 
 religion and laws are all American, shuffled like dice 
 by political Jesuit throw-holders? The cruel indiffer- 
 ence and unscrupulousness with which this late action 
 of the National Executive has shaken the very citadel 
 of American liberty and smitten with smiling implaca- 
 bility the American Navy ; in this the blessed day of 
 its revenge upon true Americans — calls upon this 
 people to rise in the spirit of the heroes of 76, who 
 
ATTEMPT TO DESTROY AMERICAN NAVY. 275 
 
 took oppression and scandal from the American name ; 
 and whether it be principal or accomplice, make a stand 
 against offenders by that warning hour of reckoning 
 for those who would ruin and enslave their country, 
 and bring disgrace and degradation upon her sons, 
 under the form of law ! 
 
 But whence the arbitrary discretion of this act, which 
 has not a vestige of constitutional right, and is violative 
 of those of the individual States of the Union ? Let 
 the American people who have been eaten as meat and 
 bread by the corrupting, corroding, consuming, foreign 
 oppression of the repacious foe of Eepublicanism, fathom 
 the question I and realize in this action of the govern- 
 ment, a deliberate, concerted attempt, on that part of the 
 enemy, which detests freedom and maintains the "gov- 
 ernment of authority" to blemish the honorable life 
 of the American Navy, and to throw into the back- 
 ground, men who had never flinched before persecuting 
 tyrants or hostile armies ; and without fear or scruple, 
 were ready to offer up their lives for the honor and 
 glory of their own beloved country. It was this same 
 Romish influence which induced the acknowledgment 
 from a leader of the Democratic party, in sullen and 
 resentful candor, that it had elected every democratic 
 President from the days of Mr. Munroe ! The inten- 
 sity and energy with which it has furbished and made 
 efficient the present onset upon the navy, can no more 
 be doubted, than its claim for victory and dominion in 
 all other cases, where the interests of Americans were 
 to be sacrificed. 
 
 The seat of a Eoman Catholic Postmaster General 
 
276 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 in the Cabinet, with two Northern Abolitionists, as well 
 as the foreign missions, were fresh engines of power, 
 obtained as the price of the last Presidential vote ! The 
 Pope of Rome by his encyclical letter of 1840, looked 
 at slavery as an artist ; and to hasten his supremacy in 
 the United States, through aliens in language, manners, 
 and intellectual constitution, he there essays to excite 
 scorn and disgust between the northern and southern 
 sections of this blood-bought Union, that the Papacy 
 might appropriate the benefits of this sectional exas- 
 peration, to drench our country in its vinegar and gall. 
 
 And when the merciless atrocity upon the American 
 Navy, which emanated from the judgment-seat at 
 "Washington, has been fearlessly exposed by the iron 
 courage of American men, the Church of Eome will 
 have been found the skilful leecher which has bled the 
 hearts of her sons and quivered the lips and made 
 weeping eyes around so many unfriended, unprotected 
 fire-sides — Helpless widows who brought their noble 
 sons in boyhood and dedicated them afresh to the 
 service of their country, and thus feeling the compen- 
 sation of their own loss, suffer in secret this dauntless, 
 gigantic oppression, which has disgraced their sons, 
 divorced them from the service of the country they 
 taught them to love ; far more, than they mourn the 
 penury, to which it has possibly subjected them. 
 
 It was Mr. Mallory, a Eoman Catholic Senator from 
 Florida, who first introduced a bill of this character in 
 the Congress of the United States, and who is now 
 adding to the pangs of wounded American honor, by 
 his uncompromising defence of the action of the Navy 
 
ATTEMPT TO DESTROY AMERICAN XAYY. 277 
 
 Board; the Secretary, who administered the rules and 
 regulations for their guidance and the President who 
 approved it! "Having carefully examined and de- 
 liberately considered the report 1 " And the death- 
 darkness of its action — without records, charges, argu- 
 ment or evidence by which the reputation or usefulness 
 of these two hundred and one officers could justly be 
 tainted — he mingled his strength with the error of that 
 disgraceful judicial torture, and with a gag to the 
 mouths of these gallant men, dragged them out by 
 public injustice to die officially, from the active list of 
 the American Navy. Our arms, arts, science, letters, 
 commerce, agriculture have all been slackened by this 
 stunning blow, and the American people want light 
 upon the matter— light that shall show her men as 
 they have ever looked in the issue and the fight, 
 neither concealed by intrenchments nor hid in Mexican 
 ditches I 
 
 Mr. Samuel F. Dupont and Mr. Godon, members of 
 this scarlet board, are Eoman Catholics, while Mr. 
 Shubrick, the President, is so connected by marriage. 
 Why were Eomanists thus anxious to subjugate the 
 American Navy? Why did they desire to impair 
 its vigor? It was for the same purpose for which 
 his Holiness the Pope sent his Bull to agitate slavery 
 and obtain the repeal of the Missouri compromise, 
 effected through the patronage of the National Execu- 
 tive ! It was to sap the foundation of oiir democratic 
 liberty and our glorious Constitution of Government, 
 which is hateful to European State-Church Absolutism, 
 and the cunning disciples of Jesuitism, who run wild 
 
278 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 with, delight in crippling the only arm of the national 
 defence, with which the United States of America could 
 interfere in the religious war which his most Catholic 
 Majesty, the Emperor of the French, is now waging in 
 the strange company of Protestant England, for the 
 possession of the Holy places in the dominions of the 
 Porte ! Here is the explanation of this extraordinary 
 coup d'etat of the Jesuits against the navy and the 
 country. Here, Americans, is the philosophy why 
 President Pierce, elected by a church holding a balance 
 power in this country, and ruling it in politics, and 
 his Secretary of the Navy, consented to the finding of 
 a Navy Board which had been obtained by the sacri- 
 fice of those great principles of personal rights, which 
 induced and justified the American Eevolution. A 
 Board which sat in secret conclave without the ex- 
 amination of persons or papers, made no records, and 
 decided in twelve minutes and forty seconds upon the 
 lifetime services of all those who had materially con- 
 tributed to elevate and distinguish the American Navy, 
 either by profound scientific discoveries, great inven- 
 tions, or brilliant naval achievements at sea ! Promi- 
 nent among these is Commodore Stewart, occupying the 
 same relation to the Navy that the illustrious Scott 
 bears to the Army of our country whose signal service 
 for almost a half century is known and appreciated by 
 all who value sincerity, constancy, and daring courage 
 in the American name and who is indubitably entitled 
 to the rank of Admiral by every concession of justice. 
 Yet even he, while in the active duty of command at 
 the Philadelphia Navy Yard, was displaced for another, 
 
ATTEMPT TO DESTROY AMERICAN NAVY. 279 
 
 Commodore Morris, who, though a gallant officer, had 
 made but one cruise at sea in the last thirty-two years ! 
 It also opened its unquenchable fires upon Commodore 
 Sloat, who anticipated the English but a short time in 
 taking possession of California, and raising the Ameri- 
 can flag upon that soil which has enriched our nation 
 by its valuable territory, and been embraced into 
 American arms. He it was, who by the construction 
 of gun-carriages and the use of live oak timber, other- 
 wise added usefulness to his country, and largely saved 
 her national pecuniary resources. There, too, is Lieu- 
 tenant "William D. Porter, to whose efficient service for 
 thirty-three years his country is indebted for the better 
 construction and equipment and discipline of ships, for 
 the valuable reorganization of Light Houses and Buoys, 
 for new methods of cultivating Hemp, and for the 
 brilliant chemical discovery of producing Carburetted 
 Hydrogen Gas from wood, all which entitle him to the 
 highest honors of distinction for his singular usefulness 
 in the American service. Nor could the charts of 
 winds and currents of the ocean, which have protected 
 merchant ships from gins and snares, and saved from 
 danger as well as shortened the voyage — impel a holier 
 action towards our gallant Maury, who with intrepid- 
 ity and enthusiasm, in his country's service, has not 
 only diminished the cruise of whale ships from thirty- 
 six to eighteen months, by ascertaining the migratory 
 character of that leviathan of the deep, but by various 
 contributions to our physical geography. Lieutenant 
 Gilliss, too, is there ! the famed American Astronomer, 
 who, by his stupendous labors in science under the 
 
280 THE GKEAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 orders of Iris government, took forty thousand obser- 
 vations in southern latitudes, in a residence of three 
 years in Chili, and so astounded the world with ad- 
 miration and wonder, that the French and English 
 officers sent by their governments upon similar 
 missions, adopted his data, without questioning its 
 accuracy. The same great movements of Graham 
 Maffit and others, cannot be overlooked, more than the 
 unadulterated bravery of many now disgraced, who 
 have faced the enemy under fearful odds, and won 
 fresh laurels for their country's glory. And now un- 
 der the standard of our assaulted, but yet living liberty, 
 the American mind must be stirred to the dregs ; our 
 country under the authority of Rome has been steered 
 into Papal seas until she cries out for American help, 
 from the blackness and darkness of despair ! 
 
 By the Greytown bombardment — by the Ostend con- 
 ference — by the complicity of the government in the 
 homicide of Don Eaymond, the "Washington of Cuba — 
 by the refusal to protect Purser Smith, an American 
 citizen — by the persecution of the peaceable colonists of 
 Nicaragua — by the appointment of Eoman Catholics 
 throughout the postal and revenue service of the 
 country, and the employment of foreigners in its Navy 
 Yards to the exclusion of the sons of revolutionary 
 sires, who were starving in the streets and on the high- 
 ways for work — and by the entire action of the national 
 executive in reference to the destruction of the Ameri- 
 can Navy and the Anti- American policy, which has 
 entirely characterized the actings of Mr. Pierce's ad- 
 ministration, it has already been pronounced by the 
 
ATTEMPT TO DESTROY AMERICAN NAVY. 281 
 
 judgment of true Americans, the darkest epoch in 
 American annals ! Why was the action of the Navy 
 Board in such sweet accordance with executive sym- 
 pathy ? Because it added these two hundred and one 
 appointments to his patronage, a matter of no small 
 importance to Congressmen in 1856, whose reelections 
 are often so ticklish, that no step to propitiate distin- 
 guished influence at home, can possibly be overlooked, 
 while the President, feeling his position, to secure his 
 own nomination by the Democratic party, equally risky, 
 was ready to compromise American honor, to entitle 
 him to this distinction from his friends through the con- 
 gressional instrumentalities for which they claim the 
 benefit of the monopoly. 
 
 , At the time this bill became a law, the administration 
 was zealously interested in searching out of the country, 
 with vulgar ugliness, the hated, dreaded, Know- 
 Nothingism ! The local elections of "Virginia and the 
 City of Washington were about to come off, and the 
 scale of action for the employees of the government was 
 seasonably fixed — the Executive patronage was dis- 
 pensed right and left to defeat Mr. Flournoy, of Vir- 
 ginia, the American candidate for governor, and the 
 President compelled the clerks of the departments at 
 Washington to go to the polls and deposit their votes 
 for the administration candidates, or lose their places. 
 And its candidates were defeated, to their great dis- 
 comfort, mainly by the efforts of Lieutenant Wm. D. 
 Porter, then a resident of Washington, who, by his 
 personal popularity with the workmen, and in the 
 indomitable will of an American, led five hundred 
 
282 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 voters to the ballot-box, and thus saved the metropolis 
 of the nation from the tawny complexion of Boman- 
 ism. 
 
 But such resistance was in conflict with the absolute 
 obedience of their faith, and it was soon resolved in 
 the Democratic and Jesuit councils to place the navy 
 in the same position as the custom houses and post 
 offices of the country, and unable to find a charge 
 upon the records, physical, mental or moral against 
 this American Porter, he was doomed to be "retired." 
 
 Let us look at the persons who composed this nota- 
 ble Navy Board. Captains — Wm. B. Shubrick, Mat- 
 thew 0. Perry, Charles McCauley, C. K. Stribbling, and 
 Abraham Bigelow. Commanders — Gr. I. Pendergrast, 
 Franklin Buchanan, Samuel F. Dupont, Samuel Bar- 
 ron, and Andrew H. Foote. Lieutenants — John- S. 
 Missron, Bichard L. Page, Sylvanus W. Godon, Wm. 
 L. Maury, and James S. Biddle. All these gentlemen, 
 it is well known, were educated at the expense of the 
 government; and, except Captain Perry, have never 
 performed any memorable service by which the coun- 
 try has been honored or the navy advanced. 
 
 In looking into the Navy Eegister, the people will 
 be shocked to find that these "fifteen," with scarcely 
 an exception, have dropped, furloughed, or retired, 
 every name on the Active List of the navy above 
 themselves in the order of promotion, and thus em- 
 bracing the opportunity to advance their own fortunes, 
 have, at the expense of these outraged men, taken the 
 shore stations with large pecuniary emoluments, instead 
 of active commands upon the ships. And let it be 
 
ATTEMPT TO DESTROY AMERICAN NAVY. 283 
 
 borne in painful remembrance, that not one of these 
 officers, who composed the Board, came into the navy 
 from the mercantile marine, although it is they who 
 have given most eclat to the navy, they who have 
 lifted their country's honor most fearlessly and most 
 laboriously to public admiration, wherever its flag has 
 been unfurled. These officers from the mercantile 
 marine, these self-made specimens of American men, 
 who would have cleared the raft and emptied the tanks 
 of injustice towards their country or her sons, were not 
 only unrepresented, but became the especial subjects ot 
 its malignancy and vengeance ! 
 
 The tart cathartic virtue of the Secretary of the Navy 
 asked for this law, upon the plea of the exhorbitant 
 personelle of the American navy, but after he obtained 
 its passage he discovered that ten new sloops of war, ot 
 light draught, were needed by the government I Thus 
 he floats and swings like a songster which has strayed 
 into the wilderness and is uncertain where to fly. 
 
 Our country should always be in readiness for the 
 terror of the storm, and should never be left as an 
 undecked boat. And in place of the Secretary's " light 
 sloops," and the lean, cracked navy he has made, the 
 American government now requires not only the brave 
 men of whom it is bereaved, by his efforts, but a line-of- 
 battle ships, large sea-going steamers, and steam frigates, 
 in addition to the ten new steamers ordered to be 
 built. 
 
 With singular stoicism of conscience, the Board, in 
 their self-relying souls, dropped every officer who held 
 the grade of master — a hyieroglyphic which signifies in 
 
284 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 common language, fear ! The American people, quick 
 to discern justice and truth, ever demand a direct pas- 
 sage to their beams, and require therefore a more minute 
 inspection of the Board who performed the obsequies 
 of the late United States Navy. "We find four of that 
 " Judicial Commission" to have been sent home by 
 Commander Hull as insubordinate officers ! 
 
 The chairman of the Board was Captain Shubrick, 
 who stated he was at the battle of Coney Island in the 
 laudatory pamphlet, which he published to prove the 
 same, and in which he most flagrantly assaulted the 
 Yirginia Volunteers. These Yolunteers, unwilling to 
 eat dust before the throne of freedom, caused an inves- 
 tigation before the "Virginia Legislature, when it was 
 proved, by the most refulgent evidence, that the said 
 Shubrick was not on the Island during the fight! 
 Americans, this was the president of the "Betiring 
 Board," which passed upon the " moral, mental, and 
 physical competency of the entire American Navy, 
 numbering seven hundred and twelve men of the va- 
 rious ranks ! This swimming man writes to Captain 
 Smoot, "that he ought to be satisfied, as he now 
 receives more than many pious clergymen, &c, and 
 even though that be taken away, the Board ought to 
 be sustained, as none were punished unjustly." 
 
 In the name of Dupont, there appears a Catholic, and 
 descendant of the only French officer who ever sur- 
 rendered an army of France, for which he was com- 
 pelled by Napoleon to leave the country, upon the 
 allegation of cowardice. Dupont is famous, and only 
 distinguished for having made out of the government 
 
ATTEMPT TO DESTROY AMERICAN NAVY. 285 
 
 half a million of money by contracts for powder and 
 clothing. This family, all Catholic, having immense 
 wealth, and a large number of employees, are able to 
 exert a large political influence in that State ! 
 
 "We find also the name of Barron — the same Barron, 
 let Americans remember, in painful humiliation, who 
 lowered his flag to the English frigate, Leopard, with- 
 out returning a shot, and allowed American seamen 
 to be taken from his ship. This was the first stain ever 
 put upon the American flag ! which was afterwards 
 the first errand of Commodore Porter in the Essex — a 
 wise selection, truly, to put the second disgrace upon 
 the stars and stripes of the American nation. His 
 name also is not forgotten by this people, in connection 
 with the death of Commodore Decatur. 
 
 Then there is Godon on the Board, another Boman 
 Catholic who was once tried, by court-martial, and 
 dismissed from the service of his country, but eluding 
 the good end of that trial, he was afterwards intrigued 
 into this position. The name of Pendergrast goes 
 along with Dupont, Godon, and Barron, who were 
 sent home to be court-martialed, as insubordinate offi- 
 cers in the Mediterranean squadron, by Commodore 
 Hull. The American people can best decide as to 
 the benefit which has ensued to the country, by the 
 clemency extended in these cases. 
 
 In May or June last, the San Jacinto, having Com- 
 modore McCauley and Capt. Stribbling on board, was 
 examined, under the general orders of the Navy De- 
 partment at New York, by Commodore Boorman, who 
 reported against the efficiency of the ship. These dis- 
 
286 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 tinguished officers, therefore, "retired" Boormanfrom 
 that Navy Yard, which, the Secretary of the Navy 
 and President endorsed, by putting the junior Captain, 
 of the Board, Bigelow, in his place I who, with Shu- 
 brick and Dupont, are said to be engaged in lake 
 speculations. Stribbling likewise has had dark charges 
 preferred against him, which fully entitle him to a 
 seat in the association, if not a high priest in the pro- 
 profession. Captains Perry and McCauley, and Com- 
 mander Poote, members of the Board, but a powerless 
 minority, are understood by the public to have disap- 
 proved of its action, and hence ought not to share in 
 the general obloquy and censure with the majority, 
 with whom they were most unfortunately connected. 
 
 Who were most active in getting up this Inquisition 
 of Americans? It was Morris, Dupont, Barron, Go- 
 don, Blake, Magruder, and Jenkins, who have all pro- 
 vided for themselves. Not a single member of this 
 fifteen came from the source of our greatest glory, the 
 mercantile marine! On board of the line of battle- 
 ship, Ohio, from whence Commodore Hull returned 
 Pendergrast, Dupont, and Godon, as insubordinate, 
 Commander Lockwood held position, and was retained 
 in the service ; and his friends, not without cause, at- 
 tribute his " retirement " by the Board, to the action of 
 Commodore Hull, as well as to a difficulty with Bige- 
 l©w, in the Gulf, on board a propeller. 
 
 On the 20th of June, 1856, these "fifteen" took 
 their seats in the city of Washington, the supreme 
 critics in droll disguises, to measure and define the 
 character and usefulness of the officers of the American 
 
ATTEMPT TO DESTROY AMERICAN NAVY. 287 
 
 Nayy. The law said, " you shall make a careful ex- 
 amination into the efficiency of the grades of the officers 
 hereinafter mentioned." The learned Secretary of the 
 Navy defines this inefficiency of officers to arise from 
 " physical, mental, or moral causes." The law said, 
 " whenever the Board shall believe that such incom- 
 petency has arisen from any cause implying sufficient 
 biame on the part of the officer to justify it, they shall 
 recommend that his name be altogether stricken from 
 the rolls. And secondly, provides a " reserved list," 
 a "furlough and leave of absence pay," rendering the 
 officers "subject for duty," but " ineligible to further 
 promotion" or pay. Here is a deprivation of private 
 property, (personal reputation) for the purposes of the 
 government, without compensation, and the placing 
 individuals, it may be a second time, on trial, for the 
 same offence, which is retrospective or expost facto, 
 and of course a manifest palpable infraction of the con- 
 stitutional code which governs American liberty. And 
 must arouse the indignation of the country at the un- 
 paralleled disregard of every claim of justice and right 
 to its own Navy, and teach the executive of Mr. Pierce 
 that it belongs to the descendants of those who fought 
 and gained our liberties, and not to the dominion of 
 the See of Eome. Happily for the nation, the Army 
 thus far has escaped a similar outrage through the manly 
 courage of the present Honorable Secretary of "War, 
 which had been designed to subserve the same inglori- 
 ous end. 
 
 Public opinion is now lashing together these ma- 
 terials and threaten a fierce explosion in the coming 
 
288 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 Presidential election. The American people in their 
 great nationality stand ready to grind out cause and 
 effect, to value rightly the liberty their fathers created, 
 and to appropriate it — glory to God ! The hearts and 
 souls of men were not given to the Board by this law — 
 Congress only authorized it to "recommend" to the 
 Secretary who was made by the act, the supervisor of 
 that "fifteen," and as responsible for its proceedings as 
 is the artizan for the building though he neither laid 
 the timbers or drove a nail I He has, however, possibly 
 in mistaken ignorance, acted more as the clerk to that 
 Board. And he who saw no more of its data than a 
 Nautilus, in its shelly covering, yet informs the Presi- 
 dent, he " carefully examined the report I" And he, 
 ungenerous and tyrannical, was prepared to blast the in- 
 terests, crucify the feeling, and character of these brave 
 American Officers, and disgrace this great arm of 
 American service sooner than hazzard the political 
 advantages which he carefully concluded might in this 
 action inure to himself. Why were not these officers, 
 though tried as by fire, allowed to appear in their 
 own defence ! a right guarranted by our institutions to 
 the cut-purse or murderer? The slightest pecuniary 
 or personal interest makes nugatory the action of a 
 juror, or the credibility of a witness under our wise 
 laws. But, here sat a court of fifteen, interested men, 
 whose ambitious aspirations could be gratified by 
 passing condemnation on unoffending men, and the 
 power of the temptation so far from being resisted, was 
 most shamefully appropriated to their own personal 
 advancement. 
 
ATTEMPT TO DESTROY AMERICAN NAVY. 289 
 
 It was for inability or incompetency, and not for the 
 trial of offences, that this act of Congress was passed, be- 
 cause an adequate remedy for the latter was known to 
 have been antecedent by courts-martial. Neither was it 
 for reduction, but for reform in the navy, as was osten- 
 sibly set forth by the Congressional Eeport. It is said 
 that the action of the Board was discordant and turbu- 
 lent, and the minority was sometimes so powerful, that 
 the fate of some officers must have been decided by a 
 single vote ; as that of Lieut. Davis, by the action of 
 Perry. And from the limited period of its short sit- 
 tings, in the thirty odd days of the session, but twelve 
 minutes and forty seconds could have been allowed, 
 under the most favorable movement, to decide upon 
 the worth and usefulness of a single man. Like moles, 
 they were industrious, worked in the dark, and in a 
 mistaken mother- wit, as they thought, very deep ; but 
 oh, what a stumble and trip I "Know thyself" had 
 not got down from heaven when they went to the 
 work I This action has advanced officers, which the 
 navy register shows, have not seen service afloat or on 
 land for twenty-five years ! One member of the Board 
 has been thus idle for twenty-three years, another 
 eighteen ! One has twice been afflicted with a broken 
 leg, although the distinguished Maury, who has filled 
 the world with admiration and praise, for his scientific 
 labors, which have blessed it, in common with his own 
 country, and whose service at sea is greater also 
 than many officers promoted by the Board, can find no 
 other explanation for having been snatched, ruthlessly 
 from the active list, which he has honored for thirty 
 13 
 
290 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 years, than that he once broke his leg, some fifteen 
 years ago! And when it is a notorious fact, that 
 others, maimed and blind, passed this ordeal unscathed, 
 Americans demand that retributive justice shall sum 
 mon to their bar, those who have disfranchised and de- 
 graded her distinguished sons, and have thus been 
 sentenced in the dark, upon the shadowy plea of in- 
 competency. Every officer, above the junior members 
 of the Board, advanced one or more of its "Fifteen," 
 by being declared incompetent. Hence of three hun- 
 dred and sixty-two in that rank, 138 were ejected from 
 all further promotion, whilst forty-six only of three 
 hundred and thirty -two below the line of promotion, 
 suffered any sentence of disapprobation from their arbi- 
 trary power. 
 
 It cannot be doubted, that the navy, numbering so 
 many officers, ranks, and grades, may, like all other 
 bodies of the same magnitude, have possessed some 
 devoid of the confidence of the country, and unworthy 
 to bear station in the American service ; but there is 
 no man, however debased .by idleness, ignorance, in- 
 temperance, or moral turpitude, who, as an American 
 citizen, has not a right, under American laws, to be 
 heard in his own defence, before doomed to an igno- 
 miny from whence there is no possible escape ! 
 
 There are doubtless Eoman Catholics who have 
 shared in the common disgrace, but is it not fair to pre- 
 sume this may have arisen either from misapprehen- 
 sion, or a concerted show of magnanimity, to shut out the 
 light of facts from the eyes of the American people, and 
 thus screen their real design, when their gallant Por- 
 
ATTEMPT TO DESTEOY AMERICAN NAVY. 291 
 
 ter and other officers are known to have been punished, 
 for the crime of maintaining and espousing, at the ex- 
 pense of governmental displeasure, the active princi- 
 ciples of the American Party. Again, the Secretary 
 and the Board decline the civility of personal explana- 
 tion, not only to men like Lieut. Maury, but ladies, 
 prostrated in the common suffering of their natural 
 protectors, have received nothing more from the Hon. 
 Secretary's courtesy. Lastly, science, which is to the 
 American as the sun of heaven, gladdening and illu- 
 mining the world, had so little sympathy with this 
 government action, that it has, by the acknowledge- 
 ment of Biddle, a member of the Board, been pro- 
 nounced as just a cause for removal from further pro- 
 motion in the service, as the love of idleness, laziness, 
 or lucre ! 
 
 Science, the firmest friend of virtue, which is the 
 commanding power over the destructiveness of the ele- 
 ments, and teaches Americans only to follow, and not 
 to be led or driven, is undoubtedly in conflict with the 
 wisdom and will of Papal Jesuitism, which has to be 
 simultaneously propitiated at Washington and Bome ! 
 
 It is often as painful to the mind as the sight, to look 
 upward ; and the Lilliputian coterie never evince half 
 the surprise or gratification of beholding giants, that 
 men of great stature find. Hence the absence of 
 admiration and suffrage of these wise men of the 
 Board. Unwilling to do homage for what they felt no 
 reverence, and refusing the navy the adoration of such 
 intellectual phenomena, as might tend to embarrass 
 and grapple with their own mental anatomy. But 
 
292 THE GEEAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 why, if science had so out-grown its naval cradle, as 
 to discard some of its nurses, why were they not all 
 similarly removed from the active service? The 
 American people emphatically and dogmatically ask — 
 why? What martyrs to virtue — what infirmities of 
 men ! Ye magnanimous gods ! Look, Americans, at 
 the nature of the contract between the government of 
 the country and the servants in its service. They 
 swear, on the one part, to give their lives to the main- 
 tenance of its glory, and to trace its triumphal name, 
 in war and victory, at its call. The government, on 
 the other, binds itself by the same solemn obligation, 
 to protect and honor these men, under the heaviest 
 cannonading known to its laws; and the adminis- 
 tration, unable to sail in their teeth, have tacked about 
 to inflict a mortal blow upon these guardians of liberty, 
 which has excited the fears and the shame of the 
 American nation. 
 
 There is not a despotic government, upon which the 
 light of heaven has ever shone, that would have per- 
 petrated similar banishment and execution upon the 
 right arm of its defence. In England, France, Nor- 
 way, and Sweden, the informer, the accusation, and 
 the proof, have to glow and permeate in the public 
 gaze, before any individual in their service can be 
 branded as incompetent or corrupt. While in Eussia, 
 nothing short of an open trial can possibly produce a 
 dismissal from its employment. 
 
 Has it come to this ! that the sons of the American 
 navy are placed under persecution for daring to aspire 
 to wisdom ? Are naval officers but a body of tars, 
 
ATTEMPT TO DESTROY AMERICAN NAVY. 293 
 
 destined by their country to remain as serfs, as callous 
 to mental progress and improved sensibility as a rhi- 
 noceros' hide ? Look at the naval history of the 
 country, at the expeditions of Wilts, of Perry, and of 
 Kane, as well as other distinguished men to whom we 
 have referred, and in pure American integrity, choose 
 the testimony of the eye, to show this trespass on for- 
 bidden ground ! Beside the illustrious men of whom 
 honorable mention has been made, who suffer now, 
 under the automata of administrative passion, and who, 
 not being reachable by climbing, have been under- 
 mined by creeping, regardless of its own appearance 
 in the scramble. Commodore Charles W. Skinner, 
 one of the most intelligent and efficient officers on 
 ship-board or ashore, is found upon the list. Captain 
 David Gesinger, of the same elevation of character, 
 Capt. H. 0. Ogden, who covered himself with glory in 
 the battle of the Essex, under the command of that 
 name which every true American delights to honor, 
 the late Commodore Porter. In this galaxy of immu- 
 table lights, which blend in our country's greatness, 
 are seen two commanders, Piatt and Horace Sawyer, 
 survivors of the victory so gallantly achieved on Lake 
 Champlain, under McDonough. Captain Eamsey, a 
 Catholic, now dropped, is a brave and distinguished 
 officer, who performed services for his country in the 
 last war, which entitle him to its best affections, and 
 who is yet in the vigor of manhood. Captains 
 Parker and Latimer, who have ever rendered the most 
 acceptable effectiveness in the various grades where 
 they have served their government ; while the latter is 
 
294 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 known to have been the first officer on board a frigate of 
 the U. S., who entered Pensacola harbor in Florida, 
 after the exchange of flags, in the year 1821. And by 
 his singular energy and industry, to have rendered the 
 Pensacola Navy Yard, the great naval depot of the 
 south, to which end he procured the government ap- 
 propriation of one million of dollars. He served with 
 distinguished ability in the war of 1812, and during 
 the Mexican war, Commodore Perry, one of the " Fif* 
 teen," repeatedly expressed in his despatches, his obli- 
 gations for the assistance afforded his fleet, by the firm- 
 ness and moral intrepidity displayed by this officer. 
 And why, after a service of forty-five years, has this 
 faithful servant been displaced, is not a problem of 
 doubtful solution. Godon, a member of the Board, 
 had been dismissed from the service upon charges pre- 
 ferred by Capt. Latimer, and afterwards restored, as 
 has been shown by political gasconading. This Lieut. 
 Godon is a protege of Barron, whose son-in-law and 
 nephew were also members of the Board. And hence, 
 mercy was too far hidden, in his case, to be pumped up, 
 when there was no forcing principle to be found. 
 
 Among the Lieutenants who have been disengaged, 
 or dropped from the service, there is the son of the 
 late gallant Commodore Stevens, who brilliantly illus- 
 trated his nationality on Lake Erie; the son of the 
 late Commodore AVoolse}-; McDonough, nephew of the 
 Hero of the battle of Champlain ; Decatur, a nephew 
 of the late Commodore Stephen Decatur. And Eobert 
 B. Biell, whose character has not only been ever 
 unimpeachable as an officer, but whose reputation as a 
 
ATTEMPT TO DESTROY AMERICAN NAVY. 295 
 
 champion of Christianity, the records of the Bible, Tract 
 and Seamen's Friend Societies, abundantly prove by 
 his zealous and earnest dissemination of the principles 
 of Protestantism, in each and every position the 
 government has assigned him. When it is remem- 
 bered that the Jesuits in '44, declared Mr. Freling- 
 huysen's nomination, defeated Henry Clay, as he was 
 a Protestant and President of the American Bible So- 
 ciety, and Eoman Catholics could not vote for him — it 
 is not at all wonderful that this imperfection of young 
 Eiell should make him a victim, to that same influence. 
 In extenuation of the Board, in his case however, it 
 should not be forgotten, that there is one crime for 
 which he was chargeable. He asked permission of Com- 
 mander Gerry, of the ill-fated sloop Albany, to place a 
 quarto Bible and a religious library on board, for 
 which offence he was soon after detached from the 
 ship, and saved in God's providence from the watery 
 grave, in common with about two hundred and one of 
 his brother officers, of -various grades. 
 
 To forgive our enemies is a divine injunction, but 
 we know no similar text, in reference to friends. And 
 hence, in this present national revulsion, what has it 
 made but one great aceldama I And the sad experience 
 just recited, settles the question as to the danger of v 
 constituting a tribunal of Naval men, to decide upon 
 the cases of their brother officers. It cannot be done ! 
 And the American people should at once insist, that 
 every officer retired or dropped by this inquisitorial 
 act of the government, be instantly restored to his for- 
 mer position. And that a Board be appointed from 
 
296 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 the native citizens of the country, elected by ballot 
 from the great body of the American people, who in 
 their peaceful industrial pursuits are not inoculated 
 with political virus. Let this Board number twelve 
 men, so elected, who shall receive a per diem and hold 
 their sessions in the city of New York, to avoid the 
 influence of government surroundings. And with the 
 rules of common law — evidence as their guide, let them 
 summon persons and papers and examine the testi- 
 mony. Let the ballots for this Board be cast by the 
 officers of the Navy, but wholly removed from all 
 connection, relation, or association with the members 
 of the service. And after being sworn to administer 
 justice and examine carefully into each case, they shall 
 keep a record of every stage of its proceeding, and 
 make a report of its action to Congress, for approval. 
 If this cannot be effected, then retire the officers to their 
 late places, and if any charges are preferred of recent 
 origin, try them like American men, and sentence 
 them, if guilty, in conformity with Constitutional Am- 
 erican law. 
 
 It is undoubtedly true that a large number of meri- 
 torious officers have been promoted by the action of 
 that board. And we rejoice, so far, in their promo- 
 tion, as it is a just recompense of their deserts. But 
 we are satisfied that even these officers themselves can- 
 not feel complimented to know they have been ele- 
 vated at the sacrifice of their superiors in grade — who 
 have been cowardly prostrated by the same ink and 
 pen which set them above the heads of these, their 
 brother officers. We see not, indeed, how any man 
 
ATTEMPT TO DESTROY AMERICAN NAVY. 297 
 
 with cultivated sensibilities, and a high sense of moral 
 right, and consequent abhorrence of national as well 
 as individual wrong, would not loathe the unjust means 
 by which he has reached his present position. What 
 patriot heart does not rejoice in the promotion of such 
 gallant officers as Commander Wm. 0. Nicholson, late 
 Flag-Captain of the Pacific squadron, promoted to a 
 captaincy? And yet he is too noble, generous, and 
 brave, in all the impulses which honor his manhood 
 and belong to the rights of an officer, to sanction this 
 wrong to his brothers in the service, even though it 
 promoted himself to the highest position in the navy 
 of his country, of which he is one of the brightest 
 ornaments. 
 
 The betrayers of these officers have indeed received 
 the Judas reward ! But they, with the author of the 
 Bill — who came from that sinking soil of Key West, 
 on which Protestant blood has been shed by Jesuits, 
 and upon whose sandy sod nothing strong or stable 
 stands — will soon be judged by the American people, 
 and sentenced according to their desert, for subverting 
 their government, selling out their navy, and daring 
 to cast off from the service of their country, those who 
 have given honor, fame and glory to the American 
 name! 
 
 ' Is there not some chosen curse 
 Some hidden thunder in the stores of heaven, 
 Red with uncommon wrath, to blast the man, 
 Who owes his greatness to his country's ruin ?" 
 
 13* 
 
CHAPTER XX. 
 
 THE EXPULSION OF THE JESUITS. 
 
 " There's a warfare where none but the morally brave, 
 Stand nobly and firmly their country to save I 
 'Tia the war of opi-ndon, where few can be found, 
 On the mountain of principle, guarding the ground, 
 With vigilant eyes ever watching the foes, 
 Who are prowling around them, and aiming their blows, w 
 
 Holding it be the American's right to abolish or 
 change any principle of their policy, which has been 
 found destructive to themselves, and contrary to the 
 spirit of their free institutions, which are sacred to those 
 by whom they have been inherited — let a consideration 
 ,' of facts be submitted to the candid judgment of the 
 American people. Foreigners have trampled into dust 
 the naturalization laws, and destroyed the purity of the 
 elective franchise. They have demanded that their 
 children be taught in a tongue foreign to our own. 
 , They have organized military companies, anti- Ameri- 
 can not only in language, spirit, and political associa- 
 / tion, but have required our laws to be printed in their 
 I respective foreign tongues, for their especial use ! In 
 \ all our elections, they have acted as foreigners. They 
 have intrigued with political native-party Jesuits, by 
 selling their votes for the highest offices of trust, honor, 
 
300 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 or profit in our country. They have violated American 
 nationality and law, by insisting on ' a recognition of 
 their own, as separate and distinct. They have upheld 
 a foreign hierarchy, controlled by an impudent eccle- 
 siastic, called a Pope, who lives at Eome, but fearlessly 
 asserts that he is the Sovereign Lord of these United 
 States by Divine right ! And, through the ballot-box, 
 they have made a union between Church and State, by 
 striking at our dearest institutions, and by their efforts 
 to destroy the public and free schools of our country. 
 They have taxed our poor and filled our almshouses. 
 They have increased crime an hundred fold, as the prison 
 statistics show, in comparison with criminals born upon 
 the soil. They have demanded, as a right, the public 
 offices of the country, and now occupy a majority of these, 
 to the exclusion of native citizens. Truly our country has 
 run against an axe, and this is the crisis to try its edge : 
 when our society, our schools, our religion, our con- 
 stitutional liberty, and our great nationality have been 
 black-balled upon their own race-ground. It is shown, 
 by irrefragible evidence, that the Inquisition of Popery 
 has already been established on American soil, and 
 nine hundred French Protestant Huguenots, the first 
 who ever came upon it for the cause of God and free- 
 dom, were thus made to water the Southern portion 
 of these United States with their blood. The Masonic 
 fraternity, to which the Father of his Country, Wash- 
 ington, belonged, the Temperance organizations, and 
 the humane and benevolent order of Odd Fellows, 
 are under the curse of the Pope in this country ; and 
 the laity are forbidden by their Priests, not only against 
 
EXPULSION OF THE JESUITS. 301 
 
 uniting with them, but they have refused, in Balti- 
 more, Philadelphia and elsewhere, to perform burial 
 services in their churches while they were in attendance. 
 
 Rev. Dr. De Barth, the Vicar-General of Penn- 
 sylvania, residing in Philadelphia, inquired of Mr. 
 Ilogan, then Priest of Saint Mary's Church, if he in- 
 tended becoming a citizen of the United States. Ho- 
 gan replied, he could not conscientiously take the oath 
 of allegiance to this government, without violating that 
 taken at his ordination. " You are mistaken/' said the 
 cunning Jesuit Vicar-General. "Any part of your 
 oath to this country, incompatible with your first and 
 greater allegiance to the Head of your Church, cannot be 
 binding." Mr. Hogan still doubting, the Vicar-General 
 boldly said, " This looks heretical — it is necessary to de- 
 clare yourself a citizen of the country that you may be 
 empowered to hold property for the good of the 
 Church : it must be got out of the trustees' hands." 
 
 There is not a Priest or Bishop in the United States 
 who dares to deny the fact, that they teach three mil- 
 lions in our land, that they do absolve from this oath 
 of allegiance to our American laws ! Priests confess and 
 forgive, weekly, the sins of each other!! 
 
 Americans, here is the language of Popery among 
 us! " Although the life or salvation of a man, or the 
 ruin of the State should depend upon it, what is disco- 
 vered in confession cannot be revealed. The secret of 
 the seal — the confession — is more binding than the ob- 
 ligation of an oath." " It is no perjury for a confessor 
 to deny," if asked, says the Popish Church — " You must 
 answer you do not know ; and, if necessary, confirm it, 
 
302 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 with an oath!" "Because he knows it not as man, 
 but as God " Can Americans permit a system, which 
 is designed to elude all the ends for which life, liberty, 
 and the pursuit of happiness were sought and obtained 
 by Our great Bevolution? Hogan, who officiated as 
 Eomish Priest of the aforesaid St. Mary's Church, in 
 Philadelphia, acknowledges having baptized thousands 
 of Protestant children, taken to him in the arms of Bo- 
 man Catholic nurses, without the consent or knowledge 
 of their parents. He states it to have been usual to 
 find six or eight nurses waiting with children for his re- 
 turn home, after daily church services, in the morning. 
 And that this habit, though common in all Protestant 
 countries where there are Eomish Priests, is nowhere 
 so generally practised as in the United States. " And 
 I should not be the least surprised," said he, "if 
 nearly all the children of Boston, nursed by Boman 
 Catholics, are now baptized by their Priests and 
 Bishops." These little innocents are heretics, they be- 
 lieve, and that they thus save them from damnation. 
 New-York, Baltimore, and other cities undoubtedly 
 could give, if there was an insight to the corruption, a 
 similar experience. Americans know that, as here- 
 tics, death and destruction is the watchword of Popery. 
 Can a Protestant worship God, according to his con- 
 science in Eome or any Popish country of Europe, 
 South-America, Cuba, Mexico, and the adjoining 
 islands? We, citizens of the United States, cannot 
 even carry a Bible into those countries. The trunks 
 of a Protestant are searched ; and, if one is found, it 
 is taken from him. In sickness, no minister, under 
 
EXPULSION OF THE JESUITS. 303 
 
 the pain of death can speak to him ; no Bible can be 
 opened ; and, in death, no good Catholic would close 
 the eyes of a heretic. 
 
 And these libellers upon religion and humanity who 
 become citizens of our country, ask our lands upon which 
 to build churches, pulpits, and schools, are sworn foes to 
 our civil and religious freedom ! Why have not Amer- 
 icans demanded a different course in Eoman Catholic 
 countries, if necessary, by the power of the sword? 
 Why enter into treaties of amity with any Popish 
 power, unless the rights of Americans can be redressed, 
 as well as protected by law ? Great God ! can Ameri- 
 cans thus abnegate all their natural rights within 
 Popish dominions — forbidden their Bibles, forbidden 
 to bury their dead, forbidden to worship God by the 
 rights of their forefathers ? The Executive Messages 
 tell the people of " assurances of friendly relations" 
 from Popish countries, when it is only by buying 
 the privilege from their Priests, at an enormous sacri- 
 fice of money, that the body of an American, however 
 distinguished at home, could find a grave in their do- 
 minions! When this subject, two years ago, was 
 brought before a Democratic Congress, by one of its 
 most influential Senators, Gen. Cass, the Popish repre- 
 sentative for New-York, f John, shook his tyrannical 
 sceptre over that national body, and the noble efforts 
 of the Senator were hushed into silence. Thus has 
 the science-baffling star of Popery shot its impure 
 action even into our legislative halls, when the least 
 evidence of American independence there appeared! 
 
304 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 And it is high tune to cast these facts in the lap of the 
 immense intelligence of the American people. 
 
 Will Americans continue to be brow-beaten by 
 blood-thirsty cowards in Romish countries ? Will they 
 longer allow these contemptible international treaties 
 of amity and commerce to exist? Papal nations, which 
 deny to our own citizens all the principles of justice, 
 reciprocity, courtesy, and amity, which we extend to 
 them. Let our Protestant country arouse at once to 
 a sense of this insolent humiliation of Americans 
 abroad, and through their representatives in Congress, 
 annul and forbid forever, the execution of any treaty with 
 a Popish power, which denies them the right to their own 
 Protestant Bible — the right to the burial of their own 
 citizens there, and as they please — the right to the perfect 
 freedom to worship God, or erect altars to His service, 
 and all other privileges which, as American citizens, 
 they fully reciprocate in their own native land. Think 
 of the sons of revolutionary sires forbidden to worship 
 God in Rome, without attendance from the spies of 
 the Inquisition, and being liable to imprisonment, from 
 which they may never be released ; and the finding a 
 Bible in their houses, a jail offence for their families! 
 This is the exact state of the case : when an American 
 ship arrives at any of these countries in Europe, where 
 the Romish Church is the State, a search is made, and 
 the captain and crew are forbidden to carry a Bible on 
 shore. Should a Protestant chaplain accompany them, 
 he dare not open his lips to a congregation of sailors 
 on that soil, nor give them Christian burial in the event 
 
EXPULSION OF THE JESUITS. 305 
 
 of death. A ship may at the same moment leave that 
 port for our country, loaded with rosaries, saints, in- 
 digencies, scapulas, and hosts of little gods ; and cap- 
 tain, crew and saints, find no barrier whatever to their 
 religion or progress, from one end of this Union to the 
 other. And yet, these are nations holding treaties 
 of friendly relations and amity with the United States 
 — nations which compel Americans, whom they hold 
 to be damned, to bow the knee to the idolatrous wor- 
 ship of wooden images and particles of bread, which 
 are paraded as gods in the streets of Romish countries 
 — nations who trample down every natural right of 
 American citizens, and curse the eternal laws of God's 
 immutable truth. 
 
 The American, who enters into an alliance with the 
 Pope, or a Popish country, explicitly agrees to deny 
 his God and forswear the Protestant religion. He vir- 
 tually consents that the party with whom he agrees 
 shall curse and damn him, his country, his religion, 
 and his rights ! 
 
 Do these amicable and friendly treaties with Roman 
 Catholic countries mean but the right to ship our com- 
 modities there, and receive theirs in exchange? Is 
 the almighty dollar the only consideration with Ameri- 
 can men, that the sacred principles of justice, of right 
 and wrong, of moral and national obligations are al- 
 lowed to be discarded by the surest and most rapid 
 evolutions ? And now, with heads of crystal and nerves 
 of brass, let Americans, with God's help, advance and, 
 seizing upon their rights, resolve, and act. When their 
 heads and hearts are with their country, it commands 
 
306 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 their hands. This foreign hierarchy prohibiting the 
 light of our civil and religious freedom, and holding 
 American citizens imprisoned, in their dungeons at 
 Eome, for its exercise upon American soil, raising 
 the cry of persecution and proscription against our 
 American Party for religious intolerance, looks as 
 though the Beast had lost its wisdom tooth ! 
 
 No wonder the Boston Pilot, one of the administra- 
 tion organs, should call " Americans cowards, and the 
 sons of cowards," if, like animals blind in one eye, 
 or lame in one limb, they make no American foot- 
 print on Komish sand, or see not its clustering flies, 
 which swarm and sip, in sumptuousness and ease, the 
 honey of their own American hives. The Bull pro- 
 nounced in solemn pomp in Borne, in which every 
 Anti-Bomish sect is cursed by name, is elsewhere shown 
 in this work. But our Legislatures, who take away the 
 Church property and tax the real estate of these spies 
 of our republic, are doubly damned in that same edict ! 
 They are united by a band of oaths as thick as their 
 convent walls, to use all manner of treachery to pull 
 down the standard of heresy in these United States, 
 and erect that infamous policy of the Pope, which for 
 sixteen hundred years has deluged Europe in blood, 
 and already stained, by its Inqusition, our own soil of 
 freedom ! 
 
 "Americans shan't rule us," was the motto in the 
 last Presidential election. It is their motto now fully 
 enacted. It is enshrined in their hearts, and borne 
 upon their flags in all the disgraceful riots of Phila- 
 delphia, Boston, Cincinatti and Louisville, where 
 
EXPULSION OF THE JESUITS. 307 
 
 Americans were sacrificed to the fury of a Popish 
 mob ! 
 
 They apply to our Legislatures for authority they 
 dare not exert otherwise, to build jails in our midst 
 for free American women, who, confined to solitary 
 cells, have access only to the priests, and thus seduced 
 from their parents and guardians, no one is permitted 
 freely to know how they like their condition ; and all 
 this ostensibly for the purposes of education ! Mr. 
 Hogan, former priest of the celebrated St. Mary's 
 Church, in Philadelphia, distinctly declares, that Ameri- 
 cans of high moral worth are often ensnared into the 
 Eomish Church, by the exhibition of books prepared 
 for such cases. And hence, seeing nothing but imposing 
 ceremonies, and reading nothing that is objectionable, 
 thousands who attend its services in this country, are 
 as ignorant of its pernicious political teachings as the 
 Protestant brother with whom they associate. They 
 feel, therefore, the force of the appeal, that Jesuits indus- 
 triously enforce, to excite that slanderous attempt to fast- 
 en the charge of persecution upon the American Party. 
 It is the solemn duty of this American government, not 
 merely to modify, but to exclude from every State and 
 territory of this Union, the deadly enemies of its free- 
 dom, and the sworn transgressors of all national law. 
 The Romish Jesuit bishops and priests are agents 
 and emissaries of Mr. Mastai, more familiarly known 
 as the Pope of Rome! who has one hundred millions 
 of dollars to dispose of yearly, for the destruction of 
 heresy, and who has sent his edict to his New York 
 agent, known as Bishop Hughes, to cause one hundred 
 
308 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 thousand dollars to be raised, for the purpose of founding 
 a college at Koine for American citizens. Our Great Seal 
 contains thirteen stripes on a shield, and thirteen stars, 
 which indicate the original States. The American eagle 
 bears these upon its breast, with an olive branch in its 
 right talon, and a bundle of thirteen arrows in its left. 
 In its beak the motto, " E. Pluribus Unum." And there 
 is a glory breaking through a cloud in the crest over 
 its head, within the thirteen stars, while an unfinished 
 pyramid, with the All-seeing eye are on the reverse of 
 it, having at its apex and base these noted words : " God 
 has favored the undertaking," and " A new order of 
 things has commenced in the new world," dated 1776! 
 And it now remains for Americans to bring all their 
 national energies to bear in extinguishing Jesuitism 
 from these United States, and by the living thunder of 
 the people's judgment, to maintain this freedom which 
 God has blessed, and drive its blazing wheel, like 
 lightning cars, which shall send glad tidings throughout 
 the world. 
 
 Look at the facts, and doubt, if you can, the power 
 and danger of the Jesuits, in this country. 
 
 Here is the data, translated, in the words of a 
 "Father/' in a late article in his Catholic "Kirchen 
 Zeitung," or "Advocate." 
 
 " Whoever undervalues the spiritual power of the 
 Church in the United States, wanders in a fearful laby- 
 rinth. "We have not only seven archbishops, thirty- 
 three bishops, and seventeen hundred and four priest?, 
 all in the service of the Pope and the Church, but we 
 have also thirty-one colleges, thirty-seven seminaries, 
 
EXPULSION OF THE JESUITS. 309 
 
 and a hundred and seventeen female academies all 
 founded by the Jesuits, bringing danger and death to 
 unbelief and misbelief to American Know Nothingisrn 
 and un-American Eadicalism. And the hierarchial 
 band which, like a golden thread, surrounds forty-one 
 diocesses and two apostolic vicariates, and stretches 
 from the Atlantic Ocean to the still waters of the Pa- 
 cific, and maintains an invisible, secret, magnetic con- 
 nexion with Eome — this hierarchy is to us a sure guar- 
 antee that the Church, perhaps after several struggles 
 and sufferings, will one day come off victorious over 
 all the sects of America. It is computed that there are 
 at present, more than three millions of Catholic inhab- 
 itants in the United States who are baptised and con- 
 firmed Catholic soldiers of the Lord, and who, at the 
 first summons, will assemble in rank and file; then 
 will men not undervalue the power of the Catholic 
 Church in the United States. I will scatter sand in 
 no one's eyes, and therefore I stand forth openly, and 
 directly declare that the power and the influence of 
 the Catholic Church are stronger than many be- 
 lieve. Whoever doubts this must be either a fool or 
 blind." 
 
 Can Americans hesitate after such a disclosure, to 
 rip up this swelling, bullying, bragging enemy from 
 our soil, and in the solid column of truth, frankness, 
 courage and love, compel these Jesuit foes to flee from 
 our country ? It is in the ears of these foes, that the 
 secrets of the noble, the powerful, and the beautiful of 
 American concerns, are breathed. And at their feet 
 that the young are instructed to steal away the love of 
 
310 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 liberty from the soul, and the old to plot against our 
 government through apostate sons, who would plunge a 
 knife into the hearts of the people, to inscribe their 
 own names upon its statutes ! By heathen as well as 
 Christian, by Romish far more than Protestant State) 
 the Jesuits have been driven from the pulpit, the press- 
 the confessional, and the schools. From 1355 to 1773, 
 thirty -four states of Europe had rid themselves from 
 this stain of infamy. Subsequent to this, in 1816, they 
 were expelled from Russia by Alexander, and more re- 
 cently still, from the whole continent. And now warned 
 by the exterminating sword of these Crusaders, in the 
 old world, they proclaim that they mean to save them- 
 selves in the new, by revising our political action and 
 exterminating our Protestant institutions. 
 
 "America," says Guistiniani, a prophetic writer, 
 "is the land of the Jesuits. They need butamajority 
 of votes, which can easily be had by an importation 
 of Roman Catholics, from Ireland, Bavaria and Aus- 
 tria. Rome knows herself as a mere political institu- 
 tion under the garb of Christianity. She takes care, 
 therefore, to uphold that holy Militia, the order of 
 Jesuits, to appear what she is not. In ten years they 
 will have a mighty influence over the ballot box — in 
 twenty they will command." 
 
 Yes, Americans, it is even so. These cunning, sneak- 
 ing, intriguers, have scathed and desecrated our fair 
 political heritage by the assistance of the native trick- 
 sters ! 
 
 The " Catholic Sentinel" of Philadelphia, commenting 
 some years since upon the sermon of Mr. McCalla, an 
 
EXPULSION OF THE JESUITS. 311 
 
 eminent Protestant divine, who eulogized New-England, 
 thus reflected upon that great people : — 
 
 ".Their minds are warped by fanaticism, darkness 
 and bigotry, and vitiated by the abhorred and atrocious 
 principles inculcated by the vice of sanguinary wretches, 
 called the Pilgrim Fathers /" 
 
 Mr. Hogan, when sent out as a Romish Priest, re- 
 ceived from his Bishop in Ireland these instructions : 
 "Be sure not to permit any member of our holy 
 Church to read the Bible. It is the source of all 
 heresies. Whenever you see an opportunity to build 
 a church, make it known to your Bishop. Let the 
 land be purchased for the Pope and his successors in 
 office. Never yield the divine right, which the head 
 of the church has by virtue of the Keys to the govern- 
 ment of North America, as well as every other country. 
 The confessional will enable you to know the people 
 by degrees ; with the aid of the holy tribunal, and our 
 bishops, we may expect at no distant day, to bring over 
 North America to the bosom of our holy Church." 
 
 Our ancestors, Americans, came with no other re- 
 commendation than their holy lives, their pious hearts, 
 theix strong arms, and the treasure of the word of God. 
 And that blessed book has not only been cast out of 
 many Protestant Schools in nine States of this Union, 
 but it has been burned in the public streets of Cham- 
 plain, in the State of New York, October 27th, 1842, 
 under the inspection of the Jesuit Missionary, Telmont, 
 a Popish Priest, as proved by the oaths of many re- 
 spectable witnesses. 
 
 We give an extract describing that event, as deserv- 
 
312 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 ing no ordinary attention from Americans. " As an 
 instance of the intolerance of Popery and its determined 
 hatred to the Bible in the vulgar tongue, may be men- 
 tioned an occurrence by which the feelings of Protes- 
 tant Americans were outraged, viz., the public burning 
 of Bibles, which took place no longer ago than Oc- 
 tober 27th, 1842, at Champlain, in the State of New 
 York. From an official statement of facts we gather 
 the following particulars : About the middle of Octo- 
 ber, one Telrnont, a missionary of the Jesuits, with one 
 or more associates, came to Corbeau, in this town, where 
 the Catholic church is located, and as they say in their 
 own account, given of their visit, ' by the direction of 
 the Bishop of Montreal.' Telrnont and his associates 
 ordered the Catholics to bring all the Bibles and Tes- 
 taments in their possession and ' lay them at the feet 
 of the missionaries.' The requirement was generally 
 complied with, and day after day Bibles and Testaments 
 were carried in ; and after a sufficient number was col- 
 lected, they were burned. On the 27th of October, 
 Telrnont, who was a prominent man in all the move- 
 ments, brought out from the house of the resident 
 priest, which is near the church, as many Bibles as he 
 could carry in his arms at three times, and placed them 
 in a pile, in the open yard, and then set fire to them and 
 burned them to ashes. This was done in open day, and 
 in the presence of many spectators." And every one 
 of them, were it expedient, would with far more zeal 
 have burned the heretics who read it. 
 
 There are citizens of this country who remember 
 the disturbances in Philadelphia in 1821, caused by an 
 
EXPULSION OF THE JESUITS. 313 
 
 Irish Bishop trying to get possession of the church 
 property, then estimated at one million of dollars. This 
 was the first attempt the Pope made to establish his 
 temporal power, under our Constitutional government. 
 The case was simply this: Hogan, then a Bomish 
 Priest, had a difference with the Archbishop of Balti- 
 more, about the reading of the Bible, and to check his 
 heresy, the Jesuits wrote to the Man- God, his Holiness, 
 to send on a successor. Hogan was ordered out of 
 the Church, but refused to leave unless released by 
 the trustees, whereupon he was indicted and im- 
 prisoned by this Jesuit emissary for disturbing public 
 worship, by officiating in that Church with the full 
 undivided consent of its trustees ! The Bishop's right 
 to commit this tyrannical act was questioned, and an 
 appeal was brought before the Supreme Court of Penn- 
 sylvania, Chief-Justice Tilghman presiding. Hogan 
 was released from custody and the rights of the trus- 
 tees sustained. But these Jesuits, more determined 
 than before to rob the people of their rights and defeat 
 the intentions of the donors of this property, called a 
 meeting of the leading Romanists of the diocese, order- 
 ing each to bring a hickory stick. 
 
 It was convened in the Church of St. Joseph, and 
 at the hour of midnight, when the Jesuit Bishop of 
 the diocese of Pennsylvania, an Irishman but a few 
 months in the country, appeared in his pontificals, and 
 directed the multitude to lay down their sticks in a 
 pile that he might bless them for their use. He then 
 said mass, sprinkled the holy water, and gave a heav- 
 enly benediction to the bundle of clubs. Binding the 
 14 
 
314 THE GEEAT AMEKICAN BATTLE. 
 
 whole party, by a solemn tow at the same time, never 
 to cease effort until they elected a legislature in Penn- 
 sylvania to annul the charter of St. Mary's Church ! 
 And would you believe it, Americans, they succeeded ! 
 The charter was annulled, and property worth a mil- 
 lion of dollars would have passed into the hands of the 
 Pope and his agents, but for a salutary provision of 
 their State Constitution, requiring the Supreme Court 
 to decide on legislative acts. This came therefore 
 again before the court and Justice Tilghman, when 
 the act was negatived and the rights of the American 
 people to retain their own property, fearlessly upheld 
 by that tribunal. These are the people, with Daniel 
 O'Connell at their head, who have been for centuries on 
 their knees, begging favors of the British government — 
 now call Americans "cowards," and their "Pilgrim 
 Fathers," who drew their swords and threw away their 
 scabbards when that power refused them their just 
 rights, they term '' sanguinary wretches and pirates." 
 
 "When the Convention sat in 1787, to form our great 
 federal Constitution, the prophecis of Merlin, which 
 date back a thousand years, were publicly read, in 
 regard to our Country. 
 
 " When the cock shall guard the eagle's nest, 
 The stars shall rise in all the "West." 
 
 Seemed with singular force to predict our national des- 
 tiny. The cock representing France; the eagle, our 
 God-conferred America. But neither in that Con- 
 stitution, nor in the enumeration of our bill of rights, 
 was there a single provision for that power which the 
 
EXPULSION OF THE JESUITS. 315 
 
 Pope of Eome, a foreigner, has actually set up in our 
 country ! And it becomes a duty to our God, our 
 own rights, and our nationality, to prohibit a Papist to 
 hold office or cast a ballot in our box, until he shall 
 have proved himself the friend of liberty, religion, and 
 humanity, by expressly forswearing, without mental 
 reservation, all allegiance to the Pope of whatever kind 
 and under whatever name, who as a foreign popentate is 
 acknowledged by the powers of all Europe. So long 
 as these immigrants who are taught by their priests at 
 home to despise their own governments, that their laws 
 are all penal, and it is no crime to evade them— so 
 long as their priests and bishops are pitchforked from 
 potato holes and bogs, into American gentlemen and 
 politicians, so long must we be cursed by the mendi- 
 cant foreign agitators, to make miserable kettles of 
 American votes ! 
 
 Whoever hears of an Irish or other foreign Protes- 
 tant disturbing the peace or voting fraudulently at 
 elections ; we find them worthy, useful, respectable, and 
 industrious in all the pursuits of American citizens. 
 It is because of the Bible, taught in their youth, by 
 which they are educated to love God above all things, 
 and their neighbors as themselves. It is found by 
 the books and receipts from which this statement is 
 taken, that upwards of one hundred thousand dollars 
 are annually derived from Europe, to aid in corrupt- 
 ing the American Legislatures, by procuring a majority 
 favorable to the wishes of the foreign hierarchy. And 
 this, with the millions they raise by their confessional 
 tax and other innumerable devices, in the hand of 
 
316 THE GEEAT AMEKICAN BATTLE. 
 
 skilful Jesuits, how soon -would the light of reason 
 and science disappear, and the free American who 
 now walks erect before God and man, become a fit 
 thing to dwindle and crouch before a despot Pope, but 
 for the timely awakening of the national sentiment to 
 the condition of our imminent danger ? These Jesuits 
 reason ever from things seen to unseen, and they soon 
 twist their coils into families of wealth in our country, 
 and from which they boast in their semi-annual dis- 
 patches to the Pope, that they are peculiarly fortunate 
 in gaining many converts. And when parents are too 
 wise to send their children to their schools, their next 
 expedient is to get Eoman Catholic servants into their 
 families, who, instructed in the confessional by the 
 priest, soon learn by saying not a word about their 
 church, to disarm Americans, whose family secrecy 
 is thus possessed by the priest, to be used in whatever 
 way may tend most to advance the hierarchy in our 
 country. The beautiful and accomplished, are, by this 
 method, often drawn into Jesuit Nunneries, who, single- 
 minded and innocent, take the veil to become subser- 
 vient to Popish Jesuits. These jails are known in all 
 Catholic countries to have foundling hospitals attached, 
 and in this country they have private burying places 
 and secret vaults. Only a few years since the Jesuits 
 in Baltimore petitioned the Maryland legislature for 
 leave to run a subterraneous passage from a Chapel to a 
 Nunnery some five hundred yards. A more daring 
 outrage was never perpetrated towards any legislative 
 body in America, and to its eternal honor, the petition 
 was rejected with the most unmitigated indignation 
 
EXPULSION OF THE JESUITS. 317 
 
 and scorn. Yet these Jesuits hold fairs to build Nun- 
 neries in New York and other States, which have been 
 patronized by Americans, who give freely their money, 
 while there is not an Irish Priest nor an Irish Eoman 
 Catholic, a true son of the Church, who under the Bull 
 of Jubilee of the Pope, would not feel he did God a 
 service, and even the heretics themselves, if they could 
 collect in a pile and burn to ashes every Protestant 
 citizen of our beloved land. The same oath of alle- 
 giance which bound the whole Eomish Church to 
 curse Mr. Hogan for differing with the Pope, binds 
 every Papist against all other heretics. And they use 
 the term spiritual to Americans as the loadstone 
 among splinters of steel, to delude the contemptible, 
 unsuspecting Protestant whom they assume to catch 
 as drift-wood. 
 
 America is the only nation, for the three last cen- 
 turies, where Popery has had an unmolested resting 
 place, with none to hinder its incredible impudence. 
 It has talked of its spiritual allegiance to us, as to a nation 
 of fools ! Why, China furnishes an example of intel- 
 ligence on this matter which should bring a blush of 
 shame to American men. The Jesuits built there Con- 
 vents, Churches, Monk-houses, and Nunneries; but 
 getting into a dispute among themselves about their 
 temporal rights, appealed to the Pope. When the Em- 
 peror heard it, he began to suspect the deception about 
 the spiritual allegiance, and he summoned his commis- 
 sioner to know what it meant. The Jesuits failed after 
 all their ingenuity and subtlety to satisfy the Commis- 
 sioner that it meant less than that the Pope claimed the 
 
318 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 right to govern the kingdoms of the earth, to be the 
 rightful owner of the lands, and to give and take them 
 as his royal holiness pleased. When the Emperor 
 instantly issued his order, that every Eoman Catholic 
 Bishop, Priest, Friar, Jesuit, Monk, and Nun within 
 his empire, should quit within a given time, on pain 
 of death. Many disobeyed, who were executed, and 
 their churches burned to the ground. 
 
 The Chinese were peaceable and quiet, and had no 
 objection, though barbarians, to Papists worshipping God 
 according to conscience ; but, Avhen it was discovered 
 that they owed spiritual allegiance to a foreign power, 
 they thought it wise to remove them from their country. 
 It is now reserved for free-born Americans, unbiassed 
 by education, and unawed by tyrants, to put such an 
 interpretation on their duplicity, treachery and intrigue 
 in their borders, before the armies of Jesuits-, Friars, 
 and Monks, who have claimed the land and the 
 churches — have to be expelled by battle-cannon and 
 blood. 
 
 The Protestants of Madeira, with whom the United 
 States hold a treaty of friendship and alliance, were 
 butchered and slaughtered a few years ago by Popish 
 savages, under the mask of religion. When the news 
 reached our shores, instead of the people assembling to 
 express indignation, and our government demanding 
 explanation, the brutality was unnoticed by shrewd and 
 crafty politicians, who feared, indeed, the unpopularity 
 of the measure. The American people must not expect 
 politicians more than horses, to walk in straight lines 
 when they have been long blinded by the treadmill. 
 
EXPULSION OF THE JESUITS. 319 
 
 The following items are merely a specimen of the 
 
 / dangerous character and designs of the Eomish Church 
 
 , against the liberties of this Eepublic, and the rights of 
 
 \ man everywhere. And let Americans remember, that 
 
 \ whatever have been the Romish dogmas, bulls, decrees 
 
 \ of councils, discipline and practices, heretofore, the same 
 
 1 are in full force to-day — for Eome never changes : — 
 
 ^EXTRACTS FROM THE ROMISH PRESS AND OTHER ROMISH AUTHORITIES. 
 
 \j The Pilot, a Roman Catholic press in Boston, calls the Ameri- 
 cans " common liars, defamers and vagabonds." 
 
 Brownson says : 
 
 " The time has come when Catholics must begin to make their 
 principles tell upon the public sentiment of the country." 
 
 The Catholic Telegraph, of Cincinnati, says : 
 
 " The enemies (Protestants) of mankind may try to shake from 
 their necks the pressure of the foot of Mary, and rob her of preroga- 
 tives (immaculate conception), but in vain." 
 
 The Chicago Catholic Tablet says : 
 
 " The Common Schools of this country are sinks of moral pollu- 
 tion and nurseries of hell." 
 
 Notes from the Ehemish Testament, sanctioned by 
 the Archbishop of Dublin, and the Bishops and Clergy 
 generally. 
 
 " Bishops and lay-people (Eomanists) should have great zeal 
 against heretics (Protestants) ." 
 
 " Neither is the Church of God (that is, of Rome), nor Christian 
 (popish) friends blamed by God for putting heretics (Protestants) 
 to death.'' 
 
 " When the Bomish Church puts heretics (Protestants) to death, 
 their blood is not of saints, nor is it more to be accounted of than 
 that of thieves, man-killers, or other malefactors." 
 
320 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 " A Christian should deface and burn all heretical (Protestant) 
 books." 
 
 " The translation of the English Protestant Bible should be ab- 
 horred to the depths of hell." 
 
 " All Protestant clergy are thieves, murderers, and ministers of 
 the devil." — Nates on John 1st and Hebrews v. 1. 
 
 " Heretics' (Protestants) sermons must not be heard — no, not if 
 they preach the truth. Their prayers and services are no better 
 than the howlings of wolves." — Notes on Mark, i. 25. 
 
 Brownson's Review says : — " The liberty of the press is only 
 tolerated in this country, until a different order of things can be 
 inaugurated. 
 
 " The liberty of the press is that fatal license of which we cannot 
 entertain too great a horror. Liberty of conscience is an absurd 
 and dangerous maxim." — The Pope's circular letter a few years ago. 
 
 The General Council of Lateran, A.D. 1215, decreed as follows : 
 " Let the secular powers be compelled, if necessary, to exterminate, 
 
 to their utmost power, all heretics (or Protestants) denoted by the 
 
 Church." 
 
 THE S' PF.EMACY OF THE POPE OVER THE CIVIL POWER. 
 
 Extract f .om the pastoral letter of Archbishops and Bishops of 
 the " Province of St. Louis," in council assembled, just issued. Our 
 readers will find this letter in the last number of the Catholic Mirror, 
 published in Baltimore : 
 
 " We maintain the superiority of the spiritual over the temporal 
 order. We maintain that the temporal ruler is bound to conform 
 his enactments to the Divine law. (That is, the law of the Pope 
 or the Church.) We maintain that tlie Church is the Supreme Judge 
 of all questions concerning faith and morals, (or belief and character 
 of men.) And that, in the determination of such questions, there 
 is no appeal from the Eoman Pontiff." 
 
 Pope Innocent III. claimed for the " See," universal temporal and 
 spiritual empire. He excommunicated Philip n. of France, and 
 
EXPULSION OF THE JESUITS. 321 
 
 placed England under an interdict, and excommunicated John, king 
 of England. The Council of Lateran styled him, Lord God the 
 Pope!!! He caused to be murdered and burnt 147,000 Albigenses. 
 
 The Council of Constance decreed ; " That no faith was to be 
 kept with heretics." 
 
 It is estimated that that the'Romish hierarchy have put to death 
 by tortures, racks, burning at the stake, auto dafe's, and persecuting 
 wars, sixty millions of human beings ! ! ! And the Romish church 
 declares she never changes in her dogmas and practices. 
 
 ROMISH MAXIM — "THE END JUSTIFIES THE MEANS." 
 
 The following are among the Jesuit Rules, contained in Pitrat's 
 History of the Jesuits. 
 
 " The domestics who believe that their wages are not worth their 
 labor, may steal secretly from their masters." (The R. P. Jesuit 
 Cardenas — Crisis Theologica, Diss. 23.) 
 
 " If murder is practicable without scandal, it is not unlawful." 
 (The R. P. Jesuit Erancis Amicus — Theological Oursus, published 
 in 1642.) 
 
 " If it is useful to the Roman Catholic faith, and if the culpable 
 are more numerous than the innocent, it is right to cause their 
 death.'' 
 
 " Tou may falsely accuse your enemy to take away his credit, 
 even to kill him." (The R. P. Jesuit Guimenius — 7th proposition.) 
 
 " "We may kill by treachery a man banished." (The R. P. Jesuit 
 Escobar — vol 4, p. 148.) 
 
 " A man is allowed to kill a false accuser, the witnesses produced 
 by him, and the judge himself." (The R. P. Jesuit Francis Amicus 
 — Theological Cursus, Tract 29, ch. 2.) 
 
 " Protestant countries are always dissatisfied ; whereas, in Cath- 
 olic countries, the very peasantry are contented to remain in the 
 condition they were born in. 
 
 " We would much rather our children should grow up in igno- 
 rance of letters, than be taught in a school that is not Catholic." — 
 0. A. Brownson. 
 
 14* 
 
322 THE GKEAT AMEKICAN BATTLE. 
 
 " You should do all in your power to carry out the pious inten- 
 tions of His Holiness the Pope. Where you have the electoral 
 franchise, give your votes to none but those who will assist you in 
 so holy a struggle." — O'Connell's Letter to the Repealers in America. 
 
 " The Government of the United States is weak, inconsistent, and 
 bad ; it must and will be destroyed ! So long- as it exists, no prince 
 in Europe will be safe on his throne. 
 
 " All the low population of Europe will be carried into Ameriea. 
 It will be a receptacle for the bad and disaffected. This will create 
 a surplus — a heterogeneous population — speaking a different lan- 
 guage — of different religion and sentiments ; these will carry with 
 them their principles — will adhere to their former government, 
 laws, manners, customs, and religion — speak of them among the na- 
 tives, some of whom will join them — and they will become citizens — 
 discord and civil war will follow — some popular man will take the 
 lead to restore order — the European sovereigns will aid him — all the 
 emigrants will join, and the government will be subverted."- — Duke 
 of Richmond. 
 
 ' " The time has come," says Hughes's Romish organ of New York 
 city, " to make our sentiments tell upon the public sentiment of the 
 country, and to teach the country itself those moral and political 
 'i doctrines which flow from the teachings of our own church. This 
 I is our country, and as it is to become thoroughly Catholic, we have a 
 I deeper interest in public affairs than any other of our citizens. As 
 j Catholics, we can never be indifferent to the moral principle which 
 S enters into the laws, and shapes the public policy of this country." 
 
 Let it not be forgotten that the Bomish Bishops 
 assembled in the last Baltimore Council, to carry for- 
 ward the aforesaid doctrines, were, with but few excep- 
 tions, foreigners I 
 
 Hear, now, what Washington said upon the point : — 
 
 " Against the insidious wiles of Foreign Influence — I conjure you 
 to believe me, fellow-citizens — the jealousy of a free people ought to 
 
EXPULSION OF THE JESUITS. 323 
 
 I 
 
 i be constantly awake ; since history and experience prove that 
 
 i foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of a Kepublican 
 
 Government." 
 
 And, in the language of his and our country's friend, 
 Lafayette : — 
 
 " May this great monument raised to Liberty serve as a lesson to 
 the oppressor, and. an example to the oppressed ! May it call to 
 mind the sentiments which nature has engraved on the heart of every 
 citizen, and which take new force when they are solemnly recog- 
 nized by all : for a Nation to love liberty, it is sufficient that she 
 knows it ; and to be free, it is sufficient that she wills it." 
 
CHAPTEE XXI. 
 
 A CLOSING- APPEAL TO THE AMERICAN 
 PUBLIC . 
 
 " O, sons of America ! list to the cry 1 
 The loud fearful warning that rings to the sky I 
 Shall foul blaekenod falsohood unanswered he borno, 
 And Amoricans branded with insult and scorn ? 
 Striko 1 striko for tho country, the freedom ye crave, 
 Eeligion, and home, and the Puritan's grave ; 
 1 fight as they fought on the land and the sea, 
 And die as they died, but in leaving it free /" 
 
 Are you not ready for an offering at this great crisis ? 
 When your nation is panting under trial and peril ! 
 Your nation, the star from God! The diamond from 
 on high, to give the world brightness ! Have the best 
 days of America ended ? It is for you, Americans, to 
 make it happy, great, and good, if you will continue 
 to be free ! 
 
 For you, Americans, love of country is not a word, but 
 a living, active thing! Warm with heroic zeal, devotion, 
 and sacrifice, an indestructible spark, Avhich will burn 
 and glow in every true American heart, though the 
 world itself were a pile of ruins. Sacrifice, too, was 
 the law of our country's being ; but God was its great 
 support ! And its maternity and humanity must again 
 save us! What do we claim, then, for our country? 
 The same active initiation, the same self-forgetfulness. 
 
£&f-t^iU O. Z7"<?- -~z^cJ 
 
 Ofi TENNEt:S8E 
 
CLOSING APPEAL. 325 
 
 the same moral willingness, the same desire for the pa- 
 tient duty of a lifetime in its service, that love for God 
 and country has before inspired I It is our people who 
 have exposed all former systems of government ever 
 imposed on the rights of men ! It is our people only, 
 who have a full and vast significance I It is our peo- 
 ple who broke the charm of inequality by fire and 
 by blood, and they taught the race that neither mitres 
 nor crowns confer supernatural power, but that Liberty 
 is a sympathy with all the people, and their institu- 
 tions emanate from and are removable by them! Amer- 
 icans have thus demonstrated to the world, that liberty 
 and happiness are perpetuated by an unembarrassed 
 religious freedom, by which they mean to be distin- 
 guished, if necessary, at the cost of life itself ! 
 
 They planted the seed of Union, Faith, and National 
 Honor, and in that brotherhood are willing to bind 
 every European Christian without reference to sect or 
 creed. But that innate desire to remove anything 
 which puts itself between the soul and its Creator, was 
 the primary and efficient cause of their demonstrations 
 for American liberty. That intractable love of freedom 
 which Americans now possess seems to have been in- 
 stinctive in all who have occupied this soil. Even the 
 aborigines, discovered to the Anglo-Saxon, unshaken 
 courage and noble daring, in the forests of the New 
 World ! And we have no record where an Indian ever 
 yet attempted, upon American soil, to save his life by 
 8,11 ignoble concession ! We are the great, the grand, 
 the only practical demonstration, my countrymen, of a 
 people endowed by God with all the elements to govern 
 
326 THE GREAT AMERICAN" BATTLE. 
 
 themselves ! And when we regard the natural causes 
 which have influenced our individual and national des- 
 tiny, in connection with the moral reasons which first 
 sent the settlers to discuss their religious rights, we can- 
 not believe the Anglo- American power is ever to be 
 arrested ! 
 
 Our vast territory, our genial climate, our inland 
 seas, our glowing soil, incite to enterprise and thrift, 
 and offer incentives to intelligence and patriotism with- 
 out a parallel ! And forces the conviction on every true 
 heart, that we are the vine which God has blessed. 
 And, if now we are firm in the battle of freedom and 
 true to our God, our country, and our nationality; 
 grounded, as Americans, on the principles of enlight- 
 ened liberty, sustained by the wisdom and virtue of a 
 free people, we shall alone fill the area between the tro- 
 pics and the poles, and spread our living liberty from 
 the Atlantic to the Pacific shores ! Who can limit the 
 knowledge to be attained under a government like 
 ours, which not only increases the infinite science of 
 discoveries and augments the means of support, but 
 whose people, educated in the natural doctrine of 
 equality, and conscious of the enjoyment of equal 
 rights, feel and recognize their own personality in every 
 pursuit of life ! 
 
 And when our territory equals, as it will, more than 
 three-fourths of Europe, and one hundred and fifty 
 millions of freemen shall cover this domain, speaking 
 the same language, and subject to the same laws, what 
 mind can grasp the might and magnitude of free 
 America I 
 
CLOSING APPEAL. 327 
 
 The federal compact, formed by the New-England 
 colonies in 1643, to resist the Indians, was the first 
 Union made by the Anglo-Saxon upon our soil, and 
 prepared the way for their Declaration of Eights in the 
 Congress of 1775, for the unprovoked attack upon Amer- 
 ican liberties. And the Colonists at that day, in re- 
 monstrating with the British Government, warned it 
 against those Jesuit enemies which did not then over- 
 come this country, simply because the people who 
 favored liberty and nourished the Protestant element, 
 were powerful enough to exact obedience, in spite of 
 the reigning government. The politico-religious fea- 
 ture, therefore, entered into our great American Party 
 of the Eevolution, and became the stimulant to the de- 
 fenders of our liberties, as it was under Charles the 
 First of England ! And while it gave unanimity to 
 the Protestant element, it made more obstinate British 
 resistance. When Arnold was left in Canada with an 
 insufficient force of a thousand men, these Jesuit ene- 
 mies made it the occasion to excite the foes of America 
 to vengeance, and the Priests absolutely refused the 
 sacraments to all who declared in favor of the Ameri- 
 can cause. When this news reached the provinces, a 
 Eoman Catholic priest was sent off from Maryland to 
 dispense spiritual succor to the Canadians, of which 
 they were thus deprived ; but the remedy was too late ! 
 And the articles of confederation and perpetual union 
 between the thirteen original States was not ratified 
 until March, 1781, because the Eoman Catholics of 
 Maryland opposed and refused to unite, so steadfast has 
 ever been the Eomish priesthood to our liberty. All 
 
828 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 the States except Delaware Lad been united three years 
 before, and that moved into the ranks one year in ad- 
 vance of Maryland ! But never as now have we seen 
 the need of casting off the leprosy of usurpation, and 
 so clearly defining that liberty which is the energy and 
 spring of our whole political system. And what Amer- 
 ican is not glad to rise at such a moment, to affix a 
 higher value upon our political institutions, and more 
 fully to embrace and comprehend the principles and 
 privileges of American citizenship? The almighty 
 echo of public opinion cries out for change, and 
 the great American Party responds to the call ; and 
 upon its success depends our advancement in all that 
 is bright and glorious, and happy, and with which our 
 national honor is inseparably interwoven ! We see our 
 National Administration in the hands of a foreign Eo- 
 man Catholic hierarchy, whose principal agent is the 
 Jesuit Bishop of New-York. The Postmaster-Gene- 
 ral, an Irish Catholic, who, more than once rejected by 
 the people of Pennsylvania, went into the Cabinet, at 
 the dictation of the Pope of Kome, to obtain direct ac- 
 cess to the postal concerns and dearest rights of the 
 American people, who have for nearly three years been 
 subject to his miserable espionage. Letters of Protest- 
 ant Americans have no guarantee that they will reach 
 their destination, more than in Italy or France ! And 
 in New-Jersey it is a fact so well authenticated, as to 
 come before the courts there, that the contents of 
 letters were obtained by opening them, and used in the 
 last election to defeat the American cause. But for a 
 District- Attorney appointed by the Pierce Administra- 
 
CLOSING APPEAL. 329 
 
 tion, this trial would already have taken place, and its 
 more general publicity given to the country. 
 r- In the State Department at Washington not only a 
 ( majority of the subordinates are foreign Koman Cath- 
 ' olics, but occupy the most important posts in the trust 
 | and/confidence of the American Government. "Are 
 !you a Roman Catholic foreigner?" is the question put 
 jto the applicant, and if answered in the affirmative, the 
 jsons of Revolutionary officers, who gave their houses to 
 the flames and their bodies to the bayonet, are inde- 
 cently thrust aside. We see our naturalization laws 
 evaded — criminals and paupers voting Americans down 
 at their own ballot box ! We see our Public and Free 
 Schools, the great instruments to uphold and preserve 
 our freedom, desecrated, and the Bible driven out, 
 expelled, and burned. We see military companies pa- 
 rading our streets, with the foreign military costume 
 of aliens. The police of the large cities not merely 
 foreigners, but thirty nine in New York City alone 
 are branded as criminals from the prisons of Eu- 
 rope I. These, fellow-countrymen, are the hordes which 
 rush to our shores for democratic liberty, and have 
 imposed upon them by the Jesuit masters the obliga- 
 tion to go armed to our ballot box and vote against 
 the Americans at all hazards. This is one of the ac- 
 tive means by which the Pope charged f John Hughes, 
 in his last departure from Europe, to "spread Roman- 
 ism in America, and to crush out Republicanism." 
 We have seen the falsity and speciousness of that act 
 of Maryland toleration exposed, and a treatise recently 
 published by Rev. Ethan Allen of Baltimore county, 
 
330 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 furnishes the proof that the property of Claybome, who 
 made the first settlement by Protestants, was seized 
 and confiscated by Lord Baltimore from his bereaved 
 widow. And thus has vanished the only pretext of 
 liberty ever assumed by the Eomish See in this or 
 any country. We have seen too the oppression placed 
 upon our American laborers, artisans, metallurgists, 
 and mechanics, by emptying the work houses of Eu- 
 rope upon the soil — who are baited by politicians, 
 with the prospect of real estate, the gift of our public 
 domain, purchased by American suffering and blood. 
 And employed also to do the work of American men 
 who force the respectable citizens of their own country 
 to reduce their wages to the pauper rates of Europe, or 
 starve. Thus has a double blow been aimed at the 
 citizens of our country, by debarring their children 
 from education, the twin sister of freedom. 
 
 And taken now, in all its aspects, this crisis is dearer to 
 you, my countrymen and countrywomen, than that even 
 which first lifted the leaden seal of despotism from our 
 borders. ISTot only are the liberties of our country as- 
 sailed and outraged by the direst foe that ever cursed 
 humanity, but all that concerns death and the grave 
 is perilled, as well as its freedom, its honor, and its na- 
 tionality. It is not the sun, the soil, or the climate that 
 made you, my countrymen, men, but that breathing 
 part of your machinery which came from the hand 
 of God, and made you pregnant with invention and en- 
 ergy, and so fertile in resource as to become the artificer 
 of your own government before you submitted to it ! 
 
 Then by right, open wide your mouths, that the 
 
CLOSING APPEAL. 331 
 
 /world may know the temperament of your minds. It 
 is only upon dead matter, that gastric juice of America 
 I needs now to act. Demand that the most rigid effective 
 J emigration laws be made and enforced — demand that 
 the naturalization acts be wholly repealed, or the pro- 
 bationary term be made at least twenty-one years 
 
 (demand a capitation tax for all who shall be allowed in 
 (future to come upon the soil — demand that all paupers 
 land criminals be returned to the jails and almshouses of 
 their native lands, and at the cost of the party by 
 (whom they are transported. And to this end re- 
 quire such documents as will prove the same — de- 
 jmand that no alien or Papist shall hold office, or in any 
 jother way interfere with our political rights — demand 
 'that the Bible be restored to every institution through- 
 lout the land, where Americans are placed for edu- 
 cation — demand that the Jesuits be expelled from 
 J the country, and allow none but Americans to rule 
 I America ! And like Behemoths of old, never bend 
 (to the muddy sediment which has disturbed our 
 peace, and made you actors in this tempestuous re- 
 volution. Discard all former party harnessing; go 
 into the pit and gallery as well as the box of our great 
 national theatre ; drop your former party profession, 
 and come with a will into the American cause. Night 
 can no more happen before the sun goes down, than 
 this nation be destroyed, if her men are true. Better, 
 my countrymen, to give your constitution to Hotten- 
 tots, or your government to Indians, than to refuse the 
 assistance of that telescope which the American party 
 now offers to the American mind ! Then, in God's 
 
332 THE GREAT AMERICAN" BATTLE. 
 
 name, battle for your country. Arnold, you remem- 
 ber, was once surrounded by the glorious prestige of 
 victory in our Revolutionary struggle, but his infamous 
 treason blotted out bis former glory. And no matter, 
 under what party standard you have rallied, no matter 
 what political services you have rendered, no matter 
 what elevated stations you have filled, you cannot be 
 excused nor deemed the less culpable, if you now re- 
 fuse your active aid and sympathy for your country, and 
 the principles of that party, which put a still more 
 glorious halo around the American name. This party 
 is daily recruiting out of the mass of our population, 
 over which reason is hourly extending its dominion, 
 and its ultimate success is as certain as the irresistible 
 progress of its intelligence which alone can command 
 its salvation. Come then, citizen and Christian, sons 
 and daughters, and show tbe power of that sacrifice 
 and love which bore our little army, of less than three 
 millions, to triumpb, and witb one grand union of Am- 
 erican feeling, achieve by this battle tbe enlightened 
 sense of national interest, the feeling of inherent right, 
 and the consciousness of undoubted power. We bave 
 allowed our nation to be debased until its institutions 
 are perverted, its legislature is corrupted, its adminis- 
 tration is polluted; and though tbe measure of our 
 provocation is full, thank God tbere is spirit enough, 
 virtue enough, heroic resentment enougb in the hearts 
 of the American people, to arouse and bring down 
 guilt with thunder, and in working our national 
 reparation, to sweep out the offender and the offence 
 with the force and fury of the whirlwind! And 
 
CLOSING APPEAL. ggg 
 
 to bring back, by this merciful chastisement and timely 
 admonition, our original experience of the purer prin- 
 ciples of our national action. The people, now too 
 strong for their rulers, require a correction of their 
 abuses — an abridgment of Executive patronage — a 
 diminution of their public burdens — and a just distri- 
 bution of its trusts, dignities, and rewards. It is the 
 men with coats of triple steel that America now wants, 
 to stand, like Moses, in the gap, and inspire with awe 
 our oppressors and persecutors, foreign and native! 
 Men who, like those who adorn and honor this work, 
 come not for a sceptre, but to conquer a crown, and 
 pluck out the thorns which are strewed along our way- 
 sides to prick our country with their deadly stings. In 
 this American constellation we find Millard Fillmore, 
 an American not merely by connection with the pres- 
 ent national party who bears that cognomen, but 
 whose character as a man, and whose administration as 
 President of the country, has irrefutably settled the 
 conviction in every mind, that his heart and sympa- 
 thies are all American. And like the illustrious 
 Father and founder of this Eepublic, he has stood as 
 the faithful sentinel upon the watchtower of Freedom, 
 and, amid the pelting of the pitiless storm, remained 
 faithful to Liberty, the Union, and the Constitution ! 
 
 Here, too, is Bartlett, ready, like Joseph, to forestall 
 the evil and arrest the grievous dearth, which has be- 
 fallen his country. Prentice, who, ever vigilant, spies 
 out the rudest operations of American experience, ex- 
 poses truth from its depth by a lengthy chain, and 
 sends corruscations of intellectual light, which, like the 
 
S34 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 solar, radiates and converges upon the minds of the 
 people. Bayner, the able, eloquent, fearless, and faith- 
 ful North Carolinian, who, in the true American spirit, 
 Lad rather meet danger than wait for it. Broom, from 
 the patriot army of United Americans, who bore aloft 
 the national standard, and led the vanguard as a forlorn 
 hope, at the earliest dawn of that American move which 
 now presents a full-orbed sun. Stuart, the heroic Vir- 
 ginian, who, having sat around the Council Board of 
 Fillmore, revolted at the sight of our sinking prospect, 
 and in his unswerving integrity and patriotic zeal, en- 
 rolled himself among the active and faithful defenders 
 of American principles. Brooks, too, is here, into 
 whose hands a good Providence was pleased to deliver 
 the Jesuit Bomish Bishop, John Hughes of New York. 
 He continues alive, but Mr. Brooks produced an indi- 
 rect debility, from which, in the opinion of Americans, 
 he cannot possibly recover. The offence of Brooks was 
 in coming boldly to the defence of a bill introduced 
 by Mr. James 0. Putnam of Buffalo, to protect the 
 rights of Boman Catholic American citizens. The 
 Trustees of the St. Louis Church refused to yield the 
 property to the control of the Pope's agent, the Bishop. 
 He appealed to the Pope, who cursed and excommuni- 
 cated them from all the rites and worship of his 
 Church. Like men, these trustees went up to the 
 New York Legislature, and asked redress from Ameri- 
 can law ! The prayer was granted for their protection, 
 in common with all other religious denominations, 
 when John, the Archbishop, selected Mr. Brooks as the 
 individual through whom to offer insult and heap re- 
 
CLOSING APPEAL. 335 
 
 proach, upon the enactors of this American law. And 
 having broken the egg, he proceeded to make the 
 omelet, when Brooks cut the claws of this lion, and 
 afterwards drew out his teeth, to keep him secure. And 
 proving him a monarch worth twenty -five millions of 
 property belonging to the people in his hands, he inflicted 
 the humiliation and exposure, and left him dethroned. 
 " My son, thou art invincible," rang throughout the 
 land, and in defiance of treasure, curses, edicts, and 
 legions of reinforcements at the ballot-box, the people 
 returned him to his present post, after proclaiming him, 
 in the din and tumult of rapturous joy, the next Gover- 
 nor of New York, by universal acclamation ! 
 
 Nor can we neglect to recur with pride and plea- 
 sure to the name of Col. J. N. Eeynolds, of New York 
 city, who has brought to the aid of the American 
 cause his giant powers, in its time of peed, and by his 
 exposition of the principles which govern its action, 
 placed the American Party under grateful obligations, 
 and won for it the admiration and respect of the lead- 
 ing journal of Europe. 
 
 Among the thousands enlisted in our great American 
 cause, bearing high commissions in this great national 
 army, we cannot omit to mention the name of "William 
 Scudder Tisdale, of New York, as an example singu- 
 larly worthy of imitation, in the purity and worth of 
 his patriotic sacrifices. The direct descendant of Capt. 
 William Scudder, who, from the beginning of the 
 American Eevolution, was in its active service, chiefly 
 under Washington, and also under Lee. He was taken 
 prisoner, and remained a captive for three years and a 
 
336 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 half, when he was exchanged for an English officer 
 of his rank, and continued upon duty till the close of 
 the war. In all the American army there was but one 
 Champe found to whom Washington and Lee felt 
 willing to entrust the difficult, dangerous, and coura- 
 geous mission of capturing the traitor Arnold in the 
 enemy's camp. And we know of no true American 
 who would be more ready to prove another Champe, 
 under a similar emergency, than this brave, determined, 
 and true patriot son ! The inherited spirit of patriotic 
 sacrifice he has beautifully illustrated, by the vigor 
 and fearlessness with which at an early age he has 
 espoused, from the rostrum, and as editor of the 
 American Sentinel, Pouglikeepsie American, Champion of 
 American Labor, American Champion, and The New 
 York Crusader, the cause of his country, for which he is 
 ever ready to fight or willing to die. Hence there is a 
 marked appropriateness, in this national exigency, of 
 holding up to the emulation of young American men 
 an example of such intense and intelligent patriotic 
 fervor, free from political aspiration or pecuniary re- 
 ward ! And to him the author is indebted for much 
 of the valuable data afforded to this work. As the 
 scaffolding is often stronger than the house, so the 
 means by which the present national organization has 
 been extended, deserves not less from the gratitude of 
 the American people, than those by whom the idea was 
 developed. It has been by intrepidity, energy, and 
 zeal, on the part of the active working members, that 
 thousands have been induced to enlist in the great 
 American battle of principle against power, and in the 
 
CLOSING APPEAL. 337 
 
 active service of the country, all over the Union. In 
 this connection, the name of Sidney Kopman, Esq., of 
 New York, deserves honorable praise. To his intel- 
 lectual, earnest, and indefatigable exertions, at least 
 four hundred members attribute their connection with 
 this great national party. Among these are many 
 distinguished for the efficiency of their service, and 
 who have disseminated its principles broadcast, and 
 organized for duty throughout the land. To him 
 the author is also under obligations for important 
 information, now given to the public. These are the 
 men the nation wants. Not those who denounce; 
 deplore, look like mortar Pharisees, and do nothing t 
 Alexander smiled, when he who had conquered the 
 world was offered freedom by a few Megareans ; but 
 when told it had only been extended to Hercules, he 
 received the tribute with complacency. And in ex- 
 tending now to Col. Josiah F. Polk, of Washington, 
 respectful homage for his long and able defence of the 
 great Protestant element of America, he is assured it 
 can only be offered to the patriotic and strong ! For 
 twenty years has this great defender expounded our 
 American principles, and exposed our national danger. 
 No champion of soul-liberty has yet appeared more 
 eminently fortified by patient investigation and thor- 
 ough research, to expose the enormities of Jesuitism, 
 or who, far in advance of public opinion, predicted its 
 diabolical design, to subvert our government. 
 
 Able, eloquent, courageous, and incorruptible, this 
 son of the soil could not be terrified or swerved by the 
 patronage of an Executive which had been sold to 
 15 
 
338 THE GEEAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 Eome, and for which like all other honest and faithful 
 servants in the service of the Government, this good 
 and noble American was set aside, to make way for 
 the incompetent or corrupt, whose cardinal virtues are 
 prostrate submission to the Papal supremacy. "With 
 life in one scale and death in the other, there is no class 
 upon whom Americans have more right to make a re- 
 quisition than upon the Protestant clergy of the coun- 
 try. By which is distinctly meant, every anti-Popish 
 ambassador, without regard to name, sect, or creed. 'If 
 the tones of mad and stormful indignation have pierced 
 the nation's heart, at the desecration of the Word of 
 God — if this struggle against soul-bondage is agitating 
 every bosom and driving the country to despair, why, 
 in God's name, are not all his professed Ministers 
 marching into the front files of this battle, to claim 
 His glory as its inevitable heritage. There is a bar- 
 renness, a desolation, in the thought that they are slow 
 in this American move, to light the blazing torch of 
 truth and bear its cheerful light and heat into every 
 recess of the land. Among those who have appeared, 
 to elucidate the circumstances which surround us, to 
 offer instruction and incite to effort at this epoch, are 
 Drs. E. J. Breckenridge, Murray, (Kirwan,) Inslrip, 
 Cheever, DeWrtt, James, Cox, Plummer, Eice, Jaco- 
 bus, Boardman, Bethune, Kennedy, and Kirk, who, 
 like Gospel heralds of our Eevolutionary battles, coun- 
 sel to firm and vigorous resistance ! It was not from 
 the pulpit alone that the gospel ministers of the revolu- 
 tion plead, but by an active cooperation with the Ameri- 
 can cause— by the sword, through the press, in the street, 
 
CLOSING APPEAL. 339 
 
 at the fireside, in all the social meetings of benevolence 
 and worship, and by supporting the rights of American 
 citizenship and the purity of their ballot-box ! In this 
 connection, the Eev. Horace Galpen, with the blood of 
 a Revolutionary hero coursing his veins, has not been 
 wanting in service to the Republic ; nor has he scrupled 
 to speak forth his convictions of right and duty, which 
 have silently ascended to enlighten and instruct the 
 public mind. Terse, vigorous, and pointed, he has dis- 
 cussed through the columns of the New York Crusader 
 for many months as its principal editorial writer, our 
 national peril from Jesuitism, foreignism, and political 
 Romanism ; and deserves the lasting gratitude of true 
 Americans. 
 
 My countrymen, there are regiments with thou- 
 sands of men, from every pursuit of life equipped 
 for the service of their country, and panting like 
 spirited steeds to go into the great battle, whom the 
 author of this work would deem it an honor individ- 
 ually to name, could the limits of these pages permit. 
 It is emphatically the people who have revived this 
 party for the people ! And the accompanying allu- 
 sion to the American editors of our country comes to 
 the American Party as the rainbow on the storm I It 
 is truly the glance of the eagle, to drive effectually to 
 destruction all the causes which work our ruin. It is 
 our Press which awes tyrants and tramples all crowns 
 to dust, but that plaited by thorns! and while it 
 succors liberty, our national sun will continue to 
 shine in the firmament of worlds forever and ever ! 
 
 In all God's moral administration of this nation, 
 
340 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 when struggling to defend its liberties, woman has been 
 doubly blessed when called to confirm firmness and in- 
 spire others by her example. When Washington was 
 elected Generalissimo of the American Army, with 
 fourteen thousand five hundred men, but ninety barrels 
 of powder and thirty-six magazines in all Massachu- 
 setts, he called woman to the aid of the American cause I 
 And throughout that eventful, fearful epoch, she became 
 by her deep sacrifices, her tears, her prayers, her dan- 
 gers, and her self-denial, the Angel of Mercy to the suf- 
 fering soldier. And interwoven as our patriot-mothers 
 of New England, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylva- 
 nia, and the Carolinas, thus became, woman must ever 
 continue an inseparable link in our imperishable honor 
 or our national disgrace ! There appeared in the papers 
 of Philadelphia, in 1780, "The Sentiments of an 
 American Woman," attributed to the wife of Wash- 
 ington, which, in aid of the American cause, was pub - 
 licly read in all the churches of Virginia. And it was 
 the proud boast of the Heroes of our Liberties, that 
 woman's ears heard,- and eyes saw, and hearts felt, the 
 first and the last flash of cannon that reverberated for 
 our freedom. Not one at that day who was found in- 
 sensible to the power and sacredness of the American 
 cause, and who actually sympathized with the enemy, 
 butshared in the general obloquy and merited contempt 
 of their country — like the wife of Arnold, whose hus- 
 band was made a traitor, because she was a rebel ! It, 
 then, becomes woman's holy mission now to plead, in 
 Gospel simplicity and patriotic fervor, for our Sabbath, 
 our Schools, our Bible and Liberty. Upon this na- 
 
CLOSING APPEAL. 341 
 
 tion's prosperity, patriot women, all that is dear to 
 you depends. Teach your children on their knees to 
 pray God to bless their country — unfurl our stars and 
 stripes until their young souls thrill before it ! Make 
 the Declaration of Independence and the history of the 
 country and its great Constitution, as familiar at the fire- 
 side as the alphabet or the multiplication table. Show 
 yourselves openly, everywhere, the opponents of every 
 Bible-hater, and opposed to every species of religious 
 bigotry and besotted intolerance ; and, with one united 
 heart, go into the great American Battle, to aid our pa- 
 triot brothers in this, the second and greatest struggle 
 that has ever been fought upon the soil of freedom. 
 
 And if, in the providence of Grod, by this presenta- 
 tion of solemn and well-authenticated facts, a holier 
 enthusiasm shall have been given for the Union of 
 these States and the preservation of America, the author 
 will not only feel it an earnest of His blessing on the 
 subject so dear to her own soul, but a grateful con- 
 sciousness that she has not lived in vain. And now, 
 my countrymen — 
 
 " Strike — till the last arm'd foe expires ; 
 Strike for your altars and your fires ; 
 Strike for the green graves of your sires, 
 God, and your native land !" 
 
CHAPTER XXII. 
 THE ISSUE NOW BEFORE US. 
 
 " Pride in the gift of country and of name 
 
 Speaks in yonr eye and step 
 
 Te tread your native land I 
 
 Land where ye learned to lisp a mother's name 
 
 The first boloved in life, the last forgot; 
 
 Land of yonr frolic youth, 
 
 Land of your bridal eve 1 M 
 
 " In honorable life her fields they trod, 
 In honorable death they sleep below; 
 Their son's proud feeling here 
 Their noblest monuments !" 
 
 Americans, we have not, like Moses, merely sur- 
 veyed but have actually entered and enjoy our pro- 
 mised land. 
 
 It is time to abandon prevarication, shuffling, and 
 disguise, and show that the stroke which cuts us from 
 foreign influence is neither cruel nor unnatural ! 
 
 This opening country is expanding and brightening 
 in delightful progress ; all that is dark and grotesque 
 must retire. Americans will assert, maintain, and de- 
 fend an unchallenged monopoly against the world! 
 
 By the last census, 1850, there were upward of 
 eight millions of people in this Union devoid of 
 Anglo- American blood I When our Independence was 
 declared, there were not three hundred thousand of 
 three millions who were not born upon the soil, whilst 
 twelve of the thirteen colonies were settled chiefly by 
 the Anglo-Saxon. 
 
 (843) 
 
THE ISSUE NOW BEFORE US. 343 
 
 The frightful increase of this immigrant population be-, 
 gan in 1837 and 1840, when the first movement of the 
 native American organizations originated ; but not un- 
 til 1846 had the Irish and German rush to our shores 
 become a startling and terrible calamity. 
 
 At least four-fifths of these aliens are driven to our 
 shores by the pe 'secution of Papal despots, whose pro- 
 pensity to browse in American pastures is made deli- 
 cious by their starving, loathsome condition in their 
 native lands. Bishop Hughes states that the average 
 amount of money they bring is fifteen dollars ! By 
 the report of the British Immigration Commissioner, 
 in May, '55, these immigrants had remitted to Europe, 
 through bankers and merchants alone, $28,948,800 in 
 five years, beside large amounts by various private 
 sources. This was one million of dollars over and 
 above what their .pious Archbishop asserts they had 
 upon landing upon our soil. From whence was this 
 money obtained but from. Americans? Who main- 
 tains these paupers but Americans ? "Who feeds and 
 educates their children but Americans? And yet 
 native political Jesuits impudently assert that this scum 
 of European masses enhances our wealth and confers 
 upon us advantages which demand our gratitude ! 
 
 Judge, my countrymen, for yourselves. One-third 
 of the population of the State of California to-day are 
 aliens — nationalities almost as numerous as the dialects 
 of Babel. Utah, too, whose rapidly increasing foreign 
 population is no longer a wonder, when we find these 
 Mormons organized over Europe to make converts to 
 their faith, and with systems for seducing and pro- 
 
Si4 THE GREAT A1IERICAX BATTLE. 
 
 selyting, imitating the Jesuits, they introduce inha- 
 bitants who own no sworn allegiance to our Go- 
 vernment-! More than thirteen hundred of these 
 immigrated to Salt Lake City, during last year, from 
 Great Britain. 
 
 We have shown that, at least, half a million of 
 foreigners come annually to American shores, and 
 more than one-half of this increase is poured into the 
 largest and most flourishing of our American cities. 
 
 The census of 1850 informs us that sixty-eight thou- 
 sand five hundred and thirty-eight foreign paupers 
 were then a tax upon the people, and supported at 
 their expense — more than half of all paupers in the 
 entire country. Thus while one in every thirty-three 
 foreigners was then a beggar, only one in every 
 three hundred Americans shared the degradation of 
 being maintained by public charity.. 
 
 In the hospitals and lunatic asylums of the various 
 cities, two -thirds are found in all cases to be foreign- 
 ers by the annual reports of the officers in charge. 
 
 In New York City, for illustration, 42,369 paupers, 
 2,381 lunatics, and 22,229 criminals fix their dark 
 stains on that city's statistics. Can Americans, will 
 Americans be longer pressed by the deadly fangs 
 of worn-out Europe, clinched into and drawing out 
 all the strength and bloom of American industry 
 and virtuous incentives ? While we are uppermost, 
 in God's name let us keep this evil down by removing 
 it to its original and proper place. Shall the beauty 
 of this new world that God has given us be marred by 
 the criminals which are thrust all around us ? 
 
THE ISSUE NOW BEFORE US. 345 
 
 The American colonies protected themselves by law 
 from these foreign paupers and criminals at their 
 earliest formation. 
 
 In Virginia they had a capitation tax on Irish ser- 
 vants who immigrated to that colony. In Pennsylva- 
 nia it was placed on criminals. 
 
 After our Eevolution, Massachusetts prohibited 
 refugees to return, and Congress sanctioned this action 
 by the States ; and after our present 'Constitution had 
 been but three days adopted, a resolution was unani- 
 mously passed by that Congress, " recommending the 
 several States to enact laws to prevent the transportation 
 of convicted malefactors from foreign countries into 
 the United States." And, by that authority, Virginia, 
 South Carolina, Georgia, New York, Massachusetts 
 and Pennsylvania did so, and with the most rigid and 
 heavy penal exactions, between 1788 and '91. "When 
 the agitation was felt upon the evil, in 1836, an effort 
 was made by the municipalities to guard ' against it in 
 New York, Baltimore, Boston, and New Orleans. 
 
 The Legislature of Boston directed her Senators 
 and Members of Congress to interpose for suppressing 
 these immigrants ; but a resolution of inquiry to 
 ascertain facts, through the Custom Houses, was all 
 the result of that attempt. 
 
 In 1837, the Mayor of Baltimore detached a ship- 
 load of two hundred and sixty persons, at Port 
 McHenry, who, as criminals, were brought into port 
 in irons, and so remained until the day before they 
 were to be loosed upon American soil. 
 
 The Mayor applied to the Administration at "Wash. 
 ington, Martin Van" Buren chief ruler, and being 
 
346 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 apprised that there was no power to prevent their 
 approach, these miserable wretches made their foot- 
 prints upon our land, and, doubtless, voted for that 
 loco foco democracy the very next election ! 
 
 The violation of the quarantine laws by this time 
 had been so shocking and wanton, that the Mayor 
 (Clark) of New York addressed a message to the 
 Common Council to provide a mounted police for the 
 city, day and night, to protect American operatives, to 
 arrest riotous parades 'and conspiracies against the 
 peace and quiet of American citizens. 
 
 A resolution at this time was again submitted to 
 Congress by Mr. Eussell, of New York, of inquiry 
 into our national grievance. Two bills were reported 
 by a select committee, July 2d, 1838, to revise the 
 Naturalization Laws, when a Mr. Beatty, a naturalized 
 citizen of Pennsylvania, interposed objection, and by 
 stratagem, and tergiversation, and political selfishness, 
 the effort was abortive. 
 
 Evidence of this increasing invasion upon American 
 nationality and defiant disregard for the will of the 
 American people, was furnished from month to month, 
 Avhile our consuls abroad lost no time in bringing the 
 appaling truths under their own eyes before their 
 Government. 
 
 But politicians, who were feeling the foreign vote 
 more and more important to their future elevation, 
 continued under this moral torpor, in spite of facts, 
 when the Hon. Hamilton Pish, of New York, in the 
 House of Eepresentatives, again succeeded, in the ses- 
 sion of 1844 and '5, in presenting the subject to the 
 deliberation of Congress, so far as to have the Com- 
 
THE ISSUE NOW BEFORE US. 347 
 
 mittee on the Judiciary report whether any necessity 
 existed for further legislation to prevent paupers and 
 criminals from coming among us. But this caused but 
 a laugh at the stupid credulity of the American peo- 
 ple, whose voice for years in this matter has been 
 no more regarded by the National Legislature than the 
 petty sovereign of that insignificant North American 
 tribe, who walks out of his hovel to salute the sun and 
 direct his daily course. 
 
 In addition to all the information imparted by our 
 ministers, consuls and charges abroad, proving the con- 
 ceited action of Ireland and Germany in particular, to 
 thrust their criminals and beggars among us, we find 
 President Pierce, who feels himself another Xerxes, 
 fettering American citizens with stripes as he did the 
 sea; and issuing his commands as from another Mount 
 Athos, to let foreign criminals and paupers alone, give 
 them office, lands, ballot-box, and more than the Ame- 
 rican born will even claim, to secure but his success in 
 the Nominating Convention for another Presidential 
 term! 
 
 In a letter recently published from our Consul at 
 Bremen to the State Department at Washington, we 
 have the explicit declaration that circulars are dis- 
 tributed in the interior of Germany by the immigra- 
 tion agents, directing the maimed, deformed, or crip- 
 pled not to take passage to New York, but to Bal- 
 timore, New Orleans, or Quebec, where no laws exist 
 to prohibit their landing. 
 
 After the Constitution was adopted, the power be- 
 longing to the States to naturalize was surrendered to 
 the General Government. 
 
348 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 While the American Bevolution was progressing, 
 our Continental Congress forbade any but the native 
 sons to be employed in the foreign service of the 
 country. 
 
 The committee, consisting of Jefferson, Gerry, Read, 
 Sherman, and Williams, reported : 
 
 Resolved, That it is inconsistent with the interests of the United 
 States to appoint any person, not a natural born citizen thereof, to 
 the office of minister, charge d'affaires, consul, vice-consul, or to 
 any other civil department in a foreign country, and that a copy of 
 this resolve be transmitted to Messrs. Adams, Franklin, and Jay 
 ministers of the said States, in Europe. 
 
 And Washington says : 
 
 Tou are not to enlist any deserter from the ministerial army, or 
 any stroller, negro, or vagabond, or person suspected of being an 
 enemy to the liberty of America, nor any under eighteen years of 
 age. 
 
 You are not to enlist any person who is not an American born, 
 unless such person has a wife and family, and is a settled resident in 
 this country. 
 
 The persous you enlist must be provided with good and complete 
 arms. 
 
 Given at the Head-Quarters, at Cambridge, this 10th day of 
 July, 1775. 
 
 HORATIO GATES, Adj. Gen. 
 
 Extracts from the original Orderly Book, left by the late 
 Gen. Hand, who luas the Adjutant General of the 
 American Army, at the close of the Revolution. 
 
 Cambridge Head-Quarters, July 7, 1775. 
 By his Excellency George Washington. 
 General Oedees : 
 
 Parole, Dorchester ; Countersign, Exeter. 
 The General has great reason, and is displeased with the negli- 
 gence and inattention of those officers who have placed as sentries, 
 
THE ISSUE NOW EEFOEE US. 349 
 
 at the outpost, men with whose characters they are unacquainted. 
 He, therefore, orders that, for the future, no man shall be appointed 
 to those stations who is not A NATIVE of this country ; this or- 
 der is to be considered a standing one, and the officers are to pay 
 obedience to it at their peril. 
 
 POX, Adjt.-General of the day. 
 
 Head-Quarters, Valley Forge, March 17, 1778. 
 Gener.vl Orders : 
 
 One hundrod chosen men are to be annexed to the guard of the 
 Oommander-in-Ohief, for the purpose of forming a corps, to be in- 
 structed in the lAanceuvres necessary to be introduced into the 
 army, and serve as models for the execution of them. As the Gene- 
 ral's guard is composed of Virginians, the hundred drafts will be 
 taken from the troops of the other States. 
 
 Description of the men: Height, from 5 feet 8 to 5 feet 10 
 inches ; age, from 20 to 30 years ; robust constitutions, well-limbed 
 and formed for activity, and men of established character for 
 sobriety and fidelity. THEY MUST BE AMEEICANS BORN. 
 
 And he further writes : 
 
 Morristovm, May 7, 1777. 
 To Richard Henry Lee : 
 
 Dear Sir — I take the liberty to ask you what Congress expects 
 I am to do with the many foreigners that have at different times 
 been promoted to the rank of field officers, and by their last resolve, 
 two to that of Colonels ? These men have no attachment for the 
 country further than interest binds them. Our officers think it ex. 
 ceedingly hard, after they have toiled in the service, and have sus. 
 tained many losses, to have strangers put over them, whose merit, 
 perhaps is not equal to their own, but whose effrontery will take no 
 denial. It is by the zeal and activity of our own people that the 
 cause must be supported, and not by the few hungry adventurers. 
 I am, &c, GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 Middlebanh, June 1, 1777. 
 To the same :— Tou will, before this can reach you, have seen 
 Monsieur Decoudray ; what his real expectations are I know not ; 
 
350 THE GHEAT AMEMCAN BATTLE. 
 
 but I fear if his appointment is equal to what I have been told is 
 his expectation, it will be attended with unhappy consequences, to 
 say nothing of the policy of entrusting a department, on the exe- 
 cution of which the salvation of the army depends, to a foreigner, 
 who has no other tie to bind him to the interest of the country 
 than honor. I would beg leave to observe, that by putting Mr. D. 
 at the head of the artillery, you will lose a very valuable officer in 
 General Knox, who is a man of great military reading, sound judg- 
 ment, and clever conceptions, and who will resign if any one is put 
 over him. 
 
 I am, &c., GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 White Plains, July 24, 1778. 
 To Governor Morris, Esq. .- 
 
 Dear Sie : The design of this is to touch cursorily upon a sub- 
 ject of very great importance to the being of these States ; much 
 more so than will appear at first view — I mean the appointment of 
 so many foreigners to offices of high rank and trust in our service. 
 
 The lavish manner in which rank ■ has hitherto been bestowed on 
 these gentlemen will certainly be productive of one or the other of 
 these two evils, either to make us despicable in the eyes of Europe 
 or become a meaus of pouring them in upon us like a torrent, and 
 adding to our present burden. 
 
 But it is neither the expense nor the trouble of them I most 
 dread ; there is an evil more extensive in its nature and fatal in its 
 consequence to be apprehended, and that is, the driving of all our 
 officers out of the service, and throwing not only our own army 
 but our military councils entirely into the hands of foreigners. 
 
 The officers, my dear sir, on whom you must depend for the de- 
 fence of the cause, distinguished by length of service and military 
 merit, will not submit much, if any longer, to the unnatural promo- 
 tion of men over them who have nothing more than a little plausi- 
 bility, unbounded pride and ambition, and a perseverance in the ap- 
 plication to support their pretensions, not to be resisted but by 
 uncommon firmness ; men who, in the first instance, say they wish 
 for nothing more than the honor of serving so glorious a cause as 
 volunteers, the next day solicit rank without pay ; the day follow- 
 
THE ISSUE NOW BEFOEE US. 851 
 
 ing want money advanced to them ; and, in the course of a week, 
 want further promotion. The expediency and policy of the meas- 
 ure remain to be considered, and whether it is consistent with jus- 
 tice or prudence to promote these military fortune-hunters at the 
 hazard of our army. 
 
 Baron Steuben, I now find, is also wanting to quit his inspector- 
 ship for a command in the line. This will be productive of much 
 discontent. In a word, although I think the Baron an excellent 
 officer, I do most devoutly wish that we had not a single foreigner 
 amongst us, except the Marquis de Lafayette, who acts upon very 
 different principles from those which govern the rest. Adieu. 
 I am most sincerely yours, 
 
 GEOBGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 To Col. Spotswood lie also wrote : 
 
 You will, therefore, send me none but natives, and men of some 
 property, if you have them. I must insist that in making this 
 choice you give no intimation of my preference for natives, as I do 
 not want to create any invidious distinction between them and the 
 foreigners. 
 
 The same policy was found essential in our recent . 
 war with Mexico. Placards were found in all the 
 cities requiring only the native sons of America to 
 enlist for our battles ; because General Taylor found it 
 impossible to prevent the foreigners from deserting, as 
 O'Bielly's regiment had done. And why not ? No 
 nationality was staked for them. 
 
 The debates in the Congress which adopted our pre- 
 sent glorious system of government, prove, from the 
 language of its most distinguished framers, that our 
 fathers never did, and never would have given, the 
 foreigner the rights which exclusively enure to the 
 American born. In a subsequent Congress, and be- 
 fore the death of our Washington, General Harper, of 
 
352 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 Maryland, who was a member of the Convention 
 which formed the Constitution, moved that " provision 
 be made by law to prevent any person from becoming 
 a citizen of the United States, except by birth," as he 
 was convinced, even at that day, it was our essential 
 policy that no foreigner should be allowed to par- 
 ticipate in our Government. 
 
 Says Mr. Jefferson, in his annual Presidential Mes- 
 sage : 
 
 A very early recommendation had been given to the Postmaster- 
 General to employ no foreigner or revolutionary tory in any of his 
 offices. 
 
 Here, Americans, is Bishop Hughes's advice to Irish- 
 men: 
 
 Irishmen learn in America to bide their time ; year by year, the 
 United States and England touch each other more and more nearly 
 on the seas. Tear by year the Irish are becoming more and more 
 powerful in America. At length the propitious time will come — 
 some accidental, sudden collision, and a Presidential campaign at 
 hand. We will use then the very profligacy of our politicians for our 
 purposes. They will want to buy the Irish vote, and we will tell 
 them how they can buy it in a lump from Maine to California, by 
 declaring war on Great Britain, and wiping off at the same time 
 the stains of concession and dishonor, that our "Websters, and men 
 of his kind, have permitted to be heaped upon the American flag by 
 the violence of British agents. 
 
 Here John Mitchel's from the Irish journals of New 
 York: 
 
 For every musket given into the State Armory, let three be pur- 
 chased forthwith ; let independent companies be formed, thrice as 
 numerous as the disbanded corps — there are no Arms Acts here 
 yet— and let every " foreigner" be drilled and trained, and have his 
 
THE ISSUE NOW BEFOBE US. 353 
 
 arms always ready. For you may be sure [having some experience 
 in the matter] that those who begin by disarming you, mean to do 
 you mischief. 
 
 Be careful not to truckle in the smallest particular to American 
 prejudices. Yield not a single jot of your own, for you have 
 as good a right to your prejudices as they. Do not, by any means, 
 suffer Gardner's Bible [the Protestant Bible] to be thrust down 
 your throats. Do not abandon your posts or renounce your func- 
 tions as citizens or as soldiers, but ever resort to the last and high- 
 est tribunal of law open to you ; keep the peace, attempt no " dem- 
 onstrations ;'' discourage drunkenness, and stand to your arms. 
 
 It is to be conceived that the madness of faction and the inso- 
 lence of race will proceed to such a length as to disarm independent 
 companies or private men. If they do, then the Constitution is at 
 an end — the allegiance you have sworn to this Republic is annulled ! 
 
 Would to God that thoughtful and just Americans would be- 
 think themselves in time. They are strong — they far outnumber 
 the foreign born ; they are proud, and flushed with national glory 
 and prosperity ; doubtless they can, if they will, do great and 
 grievous wrong to a race that has never wronged them ; but 
 seriously, earnestly, we assure them the naturalized citizens will not 
 submit. This senseless feud must be reconciled ; there must be 
 peace — peace, or else warof extermination. We are here, on Amer- 
 ican ground, either as citizens or as enemies. 
 
 Here the Pilot's, of the same year, 1844 — the Eoman 
 Catholic organ of Boston : 
 
 We say to all men in the United States entitled to be naturalized, 
 become citizens while you can — let nothing delay you for an hour ; 
 let no hindrance short of mortal disease banish you from the ballot- 
 box. To those who are citizens, we say vote your principles, what- 
 ever they be, never desert them, do not be wheedled or terrified, but 
 vote quietly, seriously and unobtrusively. Leave to others the 
 noisy warfare of words ; let your opinions be proved by your de- 
 liberate and determined action. We recommend to you no party ; 
 we condemn no candidate but one, and he is— Theodore Freyling- 
 
354 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 huysen. We have nothing to say to him as a Whig — we have 
 nothing to say to Mr. Olay, nor any other Whig, as such — but to 
 the President of the American Board of Foreign Missions, the friend 
 and patron of the Kirks and Coxes, we have much to say. We 
 hate his intolerance — we dislike his associates — and we shudder at 
 the blackness and the bitterness of that school of sectarians to 
 which he belongs, and among whom he is regarded as an 
 authority. 
 
 See the power of the Hierarchy of Eome upon 
 Brownson, who could speak thus of our immortal 
 Clay, and he himself a native citizen : 
 
 He is ambitious, but shortsighted. He is abashed by no incon- 
 sistency, disturbed by no contradiction, and can defend with a firm 
 countenance without the least misgiving what everybody but him- 
 self sees to be a political fallacy, or logical absurdity. He is no 
 more disturbed by being convicted of moral insensibility than in- 
 tellectual absurdity A man of rare abilities, but apparently void 
 of both moral and intellectual conscience, and, therefore, a man 
 whom no power under that of the Almighty can restrain, he must 
 needs be the most dangerous man to be placed at the head of the 
 government it is possible to conceive. 
 
 And in reference to our common school system, 
 Father Schatcht's charge to the Eoman Catholics of 
 Nashville : 
 
 The sisters' school commences in the morning, and I hope every 
 Catholic will send his children. If Pkotestants ash if they may 
 send their children to the sisters' school, tell them NO ! unless they 
 wish their children to become Catholics. It is a' Catholic school, 
 and none but Catholics and those, intended to become Catholics 
 will be admitted. 
 
 The free school of the city will also be in operation, and I hpe 
 no Catholic child will ever be found in that school. We have a right 
 to send them there ; you will have to help pay the school tax, but 
 it is better to lose your money them lose your child's soul. J7ie 
 
THE ISSUE NOW BEFORE US. 855 
 
 honorably begotten and the Hl-begotten will meet and mingle at that 
 school, and I hopt no Catholic will be found there .' 
 
 Therefore, Brownson says our American common 
 school system is only intended to make infidels, liber- 
 tines, sharpers, and rogues I 
 
 Hear, now, Americans, what Millard Fillmore said 
 in a letter to Mr. Clay, datetl Buffalo, 11th November, 
 1844: 
 
 The Abolitionists and foreign Catholics have defeated us in this 
 State. I will not trust myself to speak of the vile hypocrisy of 
 the leading Abolitionists now. Doubtless many acted honorably 
 but ignorantly in what they did. But it is clear that Birney and 
 his associates sold themselves to Loco Pocoism, and they will doubt- 
 less receive their reward. 
 
 Our opponents, by pointing to the Native Americans and to Mr- 
 Frelinghuysen, drove the foreign Catholics from us, and defeated us 
 in this State. ■ 
 
 When Mr. Fillmore was in the Presidential office, he 
 wrote, through his Secretary of State, Mr. Everett, to 
 the Grand Duke of Tuscany, to intercede for the 
 release of the oppressed Madiais. 
 
 Bishop Hughes's journal in New York thus refers 
 to him on his termination of office : 
 
 It does not escape the independent judgment of the universe, 
 that the Administration, NOW HAPPILY DEFUNCT, HAS 
 BEEN AS BIGOTED AS IT HAS BEEN IMBECILE. The 
 universe congratulates the country upon having elected a statesman 
 for President, and for permitting the Unitarian ex-preacher, late 
 Secretary of State, to return to his pulpit to proclaim that Jesus is 
 not God, and Mr. Fillmore himself to become a village lawyer. 
 
 Americans, now behold the Constitution the Free 
 German Associations, in this our country are openly 
 
356 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 promulgating, under the direction of Eomish despots, 
 to destroy our liberties : 
 
 "We demand — 
 
 1. Universal suffrage. 
 
 2. The election of all officers by the people. 
 
 3. The abolition of the Presidency. 
 
 4. The abolition of Senates. 
 
 5. The right of the people to recall their representatives 
 [cashier them] at their pleasure. 
 
 6. The right of the people to change the Constitution when 
 they like. 
 
 1. All lawsuits to be conducted without expense. 
 
 8. A department of the Government to be set up for the pro- 
 tection of immigration. 
 
 9. A reduced term of acquiring citizenship. 
 
 10. Abolition of all neutrality. 
 
 11. Intervention in favor of every people struggling for liberty. 
 
 12. Abolition of laws for the observance of the Sabbath. 
 
 13. Abolition of prayers in Congress. 
 
 14. Abolition of oaths upon the Bible. 
 
 15. The supporting of the emancipation exertions of Cassius M. 
 Clay by Congressional laws. 
 
 16. Abolition of the Christian system of punishment, and the 
 introduction of the human amelioration system. 
 
 17. Abolition of capital punishment. 
 
 The Khan of Tartary, who does not possess even a 
 house, and feeds on mare's milk and horse-flesh, has as 
 much right to hold his lama immortal as the Eomish 
 Hierarchy has, by right, to send its armies of criminals 
 fmd paupers to destroy our freedom. 
 
 "I prefer the liberty of my country to that of any 
 other people, and the liberty of my race to that of any 
 other," said Henry Clay. 
 
THE ISSUE NOW BEFORE US. 357 
 
 "The name American" said Washington, "must 
 ever exalt the just pride of patriotism." 
 
 " Thy spirit, Independence, let me share, 
 Lord of the lion-heart and eagle eye, 
 Thy steps Til follow with my bosom bare, 
 Thongh threat'ning storms may howl along the sky," 
 
 Is the American sentiment in patriotism, in religion, in 
 politics, in life, in death itself I 
 
CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 AMERICAN NOMINATIONS. 
 
 "Now conquer we must, when our cause it is just, 
 And this is our motto — in God is our trust, 
 And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave, 
 O'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave I" 
 
 The Convention to repair our diseased national life, 
 has just closed its deliberations at Philadelphia. And 
 God, who only measures and comprehends our dan- 
 ger, and looks upon future actions as done, was to it, 
 "first, last, midst, and without end." On! on! seemed 
 the silent but resistless voice, which made the hearts of 
 patriots leap into their heads, and sent a thrill of vital 
 force, fierce and firm, in response to that question, which 
 knocked at every true American soul, " Who hath re 
 quired this at your hands ?" What a man has done, is 
 the best test he can furnish of what he will do. And 
 hence the gushing spontaniety, the nation-wide sym- 
 pathy, the rapturous devotion with which the name of 
 Millard Fillmore came, free from solicitation, unblem- 
 ished by cunning, or wrinkled by selfishness, as the 
 anchor of hope to the American party — the surest 
 means at command for the salvation of our country 
 and deliverance from the aggregated ills which have 
 combined to curse and crush our great nationality. 
 
AMERICAN NOMINATIONS. 359 
 
 la Mr. Fillmore we recognize the friend of our whole 
 country, embracing zealously the principles for which 
 the American party are now contending, and having im- 
 posed upon himself all the obligations of the American 
 Order, is now placed before the people as their Ameri- 
 can candidate, to administer the government, if called 
 by the free suffrages of American voters, only as an 
 American President ! Casting aside forever all former 
 party affiliations designations, he will require 
 
 of all the people but the same scrupulous test of 
 American principles which has induced them, in their 
 own sovereignty, to call him to their support in the 
 administration of the government ? And the wisdom 
 and power of the American principle, that the Presi- 
 dency of these States must be an unsought gift, is mani- 
 fested in the nomination of Millard Fillmore, of New 
 York, and Andrew Jackson Donelson, of Tennessee, 
 as food to the blood of the American party ! The life, 
 the services, the integrity, and the honor of Millard 
 Fillmore were the guarantees to the party, and to the 
 country, who are now jubilant with joy, at the sacred 
 assurances these furnish, that he will be faithful to the 
 glorious Union, and will maintain the equal rights and 
 equality of all the States! At home and abroad, 
 the government will be administered fairly, firmly, 
 and purely, in conformity with American principles, 
 and to the honor and glory of the American name. 
 The star of hope has appeared in the good Providence 
 of God, and the nation now turns to Fillmore and 
 Donelson for deliverance in this their time of trouble. 
 It is well with the man, says the prophet, with whom 
 
360 THE GREAT AMERICAN" BATTLE. 
 
 even his enemies are at peace. And when even Gov. 
 Wise, of Virginia, magnanimously called the adminis- 
 tration of Millard Fillmore, "Washington-like, we can 
 understand the confidence with which all the people 
 are now inspired; and realize the assertion of those 
 who sat around his council board, that not a thought 
 was ever expressed, nor an act performed, during his 
 continuance in office, that would not have been worthy 
 of Washington himself! "Proclaim liberty throughout 
 all the land, and unto all the inhabitants thereof," was 
 the language of Holy Writ, inscribed upon the Bell 
 which rang the annunciation of our National Indepen- 
 dence in " 1776 ! Since we became a free and happy 
 people, we have never needed, so much as now, hearts 
 of fire, to rouse, strengthen, and emancipate our coun- 
 try from the doating nurses and rickety judgment of 
 men who have, by the smack of their own whip, at- 
 tempted to keep down patriotism, by flogging Ameri- 
 cans, and putting their God-conferred liberty in the 
 swaddling bands of superstition and idolatry ! When 
 now the honored names of "Fillmore and Donelson, 
 fresh and bright, spring like a sunbeam upon the 
 American mind, it feels the need of no keener weapon 
 than that of truth, to sound the depths and the shal- 
 lows of the intelligence of the people which embodied 
 the American principles, and made the American party 
 their undying benefactor ! With the private and per- 
 sonal history of Mr. Fillmore, the public are already 
 familiar ; and the purity of his life, and the invulner- 
 able nature of his character, impregnable to assault, is 
 the great and indestructible element of all his mental 
 
AMERICAN NOMINATIONS. 361 
 
 and moral power. A gentleman by nature, though 
 born without any of the advantages or accompaniments 
 of fortune, he learned, in the experience of his own 
 history, how best to estimate and appreciate the 
 value of American institutions. With the limited 
 means of his father, he worked as a boy upon his 
 farm, until the age of twelve years, when he assumed 
 the responsibilities of his own support, and became 
 apprenticed to a clothier, to leam the art of dressing 
 cloth ; and subsequently to a wool-carder, where he 
 remained until the age of nineteen, so assiduously cul- 
 tivating, at the same period, his comprehensive intel- 
 lect, as to have remedied, in a great degree, the defi- 
 ciencies of his early education. But such nobility, jus- 
 tice, and integrity, as he thus early represented, were 
 soon discovered by a distinguished member of the 
 bench, in his native county of Cayuga, New York, 
 and at the instance, and by the assistance of this gen- 
 erous benefactor, and the aid afforded by a school 
 which he himself conducted, Mr. Fillmore prosecuted 
 his legal studies, and was admitted to the bar, at Buf- 
 falo, in 1823,. and assumed the practice of law in the 
 town of Aurora the same year. His march has, since 
 that epoch, been steadily onward. Advanced, profes- 
 sionally and politically, by intrinsic merit, the sturdy 
 and uncompromising friend of Right, he has spent his 
 life, from the clothier's shop to the Presidential retire- 
 ment, under the brilliant guidance of good sense, and 
 illustrating at every step the same indomitable energy 
 and decision in the performance of every trust which 
 he manifested to Americans when called by a benefi- 
 16 
 
362 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 cent destiny to preside over the administration of their 
 national government ! 
 
 The name of Andrew Jackson Donelson carries with 
 it, too, the untamed and untamable energy of the popular 
 and honored General AndreAV Jackson. It rouses ting- 
 ling sensations in the nerves of the American people ! 
 It enkindles afresh the inspiration of the past, and seems 
 to shrivel every obstacle into ashes in connection with 
 the immortal Hero of the Hermitage! Major Donelson 
 was reared under the guardianship of General Jackson, 
 and thus learned that the strength of American men 
 should be given to break the clanking chains of all 
 civil and religious intolerance. He showed the vitality 
 of his thinking principle, by his rapid attainment to 
 proficiency in the studies of Cadet, and graduated with 
 distinction at West Point, in 1819. He immediately 
 bore a commission in the corps of Engineers, and sub- 
 sequently was appointed Aid-de-camp by General 
 Jackson, with whom he continued while the General 
 remained in the army. "When the cities and plains of 
 the country rang by acclamation for his call to the 
 Presidency, Major Donelson resigned his commission 
 in the Army, and gave the most of his time to facili- 
 tate the great popular movement which resulted in the 
 elevation of General Jackson to the Chief Magistracy 
 of the nation. He now accepted the position of his 
 Private Secretary, and as a member of the President's 
 family, he remained for the two terms of his administra- 
 tion in charge of his private, as well as official corres- 
 pondence. Upon the retirement of General Jackson 
 to private life, Mr. Donelson was tendered, but de- 
 
AMERICAN NOMINATIONS. 363 
 
 clined, a high appointment under his successor, Mr. 
 Van Buren, and returned with General Jackson to his 
 estate adjoining the Hermitage in Tennessee, where he 
 continued to aid him in a correspondence still as ex- 
 tensive as the nation he had filled with his fame. 
 
 In 1844, when the influence of the Tyler administra- 
 tion was prostrate, and had proved too narrow to secure 
 the annexation of Texas, a messenger was dispatched 
 to Gen. Jackson, desiring him to induce Mr. Donel- 
 son to accept the appointment of Minister to that Gov- 
 ernment, and manage the negotiation. In his absence, 
 in Mississippi, when the messenger reached the Her- 
 mitage, the General returned the assurance to Mr. 
 Tyler that he would comply with his request. And 
 Mr. Donelson, a warm supporter of that measure, re- 
 paired immediately to Texas and succeeded in securing 
 such a modification of the views of President Houston, 
 as to bring about the act of annexation in a manner 
 satisfactory not only to both Governments, but to the 
 people of both countries, who thus mutually increased 
 the depth and strength of their resources. 
 
 The records of the State Department at Washing- 
 ton, under the administration of Mr. Tyler and his 
 successor, Mr. Polk, furnish evidence of the unmea- 
 sured wisdom, purity, and able intelligence which 
 Mr. Donelson displayed in that ever memorable 
 transaction. Upon the election of Mr. Polk to the 
 Presidency, he desired the aid of Mr. Donelson in 
 his councils ; and a Cabinet appointment was urged 
 upon his acceptance. He, however, preferred a mis- 
 sion to Prussia, and in 1846 took up his residence at 
 
364 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE. 
 
 that Court, where he remained until the revolution 
 and the formation of a new central government at 
 Frankfort-on-the-Maine. To this he was also an ac- 
 credited Minister, acting at both Courts, until re- 
 lieved at Berlin, by a successor, appointed by Mr. 
 Polk. The central Government at Frankfort relapsed 
 to its former condition after the revolution of 1848, 
 and Mr. Donelson, in 1849, being recalled by Presi- 
 dent Taylor, closed his connection with the public 
 service of the country. The letters in the State 
 Department from President Taylor attest the highest 
 appreciation for his fidelity and usefulness as the re- 
 presentative of his government. During the agitation 
 caused by the acquisition of Mexican Territory, Mr. 
 Donelson was induced to leave his private interests 
 near the Hermitage, for a short time, and conduct the 
 Washington Union, to hasten the harmonious adjudi- 
 cation of that difficulty. He has been a consistent op- 
 ponent of the administration of Mr. Pierce, and of the 
 anti- American influences which elected him and now 
 control his action ; and, occupies the position to which 
 the American Party has just called him, only because 
 he saw and acknowledged the vital action of that one 
 thought ; that the force, power and dominion of our 
 own nationality must be traced in letters of fire on the 
 brow, and become the crowning glory of Americans, 
 now or never ! 
 
 And now, Americans, with a party that stands only 
 upon the broad basis of the Constitution, and solemnly 
 recognizes the rights of all, from the forest and prairies, 
 the lakes and rivers of our Continent, let there be one 
 
AMERICAN NOMINATIONS. 365 
 
 common stand, irrespective of all parties, for the .Ameri- 
 can flag and American principles, having inscribed 
 upon our stars and stripes our American brothers, Fill- 
 more and Donelson. 
 
 "When Washington was called by Congress to lead 
 on an embattled host to victory, there -were present 
 those who preferred the favorite son of Massachusetts. 
 But that spirit which fuses, thinks, feels, interpene- 
 trates the patriot soul, and directs it, made that choice 
 then a vital and indissoluble unit. So now, let no 
 personal preference reveal an outward impulse which 
 is not eager for action under the halo of light, which 
 is borne upon our American banner. And as in the 
 times which tried the souls of our fathers, when the 
 mechanics of New York City boxed up their tools, and 
 the ploughmen of New England left their implements 
 in the furrow, to secure the great ends for which the 
 declaration was made-^so now, may all considerations 
 but the glory of our common cause and common coun- 
 try, be boxed up or left; and the people, old, mid- 
 dle-aged and young, with the mothers, sisters and 
 daughters of our land, form one great, vast, executive 
 force, to elevate our national principles by men who 
 will never be found Peter's to the sovereign majesty 
 of the American people !