o0,
THE 001 T R0 ESEY
BETWEEN
GROWING OUT OF THE RECENTLY- ENACTED
CHURCH PROPERTY BILL,
WITH AN INTRODUCTION
BY THE
MOST REVY ARCHBISHOP OF NEW YORK.
NEW YORK:
EDWARD DUNIGAN & BROTHER, 151 FULTON STREET.
ISS5.




ENTERED accordilng to Act of Congress, in tile year 1855, by
JA[MES 33. KIRKER,
In tis Clrk's Office of the District Court of the United States f6r the Southern District of
New York.




i-NTRODUCTION,
FEw questions of a comparatively local character have arisen in
modern times to which circumstances have so much attracted public attention as the question of the late Church Property Bill,
passed in the Legislature of New York, and the incidents antecedent to or growing out of its enactments.  The writer would
not have the slightest doubt as to the accuracy of public sentiment
if the question were thoroughly understood.  He has unbounded
confidence in the justice and fairness which characterize the judgment of the American people in regard to any matter, the true
merits of which have been brought under their notice.  No doubt
that under the impulse of generous feelings, they are sometimes
liable to be led away by appearances.  We have seen that in
more than one instance political adventurers from other countries
have succeeeded  i  mposing upon them, and betraying them  into
proceedings far from creditable to their calmer judgments.  But
such delusions have been of very brief and transitory duration.
The sober second thought soon replaces the sentiment of impulse
and rectifies its errors.   It will be so in regard to the question
now undel  consideration.  The American people, the living embodiment and practical administrator of the great and noble principles which are inscribed in our free constitutions, will never allow those sacred principles to be perverted or trampled under foot




INTRODUCTION.
to gratify the spurious patriotism of a clique who are attempting
to infuse religious strife into the very arteries of civil freedo3,
of social happiness and national strength.
This being now as it has ever been the deliberate judgment of
the writer in regard to the character of the American people, he
has deemed it but a respectful duty to them to furnish in this introduction such explanation of the true grounds of the question
involved in the late act of the Legislature of New York, as will
enable them to form their own just conclusions, according to the
merit and evidence of the case submitted.
It has been the supreme and sovereign will of the American
people from  the period of their independence that all religious
denominations residing  ithin th eir borders should enjoy the same
equality of rights and privileges under the Constitution and laws
of the country.  And although several of the States continued for
many years to retain enactlments preventing Catholics from  the
full enjoyment of these equal privileges still the great predominant sentiment of the country induced th-ose States oe  after
another to abolish such enactments, so that at the present day
they disgrace the statute book of no commonwealth in the -whole
Union, except tAlat of New Hlampshire.  In this great principle
of religious equality among the various denominations composing
the powerful free empire of the American people, it was never intended that the State should prescribe for any de'nomlination a
code of discipline which should embarrass its members in carrying out the principles of their faith.  It never was intended that
the rules which might harmonize with the faith of one denomination, should be imposed unsolicited upon another whose religious
belief was of an entirely different character.  On the contrary, the
principle hitherto adopted and universally acted upon, if we except the Church Property Bill as it is commonly called, has been
that each denomination should either use a general enactment,
such as the law of 1 784 in this State, or solicit at the hands of




INTRODUCTION.                          5
the Legislature such special enactment as might enable them,
consistently with the requirements of the Constitution, to manage
the external affairs of their nommunion as a religious body according to their respective symbols of faith.
I.
The venerable Archbishop Carroll, who himself took part
in the revolution by which American independence was won,
wished to assimilate as far as possible the outward administration of Catholic Church property in a way that would harmonize
with the democratic principles on which the new  goyernment
was founded.  With this view he authorized and instituted the
system  of lay trustees in Catholic congregations.   Regarded
a p'riori, no system  could appear to be less objectionable, or
more likely, both to secure advantages to those congregations,
and at the same time to recommend the Catholic religion to the
liberal consideration of the Protestant sentiment of the country.
It would, he thought, relieve the priest from  the necessity and
painfulness of having to appeal from  the altar on questions
connected with money, touching either the means of his own
support, repairs of the church, or other measures essential to
the welfare of his congregation.  It would at the same time
secure the property by the protection of law for the perpetual
uses to which it had been set apart and consecrated.  It would
be a bond of union between the priest and the people.  It would
be a shield to protect the minister of the altar, from  the very
suspicion of being a money-seeker, and at the same time a
means to provide for his decent maintenance.  All these were
no doubt the considerations which moved the venerable  and
patriotic Archbishop to adopt and recommend the system  of
lay trustees.  On paper and in theory that system was entirely
unobjectionable.  It was well calculated to gain the confidence
of a mind so generous and so liberal as that of the first Archbishop of Baltimore.   But in practice it became the bitter
chalice of his old age.  It led to violent strifes in Charleston




6                        INTRODUCTION.
and in Norfolk.  It led to riots and bloodshed in Baltimore and
Philadelphia.   Archbishop  Garroll, when there were but two
churches in the city of Baltirore, was doomed to witness the
congregation of one of them assembling at the house of Divine
worship on Sunday  with loaded.muskets in their hands.  He
was doomed even during his own administration to see an excommunicated priest inaugurated by lay trustees in another church
in Philadelphia; and to undergo a legal prosecution at the
hands of lay trustees, in the Civil Court, for a simple act of
Episcopal jurisdiction.  It is impossible to tell vwhat would have
been the consequence of that prosecution had it not been for the
high character which the good prelate had sustained, and for the
high estimation in which he was held by the whole community
of Philadelphia, Protestant as well as Catholic.  After his
death, similar results  of  lay-trusteeship  followed  in  the
church of St. Mary in  Philadelphia.  Whoever will turn to
the press of that city in the years 1821, 1822, 1823, 1824,
1825, will see melancholy evidence of its workings in social
strifes, religious enmities, schism, lawsuits, fearful riots and
bloodshed.
The evils which manifested themselves in these churches on
a grand scale, were witnessed in a minor degree in almost every
congregation throughout the country, under the government of
lay trustees. The churches of this city were by no means exempt from  them; and some of our older Catholic inhabitants
have witnessed, both in St. Peter's and in St. Patrick's, scenes
of strife which they deplored, and which they would be ashamed
to read in recorded detail.
Ill.
Such was the general condition of the Catholic people of
the United States in the year 1829, when their Bishops' were
numerous enough to hold counsel together for the purpose of
securing peace, promoting piety, and improving the moral and
social condition of their respective flocks.  In the fifth decree
of this first council the following statute was atgreed upon, and
rendered applicable to each diocese except that of Charleston.




INTRODUCTION.                           1
"Whereas lay trustees have frequently abused the right
conceded to them  by the State, to the great detriment of religion  and  scandal of the  faithful, we desire  earnestly that
henceforth no church be erected or consecrated unless the title
thereof, whenever it can be done, shall be assigned by a written
document to the bishop of the diocese in which it is to be erected,
for the purpose of divine worship, and the benefit of the faithful."  In the fourth decree of the third council of Baltimore,
held in 1837, both the clergy and laity are reminded of the
heavy spiritual penalties decreed by the Council of Trent against
all persons, whether lay or clerical, perverting from the sacred
purpose to which it is appropriated any thing given by  the
faithful for religious or charitable uses.  The fourth statute of
the seventh  Provincial Council of Baltimore, held in 1849, lays
down the rule as follows:': The fathers have ordained that all churches and  other
ecclesiastical goods which have accrued from  the gifts or offerings of the faithful, and which are to be employed for purposes
of charity or religion, shall belong to the ordinary, unless it appear
and is proven in writing, that they have been conceded to some
religious order or congregation of priests for their own use."
These are the only laws of discipline regarding church property which I find enacted in the Provincial Councils of Baltimore.
This latter statute had reference more particularly to that kind
of property which might have been given in a vague and indefinite
way; and which it might happen that the priest, either in good
faith or otherwise, might construe as having been given to himself for his personal use.  But in no case has the idea ever been
entertained of acquiring wealth or making the Church rich, or
creating revenues which even a Bishop or Archbishop might be at
liberty to use or abuse at his discretion.
IV.
It is hardly necessary to remind the Protestant reader that
Catholics have their own mode of Church government, and that




8                          INTRODUCTION.
when they were admitted to equality of privileges, the same as
other religious denominationsatheir mode of regulating questions of
Church discipline, according to the principlesof their creed, was
substantially recognized and guaranteed.  This of course should be
in harmony with those principles of the constitution and general
laws of the State by which its own supreme sovereignty should
be maintained, and its right of protection to all its inhabitants
in the domain of civil legislation secured.  Still, it was never intended that the Catholic idea regarding Church property should,
through the operation of civil laws, be made conformable to
those of any other denomination of Christians.  This would be
a contradiction.  It would be taking from. them by legislation a
portion of what had been secured to them  by the Constitution
and the Bill of Rights.
It was under these convictions that the present Archbishop of
New York enjoined upon the Catholics under his charge the obligation of regarding Church property in the light of their faith.
Hence in his pastoral letter, published after the first diocesan
synod in 1842, we find the following as the true Catholic idea,
according to which Church property is to be regarded.  The
document was published at a time when the evil consequences of
lay-trusteeship in the city of New York were beginning to manifest themselves.
Now, ecclesiastical property is that, and all that, which the
faithful contr:ibute from  religious motives and for religious purposes.  It is the Church, the cemetery, and all estate thereto
belonging.   It is the  pew  rents;-the collections,-and  all
moneys derived from, or for the benefit of religion.  It is the sacred furniture of the house of God.  In a word, it is all that ex,
ists for ecclesiastical purposes.  According to the laws of the
Church and the usage of all nations, such property, though it
must be protected by human laws, as other material property,
yet; being once brought into  existence in the form. and  for
the uses of religion, is considered as if it were the property of
God; which cannot be violated, alienated, or wastefully squandered, without (besides ordinary injustice as if it were common




INTRODUCTION.                            9
property), the additional guilt of a kind of sacrilege.  It is not
considered, in the canon law, either the property of the Bishop,
or the property of his clergy, or the property of the people; but
as the property of God,-for the religious uses of them  all.
Hence, it is the duty of all to preserve it, but to preserve it not
with the care which would be sufficient in mlatters of a secular
character, but under a sense of the awful responsibility involved
in such administration.  In the enactments of the canon law, the
highest functionaries of the hierarchy itself were not allowed to
undertake their administration, without having first taken an
oath that they would administer, preserve, and transmit it, as
above described."
This is the same pastoral letter which became a stumblingblock to the trustees of St. Louis' church, Buffalo.  In their petition. to the legislature they substitute an entire falsehood of
their own invention, as the ground of their opposition to episcopal authority.  They say that Bishop Hughes attempted to compel them  (the trustees) to make over the title of their church to
him.  The spirit of this false statement was the foundation for
the bill enacted in the last session of the Legislature.  And
when Senator Brooks asserted that among the property conveyed to the Archbishop of New York there were numerous transfers from  trustees, there was especial malice blended with the
falsehood of his assertions.  It was intended by him to be understood, and it was so understood by those who heard or read
his speech, that the Archbishop had abused his episcopal authority for the purpose of wresting from  the hands of lay trustees
the property which the law of the State had authorized them to
hold and administer.  But thanks to Almighty God the writer
of this  has been providentially  forearmed, if not forewarned,
against such unfounded calumnies as Mlr. Brooks has seen fit to
invent and publish in the Senate chamber of the State of New
York.  On pages 1   and 12 of that same pastoral letter, published in 1842, we find the following statement, showing how
grossly Mr. Senator Brooks has at once misrepresented the state
of facts and the purity of motives.  Referring to the discipline
1I




10                         INTRODUCTION.
of the Catholic Church, as laid clown in the Provincial Councils
at Baltimore, the Archbishop says:' One of the first and most explicit decrees of the Provincial
Council in Baltimore, directed and enjoined on the Bishops of
this province, that they should not, thenceforward, consecrate any
church therein, unless the deed had been previously made, in
trust, to the Bishop thereof.  This rule has hitherto been followed strictly by the great majority of the episcopal body; and
wherever it has been followed, the faithful are exempted from
many of the evils to which we have already referred.  Religion
progresses-the clergy are freed from annoyances-their ministry
is respected-their influence with the people obtains large and
numerous contributions, for the erection  or improvement of
churches, and the danger of seeing those sold for debt, and given
over to profanation, is alike removed from  the apprehensions of
pastor and people.  In proportion to their numbers, the multiplication of churches has been as great among them, as in this
diocese, and yet their churches are almost, if not entirely, out of
debt.
" Notwithstanding the feelings that mlust arise from  the contrast of their situation with ours, wte have, for what appeared
weighty reasons, hitherto declined executing the statutes of the
decrees of the Bcdtimore councils on this subject.  In the first
place, the system  existed here, more, perhaps, than in any other
diocese.  Secondly, it was intimated that the laws rendered. the
tenure in trust, of Church property by the ordinary, uncertain,
if not insecure.' Besides, if it could be avoided, without injury
to religion and the ecclesiastical property, we should be glad to
see the Bishop freed from  the solicitude inseparable from  its
guardianship.  These considerations, which might be much enlarged, have induced us to hope that the present system  of lay
trustees might be so modified, as to secure some benefit, and exclude mnany of the evils which have resulted from  the irresponsible exercise of its powers.




INTRODUCTION.                        11
V.
About this period the bankruptcy of our lay trustees commenced.  Churches, also, began to rise, in which the people did
not desire their services.  And so earnest was.the Bishop in taking precautions against maladministration in the new system, and
against the dangers of reproach or even suspicion in regard to
their administration by the pastors, that he published the following rules:
R ULES
FOR THE ADMINISTRATION OF CHURCHES WHICH HAVE NO
TRUSTEES.
c Inasnmuch as the temporal affairs of any church may fall
into disorder from the absence of a regular system  for the management of the same; and inasmuch as the responsibility, and
perhaps the reproach of maladministration would rest upon the
clergyman, it is deemed essential, both for the regulation of the
temporal concerns of each congregation, and for the protection
of the pastoral character, that certain general rules, as nearly
uniform as possible, should be adopted.  It is hoped that the
following simple rules will be found sufficient for the purpose.' 1st. The income of our churches arises from  two sources,
viz.  Pew-rents and Sunday collections,  The Pastor is required
to keep in a book of his own a regular account of the collections
taken up on Sundays and Festivals-he is also required to keep
a similar regular account of the Pew-rents as paid in by the
Collector; he is required to appoint at least two confidential and
pious members of his congregation, competent for such a task,
by their own good sense and experience-the one to be Treasurer
of Church revenues, the other Secretary, for keeping regular
records of such transactions, appertaining to the affairs of the
Church, as are to be recorded-both to be his assistants in managing his temporal concerns, and in aiding him with their know



12.INTRODUOTION.
ledge of affairs and advice in every matter which requires relection, and is of any importance.
" 2c. All m-oneys arising from  the sources of income already
mentioned, shall be deposited in the hands of the  Treasurer.
The Collector sha-ll make a double report of the sums, receiving
credit in his book, as he deposits themi  with the Treasurer, and
entering each transaction on the book  kept by the Pastor; so
that one book shall be exactly correspondent with the other.
Neither the Secretary nor Treasurer shall appropriate or expend
any of this money, except by virtue of a written order from  the
Pastor in each case, which order shall be the Treasurer's voucher.
The Pastor is required, in the expenditure of this income, for
which he shall be  esponsible, to confori strictly to the rules of
the Diocese, with reoard to the manner, and the amount and limitation of such expenditure.
" Under the head of expenditure, is included the necessary
expense of supporting public worship-the salaries given to persons employed in the Church, or for the cong'regation-as Organist, Sexton, or Collector.  These, the Pastor will regulate with
due regard to the propriety of the selection and tohe circumstrances
of his Church.  Under the same head vwill conme  the amount
necessary for the maintenance of the Pastor, and of his Assistant,
when there is more than one Clergymana.    t is the Bishop's wish,
that so far as the  fixed sum  necessary for the support of the
Pasto-r is concerned, it should be the samie in all Churches throughout the DiJocese, viz.  Six Hzundred Dollars for the Pastor, and
Four HIundred Dollars for the Assistant, with the understanding
that the Assistant shall bear half the expenses of the house, receiving half the perquisites, and, if he should prefer paying  a
weekly  sum  for board, he shall receive one-third of the perquisites.
" In case it happen, that either for the convenience  of the
congregation, or as a means of living, some clergyman, inclpable
of rendering  other missionary  service than  that of celebrating
Mass, should be engaged, the sum to be allowed shall in no case
exceed  Three Hundred Dollars.  If such  Clergy'man shall in




INTRODUCTION.                          - 13
process of time become capable of performing certain other duties
of the mission, this sum will be increased, at the discretion of
the Pastor, with the knowledge and approbation of the Bishop.
" 3d. Wherever there is a parsonage attached to -he Church
and belonging to the congregation, it shall be for the use of the
Pastor and such other Clergymen as may officiate in such Church
-in such case, too, at least for the time to come, the congregation should provide the residence of the Clergy with a sufficient
and decent supply of furniture, and having once furnished such
supply, it is to be. hept up ever afterwards as church property, at
the expense of the pastor for the time being.
" No article of church service, such as sacred vessels, vestments, paintings or other things of this kind, for which the congregation shall have contributed, either by direct contribution or
through the medium  of the Church income, shall belong to the
Pastor; but every such article shall belong to the Church and
congregation, for its use and benefit.' In cases in which there is no parsonage owned by the congregation, for the Pastor's residence, it will be lawful for him to
receive  100 per annaum, additional, for the purpose of defraying
house rent; but it is earnestly recommended that wherever there
is a permanent congregation, they and their Pastor together take
measures to erecit a suitable dCwelling for bhis residence.
" 4-t7. it is furithler requnired, that every six months a strict
report of the condition, thme income, and the expenditure, regularly
audited, shall be forwarded to the Bishop, for the purpose of being
recorded in a 2egistry, to'be kept at his house for that purpose.
A copy also of such  report shall be published and distributed
among the congregation.
The circumstances in which some of the Churches in this extended Diocese vary from others, will probably prevent these rules
from being equally applied to them  all, but it is considered that
they are entirely applicable to all the larger cong-regations, in
which the Divine service is regularly kept on all Sundays and
Festivals.  It is hoped also that many congregations of recent
origmi-, and limitedr resouices, will grow  up in a short time, by




14                         INTRODUCT ON.
their prudence in  managing  their affairs and the increase of
their numbiers, to the measure of being able to comply with these
reaui-rements.
L >( JO   N  HUGIES, ARCHBISHOP OF NEW  YORKI.
"NI E  Yor,-, July, 1853."
First published in 1843, and re-published July, 1853.
VI.
It was by no act of the bishop that the trustee system  of
New York broke down within a year or two after the publication
of this document.  All the Catholic churches of this city had
been under the management of lay trustees.  TlThey were at that
period eight in number. Of these five boards of as many churches,
namely, St. James's Transfiguration, St. Paul's at Harlem, St. Peter's in Barclay street, and St. John's at the corner of 50th
street and Fifth avenue, all became bankrupt,-their last oficial
act having been to pass the churches severally either to assignees
or to be sold by the sheriff for the benefit of creditors.  Two
other churches, namely, St. Joseph's and St. Bary's, permitted
their trustees to retire from office, and thus saved their property
from  the fate of the other churches.  The church of St. Nicholas, in 2d street, was then under trustees, and has still continued
to be administered by them  without the slightest hindrance on
the part of the bishop.  St. Patrick's church has also continued
under similar administration.   They proposed more than once
to resign, but the bishop would not consent to it, inasmuch as their
trusts w^'e more important, and as they were disposed at all
times to discharge them in a manner conformable to the principles
of the Catholic faith, and at the same time in accordance with
the law of their charter derived from the State.
Here, then, we have five churches thrown into market to be
alienated from  Catholic worship, through the unfortunate admiinistration of lay trustees.  WYere they to be sold as so many insolvent theatres?  Their trustees had  contracted  debts in  the




INTRODUCTION.                        15
name of the Catholic community-were their creditors to be
cheated out of money which they had loaned in good faith?
Were the Catholics to be not only deprived of their altars, but
also to incur the disgrace of non-payment of debts which their
trustees had lawfully contracted in their name?  These were
the questions which the bishop, and the clergy, and the people
of New  York had to decide.  It was agreed that the bishop
should purchase these churches, and if possible preserve them for
the sacred purposes to which they had been dedicated. But they
were indebted for more than double the amount for which they
were sold.  And these melancholy legacies of debt thrown upon
the bishop and the Catholic people constitute the greater part of
the pretended wealth which Senator Brooks ascribed to the
bishop.  They were indeed entered on the records as the bishop's
property, but the accjuisition; burdened as it was to an amount
more than double its value, instead of making a poor man rich,
would be calculated to make a rich man poor.
It would be tiresome to go into a detail of the embarrassments in which the mismanagement of lay trustees had contrived
to involve these churches.  Let it suffice to state in general that
by a determination which does immortal honor to the Catholic
community of New York, every claim  against them  in law and
in equity, has been honorably met and discharged or provided
for.  No man, Catholic or Protestant, Jew or Gentile, is able to
say that he was defrauded or that he lost so much as one penny by
the insolvency of these churches, at the period of the bankruptcy of
their trustees.  But it may be instructive as regards both the
past and the future, to give a brief history of the workings of
the trustee system, as contrasted with the present mode of admzinistration in one of these churches.  That of St. Peter's in
Barclay street, shall be taken as a sample of the condition of
the others.
St. Peter's is the oldest Catholic church in the city.  It was
for twenty-five years the only one.  Its congregation was the
wealthiest until within a recent period. It had always been under
the nmanagement of lay trustees.  When the former St. Peter's




16                        INTRODUCTION.
was found too small and it was determined to replace it by a
new church, the board  then existing had the ground free of
debt, the materials of the old edifice. ten thousand  dollars,
it is said, in their treasury, as well as whatever may have been
realized from voluntary contributions for the construction of the
present church.  This, one would suppose to indicate an auspicious commencement of the work.  When the church was conmpleted as it now stands, and a pastoral residence built on ground
which they had leased from  the corporation of Trinity church,
the trustees, besides whatever money was in hand at the conmencement of the work, found themselves indebted to the amount
of $116,444 23.   They continued their administration of the
church from  April, 1837, to Mlay, 1844, and in this interval,
instead of diminishing the debt they increased it by the sum of
$18, 500 77, making the whole debt when they became bankrupt and made an assignment of the church for the benefit of
creditors, $134,945.,W7hen this property was sold at the Exchange it was knocked clown at the -highest bid, which was
$46,000.  It was purchased by one of the congregation to be
transferred to the bishop.  HTere then is one of those entries
of a property  valued  at $46,00, but with  a moral obligation incumbent on the purchaser to provide for its debts to
the amount of $134,945.  And this is quoted by Senator Brooks
as evidence of the immense wealth of the Archbishop.  Another
entry which he quotes as evidence of property acquired is the
unexpired term of the lease from Trinity Church of the ground
on which the pastoral residence of St. Peter's Church is built.
The Archbishop had to assume the payment of arrears of ground
rent, with interest on the same, to the amount of $2,200.  There
were but three years of the term  of that lease unexpired, and
yet Senator Brooks, concealing all this, cites the transfer from
the assignees as an evidence of the immense wealth which the
Archbishop was gathering into his possession.
It may be matter of surprise that the trustees should have
been able to accumulate such an amount of borrowed money on
a property which sold in the Exchange for less than one third




INTRODUCTION.                        1ll
of its indebtedness.  This is to be explained as follows:-Soon
after the erection of the church was commenced, the trustees
induced the pastor of the church to proclaim  from  the pulpit,
that the poor who had money, even in small sums, might with
perfect safety give the use of it to the Board of Trustees-that
they should allow the same interest that was allowed on deposits
in the Savings Banks, —that it would be perfectly safe; and
that, without loss to themselves, the depositors would be aiding the church and promoting religion.  When these announcements were made I am quite persuaded that all parties acted in
good faith, and had entire confidence in their future ability to
return these sums, whenever they should be called for.  Accordingly, an indefinite number of certificates, handsomely  engraved, and fortified by the corporate seal of the Board, were
given in due form  to the depositors who came to offer their
money.  In this way they found their treasury replenished and
overflowing.  Time went on-they struggled during a period of
seven years to pay their interest, but the capital of their debt
increased during  the same time from  $116,000 to $135,000.
Their charter required that the Bishop of the diocese should be
invited to attend their meetings, but no such invitation was ever
sent to the present Archbishop.  On the contrary, they regarded
him as one having no confidence in their system,-in short, as
one opposed to trustees.  Neither shall I conceal a fact which it
is no pleasure to me to have to record.  And it is this, that
finding themselves and their church sinking irretrievably, they
waited on the Bishop a short time before the assignment, intimated to him their financial condition, but with a gilding of
confidence in which he could not participate, desired he would
authorize them to increase their mortgage to a sum of $40,000
instead of $19,000, out of which they should pay off the old
mortgage, and from  the balance discharge certain other pressing debts.  They acknowledged  at the same time that the
trustee system  was by no means the best, and proposed with
the.greatest simplicity to transfer the whole property  to the
Bishop, which he respectfully but absolutely declined.   The




18                        INTRODUCTION.
Bishop also admonished them, that as honest men they could not
allow the claims of a new a   nd enlarged   ortgage on their property to come in against the' rights of the note-holders.   That
the church, according to their own acknowledgment, was bankrupt, and consequently belonged in right and in justice equally
pro-rata to all their creditors.  They seemed to acquiesce in this
just view  of the case.  But it came to the knowledge of the
Bishop within a few  days afterwards, that they were actually
negotiating for a loan of $40,000 at an insurance office in Wall
street.  The Bishop then wrote a note, addressed to their Board,
warning them against proceeding in the matter of that loan, and
stating that if they did proceed he should publish a copy of that
note, both for his own vindication, and to their discredit.  They
proceeded notwithstanding.  They paid off their old mortgage,
and applied the balance of the new one to the payment of such
debts as they thought proper to discharge before making their
assignment.   When  reproached  afterwards for having  disregarded the advice of the Bishop, it was alleged that his communication had been mnislaid among their papers, and had escaped
notice until the whole transaction was completed.
Finally, the assignment was made September 14th, 1844, in
which the trustee system bequeathed to any purchaser the ecclesiastical property of St. Peter's Church, which was sold according to law ian the Exchange of New York for $46,000.  By this
transaction the Catholic coimmunity were pledged for a surplus
debt over and above the amount which the church brought of
$88,945.  This was the legacy which lay trusteeism  bequeathed
to a betrayed community.  This was its last will and testament,
if we except a codicil resulting from the assignment, and the sale
of the property.
VII.
Previous to the assignment by the bankrupt trustees, some
of the note-holders had taken legal measures for the recovery of
their claim.   These persons, under legal advice, disputed the
validity of the sale, and hence the whole question was referred




INTRODUCTION.                           19
to the courts of law, and remained undecided until the 1et of
November, 1849 —that is, five years, one month, and sixteen
days.  During this period the officers of the law, —-amely, the
assignees, and those employed by them, were for the time being
not only administrators, but proprietors of the Church of St.
Peter.   At the  commencement of their administration, the
Bishop was assured that inasmuch as the law whilst the case was
in chancery would not allow any interest to be paid except that
of the bond and mortgage, there would be an accumulation from
the income of the church of three or four thousand dollars per
annum.  This would have made some eighteen thousand dollars
of a fund for the payment of note-holders at the expiration of
the suit.  Instead of this, however, the surplus income, if there
was any, has never been accounted for.  Even the annual interest on the bond and mortgage was not fully paid.  The church
went in arrears on the item  of interest alone, during these five
years, four thousand and sixty-four dollars, and eighty-one cents.
it went in arrears on the ground-rent of the priest's residence,
due to the corporation of Trinity  Church, two thousand two
hundred  dollars;  thus making an arrearage during these five
years of six thousand two hundred and sixty-four dollars, and
eighty-one cents.  From  this is to be taken one thousand two
hundred and thirty-three dollars, and eighty-seven cents, paid to
note-holders from  the revenues of the church, and leaving the
arrearage of interest on its debt five thousand and thirty dollars,
and ninety-four cents.  7From all which we present the following
results.  When the trustees of St. Peter's commenced the building of their present church, the ground on which it stands was
free of debt.  They had, it is, commonly said, in their possession, besides contributions, which are not counted, and besides
the materials  of the old  edifice. which are not counted, the
sum of................                                     10000 00
When the church was completed in 1837, they
were indebted..........  116,444 23
During their administration from  1837 to 1844,
they increased this debt by the amount of   O    18,500 77




20                        iNTRODUCTION,
After the assignment, when they got the State
of New York to play the part of sexton and
administrator, they increased this debt still
further to the amount of......                      5,030,94
Making in all............                         149,975,94
The Catholics of the State of New York ought to be grateful
to the excommunicated trustees of St. Louis Church, the Hon.
Mr. Putnam, and the Hon. Mr. Brooks, for the success of their
joint labors in fastening upon them a system  of lay-trusteeship,
of the workings of which the history of St. Peter's Church in
Barclay street furnishes a specimen. Neither has it been simply
in the unaccountable increase of debt that the administration of
that church has entailed evil upon  the Catholic community.
During a great portion of the time, but especially during the
period of the assignment, nothing was left unclone to bring disgrace and infamy on the Catholic name in New York.  The assignees were the pastors of the church.   The senior pastor was
through ill health, for the most part, confined to his room, and
unable to attend with proper diligence to the duties which the
law had imposed on him.  The junior assignee took but little interest in the subject, partly because he was the junior, and partly
because his natural force of character, especially when a stern
duty was to be performed, would range somewhere between the
positive and the negative of whatever question would come up.'The consequence was, that, under legal advice, a third party was
introduced, and constituted a plenipotentiary in the administration of the affairs of St. Peter's.  He was supposed at the time
-to be a Catholic.  When he entered on the duties of his office
his pecuniary condition was but a few degrees above that of a
pauper.  He was saih  to be a good bookkeeper, and the writer
would not endorse that sentiment, whilst he is willing to acknowledge that he kept his books well-although even in this
respect there are itemls on his books which appear to have never
been accounted for. This man was treasurer, secretary, trustee-in




INTRObUCTION.                          21
fact, every thing in St. Peter's Church.  He employed subordinates at his will, dismissed them  when he chose; received all
moneys for pew-rents; counted Sunday collections  made his entries of income and expenditure just as he thought proper. After
some time, the Archbishop learned with regret that the promised
accumulation of surplus income was not to be expected. He urged
that every practicable economy should be resorted to; inquired
into the items of expenditure which 1might be reduced, and found
as the only result, that this administrator of the law had but one
item of econom'y, which was indignantly spurned by the Archbishop;
and this was, a suggestion to withhold from the senior pastor the
sum allowed to him, but which his broken Iealth did not permit
him to earn by actual labor.  This may show the delicate scrupulosity of an agent of the law in administering the temporal affairs of a Catholic church.  In the mean time, the iunfortunate
note-holders, whose money had been received by the trustees of
St. Peter's, rendered the Bishop's life a daily martyrdom  by
their wailings and lamentatibns at the loss of the little earnings
which their industry had accumulated, and which now, that age
and poverty, and ill-health had overtaken them, were no longer
within their reach..He could not come to their aid, but he
could not, on the other hand, drive them  from his door harshly.
Hle was doomed to listen to their tales of distress.  If he told
them  that they must address themselves to the assignees, their
answer was that they had applied; that the assignees referred
them to the agent of the law, who received all the moneys of St.
Peter's Church; —that when they applied to him  he swore at
them, and threatened to kick them out of his office.
This species of daily torture continued during the whole period of the assignment.  And as time went on, one could read in
such newspapers as were' liable to be imposed upon, a series of
scurrilous articles against the Archbishop,.and against St. Patrick's Cathedral, for not coming to the relief of the poor noteholders of St. Peter's.  Whence those articles proceeded was by
no means a secret.  The last edition of them  has appeared in
the New York Express.  And if any editor thinks' that he can




22                       INTRODUCTION.
annoy Archbishop Hughes with a republication of the scurrilities
which emanated from  under the assignment of St. Peter's
Church, he will easily find the man to furnish them.
The Catholic reader would not have a full idea of the abominations connected with this legal administration of St. Peter's
Church, if we were to withhold from him  the following statements.  We have seen that the legal administrator was a plenipotentiary in all respects.  He allowed arrears to accumulate on
the interest of bond and mortgage.  He allowed arrearages to
accumulate on the ground-rent of the pastoral residence. Death
had removed the senior pastor.  Other clergymen were sent to
aid in discharging the spiritual duties of the sacred ministry.
They were men who feared God, and did not fear powers of
attorney.  Their presence became disagreeable to our plenipotentiary; and, in order to scatter the priests from his neighborhood he made known that the corporation of Trinity Church,
inasmuch as their ground-rent had not been paid, wished to reenter and take possession of theiroproperty.  He placed a bill
accordingly on their house, " TO LET."  Some of the priests were
already frightened away-others had their books packed up —but
in the mean time, and by the merest accident, it came to the
knowledge of the Archbishop that the corporation of Trinity
Church had no wish to drive out the priests of St. Peter's on
account of arrearage, but that they acceded to the proposition,
under the advice of the legal plenipotentiary, who had stated to
them that the interests of the church required a larger revenue,
and that the only means to effect it were to dispossess the priests
of their abode and rent the house.  Under these circumstances
the Archbishop sent word that he would become their tenant,
and see that the arrearage should be duly paid.  At this stage
of the proceedings, patience and endurance had become exhausted.
The Archbishop directed that a meeting should be called of the
congregation on the following  Sunday evening.   This broke
somewhat unexpectedly on the ears of our plenipotentiary.  But
he was conscious of the powers which the law gave him within
the sacred precincts of St. Peter's Church, and he remarked in




INTRODUCTION.                         23
the most calm  and philosophical way imaginable to one of the
congregation —" The Bishop is com3ing here this evening: I hope
he will behave well.  If he does, we shall treat him with respect,
but if he does not, I shall say to him,' Bishop, there's the door
for you. "
This meeting took place, however, and the Bishop behaved
well.  But he brought this man up, and placed his conduct and
administration before his eyes in such a light that without being
told to quit his office, he sought the door and relinquished itthat is, ceased to render any further services, but claimed and
obtained his salary according to law for the unexpired portion
of his engagement.
If the Catholics of St. Peter's desire to go through another'experience like this, they are at liberty to organize lay trustees
when they will, and the Archbishop will have no hesitation in
passing to a new Board the title of the property which is now
recorded in his name-which he has been instrumental in saving
for them and for religion, and in restoring their reputation for
honesty, which would have been sacrificed if it had not been for
his interference.
VIII
The condition of St. Peter's Church was at the lowest mark
on the night of the meeting just alluded to, from  whhich the
plenipotentiary of the law made his final exit.  The legality of
the sale under the assignment was confirmed by the proper tribunal.  The Church began to be administered under the present
system. The legacy from lay trusteeship at this period, was, omitting the $10,000 which they had in hand at the commencement
of the building, $139,975 94, and the assets which they bequeathed as value for this, were the walls and the roof of St.
Peter's as it stands.  The law of the land would have been satisfied if the Catholics had paid only the $46,000 for which the
church was sold under the assignment.  But everlasting justice
is an older and a higher law than is written on the statute books
of men.  And although the Catholic community had been be



24                        INTRODUCTION,
trayed into this false position by lay-trustecism, still the sense
of the higher law would not permit them  to have recourse to
repudiation of just debts.  Measures were accordingly taken.
The Archbishop brought together a number of the leading members of the church as a committee.  They began nobly by subscribing themselves large amounts for the immediate relief of
the note-holders who vere most in need.  Other measures were
adopted and put in a train of execution.  The consequence has
been, that under the present system of management, within the
period of five years, from the first of November 1849, to November 1854, the income of the church was $638563 0S, instead of
$43,481 19, during a similar period of five years under the
assignment-that the note-holders received during  this time
$22,674 72, instead of $1,233 87-that the arrears on interest
and on ground-rent have been paid up-that) in short, every
dollar of debt contracted  by the abominable system  of laytrusteeship has been actually paid, or securely provided for.
As a memorial of this change, and a portion of the Catholic
history of New York, we cannot do better than insert here, as
taken from the Freeman's Journal, the proceedings of a meeting
held in St. Peter's Church on the last Sunday evening of the
year 1852:-'-romn thle FREErMAN'S JOURNAL, Jczcnuary 1, 1853.
REDE IPT ION   OF  ST. PETE' S  CH E                   CH.
The discourse of the Iost Rev. Archbishop, on last Sunday
Evening, at St. Peter's Church, Barclay street, of which we have
the pleasure of presenting the substance to our readers. will
show that the work of redeeming that Church from its desperate
financial embarrassments has already been accomplished, or is on
the eve of being so.  This result, joyful to every true Catholic in
America, is one that could with difficulty have been conceived of
as possible at the time the Archbishop, three years ago, took that
Church into his hands to rescue it from the deplorable condition
to which the " law " administration of the parish had reduced it.




INTRODUCTION.                        25
In November, 1849, the Statement published in the Freeman
respecting the debts accumulated, and till then increasing, upon
the Church, made the work of rescuing it look like a tedious and
dispiriting task, to be handed down from one, faithful administration to its successor.  How great then is the debt of gratitude
due to the Archbishop, to the l ev. Mr. Quinn, who at that time
consented to take charge of the parish, to thReev. Mr.  Bayley,
who, with Mr. Jas. B. Nicholson, has spent so much time and
labor in disentangling and regulating the confusion of affairs, and
to all the fervent and devoted Catholics who have contributed
their exertions to this good and glorious work!  Catholics need
no longer avoid Barclay Areet, nor blush, if they come in sight of
St. Peter's, at the disgrace of which it stood out the bulky and
only monument in the financial history of Catholic Churches.
The style of architecture of St. Peter's does not admit of
the carvings we have seen on the outer faces of the walls of some
old Gothic Churches in Europe, where figures were chiselled representing the spirits of evil driven forth, with hideous grimaces,
from within the Temple; but their places might on this building
be supplied by cutting on the granite tablets of its portico, in
truthful figures of arithmetic, the history of its Boards of Trustees, and uncanonical manoeuvres.  While, within the Church, we
think it might be a pious and edifying counterpart to engrave on
a tablet of pure white4 A LONG DESOLATION,
AND A SHAME GROWN OLD,
rTHfEE YEARS OF CANONICAL OBEDIENCE AND CATIOLIC DEVOTION
HAVE SUFFICED TO REPAIR.
A. D., 1852."
The Church was very tastefully decorated, and the Altar was
magnificently dressed, for this joyful occasion.  The Church was
densely crowded by an audience as intelligent and respectable as
could well be assembled in any one place.  At the close of the
Archbishop's address the Congregation, who entered deeply into
the jubilant spirit of the evening, rose, while the Choir, which




26                        INTRODUCTION.
always performs good music at St. Peter's, chanted the TE DEUM
LAnUDAMUS as arranged by [Romberg.
But we are too long cetaining our readers from the words of
the Archbishop, which vere pretty nearly as follows: —"  t is a
little over three years since I had occasion, impelled by the duties
of my office, to come here and call your attention to the situation,
of the temporal affairs of this Church.  What had past, if not
under my eyes, at least within the range of my knowledge, for
some years previously, had filled me with apprehension that unless
I interfered, with or without permission,not even the wreck of the
hopes of the creditors of this Church would have been preserved;
and on that occasion, you will remember, I had no words of kindness; but my language was of censure, and censure almost indiscriminTtely applied.  Now, thanks be to Almighty God, I have
no occasion to use the language of censure, but rather to congratulate you and the Catholic Church in this city, and in this country,
upon the improvement in the condition of the temporal affairs of
St. Petcer's Church during the interval.  The story of this Church
has gone abroad to the world wherever the English language is
spoken and known, and it has been deplored as a calamity by
those who have never seen the country; because, in fact, if the
result which was obvious, but a short time ago, had occurred, it
would have left a permanent blemish upon the Catholic name,
and it would have been the first time in the annals of the Catholic Church that men placing their confidence in the faith of that
Church, especially where the sacred temple was concerned, had
ever been known to have suffered or to have lost thereby.  If
you read Ecclesiastical history, you will not find another instance
of a Catholic Church in the same circumstances in which St. Peter's was but three years ago: and, although I may not say that
it is entirely released from that condition, nvertheless, I consider
it so much so, that henceforward we need not hang our heads
when the name of St. Peter's, as a specimen of Catholic honesty,
is brought under our notice.
" Before referring to the actual condition of the Church at
this moment, I will invite you to review with me briefly the his



INTRODUCTION.                           2'7
tory and events which have brought about this result.  It pleased
our ancestors in thie fith,  when they were yet few in this city,
when they were poor and had much to struggle against, to conform
their mode of administering temporal property connected with
their religion, to the mode prevalent among their Protestant fel.
low-citizens.  It was supposed to be vep2ulblicacn2 enlig'btenzed, and
aclvaltacgeous, anid hence, insteacd of governing the Church property
according to the rules-the ancient and safe rules of the Catholic
Church —they received a patent and authority from the State for
the management of the same.  They got themselves incorporated,
and a few individuals, selected by themselves from  their number,
became a body perfect in law, with all the prerogatives that are
usually attached, and also the responsibilities to that special des..
ignation.  And so they continued.  I will not pretend to enlarge
upon the advantages or disadvantages of this system in its relations
to matters. not now before us. I will not pretend to say whether
it was in harmony vith the spirit of the Catholic Church, or
whether it did not tend to create a species of congregational
feeling which is not Catholic.  in all its relations to Catholic
discipline, and to that unanimous harmony of feeling which ought
to belong to the Catholic Church in social and religious relations, as a community of faith and charity-in all these regards,
I will pass over the advantages or disadvantages of that system;
but I have one heavy charge to bring against it in the relation
that most interests us at present, and it is this-that it gave power
to the body corporate for the time being, to contract debts to any
amount that public credit would reach, strengthened in those
days by the known fidelity of tihe Catholics in connection with
their Church, to meet all their obligations.  And what made this
still more objectionable was, that these trustees did not continue
from  year to year the same individuals; for then, as a consequence, their operations would accumulate, and the same individuals could be held accountable for them, or at least would be
in a situation to explain how they occurred, and to take measures
to prevent them from  becoming unmanageable; but this trustee
system  changed its members every two or three years, so that




28                       INTRODUCTION.
every new set coming in had the power to contract debts, and had
also, especially as the time went on, to manage the obligations
contracted by their predecessors, who had departed from the body
corporate, and were lost and unknown in the multitude at large.
They could say, we did not contract these debts, for we found
them contracted  they have been entailed upon us, and we must.
bear with them.  But, at the same. time, when circumstances*
seemed to require it, they had the same power to contract new
debts, and thus passing from one succession to another of trustees, the body corporate became but a fiction.   Hence this
Church-the very cradle of Catholicity, the very spot upon
which the altar was permanently erected for the first time in the
State of New York-this Church, the oldest and the most endeared by every fond recollection of the oldest families, became,
at the period of its completion, and as it now is, indebted to the
amount of 6135;789; and this debt was contracted, not to those
persons whose province it is to loan money with perfect sense as
to the security and responsibility, but this money had been borrowed, upon the faith of a corporate seal, from the poor and the
industrious mechanic, who had economized and laid up some of
his earnings for the day of his need.  It was borrowed from
persons in the humbler departments of life, and the reason this
debt is so sacred upon us is because they, in lending their
money, and taking this seal of a corporate body as a sufficient
guarantee, imagined in their own minds that they were loaning
to the Catholic Church of God-the same Church which we
speak of in the Apostles' Creed, where it is said, " I believe in
the Catholic Church."  They imagined that they were loaning
to our Divine Saviour, and it was the fact of the Church, the
creed of the Church, that constituted their security, and not the
figment of a corporate right with the high seal of a sovereign
State upon it.
This was the condition in which the church was at that
period.   I need not say that, while I was made aware, as
Bishop of the diocese, of the condition of things here, I never
was admitted to the confidence or the secrets of that civil cor



iNTRODUCTION.                        29
poration.  Its requlirements imposed upon its members the. obligation of inviting me to their meetings; but the invitation I
never received, nor did they ever pay to the Bishop of the Diocese that respect of consulting him  in regard to matters involving such consequences, until the period when they came to make
known that they were bankrupts, as a corporation, and proposed
to pass over to me the church, with all its income, and all its
responsibilities.  I must do myself the justice to say, that upon
that occasion I told them  that they could not, in conscience,
borrow one farthing more; and that they could not, in conscience, increase the amount of their bond and mortgage, because I conceived that the whole of their property was not
ecquivalent to the several obligations of notes of hand which
they had distributed among the poor; and that, therefore, the
property, in justice, was no longer theirs, but was the property,
and the only value, for those notes which they had given to persons who had claims; and that the effect of a mortgage would
be to cut out some of those claims, or, at least, to leave them
until after the claims of the mortgage should be paid.  If, upon
that occasion, my advice had been taken, all would have been
sold without hesitation, because I do not look upon the value of
a temple, even if it were of marble and gold, as any thing to be
compared with the value of Catholic integrity in matters of religion.  It was, however, overruled, and I do not regret it.
The next thing was an assignment, which was to have taken
place; but the parties who were the creditors, and who supposed
they had a right to step in, caused an injunction (the full meaning of which I really am not able to explain, or even to comprehend) to be imposed, so that, up to 1844, the church was governed by law, in the name of a charter, and afterwards, it was
governed by law, under another aspect, and in such a way that
even the sacred officers of religion seemed to be, to a certain extent, regulaed by the recuiirements of the ordinances of law.
At this period, the church was indebted $134,381.  That continued under  assignees from  November, 1844, until the period
to which I have already referred, when I came here with a de



30                        INTRODUCTION.
termination, and conscious of my own rights as a Bishop, and in
my interpretation of my duties, to break up the whole system,
no matter what should be the consequences, for it had gone on
long enough.  I had been induced to acquiesce in the arrange"
ment at first by the promise, that during that interval, inasmuch
as the law had put a stop to certain, payments of interest, there
would be an accumulation of $4,000 or $5,000 a year, to the
benefit of the poor creditors.   This reconciled me to it; yet
after the four or five years were up, we found tlat not only was
there no accumulation  for the benefit of creditors, but the
church had actually increased its debt, for up to the period of
1844 interest had been paid by the trustees, but from  that
period until November, 1849, except upon'the mortgage, and not
all upon that, no interest had been paid; and yet we find at this
period that the debt was $135,789, showing an increase of debt,
during those five years, of $1,408.  Upon that occasion, you
will recollect, I invited the congregation to rally around rme, and
see what could be done; and immediately after, mleasures were
taken, by collection, by appealing to the generous members of
the congregation, and by every means that could be suggested,
to get something to pay the more needy and the more numerous
class of the poor who were hovering about, and craving for the
sums which they had deposited, or at least for some pare of
them.  A society was formed, and, under the constancy and devotion of that society, guided by the zeal and incessant watchfulness of the Reverend Pastor of the church, much has been
done since: for I find now, that within these three years, the
debt has not increlsed, but, on the contrary, has been reduced
by the sum of $19,706 922 and of this amount, $9,156 18 was
paid to note-holders, in cash, on account, and the balance was
paid to the assignees, for the same class of creditors.  Besides
this, during the same three years, in which the church has not
been under the management of legal agents, therq have been
paid, for improvements and extra expenses, $2,742, making, in
all, paid within the last three years, over and above current expenses, $22,448 72.  You recollect that all this has been the




INTRODUCTION.                        31
gratuitous efforts of parties who had no individual concern in
contracting the debts which have so long been impending upon
this church.   Their moneys have been gratuitous offerings to
ransom the good faith of the' Catholic church, and latterly there
has been, in, addition, an opportunity of disposing of the interest which this church had in certain lots in Fiftieth street, between the Fourth and Fifth avenues.  I must take occasion here
to remark, that these lots, and others, to the same extent, had
been originally held by the Cathedral and St. Peter's conjointly,
and that previous to the sale, there was a meeting of the trustees of the Cathedral called, at which I was present, and at
which, with the good will of the people, and in accordance with
my strong recommendation, it was resolved that the grounds belonging to St. Peter's should be bid up by them at any price
whatever, not exceeding the whole debt upon this chulh.  Why
was this resolution adopted?  It was because if they should sell
-for double their value; the money was to go to a part of the
Catholic colmmunity, to whom  it was honestly due.  It was because the money with which that purchase should be paid beloniged to the Catholic commzmnity, and because the idea of a
Catholic community'is, that there should be no selfishness or
sectarianism in their dealings whenever their affairs are conducted according to the principles, and the views, and the salutary'discipline of their own Church.  By this means, the property
was enhanced in value at least one fourth, and if occasion had
required, it would have been bid up to a still greater amount.
And now, what is the summary of all this?  It is that you
divide the payment of the debts of St. Peter's church between
the security which the law has guaranteed, either in consequence
of the acts of the trustees, or the duties of the assignees, and
the supplement which has been made up by the generous feelings which have pervaded the breasts of all those who have.
taken part in adding to what the law furnished as a supplement,
reaching to the whole estate.  This constitutes the two elements  and whereas the present debt of the church is $ 115,000;
and whereas there is secured as one item, to which note-holders




32                       INTRODUCTIONo
have no clain-in whiich they have no interest —the mortgage
of.40,000-the balance would be some  8G6,000 due; and on
this amount the sale of real estate, by law, and personal property-for every thing has been sold, even to the vestments and
organ-the result would be, if I can use the language employed
elsewhere, a dividend of probably sixty-five or seventy per cent.
to those poor note-holders.  This is what the law simply would
secure to them; but it is much to your credit, my dear brethren-you, the congregation of St. Peter's-that you have made
up over and above what the law provides, and in such a manner,
that I am here authorized to say, that before the first day of May
next, every dollar and every cent that is due on the face of
these notes shall be paid to their holders, without the diminution of one farthing.
The archbishop then went on to detail the various applications made to him, through actual necessity, by the poorer class
of subscribers to the church, and at the same time exonerated the
Corporation of Trinity Church, in their capacity of lessors,
from all blame on account of the too notorious move of ejectment, which sent some of the cJergy away from  the building
used as a Presbytery.  -le alluded to them  in the following expressions: a I return my thanks now to that corporation, for the
kindness and forbearance with which they treated the clergy of
St. Peter's Church upon that occasion, for they made the observation, that for a sum so trifling they would not be willing to
see the clergy of any denomination dispossessed, and turned out
from their lodgings and places of usual residence.  What is the
whole result of this review, my dear brethren?  It is that I
congratulate you for the constancy and the liberality with which
you have entered into our plans, and contributed at the door on
Sunday, without being fatigued during these three years, your
offerings towards the full payment of the poor note-holders of
this church.  I congratulate your pastor, who, by his prudence
and his devotion and unceasing energy, has been your representative, encouraging you, and accomplishing the wonderful things
which he has accomplished, when yotu findc that within three




INTRODUCTION.                        83
years, besides the ordinary expenses of this church, he has paid,
or you have enabled him  to pay, twenty-two thousand dollars to
the poor note-holders.  I congratulate St. Peter's Church that
they have borne their own burthens, and called for no aid fiom
other quarters.  I congratulate and return my thanks to those
gentlemen who first met me at the residence of the clergy, on
the very night on which that downward system was broken up,
when they, with a liberality for which, individually, they -lad
been known in other circumstances, contributed their hundred,
and even some of them  five hundred dollars, towards the redemption of this temple, and towards wiping away the stain
which its circumstances were calculated to leave upon the Catholic Church.  Nor can I avoid returning thanks to the present
assignees, the Rev. Mr. Bayley and Mr. James B. Nicholson,
for I am well aware of the labors, the assiduity, the patience,
the loss of time, and the trouble which these gentlemen have
taken at all times to execute in the most perfect manner the
trusts committed to their charge.  And now, dearly beloved
brethren, is this dear-bought experience to be lost upon the
Catholic body?  Is this fact, extending over more than fifteen
years, and perplexing the efforts of the Catholic body in this
entire city, bearing  down  their credit, and sending abroad
the watchword of distrust against those  dealing  with  the
church-is all this to pass away, without impressing upon our
minds some useful lesson?   I trust not.  I trust it will be
a lesson to this congregation and this city, and to the Catholic
Church throughout the entire United States.  It is an experience, and an experience going to show that wherever, in the
management even of their temporal affairs, the Catholic people
have deserted the rules laid down in their Church, that God has
not manifested His blessing in their operations.  It will be a
lesson which ought not to be lost on trustees, or'bishops, or
priests, or laymen, viz: that they have no right to turn' into
bankers, even though the poor should have full confidence in
making them  the depositories of money.  It is a treacherous
business.  It was an unfortunate day on which the practice




34                       INTRODUCTION,
was introduced, because it steals upon men; and while I may
seem to speak in a manner which would imply censure upon the
motives or integrity of those who have been concerned in the
administration of this church as trustees, I beg leave to say
that I have never known any individual among them  in whom
I could not place the utmost confidence; but the system  itself,
the system of borrowing, I entirely deprecate.  It is a dangerous system, and certainly as long as Almighty God permits me
to be at the head of this diocese, no priest of mine, or. Catholic
layman, shall ever have authority, in the name of religion, to
receive one penny in the form of deposit.  This is the lesson
with the experience we have had should teach us, and another
lesson is one of benefit, as well as warning, and it is this: It is
now very difficult for Catholics, as such, to borrow money, for
our reputation has been injured; and so far as we are a religious
body, I rejoice that it is so, and I trust that the difficulty of
borrowing money, except in cases of absolute necessity, will be
so increased, that we shall learn to find within ourselves all the
resources for the healthy continuation and extension of our
Church.  In this sense it will be a benefit; and, dearly beloved
brethren, I cannot but rejoice, that during these three brief
years, every thing which was so dark in the future, and almost
hopeless, God, by his providence, and by inspiring you with
those feelings which truly become your faith, to repair the blunders in which you had become involved by acting under different
authorities, has changed to that point that I[ am able and authorized now to say, that every dollar of the money for which notes
have been given by the trustees of this church, shall be paid.  I
must, however, make a distinction.  I must say, that where
these notes have passed for a very small sum in the days of
need, from the hands of the original owners to persons who have
purchased them, in all such cases the purchaser of the note, if he
presents it, shall be entitled to what the law allows him, and this
will be more than he paid for it.  In the second place, there is
no idea or pretence of paying interest upon these notes.  In my
recollection, most of the holders whom  I saw would have been




INTRODUCTIONo                        35
willing to give the notes for one fifth of their value: and the
Catholics all-I may say all, for I conceive that in the purchase
of the ground all have been represented-have taxed themselves
and paid over and above what the law reiquired to make up Catholic equity, instead of civil law.  They have made this sacrifice,
and if they are able to pay the poor Catholics, it is but just that
the latter should, too, feel a small portion of the sacrrifice; and
I hope that there is no man or woman, calling himself or herself
a Catholic, who will have the courage to speak, after this sacrifice, of claiming interest.  Yet, I must make one exception.  It
has come to my knowledge, during my intercourse with a gentleman having charge of this matter, that, in some cases, the poor
servants of families took their money, either if they had it by
them, or in some instances from  the Savings Bank, and brought
it here, and that instances are known in which the companion of
the Catholic, who was not herself a Catholic, but a Protestant,
was nevertheless induced to invest the money as if she were a
Catholic; and it would be very cruel, indeed, if persons not belonging to the Church at all, but yet having shown such a confidence in the Church, should not receive their money; and for
this reason, I take it upon myself to say, not only that they shall
receive their principal, but every farthing of interest to the
present day; so that those who are not Catholics, and have deposited their money, are, under the circumstances, such as shall
be entitled to their interest as well as principal; and whether
the resources within our reach will be sufficient to meet this or
not, I pledge my word, and take it upon myself, that in every
such instance, these persons shall be paid both principal and interest.  As far as the Catholics are concerned, they must not pretend to speak of interest.  I am  astonished to hear some persons, who only a year ago would have been thankful if they
could have got half their capital, begin to speak as if they were
in the market of usury, when they know how much their brethren have done.  I will now conclude.  It is the last Sunday
evbning of the year 1852.  The next Sunday will be another
year; and it has been in Catholic tinmes a practice, always at the




36                       INTRODUCTION,
close of the year to return thanks to Almighty God, with prayer
and solemn music, for the blessings which he has bestowed upon his
people during the season that has just passed away.  In addition
to this I think you have other reasons.  We have all other reasons to thank Almighty God, and on that. account I shall say,
both as commemorating the total dispersion of that black cloud
which has so long impended over this church, that in both
thanksgiving for that and the blessings that God has bestowed
on us in this result, we shall unite in asking that there shall be
offered to-day a solemn Te Deum  in thanksgiving for all these
blessings and benefits.
The Te Deunm Laudamus was then sung by the choir, the entire congregation standing.
IX.
Enough has been said to give an idea of the results of laytrusteeship as exemplified in a single church.  Circumstances
rendered the condition of the other four bankrupt churches, to
which allusion has already been made, only less desperate than
that of St. Peter's.  The other ten churches that have been
erected for as many new congregations, are still heavily in debt.
But inasmuch as they cannot be irretrievably mortgaged without
the knowledge of the Archbishop, and inasmuch as he will never
suffer them  to be so mortgaged, the danger of their being alienated from Catholic worship is remote and impossible.  All these
fifteen churches, the titles of which are nominally vested in the
Archbishop, but which, in reality, belong to the several congregations, constitute the basis of that supposed wealth which
Senator Brooks estimated at a little short of $5,000,000.  We
have the authority of Messrs. Glover and Wetmore for stating
that after the payment of their debts, their value, allowing the
average of the ground on which they stand at the very high sum
of $5,000 each lot, would amount to the sumof $139,000, or
thereabouts. Besides the nominal ownership of ground on which
these churches stand, Archbishop Hughes is not the proprietor
of a single square inch of land on Manhattan Island.




INTRODUCTION.                          37
X.
It is not for us to determine by what right a Senator may
be authorized to involve a private citizen (for neither the Constitution nor the laws of this country recognize any ecclesiastic
in any different capacity) in the necessity of taking the trouble
and going to the expense which a refutation of MIr. Brooks's
falsehoods has imposed upon Archbishop Hughes.  Certainly
no man is a criminal on account of the amount of property which
may be recorded in his name, provided it has been honestly
acquired or honestly preserved, for the purposes to which it is
set apart.  And if the acquisition of wealth by religious denominations is sufficient to excite the jealousy of the State, the investigation should extend to all denominations, and not be exceptionally restricted to one.  At all events, if the legislature of
New York is disposed to take an inventory of the ecclesiastical
wealth of each denomination in the State, they should begin
with those who by original rights or the prescription of time,
have come into the management of really immense property. In
that way the Episcopalians, the Dutch Reformed Church, the
Presbyterians, the Methodists and Baptists would, by the immense preponderance of their ecclesiastical property, claim  precedence over the Catholics, who are but of comparatively recent
origin in this city, and even yet in the condition of pure struggle
to provide places of worship for their increasing numbers.  The
writer of this entertains no jealousy towards any denomination on
account of their ecclesiastical wealth.  It is to be assumed that
they came into its possession by honest and honorable means.
And were it twice or ten times as large as it is, we would still
say that the State has no right to interfere with it, at least in
the sense of contingent confiscation, contemplated and provided
for in Senator Putnam's Bill against Catholics.
XI.
Neither have we the slightest objection to the system of laytrusteeship which the same bill would force upon Catholics, that




38                        INTRODUCTION.
is, so far as other denominations may have found it suitable to
their interests and in harmony with their doctrines.  It has so
happened, however, as a historical fact, that the Episcopalians
Dutch Reformed Church, Presbyterians, Methodists, Quakers,
and probably some other denominations, have sought exemption
and obtained it from  the crude enactments of the law of 1784,
which Senator Putnam  has revived against Catholics.  We say
candidly, that this system  is entirely out of keeping with the
principles of religious belief and of ecclesiastical discipline peculiar to our faith.  Nor do we know any denomination, except the
Congregationalists, to whom  it is applicable or by whom it is desired.  Neither is it of much consequence to Catholics, that
wherever it has existed some of the clergymen of other denominations have complained of it bitterly, as authorizing a despotism
of the laity controlling their freedom in the' niinistration of the
Word," if not of the sacraments.  Neither is it our business to
complain that Protestant lay-trustees have not only in some instances brought their churches into market by their mismanage-'ment, allowed some of them  to be sold even toCatholics, but
also, if report can be relied on, have failed to pay the debts
which they had contracted in the name of the religious community to which they belonged-whether the sufferers were, as in
some cases, those who had loaned them  money on bond and
mortgage, or cases more cruel still in which mechanics, laborers,
and others were ultimately cheated out of the wages of their
hard labor.  All these are questions which our Protestant fellow-citizens have a right to decide for themselves, and if they
are entirely satisfied as for themselves, with this system, certainly Catholics have no right to' prevent their approval and
adoption of it.  We speak for Catholics only.
XII.
This nmay perhaps be the proper place in which to introduce
a few explanatory remarks regarding some points allLuded to Nby
Senator Brooks, which, without explanation, the  uncatholic




INTRODUCTIONo                        39
reader would be liable to misunderstand.  It has been stated in
various ways that Catholics regard Church property, when once
dedicated to religious purposes, as the property of God.  The
meaning, in the minds of Catholics is, that no matter in whom
the title of such property is vested, its use is the'nmmon right
of all; that the Bishop has no right to exclude the congregation,
nor the congregation to exclude the Bishop; in short, that it is
to be used for the purposes of Catholic worship.  It has happened, and it may happen again, that some portions of property
of this kind have been sold.  Thus arises the question, very silly
in itself, " How can the property of God be sold? "  Two instances have been alluded to during this discussion.  One was
the old Transfiguration Church, in Chambers street. The Church
edifice was exceedingly rickety.  Improvement in the neighborhood required that great expense should be undergone to shore
it up.  And improvement demanded that the ground on which it
stood should be occupied for warehouses, rather than as a.place
of worship.  It was accordingly sold, and the money which it
brought was used partly to pay its debts, and partly to purchase
the present Transfiguration Church, formerly Protestant Episcopalian " Zion," corner of MIott and Cross streets.  It may be remarked, by the way, that the old Transfiguration Church had
never been consecrated or dediccted by any Catholic religious
rites.  The amount of debt from  the beginning was such, that
neither Bishop Dubois, nor Archbishop Hughes would consecratea temple so likely to pass away from  religious to secular uses.
Something similar occurred in regard to what was called St.
Stephen's Church, on the corner of 27th street and Iadison
avenue.  Ground had been purchased there by the congregation
with the sanction of the Bishop; a temporary building was
erected, but never consecrated, inasmuch as it was only temporary and to be occupied as a school-house after the church
should have been erected.  In the mean time the Harlem  R. I.
Company became the proprietors of the rest of the block in
which this building was situated.  The character of that occupancy rendered it inexpedient to build the contemplated church




40                       INTRODUCTION.
on that ground.  Whilst, on the other hand, the Harlem II. R.
Company desired the possession of the whole square.  It was
accordingly sold to them, and the purchase money employed in
buying lots and building St. Stephen's Church in a more suitable place.!f was in relation to this property that Senator
Brooks placed on record one of the most palpable falsehoods
of which he has been guilty.  He describes the sale of this
property and its transfer to the Harlem  R. II. Company.  Of
course, then, he was aware that it had passed out of the Archbishop's possession.  And he must have known that he was
perpetrating falsehood when he enumerated this same property
as being still in the Archbishop's possession.
XIII.
It has been said that the Archbishop should not haye applied
terms of opprobrium to a Senator of the State of New York,and some papers have gone so far as to say that he has applied
the word liar, scoundrel, villain, &c., to Senator Brooks.  This
is entirely untrue.  Whether Mr. Brooks deserves those epithets
or not is purely a matter of inference in the mind of each reader.
But the Archbishop has not applied them.,Mr. Brooks in this
respect has been his own worst enemy.  In his Speech in the Senate of New York, he made statements which were entirely and
absolutely false.  Admonished as to their falsehood, he undertook
to prove them, and in this attempt perpetrated many additional
falsehoods.  Thus the issue of veracity between him  and the
Archbishop became vital, —and if iMr. Brooks has gone to the
wall on that issue, it has been by his own procurement.  He became the centre of a triangular testimony.  At one angle were
his own statements,-at a second, those, of Messrs. Glover and
Wetmore, whose veracity no man will venture to call in question;
and at the. third point of the triangle were the records of the Register's ocfie.  Mir. Brooks had falsified these records.  That
fact is attested both by their own text, and by the testimony of
the two gentlemen above named.  If Mr. Brooks therefore has




INTRODUCTION.                       41
any complaint to make as to the charge of falsehood, let him
blame not the Archbishop, but his own tongue and his own pen.
In the speech in Albany he said there were fifty-eight entries of
property then held by the Archbishop.  When he came to examine them he found NOT fifty-eight, but forty-six.  And when
truthful men came to examine his special report, they found
neither fifty-eitht, nor forty-six, but only THIRTY TWO.
Let no one then be offended or scandalized if the Archbishop
has applied to such statements of Senator Brooks the only term
in our language which characterizes them according to what they
are, namely, falsehoods.  These they are-neither more nor less.
And they would be just what they are, if by a ridiculous affectation of spurious politeness, the Archbishop had treated them as
mere typographical errors.  The only object of education in this
life is to distinguish, in all departments of human knowledge, the
line which separates truth from falsehood.  If it were not in the
hope of becoming able to make this distinction, the labors of the
student would become purposeless, and education would be a
mere toil without the prospect of a recompense. To apply the
term falsehood to a deliberate statement made by any one claiming the immunities of social decency, must necessarily appear
harsh, and is in fact a humiliating necessity on the part of him
who employs it.  But when there is no alternative left-when
you have to deal with a man so unscrupulous as to leave you no
choice, except to put him into the pit which he had dug for you,
then in that case things must be called by their proper
names-truth must be called truth, and falsehood, falsehood-it
is for the author of either to be responsible both to God and
men.
XIV.
It is said by many that the late' controversy between Senator
Brooks and myself will have made a great man of him.  I doubt
much whether that is possible.  But if the event should verify
the prediction, it will not awaken in my breast a single feeling




42                      INTRODUCTION.
of regret.  I have no objection that Senator Brooks should succeed in any avocation of life to which he may devote himself.
The late controversy between him  and me has brought out for
the admiration of his countrymen, if they choose to admire it, the
special department of talent in which his forte lies.  If they
deem  it worthy of recompense, let them reward it by making
Senator Brooks  Mayor of the city, Governor of the State, or President of the Union, in case they can find no fitter man.  As for
the writer of this, he has only to complain of the injustice done
him by Senator Brooks in the speech which he delivered in the
Senate, at Albany, on the 6th of last March.  In that speech
the Senator held up Archbishop Hughes to the odium and suspicion of his countrymen.  And this he did, not by a' statement
of facts, but by a statement of silly and absurd falsehoods.
It may be as well to conclude this introduction with a restatement of that portion of Mr. Brooks's speech, which has
given rise' to the late controversy between the Senator and the
Archbishop of New York.  The passage referred to is as follows: —
" I HAVE HAD OCCASIO0N DURING A VISIT OF A DAY I T N.EW Yon0B
TO SECURE REFERENCES,  TAKEN FROM THE REGISTER'S OFFICE
THERE, OF TIE AMOUNT OF PROPERTY HELD BY JOHN H-luUGES IN
THAT CITY. I SUPPOSE ITS VALUE TO BE, IN NTEW YORK ALONE,
NOT MUCH SHORT OF ive millions of dollars. So FAR FROM THIS
PROPERTY BEING HELD, WHEN IN CHURtCHES, BY TRUSTEES, THERE
ARE NUMEROUS TRANSFERS FROM  TRUSTEES TO eJOIHN HU-IIES 
BEGINNING WITH FEBRUARY, 1842, AND CONTINUING THROUGH
1854, A FRIEND OF MINE COPIED fifty-eight entries of as many
distinct paceels of property made in the name of land for John
HI-ughes, ALL IN THE SPACE OF TWELVE YEARS!-NOT TO JOHN
HUGHES, BIS-IOP, NOR TO JOH1N HUGHES, ARCH-JBiSHOP, NOR TO
JOHN HUGHES, AS TRUSTEE FOR THE GREAT ROMAN CATHO-ILIC
CHURCH, BUT TO PLAIN JOHN HIUGIES, IN HIS OVWN prop'ria perSOcnm.  SOME OF THESE PARCELS COVER WHOLE SQUARES OF LAND,
AND NEARLY ALL OF THEM ARE OF GREAT VALUE.  THE RULE OF




INTRODUCTION.                    43
THAT CHURCH IS NEVER TO PART WITHI PROPERTY, AND TO RECEIVE
ALL THAT CAN BE PURCHASED.' WHAT IS TRUE OF NEW YORK
CITY IS TRUE O T   TIE TATE, AND FIFTEEN OR TWENTY CASES OF
PROPERTY ASSIGNED TO BISIIOP JOHN TIMON AWERE NAMED BY THE
SENATOR FROM BIONROE.
[" To those who were curious in such matters, MMr. BRooKs exhibited to the Senate, the number, book and page of those several
entries in the City of New York, in behalf of John Hughes."]








AND ARCHIBISHOP HUGHES.                   45
PETITION OF THE TRUSTEES OF ST. LOUIS'
CHURCH, BUFFALO.
[CFr0om th7b N.Y. FPIEIINMAN'S JOURNAL AND CATHOLIC REGISTER, Mar'h 31St, 1855,]
Mr. PUTNAM presented the following petition, which, as he
said, in view  of its great importance, should be printed.   ie
accordingly made a motion to that effect, which was adopted.
To the Senate cand Assembly:The undersigned, trustees and ex-trustees of the St. Louis
Church, situate in Bffalo, beg to lay before the Legislature the
following statement of facts, in the hope that some legislative
action may be devised to remedy the evils of which they
complain:
In the year 1829, an estimable citizen of Buffalo, the late
Louis Le Couteulx, Escq., conveyed two valuable lots on Main and
Delaware streets, in that city, to the then Bishop in New York,
Dubois, in trust for the use of the Catholic church, to be thereafter organized.  Subsequently, and about the year 1838, St.
Louis Church was duly organized under the act of 1813, under
seven trustees, and has so continued from that time till the present, said congregation from time to time electing their trustees
according to the requirements of said statute.  This organization
was effected with the hearty concurrence of the worthy Bishop,
and of the liberal donor of the land.  A church was erected by
the congregation, and dedicated by the Bishop, and the Society
continued in harmony and prosperity until the death of Bishop
Dubois, about 1840, and the death of Mr. Couteulx, in 1842.
Shortly after these events Bishop Hughes attempted to compel the trustees to convey the title of this. church property to
him.  The trustees resisted firmly.  With a view to coerce compliance with his demands the Bishop withdrew the Priest and




46          CONTROVERSY BETWEEN SENATOR BROOKS
suspended tile ordinances in St. Louis Church.  The trustees declined  to yield, and sent one of their number, Win. B. Le
Couteulx, Esq, to Europe, for the purpose of preventing this arbitrary and, as was claimed, this illegal action of the Bishop,
through the intervention of Cardinal Fornari, the Pope's Nuncio
at Paris.  Mr. Le C. succeeded in his mission.  No further
efforts were made at te th  ime by Bishop H-ughes to disturb the
title to the church, and its members fondly hoped that peace was
permanently restored.   Subsequently the diocese was divided,
and those of Albany and Buffalo were erected.  Bishop Timon
became the head of the latter.  He was installed into his holy
office in this Church of St. Louis, the title of which then vested
in said trustees.  In process of time Bishop Timon renewed the
effort to compel the trustees to surrender to him the title of said
church.  They again resisted resolutely.  This procured various
annoyances to the congregation, among which was the withdrawal
of all Priests from that church.  Deprived of all spiritual guides,
the congregation were accustomed to meet at their church on the
Sabbath and make their prayers in common.- The case was at
length presented to the Holy Father and the College of Propaganda, at Rome; the result of which was that in 18852, a special
Envoy, Father Bedini, was sent to the United States to correct
these abuses.  The Prelate, yielding to the unfortunate influences
which surrounded, early took sides against us, and our remnonstrances were totally disregarded.
I-ligh-handed measures were then taken against us.  For refusing to comply with what we regarded as the illegal and unjust
demands of the Bishop to surrender property thus committed to
our charge, as the legally constituted trustees of said church, the
Bishop was pleased to issue against us a decree of excommunnication.  During the last three years the church itself has been, in
effect, closed against the admission of her clergymen, and the ordinances and sacraments of the Catholic religion were withheld
from the members of that Society.
Such are the unvarnished faEcts, to which we earnestly solicit
your attention.  The embarrassments and inconveniences result



AND ARCHBISHOP HUGHES.                     47
ing from  this action of its Bishop, have been to us painful and
oppressive. ~  *  For no higher offence than simply refusing to
violate the Trust Law of our State, we have been subjected to
the pains of excommunication, and our names held up to infamy
and reproach.  For this cause, too, have the entire congregation
been placed under ban.  To our members the holy rites of baptism  and of burial have been denied.  The marriage sacrament
is refused.  The Priest is forbidden to minister at our altars.
In sickness, and at the hour of death, the holy consolations of religion a:e withheld.  To the Catholic churchman it is scarcely
possible to exaggerate the magnitude of such deprivations.
We yield to none in attachment to our religion, and cheerfully render to our Bishop that obedience, in spiritual matters,
which the just interpretation of our faith may recluire  but, in
respect to the temporalities of our Church, we claim the right of
obeying the laws of the State whose protection we enjoy.
We would respectfully suggest that we are not unmindful of
the fact that the American policy, which has been generally
adopted, requiring church property to be vested in Trustees,
who shall be elected by the members of their respective congregations, was instituted' for the purpose of retaining these extensive ecclesiastical estates in the hands of those whose interests
are linked to, and identified with the principles and fortunes of
our beloved country.  And with regret and mortification have
we observed that the recent attempts to change these salutary
laws respecting the tenure of church property, have excited
jealousies, and have brought odium  and reproach upon the
Church to which we belong.  Could, however, the untrammelled
judgment of reflecting and intelligent Catholics, on this point,
be ascertained, we feel assured that their voice would be decidedly in opposition to this effort of the Bishop to monopolize
the temporalities of the church.
Until within the last twelve or fifteen years those temporalities have been held by trustees, according to existing statutes,
and during that earlier period the American Catholic Church
was blessed with eminent prosperity and success.  While many




48          CONTROVERSY BETWEEN SENATOR BROOKS
churches throughout the State have, for the sake of peace, reluctantly submitted to the demands of the Bishops in this respect, a large portion of the several congregations in every locality have regarded this project as alike unjust and impolitic.
We feel confident that, by proper legislation, an end can for
ever be put to these controversies and dicffiulties.  We, therefore,
ask for the passage of a law enforcing, under sufficient penalties, a
faithful compliance with existing statutes, respecting the tenure
of church property.  To the true Catholic it is painful to be
brought in antagonism with his Bishop and spiritual guide. Such
a law will prevent this unpleasant condition of affairs.  By no
portion of our community will the rigid enforcement of such a
statute be hailed with greater satisfaction than by intelligent and
faithful Catholics.
And your petitioners will ever pray.
(Signed)          GEORGE FISHER,
MICHAEL HESMER,
W. B. Lii COUTEULx,
GEORGE LONDRACK,
And seventeen others.




AND ARCHBISHOP HUGHES.                         49
EXTRACT FROM LAWS OF NEW YORK.
CHAPTER 230.-AN ACT IN RELATION TO CONVEYANCES AND DEVICES OF
PERSONAL AND REAL ESTATE FOR RELIGIOUS PURPOSES.
Passed April 9, 1855.
T/he People of the State of Nesezv York, represented in the Senate cand
Assembly, do enact as follows:s
SECTION 1. No grant, conveyance, devise or lease of personal
or real estate to, nor any trust of such personal or real estate
for the benefit of, any person and his successor or successors in
any ecclesiastical office, shall vest any estate or interest in such
person or in his successor, and no such grant, conveyance, devise or lease to, or for any such person by the designation of
any such office shall vest any estate or interest in any successor
of such person.  But this section shall not be deemed to admit
the validity of any such grant, conveyance, devise or lease, heretofore made.
~2. No future grant, conveyance, devise, or lease of any
real estate consecrated, dedicated or appropriated, or intended
to  be consecrated, dedicated  or appropriated, to the purposes
of religious worship, for the use of any congregation or society,
shall vest any right, title or interest in any person or persons to
whom  such grant, conveyance, devise or lease nriay be made,
unless the same shall be made to a corporation organized according to the provisions of the laws of this State, under the act
entitled " An Act for the incorporation of religious societies,"
and the acts amendatory thereof, or under the act entitled "An
Act for the incorporation of societies to establish free churches,'
passed April 13, 1854.   But nothing herein contained shall
prevent any such corporation from conveying such property on a




50          CONTROVERSY BETWEEN. SENATOR BROOKS
bona fide sale thereof, under the direction of a court of competent jurisdiction to confer such authority, according to the laws
of this State.
~ 3. Any real estate of the description named in section
second of this act, and which has been heretofore granted,
devised or demised, to any person or persons in any ecclesiastical office, or orders, by the designation of such office or orders,
or otherwise, shall be deemed to be held in trust for the benefit
of the congregation or society using the same, and shall, unless
previously conveyed to a corporation, as provided in the last
preceding section, upon the death of the person or persons in
whom the legal title shall be vested at the time of the passage
of this act, vest in the religious corporation formed by the congregation of religious society occupying or enjoying such real
estate as aforesaid, provided such a corporation, organized according to the laws of this State, shall be in existence at the
time of the decease of the person or persons holding the title
thereto.
~ 4. In the event such congregation or society shall not be
incorporated as aforesaid, then, and in that case, the title of
such real estate shall vest in the people of the State of New
York, in the same manner and with the same effect as if the
person holding the legal title thereto had died intestate and
without heirs capable of inheriting such real estate., 5. Whenever title to any real estate shall vest in the
people of the State of New York, under and by virtue of the
last preceding section. it shall be under the charge of the commissioners of the land office of the State of New York, and it
shall be their duty, and they are hereby authorized, upon their
being satisfied that the congregation or society which had used,
occupied or enjoyed such real estate for purposes of religious
worship, prior to the death of the person or persons on whose
decease the title thereto vested in this State, has been duly incorporated, under and according to the provisions of the act
first named in the second section of this act, and upon the production to him of a certified copy of the recorded certificat of




AND ARICEBISHOP HUGIIES.                     1
incorporation, under the hand of an official seal of the clerk of
the county in whose office the same is recorded, to grant and
convey such real estate, and all the right, title, and interest of
the people of the State of New York, therein and thereto, to
said corporation, which shall thereupon be vested with all the
right, title, and interest, which became vested in the State by
virtue of the provisions of this act.
~ 6. This act shall not be construed as repealing or in any
way affecting chapter one hundred and eighity-four, passed April
17, 1839, entitled " An Act in relation to trusts for the benefit of
the meetings of the religious Society of Friends," provided that
nothing in this provision or in said chapter  one hundred and
eighty-four, shall authorize the vesting of the title of property
appropriated or dedicated to religious worship and belonging
to the Society of Friends in other than lay trustees.
~ 7. This act shall take effect immediately.
State'of  few YoVJrk,     I have compared the preceding with
Secretary's  Ofice.   the original law  on file in  this office,,ecretcrtmy's Offce. {.                4
)and do certify that the same is a correct
transcript therefrom and of the whole of the said original.
ELIAS W. LEAVENWORTIH, Secretary of State.




5CONTROVERSY BETWEEN SENATOR BROOKS
LETTER FROIM ARCHBISHOP -iU  -IES,
Is r'elaction to the Petition of the Trustees of St. Louis' GChurh, Buffalo, —ccnd to Mfy. Putncwnms Anti- Catholic Churec Property Bill.,
NEW YORK, March 28, 1855.
To the Editor of the 1-Vewo York Freeman's Joumrnal:
Having arrived by the A'tlantic yesterday, I have had barely
time to read the foregoing strange documents. I proceed to make
the following hasty observations in regard to them, inasmuch as
Catholics, and others, perhaps, are anxious to know my opinions.
I do not think there is any real ground forthe alarm and apprehension which I understand is now  prevalent among the
Catholics of this city, and no doubt of the entire State, as to the
effects of a law, which is now under discussion in the Legislature
at Albany, regarding ecclesiastical property.  No doubt it is in
its spirit and in its object an anti-Catholic enactment, although it
professes to embrace all denominations except the Society of
Friends.  Should it pass, it may reach other religious communities, and strike deeper into their ecclesiastical organizations than
its framers would wish.  On the othler hand, they felt themselves
obliged to give it the form  and appearance of'a general law, instead of falling it by its true title, "a penal enactment, requiring
Floman Catholics of the State of New York to be governed, in
the enjoyment and use of their own property set apart for ecclesiastical purposes, not by the discipline of the religion which
they profess, but by the statute of the Legislature."  This would
be the true title of the bill as it has now passed the Senate.
But even should it become a law, we can hardly think that our




AND ARCHBISHOP HUGHES.                        53
Protestant fellow-citizens would take any pleasure in executing
upon us the annoyances and injuries, for the infliction of which,
it has so ingeniously provided.  It would impose such intricate,
onerous, and sometimes odious duties on the officers who should
be appointed to see it executed that, unless ample fees were provided, they would become disgusted with its requirements.
It would certainly inflict very great injury on us in our rights
of conscience, and in our rights of ploperty, and this without
producing any benefit to any class of our fellow-citizens.  Still,
should it pass, we shall not sinki under it.  WSe have" borne up
under weightier discouragements.  I should not be surprised if
its results would be beneficial, rather than otherwise, to the real
interests of the Catholic Church and people.  The very fact that
we have been singled out and fettered in the enjoyment of religious immunities, by civil enactments, will, in all probability,
excite that sympathy which is natural to the American breast in
favor of those who suffer under the reality, or even under the appearance of persecution, whether'that persecution be legal or
not.  It will have the effect to brace many who have hitherto
been lukewarm Catholics, to a higher, a deeper, and a holier appreciation of that religion which is thought to require civil enactments for the crippling of its progress.  It will withdraw  many
from  the too ardent pursuit of political ends, and political objects, by which their minds were led away and wasted on mere
transitory and temporal concerns.  It will insinuate to Catholics
that,in the mind of their fellow-citizens, they, because of their
religion, are hardly qualified to take part in the political strifes
by which the country is perpetually agitated.  And the more
they withdraw from such agitations, whether by their own choice
or by such legislative rebukes as the enactment under consideration contemplates, the more their hearts and their minds will
turn to other considerations affecting their future being and the
religion by means of which they are to secure ultimately the end
of their creation.  In this view it is probable that the law, now
before the Legislature at Albalny, will prove in its results rather
beneficial than otherwise to the Catholic body at large.  The




54          CONTROVER.SY BETWEEN SENATOR BROOKS
Legislature does not propose to confiscate their church property,
but only to take the management of it out of their hands.  It
proposes to furnish them, and to force upon them, a wiser, juster,
and therefore better code of ecclesiastical discipline for the management of their church property, than their Church has providecd for them.  But still it does not go the length of confiscation.  It appears to be a foregone conclusion, in the minds of
the framers, that the law will accomplish in practice the results
which are outlined in its theory.  This is not so certain.  Professional gentlemen may discover some defect in the framing and
wording of the enactment which will render it inapplicable.  But
even if this should not be the case, it will only produce, in the
minds of Catholics,'the very feelings and purposes which it aims
to overtlhrow or prevent.
The Catholic laity, in my opinion, will reason with themselves
thus:      The Legislature wishes to prevent our doing with our
own property what we think proper; it wishes us to give nothing
by devise, conveyance, gift, or any other form of transfer, to our
Bishops and clergy, for the purpose of promoting or supporting
our religion, except as it sees fit to direct.  Now, in this it seems
to meddle with our religious, as well as civil rights; and we shaj,
find twenty ways outside the intricate web of its prohibitions for
doing, and doing more largely  still, the very things which it
wishes us not to do.  In these matters which invade our religious
as well as civil rights, we shall take the liberty of doing what is
right, in our own way."
It does not follow from  all this, that I should witness the
passage of the act in question with pleasure or satisfaction. But
I look upon it in anticipation of its worst consequences; and in
order to allay the apprehensions which prevail, I point out its
probable consequences.
Under any circumstances, we must maintain our confidence
in the justice and wisdom of the State. to which it is our pride
to belong.  If experience should make it apparent hereafter that
the working out of this law is partial and oppressive upon one
denomination, and only one, of the community, another future




AND ARCHBISHOP HUGHES.                     55
Legislature, better informed of the true state of the case, will
either amend its defects, or repeal it altogether, in case it should
be found not amendable.
I have said that I could not, nor can any Catholic, approve
of it, or witness its passing into a law with any feeling of pleasure
or satisfaction.  But, on the other hand, it is a matter of congratulation to the Catholics, that they have not had recourse to
any thing like public meetings or remonstrances, such as are
usually had recourse to, to prevent the passing of an iniquitous
or injurious enactment.  There have been times when it might
have been their duty thus to meet, pass resolutions, and forward
numerously signed remonstrances.  But in an hour so pregnant
with excitement, when it would be so easy to engender feelings
that ought to be guarded against, they have acted wisely in leaving the matter entirely in the hands of those who are appointed
legislators to represent the sovereign will of this sovereign State.
No remonstrance shall go forth from me against the contemplated
legislation, nor shall I encourage any thing of the kind in others.
The matter is in the hands of the Senate and Assembly of New
York.  They are entirely, or nearly all, Protestants; and Protestants have always boasted that they were in favor of the most
unbounded  civil and  religious liberty.  If it be their good
pleasure in this instance to refute their professions by their acts,
be it so; but the glory or dishonor shall be theirs alone.
I think, however, that the chances for right legislation in
this matter would be greater, if the Legislature of New York
were better informed of the true state of the ease-of the facts,
and their bearings involved in the groundwork of the act of legislation to which we have referred.  It is hardly possible that
they should be acquainted by personal knowledge with the religious discipline peculiar to the various denominations of the community.  So, also, in regard to the specific facts involved in the
so-called ecclesiastical property question among Catholics. Their
tutors appear to have been the lay trustees of St. Louis's Church,
in Buffalo.  What these gentlemen have said, whether orally or
in the form of petition, has been regarded as Catholic testimony,




56           CONTROVERSY BETWEEN SENATOR BROOKS
and consequently the testimony of men who could not be suspected of wishing injury to that denomination to which they profess to. belong.  When one reads their petition, and the act now
under deliberation, he is struck with how  nicely they fit into
each other.  The petition of George Fisher, Michael Hesmer;
William  B. Le Couteulx, George  Landrack, and  seventeen
others, is the foundation,-the bill before the House, the superstructure to be reared upon it.  Now, wise legislation' should
rest upon a sound and solid basis.  That which is presented to
the Legislature by the gentlemen from  Buffalo, is neither sound
nor solid, and with this part of the question I propose to deal at
some length, —the more so that they have introduced my name
into their petition.  I begin by declaring, as a man of honor and
veracity, that the petition  of the self-styled Catholics of St.
Louis's church, so far as it alleges grievances to'be redressed or
provided against, is a comipound of fiction in all its material
parts, with a small sprinkling of truth in portions which are not
material, from  beginning to end.  It begins with the following
statement:
" Shortly after these events, Bishop Hughes attempted to compel
the trustees to convey the title of this church (St. Louis') to him.
The trustees resisted firmly."
The whole burden of the petition rests upon the accuracy or
the inaccuracy of this statement, at least so far as Bishop lHughes
is concerned.  I proclaim in the face of the signers of the petition, and of the Legislature, and of the whole world, that in the
extract just quoted there is not a sentence, nor a word, nor a
syllable, nor a letter of truth.
Having premised so much, it may be proper for me to give a
brief history of the origin and nature of the difficulties between
myself and the trustees of St. Louis's church, in Buffalo.  In
order to make the matter more intelligible, it is necessary that I
should revert to the bearings of the question, as it affected the
Catholic people of the diocese of New York at the period referred to.




AND ARCHBISHOP HUGIIS.                     57
When the undersigned was appointed to the government of
the Diocese in 1839, he found every church therein under the
management, so far as related to what was called temporalities,
of lay trustees.  He found the congregations of those churches
generally divided among themselves into contending parties, having no mutual sympathies, one with the other.  He found them
involved in debt, more than equal to the value of the property.
In the city of New York there were at that period six Catholic
churches.  Of these, three were barely able to meet the interest
on their debts as they became due, whilst the other three were
involved apparently beyond any prospect of extrication.  These
three latter churches, or rather the trustees representing them,
became bankrupt in their corporate capacity.  The real and personal property passed into the hands of assignees, and were disposed of in the ordinary course of law, just the same as if they
had been bankrupt theatres.  The price which they brought
would not have paid more than thirty cents on the dollar to their
creditors.  And, on the other hand, it would have been a stigma
on the Catholic body at large, and not on the trustees as individuals, if their debts, whether recoverable by law, or acknowledged to be due in justice, should not be paid to the last farthing.
Now, here was a result that startled and alarmed the Catholics.  From  the time of their origin in the city of New York,
they had been in the habit of contributing generously by voluntary subscription, as well as by high pew-rents; and after a
continuance of such contributions during a period of more than
half a century, they made the melancholy discovery that the
churches which they had built, and supposed themselves to own,
were sunk in debt far more than they were worth, and belonged
both in law and in equity to their creditors.  All the money
they had contributed for religious purposes, over and above current expenses for the maintenance of divine worship, was gonegone; and with it their honor as a trustworthy religious community! The present Archbishop of Niew York was the purchaser
of those churches when they were sold respectively; that is, he
was the highest bidder, and accordingly they passed into his




58          CONTROVERSY BETWEEN SENATOR BROOKS
hands for the time being, not in the form of a trust for him and
his successors, but by a legal title in fee simple.  From  that
moment, the confidence and hopes of the Catholic people began
to revive.  They rallied around their Bishop, and around the
clergymen respectively appointed by him to take charge of those
churches.  By an effort, which has continued for years, they paid
off or provided for their debts, as determined by the legal price
for which they were sold.  But they did more than pay their
legal debts.  They retrieved their own honor as a religious denomination, by paying also those debts for the recovery of which
there was no law.  They wiped out every stigma which the bad
management of lay trustees had brought upon their otherwise
untarnished name.
I would not be understood here as imputing moral delinquency to the several Boards of Trustees then in existence, or to their
predecessors.  But experience has proved in our own country, as
well as elsewhere, that there is a subtle element of deceptiveness
lurking and inherent in the nature of corporate bodies.  The
members of such bodies are seldom conscious of the presence of
this element, which, as long as things go on well, philosophy has
been baffled in her attempts to define or identify.  It is only
when the community is stunned by some explosion or mismanagement of public trusts by corporate bodies, that the fact itself becomes palpable and undeniable.  But even then, except in some
startling case of fraud, the astonishment settles down into that
benevolent humanity which winds up a catastrophe on a railroad,
with the considerate verdict that blame is not to be attached to
any one in particular.
I have never known an instance of fraud or peculation among
the lay trustees of the unfortunate churches to which I have referred.  In other respects, they were not exemlpt from those selfillusions to which corporate bodies, even in seasons of apparent
prosperity, are so frequently liable.  This was proved by the result of their long labors.  After an administration of the temporal affairs of the Catholics during a period of fifty years, they
and the community were astonished at discovering that the Church




AND ARCHBISHOP HUGHES.                      59
property under their management was still in debt, to an amount
more than its entire value.  Thus it was ascertained that, except
in the mere use of the edifices for religious purposes, the condition of the Catholics of New  York was worse than if they had
never owned any Church property whatever.  It was not surprising, therefore, that the Catholic community, clergy and laity,
under such circumstances, should turn away, as they did, in disgust, from a system which had wrought out such unexpected, and,
for the honor of their fame as a religious community, such discreditable results.
On the other hand, since the management of Church property
by lay trustees has been set aside, or, rather, has died out, their
reputation has been retrieved and restored.  They have seen paid
off not only their legal debts, but the debts of honor bequeathed
to them  by the defunct system.  They have seen those older
churches recovered from  ruin, and new churches springing up on
every side. They have seen an end put to divisions, bickerings
and strifes in the several congregations of the diocese, and a spirit
of union, harmony, and above all, charity, extending itself over
their whole community.
With this experience fresh in their memory, nothing less than
absolute coercion will induce them' to return to a system, from
the effects of which they have escaped at the expense of so many
and such noble sacrifices.
I am, however, far from  being satisfied with the mode in
which Church property is generally held at the present time.  It
has involved the bishop in many cares, anxieties and responsibilities, which it would be for him a great and most desirable relief
to be rid of. -And I should hail with delight any legislative
measure by which, on the one side, the dangers that have resulted from  the former mismanagement of lay trustees might be
securely guarded against; and, on the other side, the inconveniences of the present system remedied; the rights of the
laity as well as of the clergy provided for; and the Church property legally secured to the sacred ends and purposes for which it
was created and intended.




63 0        CONTROVERSY BETWEEN SENATOR BROOKS
In the petition which Mr. Putnam presented to the legislature on behalf of the trustees of St. Louis' church, it is insinua.
ted, if not asserted, that the system of lay trustees was set aside
by the improper exercise of episcopal authority in the diocese of
New York.  This is entirely untrue.  When that system was set
aside there was no Catholic Bishop in the State of New York.
except myself, and I know that I never used my episcopal authority whether properly or improperly, for the purpose of displacing lay trustees in any church in my diocese.  It is quite
true that when appealed to I have recommended, in a few instances, that they should resign, as the best means of putting an
end to strifes among themselves, or of saving the church under
their management from being sold for its debts.  This, however,
was always in the form of friendly advice; but in no case have I
ever asked them  to resign their office as an act of obedience to
episcopal authority.  In no case have I asked them, or any of
them, to make over the title of their church property to me.  I
never recognized in them the right of ownership, and I should
as soon have thought of asking the Corporation of Buffalo to make
over to me their city property, as of asking the trustees of St.
Louis' to make over the title of their church.  It was not theirs
in such a sense or for such a purpose.  They could not do it if
they would; and if they did attempt it, it would be as faithless
agents, attempting to betray the confidence of their principals, in
giving a worthless deed of property which was not theirs.  Consequently, whilst the statement alluded to in the petition of the
trustees, and seventeen others, is utterly empty of truth, it is
filled and overflowing with absurdity and nonsense.
The authority of a Bishop in the Catholic Church is a spiritual authority.  It is the same in a Church that has trustees, as
in one that has none.  All Catholics acknoweldge and are subject to that authority.  I may add also what is indeed obvious,
that that authority extends to outward things which are set
apart and appropriated for purposes of religion; and that, consequently, when the faithful have contributed for th-e purposes
of Catholic worship, it is of the jurisdiction, of the right, and




AND ARCHBISHIOP HUGHES.                          61
duty of the Bishop, to see that property so contributed, and for
such a purpose, shall not be misappropriated, squandered, or perverted from  its use.
In the Statutes of our Synod, held in  1842, certain rules
were laid down by which lay trustees should be thenceforward
guided in administering  the ecclesiastical property, which  the
Catholic people had contributed for the purpose of religion.  The
following extract from  our Pastoral Letter, published  on that
occasion, contains the only rules which could in the least trench
on the prerogatives of lay trustees which had been so long enjoyed
for ruin, with impunity: —
"We have, therefore, directed and ordained, by the statutes of the
Diocese, that, henceforward, no body of lay trustees, or lay persons,
by whatever name called, shall be admitted to appoint, retain, or dismiss, any person connected with the Church-such as sexton, organist, singers, teachers, or other persons employed in connection with
religion or public worship, against the will of the pastor, subject to
the ultimate decision of the ordinary.  We have ordained, likewise,
that the expenses necessary for the maintenance of the pastors, and
the support of religion, shall, in no case, be withheld or denied, if the
congregation are able to afford them.  It shall not be lawtful for any
Board of Trustees, or other lay persons, to make use of the church,
chapel, basement, or other portions of ground, or edifices consecrated
to religion, for any meeting, having a secular, or even an ecclesiastical
object, Without the approval, previously had, of the pastor, who shall
be accountable to the Bishop for his decision. And, with a view to arrest
the evils of the trustee system in expending inconsiderably, or otherwise, the property of the faithful, it has been ordained as a statute of the
Diocese, that no Board of Trustees shall be at liberty to vote, expend,
or appropriate for contracts, or under any pretext, any portion of the
property which they are appointed to administer, (excepting the current expenses as above alluded to) without the express approval and
approbation of the pastor, in every case.  And it is further ordained,
that even thus, the trustees of the churches, with the approbation of
the pastor, shall not be at liberty to expend an amount larger than
the sum of one hundred dollars in any one year, without the consent
of the Bishop approving or permitting such expenditure."
I ama sure that no me-mber of the Legislature, not even Mr.
Putinam, will be able to discover, in these regulations, any thing
unjust, unwise, or oppressive.  They tool from  the Boards of.Trustees the power of contracting debts ad libitzmn  and bequeath



62          CONTROVERSY BETWEEN SENATOR BROOKS
ing to their successors in office the less pleasant duty of making
payment.  They took from  lay trustees the right of employing
church property for the payment of persons connected with religion, against whose fitness or moral character the pastor of the
church might have strong and well-founded objections.  In these
regulations will be found the only grounds that ever existed for
the resistance to episcopal authority, which the trustees of St.
Louis's Church, Buffalo, were pleased to inaugurate.
All the other Boards of Trustees in the Diocese acquiesced
in them, and the Catholics at large saw in them a prudent measure and a wise precaution.  The only exception was the trustees
of St. Louis's Church. They would be Catholics after their own
fashion, and they have reaped the consequences.  Not understanding the English language well, they caused the Pastoral to
be translated into German.  Then,in their corporate capacity as
lay trusteesthey took it into " mature and respectful " consideration, and reviewed it paragraph by paragraph.  They were kind
enough to approve of some parts, whilst in the most polite language,
which a French gentleman knows so well how to employ, they signified to me that other portions of the document did not meet their approbation.  Their objections were chiefly, I may say exclusively,
against the regulations contained in the above extract from the
Pastoral Letter.  They would not allow either Bishop or Priest
to examine their church books, or their treasurer's accounts.
They would not allow the Pastor to have any thing to do with the
approval or disapproval of persons whom they might think fit to
employ in connection with the services of the Church.  Thus, by
implication, they would reserve to themselves the right to employ
an infidel to teach catechism to the children of the congregation
-the right to employ a Jew to serve the Priest at Mass, and a
scoffer at all religion to play the organ on Sunday, or chant the
praises of God in his holy temple.  Their refusal to acquiesce in
the above regulations of the Pastoral Letter was communicated
to me accompanied by polite expressions of profound respect for
episcopal authority.  Jn reply, I expressed to them  briefly my
regret at the course which they thought proper to adopt, inti



AND ARCHBISHOP HUGHES.                     63
mated that the duties of my office required that I should be the
Bishop, and that in the government of the Diocese they should be
content with their condition as laymen,-that under no circumstances would I quarrel or have any controversy with them,that if they thought proper-to persevere in their resolutions, we
should part company in peace,-that Bishops and Priests, and
religion itself, were quite as free in this country as were lay trustees.
In the Pastoral Letter it had been made known that at the
period of six months from its promulgation, the Priest should be
withdrawn from  every church whose trustees should refuse to
comply with the above regulations.  The trustees of St. Louis's
Church alone persevered in their refusal.  The Priest, however,
was not withdrawn by me, but was actually compelled by the illtreatment he received from  the trustees and their adherents
to quit his post and return to his native country,.   rom the time
he left I did not send another Priest, nor was another Priest permitted to officiate in their church.  But as the Catholic people
whose interests these men had so mismanaged, whose peace they
had destroyed, whom they had deprived of religious consolation
so far as depended on them, were still a precious portion of my
Catholic flock, I sent two other Priests, not indeed to be under
the ignorant tyranny of lay trustees in St. Louis's Church,but to
be free ministers of God, freely discharging their duties towards
all the people.
The Almighty gave a blessing to their ministry and labors.
A new temple was soon commenced, and this church of St. Louis
remained, an altarless pile, which its owners might have disposed
of as they thought proper.  On my second episcopal visitation
one or two years afterwards, the trustees then in office addressed
me a note soliciting me to receive them for the purpose of an interview in regard to its condition.  I informed them  in reply
that unless they were prepared to acquiesce in the requirements
of the Pastoral Letter, and thus come back to the starting point
of their schism, an interview Would be useless, and could not be
granted.  They came, notwithstanding, at the hour which they




(64         CONTROVERSY BETWEEN SENATOR BROOKS
indicated in their note.  They asked mle to explain the nleaning
of certain passages in the extract of the Pastoral as quoted above.
This was readily given, and at its close they allegedl as an apology for their schismatical course up to that time, that they were
unacquainted with the value of English words, that Mr. WnV. B.
Le Couteulx had been their interpreter-and that he had always
assured them that the Bishop was endeavoring to get possession
of their church property, in order to give it to the Irish! In
short, they stated (that is, some~of them stated and the rest remained silent) that if my interpretation of the Pastoral Letter
was correct,  Mr. Le Couteulx had been deceiving them from the
beginning, and that now they were prepared to submit in all
things to the general discipline of the.Diocese as set forth in the
Pastoral Letter.  Their submission was complete and unconditional,-it was spontaneous, for, I neither argued with them nor
suffered them to argue with me.  I congratulated them, intimating at the same time that their acknowledged and causeless obstinacy had given great scandal, which, as good Christians, they were
bound to repair as far as possible. This they admitted, and were
prepared to ask pardon of God and of their Bishop for the
scandals they had given.  They besought the Bishop, however,
to open their church and preach in it on the following day, which
was Sunday.  I replied'that before I opened their church they
should make the anzencde honorcLble to their fellow Catholics of
the Diocese and of the world, which they did in the afternoon
papers by a public expression of their regret for the course they
had hitherto pursued.  Here the matter ended, as between the
Bishop of New York and the trustees of St. Louis's Church. A
new pastor was appointed, and things went on peacefully till the
Diocese was divided.
With the details of the subsequent history of this controversy I am unacquainted, but I am  quite persuaded that the
trustees of St. Louis's Church have had as little reason to complain of their present zealous and devoted Bishop as they had to
complain of me.
Whether in view of the foregoing facts the Legislalture can do




AND ARCHBISHOP I-UGHES.                       65
any thing to relieve those gentlemen from the laws of the religious
denomination to which they profess to belong, it will remain for
Mir. Putnam  and his colleagues to determine.
Their petition states as follows, viz:
"The trustees sent one of their numnher,Wm. B. Le Couteulx, Esq.,
to Europe for the purpose of preventing this arbitrary, and as was
claimed, this illegal action of the Bishop, through the intervention of
Cardinal Fornari, the Pope's Nuncio in Paris.  Mr. L. C. succeeded in
his mission.  No further efforts were made at the time by Bishop
Hnghes to disturb the title to the Church, and its members fondly
hoped that peace was permanently restored."
Here is a strange jumble of fact and fiction.  It is quite true
that Mr. Le Couteulx went to Europe,-it is quite false that he
succeeded in his mission.  Bishop  Iughes had many conversations with Cardinal Fornari in Paris after iMr. Le C.'s visit, and
the Nuncio never so much as alluded either to Mr. Le Couteulx
or to the St. Louis's Church in Buffalo.  Peace, then, was not restored in consequence of any authority in the Catholic Church,
for neither Bishop, nor Cardinal, nor Pope, ever spoke or wrote
to Bishop Hughes on the subject.  But peace was restored in
consqucence of the trustees having, in the interview  above alluded to, voluntarily and unconditionally submitted to the requirements of the Pastoral Letter;-in consequence of their having
expressed  sorrow for their scandalous conduct;-and in consequence of their having promised, if the Bishop would only grant
them a Priest, to conform  thenceforward in their administration
as lay trustees to the rules of the Diocese.
Such is the plain, simple history of facts involved in the socalled controversy between the trustees of St. Louis's Church and
myself, up to the period when the Diocese was divided.  Let no
one suppose that this statement of facts is untrue or incorrect in
any of its parts.  I had some correspondence, but no controversy
with the trustees.  I had much conversation also, especially with
their spokesman; and I defy him  to show that in writing, in
speech, or by any act or sign, I have ever made the proposition,




66         CONTROVERSY BETWEEN SENATOR BROOKS
or exhibited the desire, to meddle, directly or indirectly, with the
title of their church.
This is a true and simple, though hastily written statement,
of the whole question between  t. Louis Church and the undersigned.
+ JOHN, ARCHBISHOP OF NEW YORK.




AND ARCHBISHOP HUGHES.                     67
e[Fromz the BUFFALO COOIDIEROIAL ADVEmTISrER, April 5.]
THE ST. LOUIS CHURCH DIFFICULTY.
To the RIGTIT REV. JOHN IlUGHES, AArchbishop of New York.
RIGHT REVEREND SIR:-The letter which you have been
pleased to publish in the New York Freemncz's Journzal, under
date of the 28th of last Mlarch, has just been read by me; and
since you have thought fit to make such a free use of my name,
you will permit me to take the liberty to answer you " in tthat
polite lcangucage which/ a  rE'ench gentleman knozos so well howz
to employ."
As it would no doubt be as tedious to you as to the public,
were I to follow you in your appreciation of the merits of the
Hon. Senator Putnam's bill, I will come at once tQ what concerns the Church of St. Louis, of Buffalo, and mlly poor self.
It is true, sir, thiat you never demanded-that is to say, in
express words-the title to our church property; but after read-'ing your pastoral letter of 1842 or 1843, of which you give a
copy in your last letter, imposing upon the Catholic congregations of your diocese, as a condition sine qua non, to obey your
requirements, under pain of being deprived of pastors in their
churches, I leave it to any one to decide if we, of the St. Louis
church, were wrong in asserting that you demanded their property; for it is plain that if we had submitted to your requirements,
our charter of incorporation would have been annulled, consequently our right to our temporal administration and to our
church property; for the whole would have passed under your
absolute control and dominion! Bat, sir, if this argument of
mine on your pastoral letter is not conclusive, what are we to




68           CONTROVERSY BETWEEN SENATOR BROOKS
think of the decree adopted in the Synod of Baltimore in 1849,
the fourth article being worded as follows:
Article IV. Th.e Fat7ers ordain-that is, you and the other Bishops-that all Church7es, and all other ecclesiasticcl property;, which
have oeen acquired by donations, or t/he qoffrings of the Faith7fal, for
religious or clharitable use, belong. to the Bishdop of the Diocese, u7nless
it shall7 be ncace to acppearl, and be confirmed by woritings, thact it was
granted to some religious order of',oe', or to some congregation of
priestsfor their ucse.
Is not that article conclusive?  Does it not show plainly that
you and Bishop Timon demanded our church property?   Our
resistance to your demands was the only cause of all your accusations,-particularly  against the' spokesman "-and of your
branding us in the public prints as infidels and liars! which is
not very Christian, coming from  an Archbishop!  As to that
part of your letter concerning the submission of the trustees of
the St. Louis church, on your second yearly Episcopal visitation
to Buffalo, "' acnd which was conzplete and  cunconditioznal, cac
who apologized for the schis2matical course they incd adop-ted, attributing it to their being  ntnacquainted with the value of Englisl words, and to the deceptions of Mir. WILLIAM B. LE CovTEULX, Uho wIas their interpreter of the Pastoral Letter, and
vwho assured thesn that the Bishop was endeavoring to get possession of their cehurch property, ie, order to give it to the Irish.
Th2at they coulcl nowv easily see tiat said W. B, LE COUTEULX
hcacl been deceivinzg thevm fromo the beginning."
It requires, indeed, sir, all those feelings of a gentleman who
respects his religion, and the rank which you occupy in  our
church, not to resent in the strongest terms the above assertions;
but I have promised to be polite, and I will do it.  My answer
to said assertions will be limited to the following declaration,
duly acknowledged before a Commissioner of Deeds, the original
of which is in my hands, ready to be shown to any one wishing to
see it:
We, the undersigned, surviving Trustees of the St. Louis Church,
of Buffalo, present at the interview with the Right Reverend John
Hughes, Bishop of thie Diocese of New York, which took place in 1842




AND ARCHIBiSHOP HUGHES.                      69
or 1843, on his second Episcopal visit in this city, declare by these
presents, that the assertions of the Right Reverend Bishop, contained
in his letter of the 28th of Mlarch of the present year, and published
in the New York Freemcan's JournalC, concerning wlhat we should
have said about MiLr. William D. Le Conteulx, is entirely and altogether
incorrect, not having even the remembrance that his name was once
pronounced during said interview.
BUFFALO, April 3, 1855.             -
(Signed,)                 MARnTIN FISHEn,
JOSEPEH IHABERSTRO,
N.. HAAS,
B. RINiK.
STATE Or NEW Yon,           On this 3d dayv of April, in the year
City of B Guffalo, Er-i eo   1855, before me personally cane Martin: u  y     - )'Fisher, Joseph  Hlaberstro,  Nicholas
laas, and B3artholomevw Rinck, known to me to be thle persons described in, and who executed the foregoing certificate, and each separately acknowledged that they have executed the same, for the prrposes above mentioned.
(Signed,)             NICHOLAS OTTENOT,
Corn. of _Deeds.
As to the card, which at the time you caused to be published
by the trustees in the Comnegcial Adclvertiser of this city, " as ca
amendcle honoracble/, it was worded and even written by you, as a
condition to your restoring a pastor in the St. Louis Church.
Your denial, sir. of Cardinal Fornari's interference with you
to try to settle our difficulties, can never be conclusive for me,
for I know too well the worth of that most learned, amiable, and
benevolent prelate, not to believe him  incapable of making a
promise and not to keep it.  It was him who dissuaded me to go
to Rome to seek redress, telling me that he was sure to be able
to settle our matters with you.  And it was him  also, who prevailed upon me to return to America, and made me promise to
see you on my arrival, to try once more to settle our difficulties
personally with you, asking me to inform him of the result of the
interview.  I did as he bade me, saw you, and the next day a
letter, rendering him a faithful account of what had taken place
between us, was on the way to Europe.
There is a coincidence, sir, which rather turns against that
denial of yours, in the fact that two mzonths cfter/ the cdelparture




70          COF.TROVEISYr BETWEEN SENATOR BROOKS
of my letter for Europe, just the necessary time for you to receive
onefromn the Worthy Cardinal, you came to Buffalo and settled
every thing with the trustees, upon the publication of a card,
showing that you was right and they wrong!  I will drop this
contest, and leave it as you will have it. "a strange jumble of
fact and fiction."
As to Rev. Mr. Pax, Pastor of the St. Louis church, whom
you would represent as a martyr of the trustees,' who had actually been compelled, through ill-treatment from them and their
adherents, to quit his post and return to his native country," I
will affirm, upon my honor, that I never knew but of one difficulty between them, and that it came from  the impossibility of
said trustees to reimburse him  the sum of six huZndrecd dollcars
immediately upon his demand, and which he had prevailed upon
them to borrow of him, for some work to be done to the church.
However, he was soon paid by a collection made in the congregation.
That pastor, whom I knew well, was of a morose disposition,
constantly regretting his native country, and expressing his intention to leave us as soon as he would have acquired the means
to make his mother comfortable.  lie came to us very poor, and
through our liberality, in less than four years, went away to see
his mother with six thIouscamd dollcars, which is a pretty fair compensation for so short a time of martyrdom!
I will abstain from  saying any thing about the paternal administration of Buffalo, since you pretend to know nothing about
it; but I cannot help remarking how strange is that declaration
from an Archbishop, speaking of the administrator of a diocese
belonging to his Archbishopric!
Now, sir, that I have answered the different parts of your
letter containing accusations and denials, permit me to tell you
how easily I can conceive your displeasure on finding that some
Catholics had been so bold as to seek at the hands of their
Legislature the maintenance of some temporal rights which they
had enjoyed for many years, sanctioned by the civil laws of the
country, and which you wanted to wrest from them, in virtue of a




AND ARCHBISHOP HUGHES.                      71
decree of Baltimore!  I can as easily conceive your wrath against
the " spokesman" of the trustees of the St. Louis church, for his
having dared to tender them that assistance which their situation
needed.  But, sir, that " s2pokesman," possessing a pure conscience and a firm mind, can bear, without fear, your displeasure,
your attacks, and all your efforts to injure a reputation which he
has acquired by the rectitude of his conduct, his manners, and
his kind and upright disposition.
It is my firm  belief, sir, although very few will dare to express it, that the great majority of the Catholics in this country
will rejoice if -Ion. Senator Putnam's bill becomes a law!  And
I would not be at all surprised were some of the pastors also to
rejoice, but in peto, as the greatest part of their earnings go
towards helping the payment for the property bought by their
bishops, or the building of their cathedrals and other establishments, and some of them are in a most precarious situation, almost bordering on starvation.
That law, compared with the evil which you set forth, " of a
few congregations getting into debt," will be of greater advantage
in giving to the Bishops more time to devote to their spiritual
duties, by not being any more obliged to go to foreign countries
there to seek for the means to face their engagements at home
for their purchases of real estate, &c., &c., giving the sad spectacle of their seeming more in quest of wealth than of souls.
That law would also, in my opinion, have the advantage to destroy those reports about the influence of the Bishops in the elections, and be the means of putting an end to that jealousy and frequent strife between the Catholics and those of another religion.
Permit me to express to you here, in conclusion, my sincere
regret to have been once more under the obligation to answer
you, and that I would have preferred to have been left alone,
which was so very easy for you to do. Still believe me to remain respectfully,
Right Reverend Sir, your obedient servant,
W. B. LE COUTEULX.




72         CONTROVERSY BETWEEN SENATOR BROOKS
THE CHURCH QUESTION.-MORE OF THE WIFFICULTIES OF THE
ST. LOUIS CIURCPH. BUFFALO.
REPLY OF ARCHBISHOP HUGHES TO WM. B. LE COUTEULX, ESQ.
To the EdiUtor of ti7e Nw Teu rYo Deily Tbimes:
Mr.  Wm. B. Le CQuteulx's letter, addressed to me, and publishec in the Buffalo Commercial Advertiser of the 5th inst.,
and copied into your paper of this date, requires some notice at
my hands.  I shall have no direct controversy with Mr. Wim.
B. Le Couteulx. But I must begin by disclaiming any intention to injure'" a reputation which he has acquired by the rectitude of his conduct, his manners, and his kind and upright disposition."  This is the character which he claims for himself, a.nd
with which I have nothing to do. It would be well for him if
he had economized his reputation and spared it as much as I
have done. I have no unkind feelings towards him or towards
any human being. But his own acts determine that he is without the slightest necessity for an imputation against it on my
part. Besides, if he looks at the testimonies of certain journals, he will be satisfied that he never stood so high as he does
at present in the estimation of the enemies of the Catholic
Church, for the accomplishment of whose purposes, he and his
colleagues have made themselves voluntarily and gratuitously
the efficient implements.
Mr. Le Couteulx assumes that I have branded him and his
colleagues in the public prints as infidels and liars. I must beg
leave to decline the authorship of such vulgar language. But if
Mr. Le Couteulx adopts such epithets and applies them to himself and his associates, I cannot deny him the superior advantage of knowing whether they. are truly applicable or not. I
only disclaim having used or applied such terms, and throw back
their authorship upon Mr. Wm. B. Le Couteulx.  But I thank
that gentleman for aiding me in establishing the triumph of
truth over falsehood touching the difficulties between St. Louis's
Church and myselfi




AND ARCHIBISHOP HUGHES.                   T3
In the petition presented to the Legislature of New York,
it is stated, shortly after these events Bishop Hughes attempted
to compel the Trustees to convey the title of their property to him.
The Trustees resisted firmly."  To this statement the name of
Mr. Le Couteulx is signed among others as a veracious witness.
In the letter now before me I find the following statement:' It
is true, sir, that you (Bishop Hughes) never demanded, that is to
say, in express words, the title to our Church property."  This
is signed as a veracious statement by TWm. B. Le Couteulx.
These two statements from  the same author contradict each
other, and I choose to believe the statement in the letter, inasmuch as it is a substantial endorsement of what I had previously
written-namely, that in the statement of the petition there was
not a sentence, or a word, or a syllable, or a letter of truth.  In
this Mr. Le Couteulx substantially agrees, when he says that I
never demanded the title to the Church property.  But he goes
on to say that,if he and the Trustees had acquiesced in the requirements of my Pastoral Letter, the whole of their property
would have passed under my absolute control and dominion.
This consequenee was altogether a unon sequitur.  Other congregations acquiesced in those regulations, and yet continued in the
undisturbed possession of their property, just as before.  And
I may as well observe here, that from the day on which the
Pastoral Letter was published until the present hour, I have
never asked, I have never accepted, I have never received, one
inch of Church property from Trustees, of any description.  If
Mr. Le Couteulx and his colleagues are so incapable of reasoning as to suppose that their compliance with a regulation of discipline, not touching on their vested rights in the least, was a
transfer of their property, it furnishes an evidence of stupidity
entirely unbecoming men of pretensions like theirs.  But Mr.
Le Couteulx himself has no confidence in this subterfuge, for he
says: " If this argument of mine on your Pastoral Letter is not
conclusive, what are we to think of the decree adopted in the
Synod of Baltimore in 1849  " of which he gives the words of
the-fourth article.  Alas, how Mr. Le Couteulx must feel him



74          CONTROVERSY BETWEEN SENATOR BROOKS
self lowered down when he is obliged to quote as a pretext for
the schismatical course which he and his colleagues thought proper to adopt in 1842, any event which took place seven years
afterwards.  And this warrants him in asking " Is not that article conclusive? Does it not show plainly that you and Bishop
Timon demanded our property?  How manifestly it shows no
such thing.  First, because I (that is Bishop Hughes) had nothing to do with the St. Louis'sChurch in Buffalo when that article.
was written in 1849.  Secondly, because that article had no
reference to any vested title in Church property already existing, whether in Trustees or otherwise.  Thirdly, because iMr. Le
Couteulx, or whoever translated the fourth statute, has perverted the meaning and falsified the text.  The words of the statute, as it stands in Latin, are as follows, viz: " Stcatzzerunt Patrees
Ecclesias ones, ceteraque bona Ecclesiastica, qcuce vel dono, vel
jideliums oblationibus acquisitca, in charitatis vel religionis opcvibus sunt i2penclenda, ad  ordinarium pertinere; nzisi appareat, soriptoque constet illa ordini alicui RBeglarin, vel Sacerdotumn  Congregationi in ipsorumv, usumn traditac fuisse.'   The
translation of which is simply this:   The Fathers have directed or ordained that all churches and other eclesiastical
goods acquired by donation, or by the offerings of the faithful to
be expended or employed in works of charity or of religion,
belong to the ordinary, unless it appear and is made evident in
writing that such property has been given to some religious order
or community of Priests."  The words which are suppressed in
Mr. Le Couteulx's translation, and which show that this statute
had a prospective and not a retrospective bearing are the words,
"Sunt impendeznca"-to be expended."  It is singular how the
translator should have omitted by nistake the only two words in
the article which refute his interpretation of its meaning.  Consequently, therefore, Mr. Le Couteulx is just as unfortunate in
quoting this article as he is in making an event of the year 1849
a groundwork for what he and his colleagues had done in 1842.
Mr. Le Couteulx now proceeds to controvert my statement with
regard to the unqualified and spontaneous submission of the




AND ARCHBISHOP HUGHES.                     75
Trustees on my  Episcopal visit to Buffalo.  It seems he has
taken the pains to have them make affidavit in regard to what
occurred in the interview  between themn and me; and like sensible men, as they are, they first declare on oath that my statement is entirely and altogether incorrect as regards what one of
them  said respecting tMr. Le Couteulx's having been their interpreter, and his having been deceiving them from the commencement,-that is, if my explanation of the meaning of the Pastoral
Letter was correct.  The public will be painfully amused at the
reason which warrants them in declaring, under oath, that my
statement is entirely and altogether incorrect.  That reason is,
that they do not even remember that Mr. Le Couteulx's name
was once pronounced during said interview.  Now, this only
proves on oath that they have had bad memories, but it does not
warrant them in stating that a thing did not occur simply because it has escaped their recollections.  I made the statement
because it was true; because I remember it distinctly.  But,
considering the position in which Mr. Le Couteulx finds himself,
it is singular that he or his associates should deem it necessary
to invoke the solemnity of an oath before a Commissioner of
Deeds. and that the whole sum  and substance  of that oath
amounts only to a declaration that they do not remember what
occurred at the interview.  N2on mbi'ico'ro.'Mr. Le Couteulx reminds me that it was I who drew up the
amende honorable, signed by the Trustees, and published on the
same day in the Buffalo Comnzrercial Advertiser.  This is true.
But I will explain how it happened.  The interview occurred on
Saturday, after 12 o'clock.  It lasted some time.  The paper, it
was said, was usually published at 2 o'clock.  They were exceedingly anxious that I should open, and preachin St. Louis's Church.
on the following day (Sunday).  I, on the other handj had made
known to them my determination never to open that church until
they should first ask pardon of their fellow Catholics, of the diocese
of New York and of the country, for the scandal which they had
given.  They attempted to draw up the formulary of a document
to that effect. But their very anxiety to have it in time for the




76         CONTROVERSY BETWEEN SENATOR BROOiKS
afternoon paper, disqualified them from  writing it as hastily as
they would wish.  I witnessed what I considered to be at that
moment their good Catholic dispositions, and in order not to disappoint them in their hopes for the following day, I took the pen
and drew the form of their apology, making it as little humiliating to them as possible.  I saw that they would have signed a
card reflecting upon themselves much more seriously for their
past conduct; but I felt that it would be ungenerous and uncharitable on my part to take advantage of their disposition, by
imposing on them any thing that could be construed into an act
of humiliation.
Mr. Le Coutenul is very much surprised that Cardinal Fornari
should never have spoken or written to me on the subject of St.
Louis Church, in Buffalo.  However, the fact is as I have stated
No ecclesiastic in the Church, from the Pope downward, has ever
spoken or written to me on the subject.  What passed between
Mr. Le Couteulx and the Nuncio in Paris, I do not know, but
when Mr. Le Couteulx stated in his petition to the Legislature'
that he had appealed to Cardinal Fornari, as a special deputy
from the Trustees of Buffalo, and that he had been " successful
in his mission," he placed me under the necessity of showing that
he was quite mistaken, and that there was not a word of truth in
the pretended success of his mission. He says that he called upon
me on his return immediately after his arrival at New York;
and that he wrote the next day to Nuncio Fornari, a faithful account of what had taken place between him  and m13 during the
brief interview.  I should be very curious to see that letter, for
I am at a loss to imagine what it could be made up of. I recollect well the substance of what occurred in the interview.  I received Mr. Le Couteulx as I would any other gentleman, if not
cordially, at least courteously.  He never told me that he had
been on a mission to Cardinal Fornari, with a view to have my
administration impeached or amended.  But after the ordinary
common-place, he proceeded to express his desire that the difficulties in Buffalo might be brought to an end.  I may here observe
that, pending those difficulties, I had determined to have no




AND ARCIBISHOP HUGHES. E7
quarrel or controversy with the recusant lay Catholics of St.
Louis's Church. And as the best means of carrying out that determination, I had made it a rule to have no conversation with
any irresponsible individual or solitary member of that congregation.  When Mr. Le Couteulx, therefore, touched on the subject,
I signified to him, in language as polite as the occasion would
permit, that it was a subject on which I did not allow myself to
converse with any unauthorized member of St. Louis's Church, and
gave the conversation another turn, by asking what kind of a passage he had had, and whether the weather had been fine during
the voyage.  He says now that he sent a faithful account, on the
following day, of what took place; andl since this is the amount.
of what really did take place, Cardinal Fornari must have found
his letter exceedingly interesting.
However, Mr. Le Couteulx seems to have been under some
strange hallucination; for he asserts that my Episcopal visitation to Buffalo was just about two months after he had dispatched
his letter, and corresponded to a nicety with the time when I
should have had a letter from Cardinal Fornari in answer to his.
Now such reckoning as to time was fair enough.  But the hallucination to which I refer consists in Mr. Le Couteulx's supposing
that my visit to Buffalo was in consequence of the Nuncio's adronition; and as proof of this, he says that I went to Buffalo and
settled every thing with the Trustees upon the publication of a
card, showing that "you (Bishop Hughes) was right, and they
(the Trustees) wrong." Mr. Le Couteulx knows that as became my
duty, I visited the different congregations of the diocese-that the
Catholics of Buffalo were entitled to that visit; and that as
to the schismatical Trustees of St. Louis's Church, and their adherents, they were no longer numbered among my flock, except as
wayward, self-willed, and erring brethren.  I neither sought them
out nor spoke of them. And I may say now that as the difficulty
then stood, their church would have crumbled into dust, brick by
brick, before I should have consented to give them a Priest, or do
any other act which should recognize the principle of their stupid
resistance to episcopal authority.   I did not address myself to




78         CONTROVERSY BETWEEN SENATOR BROOKS
the Trustees.  They, in language more than sufficiently humble
and respectful, addressed themselves to me, begging that I would
admit them to aninterview. This I declined peremptorily, excepting on condition of their preparedness to come back to the starting point of their schism, and to acknowledge themselves wrong
in all their subsequent course. Still, poor Mr. Le Couteulx seems
to have imagined that, because it was just two months from  the
time he wrote a letter to Cardinal Fornari, I must have received
from that illustrious Prelate an admonition to proceed to Buffalo
and make my peace with the Trustees on the best terms possible.
In dealing with such a letter as the one I am now replying to, it
is difficult for even pity to triumph over impatience.
It is hardly worth while to be sorry at the ungenerous attack
which Mr. Le Couteulx makes on the zealous and amiable Rev.
Mr. Pax, the real builder of St. Louis's Church, Buffalo; for although he could not have built it out of his own funds, yet he
wore himself down in toiling to obtain subscriptions for its erection.  Nor would he have ever undertaken such a task, if he had
not been assured by the venerable Bishop Dubois, that in his
mission in Buffalo he would not be under the government of lay
Trustees.  This assurance was made inasmuch as the respected
and venerable father of Mr. Le Coutenux had given a deed of the
property on which the church now stands, to the late Bishop
Dubois, not dreaming that a number of laymen should, in the
mean time, get themselves surreptitiously recognized as Trustees
of the same.  Their treatment of the Rev. Mr. Pax may be best
ascertained from the letters he wrote to me complaining of their
conduct, and giving facts and dates regarding what happened.  I
continued to encourage him, begging of him to bear every thing
for the sake of the poor people, assuring him  of what was the
fact, that if he left them, I had no German clergyman to put in
his place.  This, however, was long previous to the schism, inaugurated by Mr. Le Couteulx and his colleagues.  Even that
schism, however, did not authorize me as I thought to remove
him; but when annoyances, and these arising from the rebellious
portion of his own flock, as was supposed even by the Buffalo




AND ARCHBISHOP HUGHES.                    79
editors at the time, reached a point of endangering his life, such
as the hurling of large paving stones through his windows in the
darkness of night, I could not in conscience require him to continue longer.  Mr. Le Couteulx says that he carried away with
him K6,000, which Mr. Le Couteulx describes as " a pretty fair
compensation for so short a time of martyrdom."  Mr. Le Couteulx must pardon me if I say candidly, that, although it may be
true, yet I cannot believe this statement.  Will he be pleased to
make known his authority that Mr. Pax carried away $6,000!
When he shall have stated the authority on which he makes this
announcement, I shall take the liberty of examining it, and I
have no doubt it will prove as hollow as that on which he has
made other statements.  Mr. Le Couteulx concludes that in his
opinion the great majority of Catholics in this country will rejoice if Hon. Senator Putnam's bill becomes a law.  Now, as to
the rejoicing of the Catholics, or a majority of them, that is a
matter entirely extraneous from the subject in hand.  One thing
is certain-that neither the great majority, nor the great minority of Catholics in this country, will ever select Mr. Wm. B.
Le Couteulx as their spokesman.  If they wish the aid of civil
legislation in regulating the ecclesiastical matters of their Church,
they will make known their desire and express their wants in the
language of respect and truthfulness which it becomes those who
approach the Legislature of the State to employ.  In the mean
time, they feel wounded to think that whereas they had not
made any complaint to the Legislature, that honorable body
should feel itself warranted to thrust upon them a code of discipline which they do not desire, which has been founded on the
misrepresentation of the Trustees of St. Louis's Church, Buffalo,
and sustained by the illiberal anti-Catholic feeling which now so
unhappily prevails throughout the State.
Finally, if 1Mr. Wm. B. Le Couteulx is now placed in a condition by no means flattering to his own estimate of his character,
as possessing " a pure conscience * * * * * and a reputation
which he has acquired by the rectitude of his conduct, his manners, and his kind and upright disposition," he must hold him



80         CONTROVERSY BETWEEN SENATOR BROOKS
self, not me, responsible for the result.  For the last twelve or
thirteen years he and his colleagues have lost no opportunity of
assailing me, assailing the Bishop of Buffalo, assailing the Prelates of the United States, sometimes directly, sometimes indirectly, by frequent, injurious statements, utterly unfounded in
truth.  This is the day of reckoning which he and his colleagues
have brought upon themselves by the unwarrantable allegation
of their petition to the Legislature.  Having remained almost
silent under such obloquy for these many years past, and having
now at length taken my pen in hand, I wish Mr. Le Couteulx
and his colleagues to bring out all they have to say, and I pledge
myself, founding that pledge on the omnipotence and infallibility
of truth, to continue from  document to document to oppress
them with its crushing weight.
XT JOHN, Archbishop oif New  York.
NEW YORKA, April 7, 1855.




AND ARCHBISHOP HUGI-IES.                8 
To the RIGHT PEEVEPrEND JOHN HUGHES, Catholic Bishop of
TArew Yore:
BUFFALO, Saturdacy, April 14, 1855.
RIGHT REVEREND SIR:  Your declining to have any direct
controversy with me, and your reply to my letter of the 5th inst.
containing hardly any thing but denials and sarcasms in bad
taste, induces me not to notice your said reply any further than
by what follows: That in my opinion, denials against denials being no proofs, would amount to a most miserable pen war, tedious to the public, and likely to augment that scandal for our
holy religion of which you complain, although the sole author of
it by your first publications.  If, after your getting a little more
cool about the adoption of the law upon the tenure of Church
Property (which by-the-by is only to be attributed to yourself
and a few Bishops), you can bring your mind to address me "in
that polite language which a French gentleman knows so well
how to employ," you will find me always ready to answer you,
otherwise not.
Permit me once more to subscribe myself, Right Reveren4
Sir, respectfully your obedient servant,
W. B.0LE COUTEULX




82         COmNTROVERSY BETWEEN SENATOR 1BROOKS
ARCHBISHOP HUGHES IN REVIEW OF
SENATOR BROOKS'S SPEECH.
To the Editor of the Courzier an.d Enquirer 
When an individual who never expected much from the favors
of fortune, finds himself unexpectedly and all at once the proprietor of  immense  wealth, it is, I trust, not unbecoming in
him to expend a portion of it in promoting the welfare of his
countrymen by multiplying the opportunities for acquiring knowledge.  Neither should feelings of gratitude be altogether disregarded in such expenditure; and as I am mainly indebted to the
Ion. Erastus Brooks for the immense fortune which I now possess, I hope his modesty will permit him to share with me in the
immortality which will result to its founder from the magnificence'
and perpetuity of the monument, " corca per-renius," which is to
commemorate my princely fortune and his sagacity in finding out
its existince.  In a speech delivered by Mr. Senator Brooks before that branch of our Legislature which has been so enlightened
by the flashing evidences of his erudition, and encouraged to
habits of industry by his painstaking search after the titles of
property vested in me, he has made known that my property in
the city of New York alone is not much short of five millions of
dollars.  His colleagues must have been as much edified as I
have been surprised at this announcement.  Still it appears that
Mr. Senator Brooks, like an honorable man, who would not deceive, furnished evidences from the records of property in New
York to sustain his senatorial statement; for towards the close
of his speech he has inserted in brackets the following words:
" To those who were curious in such matters, lMr. Brooks exhibited to the Senate the number, book, and page of those several entries in the city of New York in behalf of John Hughes."




AND ARCHBISHOP HUGHTIES.                   83
So it seems certain, on the testimony of Mr. Brooks, that my
property in this city alone is not much short of five millions of
dollars.  Out of the city it should be proportionably great, but
of its extent Mr. Brooks has not given us any information. Like
a strictly conscientious man, he testifies only to what he knows.
The amount in his estimate would be five millions; but in order
to avoid the possibility of error he leaves a little margin, and declares it not much short of that amount.  The paper called the
Presbyterian sets it down at twenty-five millions of dollars, and I
know not by what right Mir. Brooks should have diminished the
amount of my property by striking out the surplus twenty millions so generously assigned me by the Presbyterian.  The reason may be that the Presbyterian is not a Senator, and therefore
(though I do not admit the validity of the reason) less bound to
be truthful in its statements a3nd accurate in its arithmetic than
an honorable Senator. Besides, the Presbyterian being a religious paper, allowance must be made for its benevolent exaggerations, and its efforts to be liberal in dealing with persons of another creed.  It seems, then, that I must bid good-bye to the
twenty millions, and satisfy myself with what Mr. Brooks allows,
-property not much short of five.  Let us state it at four millions.  And now I have a proposition to make to Mr. Brooks,
which will be interesting to him and our fellow-citizens at large.
in order to avoid being reduced'to want in my old age, I propose
to set apart one-half of this amount, and to secure it out of the
estate, as a reasonable provision against what is commonly called
a " rainy day."  i shall reserve to myself the right of expending
the other two millions for the public good, according to my own
sense of what is likely to be most beneficial.
WIuch has been already done for the diffusion of knowledge;
but the perusal of Mr. Brooks's speech and of other kindred documents, satisfies ile that more is still needed. I propose, therefore, to found a Public Library for the use, not of any one profession or class of men, but for all mankind.  I think that with
the surplus two millions which Mr. Brooks has allowed me, I
shall be enabled to erect a suitable building; and I propose to




84          CONTROVERSY BETWEEN SENATOR BROOKS
furnish it with the best editions of books that can be found in
Europe or America, to the number of five hundred thousand volumes.  According to a rough estimate, half a mnillion would be
sufficient to put up the building, a million to furnish the books,
and another half million to be funded, so that the annual interest
may be sufficient to meet current expenses, —such as librarians'
salaries, gas lights, provision of Croton water, tables, and the
conveniences for writing out any extract which visitors may think
proper to make.  It is to be open to natives and foreigners, Catholics:and Protestants, Jews and Gentiles; in short, a really public library, worthy of this immense city.  And as an evidence of
my gratitude to our honorable Senator, to whom I am indebted
for the discovery of my immense riches, I would have it calledthat is, if the gentleman's modesty will permit me-the Erastus
Brooks Library.  This designation: should be engraved in large
and gilded letters over its marble portals and I am  sure the
honorable gentleman will consent to have the apartment to be
allotted as the receptacle of curious pamphlets enriched by a copy
of his speech, pronounced in the Senate at Albany on the 6th of
March, 1855.   Thus posterity will know from the outside of the
building not only to whom  they are indebted for so important a
public institution, but also, from an investigation of its more precious treasures of literature within, what manner of man their
benefactor was.
I foresee that there mlay  e a difficulty about the location of
the edifice; but without waiting for the formalities which have
to be gone through as regards other particulars, we can settle
this question immediately.   Mr. Brooks, as a gentleman of
veracity, assured the Senate of New York, after having examined my property, that "some of the parcels cover whole
squares of land, and nearly all of them  are of great value."
Now thisis an extraordinary discovery, and if it had not been
asserted )on the veracity of an honorable Senator, I could not
have believed it.  I do not know  where any of these squares
of land are situated; but, of course, Mr. Brooks knows, and I
pledge myself to give him  a deed of any one of them he may




AND ARCHBISHOP HUGHES.                      85
choose to select, provided he can only ifd it out-which is more
than I can do.  This I am  ready to do to-morrow, even though
it should encroach on that portion of my estate which I would
reserve for "pin-money."  Mr. Brooks has stated that, within
twelve years, fifty-eight entries of as many distinct parcels of
property were made in my favor.  Now this is more than I am
aware of, for, in fact, I never counted such entries.  So, also,
with regard to the whole squares of land of which I am  the
owner, if Mr. Brooks has not made a statement at variance with
truth.  I am  not aware of such ownership.  I do not know
where those squares of land are situated.  But, of course, Mr.
Brooks knows,-otherwise he would not have made the assertion.
It is possible that some persons have made over to me squares
of land without giving any intimation of the fact, and I should
be much obliged to Mr. Brooks if he would take the pains to
consult documents in the Register's office once more, and let
me know where those squares of land are.  But there are some
things which Mr. Brooks has stated with regard to my property
which I know to be incorrect and unfounded in truth.  He says,
for instance, that in the Register's office there are numerous
transfers from  trustees to me.  Now this statement I know  to
be untrue, inasmuch as I have never received or accepted any
transfer of any property whatever from  trustees.  In this particular. at least, Mr. Brooks allowed himself to be deceived, and
contributed his share towards the deception of his fellow Senators and the public.  But with regard to the whole squares of
land which, he says, are mine, I hereby authorize him to sell any
one of them  at his option, for cash, pledging myself, as I do
hereby, to give to the purchaser such deed as I possess of the
same.
You may suppose, gentlemen, that all this is written in playfulness.  Now, whether or not will depend on the truth of Mr.
Brooks's statements, made in the Senate of New York on the
6th of March.  If Mr. Brooks was in earnest, so am I.  If Mr.
Brooks, on a matter of fact, spoke the truth, taking his assertion
as the ground of my hypothesis, I speak the truth also.  If my




86    CONTROVERSY BETWEEN SENATOR 13N001iS
property is not muchlGhort of five miilions, as Mr. Brooks asserted, I pledge myself solemnly that there is no jest as to the
project of the new Library.  But, if on the other hand, Mr.
Brooks did not speak the truth in the statenents which he made,
the worse for posterity, and the worse for him.  The matter
is reduced at present to a question of veracity, and it is for Mr.
Brooks to prove his assertion, or occupy the position which his
failure to do so has in reserve for him.
In sober seriousness, however, is it not melancholy to witness
the multitudinous and mendacious charges which are made from
day to day against Catholics as a body, and against individuals
professing their religion    If there be an intention among the
public men of this country to disfranchise Catholics, to abridge
them  of their rights, in the name of all that is honorable, I
would say let it be done by a manly and noble declaration to
that effect.  If Protestantism cannot thrive in this country unless it have some one or more denominations to degrade and
trample upon, as in Great Britain and Ireland, let it speak 6ut
candidly and make known the fact.  If defamatio  in iaggregate
and. in detail cah accomplish it, the Catholics of this country
will soon be degraded enough in the minds of their fellowcitizens.  But even of this we should not have so much reason
to complain if the purpose were openly avowed, so that all
parties would have fair and timely warning.  If that should be
done, I have no hesitation in taking on myself to say, that so
far as Catholics are concerned, immigration will soon come to a
dead stand, and emigration will probably commence.
It is exceedingly painful for me to have to appear in the
public press in reference to topics of this kind; but if the
trustees of St. Louis's Church, and even an honorable Senator,
accuse me of acts which would be dishonorable, and even dishonest, if they were true, have I not a right is it not my clduty,
both to myself and those who take any interest in my reputation, to hurl back the false accusations in the face of their
authors?  If iessrs. Brooks and others make charges against
me by name which I know to be false, have I not a right to




AND ARCHBISHOP HUGIES.                    8?'
defend myself, and to denounce them as unreliable and false
witnesses?  If not, I have studied the sense of justice and fair
play by which Almericans are actuated to very little purpose.
If I have no right to defend myself when assailed, personally
and by name, by any man, against the accusation, then I have
studied the rights of an American citizen and the genius of
American institutions to very little purpose indeed.  I respect
the dignity of a Senator, but when an individual who is invested with that dignity trifles with it at my expense, I claim
the right to hold him  responsible for the accuracy of his
statements.
For these reasons, I request Mr. Erastus Brooks, with all
the respect that is due to him, to meet the issue of veracity
between him  and me, and either to prove his statements, or to
retract them under the impulse of those high principles which
constitute an honorable man, whether he be a Senator or not.'I  JOHN, Archbishop of New York.
SENATOR BROOKS TO ARCHBISHOP H-UGHES.
To the Editor of the 2New York Daily Times:
From the pressure of official duties at Albany, up to a late
hour on Saturday evening, I have only this moment been able to
give a full perusal to the letter signed, " <i John, Archbishop of
New York," in reply to a speech of mine, delivered in the Senate
on the 6th of March last.  I write now, not to answer the question of veracity between the Archbishop and myself, and not to
comment upon the peculiar temper and language of the Archbishop's epistle-but to say that I shall accept and demand, in
behalf of the city and the public, and' in perfect good faith-if
the promise was made in good faith-the offer of that public
library, which is tendered in my name, " not for the use of any
one profession or class of men but for all mankind."




88          CONTROVERSY BETWEEN SENATOR BROOKS
As a condition of this pledge I am to show that Archbishop
Hughes is, or was, on the 6th ot March last, the owner, in his
own name, and in this city, of a large amount of real estate; and
to show, also, that this property is, or was upon the record,
legally his own, to dispose of by assignment, by will, or otherwise, as he may or might direct.
I assume, notwithstanding the reasons for believing otherwise,
that in making his offer the Archbishop does not mean to conceal the truth, omit the truth, or to resort to any subterfuge
whatever.  I assume, too, that he agrees with me that the true
definition of a lie is an " intention to deceive," and that he also
agrees with the moralist, William Paley, who lays it down as an
axiom, that one may state ninety-nine facts, and yet not utter
the whole truth, because one truth added would change the basis
of the ninety-nine facts.
On this presumption I shall maintain, at my earliest leisure,
the spirit, substance, and reality of all that was asserted by me
in the speech now in controversy upon the subject of Church
Property in this city.  And in order that this question may be
met fairly, at the start, and in order that the city of New York
may be put in possession of the promised public library, I propose, preliminary to all public controversy, that one arbiter shall
be named by Archbishop Hughes, one by myself, and that the
two thus selected shall jointly elect a third, whose duty it shall
be to decide, not merely whether I have stated the truth, or
whether Archbishop Hughes has equivocated or omitted the
truth, but also the claim  of New  York city to that public
library, in whfch I shall hereafter feel so deep an interest.  I
am ready for the arbitration, and shall be ready with my facts.
Very respectfully,
ERASTUS BROOKS.




AND ARCIBISHOP HUGHES.                   89
LETTER FROM ARCHBISHOP HUGHES.
DO CATHOLICS, AS SUCH, MEDDLE IN POLITICS?
To the cEditor of the New Yor/k Freeman's Journcal:In the Albany State Register there is a long editorial article,
headed " Another Bzll from the Vaticanz," purporting to be a review of certain phrases in my letter addressed to your Journal,
and published on the 31st ult.  In this the editor of the Reg'ister
gives loose rein to the indulgence of strong bigotry, in language
hardly remarkable for any thing else than its prosiness and imbecility.
A newspaper is made up of old rags, transformed into adapta,
lion for its use.  It receives any impression, true or false, enlightened or stupid, which type have been arranged to impress
upon its surface.  I can have no direct, controversy with a newspaper,-abstractedly from its editor.  The editor of the Albany
State Register is, I perceive, a Mr. S. H. Hammond, a highly respectable man, no doubt, but apparently very credulous, and certainly most inaccurate in his statements.  Mr. Hammond must
have seen my letter in which I denied the truth of the statement
made in the petition of the Trustees in Buffalo, to the effect that
I had attempted to compel them to make over the title of their
church to me.  IHe must have seen that the correctness of my
statement was admitted by  lr. Win. B. Le Couteulx, one of
the signers to the petition, and, as a consequence, he must have
seen the falsehood of the charge above referred to.  And yet Mr.
Hammond does not hesitate to repeat his calumny, as if it had
not been denied, and the truth of the denial admitted by one of
the parties signing the petition. How is this to be accounted
for  It is for Mr.  Hamlmond to answer the question.  But not
only does he repeat this refuted calumny, but he enlarges on it
as if it were true! How is this to be accounted for    I leave
Mr. Hammond to answer.  I shall not go over the ground again.




90          CONTROVERSY BETWEEN SENATOR BROOKS
But Mr. Hammond has insinuated other charges, to which I
think it proper that I should make a suitable reply.  He does not
state those charges in specific language.  He assumes them as matters not to be called into question.  He passes from the Catholic
individual to the Catholic system, and betrays unmistakable evidences that, whether artificially or naturally, he is under the influence of an anti-Popery mania. Speaking of the Catholic Church
and its members in this country, he uses the following language:
Were the evils of this system confined only to spiritual matters we
should have nothing to say. But they reach far beyond this.  This
despotism seeks a control beyond the mere pale of the Church.  It
has become ambitious of civil power. It bands its subjects together,
and marches them into the arena of politics.  It grasps at the control
of the political action of the government, and struggles to direct its
policy. It favors alliances with political ambition, and joins hands
with the demagogues of party.  When Governor Seward said " Bishop Hughes is my friend-I honor, respect and confide in him," he
was speaking of a political friend and associate; a confederate in securing political influence, a supporter in the exercise of political power. With Bishop Hughes he took the long line of descending Priesthood, and the fettered and bound masses of the Catholic people.
Mr. Hammond is evidently a credulous man.  There was a
period, when the old-womanism  of Protestant London entered
into a judical investigation of a reported conspiracy of the Papists,
the conspiracy being no more nor less than a plot on the part of
the emlssaries of Rome to blow up the river Thames, and drown
the loyal city of London.  If Mr. Hammond had been an editor
at the time and place when and where this occurred, the circumstances around him, and the credulous character of his mind,
would have been more in harmony with each other than they are
at present.  If Mr. Hammond knows any fact to prove that the
Catholic religion bands its subjects together, and marches them
into the arena of politics, he owes it to himself and his country
to furnish the. evidences.  If he knows no such facts, then he is
bearing false witness against his neighbor.  If he knows any
facts going to prove that the Catholic religion or its professors, as
sulch struggle to direct the policy of this country, he is hardly
less than a traitor, if he conceals the proofs of so dangerous a




AND ARCHBISTIOP HUIGHES.                  9i
proceeding.  If the Catholic religion forms alliances with political
ambition, and joins hands with the demagogues of party, itr.
Hammond is more guilty than those he accuses, if he conceals
the facts which would substantiate his assertion.  If, as he says,
Governor Seward did me the honor to call me his friend, and to
say that he respected and confided in me, it is more than I ever
knew or heard before; —but as to the confidence reposed in me,
Governor Seward would not have been disappointed.  Mr. Hammond says that Governor Seward was then speaking of a political
friend and associate, and I can assure him that in this statement,
he has forsaken the path of truth.  This I know  of my own
knowledge, I am not a political friend and associate of Governor
Seward; I never was.  I am not his confederate in securing political influence.  I am not his supporter in the exercise of political power.  And yet I am  prou.d to call him my friend, in the
only relation that ever existed between us, which has been one of
mere social, and, to me, pleasant intercourse.  If the people of
the United States should think proper to confer on him the highest honor in their gift, I shall not heave a sigh or shed a tear at
their choice.  But no vote of mine shall aid him.  In this, as in
all his public acts, he is in the hands of his countrymen, and I
am well dispensed from the necessity of either approving or condemning his principles or his conduct.  And since this topic has
been brought up again, I will say this, that so far from his being
a gainer by his friendship towards me, which I highly esteem, he
would have been buried under the obloquy which open enemies
and deceitful friends have vied with each other in heaping upon
him in connection with my name, if he had not been proof against
calumny.  The long ordeal through which he passed under the
calumnious imputations of intrigues with Catholics and foreigners,
and his emerging from it with a brighter name than before, is a
proof that he needs no individual support, that his is intrinsically the sterling metal of a true man.  But he can propel his own
bark, as he has hitherto done, without any aid from me or from
Catholics.
I will state for the information of Mr. Hammond, who is




92'         CONTROVERSY BETWEEN SENATOR BROOKS
probably too young to remember the period when it was necessary
foi me to state it before, in the face of several editors of New
York city and New York State, that in all my life I never voted
but once; and in all my life I never advised, publicly or privately, any one as to how he should vote, except once also. That
was under very peculiar circumstances.  The Catholics of New
York city were endeavoring to relieve themselves from  the injurious consequences of a system of education for the support of
which they had to pay taxes, and the administration and superintendence of which were a monopoly in the hands of a close corporation, known as the Public School Society.  At first the
Catholics were opposed to me in seeking a change which has
since resulted very beneficially to the cause of education.  Next,
the whole Protestant community were opposed, and sounded the
alarm of the dangers of Popery, in a manner just as silly, and
just as little true, as the present trumpet notes of the Albany
State iegister.  Finally, the truth made its way, the change
took place, the facilities for education have been multiplied on
every side.  The Public School Society is gone, and no persuasion could induce either Catholics or Protestants to return to
their old system. To effect the change we had to appeal by petition to the proper authorities; first, to the Common Council,
where our petition was denied; next, to the Legislature of the
State, where the change took.place,-not precisely as we could
have desired, but as the Legislature thought proper to make it.
Mr. Hammond will be pleased to take particular notice of the
fact I am now about to mention, that within a few days previous
to the election, the Public School Society, by their agents, waited
on the candidates for the Legislature and required a pledge from
them, from those of one party as well as those of another, to refuse the petition for a change in the system of Education, in the
event of their being elected.  This was too much.  It was secret.
It was insidious.  It left the Catholics to vote for one party or
the other, concealing from them that no matter which party they
voted for, or which candidate, they were elevating into power
men who had prejudged their cause, and had bound themselves to




AND ARCHBISHOP HUGHES.                       93
reject even a consideration of its merits.  In a meeting which
they had called in furtherance of their appeal to the Legislature,
this discovery of the unvirthy trick to deprive them  beforehand
even of the right of a hearing, was communicated to me, and on
that occasion I urged theml  with all the zeal and earnestness I
was capable of, to refuse their vote to any man, of any party, who
had accepted the degrading pledge that if elected he would refuse
them even the chance of obtaining justice.  If this was meddling
with politics, then I did meddle once, but I have never regretted
it.  On the contrary, there is nothing in mly life, apart from  my
sacred ministry, to which I look back with so much satisfaction
as to the course I pursued on that occasion,  And if by a secret
combination among those to be elected by their votes, there
should be an attempt to deny them  the fair right of petitioning
the Legislature as other citizens have a right to do, or to deny
the prayer of that petition, however just it might appear in the eyes
of an impartial Legislature, I feel that I am yet American citizen
enough to do again what I did on that occasion.  I did not call
it meddling in politics, but only an interference to break up an,
unworthy combination formed with the view to deny one portion,
of the people rights to which all are equally entitled.
But in no other case have I ever aided or abetted, or been in
connection with any political party, or any individual of any
party, since the world began.  On the contrary, when I was appointed to take charge of this Diocese, I prescribed for its numerous clergy, as a rule of conduct, to abstain from  all interference
in politics.  I did not deny them the right to vote as other citizens merely in consequence of their being clergymen. That right
I believe they have seldom  if at all exercised.  I myself have
not exercised it.  I have ever considered that the most appropriate position for a clergyman, whether Catholic or Protestant, to
occupy in the midst of political struggles, is one, if not of absolute neutrality, at least of abstinence from all partisanship.
There are few congregations in which the members are not divided in their political opinions, and the Catholic clergymen who




94          CONTROVERSY BETWEN EN S TOR BROOS
would take sides on such occasions would be sure to impair the
usefulness of his own ministry.
HIow, then, can Mr. Hammond of tl Albany State Register
call me a political friend and associate of Governor Seward, or of
any other man?  Is ]Mr. Hammond at liberty, in violation of a
precept of the decalogue, to bear false witness against his neighbor?  I defy all men living to point out an act in my life in
which I have been connected with any political party, any political caucus, any political individual in the United States or elsewhere.  How, then, can Mr. Hammond give circulation to a
statement which he knows to be injurious to me, and which is at
variance with truth?  I tell him the Catholics, as such, have no
politics.  They are free to vote on all occasions just like their
fellow-citizens, that is, as each man chooses.  Let them be as free
on this subject as Mr. Hammond himself.  If they err, they are
in the company of immense majorities of Americans and Protestants.  If they do not err in their preference or in their party,
so much the better for the country.  But whether they err or not,
they act with large portions of their fellow countrymen.
It is evident that Mr. HammLond is one of the oracles of a
new political organization, which hopes to rise into power by depressing Catholics.  For myself, I have no great objection to see
that party come into power, because once having power in their
hands, I think the true American would revive in their breasts,
and they would administer it generally just as if they were called
by one of the old party names.  But I regret that they think it
expedient to degrade and depress Catholics as a means to their
success.  And I am utterly at a loss to understand how a Legislature which evinced so much political virtue and patriotism  as
was exhibited in the election of Mr. Seward to the Senate, could
have found itself capable of passing the anti-Catholic Church
Property Bill, but too well calculated to intensify and perpetuate
a bitter memory in regard to the influences by which that bill was
passed.  The Catholics had not asked for such a bill, they did
not need it.  It was forced upon them  under false assertions.
It was intended for them alone.  It is an act of partial legislation.




AND ARCHBISHOP HUGHES.                     95
They will no doubt submit to it in so far as they are bound to
do, but they are not likely to be voluntary  parties to its
execution.
In conclusion, I request Mr. Hammond, as a particular favor,
either to prove that I am a political partisan, a meddler in politics, &c., &c., or else to withdraw  so unfounded a charge.  I
think in doing the one or the other, he will render equally a service to the public and to the undersigned.
J JOHN, AnRCBISIs OP OF NEW YORK.
NEW YORK, April 17th, 1855.
AIRCHBISI-HOP IHUGHES' SECOND LETTER.
To the Editor of the 2New York Freeman's Jcurneal: —
Truth is a great thing.  There would be no chance for the
protection of innocence or of righteousness without it.   tr.
Brooks feels this, the force of truth, as if it were his enemy, and
he exhibits the instinctive philosophy of poor human nature by
shrinking away in dread from its approach, even vithout waiting
until the tribunal at which he stands accused has pronounced
him guilty of falsehood.  It is the same instinctive philosophy
which prompts the man of -uncontrolled passions, when he has
committed a deed of faltal violence against his fellow-man, to
magnify to others, as well as to himself, the great distinction
there is between manslaughter and murder, even before his trial
has come on.  And Mr. Brooks, inheriting this poor human nature like other men, and seeing truth in the distance, but approaching, begins to throw out a remote defence by giving us
the moral definition of a lie as necessarily resulting from an intention to deceive.  But who has spoken to Mr. Brooks, or even
whispered to him, except it be his own-conscience, any thing about
a lie, or lying?  Why then should he anticipate his defence by
drawing a distinction between falsehood ignorantly uttered, and
deliberate mendacity?  Nobody can answer these questions ex



96          CONTROVERSYr BETWEEN SENATOR BROOKS
cept Mr. Brooks himself.  And if Mr. Brooks had not contrived
to place himself in the disreputable position which he now occupies, his casuistry about lying would have been altogether superfluous.
However, Senator Brooks, according to the just principles of
Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence, is entitled to the benefit of all
doubts like any other accused person, whether as regards the
facts or the law of the case.  I have charged Mr. Brooks with
uttering falsehood prejudicial to my reputation, in his speech
pronounced on the 6th March, and in. presence of his colleagues
in the Senate Chamber of New York.  I have not enumerated
all the falsehoods of that speech, but have taken one or two
specimens. The controversy is still pending, as Mr. Brooks has
not had time to look after the real state of the case.  He has
been, to use his own introductory expression,' under the pressure
of official duties at Albany."
In that speech Mr. Brooks stated that I was the owner of
real estate to the amount of something little short of five million
of dollars.  This was untrue, and in order t.o exhibit its author
to the public just as he is, I pledged myself solemnly, that after
deducting two millions' worth from my supposed enormous estate,
I should appropriate the balance to the erection of a library, if
Senator Brooks could point out where the property was.  This
was the first falsehood (Mr. Brooks must pardon me for using
the plain term)' which I pointed out in his speech.  Senator
Brooks stated in his place that some of my real estate" consisted
of whole squares. The Senator did not state how many, and his
colleagues, if they believed him  at all, may have inferred that
these whole squares amounted to fifteen or twenty-at all events,
they could not be less than two.  This was the second falsehood
pointed out and charged on Mr. Brooks, as having been uttered
in his speech of the 6th of March.  The third was, that many of
the conveyances of real estate to me were made by Trustees.
Now, I state that any one who asserts either of these three
statements, asserts a gross, and towards me, an injurious falsehood.




AND ARCHBISHOP HUGHES.                  97
Senator Brooks thinks he has discovered a way of twisting
out of the awkward position into which he rushed with eyes open
and malice prepense. He proposes an arbitration, forsooth. He
will appoint one, I may appoint another, and these two shall
jointly elect a third, whose duty it shall be to decide whether he
has stated the truth, or whether Archbishop Hughes has equivocated or omitted the truth.  Gentle Senator Brooks!  With
what a show of artlessness he attempts to evade the direct issue
of veracity involved in the controversy. I know, of my own
knowledge, that in the three statements above referred to, Senator Brooks has taken as great a liberty with truth as if he had
said that two and two make seven.
Arbitration is unnecessary. If I am the owner of whole squares
of ground, Mr. Brooks can show from the records of the city, or
indicate for physical inspection where they are.  If he fails to do
this, while his proofs, if he has any, are so undeniable, and so
within his reach, then the public will not fail to perceive, that
Mr. Brooks in his place as Senator has made a statement which
is false, and was intended to be injurious.  So if I received any
conveyance of property from Trustees, the records cited by Mr.
Brooks in the Senate will bear him  out.  If he fail to produce
those records, then the public will perceive that his statement is
a falsehood, and will not be slow in coming to the conclusion that
Senator Brooks is-what he is.
It is, I own, humiliating for me to have to write thus of any
of my fellow-citizens, especially with one who has been honored
with a confidence large enough to depute him to the Senate of
the State. But I have been assailed by so many calumnies from
various sources that a test like the present, brought forth in plain
and direct language, may be taken as a sample of the power and
the advantages which a man cherishing a love of truth, or honor,
and of rectitude, will possess over a whole army of such accusers
as Mr. Senator Brooks.  He cannot prove his statements, and
the reason is, because they are untrue. Will it not be better for
him, then, to pay homage to truth by acknowledging that he had
deceived himself and contributed to the deception of others?




98         CONTROVERSY BETWEEN SENATOR BROOKS
Mr. Wm. B. Le Couteulx comes out with a little card very
much in the vein of that instinctive philosoplhy of poor human
nature of which Senator Brooks has given so naive a specimen.
Mr. Le Couteulx thinks that' denials against denials being no
proofs, would amount to a miserable pen war."  Mr. Le Couteulx
misrepresents the state of the question. It is not denials against
denials.  I stated that the assertion in Mr. Le Couteulx's petition, namely, that " Bishop Hughes attempted to compel the
Trustees to convey the title of this church property to him,"
was a falsehood.  Now, Mr. Le Couteulx did not deny, but acknowledged this in writing, consequently he is my witness, although his testimony is superfluous, to prove that it was a falsehood.  And yet he and his colleagues have imposed on the
Legislature of the State by having this among other falsehoods
believed as the truth.  And now Mr. Le Couteulx has come to
the conclusion that "denials against denials, being no proofs,
would amount to a most miserable pen war."  He forgets that
he did not deny my statement, that he admitted it, and thereby
acknowledged the falsehood of his own.  How could he deny the
truth, and which he knew to be the truth? For he knew from
the beginning, as well as he does now, that I never attempted to
compel the Trustees to convey the title of their church property
to me. Until Mr. Le Couteulx, therefore, shall find some ground
of truth to stand upon, he will do well to give up his " most
miserable pen war," and apologize, with Mr. Brooks, for the deception which he, with others, has practised on the Legislature
of the State and on his fellow-citizens.  Perhaps he makes the
distinction about the morality of lying which the Senator has
brought forth, namely: That to constitute a lie there must have
existed " an intention to deceive." I do not enter into the sanctuary, if it can be called by so sacred a term, of intentions in
the breast of either Senator Brooks or Mr. Le Couteulx.  I
speak of their public acts and of their printed words, leaving
others to judge of their intentions as charitably as they may.
But even if it were only for the sake of good example to the
rising generation, they would do well to retract those false state



AND ARCHBISHOP HUGHES.                  99
ments, being convinced that the security of the State and the
welfare of society are never so well guaranteed as when they rest
on the everlasting foundations of truth.
+  JOHN, ARCHBISHOP OF NEW  YORK.
NEW YORK, April 17, 1855.
THE ST. LOUIS CHURCH CONTROVERSY.
To the Right Reverend JOHN HUGHES, Catholic Archbishop
of New York.
BUFFALO, April 21, 1855.
SIR:-I was in the hope that the " little card," which I took
the liberty to address you on the 14th instant, in answer to your
long letter, would have put an end to all further correspondence
between us; but your new attack upon me, jointly with the Hon.
Senator Brooks, shows me plainly that I have been mistaken,
and that your bile, like the Mount Vesuvius lava, has not completed its irruption.  What a wonderful man of war you must be,
Right Reverend Sir, to undertake to fight two men at the same
time, and by so doing, imitate that other wonderful man, killing
two birds at one throw! Indeed, sir, from that great propensity
of yours for war, I am brought to the belief that you must have
mistaken your vocation, and that the command of a regiment of
dragoons would have suited you better than functions requiring
a peaceful and conciliatory disposition, which you do not possess.
Those military functions, no doubt, in your taste, would have enabled you to go and tender your services to those poor English
and French in the Crimea, standing so much in need of help, and
afforded you a chance, by spirited charges upon the Russians, of
acquiring to yourself a great name, whilst in your present functions, your fiery temper will always be an obstacle to the happiness of that flock confided to your care, or to your making friends
and proselytes to our holy religion.
These remarks, rather severe, have been forced out of me by




100        CONTROVERSY BETWEEN SENATOR BROOKS
your repeated provocations; and I fear if you continue your attacks upon those who differ from you in that question of temporalities, as you have done of late, that you will get yourself in a
sad mess, and be obliged to hire extra pens to help you to get out
of it.
As to that miserable interpretation of what I said about the
title to our church property, and which you try to represent as a
contradiction, our letters are before the public, and I leave it
with them to decide which of us two has been guilty of falsehood.
Did I not after " express words," give a relation of all the means
which you employed, for two years or more, to bring us to abandon our church property? But, sir, when things are against you,
you never have time to notice them.
But, sir, I have not yet done with you, since you have been
pleased to provoke me.  When, during two successive sessions of
the Legislature of this State, you presented, or caused to be presented, a bill whose only object was to enable you and the Bishops of your Archbishoprick to possess all the church and charitable property, and to will it to your successor, what did you mean?
When, in your circular letter of March 16, 1852, you confessed
that you and the Bishops of your Archbishoprick were then already owners in fee simple of nearly all the religious and charitable property belonging to the Catholic religion in the State of
New York, what did you mean?  Really, sir, after such public
declaration, you must be bold indeed to contest Hon. Senator
Brooks' statement of the value of church and charitable property
now in your hands and those of the bishops. particularly three
years after your said declaration, and when it is presumable that
it has considerably increased during that time.
Until now, sir, I have made it a rule to be civil and even respectful towards you; but I am afraid that you have considered
that course as the effect of timidity, and that it has emboldened
you to be more arch and uncivil towards me, which constrains me
to adopt your own language, so as to be upon equal terms with
you.
Permit me to give you a last advice previous to my leaving




AND ARCHBISHOP HUGHES.                 101
you-for this is the last letter I intend to write-which is, to
keep cool, and bear manfully that law of the State upon the tenure
of church property, since you can attribute it but to yourself;
and to leave off provoking all those who do not agree with your
plans, as you have done of late, if you wish to keep that remnant of consideration which your station requires.
WILLIAM B. LE COUTEULX.
REPLY OF ARCHBISHOP HUGHES.
To the Editor of the New York Daily Times:Mr. William B. Le Couteulx, George Fisher, Michael Hesmin, John Londrack, by name, and seventeen others without
name, were the authors of the falsehood palmed on the Legislature of New York, in their petition on behalf of St. Louis's
Church, Buffalo.   The Anti-Catholic Church Property Bill,
brought in by Mr. Putnam, was founded in great part on the
falsehoods thus attested. One of these was, that " Bishop Hughes
attempted to compel the trustees of St. Louis church to convey
the title of their church property to him." The falsehood of
this statement has been already pointed out by me, and reluctantly admitted by Mr. William B. Le Couteulx, who, in his letter
published in the New York Daily Times, of the 7th instant, admits that I never demanded the title to their church property;
but, that after reading my pastoral letter, published in 1842, he
and his colleagues were stupid enough to come to the conclusion
that, if they acquiesced in the requirements of the pastoral letter,
" the whole would have passed under my absolute control and absolute dominion." I have already stated that this consequence need
not necessarily follow, and as a proof, which Mr. Le Couteulx and
his colleague may be capable of understanding, the trustees of
St. Nicholas Church, in Second street, in this city, did acquiesce
in the requirements of the pastoral, and yet continued to be legally the owners and administrators of their church property just




102        CONTROVERSY BETWEEN SENATOR BROOKS
the same as before.  Mr. Le Couteulx, in a letter of his dated
Buffalo, April 21, attempts to go over this ground again. That
is quite unnecessary.  He forgets, indeed, the politeness of a
French gentleman, and as showing his consciousness of the fact
he says:C" These remarks, rather severe, have been forced out of me."
The good gentleman may be perfectly easy on this score. He
has forfeited the attributes which would have left it in his power
to be " severe," towards any one, but especially towards me.
As there is still some misapprehension with regard to the history of the unfortunate St. Louis Church in Buffalo, I shall take
advantage of this occasion to supply the information I possess on
the subject.  First of all, Mr. Le Couteulx, senior, gave a deed
to Bishop Dubois for a certain piece of ground to be used for the
purposes of Catholic worship. Next, Mr. Wm. B. Couteulx and
some others, by a surreptitious movement, even while Bishop Dubois was still living, contrived to become a corporate body to take
charge of his father's donation to the Bishop. Thirdly, since the
Church has been completed, Mr. Wm. B. Le Couteulx has not
left any thing undone to defeat the intentions of his venerable
father, and drive away Catholic worship from the ground which
his parent had given to the late Bishop of New York for religious
purposes.  Fourth, it is not certain that Mr. Wm. B. Le Couteulx
wishes to deprive the Catholic congregation of St. Louis of this
property by bringing about its relapse into the residuary estate
of his father, from which even something might be added to his
own private inheritance; and yet it is difficult to account for the
obstinate and schismatic course which Mr. William B. Le Couteulx has adopted in regard to it on any other hypothesis. His
generous and pious father made a donation to the city of Buffalo
of ground for an orphan asylum.  Mr. Wm. B. Le Couteulx must
be cognizant of the fact that, whei the asylum was built, and
Catholic children, among others, admitted, the Protestant bigotry
of the managers would not admit the ministry of a Catholic
priest towards the poor children of that religion which his father
professed, and of which he was an ornament, just as much as his




AND ARCHBISHOP HUGHES.                  103
son Wm. B. is the reverse.  Here, then, is the result of his father's benevolence. He contrives that the Catholic priest shall
be alienated from the ground given by his father for Catholic
purposes; and the managers of the orphan asylum contrive to
have the same priest repelled from entrance on the ground given
for an orphan asylum.
I do not thank Mr. Le Couteulx for admitting the falsehood
already pointed out in the petition of which he was one of the
signers.  He could not have done otherwise.  And if he thinks
that he is honoring his father's memory by defeating his father's
pious intention, let him continue in his unfortunate anti-Catholic
course.
As there has been some mistake in regard to the name of Le
Couteulx, I think it proper to state that no son or daughter of
Mr. William B. Le Couteulx is now in this country. At all events,
Mr. Le Couteulx of this city is the son of the truly Catholic and
amiable Mr. Le Couteulx who at present resides in Paris, and
who so well sustains the honor of his hereditary name.  He is
only nephew to Mr. Wm. B Le Couteulx, leader of the trustees
of St. Louis' Church, Buffalo.
+  JOHN, Archbishop of New York.
New York April 28, 1855.
TEMPORALITIES.
To the Editor of the New York Daily Times:
I proceed to reply to the letter of "   JOHN, Archbishop
of New York," in regard to his ownership of real estate property
in the City of New York.  I have no time to waste in humor,
evasion or words, and therefore shall not follow the example of
even so illustrious a personage as the Archbishop, in what he has
to say upon irrelevant topics. The Presbyterian can speak for
itself as to the amount of property held by the Archbishop
throughout the entire State.  What is said of "riches" and




104        CONTROVERSY BETWEEN SENATOR BROOKS
" provisions for rainy days," of " pin money " and "c mendacity,"
of "defamation" and " immigration," and even of that public
library which the Archbishop now owes the City of New York,
if he is a man of his word, has nothing to do with the fact and
extent of his ownership of real estate. As the guilty boy at
school and the guilty man at Court endeavor to turn teacher and
judge, master and Court, from the contemplation of facts certain
to lead to their conviction, so my distinguished accuser, slippery
as an eel, seems unwilling fairly to meet the facts as I presented
them  to the Senate.  I might rejoin by saying, that when the
head of a Church leaves the pulpit and gospel to become personal
and political in controversy, he ceases to command that measure
of respect which would otherwise be due his religious office.
This is not the first time the Archbishop has volunteered to
participate in secular strife, or lost his usual civility in defending
what he esteems to be the rights of the Romish Church.  The
Common School discussion found him  alternately at the City
Hall and Carroll Hall, addressing, in the latter place, amidst
vociferous shouts, and in loud partisan appeals, an excited Irish
populace, who, with all other citizens, were directly appealed to,
to elect such men only to the Legislature as would oppose the
reading of the simple texts of the Bible in the Common Schools
of the City.  The Common School question then, and the Church
Property question now, seem equally to have disturbed the amiability and equanimity of the Archbishop.
Before entering upon the material part of this controversy, let
me say, in answer to the Archbishop's sweeping assertion to the
contrary, that at no time has any public man or party in this
State, attempted " to disfranchise Catholics or abridge them of
their rights."  The charge is a fiction, unworthy of the high
clerical character of the man who makes it.  Where-whenby whom-has any such disfranchisement been attempted? The
Constitution of the United States, and of this State, knowing no
distinction of sects in religion, places the believers of every faith
upon that perfect equality, from which no man-certainly no true
American citizen-proposes to remove them. When, therefore,




AND ARCHBISHOP HUGHES.                 105
the Archbishop talks of " hurling back such false acusations, in
the very faces of their authors," I must respectfully advise him
to stand from under, if he would not have his own blows fall upon
himself.
The Archbishop, in his long epistle to my short rejoinder, is
pleased to charge me with "falsehood," "falsehood," "FALSEHOOD."  A scullion can call names, and use epithets-but names
and epithets are not truth. The utterance of such language by
an Archbishop, and the bad temper displayed in the two letters
to me, will carry conviction with all impartial minds, that I
have already made out my case, even though I have but begun
the work of exposition.  The Prelate, not daring manfully to
meet the issue I have raised, finds relief in personality and
rage.
I have proposed that upon the issue of veracity between the
Archbishop and myself, that he should select one arbiter, I a
second, and the two a third, and that these three should decide,
upon the legal facts to be presented for their consideration,
which of the two uttered the falsehood.  THE ARCHBISHOP DECLINES THE PROPOSITION, and declares that " Arbitration is unnecessary." I feared that it would come to this at the start, and
that the promised library was but a " word of promise to the ear,
to be broken to the hope."
But if I must lose a library for the City, I do not mean to
lose my temper, nor to allow the Archbishop to escape with mere
denials of facts, however bitter and angry they may be.
What I meant and mean by the ownership of Real Estate, is
what the law means by it, and, therefore, we can have no misunderstanding of ideas. I mean that the legal title is vested in
John Hughes.  I mean by John Hughes, the Archbishop of New
York.  I mean by " ownership of Real Estate," the legal right
to control, possess and use it, by assignment, by will, or otherwise. I mean, that if the Archbishop, John Hughes, were to
die without a will, or to change his faith, or should choose to dispose of his property to his own heirs, or for his personal advantage, that he has the legal power to do so, at his own will and




106        CONTROVERSY BETWEEN SENATOR BROOKS
pleasure. I mean that, in fact and in act, by the Baltimore Ordinances of 1849 and of 1852, by prior claim and subsequent determination, he and other Archbishops and Bishops, own, and
assume, control and direct the TEMPORALITIES of the Church, its
lands, its estates, and its entire property.  I mean, speaking
now after an examination of legal Records and Indentures, that
the conveyances to the Archbishop are " to him, his heirs, or
assigns," and no others.  I mean of course, also, that no trust is
specified in the deed, and that the conveyances, without such
specifications of trust, would, in case of his death, go to the next
akin.  I think I am understood, and that no one will accuse me
of seeking a loop-hole of escape, or with any desire to occupy
an equivocal position.
Now for the record, in part.
In the Archbishop's letter of last week, charging me directly
with deception and indirectly with mendacity, I find the following:
" But there are some things which Mr. Brooks has stated with regard to my property which I know to be incorrect and unfounded in
truth. He says, for instance, that in the Register's Office there are
numerous transfers from Trustees to me. Now this statement I know
to be untrue, inasmuch as I have never received or accepted any
transfer of any property whatever from Trustees."
In the Archbishop's letter of this week the following appears:
" The third falsehood was, that many of the conveyances of real
estate to me were made by Trustees. Now I state that any one who
asserts either of these three statements, asserts a gross, and towards
me, an injurious falsehood."
I now offer PROOFS OF MY STATEMENT, from the legal records
of the City, beginning with the conveyance made to John Hughes
from the Trustees of St. John's Roman Catholic Church:
CONVEYANCES TO JOHN HUGHES.
NUMBER ONE.
Trustees of St. John's Roman  Lease. Dated July 17, 1844.-999
Catholic Church          years. Consideration one cent a
to                year. Recorded in liber 451, p.
John Hughes.            240, July 20, 1844.




AND ARCHBISHOP HUGHES.                    107
All those three certain lots, pieces or parcels of lands, situate in
the Sixteenth (late Twelfth) Ward of the City of New York, which
taken together are bounded and contain as follows, namely: Beginning on the northerly side of Thirtieth street 100 feet from the westerly side of the Seventh-avenue, running thence northerly and parallel
with the Seventh-avenue 100 feet, thence westerly and parallel with
Thirtieth street, 75 feet thence southerly and parallel to Seventh-avenue 100 feet, to the northerly side of Thirtieth street, thence easterly
and along the northerly side of Thirtieth street 75 feet to beginning.
NUIMBER TWO.
Patrickl Doherty) Indenture of Lease dated July 2, 1842. Recorded
to          in liber 448, page 17, April 13, 1844, conveyed
John Htughes.     to P. Doherty by the Mayor, Aldermen, &c., of
the City of New York, and by him conveyed to John Hughes.  Consideration, $24, 17-100. Leased for assessment tax. Vide page 15,
20 years.
Lot, piece or parcel of land, known and distinguished on the assessment map for the opening of One Hundred and Seventeenth street,
from Fourth-avenue to Harlem  River, by the number 5, assessed to
St. Paul's Church, situate on the north side of One Hundred and
Seventeenth street, between Fourth-avenue and the Old Post Road,
being 100 feet front, for which he has paid the sum of $7, 94-100.
NUMBER THREE.
George Wildes,'merchant, and )
Ageres, ildes  merchant,   nd.  Date of Deed, Februay 6, 1845. ReAgnes, his wifes by? Win. C.   corded in liber 455, p. 446, FebPicersgi, his Atoney,    ruary  21, 1845.  Consideration,
to                 $2 000.
John Hughes.             2,000.
All those two certain lots, pieces or parcel of ground situate, lying
and being in the City of New York, on the northerly side of Twentyfifth street, between the Eighth and Ninth-avenues, and known and
distinguished on a certain map of ground situated at Greenwich, in
the City of New York, belonging to Thomas B. Clark. made by Amos
Corning and Uzal W. Freeman, City Surveyor, and filed in the Register's Office, by the numbers 230 and 231, and being taken together,
are bounded by the said map as follows, to wit: Beginning at a point
on the said northerly side of Twenty-fifth street, 300 feet easterly
from the northeast corner of the Ninth-avenue and Twenty-fifth
street, thence northerly on line parallel with the Ninth-avenue, along
lot distinguished on said map by the number 232, 98 feet 9 inches,
thence easterly parallel with Twenty-fifth street, along the rears of
lots distinguished on said map by the numbers 206 and 207, 50 feet,
thence southerly, parallel with the Ninth-avenue, along lot distinguished on said map by the number 229, 98 feet 9 inches, to Twentyfifth street, and thence westerly along the northerly side of Twentyfifth street 50 feet, to the place of beginning.




108        CONTROVERSY BETWEEN SENATOR BROOKS
NUMBER FOUR.
Andrew Byrne) Date, April 30, 1841. Record-liber 456, p. 487.
to.    March 29, 1845. Consideration, $5,400. ConveyJohn Hughes. )  ance of Lease for 18 years and 9 months. No description of premises.
Robert Lane, and 
Effe Maria, his wifef,  Conveyance date, March 5, 1845, Recordto            liber. 459, p. 125. Consideration, $15,500.
John Hughes.
All those three certain lots of land situated in the Sixth Ward of
the City of New York, which on a certain map of property, belonging
to the estate of George Janeway, in the Sixth Ward of the City of
New York, made by Joseph Bridges, City Surveyor, surveyed (as to
part lots on said map) in January, 1838, are distinguished by the numbers 17, 18 and 19. Said lot, No. 17, being situated at the corner of
City Hall Place and Duane street, and said three lots are bounded as
follows, that is to say, beginning at the easterly corner of City Hall
Place (late Augusta street) and Duane street, thence running southerly in front along Duane toward Chatham, 75 feet to other ground
of the estate of the said George Janeway; thence running northeasterly on the one side along the ground of the estate of the said
George Janeway, 67 feet 2 inches, to other ground of estate of said
George Janeway, and formerly leased by him to Mrs. Phillips; thence
running northiwesterly in the rear along the said ground leased to
Mrs. Phillips as aforesaid, 73 feet to City Hall Place (formerly Augusta street,) aforesaid; thence running southwesterly on the other
side along City Hall Place aforesaid 67 feet to place of beginning.
NUMBER FIVE.
David Dudley Field and
Stephen J. Field, Trustees of wife, and Harriet Date of Conveyance, February 7th, 1845.
D. Field, wife of D. D.'  Record (liber 460, p. 497, Consideration,
Field,                    $2,000,) May 23d, 1845.
to
John Hughes.
All those two certain lots, pieces or parcels of land, situated in
the Sixteenth ward of the city of New York, known and distinguished
on a map of lands in the Sixteenth ward of the city of New York,
the property of the heirs of Mary Clarke, deceased, made by George
B. Smith, City Surveyor, and dated April 6th, 1837, (a copy on file
in the Register's office,) by numbers 228 and 229, and bounded, taken
together, as follows: beginning at a point on the northerly line of
Twenty-fifth street, distant 350 feet easterly from north-east corner
of Twenty-fifth street and Ninth avenue, running thence easterly
along said northerly line 50 feet, thence northerly, parallel with Ninth
avenue, ninety-four feet, nine inches, to middle of the block between
Twenty-fifth street and Twenty-sixth street, to a point equi-distant




AND ARCHBISHOP HUGHES.                    109
from the two; thence westerly, parallel with Twenty-fifth street, fifty
feet.; thence southerly in a straight line to place of beginning.
NUMBER SIX.
William Patton, D. D., Date of Conveyance, May 8th, 1845. Reand iMary/ his  fe,      cord (in liber 460, p. 550,) May 31st,
John    ghe.        1845. Consideration, $75.
John Hughes.
All and singular the equal undivided half part (being the S. part
thereof,) of a certain vault or place for the deposit of the dead, situated in and upon the premises formerly owned by the Second avenue
Presbyterian Church, on the Easterly side of, and fronting on the
Second avenue, between Second and Third streets. (William Patton,
liber 460, p. 551, same.)
NUMBER SEVEN.
George tWildes,
George Wildes,      Date of Conveyance, February 6,1845. Reand Agnest, his woe      cord, liber 465, p. 513, September 23,
J. Hughes.      J  1845. Consideration, $2,000.
All those two cercain lots, pieces or parcels of ground, situate,
lying and being in Sixteenth ward of the city of New York, on Northerly side of Twenty-fifth street, between Eighth and Ninth avenues.
(Same as other in liber 455, p. 446.)
NUMBER EIGHT.
Bartholomew  O' Connor   Date of Conveyance, Feb. 7, 1845. ReTrustee to Christ Chuch    cord, liber 465, p. 514, Sept. 23, 1845.
John Hughqes.         Consideration, $42,000.
All four lots of ground, situate, &c., in Fourth ward, city of New
York, bounded and containing as follows: Westerly by James street,
100 feet; Southerly, by ground, now or lately belonging to Walter
Bowne; 100 feet Easterly in the rear, partly by ground of John
Wood, and partly by ground now or late of -     Gardner, 100 feet;
and Northerly by ground now or late belonging to Samuel Milbank,
100 feet. (Liber 466, p. 422, quit claim for land described in liber
460, p. 497. Consideration, $1,000.
NUMBER NINE.
George Plammann, and 
Catharine A., his wife;
Thomas Wca~', and        |
Thomas Wardret,  fand   I Date of Conveyance, Feb. 6, 1847.
A    iargarette, ehis wife,     Record in liber 487, p. 75,
at.. Bailey and his wife, et al.,    Feb  19 1847. Consideration
cholas Den, othe 2    rt,      $50000.
Nicholas Dean, of the 2d art,
and
John Hughes, of the 3d part.




110         CONTROVERSY BETWEEN SENATOR BROOKS
Rev. Andrew Byrne,   )Date of Conveyance, Dec. 6th, 1843.
Clergyman,            Recorded in liber. p. 178, Februto                ary  10th, 1844.    Consideration,
John Hughes, Bishop.       $3,825.
All those three certain lots of land, together with the buildings
thereon erected, situate, lying and being in the (now or late) Eleventh
Ward of the City of New York, and being part of the estate of Mangle
Minthorne, deceased, and are known and described on the map of the
said estate now on file in the Register's Office, of the said City of New
York, by lots Nos. 71, 72, 73; fronting westwardly on the Second
avenue, and are as follows: northwardly by lot No. 74, eastwardly by
lot No. 76, and land formerly called the Hilyer estate; southerly by
land of the said Hilyer estate, and westwardly by the Second avenue
aforesaid. The said three lots being in length on each side 100 feet,
and the said lots, Nos. 72 and 73, being each in width in front and
rear, 25 feet, and the said lot No. 71 being in width in front 25 feet;
and in width on the rear 24 feet and 11- inches as the said lots are
laid down and numbered on the said map. Being the same premises
whereon the Church of the Nativity now stands; subject, however,
to a mortgage by the party of 1st part to Rev. John Corry, to secure
the payment of $5,000 and interest.
NUMBER TEN.
Same I Date of conveyance 6th December, 1844. Recorded,n.         Feb. 10, 1844. Consideration $3,825.
All that certain lot, piece or parcel of land, situate, lying, and being
in the Seventeenth Ward (late Eleventh), of the City of New York,
fronting on the easterly line of Second avenue, between Second and Third
streets, beginning at a point distant sixty-four feet seven inches from
the northeast corner of said Second avenue and Second street; running thence eastwardly and parallel to Second street seventy-five feet;
thence northwardly and parallel to the said Second avenue twenty-one
feet and six inches, to the place of beginning; the said lot being part
of lots known and distinguished by the letters C and D on a map of
property in the Eleventh and Thirteenth Wards of the City of New
York, belonging to the estate of Henry Eckford, deceased, filed in
office of the Register, and numbered 230. Also, all that certain other
lot, piece, or parcel of land, situate, lying and being in the Seventeenth
(late Eleventh) Ward of said City of New York, fronting on the northerly line of Second street, between the First and Second avenues.
Beginning at a point distant seventy-five feet from the northeast corner of Second avenue and Second street, and running thence northwardly parallel to Second avenue aforesaid eighty-six feet; thence
eastwardly parallel to Second street aforesaid twenty-five feet; thence
southwardly parallel to Second avenue aforesaid eighty-six feet;
thence westwardly along the said line of Secon? street aforesaid
twenty-five feet, to the place of beginning.




AND ARCHBISHOP HUGHES.                  1 1 
This is but the beginning of the end. It is only the basis of
my claim to that promised public library which the Archbishop
owes to the City of New  York, and which for the next fifty
years, if he and I should live so long, I shall demand in the
name of the people of this City, " for the use, not of any one profession or class, but for all mankind."  The amiable Archbishopand he is arch in more senses than one-is pleased to say, if my
modesty will permit, that this great library shall bear the name
of" the Erastus Brooks' Library, engraven in large and gilded
letters over its marble portals."  I have no such ambition to
have my name handed down to posterity, and grateful at this new
display of the Archbishop's new-born zeal for public libraries and
letters, for intelligence and history, I prefer that this library,
which will exist, I fear, only in the broken promises of an irritable prelate, if ever founded at all, should bear the name, not in' large and gilded letters," but rather in letters of brass, corresponding with the brazen denials of the man, the name of" + John,
Archbishop of the Province of New York! "
For to-day, I am,
Very respectfully yours,
ERASTUS BROOKS.
Nwnw YoiR, April 18th, 1855.
ARCHBISHOP IUGHES vs. SENATOR BROOKS.
To the Editors of the Courier and Enquirer 
I am glad to perceive by his attempted defence in your paper
of this date, that Mr. Brooks begins to realize vaguely the position in which he has placed himself. He commences his pitiable
defence by misrepresenting the state of the question.  He says it
is " in regard to my ownership of real estate property in the city
of New York."  The question is not in regard to any such thing,
and this Mr. Brooks knows as well as I do.  The question is in
regard to the truth or falsehood of certain statements made by




112        CONTROVERSY BETWEEN SENATOR BROOKS
him in the Senate of New York, on the 6th of March.  In reference to my ownership of real estate property, as Mr. Brooks
calls it, there is no question. The title of many Catholic Churches
in the city of New York is vested in me, and so far I am the
owner.  My intention, even, is to add to this property by purchasing such additional lots, or accepting the gift of them, as
I may find from time to time to be desirable for the purpose of
providing religious instruction for the wants of the Catholic flock
committed to my charge. If Mr. Brooks will examine the records
of the city of New York three months from this time, he will
probably find conveyances made to me by parties who have the
right to sell or bestow as they think proper.
But I shall waive all controversy regarding matters introduced into Mr. Brooks's reply, in order to direct his wandering
attention to the real state of the case.  On the 6th of March he
asserted that my property in the city of New York alone was
not much short of five millions. This was falsehood No. 1. He
asserted that of this property, numerous transfers had been made
to me by Trustees.  This was falsehood No. 2. He asserted
that some of the parcels conveyed to me covered whole squares of
land. This was falsehood No. 3.
Now, we shall take these falsehoods in their order.  Mr.
Brooks, in maintaining falsehood No. 1, has copied out ten entries
as found in the Register's books of this city. He heads the list
with the wordsC CONVEYANCES TO JOHN HUGHES."
The first conveyance is a lease, which shows, so far as the
ownership of real estate is concerned, that the very heading of
the entries is not correct.
The second is also a lease, showing the same thing.
The third is from George Wildes and Agnes his wife, and it
remains for Mr. Brooks to show that Mr. Wildes and his wife had
been Trustees of a Catholic Church.
The fourth is from Andrew Byrne, and is the conveyance, not
of real estate, but of a lease also.




AND ARCHBISHOP HUGHES.                 113
The fifth is from David Dudley Field, and Stephen J. Field,
Trustees of Wife and Harriet D. Field, wife of D. D. Field.  (I
copy from Mr. Brooks's report of these matters in your journal,
but I decline all responsibility for their accuracy.)  Mr. Brooks
does not inform us whether these parties had been Trustees of
Catholic Church property or not.
The sixth is from the Rev. Wm. Patton, D. D., and Mary his
wife.  Mr. Brooks does not say that the Rev. Dr. and his wife
had been Trustees of any Catholic Church.
Here Mr. Senator Brooks seems to have become desperate,
and gives a duplicate under head No. 7 of the conveyance made
by George Wildes, and Agnes his wife, as already recorded under
head No. 3.  I was not aware that Mr. Wildes had given me
two deeds of the same property. But Mr. Senator Brooks is a
man of singular enterprise, and he has made the discovery, and
attempted to impose upon the public by a falsehood so easily to
be detected.
No. 8 is from  Mr. Bartholomew  O'Connor, who, if Mr.
Brooks is to be believed, is named in the record as trustee to
Christ's Church-the truth being that Mr. Bartholomew O'Connor in that case was only the Assignee of a bankrupt Board of
Trustees.
No. 9 is from George Plammann, and Catharine A. his wife;
Thomas Ward, and Margaretta his wife; Nathaniel P. Baily,
and his wife, et al. to Nicholas Dean, of the second part, and
John Hughes, of the third part. Under the same No. 9 we find
immediately following, Andrew  Byrne, Clergyman, to  John
Hughes, Bishop.
No. 10 is a specimen of Mr. Brooks's eloquent brevity of
style.  It is entitled, " Same to Same."  Here again Mr. Brooks
duplicates the same conveyance, so that in the simple copying
from the Registry, by way of defence for older falsehoods, he
invents new ones, and in two instances copies the same conveyances-I suppose by way of guarding against mistakes.
I hope the respectable gentlemen and their wives here mentioned, will hold Mr. Brooks, and not me, responsible for having




1.14       CONTROVERSY BETWEEN SENATOR BROOKS
their names paraded in a public newspaper. The extract of all
these entries is brought forth by Mr. Brooks, to substantiate
what I have taken the liberty to call his falsehood, uttered in the
Senate of New York, when he alleged in his official capacity,
and as one having taken pains to be well informed on the subject,
that the value of my real estate in the city of New York alone
was not much short of five millions.  We have just seen that Mr.
Brooks has counted two conveyances each twice over, and that
instead of ten conveyances there are in reality only eight on the
very record which he professes to have examined.  None of
these conveyances of real estate are from  Trustees of Catholic
Churches.
Is it not lamentable to think that a man who has been Senator of the State of New  York, should so misrepresent the
records of entries which are open to the inspection of all in the
Register's office?
But the question is not whether I am the owner of some portion of real estate, but whether Mr. Brooks did not utter a falsehood when he stated that the value of my property in the city of
New  York alone, was little short of five millions of dollars.
The gentleman attempts to make his extract honest-looking by
describing the boundaries of each section of property thus conveyed with a minuteness very uninteresting to the public, but
with an exactitude becoming a conveyancer's apprentice.  One
would suppose that he imagined himself copying a list of the
arrivals at the hotels, to be published in that meanest of all
printed newspapers, the New York Express, of which he is one
of the Editors.
Now the difference between the value of the eight conveyances cited by Mr. Brooks, and a little short of five millions of
dollars, will be the measure of the difference between the truth
of his present defence, and the falsehood of his assertion in the
Senate on the 6th of last March.  I suppose the gross value of
the eight conveyances enumerated, to be two hundred thousand
dollars, and deduct two hundied thousand dollars from  a sum a
little short of five millions-say four millions seven hundred and




AND ARCHBISHOP HUGHES.                  115
fifty thousand dollars, there remains a difference between truth
and falsehood of four millions five hundred and fifty thousand
dollars, which Mr. Brooks has still to account for.  In other
words, by a strict arithmetical calculation, there is a difference
of two thousand two hundred and seventy-five per cent. between
the truth, if we can call it so, of Mr. Brooks's defence and the
original falsehood of his statement. This is a large per centage,
but Senator Brooks may yet have means of reducing it. So far,
I think, it is quite clear that the charge of falsehood No. 1 has
not been refuted.  However, small work is enough for the Senator during one day, and as he signs his letter " for to-day, yours
very respectfully," we must wait to see what he has in reserve
for to-morrow.  I would only beg him not to attempt filling up
his schedule by enumerating the same conveyance twice as he has
done "for to-day."
Falsehood No. 2, as found in his speech of the 6th of March,
is, that among the conveyances there are numerous transfers from
trustees to John Hughes.  Mr. Brooks has done nothing as yet
by way of attempt to sustain this falsehood. He has not shown
one single such transfer, and accordingly we may say there is
little short of five millions per cent. between his impotent defence and his false assertion on the 6th of March, in the Senate
of New York.  But, we must be indulgent, and allow him time
to examine the records for them.
The statement in his speech which we marked as falsehood
No. 3, that some of the parcels of property conveyed to me cover
whole squares of land, Mr. Brooks "for to-day" has not had
time, I suppose, to indicate, as he has done in other instances, in
what part of the city all these certain lots, or whole squares of
land lie, and are situate.  But we must give him time.  He has
done pretty well for one day.  He has made ten entries for the
newspapers out of eight in the Register's books-and to a man
who can do this, powers of originality cannot be denied.
On the whole, I think  Mr. Brooks has been very unsuccessful
in his attempt to substantiate the three propositions which I have
indicated as falsehoods Nos. 1, 2, and 3.




1 16       CONTROVERSY BETWEEN SENATOR BROOKS
In the present melancholy predicament in which Mr. Brooks
has contrived to place himself, I think he might dispense with all
moralizing as regards proprieties of language. They are out of
season for his pen.  He is not satisfied at my using the word
falsehood in regard to any of his assertions, however injurious to
me, or mischievous to others.  Now falsehood is the only word
that could express my meaning.  To gentlemen of more refined
sensibility than the Senator, a gentler term would have been sufficient to arouse that quick and honorable resentment, either to
prove the assertion advanced, or to apologize manfully for having been betrayed into it. On the other hand, if a stronger expression had been used, it would have implied a direct violation
of the courtesies of life, even in regard to one by whom truth
had been so outraged.  Mr. Brooks is very severe upon me, as
he imagines, when he says that " a scullion can call names, and
use epithets, but names and epithets," says Mr. Brooks, " are not
truth."  Pray, where did Mr. Brooks learn this philosophy?  I
can assure him that names and epithets rightly applied are truth,
and oftentimes, truth in its condensed form. Nor do they cease
to be truth when they are rightly employed, even by scullions.
The only philosophy which would be profitable to Senator Brooks,
is that by which in his dealings with his fellow-men, whether in
the Senate Chamber or elsewhere, he should take those precautions becoming an honorable gentleman, to see that it should not
be in the power of friend or foe, of scullion or prelate, to apply
to him any name or epithet which should unfortunately be too
well founded in truth.
I confess that it is any thing but pleasant to me to be obliged
to employ them.  But when Mr. Brooks has so gratuitously gone
out of his way to impress upon the minds of his colleagues in
the Senate, and of his fellow citizens elsewhere, the belief of
statements utterly at variance with truth, he cannot deny me the
privilege of calling upon him for the proof of his statements, if
he has any, and of stigmatizing them as falsehoods, if he has not.
I do not know that I have any thing more to say until Mr.




AND ARCHBISHOP HUGHES.                 117
Brooks.brings out the results of another day's investigation of
the records.
+  JOHN, ARCHBISHOP OF NEW YORK.
NEW YORK, April 19, 1855.
SENATOR BROOKS us. ARCHBISHOP HUGHES.
To the Editor of the Courier and Enquirer:
I have no time to bandy words with John Hughes. In personality and vulgarity he has reached an elevation to which I do
not aspire, and if he is content with that elevation, and of his
position under it, as the Archbishop of a powerful church, I am
more than content as his antagonist. I could not see without
regret a friend in so bad a position, nor desire to put an enemy
in a worse one. I shall therefore leave all that part of the Archbishop's third letter, which is irrelevant to Church Property, and
the facts at issue, to answer itself.
My statements in the Senate were.
Firstly:-As to the fact of the property owned by John
Hughes,-meaning the Archbishop.
Secondly:-As to the value of the property thus held by
John Hughes,-meaning the Archbishop.
Thirdly:-As to the transfer from Trustees to John Hughes,
-meaning the Archbishop.
I am charged with FALSEHOOD in these, my several asseverations.
I proposed to settle the question of fact, as to the veracity of
the spirit, substance and reality of my statements, and the truth
of the denial of his, by reference to an umpire of three persons,
-one to be selected by each of us, and one by the umpire. The
Archbishop sneered at my proposition, and declined the offer.
The Archbishop conveyed the idea, and meant to convey the
idea, and was so understood by the public,-that HE was not the
owner of Church Property in this city and elsewhere.  Driven




118         CONTROVERSY BETWEEN SENATOR BROOKS
from this position by the record transcribel from the Register's
Office, showing the actual conveyances of property to him, he
now, with more boldness than ever, admits the truth of what I
said on this point, and declares that the question between us "is
not in regard to any such thing as his ownership of Real Estate
Property in this city!"  He adds to this the following declaration:" In reference to my ownership of real estate property, as Mr.
Brooks calls it, there is no question. The title of many Catholic
Churches in the city of New York is vested in me, and so far I am the
owner. My intention is, even, to add to this property by purchasing
such additional lots, or accepting the gift of them, as I may find from
time to time to be desirable for the purpose of providing religious instruction for the wants of the Catholic flock committed to my charge.
If Mr. Brooks will examine the records of the city of New York
three months from this time, he will probably find conveyances made
to me by parties who have the right to sell or bestow as they think
proper."
Truly-" Truth is a great thing."
But I am  also charged with falsehood, because I asserted
that there were transfers from Trustees to John Hughes, notwithstanding I gave the record of the Transfer of:
" The Trustees of St. John's Roman  Catholic Church to.John Hughes.  Lease 999 years.  Consideration, ONE CENT A
YEAR.
The Archbishop answers me, and this record, thus:
" The first conveyance is a lease, which shows, so far as the ownership of real estate is concerned, that the very heading of the entries is not correct.
"The second is also a lease, showing the same thing.
"The third is from George Wildes and Agnes his wife, and it remains for Mr. Brooks to show that Mr. Wildes and his wife had been
Trustees of a Catholic Church."
What will lawyers,-what will laymen, —what will Christian
men think of such a denial as this? Is not a lease for 999 years
at one cent a year, in all true senses, moral and legal, equal to a
conveyance in fee?  A  mortgage of real estate property is a
conveyance in a more limited sense, but often results, by fore



AND ARCHBISHOP HUGHES.                  119
closure and otherwise, to a conveyance in fee.  How dare the
Archbishop assert, in the face of the public record and of all
truth-that I' have not shown one single transfer from Trustees
to the Bishop'?"
Let me add one more extract from his last letter:
" No. 8 is from Mr. Bartholomew O'Connor, who, if Mr. Brooks
is to be believed, is named in the record as Trustee to Christ's Church
-the truth being that Mr. Bartholomew O'Connor in that case was
only the assignee of a bank2rupt Board of Trustees."
Here, too, is an unintentional admission that John Hughes
received property from Bartholomew  O'Connor, "the Assignee
of a Bankrupt Board of Trustees."  It came, by admission,
from Trustees, through the Assignee, to John Hughes! Is it
not a quibble beneath an Archbishop, or the poorest layman, to
say that such property did not come from Trustees?
But let me quote further:'" Under the same No. 9 we find immediately following, Andrew
Byrne, Clergyman, to John Hughes, Bishop.' No. 10. is a specimen of Mr. Brooks's eloquent brevity of style.
It is entitled, "Same to same."  Here again Mr. Brooks duplicates
the same conveyance, so that in the simple copying from the Registry,
by way of defence for older falsehoods, he invents new ones, and in
two instances copies the same conveyance — suppose by way of guarding against mistakes."
It is the Archbishop who duplicates,-not I. It is the Archbishop also who misstates the record,-not I.  If he will look
again, he will see that there were two transfers from him  to Andrew Byrne,-that one conveyance covered part of the Mangle
Minthorne Estate, and conveyed three lots of property, and that
the second conveyance was of two parcels of property, and one
of the Henry Eckford Estate.
The Archbishop owes to himself, if not to me and the public,
an apology for this erroneous (I will not say false) record, and I
owe it to the public to state that a transfer of property was twice
cited by me by mistake, because it was so written, and had the
conveyance of William C. Pickersgill, recorded February 6th,




120        CONTROVERSY BETWEEN SENATOR BROOKS
1845, and of George Wildes, September 23d, 1845.  The one
was probably a conveyance by attorney in February, and the
other in person in the following. September.   John Hughes
would, therefore, seem to have had two deeds of the same property, even though he does not know it.
But I have not done with my record of property or values.
I have only, indeed, given the beginning of the end.
I do not wish to pry unnecessarily into the temporalities of
the Archbishop in this city and throughout his Diocese, but his
plump denials make it necessary to do so in order to convict him
of the want of veracity in his accusations against me. It is no
slight thing to charge a man with falsehood, and if the war is
carried into Africa, as I intend it shall be, in my prosecutions of
this investigation, the Archbishop has himself to thank for compelling an exposure of his affairs, which, but for his denials, might
never have come to the light of day.
From the Metropolitan and Catholic Almanac, and Laity's
Directory of 1855-published at Baltimore by Lucas, Brothers,
and purporting to be " sold by all Catholic Booksellers," I find
that in this city, and a few of the River towns, 38 in all, there
are 280,000 Roman Catholics, 55 Churches and Chapels, (27 of
which are in this city,) 30 stations, 82 Clergymen on the mission,
26 otherwise employed, beside Asylums, Seminaries, Literary Institutions, &c. Among these are:
The Redemptorist Convent, 3d street.
College of St. Francis Xavier, West 15th street.
Community of Brothers, &c., Canal street.
Academy of the Holy Infant Jesus, Manhattanville.
Convent of the Sacred Heart, near Manhattanville.
Sacred Heart Academy, near Harlem.
Convent of Sisters of Mercy, Houston and Mulberry.
Academy of St. Vincent, 107th street.
St. Mary's School, East Broadway.
The Archconfraternity of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
The Confraternity of the Rosary, &c., &c.




AND ARCHBISHOP HUGHES.                 121
This record, with many other facts appended thereto, the
books tells us, was furnished from the Most Reverend the Archbishop.
"The Diocese of Brooklyn" has fifteen churches in the city
of Brooklyn, and twenty-four on Long Island, besides eleven
stations, thirty clergymen, the School of St. Alphonsus, conducted by the Nuns of the Order of St. Dominic, and other
institutions under the care of "the Sisters of Charity" and
"Brothers of the Christian Schools."
The diocese of Albany (87 churches), and Buffalo (100
churches), are larger as to the number of churches, some of which
are gorgeous and costly edifices.  The rule there, as here, is to
place the temporalities of the Church in the hands of the Bishops.
I am not complaining of all this, or of the Roman Catholics,
or of their faith.  I am not even complaining of the numerical
force or great riches which make up the temporalities of the
Romish power in the City and State, I am showing in whose
hands, and under whose control most of these TEMPORALITIES are.
On the matter of values, too, I shall not fall much, if any,
short of the amount mentioned in the Senate of New York on
the 6th of March last.  With such estates as these at Fordhaniu,
costing seventy thousand dollars, and now worth four or five
hundred thousand dollars,-as the McGowan property on the
middle Island Road, and known as McGowan's Pass, the Jacob
Lorillard property, of one hundred acres, —the valuable property,
commencing on 51st street, opposite the Deaf and Dumb Institution, added to church property, it will be easy to count up millions in present value.
One word just here, of this last piece of property.
When the Directors of the Deaf and Dumb Institution earnestly begged the Common Council of this city, and as a matter
of public charity to enable them the better to educate the Deaf
and Dumb of the City and State, for a part of the tract of land,
at a nominal rent, now occupied by them, they were refused.
They had to pay $28,000 to the Corporation for the balance of a
block between 49th and 50th streets, and the balance of a block




1225      OCONTROVEESY BE'TW EEN SENATOR BROOKS
between 48th and 49th streets. The Common Council so decreed,
and the Mayor so approved.  A prayer from Protestants, for a
great and noble Christian charity, benefiting all sects, was met
by adverse reports and adverse acts, even when the Common
Council of the City, for one dollar, conveyed to John lHughes,
President, and V. 0. Donnelly, Secretary, for the Roman Catholic Orphan Asylum, one of the most valuable pieces of land in
the city, and on a square quite large enough for that 1"Erastus
Brooks Library," which the Archbishop now owes the City of
New York.
The Deaf and Dumb were compelled to pay, for a much
smaller piece of ground, 828,000.  The Archbishop and the Roman Catholics, for an estate bounded by the Fifth avenue, 51st
and 52d streets, paid the sum  of one dollar! The particulars
of all this may be found in the Book of Deeds, marked A., page
271, and those who are more curious may turn to a Common
Council report, where they will find the rejection of the prayer
of the Protestants for the deaf and dumb, and the grant of the
prayer of the Roman Catholics.  The city property thus given
for one dollar is worth to-day fiom  1l50,000, to 0250,000, and in
view of its value I cite these not very pleasant facts for those
who made the grant in the one case, and declined it in the other.
The Fordham  property also is a princely estate, owned by
John Hughes.  The deeds, I understand are in his name.  Negotiations connected with the property are conducted in his name.
I have had the copy of one before me, which begins thus:
"This indenture, made on the 1st of December, 1854, between
Most Reverend John Hughes, Archbishop of New York, and the Harlem Railroad Co.," &c.
And a very funny document it is for "John Hughes, his
heirs and assignees."
One article covenants that he, his heirs or assignees, shall
have a free pass over the Hcarlem Railroacd with fifty pounds of
baggage daily.  If the Bishop does not -choose to avail himself of this liberal grant,-for I learn from all quarters that he




AND ARC-HBISIIOP HUGHES.                      123
is good at driving a bargain, —he is to name the person who
shall receive the benefit.  The dead-hecad system  is thus formally
covenanted for over a public highway between Fordham  and
New  York, by the  distinguished +,' John, Archbishop  of the
Province of New York."
But all this is only preliminary to more important matter
which follows, and in continuation of the record I cite the following
CONVEYANCES TO JOHNI   HUGIIES.
NUMBER ELEVEN.
Zaccharcius iKintzte) Dace of Conveyance, March 24, 1848.  Recorded
to             in liber 500, p. 509, May 10, 1848.  ConsideJohln  fugh7es.      r ation, one dollar.
All and singular those two several lots, pieces or parcels of land
situated, lying and being on the north side of Thirty-first street,
between  Sixth  and Seventh avenues, in Sixteenth  (late Twelfth)
Ward of City of New York, and laid down and distinguished upon a
certain map-is annexed to the report of Fred. DePeyster and others,
commissioners appointed by order of Court of Chancery of State of
New York, in a certain suit before Vice Chancellor of first Circuit,
brought by Moulton Bullock, complainant, against Thomas Burlock
and other defendants, to make partition of certain lands and premises
held in common between the parties, among which were lands and
premises laid down in said map-on which map the said two several
lots, pieces or parcels of land, hereby intended to be conveyed, are
known and distinguished as numbers seven and forty.  The lots in
dimension, when taken together, are specified on said map to be 159
feet 61 inches in depth on the westerly side thereof, and 25 feet
width in the rear, and 165 feet and 1 inch in depth on easterly side;
said two lots, pieces or parcels of land, lying and being on easterly
side of and next adjoining to premises now occupied for a Catholic
Church.
NUMBER TWELVE.
James Foster, Contractor, ) Date of Conveyance, February, 21, 1848.
andZ E.izilii( his qoife, to    Recorded in liber 562, p. 244, February
John, _Ighes.           29, 1848.  Consideiation $4,400.
All those two certain lots of land situate, lying and being in Eleventh
~Ward of the City of New York, on South-east corner of Eighth
street and Avenue B; taken together, bounded and described as follows:-Beginning at the point formed by the intersection  of the
southerly side of Eighth-street with the easterly side of Avenue B,
running thence southerly along the east line of Avenue B, 48 feet
and 8 inches, thence east on a line parallel with south side of Eighth




124       -  CONTROVERSY BETWEEN SENATOR BROOKS
street 100 feet, thence northerly in a line parallel with easterly line
of Avenue B, 48 feet 8 inches, thence westerly along southerly side of
Eighth street 100 feet to place of beginning.
NUMBER THIRTEEN.
Sarah Rlemsen) Date of Conveyance, iMay  1, 1848.  Recorded in
to  liber. 503, p. 542, May 2, 1848.  Consideration,
Jolhn Hughes, )   $2,175.
All that certain lot, piece or parcel of land, situate, lying and being
in the Eleventh Ward of the City of New York, on the east side of
Avenue B, between Seventh and Eighth-streets, in said City, and
which is bounded and described as follows, that is to say, beginning at
a part on easterly side of Avenue B, distant 73 feet 2 inches southerly
from  south-east corner of Avenue B  and Eighth-street, and running thence easterly and parallel with Eighth-street, 100 feet, thence
running  southerly and parallel with Avenue B, 24 feet 4 inches,
thence running west and parallel with Eighth-street, 100 feet to
Avenue B, and thence running north along Avenue B, 24 feet 4 inches,
to place of beginning.
NUMBER FOURTEEN.
George W. 1iall, of Bzff3alo,  Date  of Conveyance,,          May, 1, 1848..
to                 Record, June 19, 1848, in liber 508,
J ohn   tyaghes.         p. 98.  Consideration, $10.
All that certain lot, piece or parcel of ground, situate, lying and
being in the Eighth Ward of the City of New York, on the west side
of Mulberry-street, known and distinguished on a certain map or
chart thereof made by Casimer 11. Goerch, late City Surveyor, by
part of lot No. 82-bounded eastwardly in front on Mulberry-strieet
aforesaid, northerly by lot No. 83, westerly, in reai, by lot No. i68,
and southerly by remaining part of said lot No. 82. Containing in
width and front 25 feet 2 inches, and in rear 24 feet, and in length 120
feet.
NUMBER FIFTEEN.
James Pea, of Jiaccon, Ga. I Recorded in  liber 508 p. 100.  June
to John _Iug~hews.        29, 1848.  Consideration, $1.
All and singular, the one equal undivided fifth part of the following lot, piece or parcel of land, with buildings thereon, situate, lying
and being in the Fourteenth (formerly Eighth) Ward of the City of
New York, and late part or parcel of the estate of Alderman Dickerson, deceased, known and distinguished on a certain map or chart
thereof, made by Casimer H. Goerch, late City Surveyor, bearing
date February 12, 1795, by lot No. 84, bounded and containing as
follows, to wit: Beginning at a point on south side of Houston-street,
distant 116 feet 6 inches westerly from southwesterly corner of said
Houston and MIulberry-streets, and running thence easterly along said
Houston-street, about 40 feet 11 inches, to land formerly belonging
to John P. Schermerhorn, thence running easterly along southerly
line of said Schermerhorn's land about 75 feet 8 inches to Mulberry



AND ARCIHIBISIiOP HUGHES.                     125
street, aforesaid, thence running southerly along said MAulberry-street,
2T feet 6 inches to northerly line of No. 83 on said Map, thence
westerly along northern line of said lot No. 83, 120 feet to westerly
line of said lot No. 84, thence northerly along said westerly line of lot
No. 84, 20 feet 2 inches to place of beginning.
NUIMBER SIXTEEN.
I Date of Conveyance, April
Geo.:f. Hall, and Amelica W., hzs wife,    1, 1848.  Recorded  in
to                        liber 508, p. 101, June
John Hughes.                1   19, 1848. Consideration
J   $32,700.
All those six certain lots, pieces, parcels of land with the buildings thereon, situated, lying and being in the Fourteenth Ward of the
City of New York, on South-west corner of Houston and Mrulberrystreets, in the said City, bounded and described as follows -— Beginning at a point forming the intersection of the south-west corner of
Houston and Mulberry-streets, aforesaid, running thence south along
west side of Mulberry-street, to the land late belonging to Moses
Leon, now  deceased, 65 feet 9 inches, thence west along said last
mentioned land, 120 feet to land formerly belonging to Luke Uster,
thence north along said last mentioned land and land of George
Heydon, Lessee, to Houston-street, aforesaid, 45 feet, thence easterly
along said 1Houston-street, 116 feet six inches, to place of,beginning.
Also, all those certain pieces or'parcels of land beginning at a point.
on west side of said Mulberry-street, formed by intersection of said
west side of Mulberry-street with south line of land late of Leon, deceased, and which point is supposed to be distant south from the south
west corner of said Houston and Mulberry-streets, 90 feet and 11 inches, thence along western side of said Mulberry-street, 48 feet 2
inches to along and including the land conveyed by Nathan Bangs,
and others, executors, &c., and Elizabeth Sandford, to said George
W. Hale, by deed dated April 15, 1836; thence west along said
southern boundary of last mentioned land, 125 feet, to land formerly
belonging to William Jones; thence north 45 feet and 6 inches to said
land late of Moses Leon, deceased; thence east along southern boundary of last mentioned land 120 feet to said Mulberry-street, the place
of beginning.
NUI1BEI SEVENTEEN.
George Washington Costar czcld    Date of Conveyance, July 19, 1848;
Henry Arnold Costar,            Rec. in  liber 510, p. 60, July
to               [  28, 1848.   Consideration,  $11,
John Hugthes.         J   64-100.
All that certain strip, piece, or parcel of land situate, lying, and
being on east side of Avenue B, commencing at a point on east side
of said Avenue B, distant 118 feet 8 inches southerly from the southeast corner of Eighth-street and said Avenue B, and running thence




126         CONTROVERSY BETWEEN SENATOR BROOKS
east, and parallel with said Eighth-street 100 feet; thence running
south and parallel with said Avenue B  2 inches; thence running
west and parallel with said Eighth-street 100 feet to said Avenue B;
thence running northerly along easterly side of said Avenue B 2 inches
to place of beginning.
NUMBER EIGHTEEN.
IlMcry Aqnn CGaCff2eJ, 
cBern^rd GClmzey, I Date of Conveyance, November 9, 1848.  Re^el/, t Ecr  cuos,-     cord in liber 510, p. 32, November 14, 1848.
lo  c      jConsideration, $10,622, 37-100.
Johnz Hlughes.    J
All those certain lots, pieces or parcels of ground, situated, lying and
being in the Eighteenth Ward of the City of New York, on the
east side of Madison avenue and south side of Twenty-seventh-street,
and taken together bounded as follows, viz.: beginning at the point east
side Madison avenue, distant 93 feet 9 inches south from the south side
of Twenty-seventh-street, thence running east at ight angles to Madison- avenue, along ground now  or late belonging to              Sauler.
Same as Release of Dower.
NUMSBER NI>NETEEN.
Jno. J. V. Testervelt, Sheriff,  Date of Conveyance, June 14, 1818.
to                  Record in liber 522, p. 444, June
Joh7 n  -iughes.           15, 1849.  Consideration, $950.
Four certain lots of ground, situate, lying and being in the Twelfth
Ward of the City of New York, and known and distinguished on a
map of the property of Peter Poillon, made by J. F. Bridges, City
Surveyor, bearing date September, 1826, and now on file in'egister's
office as lots Nos. 541, 542, and 543, and taken together are bounded
as follows: North by the central line between One -Hundred  and
Seventeenth and One Hundred and Eighteenth-streets, west by a line
parallel to Fourth avenue on the east side thereof 160 feet therefrom
southerly in front by One Hundred and Seventeenth-street, and east
by a line drawn parallel to Fourth avenue on the east side thereof at
a distance of 260 feet therefiom; each of said lots being 25 feet in
width in front and rear and about 100 feet deep on each side, with the
church edifice erected thereon.
NUMBER TWENTY.
Richard Kdneiz, Clergyman%,) Date of Conveyance, December 1, 1848.
to                 Record in liber 527, p. 279, Sept. 19,
John Hcughes.            1849.  Consideration $2,000.
All that certain lot, piece or parcel of land, situate, lying and
being in the Eleventh Ward of the City of New York, and is bound



AND ARCI-IBISIOP HIUGHES.                    127
ed and described as follows, that is to say —beginning at a point on
east side of Avenue 13, distant 48 feet 8 inches more or less south
from  the south line of the Avenue, and running thence east and
parallel with Eighth-street 100 feet, thence running south and parallel
with Avenue B 24 feet 4 inches, more or less; thence running west and
parallel with Eighth-street, 100 feet to Avenue B, and thence running
north along Avenue B 24 feet 4 inches, more or less, to place of beginning.
NUMBER TWENTY-ONE.
G'regory Dillon, )     Date of Conveyance, August 20, 1850.  Recorded
to           in liber 551, p. 291, August 21, 1850.  ConsiJo/hn Hughes.       deration, 110.
A11 those five certain lots, pieces or parcels of land, together with
the buildings thereon, known as St. Peter's Church, situated, &c., in
Third Ward of the City of New York, contiguous to each other,
being part of the lands commonly called and known by the name of
the Church Farm, distinguished on map thereof by numbers 85, 86,
87, 88, 89, bounded north by Barclay-street, west by Church-street,
and south and east by the other lots, part of said Church Farm; the
whole being in extent towards Barclay-street 100  feet, towards
Church-street 125 feet, on south side 100 feet, and on east side
125 feet.
It is to be remembered that the value of property at the
time these conveyances were made is very different from  its
value now.   What cost 070,000 a few  years ago, is worth
400,000 now, and what cost 010,000 then has sold for 840,000
since.  Let the Archbishop possess his soul in patience-before
the end he shall hear not only of his dealings with the living,
but with the dead in whose decease and burial he profits.
Very respectfully, for to-day,
I am yours, &c.,
ERASTUS BROOKS.
NEw  YomR, April 20, 1855.




128        CONTROVERSY BETWEEN SENATOR BROOKS
ARCHBISHOP HUGHES vs. SENATOR BROOKS.
To the Editors of the Comurier and Engzirer'
THERE is a moral of general utility involved and in process
of increasing development in the controversy between Senator
Brooks and myself, which the public will do well to store away
in its memory. If I dare maLke a suggestion for the benefit of
the rising generation whc are now receiving instruction in the
public schools, I would urge the teachers to impress upon the
children the possibility of their giving utterance to some falsehood,-since to err is humaln,-but to caution them at the same
time against the culpbility and dangers of attempting to maintain a falsehood, if by any misfortune they should have asserted
it.  And as an illustration, they might say to the classes —   Just
look at the condition of Senator Brooks, who is actually in this
predicament."  The Senator begins his unfortunate defence in
the Courier and Enquzirer of this morning, by the following assertion:
" My statements in the Senate were:
".First.-As to the fact of the property owned by John
Hughes-meaning the Archbishop.
"Secondly.-As to the value of the property thus held by
John Hughes, meaning the Archbishop.
"4 Thirdly.-As to their transfer from  Trustees to John
Hughes-meaning the Archbishop."
He adds: "I am charged with falsehood in these my several
asseverations."
It is not true that these were Mr. Senator Brooks's statements in the Senate.  It is not true that Mr. Brooks has been
charged with falsehood in these his several statements.  Mr.
Brooks knows that neither of these assertions of his is true.
And Mr. Brooks knows that he shall be my Twitness to prove that
he knows that they are not true.
In his speech in the Senate, afteri having professed. to make
himself acquainted with the amolimt of property held by John




AND ARCHBISHIOP HUGHES.                    i29
IHughes, in this city, as taken from the Register's office, he goes
on to say:
"Isuppose its value to be, in Xew Yor7c alone, not much short of
five millions of dollarcs. So far f'rom) this property being held. wohen
in Churches, by Trustees, there  are nuzmerous tracsfers fromz Trustees
to JOHN HUJGHES. Beginning with 7February, 1842, and continuing
through 1854, a friend of mine copied fifty-eight entries of as macny
distinct parcels of property made in the name of land jor JOHN
HUGbHES, all in the space of twelve years.-_Not to JOHN HUGHIES,
Bisholp, zot to JOHN HUGHES, ArchBT,7qishop (Sic)., 2zno to JoHN HUGHIES,
as trustee of the Romcan Catholic Church, but to plain JoHN HUGHES,
in his propric persona.  Some of these parcels cover whole squares of
aznd, and nearly all of them ca'e of great value."
[Speech of Mr. Brooks delivered in the Senate of New York on
the 6th of March, 1855.]
When Mr. Brooks attempts in his letter of this morning to
substitute another set of statements instead of these, and declares them to be the statements made by him in the Senate, he
does that which an honorable man, with the knowledge which he
has, would have shrunk. from doing.  He furnishes, like a brokendown witness under cross-examination, the very testimony which
is fatal to himself.
The charge of falsehood was made against his statements as
found in his speech,. and not against the silly subterfuge of statements as set down in his letter of this morning.  Having disposed of this point in which Mr. Brooks is witness against himself,
we must proceed to examine the result of his labors in trying to
make up for the two thousand two hundred and seventy-five per
et. which his account, after his first day's investigation of the
Records, left as a balance to be still accounted for, between the
truth of his defence and the falsehoods of his speech.
I shall endeavor to allow a great many trifling things to pass
to the credit of Mr: Brooks, so as to relieve hin, if possible,
from  the weight of the burden under which he labors.  He begins by alleging that he is borne out in regard to conveyances
from  trustees by the fact that the trustees of St. John's Roman
Catholic Church gave me a lease of their property.  Now one of
two things:-A. man who has a lease is either the owner of the




30O        CONTROVERSY BET.WEEN SENATOR BROOKS
property or he is not.  If he is not the owner, the property has
not been conveyed to him  in the sense of Mr. Brooks's statement, that numerous transfers of property were made to me by
trustees; and, in that event, iMr. Brooks has fai.iled to prove his
assertion.  -He has only proved that I am the tenant of the trustees of St. John's Church; and if he thinks this warrants his
statement, then a lease, according to  M/r. Brooks, will be equivalent to a deed in fee simple.  This is Radicalism, Fourierism,
such as has not been put forth before.  But besides, it so happens that this St. John's Roman Catholic Church has'been always, and now is managed, in its temporal affairs, by lay trustees,
and the Arc-hbishop has never meddled with them, except when
they attempted, once or twice, to disregard the discipline of the
diocese in other respects.
The next pretended trustee is MIr. Bartholomew O'Connor,
who became legal assignee of one of our bankrupt boards of lay
trustees, and who transferred it according to law, and entirely in
his civil capacity, as an agent of the law.. The Archbishop purchased it at the highest price it would bring, paid its debts, and
preserved it for the uses of religion to the congregation by whose
exertions it had been built, and by whose lay trustees it would
have been ruined if the Archbishop had not taken it in hand.
Mr. Brooks demurs as to the question of conveyance from
Andrew Byrne, and denies that he luplicated.  But he corrects
his error in a way which surprises me. He says now that the
transfers were made, not by Andrew Byrne to me, but by me
to Andrew Byrne. His words are:-"If he, the Archbishop,
will look again, he will see that there were two transfers froim
him" (the Archbishop) " to Andrew  Byrne."  Now, if this be
so, it will tell against AMr. Brooks, and actually increase, instead
of diminishing the per-centage of difference between the truth of
his defence, and the falsehoods of his speech in the Senate.   Ie
acknowledges, however, that in the case of Geo. WVildes, and
Agnes his wife, he, Senator Brooks, did duplicate, and counted
the same transfer twice, and in reference to this, I am proud to
see him acknowledge the truth.  He says:




AND AnClIBISTSFOP IUExIIES.             131
"I owe it to the public to state that a transfer of property
was twice cited by me by mistake, because it was so written."
WVell, well, whether it was so written or not, this little confession
will do him no harm.
But, unfortunately, Mr. Brooks shows scanty signs of penitence; for, although he acknowledges that he duplicated, he does
not omit to add the false citation to the number of entries.. In
his preceding letter, the conveyances, according to Mr. Brooks,
amounted to ten.  Now strike out from ten, one entry which he
duplicated, and let us suppose him correct in stating, as he does
in his letter of this date, that two other entries which he had
adduced as from Andrew Byrne to John Hughes, were in reality
from John Hughes to Andrew Byrne, his ten entries of yesterday are reduced to seven " for to-day."  Still, after acknowledging these mistakes, Mr. Brooks dashes on, and counts his conveyance for to-day as No. 1 instead of No. S.  This is from Zachariah Kuntz to John Hughes, and is, no doubt, the ground on
which the St. Francis Church, in 31st st., now stands.
No. 12, according to Mr. Brooks, but No. 9, according to his
corrected statement, is from James Foster and his wife to John
H-ughes.  The Senator does not say that Mr. and Mirs. Foster
had been Trustees of a Catholic Church.
No. 13 is Sarah Remsen to John Hughes.
No. 14 is Geo'rge W. Hall, of Buffalo, to John Hughes.
No. 15 is from  James Pae, of Macon, Georgia, to John
Hughes.
No. 16. George W. Hall and wife to John Hughes.
No. 17. G. W. and H. A. Costar to John Hughes.
Here I must pause to point out an instance of the exceeding
exactness and scrupulosity with which our Senator describes the
dimensions of this particular lot.  He says it is between 7th and
Sth streets, and is " one huzndrced feet by two inches."  See what
it is to be exact.  A few more discoveries of this kind will mount
up towards the five millions.  One hundred feet by two inches!
No. 18. Mary Anne Gaffney, B. Gaffney, and A. J. Donnelly
to John Hughes.




132         CONTROVERSY BETWEEN SENATOR  [ BROOKS
No. 19. Johln V. WVTestervelt, sherif, to John H-ughes.
No. 20. Richard Kein, clergyman, to John -lughes.
No. 21.Gregory Dillon to John Hughes.
Thus closes Senator Brooks's second day's labor in finding out
the entries of property conveyed to me.  I shall not examine
them minutely, but just take them as the Senator has presented
them.  I shall only claim  that he shall strike out three from
twenty-one, as mistakes acknowledgecd by himself-then there
will remain eighteen.  But in his speech at Albany he asserted
that he had " copied FIFTY-EIGIT ENTRIES OF AS MANY DISTINCT
PARCELS OF PROPERTY, made in the name of land from  John
Hughes."  Out of these he has discovered, so far, but eighteen;
and he has forty more to find out, if he would support the false
statement of his speech. —But M]r. Brooks begins to despair of
the Recorder's Office, and I shall not trouble him further at present in regard to it, except to say that I shall hold hin accountable for the forty other entries which would be necessary to
change the statement in his speech from a falsehood into a fict.
He hopes to prove, however, from the Catholic Almanac, what the
Register's office fails him in. ~ He says the diocese of Brooklyn has
fifteen churches, and insinuates that I am the owner of them all.
The diocese of Buffalo has a hundred churches, and that of Albany
eighty-seven, and Mir. Brooks arranges his defence so as to insinuate that these churches belong to me.  I may tell him that all
church property in the diocese of Brooklyn, Albany and Buffalo
belong to the Catholic people of each.
But Mlr. Brooks is determined that I shall be rich whether
I will or not, and he enumerates, not as from the Register's office,
but as from the Catholic Almanac, among other items of property, " The Confraternity of the Rosary, &c., &c."  The Arch.Confraternity of the Immaculate HIeart of Mvary."-He does not
tell us by whom  conveyances were made to us of these parcels
of property.  We may suppose, however, that they are from
John Doe and. Richard Roe cnd their vwives, as found recorded
in Lib. 1,759, page, a little short of 5,000,000.
Our veracious Senator next enumerates as my property:




AND ARCIIBISHOP HTGOHES.                 133
e The Redemptorist Convent, 3d street.
"College of St. Francis Xavier, West 15th street.
Community of Brothers, Canal street.
"Academy of the Holy Infant Jesus, Manhattanville.
" Convent of the Sacred Heart, near Manhattanville.
" Sacred Heart Academy, near Harlem.
"Convent of Sisters of Mercy, Houston and Mulberry.
"Academy of St. Vincent, 107th street.
" St. Mary's School, East Broadway."
I must tell Mr. Brooks, that in this long list of institutions
I have not the slightest portion of property, as he will find if he
takes'the trouble to examine the records of the Register's office
a little more minutely.
In the Senator's next effort I would suggest to him, if he can
do it honestly, to diminish the large per centage of difference
between whatever is of truth in his defence and the falsehood of
statements made by him in his speech at Albany, by slipping in
to my account, towards making up the five millions, a large slice
of the real estate, which, it is generally understood, is owned by
William B. Astor, Esq.-Of course I have said, if this can be
done honestly.  It will save the Senator the trouble of going
out of this city, either to the diocese of Albany, or Buffalo, or
Brooklyn.
Let us now come to the arithmetic of the matter. We allowed
him  for his first day's labor in the Register's office a discovery
of property to the amount of two hundred thousand dollars.
For his second, and just to encourage him in making out his five
millions, we will allow his discoveries to be worth two hundred
thousand more.  Let us state it thus:
According to Senator Brooks in the Senate of New York, on
the 6th of last Miarch, the property of Archbishop HIughes, in
the City of New York alone, was worth                $4,750,000
Mr. Brook's first day's investigation of the Archbishop's real estate, say,..   8200,000
Second day's ditto,... 200,000
Deduct....                     400,000
Balance between truth and falsehood still to be accounted for by the Senator..      14.350,000




:3.I4      COONTROVERSY BEiTWEEN SENATOR BROOKTI'S
Besides this, Mr. Brooks will have to account for the forty
missing entries on the Register's books, which he paraded'before
the Senate on the clay and date above mentioned.  And I hope
he will not give up the Register's Office for the Catholic Almanzac or enumerate any more " Confraternities of the PRosary"
among the parcels of my property.  But what has become of the
whole squares of land which the Senator says were mine? Verily
the Senator's case furnishes a moral, and should be held up as a
beacon, cautioning youth especially against an attempt to sustain
any statement which they know to be untrue.  How easy.would
it have been for MYr. Brooks to have come out at first with the
old saw, humCtanuml  est errare?   H-ow  nmuch less humiliating
than his present position, if he had said that he had been misled
by the false statements of the Trustees' Petition from St. Louis's
Church, Buffalo; that for a moment the anti-popery mania had
taken possession of his will, memory and understanding; that he
had been carried away by the passions of the hour, and did not
reflect on what he was saying, &c., &c.
His letter of this date shows that in his zeal to make up the
difference between truth and falsehood, he does not overlook the
smallest things.  WVae have seen already the minuteness with
which he has set down that valuable property of mine, which, according to him, is a hundred feet one way by two inches the
other. IHe has discovered, also, that, by a deed in the Recorder's
office, I am  entitled to a free seat in the Harlem  PRailroad cars
from the City IHall to Fordham, and from  Fordham to the City
IHall, as often as I choose to ride.  It is ungeierous in Mr.
Brooks to quote this, because in his speech he asserted that he
spoke of my property in the. city of New -York alone, whereas, if
he reflects for a moment, he will perceive that this property of a
free seat in the Iiarlem  Railroad cars, is only partly in the city.
It is in the city from the Park to Harlem Bridge, and all beyond
that is out of the city.  This is a small matter, but iMr. Brooks
is so nice and scrupulous in his enumerations of my property,
that I think he must have overlooked it through inadvertency.
The public will perceive that in all I have hitherto written




AND ARCI-ISHOP HUGHES.                   135
I have not embarrassed the question by any explanation of the
circumstances under which property has been entered in my
name.  I reserve to myself the privilege of giving a full and
candid account of such matters, for the information of those who
may take an interest in the question, so soon as 1Mr. Brooks shall
have accounted for the balance of my property, constituting the
difference, if he is to be believed, between $400,000, for which
we have given him credit already, and $4,750,000 which he said
my property in the city of New York alone was worth, on the
6th of last March. But I cannot close the present communication
without again directing the attention of the public to the dangers,
not so much of making a false and foolish statement in a senatorial speech, as Mr. Brooks has done, but of persevering, as MLr.
Brooks does, in the attempt to sustain it by new subterfuges.
-- JOHN, ARCHBISHOP OF NEW YoCRa.
NEW YORal, April 21.
SENATOR BROOKS vs. ARCHBISHOP -IUGHES.
To the. Editors of the Courier and _Etnquirer.
I am still accused by " Ei JOHn, Arch'bishop of New York,"
of uttering and mainaitaning FALSE-OODS.  My defence is called
ounfortucnate, my statements false, foolish, and silly subteifuges,
my position hzumiliating, my testimony, fatal to qyself, and, to
sum up all in a sentence, I have done that which " ac, honorable
man would shrink fromt doinzg."  This is a heavy load for an
Archbishop to buckle on the shoulders of an humble layman like
myself; but if his Arch Highness is content with the progress
of the controversy, so am I. If he is satisfied with his string of
epithets, I am content with my record of facts.  If I was "1 in an
awkward position," in the beginning, and have multiplied " the
awkwardness of that position," in the continuation of this correspondence, so much the worse for me, and so much the better
for the Archbishop.
I shall proceed in the debate as I have begun, hoping, for the




136        CONTROVERSY BETWEEN SENATOR BROOKS
sake of a good cause, neither to lose miy temper nor my m1anners.
The charges of "falsehood" and " folly," of'" dishonor" and
" humiliation," fall harmless at my feet.  They neither disturb
my nerves by day, nor my rest at night. Each of us are addressing an intelligent people, who are capable of deciding questions
of veracity between man and man, upon the record which his
Grace and myself are furnishing the public. I have but a single
regret in all the controversy so far, and that is, that all those
whom the Archbishop addresses through the'public press, I am
not also permitted to speak to in the same way. In that "meanest of all printed newspapers, the New YFor1k ExfEpress,"-as the
amiable and gentlemanly Archbishop is pleased to style a journal
in which my name is associated with others, he has had a hearing,
in full, which I have in vain called for, from the press under his
control.  This may be deemed fair play at Rome, but fair men
in America, whether Catholic or Protestant, will regard it as at
least wanting in magnanimity and justice.
I have been trying to find an apology for the irritability and
personality of the gentleman who styles himself "+'   JoiN,
Archbishop of New York."  The Legislature preceding the present were asked to pass a special Act for the benefit of him, his
sect and party, not only in violation of the spirit of the State
acts of April 6, 1788,  March 17, 1795, and all these acts combined in one, and which became the law of the State in 1813,
but in violation of the 38th article of the old Constitution, which
declared in terms that the People and State were " required by
the benevolent principles of rational liberty, not only to expel
civil tyranny, but also to guard against that spiritual oppression
and intolerance wherewith the ambition of weak and wicked
priests and princes have scourged mankind."
The Legislature came near forgetting the old law, the old
Constitution, and that equal and exact justice, which is the rock
of our existence as a free Republic.  But reason prevailed over
error.  The Legislature not only refused additional power to the
Archbishop and his party THEN, but they, the successors of that
Legislature, have taken steps to restore to Church Trustees,




AND ARCHBISHOP HUGHES.                   137
Congregations, Corporations and individual worshippers, the
power of which they were robbed by the Baltimore Ordinances
of 1849 and 1852, and by the demands of the Archbishop hiamself.
Before I have done with the Archbishop, and his accusations
of FALSEHOOD against me, I shall have occasion to show that, ilmediately after the Baltimore Council of Bishops decreed, in
1849, that all the churches and other ecclesiastical property
acquired by gifts, or through the obligations of the faithful, designed to be expended for charitable or religious uses, belong to
the Bisfholo, unless it is certified in writing that it was given for
some religious order or congregation of priests,-Archbishop
Hughes set about securing conveyances of church property TO
HIMSELF, in all parts of the State.  I have such conveyances
from Erie and elsewhere, which will appear all in good season.
Mly offence is, in the eyes of the Archbishop, that I voted for,
and-spoke for, the Church Property Bill of Mar. Putnam, so unlike that Church Property Bill, for the benefit of him  and his,
which was before a previous Legislature.  I have shown the
Archbishop's zeal to possess the temporalities of the people of
his diocese and of the State.  I have pointed to his titles and
his deeds, and overhauled a long list of records to him, his heirs
and assignees.  I have, I think, through these records, made the
Archbishop hateful in his own eyes, and certainly a reproach
even among many of his own people, whose sympathies and encouragement I have.  -eI reads in the Church Property Bill a
law  of the State, overthrowing the decrees of his Council of
Bishops, and putting an end to those transfers of church property, whether of trustees or persons when conveyed to >  John
Hughes.  That law puts an end to grants, conveyances, devises,
and leases to persons in ecclesiastical offices, or to their successors,
and it grieves the Archbishop to the quick, to see his enormous
accumulations checked by law, and the people whose spiritual
leader he is, placed even in control of those walls of brick and
mortar, which have been built by the labor of their own hands.
He may deny a priest to those who conform  to the law, and




138          CONTROVERSY BETWEEN SENATOR BROOKS
threaten a hundred curcuche  s s he did the St. Louis Church at
Buffalo, that he will see their edifices, brick by brick, tumble to
pieces before he will grant them  a spiritual teacher, or priest.
Or, he may fulfil his declared intention of defeating the law of
the  State, if he can, through those'professional gentlemedn"
who'" may discover some defect inz the fJiamingy and wording of
the enactnment whiclh will'render it inapplqicable! "  But let me
whisper to him, thus early, that other Legislatures will fill the
chinks and crannies which his crafty mind thus opens in advance,
and which skilful lawyers may aid him  in keeping open for a
season.  The law has a spirit as well as a letter, and in this land
the rule of conduct with all good citizens is, that the law must
be obeyed-even by archbishops.
I begin my. additional record to-day with another conveyance
"from Trustees to John Hughes," and preface it with the Archbishop's repeated declaration, recorded in the Express, recorded
in the Courierl and recorded in the Times, on two diferent cdays
of two different weeks, that I was guilty of FALSnEOOD, in declaring that church property had been conveyed to him by Trustees:
LOOK ON THIS PICTURE.                AND NOW ON THIIS.
STATEMENT  IN  TIIE AICHBISIIOP'S   THE ARCI-BISHOP AGAINST TEI
FIRST aLETTER.                        RECORD.
" I have never received or ac- See the conveyance of thecepted ANY transfer of ANY Fpro-    TRUSTIEES of St. eJohn's RComan.pertjy WHATEVER'pom  T?'rutstees.   Catholic Cheurchi to John  -lughes,
*      *   Mr. Brooks' state- dated July 1itth, 1844, 999 years.
ment' I Iow r TO BE UNTIUE.'"    Consideration one cent a year 
STATEMIENT IN  THE ARCHTSI-OP's I now placeSECOND LETTER.               Tl-HE ARCHBISHOP Coagainst -HuI"Any  one who asserts  that SELF.    See his letter April 19th.
many of the conveyances of real See by his own comment upon
estate to me were made by Trus- conveyance No. 8, cited by me,
tees, asserts a gross, and, towarzds where he admits that ~Mr. Barthonme, an injurEious FALSEHOOD!"    lomew  O'Connor (in the case of
his transfer to John Hughes) "woas
only the Assignee [to him] of a
BANKRUPT BOARD OF TRUSTEES 8 




AND ARCI-IBISHOP HUGHES.                    139
But the end is not yet, though this mnight do for a poor layman, like myself, in a controversy with a distinguished.Archbishop.  But, as I said there vere  more  conveyances than one
to Joln  -lughes, from  Trustees, I am, perhaps, bound to cite
more than the two of this class already named, albeit I could not
see the cause of the Archbishop's soreness on this point until the
truth flashed upon my mind, that all such conveyances from
Trustees to JooRhz. Juthes were illegal candc void!
Trustees have no authority to  convey church property to
archbishop, bishop, or priest, except upon application to the Supreme Court, which, I believe, has in no instance, in the record
before me, been done.  This is the law, and the Archbishop has,
therefore, received and holds property in violation of law, which
belongs to the Trustees, or those for whose benefit the trust ras
held!  Will the possessor return  this property  to the  legal
owners.
But let me give another of the Archbishop's examples of
avoiding issues and facts.  HIe says:
"He (Mr. Brooks) begins by alleging, that he is borne out in regard
to conveyances from trustees by the fact that the trustees of St. John's
Roman Catholic Church gave me a lease of their property.  Now one
of two things: A man who has a lease is either the owner of the
property or he is not.  If he is not the owner, the property has not
been conveyed to him in the sense of Mr. Brooks's statement, that numerous transfers of property were made to me by trustees; and, in
that event, Mr. Brooks has failed to prove his assertion.  I-e has only
proved that I am the tenant of the trustees of St. John's Church; and
if he thinks this warrants his statement, then a lease, according to Mr.
Brooks, will be equivalent to a deed in fee simple. T-his is Rladicalism,
Fourierism, such as has not been put forth before."
My answer is, that that is property which the law  makes
property, and a conveyance for 999 years at one cent a year, to
John Hughes, his heirs and assignees, makes the property his,
morally, legally, actually.   It is in his name, at his disposal,
under his control.  It is so recorded, and nothing but his will
and pleasure can change the record.
If the Archbishop will leave off calling names long enough
to refer to the 2d Revised Statutes he will find, pages 162 and




140         CONTROVERSY BETWEEN SENATOR BROOKS
171, last edition, sections 1 and 58, the following to be the law
of the case:
"The term' conveyance,' as used in this chapter, shall be construed to embrace every instrument in writing by which any estate is
created, aliened, mortgaged or assigned, or by which the title to any
real estate may be effected in loan or equity, except last wills and testaments, leases for a term not exceeding three years, and executory
contracts for the sale or purchase of lands."
The following extract from  the Revised Statutes will show
that property held in the Bishop's name,is his also, unless thus
held in violation of other statutes:
"Every conveyance of real estate, within this State hereafter made,
shall be recorded in the office of the Clerk of the County where such
real estate shall be situated, and every such conveyance not so recorded
shall be void as against any subsequent purchaser in good faith and
for a valuable consideration of the same real estate or any portion
thereof, whose conveyance shall first be duly recorded."
The Archbishop, as badly off in law as in fact, must now fly
to some other technicality to find means of escape.  One cannot
but marvel to see His Grace misquote my speech-(as where he
twice puts lccnc for ancd)-and feel pity for him vwhen he misstates my letter in regard to the conveyance from Andrew Byrne.
The record stated that the transfer was to John -Hughes, and I
proved from  that record that two distinct conveyances, of two
distinct parcels of property, were made to himl-John Hugh-es.
He is welcome to the advantages of an obvious typographical
error.  A resort to such straws shows the weakness of his cause
and tile desperation of his mind.  Dealing with one who uses
such weapons, and hides himself behind such a refuge, I almost
forget that I am dealing with one who is styled the " Most Rev.
John Hughes, D.D., Archbishop of the Province and Archdiocese
of New York."
But I have not done with the conveyances of property to
John Hughes —meaning the Archbishop-nor with the conveyances of trustees to him.  I am  called over and over again a
falsifier on this point, and here is a continuation of my answer
to such courteous denunciations.




AN[) ARCIIBISHOP IUGHOES.                    141
CONVEYANCES OF TRUSTEES TO JOHN HUGHES.
RECORD NUMBER TWENTY-TWO.
From the Begister's Office, City of INew Yor7.
The Trustees of
Tran Tsiustees of        ) Date of Conveyance, Dec. 9, 1I851.-~eTransfigu~'tio^a    Chur.ch..'     * 
tfiguurat-o  Chu  corded in liber 591, page 258.  ConJon H hes,   J   sideration one dollar.
All those two certain lots of ground situate, lying and being on
north side of Chambers street, in the City of New York, and which,.
on a map or survey made by Cassine H. Goerch, City Surveyor, dated
May 7, 1795, are known and distinguished by lots numbers 16 and 17,
adjoining each other, and are together bounded south by Chambers
street, north by lots numbers 86 and 37 on said map, and west by lot
number 15, and east by lot number 18 on said map, being together,
front and rear, 50 feet in breadth, and in length 75 feet 7} inches,
agreeably to said map; and also, all that certain messuage or dwellinghouse, and lot, piece or parcel of ground situate, lying and being in
Reade street, in the City of New York, described in a certain Indenture of deed recorded in liber 133 of Conveyances, page 11, as follows:
all that certain lot, piece or parcel of land situate, lying and being in
Reade street, in the Sixth Ward in the City of New York, known
and distinguished by number 23, bounded north in front by Reade
street aforesaid, south in the rear by land claimed by John Agnew,
west by ground belonging to Geo. Brinckerhoff, and east by ground
claimed by heirs of Peter Nailor, containing in breadth, in front and
rear, 25 feet, and in length, on each side, 75 feet 7 inches.
NUMBER TWENTY-THREE.
Peter Johnston anCd  Date of Conveyance, March 3, 1853.  Recorded
lfart7ha, his wife,  in liber 623, p. 498, March 4, 1853.  Considto John lHughes.       eration $3,709.
All those certain two lots, pieces or parcels of ground, situate,
lying and being in the Eighteenth Ward of the City of New York, and
bounded and described as follows: beginning at a point on the south
line of Fifteenth street, at the distance of 250 feet westerly from southwest corner of Fifteenth street and Avenue B, thence running northwest along said south line to Fifteenth street 50 feet, thence running
southwest at right angles to said south line and parallel'with west line
of Avenue B, 103 feet 3 inches, to a line equi-distant from  Fourteenth
street and Fifteenth street, thence running along said last mentioned
line southeast and parallel with said south line of Fifteenth street 50
feet, and thence running northeast and parallel with said west line of
Avenue B, 103 feet 3 inches to place of beginning.
NUMBER TWENTY-FOUR.
M.ichael ifceon an  Date of Conveyance, June 13, 1853; Recorded
Eliza) his ife,   i  in liber 650, p. 324, Nov. 5, 1853.  ConsidJohn Hughes.    j   eration, $8,000.
John Hughes..J




142          CONTROVERSY BETWEEN SENATOR BROOKS
All those two certain lots, pieces or parcels of land, situate, lying
and being in the Ninth Ward of City of New York, known and distinguished on a map or chart of the property of Trinity Church, called
the 3d R. N. Division of the Church farm  by the numbers 215 and 216,
the said lots lying together, being bounded and described as follows:
Beginning on the south side of Le Roy street, at a point distant 100
feet eastwardly fromn  the corner formed by its intersection with the
easterly side of Greenwich street; running  thence southerly at right
angles to Le Roy street 100 feet; thence eastwardly, parallel with
Le Roy street 50 feet; thence northwardly at right angles to Le Roy
street 100 feet to Le Roy street; and thence westwardly along the
south line of Le Roy street 50 feet to place of beginning; each of said
lots being 25 feet front and rear, and 100 feet on each side.
NUtIBERI TWENTY-FIVE..TheOcsa.E. DcaIms anctZ} )
Thomas    Davis and  Date of Conveyance, April 27, 1853.  RecordA~tnne) Mwife,          ed i b 6, 
toAnn^,  s                                     d  in liber 631, p. 438, May 26, 1853.  ConJoh7n1b BHlghes.    j   sideration, $500.
All that certain lot, piece or parcel of land situate, lying and being
on the north side of One Hundred and Seventeenth street, in the
Twelfth Ward of the City of New York, and bounded and described as
follows, viz.: Commencing at a point on the said north side of One Hundred and Seventeenth street, distant 200 feet east fiom northeast corner of One Hundred and Seventeenth street and Fourth Avenue; running northerly and parallel with Fourth Avenue 100 feet to the centre
line of the, block between One Hundred and Seventeenth and One Hundred and Eighteenth streets; th-ence east and parallel with One Hundred and Seventeenth street 25 feet; thence south and parallel wvith
Fourth Avenue 100 feet to said north side of One Hundred and Seventeenth street; and thence westerly along said north side of One Hundred and Seventeenth street 25 feet to point or place of beginning.
NUMBER TWVrENTY-SIX.
Jcames R?. Bo'liey. anid.
JTales. Pc  olson  Assignment of Lease.  RPecorded  in liber
jalnes B'. _3;icho gon IZ
to                586, p. 486, Dec. 17, 1851.  Consideration
Jbhnz Iuglhes.      I   $3 00.
Trustees appointed by the Supreme Court in place of Charles C.
Rice, D. D., Surveying Assignee, &,c.
NUIBERlt TWENTY-SEVEN.
Thomas Lennow   ) Date of Conveyance, Aug. 30, 1851.  Recordto             ed  in  liber 582, page 378.   Consideration,
John  frughes.        $1.
All and singular those certain lots, pieces or parcels of land situate,
lying and being in the Nineteenth Ward of City of New York, and
severally known and distinguished on a certain map drawn Feb. 10,




AND ARCIHBI-IOP   UGHES.                     1.43
1851, by D. Ewen, City Surveyor, and filed in Register's Office as Nos.
41, 42, 43 and 44, which said four lots, taken together as one parcel,
are in the aggregate described as follows, that is to say: Beginning at
a point on the southwest line of Eighty-fourth street, distant 800 feet
southeast from intersection of southeast line of the Fifth Avenue with
the southeast line of Eighty-fourth street; thence running northwest,
but along the southwest line of Eighty-fourth street 100 feet; thence
southwest but parallel to Fifth Avenue 102 feet and 2 inches; thence
southwest, thence southeast, but parallel to Eighty-third street, 180
feet; thence northeast but parallel to Fifth Avenue 102 feet and 2
inches, to place of beginning.
NUMBER TWENTY-EIIGIT.
Henry Grinnell and ]
Sarcah.l, his wi3fe,  Date Feb. 1, 1853.  Recorded in liber 626, p.
to          h  505, March 1, 1853.  Consideration,  912,000.
Johlnm Hughes.   J
All those certain lots, pieces, or parcels of land, situate, lying, and
being on north side of Fourteenth street, in the Eighteenth ward of
the city of New York, being part of certain premises conveyed to said
Henry Grinnell by Eliphalet Nott and wife, by deed  bearing  date
August 1, 1851, and recorded in Register's Office, in liber 579, page
424, as the same are laid down and designated on the diagram annexed
to said deed, by numbers 203, 204, 205, and 206, which taken together, are bounded and described as follows: Beginning at a point
on the north side of Fourteenth street, distant 250 feet west from
north-west corner of Fourteenth street and Avenue B; running thence
west along north side of Fourteenth street 100 feet; thence north,
on a line parallel with Avenue B, 103 feet 3 inches, to centre line of
block between Fourteenth and Fifteenth streets; thence east along
said centre line 100 feet; thence south, and on a parallel with Avenue
B, 103 feet 3 inches, to place of beginning.
NUMIUBER TWENTY-NINE.
George -N  Larente an  I Date of contract, Dec. 10, 1852.  Recorded
Ilfary   nn,  his wf    1
JTohn HSzughes.     J   sideration, $2,400.
All those six certain lots, pieces, or parcels of ground, situate,
lying and being in the Twelfth ward of the city of New York, and
known and distinguished on a map of property belonging to Hicks,
Lawrence & Co., surveyed Dec. 27, 1353, and on file in the Register's
Office, by numbers 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, and 66.  Said lots being taken
together are bounded and described as follows: Beginning at a point
on the north-west corner of One HIundred and Thirty-first street and
Bloomingdale road, running thence west along  north  line of Ono




144         CONTROVERSY BETWEEN. SENATOR BROOKS
Hundred and Thirty-first street, 143 feet; thence north and parallel
with Eleventh avenue, 99 feet 10 inches; thence east and parallel
with One -Hundred and Thirty-first street, 134 feet to Bloomingdale
road; and thence south along west side of Bloomingdale road, to
place of beginning.
NUMBER THIRTY.,SGc~nzmue7 iievo7y andc A
Samuel hNhisey and      Date of Conveyance, February 2, 1852.
Sah, his wf^'e^,     Recorded in liber 594, page 237, Feb.
to
John Iu^es.17  1852.  Consideration, $6,000.
dJohn ifughes.
All those four certain lots, pieces, or parcels of land situate, lying,
and being on-north-east side of Forty-second street, between Eighth
and Ninth avenues, in the city of New York, and known and distinguished on a map and file in the Register's Office, by numbers 586,
587, 588, and 589, the said lots containing each 25 feet in width, in
front and rear, and 100 feet 4 inches in depth on each side, and
bounded south-west by Forty-second street, north-east by lots Nos. 550,
551, 552 and 553, south-east by lot No. 585, north-west by lot No. 590.
The Archbishop will see that while he is abusive in words, I
am not idle in facts.  I-He will see that I have proved what I said
in the Senate in regard to his large possessions of property in this
City.  He will see that I have proved what I said in regard to
conveyances to him  from  Trustees.  He will see that I am reporting pretty rapid progress, too, in regard to the value of the
Church Property held by him in this City.  He might see, if he
would, the difference in value between property in this City ten
and twelve years ago and now,-but as he won't see without my
aid, I shall furnish him with a pair of spectacles to do so by and
by.  He might make a clean breast of the magnitude of his possessions in real estate, if he would, and thus save himself the
mortification of seeing his duplicity exposed, and me the trouble
of exposing that duplicity.  But to quote JOHN HUGHESs, humcanuotm  est errcare.  I am  more in pursuit of a PRINCIPLE than a
man, and my object has been, is, and will be, to show how AntiRepublican in a Government like this, it is for any man, and
most of all the Archbishop of a great Church, to be engaged as
a Broker in Rleal Estate-to be employed in buying houses and
lands, churches and vacant lots, especially when some of those




AND ARCHBISHOP HUGHES.                 145
lots, reduced to 4 by 4, and 8 by 8, and 16 by 16, are speculated in as burial places FOn THE DEAD.
For to-day, again, I am,
Very respectfully, yours, &c.,
ERASTUS BROOKS.
NEW YORK, April 23, 1855.
ARCHBISHOP HUGHES TO SENATOR BROOKS.
To the Editors of the Courier and Enquirer:
I have charged Senator Brooks with falsehoods, uttered deliberately by him in the Senate Chamber of New York, and calculated, if not intended, to inflict injury on my reputation. I
have sustained the charge already to some extent by facts, and
pledge myself to the public that other facts shall not be wanting
to complete the proof of my charge.  In the mean time, Senator
Brooks affects to ignore the evidences that brand him as no honorable man would suffer himself to be branded, as nothing more
than idle epithets that have no meaning. If I call a man a
thief, or the receiver of property stolen from me, he may say
(provided he is innocent) that the charge of theft, or the receiving of stolen goods, falls harmless at his feet-that if I am satisfied with my " string of epithets," he is content with his "record
of facts." But if I show on his person the very property which
has been stolen from me, it is too late for him to say that " my
charges fall harmless at his feet."
I use this illustration not as intended to degrade Mr. Brooks
in any way, but to point out to him that when I charge him with
falsehood, it is because he has been guilty of falsehood, and if he
dare deny the chargeI am quite prepared to prove it.
Our Senator, therefore, must see the necessity of standing up
for his reputation. The matter is too serious for that philosophy
which he attempts to put on. He should know that his friends,
his constituents, the Legislature of New York, and the people of




146        CONTROVERSY BETWEEN SENATOR BROOKS
the State and country at large, have an interest in his reputation
which he has no right to trifle with. No man is the absolute
owner either of his life or character. Neither the one nor the
other is his property in any sense that would authorize him to
destroy or damage it.  His life is the property of God. His
character belongs to his fellow-men.  His relation to either is
that of a trustee, and society has a right to require that he shall
act as a faithful guardian for the preservation of both.  Mr. Senator Brooks, therefore, is not at liberty to affect the philosophy
of indifference when the charge of falsehood is brought against
him on responsible authority.  He has no right to let himself
down to a position of acknowledged degradation, without making
an effort to sustain himself against charges which are damaging
to his character only in so far as, unhappily for him, they are too
true.
Again, Mr. Brooks may not attempt to throw dust into the
eyes of that "intelligent people" whom we both address, by
copying out extracts from the Register's Office as regards property conveyed to me.  This is not the question.  If Mr. Brooks
had stated before the Senate that certain conveyances had been
made to me in the City of New York, or elsewhere, he would
have stated what I myself was the first to proclaim —what is
known to the whole community of New York, and what requires
no proof.  It is known to all that for the last twelve or fourteen
years, property designed for Catholic church purposes has been
vested in the Bishop,-said property being in all other respects
for its uses, its income, its, expenditures, as much the property of
the several congregations, as if it had been invested in lay Trustees,-the only difference being that there is no authority whereby such property can be mortgaged and brought into jeopardy
by irresponsible laymen without the knowledge and concurrence
of the Bishop.  By copying extracts from,the Register's Office,
therefore, Mr. Brooks is attempting to prove what is not in dispute, what is admitted, what is known to all as a general fact.
But even in his undertaking to prove what every body knows
as to the general fact, Mr. Brooks is not justified in falsifying




AND ARCHBISHOP HUGHES.                  147
the records from which he pretends to give extracts. In this he
shows the moral danger of any attempt to sustain a primary
falsehood, since every such attempt involves the necessity of having recourse to secondary, and, in maintaining these, to certify
falsehoods ad infinitum nauseaen.  The fiat of the Almighty at
the Creation, in reference to plants and trees, ordaining that each
should bear fruit and seed according to its kind, is perfectly applicable to truth and falsehood.  Each bears fruit according to
its kind.
To elucidate this principle it will be sufficient to state that
in human thought or human language there are but three kinds
of propositions possible. First, the proposition which is true and
which yields fruit according to its kind, requiring nothing but
truth to sustain it.  Second, the proposition which is false, and
in like manner yields fruit according to its kind, making it necessary that other falsehoods should be invented and employed
for its support.  Third, a mixed proposition, which is partly true
and partly false; but which, when it comes to be analyzed, and the
portion which is true divided from the portion which is false, will
produce distinct corresponding fruits each according to its kind.
The portion which is false will require falsehoods for its support,
and the portion which is true will rest exclusively for support on
the fruits which it bears according to its kind. In other words,
falsehood cannot be maintained by truth, nor does truth ever require to be maintained by falsehood.
Having premised these observations, I proceed to say that of
the primary falsehoods contained in Mr. Brooks's speech in the
Senate of New York, the first I shall notice is the statement
that " The value of Archbishop Hughes's property in the city of
Newt  York alone is not mzuch short of five millions of collcrs."
As Mr. Brooks is engaged in an attempt to sustain this falsehood,
I shall reserve for another communication the proofs that it has
already borne fruits according to its kind.
The second is the statement in his speech that he " had copied
from the records fifty-eight entries of as many distinct parcels of
property made in the name of and for John Hughes."  The Sen



148        CONTROVERSY BETWEEN SENATOR BROOKS
ator's extracts from the Register's Office, are an attempt to sustain this statement, and although he has falsified the entries and
counted; at least one entry twice over, as shall be shown more
fully hereafter, he has as yet reached only No. 30 out of fiftyeight, leaving twenty-eight distinct entries to be still accounted
for. In regard to the fifty-eight entries, we find in his speech
the following statement, embodied by way of annotation:-" To
those who were curious in suc7z matters, Mr. Brooks exhibited
to the Senate the number, book, and page of these several entries
in the city of New  York."  This was on the 6th of last March.
He has in his pretended extracts from  the Register's Office
counted some entries twice; he has falsified others, and yet having arrived, according to his own calculation, at No. 30 out of
fifty-eight, for which he had day and date, book and number, and
page to flourish in the face of his brother Senators more than
seven weeks ago, he now acknowledges himself as wzinus habens,
and begs for somebody to help him out of his difficulty.  This
may be seen from  the following advertisement in that meanest
of all printed newspapers, which it is unnecessary to mention:
"C0ONVEYANCES TO ARCHBISHOP  TUGIrES.
"The friends of the rights of Church Trustees and the Laity
against the usurpations of Archbishop Hughes and his associates, are
requested to send abstracts of conveyances of Church Properrty to him,
to the office of the New York Express.  Our object is to elicit the truth
as to the amount and value of the Church Property owned by the
Archbishop and his associates in office."
So, then, Senator Brooks is now begging that some body
may furnish him with evidences to support a statement made by
him on the 6th of March, accompanied with a pretended exhibition of number, book, &c., which contained the official proofs
of the statements in his speech.  Verily, the Senator's propositions are bearing fruit each according to its kind!
The third of the primary falsehoods of his speech was that
"some of these parcels cover whole squar'es of land, and nearly
all of them aere of great value."  I take it for granted that
Senator Brooks admits the falsehood of this statement, inasmuch




AND ARCHBISHOP HUGHES.                    149
as hitherto he has made no allusion to it.  If, however, he does
not admit its falsehood, surely he will not withhold from  the
public the whereabouts of these whole squares of land.
The fourth primary falsehood which I pointed out in the
speech of the Senator is, that " numerous transfers of this property, or  parcels of land, were made by trustees to John
Hughes. "
I have always denied that I ever asked, sought, received, or
accepted any property from  lay trustees.  This denial I repeat
to-day with increased emphasis.  My words in a public documlent, published before I had seen the speech of Senator Brooks,
were, "that I never recognise in them " (trustees of the Catholic
Church property) " the right of ownership; * *        * * that " they
could not make over to me the title of such property; that it
was not theirs in such a sense or for such a purpose; that they
could not do it if they would."  Mr. Brooks affects to believe
that he has invalidated this statement by the fact that the
trustees of St. John's Church made to me a lease of their property for 999 years.  Now to prove the truth of my statement
in this particular, it is only necessary to mention two facts.
The one is, that this transfer was that of a lease, and not of
property in fee-simple, as the false statement in the Senator's
speech implied.   The second is, that so far from  accepting
this property, as giving me any right of ownership, I have
never meddled with the management of its temporal affairs,
directly or indirectly-that it is now, and always has been, administered by lay trustees, just in the same manner as if no such
transfer of lease had ever been made.
I wish it to be understood that every report of extracts
which Mr. Brooks has hitherto put forth as from the Register's
records, shall be specifically and critically examined by a professional gentleman, with the view of showing, number by number,
how  the several primary falsehoods of the Senator's speech
have borne fruit, each according to its kind, in his attempt to
sustain them.  The Senator has obtained from " The Trade " a
series of opinions extracted from  various newspapers favorable




150        CONTROVERSY BETWEEN SENATOR BROOKS
to his position. He forgets that the matters in debate between
him and me are matters of fact and not of opinion.  What if
the legislature of New  York and the Supreme Court of the
United States gave an opinion either in his favor or in mine.
It would not be worth a straw, inasmuch as the question is not one
of opinion but one of fact.  Two and two make four.  That is
a fact.  And if any man were to say that they make five or
seven, the endorsements of other men, possibly as blinded as
himself, would not alter the state of his case one iota.
Besides, these worthy confreres of Senator Brooks are under
a mistaken view of the subject.  They seem to suppose that if
any property had been conveyed to me, then Senator Brooks is
right and I am wrong.  They seem to suppose that I denied the
ownership of any property.  But this pretended ignorance must
be a piece of affectation.  They do not forget that in my very
first letter I admitted the ownership of property, nor was I at
all parsimonious in reserving a sufficient amount to myself out
of the unexpected fortune of twenty-five millions bestowed on
me by The Presbyterian, which Mr. Brooks had the cruelty to
reduce to a sum barely short of five millions.
They do not forget that taking this diminished appropriation
of the Senator as the standard of calculation, I reserve1 the
amount of two millions as a provision against want in my old age,
and devoted the surplus, say $2,750,000, to the establishment
of a great institution which was to bear the title of " The
ERASTUS Brooxs LIBRARY "-that is, on the hypothesis that the
Senator should point out where all this immense property was.
The Senator has attempted to change the issue, and he writes
little squibs himself, or gets others to write them for him, or
accepts them if spontaneously offered, to the effect that he has
triumphed over me, because he has proved that some conveyances of land have been made in my favor, which was never
denied. But let these kind editors help him out in showing the
amount of property-the fifty-eight entries —the numerous
transfers from trustees-the whole squares of land, which, in his
speech at Albany, on the 6th of March, he stated were mine.




AND ARCHBISHOP HUGHES.                  151
If they do not help him in this way they do not help him at all,
although their little squibs may fill up a portion of the New
York Express, and induce its readers to think that Senator
Brooks imagines himself to be making great progress.
Having disposed sufficiently of the Senator's last effort, at
least till a reliable investigation of the Records shall have
been made, I will lose sight of the Senator, and address the
remaining portion of this communication to the good sense and
candor of my fellow-citizens, Catholics and Protestants, whose
esteem I value, and who may have been misled in their judgment on the subject involved.
First.-It has been the practice, especially since the bankruptcy of no less than four boards of Catholic Lay Trustees in
this city alone, to invest the title of new  churches in the
Bishop.  This was conformable to the discipline of the Catholic
Church as regulated by the Provincial Councils of Baltimore.
It was also in conformity with the wishes of the Catholic people,
at least in this city, whose temporal interests and reputation as
a religious community, had been almost destroyed by the bad
management of lay trustees.  It is understood among Catholics
that whatever may be the form of legal tenure by which church
property is held, being once recognized as church property, it
belongs not to the Bishop or the trustees, or the parishes, or the
people, but that it is to be regarded as the property of God, set
apart for religious uses, and enjoyed for the common benefit of all.
Secondly.-Under these circumstances, they look upon the
Bishop as the natural guardian of property which has been
created, not by any gift or donation of the State, but by their
own voluntary contributions of charity. And whatever law the
State may pass, there is one thing certain, that nothing less than
coersion will induce the Catholics to discontinue or withdraw
the confidence which they have in their Bishops as the natural
guardians of such property.  They never dream that the Bishop
is the owner of their church and church property, merely because the deed thereof may be recorded in his name.  Neither
will less than coercion induce them to put their property, and




152        CONTROVERSY BETWEEN SENATOR BROOKS
their reputation as a religious community, at the irresponsible
disposal of lay trustees, armed with legal power to mortgage
their property and impose upon them, as has been done already,
the burden of debts by which their churches niay become bankrupt and sold for the benefit of creditors.
Thirdly.-It was in this full understanding on all sides,
that they, the Catholics of New York, contributed to redeem no
less than four Churches from  the disgraceful consequences of
bankruptcy, through  bad  management on  the part of lay
trustees.  These Churches were sold under process of law for
the benefit of their creditors. The amount which they brought
would not have been more than some thirty or forty cents in
the dollar.  But when the Bishop consented to put himself at
the head of the Catholic body, and accept the title of this property, they rallied around him, and by imposing sacrifices on
themselves, they paid not only the thirty cents on the dollar,
which the law of the State had secured to the creditors, but
they went beyond law, and conformed to justice by paying one
hundred cents to the dollar.  There is no spirit of repudiation
of honest debts among Catholics, but they are not willing that
lay trustees shall have the power of mortgaging-I will not say
their property only, but also their upright and honorable fame.
Fourthly.-It is in this spirit and with this understanding
that the Bishop is invested with the title of whatever church property is recorded in his name, either in the city of New York or
throughout the diocese. Each church belongs, practically, to the
Catholic congregation worshipping therein.  All the churches of
the diocese belong in the same way to all the Catholics of the diocese. To suppose that the Bishop should alienate them, mortgage
them, or in any other manner abuse his trust for his own use and
benefit, is to suppose something that has never entered the minds
of the Catholic people. And, for myself, I can say, that my support since I have been appointed Bishop of New York, has been
derived from the free and voluntary offerings of the flock committed to my charge.  Not so much as one farthing has accrued
to me from the nominal ownership of church property.




AND ARCHBISHOP HUGHES.                 153
Fifthly.-It must not be inferred from this that I am not
sufficiently provided for, whether as regards my personal: expenses or the much weightier expenses incident to my position as
Catholic Archbishop of New York.  In that respect I feel that I
am very rich-rich in the confidence and affections of the people
committed to my care-rich in the moderate but sufficient sum
which is provided annually for the support of my person and my
position-rich in the consolation derived from  witnessing the
increasing piety, harmony, union, zeal, and mutual charity of the
people committed to my care-rich in the consciousness that
from the moment I was reluctantly induced to accept the office
in the Church of which I then felt and still feel myself so unworthy, I made an offering of my mind and heart, and life, for
the glory of God, in promoting the spiritual and temporal welfare
of the flock over whom  I was placed as Pastor by the great
Bishop and Shepherd of our souls.
Sixthly. —Having thus shown how rich a man I am, it is but
fair now that I should state how poor.  Fortunately the temporal
affairs of my diocese are in good order, so that my successor, were
I to die to-morrow, will only have to look at the private archives to
understand at a glance the actual condition of matters and things.
As representative of the diocese, I am personally indebted to the
amount of thirty thousand dollars. But by way of assets I have
in my personal right an amount of property which I suppose, if
its value could be realized, would cover the debt. Mr. Brooks
and his associates may feel an interest in knowing of what these
assets consist, and I will tell him. They are partly bequests,
partly donations, partly the hope of a favorable decision in regard
to a suit which was in chancery before chancery was abolished.
Besides this property, which I consider as assets against my
debts, I am the owner of a library which would be of little use
to many of those who take an interest in the question of my property, but which to me is very valuable. I am the owner of a part
of the furniture of the house in which I live-but only a part.
Let us now sum up.  All that is Church property on Manhattan
Island, whether the title be invested in me or not, belongs to the




154       CONTROVERSY BETWEEN SENATOR BROOKS
Datholics of Manhattan Island and not to me.  When this deluction is made I am left the owner of my library and a part of
the furniture in my dwelling.  But I am not the owner of one
square inch of ground within the city of New York.  I am the
3wner of the bed I sleep on, but not of the roof, or the walls that
protect me against the inclemency of the seasons. I do not howsver complain of my poverty, for I am not poor.  I know that
any one invested with the ofice which I hold in the Church of
God, is the more honored in proportion as his condition assimilates to that of his Divine Master, who had not whereon to lay
his head.  And it would be an especial reproach to me to be the
successor of the devoted and disinterested Bishop Dubois, who
died so poor that the Catholics of his cathedral had to bear the
expenses of his funeral, if I disgraced the inheritance of his office
by grasping at and appropriating to my own use any thing more
of the things of this world than are necessary to provide me with
daily food and raiment.
But notwithstanding all this, Senator Brooks will have to
give some account of the four millions seven hundred and fifty
thousand dollars which he said was the value of my property on
the 6th day of last March.
+  JOHN, Archbishop of New York.
NEw YORK, April 28th.
SENATOR BROOKS vs. ARCHBISHOP HUGHES.
To the Editors of the Courier and Enquirer:
I congratulate the Archbishop upon that degree of recovery
of " a near relative of his" which enables him to resume his pen.
I am sorry, however, to see that the Archbishop is neither improved in temper nor refreshed in style by the brief suspension
of his labors.  He continues to pile up epithets, like a pyramid,
and to-day he out-does himself.  He charges me now with "falsehoods, uttered deliberately;" "brands me as no honorable man




AND ARCHBISHOP HUGHES.                   155
would sufer himself to be branded," uses the words " thief" and
" theft," to illustrate the temper of his mind, and heads his letter,
like a showman, " the mnoral degradation of myposition."  If I
had no respect for myself, and none for the truth of the ease at
issue, I might give lie for   lie," and brand for 1 brand."  But
in dealing with an Archbishop I choose rather to remember his
high and holy calling than his low example.  If it is either good
manners, sound logic, or true religion to answer a proven fact
with such words as the Archbishop makes so familiar to his lips
and pen, he is more than welcome in this controversy to the advantage they give him.
Once upon a time a Scotch Professor of King's College, Cambridge, setting an example which an Archbishop might imitate
with honor, was asked what he would do if a man told him he
was a liar?     What would I do? " said he; " I would not knock
him  down, but I would tell him to prove it, prove it, PROVE IT.
And I would say to him, that if he couldn't prove it, he'd be the
liar, and then I should have him!"  The Archbishop may make
the application, and the public will judge upon the evidence given
and coming, whether I have John Hughes, or John Hughes has
me.
In vindication of my veracity, and to relieve myself from the
charge of FALSEHOOD, I have given from the record the legal conveyance to John Hughes of THIRTY pieces or parcels of property.
I add ELEVEN more to-day, and the end is not yet.  What I said
in the Senate on the 6th of March last, qualified by " a supposition of fact," and from date recorded by the searches of a " friend
of mine," as to the main fact, —which the Archbishop twice directly misstates to-day, will turn out to be a soberer reality than
the Archbishop or myself ever dreamed of when I called public
attention to his possessions, and when he pronounced my statements FALSE.  The work of investigation is only fairly commenced, and I shall proceed with it, disregarding all irrelevancy
and abuse.
First, now, as to " the parcels of property," and " squares of
land."  I enumerate the THIRTY-TWO lots of ground on 50th and




156        CONTROVERSY BETWEEN SENATOR BROOKS
51st streets, in two parcels, one 350 feet by 210 feet 10 inches,
and the other 105 feet by 85 feet. This would make one or two
handsome squares, each sufficiently large for that " Erastus
Brooks Library," which the Archbishop now seeks to get rid of
by an open plea of poverty.  The pretence comes too late, is not
warranted by the record, was not denominated in the bond, and
I, therefore, claim the fulfilment of a promise so carefully considered and so deliberately made.  The Cathedral property also
rests upon a very spacious and pretty spot of ground, and upon
one quite large enough both for the Cathedral, and in its vacant
lots, for the Library. The Archbishop may preside over the one,
and, with his permission, some friend of mine over the other.
There is also another very pretty square at Manhattanville, which
would answer very well for the Library, if it were not so far out
of town; and another square, also under the control of his Grace,
between the First avenue and Avenue A, which might, by permission, be exchanged for some property more favorably situated
for a public institution, designed " for the use, not of any one
profession or class of men, but for all mankind."
If the Archbishop is still doubtful about those " squares of
land," I will direct his attention to conveyance No. 8, 100 by 100
feet, No. 19, which is quite as large, No. 23, from which a very
handsome square can be selected, No. 24, 100 by 100, No. 27,
100 by 102 feet and two inches.  (The Archbishop will see I am
particular now as to the two inches.)  No. 28, 100 by 103 feet
three inches, No. 29, 143 feet by 99 feet ten inches, one way, and
134 feet the other; No. 30, 100 by 104 feet, &c., &c. It would
weary the public, the Archbishop and myself, to cite all those
parcels of property recorded in his name, which would answer
very well for an edifice so honorable to his promised bounty, and
which would perpetuate his name, as well as mine, " in large gilded letters," to the latest posterity.
I have not yet deemed it necessary to enumerate all the Archbishop's church and other possessions in this city and elsewhere.
By a confession of his, altogether unexpected, to myself, he admits what it was almost the sole purpose of this branch of my




AND ARCHBISHOP HUGHES.                   157
speech in the Senate to show, that HE WAS A LARGE OWNER
OF CHURCH PROPERTY.  This, I believe, is what the lawyers call
the plea of "confession and evidence," or an acknowledgment of
the truth, when there was no longer power to evade or avoid the
issue.  Here is "the confession and evidence:"
" In reference to my ownership of real estate property, as Mr.
Brooks calls it, there is no question.  The title of many Catholic
Churches in the city of New York is vested in me, and so far I am the
owner. My intention, even, is to add to this property by purchasing
such additional lots, or accepting the gift of them, as I may find from
time to time to be desirable for the purpose of providing religious instruction for the wants of the Catholic flock committed to my charge.
If Mr. Brooks will examine the records of the city of New York three
months from this time, he will probably find conveyances made to me
by parties who have the right to sell or bestow as they think proper."
This admission is made still broader in the letter of to-day.
The " title of ownership," then, is vested in the bishop.  The
pulpits are his. The keys are his. Doors are opened and shut
at his own good will and pleasure.  Priests come and go, speak
and act, at his bidding. The congregation are his servants. One
may not even say Mass over the souls of the dead, except the
dead are buried where the Archbishop prescribes and commands.
Greenwood and Cypress Hills, Protestant burial places everywhere, are now all unsanctified and accursed ground. The Archbishop seeks to be the master of the living, and to prescribe just
where the dead shall be laid, and what price shall be paid for the
privilege of interment.  But more of this hereafter.  I am dealing with a living man, and his estates, now-and with one who,
in the space of a few years, has come into the possession not merely of the honors of an Archbishopric, but of princely possessions,
and all as the head of a church, whose office, I had supposed,
pledged him to poverty. It is not every minister of the Gospel
who can thus suddenly be transformed from extreme poverty to
luxury, with country seats, retainers and bountiful provisions for
relatives and friends.  Good Catholics tell me,-and the fact
seems probable enough from  the record, however violently de



158        CONTROVERSY BETWEEN SENATOR BROOKS
nied-that the Archbishop is more attentive to the fleece than to
the " flock committed to his care."
I must remind him, too, of that other " confession and evidence " of his-more than two years old-embodied in his Circular Letter of the 16th of March, 1852, and printed in the New
York Freeman's Journal, wherein, as by public advertisement,
he claimed for himself and others, a full legal ownership in even
more than the churches of their respective Dioceses.  The Archbishop then said:
" That the Catholic Bishops of New York, Albany and Buffalo, ARE
NOW OWNERS IN FEE SIMPLE of nearly all religious and charitable
property existing within their respective Ecclesiastical jurisdictions!'
When the Archbishop again charges me with falsehood he will
realize what a compound of accusations he makes against himself.
In self-defence I turn him over now to his circular letter, of
1852, and to his recent declaration, above quoted:"The title is vested in me."
" I AM THE OWNER," &C. &C.
It is because the title is vested in him, and in others of similar power and state, that Trustees of his own Church have
prayed the Legislature for redress. Those who build churches
themselves claim the right, having paid for them with their own
money, of governing the church temporalities as they please.
The Legislature of this State have answered their prayers affirmatively, and hence the anathemas which he has, in his ebullitions of temper, exhausted upon me rather than upon the
State.
But I shall continue my record of conveyances to-day, and
hereafter; to show how far the Archbishop has been justified in
accusing me of falsehood.  I hope to be excused for thus furnishing him with small doses at a time. It is a rule of practice with
skilful men of the Faculty, I believe, not to kill but to cure, and
hence the necessity of continuing these prescriptions from day to
day. I may not restore the Archbishop to a sane state of mind,




AND ARCHBISHOP HUGHES.                    159
nor to equanimity of bearing, but it is enough for me to know
that if I have opened public wounds, so that the community can
behold them, as they are, the exposure may lead to. a speedier
cure of the disease than would have resulted from concealment.
CONVEYANCES TO JOHN HUGHES.
NTmMBER THEIRT-ONE.
Tomas Farell,  Date of Conveyance, June 7, 1854. Record in liber
Cl ergyman,.  663, p. 366, June 15, 1854. Consideration one
to           d
John Hughes.         ll
All those certain two lots, pieces or parcels of grounds, situate, lying and being in the Thirteenth Ward of the City of New York, on
the east side of Pitt street, between Delancey and Rivington streets,
known by the street numbers 54 and 36 Pitt street, said lots being
each 24 feet in width in front and rear, and 100 feet in depth, be the
said dimensions more or less.
THIRTY-TWO.
Richard   Jeynz'  Date of Conveyance Feb. 10, 1853. Record in liber
to           $1 820 50.
John Hughes. j  68, p.  1
All that certain piece or parcel of land, situate, lying and being on
the south side of Eighth street, distant 100 feet southeast from the
point of intersection of the east side of Avenue B and the south side
of Eighth street, thence running east along Eighth street fifteen feet,
thence running south and parallel with Avenue B, ninety-seven feet
and four inches to centre of block between Seventh and Eighth
streets; thence running west along said centre line of the said block
ifteen feet, and thence north and parallel with Avenue B, ninetyseven feet four inches to south side of Eighth street, the place of beginning.
THIRTY-THREE.
Charles Toal, cand 
Ann, his  ife,     (April 15, 1855, date of conveyance.)  Record
Anto'  in liber 658, p. 669, May 8, 1854. ConsiderJohn Hughes.  J   ation $20,000.
All that certain lot of land situate, lying, and being in the Fourth
Ward of the City of New York, and the building thereon erected, now
known as the Mariners' Church, being lot No. 1,067 on the Tax Commissioner's map of Fourth Ward, and bounded and described as follows:-Beginning on W. side of Roosevelt street, at a point distant
157 feet and 11 inches, N. from NW. corner of Roosevelt and Cherry




160         CONTROVERSY BETWEEN SENATOR BROOKS
streets, running thence W. and at right angles to Roosevelt street,
61 feet and 4 inches; thence N. and parallel with Roosevelt, 71 feet
4 inches; thence E. 60 feet 10 inches to W. side of Roosevelt street;
thence S. along W. side of Roosevelt street 71 feet 4 inches to the
point or place of beginning.
THIRTY-FOUR.
Zt^atthew Flynn and cl
Karare, his voied,   Date of Conveyance April 6, 1854. Record in
tMoaar r  his       e liber 661, p. 86, April 7, 1854. Consideration
John Hughes.   J    6,000.
All those two certain lots of land, situate, lying, and being in the
Sixteenth Ward of the City of New-York, and bounded, taken together, as follows:-Beginning at a point on the north line of twentyfifth-street, distant 400 feet east from northeast corner of Ninth-avenue and twenty-fifth-street, running thence east along said northerly
line 50 feet, thence north parallel with Ninth-avenue, 93 feet 9 inches
to middle of block, between Twenty-fifth and Twenty-sixth-streets,
and to a point equi-distant from  the two, thence west parallel with
Twenty-fifth-street 50 feet, thence south in a straight line to place of
beginning.
THIRTY-FIVE.
ah,  hs Olver and,   Date of Conveyance May 1, 1850. Record in
Sara, his wf       liber 599, p. 700, May 1,1852. Consideration
Jo7hn Hughes.  J  $500.
All that certain lot or parcel of land, situate in City of New-York,
on north side of Nineteenth-street, formerly a part of the old Warrenroad, which was closed by Corporation of the City of New-York, and
known and distinguished on map No. 10, of an atlas made by Edwin
Smith, City Surveyor, in the month of April, 1835, and entitled Atlas
of that part of the Twelfth Ward of the City of New-York, between
Fourteenth and Twenty-first-streets, by the number 2,495, bounded
on the south, in front, by Nineteenth-street, on the west by lot
number 2,494, on the north, in the rear by lot 2,805 on said map,
and on the east by the centre line of the old Warren-road, being about
20 feet wide, more or less, in front and rear, and about 90 feet 1 inch
deep, more or less. Also, all that certain other lot or parcel of land
situate in the City of New-York, adjoining the lot or parcel above
described, bounded on the south in front by Nineteenth-street, on the
west by lot number 2,493 on the aforesaid map, on the north in the
rear by lot belonging now or late to John F. Winslow, and on the
east by lot number 2,495, being about 26 feet 7 inches wide (more or
less) in front, about 23 feet 4 inches wide on rear, about 90 feet
deep on the west side, and about 90 feet I inch deep on the east
side.




AND ARCHBISHOP HUGHES.                      161
THIRTY-SIX.
StepThen  C. Buvdett,  }
Stephen. B uiIett, Date of Conveyance, Nov. 27, 1852. Record
and Eliza, his w^ift,   in liber 699, p. 305, Dec. 1, 1852.  ConJohn HIghZes.    j  sideration, $4,800.
All those certain lots, pieces or parcels of land, situate, lying and
being in the former Twelfth, late Sixteenth, now Eighteenth Ward of
City of New-York, which said lots are bounded and described as follows, to wit:-Beginning at a lot on the southwest side of Twentyninth-street, distant. 100 feet northwest from  southwest corner of
Third-avenue and Twenty-ninth-street, running thence southwest on
a line parallel with Third-avenue 89 feet and 9 inches to the centre
line of the block, between Twenty-Eighth and Twenty-ninth-streets,
thence running northwest along said centre line 45 feet, thence northeast on a line parallel with Third-avenue 98 feet 9 inches to Twentyninth-street, and thence southwest along Twenty-ninth-street 45 feet,
to place of beginning.
THIRTY-SEVEN.
WAm. H. De Grot and 1 Date of Conveyance, April 15, 1853. Reolce hs w            cord, in liber 641, p. 79, April 19, 1853.
Jorhn EHughes.    J   Consideration, $1,400.
All those two certain lots, pieces or parcels of land, situate, lying,
and being in the       Ward of the City, County and State of NewYork, bounded and described as follows:-Beginning at a point on
the southerly side of Eighty-fourth-street, distant 220 feet westerly
from the southwest corner of Eighty-fourth-street and Fourth-avenue,
running thence westerly along the south side of Eighty-fourth-street
50 feet, running thence south and parallel with Fourth-avenue 102
feet and 2 inches, running thence east and parallel with Eighty-fourthstreet 50 feet, and thence north and parallel with the Fourth-avenue
102 feet and 2 inches to place of beginning.
THIRTY-EIGHT.
Daniel Cumming, silversm.ith    Date of Conveyance, April 28, 1853.
and fCary, his wife,     }   Record in liber, 640, p. 383, May,
John Hughoes.         J  2, 1853.  Consideration, $8,000.
All that certain lot, piece or parcel of land, situate, lying, and being in the Sixth Ward of City of New York, and now known by street
number 29 Mott-street, and bounded and described as follows, on a
map thereof, made by Edward Ludlam, City Surveyor, dated NewYork, December, 1849, and filed in the office of the Register of the
City and County of New-York, 24th April, 1850, that is to say:Easterly in front, by westerly side Mott-street, 19 feet and 9 inches;
southerly by land, now or late of Zion Church, 36 feet and 10 inches;




162         CONTROVERSY BETWEEN SENATOR BROOKS
westerly by land, now or late of Lnther Baldwin, and lands now or
late of the estate of Cornelius Schenck, 26 feet and 2 inches; and
northerly by land, now  or late of John G. IFlammer, 87 feet and 7
inches, as laid down on said map.
THIRTY-NINE.
Henry Heyocard cand 
Tef, his woife  Date of Conveyance, Nlov. 27, 1852. Record
to  inliber 609, p. 342.  Consideration, $8,000.
John Hughes.
All those four certain lots, pieces or parcels of land situate, or lying and being on former Twelfth, late Sixteenth, now Eighteenth
Ward of City of New-York, which said lots, taken together, are
bonuded and described as follows, to wit:-Beginning at a point on
north side of Twenty-eighth-street, distant 123 feet west from northwest corner of Twenty-eighth-street and Third-avenue, running thence
north and parallel with Third-avenue 98 feet and 9 inches, to centre
line of block, between Twenty-eighth and Twenty-ninth-streets, thence
west along said centre line 25 feet, thence again north and parallel
with Third-avenue 98 feet and 9 inches to the south side Twentyninth-street, thence again west along south side Twenty-ninth-street
50 feet, thence south parallel with Third-avenue 98 feet 9 inches to
the centre line of the block, thence east along said centre line 25 feet,
thence again south parallel with the Third-avenue 98 feet and 9
inches, to north side of Twenty-eighth-street aforesaid, and thence
again east along Twenty-eighth-street 50 feet to place of beginning;
each of said lots being 25 feet in width in front and rear, and 98 feet
9 inches in length on each side.
FORTY.
Watson B. Prentiss) Date of Conveyance, August, Ist, 1858. Reto             cord in liber 645, p. 201, August 31, 1853.
John Hughes.         Consideration, $4,700.
All that certain lot, piece or parcel of land situate, lying and being on south side of Eighth street, in Eleventh ward of the city of
New  York, and which is bounded and described as follows, viz.:
commencing at a point on said south side of Eighth street, distant
115 feet south-east from the corner formed by the intersection of the
east side of Avenue B and the south side of Eighth street, and running
thence south-west and in a line parallel with Avenue B, 97 feet 4
inches to centre line of block between Seventh and Eighth streets;
thence south-east along said centre line of the said block, and in a line
parallel with Eighth street 25 feet, to the line of a lot numbered on
the Ward map of the said Eleventh ward, as 2,551: thence north-east
along the line of said last-mentioned lot, and in a line parallel with
Avenue B, 97 feet 4 inches, to the south line of Eighth street, and
thence north-east along said south line of Eighth street, 25 feet to
the place of beginning.




AND ARCHBISHOP HUGHES.                     163
FORTY-ONE.
Rector, Wca~'dens asnd2;estry }
Rector, Wrdens and Vestry  Date of Conveyance, April 30, 1853.
of Zion Cto    ],   Record in liber 640, p. 380, May 2,
John    ghe.1853. Consideration, $30,000.
All that certain piece or parcel of ground, situate in Mott street,
in Sixth ward of the city of New York, with the church edfice and
school-house thereon erected, bounded and containing as follows:
East in front by Mott street, westerly in rear partly by ground now
or late of James Mtiller, partly by ground now or late James Weller's,
and partly by ground now or late of James McKay, south by Cross
street, and north by ground now or late of    - Williams, containing
together in breadth in front on Mott street 83 feet four inches, in the
rear 86 feet, and in length on each side 85 feet.
I have nothing to do with the Archbishop's elaborated charges
against the " bankruptcy of less than four Boards of Catholic
Lay Trustees in this city alone,"-but I claim  much for the extorted admission, that " it has been the practice," since this bankruptcy, " to invest THE TITLE OF NEW  CHURCHES IN THE BISHOP,
and that,
" This was conformable to the discipline of the Catholic Church
as regulated by the Provincial Councils of Baltimore."
But the Archbishop goes on to threaten nullification or disobedience to the Church Property Law.  The other day he told
the public that "professional gentlemen were to discover some
defect in the framing and wording of the enactment, which
will render it inapplicable."  Now we are more boldly informed,
that nothing" less than coercion will induce them to put their property and their
reputation as a religious community at the irresponsible disposal of
lay trustees, armed with legal power to mortgage their property and
impose upon them, as had been done already, the burden of debts by
which their churches may become bankrupt and sold for the benefit of
creditors."
And again:"' And whatever law the State may pass, there is one tiing certain, that nothing less than coercion will induce the Catholics to discontinue or withdraw the confidence which they have in their Bishops
as the natural guardians of such property."




164        CONTROVERSY BETWEEN SENATOR BROOKS
We shall see whether the one-man Power of the Archbishop,
or the sovereign law of the people of the State of New York
will prevail.
Nor do I believe that the Archbishop's churches in this city
are so poor in means or in men, that Catholic Lay Trustees cannot be found of sufficient capacity and integrity to administer
the dollar and cent Temporalities of the Church, quite as well
as one who, towards the end of a letter-beginning with such
words as "deliberate falsehoods," "brand," "theft," etc., etc.tells us in'words of meekness that he has "made an offering of his
mind and heart and life for the glory of God, in promoting the
spiritual and temporal welfare of the flock over whom he (I) was
placed as a Pastor by the great Bishop and Shepherd of our
souls. "
The text and context in the judgment of even worldly men
will not harmonize with each other.
But while acknowledging titles in churches and other property, the Archbishop now seeks for sympathy by pleading poverty.  He owns, he tells us, " a library, and part of the furniture
of the house in which he lives." It almost excites one's commiseration to read such doleful, lamb-like statements as the following:"' I am the owner of the bed I sleep on, but not of the roof or the
walls that protect me from the inclemency of the seasons. I do not,
however, complain of poverty, for I am not poor. I know that any
one invested with the office which I hold in the Church of God, is the
more honored in proportion as his condition assimilates to that of his
Divine Master, who had not whereon to lay his head."
Alas, that one thus invested with the office of Bishop "in
the Church of God," should so far forget the precepts and
example of " his Divine Master," as to indulge in the foul language I have quoted, and in a denial of the statements I have
proved.
The Archbishop in this Diocese has assumed a power over
Church Property and Catholics unknown to the Priesthood in
many of the. Catholic Governments of Europe.  The oppression




AN0J) ARCHBISHOP HUGHES.               165
and despotism  exercised here would not be tolerated there.  It
is an arbitrary exercise of power, both over the living and the
dead.  We exhibit, therefore, in a government eminently Protestant, which separates Church and State, an'd which forbids all
interference in matters of faith, the strange anomally of a Priesthood not only holding property worth millions in value, but ruling
the members of its Church with a rod of iron.
But the wolf now clothes himself in lamb's wool, and cries
humility, penance and honesty.  He who had time and money
to visit the island of Cuba, the gem of the seas, to pass a season
of delightful luxury amidst tropical fruits and flowers, when thousands of his poor flock are cold and hungry at home,-who
spends days and weeks of delightful ease within the walls of
Rome,-whose steps are familiar to the interior splendors of the
Vatican and the Quirinal,-who has studied Theology from the
Laocoon, and Poverty in the summer gardens of the Pope,-to
whom the Sistine Chapel, decorated with Raphaels and Michael
Angelos, are familiar objects,-who can fly for pleasure from the
city to Newfoundland or the Lakes, to the Springs, or to Newport,-who has a town residence and a country seat,-now appears
before the people to state, "how poor I am," and to declare
that his bed, his books, and his furniture, in part, are his only
worldly fortune!
But enough, for to-day.
Very respectfully yours,
ERASTUS BROOKS.
NEw YORm, April 30.
ARCHBISHOP HUGHES TO SENATOR BROOKS.
To the Editors of the Courier and Enquirer:
Our Senator has a vague idea of respectability, under the influence of which he intimates that falsehoods, with the deliberate
utterance of which he is charged, and with which no honorable
man would suffer himself to be branded, are by no means com



166        CONTROVERSY BETWEEN SENATOR BROOKS
plimentary to him.  But it is impossible to relieve him  from
these charges. Falsehood he has been guilty of in almost every
paragraph of his speech on the 6th of Alarch, and of his writings in reference to it since.
For the present, I shall only enumerate the last falsehood
from his pen. It is found in the following words, viz.:
"' First now as to the parcels of property and squares of land, I
enumerate the thirty-two lots of ground on 50th and 51st streets in two
parcels, one three hundred and fifty feet by two hundred and ten feet
ten inches, and the other, one hundred and five feet by eighty-five."
When Mr. Brooks wrote this, he knew as well as I do that I
am not the owner of a solitary square inch of ground on 50th or
51st street, and with this knowledge in his mind, Mr. Erastus
Brooks has exhibited himself in the light of a man who has no
regard for veracity, and who is, therefore, utterly unworthy of
notice.  I take him  consequently with covered hands, to the
nearest open sash of a window, and send him forth with the single mental observation, "Go hence, wretched and vile insect,the world has space for you as well as for me."
+  JOHN, ARCHBISHOP OF NEW YORK.
NEW YORK, BMay 1, 1855.
SENATOR BROOKS TO ARCHBISHOP HUGHES.
To the Editors of the Courier and Enquirer:
The Archbishop is as profuse of epithets as ever. To-day he
is brief in words and abundant in accusations. In a single paragraph he dismisses me, not for good I hope, in the following laconic and amiable manner:
" I take him consequently with covered hands, to the nearest open
sash of a window, and send him forth with the single mental observation,-Go hence, wretched and vile insect:-the world has space for
you as well as me.
+ JouN, Archbishop of New York."




AND ARCHBISHOP HUGHES,                 167
Preliminary to this, are charges that " almost every paragraph of my speech on the 6th of March, and of my writings in
reference to it since, are FALSE. I am " branded,' too, again and
again, as "guilty of deliberate falsehood," as "no honorable
man," &c. &c.  Having sufficiently damned and cursed me with
his official v, I am taken with coverecl hands to the nearest
window and dismissed " as a wretched anzd vile insect."
But, good Archbishop, I am not to be so dismissed.  You
commenced the war, and I intend to end it.  If the insect has
stung you, and you have been unable either to heal the wound, or
have the sting extracted, it is your fault, not mine.  There is
something to me even more ludicrous than wicked, if possible, in
the bitterness and boldness of your denials of the truth, and in
the frequency of your personalities.  Early in life I was taught
that in controversies and intercourse among men, no gentleman
insults another, and nobody else can.  I know the advantage I
have over you in this respect, and mean to maintain it to the end,
by an absence of all foul epithets, and all exhibitions of bad temper.  You forced me into this controversy, by reiterated charges
of FALSEHOOD.  You endeavored to hold me up to contempt by
satire and ridicule, and finding that your curses upon me, like
chickens, have come home to roost upon yourself, and that your
satire and ridicule have rebounded, to the point from whence they
started, you now, " with covered hands," would throw the insect
from the window into the street, —that is if he would let you. I
shall buzz under your window, during my own good time, and,
may be, find ingress again within your Grace's quarters.
This controversy commenced in an attempt to show that you
were a large owner, lawfully and in your own name, of PROPERTY,
and that it was repugnant to the spirit of our Government for
Ecclesiastics to be large possessors of Church property.  It was
incidentally stated by me that you received some of this Property
from Trustees.  It was also stated that you owned several plats
and squares of land, nearly all of them of great value. I named
several parcels of this character, in the recorded conveyances of




168        CONTROVERSY BETWEEN SENATOR BROOKS
the city, as, for example, Nos. 8, 19, 23, 24, 27, 28, 29, 30, &c.
Those more than make good my declaration in the Senate.
I also alluded to the 32 lots opposite the Deaf and Dumb Institution, which, after great trouble, I found, through a friend,
recorded not in the Register's office, but in the office of the
Comptroller.-[Book A of Deeds, page 271.  Date August 1st,
1846.]  I found your name acknowledging the gift of this
splendid public property from this city, for the benefit of the
Roman Catholics over whom you are the Chief.  I found a receipt for this property signed " John Hughes," President, and
by your Secretary, M. O. Donnelly.
Now, sir, though I was warranted in saying you owned this
property, after your circular letter of the 16th of March, 1852,
declaring that you did own " in fee simple," " nearly all charitable and religious property existing in your Diocese," and after
your admission, in a lettter to the public, that " titles were vested
in me,"-John Hughes,.-" I," John Hughes,-" am the owner,"
and " my intention is even to add to this property by purchasing
additional lots," &c, I did not, as you very well know, rely upon
this rich possession, received by you, to prove your ownership in
City Property generally or in squares.  The public who read
your letters and mine (and it is my highest wish that they should
read both sides of the discussion) will condemn you both for the
omission of the record of Conveyance, and the parade you make
of these 32 lots of ground, which, with the Property made over
to you, "your heirs and assignees," you call the " property of
God," and thus evade the real, and almost the only points at
issue.
It was only on the last Sabbath, when speaking in Brooklyn
of the question of temporalities, you declared to the Congregation
that it would be " a calamity for them and the sanctuary to have
persons placed between them  and the sanctuary of this holy
temple, as middle men, touching with profane hand the sanctuac'y of which they should stand in awe, and sinking your
church in debt even though you (they) had freed it from all responsibility."




AND ARCIIBISHIOP HUGIIES,                169
And again you said: —
"But you, in the meantime should be faithful to Almighty God,
and not permit men-well meaning men if you please, but incompetent
between the clergy and the faithfpul laity of the Ocatholic Church-between you and the devoted pastor whom you so much respect."
Herein is shown your disrespect for popular intelligence and
popular right, and your determination, notwithstanding the law
of the State, not to allow Lay Trustees to control the Temporalities of the Church.
But let me compromise with you in regard to the squares on
50th and 51st streets, by substituting, if your prefer it, the property in Manhattanville, adjoining C. W. Lawrence's residence.
This property covers four acres of ground, cost 132,500, and has
the dwelling and grounds of the Archbishop,-though he would
probably call it, " the property of God,"-while making the best
possible use of it for himself and friends, as he does with the
most beautiful portion of the property at Fordham.
I now add, the Catholic Almanac for the current year being
my authority-the following record of Roman Catholic Church
property in this city at this time.  I take the word of the Archbishop himself, that he is, by the Baltimore Ordinances of'49
and'52,-by his Circular Letter of lMarch 1852, by his Sermlon
on last Sabbath, against " middle men  touching witlh profane
hlands, the sanctuary of which they should stand in awe,"-the
controller, director and practical owner, even where the title does
not rest in him, of all this property.  Added, to what has not
before been enumerated, the reader will be enabled to form some
estimate of its value, by the price it would command in market,
if offered for sale-I think the value of the whole "is not -much
short of five millions of dollars,'" and that the value of the Property, owned or controlled by the Archbishop, even in his territorially very limited Diocese, is worth a great deal more.
Cathedral of St. Patrick, between Prince -and Houston streets.
St. Peter's, Barclay street.
St. Mary's, corner of Grand and Ridge streets.




170          CONTROVERSY BETWEEN SENATOR BROOXS
St. Joseph's, 6th avenue, corner West Washington place.
St. James's, James street.
Transfiguration, Mott street.
St. Nicholas, 2d street.
St. Andrew's, Duane street, corner of City Hall Place.
Church of the Nativity, 2d avenue.
St. Vincent-de-Paul, Canal street.
Church of the Most Holy Reedeemer, 3d street.
St. John Baptist, 30th street.
St. Columba's, 25th street.
St. Francis', 31st street.
St. Alphonsus', Thompson street.
St. John's, Evangelist, 50th street.
St. Paul's, Harlem, 117th street.
St. Bridget's, corner of 8th street and avenue B.
St. Stephen's, Madison avenue, corner of 27th street.
St. Francis Xavier's, 16th street, between 5th and 6th avenues.
St. Ann's, 8th street, between Broadway and 4th avenue.
St. Lawrence's, 84th street.
Church of the Holy Cross, 42d street.
Convent of the Sacred Heart, Manhattanville.
St Catharine's Convent of Sisters of Mercy, Houston and Mulberry
streets.
Mount St Vincent's Mother House, between 5th and 6th avenues.
Manhattanville Church of the Assumption.
I have now to add the following to the city
CONVEYANCES TO JOHN 1-IUG-HES.
N3JMB3ER FORTY-TWO,
Abner Beaainedict  and     Date of Conveyance March 8th, 1844;
Hannah Catharine, his zofe,     recorded in liber 443, p. 446, March
John Hughes.               16th, 1844.  Consideration, $1,950.
All and singular those six several lots, pieces, parcels and gores of
land, situate, lying and being on north side of Thirty-first street, in
the Sixteenth (late Twelfth) Ward, of the city of New York, and laid
down and distinguished upon a certain map, made Sept. 18, 1835, by
Samuel S. Doughty, City Surveyor, and filed in the office of the Clerk
of the Court of Chancery; and upon which said map, the said several
lots, pieces, parcels, and gores of land, hereby intended to be conveyed, are known and distinguished as numbers 4, 5, 6, 41, 42, and
43; the dimensions of the several lots, pieces, parcels, and gores of
land above m'entioned, being laid down and particularly specified on
the map above referred to.
NUMBER FORTY-THREE.
Kiiclhael COCCrran Ja.,) Date of Conveyance Oct. 30, 1849; recorded
to             in liber 529, p. 173, Oct. 30, 1849.  ConsidJohn Hughes.         eration, $1.




AND ARCHBISHOP HUGHES.                       171
All that certain lot, piece, or parcel of land, with the improvements thereon, situate, lying, and being in the Twelfth Ward of the
city of New York; beginning at the N. E. corner of Fifth Avenue
and Fiftieth street, and running thence N. along the E. side of Fifth
Avenue 100 feet and five inches, to a point equi-distant from Fiftieth
and Fifty-first streets, thence S. and parallel with Fifth Avenue, 100
feet and 5 inches, to Fiftieth stret, thence W. along Fiftieth street
100 feet to place of beginning.
NUMBER FORTY-FOUR.
WTilliamc   Wood and Edwcad W7ood, ) Date of  Conveyance  May  1,
Execuztors of Jo7hnz Wood,         1850; recorded in liber 378,
to                     p. 372, June 12, 1851.  ConJohn7 Hlyhes.                sideration, $700.
All that certain piece or parcel of ground, situate, lying, and being
in the Fourth Ward of the city of New York, in the interior of the
block, being in the rear of the building now fronting on James street,
called Christ Church, and partly in the rear of an alley or passage way
leading along the north side of the church, bounded as follows: Beginning at a point distant 100 feet east from James street, and 100 feet
north from Madison street, thence east parallel with Madison street 32
feet 6 inches, to ground formerly the Jews' burying ground, now
belonging to party of third part, thence north parallel with James
street 26 feet 3 inches, to ground late of Robert Brown, thence west
parallel with Madison street 32 feet 6 inches, and thence south parallel
with James street 26 feet 3 inches, to place of beginning
NUMBER FORTY-FIVE.
Thomas Smit7h and Ann), his woife, of Baclti-  Date  of  Conveyance
more, ]/d., Patrickc Smith and Mlary, his     Oct.  8, 1850;  rewtife, of Ohio, and Peter Smitlh and Ellen,    corded in liber 553,
his vwife, of Brooklyn,                       p. 369, Oct. 9, 1850.
to                         Consideration,
John Hutghes.                    $5,500.
All that certain house and lot of land, situated on west side of
Oliver street, in the Fourth Ward of the city of New York, which
said house is now known as No. 23 in said street, and which said lot
is designated as lot No. 5, on a map dated Jan 13, 1832, made by
Thomas R. Ludlam, City Surveyor, the said lot being on file in the
Register's office, in the case No. 57, the said lot being more particularly
described, as follows: Beginning on the said west side of Oliver street
aforesaid, at a point at the middle or centre of the brick part of the
party wall, which divides the said house from  the adjoining house,
known as No. 25 in said street, said adjoining house being on the lot
designated as No. 6 on map aforesaid; running thence north firom said
point along said west side of Oliver street 21 feet 11 inches, to a point
in the centre of the brick part of the party wall which divides the
said house hereby conveyed from  adjoining house known as No. 21




17i2         CONTROVERSY BETWEEN SENATOR BROOKS
in said street, said house being on lot designated as No. 4 on said map;
thence west in a straight line through the said middle of the said brick
part of the said party wall, and the south side of the said lot designated as No. 4, 69 feet and 1 inch, to land now or late of Samuel
Milbank; thence south along the said last mentioned land 21 feet 11
inches, to the adjoining lot first above mentioned; thence east in a
straight line along north line of saicPlot, and passing through the middle or centre of said brick part of party wall, first above mentioned,
70 feet I inch to place of beginning.
NUMBER FORTY-SIX.
1Rev. Felix YVael'ic,  Date of Conveyance April 23, 1850; recorded
to             in liber 554, p. 486, Nov. 1, 1850.  ConsideraJohn _ l-Tu7tes.      tion, $30,000.
All those two certain lots of ground, situated, lying, and being on
the north side of Chambers street, in the city of NIew York, and
which on a map or survey made by Cassimer Thos. Goerck, City Surveyor, bearing date May 7, 1795, are known and distinguished by lots
Nos. 16 and 17 adjoining each other, and are together bounded south
by Chambers street, north by lots numbered 36 and 37 on said map,
west by lot No. 15 on said map, and east by lot No. 18 on said miap,
being together in breadth in front and rear 50 feet, and in length 75
feet 7 m- inches, agreeably to said map.  Also, all that certain inessuage, or dwelling house and lot, piece or parcel of ground, situate,
lying and being in Reade street, in the city of New York, and described in a certain indenture of deed, recorded in the Register's
office in liber 133 of conveyances, and page 11, as follows, viz.:  All
that certain lot, piece, or parcel of ground, situate, lying and beingin Reade street, in the Sixth Ward of the city of New York, known
and distinguished by the No. 23, bounded north  in fiont by ]Reado
street aforesaid; southerly on the rear of ground claimed by John
Agnew; westerly  by ground belonging to George Brinkerhoff, and
easterly by ground claimed by the heirs of Peter Nailor, containing
in breadth in front and rear 25 feet, and in length on each side 75
feet 7 inches.
RECAPITULATION IN P41RT.
Conveyances to John I ughes.                   Lots.          Place.
Trustees of St. John's R. C. Church,..  3         1th Ward.
Patrick Doherty,.                                   I       117th street.
George Wilds, et als,..                       25th street.
Ebbe Marie,.... 3                        6th WV'ard.
D. D. Field, et als.,...             2        16th W'ard.
William Patton, D. D., et als.,...      1         2d avenue.
B. O'Connor, Trustee Christ Church,..  4            James street.
George Cammann, et als.,...           1         See No. 9.
Andrew Byrne,......  3           11th Ward.
Andrew Byrne,...                          1        17th Ward.
Z. Kuntze,.....    2         16th W-ard.




AND ARCHBISHOP HUGQIHES.                       17
Conveyances to John I-Ighcs.                    Lots.         Place.
James Foster,.  2                                       11th Ward.
Sarah Renmsen,..        1       11th Ward.
James Rea,..                                 1       14th WTard.
G. W. I-lall,..6..        6   14th WYard.
George W. Coster,...      Avenue B.
Mary Ann Gaffney, et als.,.    2  Madison avenue.
Westervelt, Sheriff,.4 11Tth & 118th sts.
R. Klein,.  O                                 1        1 lth Ward.
Gregory Dillon,                                      5          3d Ward.
Trustees of Transfiguration Church,         e  2  Chambers street.
Peter Johnson, et als.,..                2       18th Ward.
Michael McKean, et als.,...  2         9th Ward.
T. E. Davis, et als.,..    1                              12th Ward.
James R. Bayley,..                             Lease.
Thomas London,.  4                           19th street.
tI. Grinnell,....... 4          14th street.
G. W. Lawrence,..                     6        12th Ward.
S. Newby, et als.,..             4         42d street.
Thomas Farrell,...                  13th Ward.
William H. De Groot,..        2       4th avenue.
D. Cummings, et als.,              1.                1        Mrott street.
Zion's Church,.                                     1         6th Ward.
Henry Hayward, et als.,.  4                  18th Ward.
Walson B. Prentiss,,.                               1     11th Ward.
Charles Toal, et als.,                               1.   4th Ward.
Walter Flynn, et als.,.                         2 9th av. & 25th st.
James D. Oliver, et als.,.            1                 19th street.
Stephen C. Burdett,.                                2       18th Ward.
Edward C. Richards,. e   1                  3d avenue.
Thomas Smith, et als.,..          o.  1         4th Ward.
Rev. Felix Varelia,            e.          2  Chambers street.
Abner Benedict, et als.,          e.             6       16th Ward.
Michael Curran, Jr....    1 sq're 12th Ward.
William Wood, et als.,o..        1        4th Wardo
Number,.    o           o      o             101
I anm  now, gentlemen, in the condition of one who has been
an expected heir to a large fortune, from  a rich citizen-the expectancy being founded upon conditions on my part, and prpmises
on his.  The conditions imposed upon me were three in number,
(both agreeing, at the start, that the fortune should go to found
a Public Library).
First.-That I would prove the promised donor to be the
rich citizen I had previously declared him  to be.




174         CONTROVERSY BETWEEN SENATOR BROOKS
Secondly.-That I would show that he had received conveyances of property from trustees.  And
Finally.-That I would prove this rich  citizen  (meaning
Archbishop  Hughes all the time), had a great fortune  in
this city.
The promise was, that if I proved all this, the city of our
common residence should have a public edifice, to be called
"The Erastus Brooks Library."
My records to-day and before, give good evidence that I have
offered good proof as to the first, second, and third of my propositions.  The only doubt there can be, is as to tlie second, and I
therefore put the Archbishop's statements and my facts side
by side:
STATEMENT.                           FACT.
"I have always denied that I "Trustees of St. John's Roman
ever asked, sought, received or            Catholic Church
accepted any property from  lay                   to
trustees.  This denial I repeat to          John Hughes.
day with increased emphasis.-[5th Lease 999 years-consideration one
letter of John Hughes.            cent a year-liber 451-page 249"I have never received or ac- July 20, 1844."
cepted ANY transfer of any proper-   "Trustees of the Transfiguration
ty whatever from trustees."-[lst Church, to John Hughes."-Liber
letter of John Hughes.            591, p. 268.
"Bartholomew  O'Connor," Assignee of a Board of Trustees, to
John Hughes."
And now, where are the promises of the Archbishop. WThere
is the Public Library?  What is to become of the people's interest in this controversy, and which, in order that I might win
an institution for them, was with me the grand motive for prosecuting it in so much detail, and at so much length?
Encouraged by  the hope of seeing  this Public Library
established, I have resorted, first to the books, to see what is
meant by property; and finding it to mean " ownership," " possession in one's own right," "that to whicl a 2person has a leynl
title, whether in his possession or not-an estate, whether in lands,
goods or money; I have investigated the case, on this basis,
and claim  the reward.




AND ARCHBISHOP HUGHES.                  175
But have I proved my case?  Fortunately, the Depository
of the Pecords of Private Property-in order that every man
owning an estate, may record and show his claim —is open for
public inspection.  I have resorted to the office of the Sworn
Register of the City, and among the deeds and conveyances, I
find, in the first place, a large number of conveyances of valuable
property to John Hughes, his heirs and assignees.  They include
all kinds of property, ecclesiastical and secular.  So far, all
is well.
I look farther, and find a lease for 999 years, consideration
one cent a year, fiom the Trustees of St. John's Roman Catholic
Church.  This lease I had called'"property," because law and
custom  so describe it.  I look further, and I find a conveyance
i from  the Trustees of Transfiguration Church," to the same
John Hughes; and if I could be mistaken about the fact, that a
999 years' lease, at one cent a year, is property, I am no longer
in doubt, for here is no limitation in time.  Pursuing my investigation, I also find a conveyance from' one Bartholomew O'Connor, who is acknowledged to be the assignee of "a Board of
Trustees," to John Hughes.
And I miight enumerate almost without limit.  But, Cui
Bono?  I claim  that the Archbishop shall make good his
promise. I demand, for the people of the city, the Public Library.  If the Archbishop will not trust me, I renew the offer
to leave the case out to arbitration.
I propose again that John Hughes shall name one person, I
a second, and the two selected shall elect a third, to decide, not
so much upon this question of veracity between us,-for that is
a matter more personal than public,-but what is more important, whether I, upon the record, have not made out a good
claim to that Public Library, promised, upon certain conditions
specified, in the Archbishop's first letter.  I rely upon the record
and the fact.  I know no cristinction between John Hughes, and
+  John Hughes, Archbishop.  The record is of property which
he claims and acknowledges to be his, or which is in his own
name, and that of his heirs and assignees.  It is his to give




176        CONTROVERSY BETWEEN SENATOR BROOKS
away, will away, sell away, and dispose of as he pleases. The
following record of a conveyance froml him: to others, will show
that he is as prompt to sell as to buy:
DEED MADE THE SIXTH DAY OF JANUARY, 1853.
JOHN HUGHES
TO
HARLEM  RAILROAD COMPANY.
Consideration of $46,000.
All those certain lots, pieces or parcels of land, situate, lying
and being in the Eighteenth Ward of the city of New York, on the
easterly side of Madison avenue, and the southerly side of Twentyseventh street.
Recorded April 2, 1853, in liber 616, p. 640.
If this, which was Church           w    property  was  property of God,"
how could John Hughes sell it?  If it was not his own property,
how could he deed it away in fee to others?  Would not the
Harlem Railroad Company do well to look to the validity of a
title received from' a man who sells " the property of God," and.
conveys away property which he declares he does not own 3
Yours respectfully, for to-day,
ERTASTUS BROOKS,
NEW YoRK-, cay 2d.
A CARD FROM ARCHBISHOP HUGHES.
TO TEII PUBLIC.
The citizens of New York, and of the United States, must
have seen, and the decent portion of them  must have regretted,
the progress of what seemed to be a controversy between the undersigned and Mr. Erastus Brooks, Senator of the State of New
York.  The point involved is a point of veracity, in which Senator Brooks is responsibly charged with falsehood, and although
the case would warrant it, the charge has not been extended to a




AND ARCHBISHOP HUGH-ES                   177
more degrading term.  The undersigned, although not born in
this country, is far fronm being insensible or indifferent to the
necessity of maintaining an honorable character for those who
represent its high functions in the Legislature, the Judiciary, or
the Executive,  And it is no pleasure to him, but directly the
reverse, that Senator Brooks has placed it in his power, and made
it of obligation for him to prove, as he is quite prepared to do,
that he, the said Senator Brooks, is a man of falsehood.
All this "shall appear in less than ten days from the date of
this card.
In the mean tinle, the undersigned feels humbled at the necessity of saying or writing any thing which should bring infamy or
disgrace upon his country, even though the falsehoods of a person like Senator Brooks should be the immediate occasion of it.
The physical and material powers of the United States are
becoming more and more recognized from  day to day by the
civilized nations of the world.  Unfortunately the moral attributes of our progressive greatness are, in the estimation of the
same nations, sinking from  day to day. And what with the unfavorable portion that is perhaps true in this unsettled account,
and the prejudices of foreign nations who are unprepared to be.
lieve any favorable report in our regard, the probability is, that
whether we like it or not, our course in the esteem  of the civilized world, has at this moment a rather downward tendency.
The undersigned is but a cypher, yet he feels an interest in
the reputation, honor, prosperity and progress of the United
States, which makes it a very painful duty for him to charge any
one who has officiated as a Senator of the country at large, or of
a particular State, with falsehood.
But under present circumstances there is no alternative.  He
charges Senator Brooks with multiplied and deliberate falsehoods,
and he only solicits from the rightmindedness and patience of the
American public a suspension of judgment for ten days.
In the mean time, it would be unbecoming and perfectly disgusting-in the eyes of foreign journalists, and his own countrymen at home. as well as humiliating and painful to his own feel



78    CONTROVERSY BETWEEN SENATOR BROOKS
ings, to see and read in the American journals, that a lomlran'
Catholic Archbishop, iwho claims to be an American, and who, if
he is not an American, has no right or claim on any other country in the world, should appear as the accuser of an American
Senator, whose place of nativity is unquestioneld, charging upon
the same Senator falsehoods deliberately and repeatedly uttered.
This is the issue to which Mr. Erastus Brooks has urged and
brought me.  I meet it.  And while I shield as much as possible the dignity of character which is implied by the word
Senator, I hope that the justice of American public opinion will
give me full liberty to repel and expose the falsehoods of the
ma, called Erastus Brooks.  I appeal with entire confidence to
the patience, as well as justice, of that American public opinion,
which has never disappointed me in matters of truth and justice,
for a suspense of ten days or two weeks.
JO JOH-I, ARCHBISHOP OF NEW YORIr.
NEW YORK, 1icay 3, 1855.
SENATOR BROOKS vs. ARCHBISHOP HUG-IES.
To the Editors of the 6Courier & Enqucirer:
The Archbishop is not content to leave " the wretched and
vile insect, Senator Brooks,"  where he thrust him in his letter of
Wednesday last,-" outside of the nearest open sash of a window."  As I expected, I am  again " worthy of the notice" of
the Archbishop.  I am recalled to his closet to be blessed again
with such amiable epithets as "falsehood," " deliberate falsehoods," repeated, and even duplicated, six times, in seven brief
paragraphs.
All this has been said so many times, and in so many ways
and forms of phrase,, that the Archbishop seems to be apprehensive that the public will forget the harsh names he has called me.
I admit that he has called me all these things, and that the public may not forget them, I intend to have them stereotyped,




ANTD ARCHBISHIOP HGI-HES.               179
admit their high, official origin, —" -    John, Archbishop of New
York."  I have recorded their frequency by quotation, and by
the republication of all the Archbishop's epistles,-but I have
not been so impressed with their appropriateness, coming from.
one who so recently formally proclaimed that he was " invested
with an office in the Church of God, which assimilated to that of
his Divine Master, who had not whereon to lay his head."
It is more than three weeks since the Archbishop addressed
his first contemptuous letter to me,-because of a paragraph in
my speech of the 6th March last, wherein I ventured to " suPPosE,"-that was the word, sir,-that " the value of the amount
of property held by John Hughes in this city was worth not
much short of five millions of dollars,"-and wherein I stated,
as proofs in part, that " A FRIEND OF MINE" had copied 58 entries
of as ma.ny distinct parcels of property held in this name.  I
was careful of my statement and of my authority, who, in this
case, was a city lawyer, in good standing, a member of a Christian Church, and a gentleman.  It was his copies of "the number, book, and page" of the Register's office, that I exhibited, as
stated in my speech to the Senate, along with a huge volume,
rare with American readers, but familiar to you, I suppose, entitled " Corpus Juris Canonici Academicum,' and a book, equally
rare among Protestants, known as the " Pontificate Romanum,"
from both of which I may have something to read to the public
by and by.
How I could be justly charged with FALSEHOOD for a sup
position of fict as to your wealth, founded upon such a record,
passed my dull comprehension.  If I should suppose John Jacob
Astor worth  l10,000,000, and his property, in value, should turn
out to be even greatly less, I could hardly be called, by a Christian or a gentleman, a liar. If I should state the authority and
reason for that slupp2osition, an intelligent andc honest public, or
person, would hardly see the justice for reiterating, from day to
day, and from week to week,-all the time without any proof to
the contrary of the supposed fact,-the cry of "falsehood."
But, as three weeks have not afforded time enough to prove




180         CONTROVERSY BETWEEN SENATOR BROOKS
that "Senator Brooks is a man of falsehood," the Archbishop
now, in " A  Card to the Public," desires " the citizens of New
York and of the United. States," to suspend their judgment for
" ten ckys or two weekcs lonyer."  By all means.  As m1any
days or weeks as you please.  Confined to my room and bed for
some days past, by an illness contracted in Albany, I shall be
better able to meet you then than now, though, God giving me
strength, I am ready now, to meet you, step by step, and day by
day, as long as you please.
I have two or three letters more in preparation as to your
property, and practices in regard to it, in and out of the city,
which, as convenience may suit me, I may or may not publish in
advance of your promised concentrated labor of "ten days or
two weeks" against me.
I am, for to-day, very respectfully yours,
ERASTUS BROOKS.
NEW Y0ORK,  ay 4, 1855.




AND ARCHBISHOP HUGHES.                   181
ARCHBISHOP HUGHES TO THE PUBLIC,
"<* * * ~  MATER VERITATIS DIES NON PElRMISSURA SIT LONGTUAI FRAUDIBUS REGNUM.'GROTIUS, de Imp2. S. P. 100 b. 6.
" * * * * LIGHT, THE MOTHER OF TRUTH, WILL NOT PERMIT DECEPTION TO ENJOY A
LONG REIGN."
During the last session of the New York Legislature, a petition was presented by the Trustees of St. Louis Church, Bufalo,
complaining of pretended grievances which they had suffered, as
they alleged, at the hands of their ecclesiastical superiors, and
praying for an act of civil legislation, on the part of the State, by
which their religious grievances might be brought to an end, and
similar ones henceforth prevented in other congregations.  In
that petition they averred, among other numerous falsehoods,
that " Bishop Hughes had attempted to compel them (the Trustees) to make the title of their church over to him."  The Hon.
Mr. Putnam drafted a bill of contingent confiscation and penalties against the Catholics of this State, unless their Bishops
should henceforth govern and regulate all matters affecting church
property, according to the provisions of the Act.  The undersigned denied that there was one word, or syllable, or letter of
truth in the statement quoted from the petition; and Mir. ViWm
B. Le Couteulx has since admitted its entire falsehood, even
while attempting to vindicate-his own course and that of his fellow-trustees.  Notwithstanding the falsehoods of his petition,
they are entirely adopted by M1r. Putnam, and the one already
mentioned is specially incorporated in his speech in favor of the
bill.  There is no evidence that Mr. Putnanm was then aware of
the falsehood which he had adopted from the text of the petition.
But he must be aware of it now.
Mr. Senator Brooks of this city, also made a speech on the
same side.  By him  the falsehood or falsehoods of the Buffalo




182        CONTROVERSY BETWEEN SENATOR BROOKS
petition adopted by Mr. Senator Putnam, were entirely thrown
in the shade by the gigantic scale on which he projected his.
According to him, Bishop Hughes was the owner, in his own
personal right, of an immense amount of real estate in the city of
New York. He supposed its value to be little short of 15,000,000.
It consisted, according to him, of no less than fifty-eight distinct parcels of real estate, some of them  covering  " whole
squares of land," and all recorded in the Register's office, to the
number of fifty-eight entries.  Of this property there were, according to Mr. Brooks, G numerous transfers from  Trustees,"
and, lest any Senator should doubt his veracity, he sported a pretended reference as from  the records in the Register's Office,
giving book, number, and page, for the correctness of his statements.
One is at a loss whether to be surprised more at the boldness
of this man's falsehoods, or at the imbecile credulity of a public,
calling itself enlightened, who, nevertheless, seemed to receive
his statements as so many gospel truths.
Shortly after my return from  Europe, I called the attention
of Senator Brooks to the wantonness and extravagance of his assertions.  My letter was written in a spirit of playfulness.  I
intimated that after reserving to myself, against the wants of old
age, out of this property little short of five millions, as Mr.
Brooks had asserted, the sum  of two millions, I should appropriate all the balance, say two millions seven hundred and fifty
thousand dollars, to the founding of a magnificent library, which
should be worthy of New York, and as I was indebted to the
Senator for my immense fortune, it should bear his name and be
called "i THE ERASTUS BROOKs LIBRARY."
I intimated, however, in a tone sufficiently serious to attract
his attention, that his statements were untrue, and I called upon
him either to prove or retract them.  I-Ie chose the alternative
of proof, and the public will see how desperate is the condition of
a man who undertakes to prove a flsehood:-since truth will
ever scorn to be a hand maid in such an enterprise, and will




AND ARCHIBISHOP HUG-HES.                183
leave him entirely dependent on his ingenuity for the invention
of secondary falsehoods in support of those which were primary.
Out of this grew the late controversy between Mr. Brooks
and myself. It was not my business to prove that the statements
of his speech were false. It was his to prove them true. It was
but fair that he should have full scope to accomplish this awful
task in his own way, and the public have witnessed the industry
with which he has prosecuted the work.
It has been matter of surprise to some that I should not have
had at any moment my prpofs at hand to refute both the primary
and secondary falsehoods of Mr. Brooks.  In other words, that
I was not preparel to prove a negative, which no man has ever
done by direct argument, and which no man can ever do. The
proof of a negative must always be by deduction from argument
which is positive; and how could I bring my proofs of a negative
through the mnedium of positive facts to a close until Mir. Brooks
should have completed his whole winding and tortuous career of
mendacity?  I believe he has done this, at least.  And now it is
time for me to bring my positive facts to bear upon his positive
falsehoods, scatter them to the winds, and leave him standing before the community a self-degraded, self-ruined man. But before
I commence, it is proper to state, that whatever property may be
found on the records of the Register's Books in the city of New
York, in my name, is in equity and truth, though not in its legal
form, the property of the several congregations to be enumerated
hereafter; that the management of this property has been, by a
rule of the Diocese, dating as far back as 1843, in the hands of
the respective pastors of each congregation, who are required to
associate with them one or two respectable and competent laymen to assist them. in the administration of the temporalities of
their church-to keep regular accounts of its income, its expenditures, &c.-to make and publish from  time to time, at least
once a year, a report of the condition of the church, to be distributed among their pew-holders, and a copy of the same to be forwarded to the archiepiscopal residence, in order to have it inserted
in a diocesan register kept for that purpose. The title of their




184        CONTROVERSY BETWEEN SENATOR BROOKS
church lots was vested nominally in the Bishop.  But he never
considered this as giving him any mlore right to the ownership, in
the sense of Mr. Brooks, than he would have to regard as his own
an offering of charity handed to him for the benefit of the Orphan
Asylum.  Neither has he ever received so much as one farthing
of revenue, or income, from this property, in consequence of his
nominal ownership.  Neither has he troubled himself with the
management of the temiporalities of these congregations, except
in so far as to prevent the church property from being mortgaged,
or exposed to alienation, as had been the case under the irresponsible management of lay trustees. Whenever the Clergyman
and his advisers reported to the Bishop the expediency of their
doing something in regard to such property, he acquiesced, as
often as his judgment approved of their proposal.  In this way,
deeds, and titles, and transfers, and mortgages, &c., were brought
to him from time to time for signature, and as a matter of course
he went through the legal formallity of appending his name.  So
also when new lots were purchased for the erection of new
churches, required by the increasing numlbers of the faithful, the
deed was made out in the Bishop's name,-and the local pastor
and his associates managed all the rest.
It is hardly to be wondered at, therefore, that the Bishop
himself should have been almost taken by surprise by the display
of documents exhibited by Mr. Brooks, purporting to be extracts
from  the records in the Register's Office.  The Archbishop was
perfectly aware, in a general way, that M15r. Brooks had entered
boldly on a career of falsehood, but he was not prepared to suppose that a Senator of the State of New York, in order to brazen
it out against him, would have dared to falsify the public records,
This, however, Mr. Brooks has done.
Before proceeding to exhibit the secondary falsehoods of ir.
Brooks more at length, I shall give a statement of all the property recorded in my name in the legister's Office on the day of
the Senator's speech.  It is the same to-day, as nothing has been
added to or taken from it since.
The property, then, which is recorded in my name, is the ag



AND ARCHBISHOP HUGHES.                     185
gregate of lots on which fifteen diierent Catholic congregations
have their places of worship, their priests' residences, and. in solme
instances their schools. The number of these lots is seventy-seven,
(77,) giving a fraction over five lots each for the church edifices
of these fifteen congregations.  I am told'by competent judges,
that if these lots were to be sold, the buildings on them, though
exceedingly valuable to the Catholics as places for the purposes
of Divine public worship, would not add to their value in the estimation of purchasers.  I am  further told by competent judges,
that, scattered as they are at various points, from Barclay street
to Manhattanville, they would not fetch more, one with the other,
than five thousand collars each lot.  This would produce, as the
total value of property recorded in the Register's offie, in the
name of the Archbishop:
The sum of........................... $3S5,000
But in the same Register's ofice there are recorded as
incumbrances on these seventy-seven lots, mortgages'to the amount, in the aggregate of...............   245,640
Reducing the net value of property recorded in the
name of Archbishop HUGHES, to the alarming sum,
(not of a "little short of $5,000,000," but) of.......  139,360
It is to be observed that before the Archbishop realized, even
this sum, it would be necessary for him not only to become a dishonest man, but also to go through the process of turning fifteen
Catholic congregations, with their respective priests, into the
streets of the city.
Such are the length and breadth, and height and depth, of
all the real estate recorded in the name of Archbishop Hughes
in the books of the Register's office.  I trust the Protestant community will breathe more freely in consequence of knowing this
fact.  I trust also that our Catholic laity will be prepared better
to give an answer, when the supposed immense wealth of their
Archbishop is made a reproach to them.  I may as well add
here, that the property  of the Cathedral, including  Calvary




186        CONTROVERSY BETWEEN SENATOR BROOKS
Cemetery, is managed by the Board of Trustees of St. Patrick's
Church;c that they receive and expend, and keep an account of
all income andl all outlay connected with their trust; that the
Archbishop's relation to it, is precisely the same as that of his
predecessor; that he has no personal income to the amount of
one farthing, from these revenues, except what is annually appropriatec by the Board for his decent maintenance;-that the sum
thus apportioned, though sufficient, is yet moderate enough, and
that if it is not more, the reason is that the Archbishop has more
than once declined to accept a larger amount.
There was a period during the late controversy between Mr.
Brooks and myself, when I almost doubted whether falsehood
would not gain the victory over truth.  A perfect novice as re-,
gards deeds and titles and formalities of law, I should not have
known where to commence my refutation of the man of falsehood.
Accordingly, I referred the matter to two rdspectable legal
gentlemen, namely, M}essrs. T. James Glover and W7. C. Wetmore.  When I asked the public to suspend their judgment for
ten days or two weeks, it was that these gentlemen might have
time to examine the records in the Register's office.  This they
have done.  They have followed Mr. Brooks, number by numnber.  They have examined every thing alleged by him as on the
authority of the public records, and from their reliable statement
now submitted, I shall be able to show  that M/r. Brooks has
been guilty of numerous, deliberate, and wilful falsehoods, including the daring experiment of perverting and falsifying the
very records which he pretended to cite.  Here are the letter
and Report of Messrs. Glover and Wetmore:
To the fost.Rev. Arclb'isho2l) ilugles.
In compliance with your request, we have examined the various
records of conveyances to you, mentioned in the several letters of Senator Brooks, as well as others made by you; and we beg leave to present to you, as the result of such examination, the accompanying report, upon the accuracy of which you may confidently rely.
We have only to observe that the respective deeds are numbered
to correspond with the numbers used by Senator Brooks, and that




AND ARCHBISHOP HUGHES.                         187
those which are not noticed, are correctly cited by him, except some
inaccuracies of reference.
We have the honor to be with great respect,
Your obedient servants,
(Signed) T. JAMEiS GLOvER.
W. C. W. TeORE.
NTE   YORK, Mcayc  11, 1855.
REPORT.
No. I. Is a lease for 999 years, at a nominal rent, but with a covenant on the part of the lessee to maintain a Church according to the
rites and discipline of the Roman Catholic Church.
No. II. Is an assignment of a lease affecting the scoae premzises mentioned in Nro. XYX.
The lots belonging to St. Paul's Church at Harlem, were assessed
for the opening of 117th street, in 1840.  They were sold to P. Doherty, for non-payment of the assessment, and the same not being redeemed were leased to him  by the Mayor, &c., of the City of New
York, for twenty years.  This is the lease assigned by P. Doherty to
the Rt. Rev. John H-ughes, as stated in No. II.  The identical premises were conveyed by the Sheriff in an execution sale against the Trustees of St. Paul's Church, to the Rt. Rev. John Hughes, as set out in
No. XIX.  The two deeds convey but one and the same piece of property.
No. III. Is between the same parties and for the same premises
mentioned in No. VII.
No. VI. Is a deed by Patten and wife of the half part of a vault for
burial on the premises mentioned in No. X.
No. VII. Is the same as No. III. as above stated.
No. VIII. is correctly stated, as follows:
Bartholomew O'Connor                             Deed dated
of the 1st part,                           7th Feb., iec. 22
to                                     Sept., 1845.
Rt. Rev. John Hughes                           lib. 465, p. 415.
of the 2d part.
This deed cites a conveyance by the Trustees of Christ Church to
Bartholomew O'Connor, dated, 5th January, 1843, whereby the Trustees with the consent of the Court of Chancery, assigned their lands,
&c., upon trust to sell the same, and out of the proceeds to pay their
creditors.  It then, in consideration of $42,000, conveys the four lots
on James street, and also the vestments, church furniture, and organ.
Mr. O'Connor is nowhere styled Trustee to ChG'ist ChUrch, nor Trustee of Christ Churc/h.  Nor was he such in fact or in law, nor can he
with propriety be so styled.  He was simply an assignee for the benefit of Creditors, by virtue of an assignment msade Jan. 1843, and
conveyed the premises in February, 1845, to Rt. Rev. John Hughes in
the same manner as he might have done to any other purchaser.




188         CONTROVERSY BETWEEN SENATOR BROOKS
No. IX.-Is a conveyance of the property of the Sacred Heart at
Manhattanville, the whole of which was subsequently conveyed by the
Rt. Rev. John H-ughes to Aloysia Hardy, by deed dated 10 Feb. 184d,
recorded on 17th January, 184:8, lib. 497, p. 292.
No. XI. The premises mentioned in this deed, executed by Z.
Kantze, though separately numbered on the map, really form but one
lot, having a front on the street of twenty-five feet by about one hundred and sixty feet deep.
Nos. XIV., XV., and XVI. all relate to the property of the Convent of Mercy.  No. XIV. is an assignment of a lease for life of one lot
on Mulberry street.  No. XV. is a confirmation of a previous deed by
the attorney in fact of Mr. Rea, to W. I-I. Butler-the power of attorney having been lost.  No. XIV. is the main source of title to this
property.
The whole of it was conveyed by the Miost Rev. John Hughes to' The Institution of Moercy," as soon as incorporated, according to law,
by  deed dated 1st June, 1854; rec. 15th June, 1854, lib. 663,
p. 368.
No. XVII. is a conveyance of a' strip of land," znot c lot, beMzg only
two inches in vidth by 100 feet in depth, adjoining another lot,
No. XVIII. is the conveyance of an irregular piece of land at
the corner of 27th st. and Mladison avenue; on the preceding page of
the record is a release of dower in the same premises in consideration
of $3,377 63.
The whole of this piece of land was conveyed by the Most Rev.
Archbishop to the Harlem Railroad Company, by deed dated 6th Jan.
1853; recorded 2d April, 1853, lib. 616, p. 640.
No. XIX. is the sheriff's deed mentioned above under the head of
No. II., and conveys the same premises.
No. XXII. is a deed of confirmation of the same premises described
in No. XLVI.  The latter (No. XLVI.) i s a deed from  Rev. Felix
Varela, to the iMost Rev. John H-ughes, of the property known as
Transfiguration Church.  It bears date April 23, 1850, and was recorded on the 1st day of November, 1850, in liber 554, page 486.
The conveyance No. XXII. bears date December 9th, 1851, and was
recorded on   ~, in liber 591, page 268.  This deed recites upon its
face an order of the Sup'eme Court, dated November 22d, 1851, authorizing the Trustees to execute it in cofirmation of the title of the
grantee.
The whole of these premises mentioned in the above deeds, was conveyed by the aMost Rev. Archbishop to L. J. Wyeth, by deed dated
May 2c, 1853; recorded the sameday, liber 640, page 464.
No. XXV1. is an assignment of a lease for the unexpired portion of
a term, having originally three years and six months to run from November 1st, 1850.
No. XLI. is a conveyance fromn the Corporation of the Protestant
Episcopal Church, known as Zion's Church.
No. XLIII is a conveyance of four lots, on the corner of Fifth
avenue and Fiftieth street-being 100 feet 5 inches on the avenue, by




AND ARCHBISHOP HUGHES.                      189
100 feet in depth.  It is not a conveyance of " a square of land," in
the sense in which the term is used; nor, indeed, in apy sense.
But the entire premises described in this deed, were conveyed by
the Most Rlev. Archbishop I-lughes to the Trustees of St. Patrick's
Cathedral, by deed dated February 8th, 1853; recorded ]March 9th,
1853, liber 630, page 337.
No. XLVI. has been already disposed of.
The deed of the Orphan Asylum property is correctly stated as
follows:  The Mayor, Aldermen, &c., of the city of New York, of the
first part, to the Roman Catholic Orphan Asylum Society, in the city
of New York, of the second part-deed dated August 1st, 1846; recorded Book A of Deeds, page 271, Comptroller's office-conveys a
piece of land on Fifth avenue, between Fifty-first and Fifty-second
streets, and extending easterly 450 feet, upon condition that the parties of the second part erect thereon, within three years, a building to
be approved by the  Iayor, and that they keep the premises for the
purposes contemplated by their charter.  The counterpart is signed
by the President and Secretary of the Board of Trustees of the
Asylum.
(Signed)           T. JAMES GLOVER.
W. C. W7ETiMORE.
Thhe foregoing authentic statements, taken from  the records,
will warrant me in summing up the results of the examination
made by Messrs. Glover and Wetmore, as follows:
I. Mr. Brooks has falsifecd the record, by styling Bartholomew O'Connor " Trustee to Christ Church."
II. He falsely cited the deed from  the Trustees of Transfiguration Church, executed in 1851.   The falsehood consisted
in suppressing what appears upon the face of that deed-that it
was simply in confirzmation of a title previously vested in the
Archbishop.  The premises had been, in truth, conveyed to him
by Rev. F. Varela, in 1850.
III. He intentionally  falsifies, when he declares that the
deed of MF[ichael Curran conveyed " a square of land.?l
IV. I Ie wilfully counts the following premises twice:
1st. The property of St. Paul's Church, —first, under the lease
from P. Doherty, and again under the deed from Westervelt.
2d. The half part of a vault for burial, under the deed from Patten
and wife, the same having been embraced in the premises conveyed
by Rev. Andrew Byrne.
3d. The lot described in deed from  Mr. Rea,-first, under that
deed, and again under the deed from G. IV. Hall.




190         CONTROVERSY BETWEEN SENATOR BROOKS
4th. The Transfiguration Church property,-first, under the Varela deed, and again under the deed of confirmation.
V. He includes the following property, though  conveyed
away by the Archbishop:
1st. The property of the Sacred Heart at Manhattanville.
2d. The property of the Convent of Mercy.
3d. The property at the corner of Madison avenue and Twentyseventh street.  He will not deny that he knew the Archbishop conveyed away this property, for he cites the deed to the Harlem Railroad Company in the very letter in which he falsely attributes to the
Archbishop the ownership of it. 
4th. The property of the Transfiguratioh Church.  Not content
with setting it down as still vested in the name of the Archbishop,
though he conveyed it away two years ago, Mr. B. counts it twice.
5th. The four lots at the corner of Fifth avenue and Fiftieth street.
VI. IHe counts the following as.entire lots:
1st. The half of a vault for burial.
2d. The " strip of land," two inches wide, conveyed by Costar's
executors.
3d. A piece of land, 15 feet by 97 feet 4 inches, conveyed by R.
Kein.
4th. A piece of land, 26 feet 3 inches by 32 feet 6 inches, conveyed by Wood's executors.
VII. IHe counts the leasehold lot assigned by J. R. Bayley,
although the term  expired on the 1st of May, 1854.
VIII. IHe counts the property conveyed by Z. Kantze as two
lots-the same forming, in truth, but one.
This reduces the number of deeds of lots now vested in the
Archbishop, to 32; and reduces the lots themselves from 101 to
77, as follows:
Whole number of deeds quoted by Mr. Brooks,...       46
Actual number as taken from the records in the Register's office,   32
Difference,.....       o.  14
Whole number of lots stated by Mr. Brooks,.                   101
Strike out the following...     lots.
1. Lease-St. John's,..   3
2.   "   J.. Bayley; expired May, 1854,.. 




AND ARCHBISHOP HUGHES.                     191
3.   "   P. Doherty; counted twice,... 1
4. Deed-Patten,             "     "...    1
5.   "   James Rea,         "     "..          I
6.   "   Trustees of Transfiguration Church; counted
twice,... 2
7.   "   Commann; conveyed away,.
8.   "     G. W. Hall,.... 6
9.       M. A. Gafney,...    2
10.   "   Rev. F. Varela,      "... 2
11.   "   Michael Curran,    "...  "square"
12.   "   Costar's executors; a strip,... 
13.   "   P. Kein; part of lot,....    1
14.   "   Wood's executors; part of lot,... 1
Making in all,.....           24
Which, subtracted from 101, as reported by Mr. Brooks,
leaves a balance, as has been elsewhere mentioned, of
lots,..........        77
It would require a small volume to develope, at length, all the
circumstances of meanness, that characterize the falsehoods of
which Mr. Brooks has been guilty.  I may say, in general, that
all falsehoods range themselves either under one or other of
these two heads, namely: the assertion of something that has no
existence in reality, or the denial of something which has.  It
follows, therefore, that falsehood has no real existence, except as
the negative of truth; and, consequently, that what is called
public opinion, has no power to create truth from falsehood, or
to destroy truth and render it false.  Public opinion, to be worth
any thing as regards things which exist, or things which do not,
ought to be the legitimate offspring of truth-its creature, not
its creator.  A friend of mine has preserved some four columns
of scraps, from different newspapers, published for the most part
in the interior, as evidence of public opinion in regard to the
late controversy between MLr. Brooks and myself.  The generality of the press, however, and especially in the large cities, have
had the kindness to abstain from pronouncing judgment on the
question of veracity, until the evidence should be all in, and the
testimony closed on both sides.  For this just course of forbearance, pending the controversy, and especially since I solicited a
suspension of judgment for ten days or two weeks, I now make




192        CONTROVERSY BETWEEN SENATOR BROOKS
my grateful acknowledgments.  But I have no such acknowledgmnents to make to the journals which have pronounced a premature judgment, and whose hasty opinions have been eagerly
gathered into the columns of the.1Epress.  Having indorsed
IMr. Brooks, without waiting to know what they were about, it
was but consistent that they should vilify Archbishop I-ughes,
which they have not failed to do. I do not ask them to retract
what they have said.  I do not ask them  to recall or change
their opinions on the subject; but I do ask them, as the only
reparation which it is in their power to make, to publish this
letter in their respective papers.  If they are honorable men,
they will do so.  If I were their enemy, which I am  not, I
could not desire to inflict on them  a more humiliating punishment for their unfair and rash judgment.  If they only publish
this letter, they may, of course, if they choose, still continue to
encourage falsehood, and the falsification of public documents,
by their continued indorsement of Senator Brooks.
It is customary throughout nearly all Christendom  for a
Catholic Bishop to prefix the sign of the Cross to his signature.  Most of those editors just now  referred to, and who
have been fabricating public opinion for the New York,Express,
seem to be too poor in the resources of their printing offices to
possess any type which would represent the symbol of Christianity; and, as the next substitute thereto, or rather in ridicule
thereof, they substitute the sign of the assassin,. the dagger.
They imagine apparently that this substitution will make tremendous havoc on the reputation of Archbishop Hughes.  But
they seem  to forget that the sign of the Cross is the sign of
man's redemption, and that symbol in which St. Paul glorified,
and the symbol which, when represented by a dagger, they are
giving over to the scandal of youth,"the ridicule of the infidel,
and scoffer at all Christianity.  And yet our type-founders are
not surely so barren of ingenuity, as not to be able to invent
something outside the alphabet, which would give a grave and
decent idea of the sign of the Cross. Every civilized nation is familiar with symbolic language, nor are we, as a people; at all deficient




AND ARCHBISHOP HUGHES.                  193
in this respect, with the single exception I have just mentioned.
Outside the alphabet we have our symbolic type to represent, for
instance, a section of railway, a steam engine, a tree, a house, a stray
horse, or a runaway negro.  In fact we have in our printing offices symbolic type for almost every thing except the sign of the
Cross.  Surely it cannot be that our printers are so excessively
American, according to the late and improved sense of that term,
that they reject the sign of the Cross, because it symbolizes a
foreign religion.  Alas! if all Americans were like some of our
modern legislators, Christianity, the thing symbolized as well as
its type, would be foreign enough.  Be this, however, as it may,
I will forgive those editors if they will only publish this letter,
and allow their readers to see and study the melancholy evidences it exhibits of the humiliating position into which their rash,
unjust, hasty conclusions, in my regard, and their blind reliance
on the veracity of Senator Brooks, have betrayed them.  Their
readers will perceive that the Honorable Senator has left no species of falsehood unemployed.  Being no doubt acquainted with
the rules of evidence, they will perceive that Mr. Brooks has
perpetrated the falsehood direct, assertio fclsi, which, if' such a
term  can be applied in such a case, is manly and undisguised
falsehood;-as, for example, the " whole squares of land " which
in his speech he said were mine.  This is the out and out assertio fasi, without a shadow of mitigation.  The next species is in
the insinuation of what is false, suggestio falsi;-take, for example, the case in which he intimates, and would have the public
believe, that the property given to the Orphan Asylum by the
Corporation of the city was given to me, on the plea that my
name as President of the Society, and that of its Secretary,
were signed to the conditions on which the conveyance had been
made.  The third species is the suppressing of the truth, suppressio veri.  This has been exemplified by our Senator; —as,
for instance, in the case of the deed, which has on its face, as
certified by Messrs. Glover and Wetmore, " in confirmation " of
a previous title.  If the first species of falsehood here alluded to
be regarded as at least bold, open, manly and outspoken, the




194        CONTROV ERS  BETWEEN SEfNATOR BROOKS
second and third, whenever a question of veracity is involved,
are always looked upon as low, sneaking, and base.  On the
whole, it appears from records and testimony which Mr,. Brooks
will not dare deny, that he is an expert in every department of
falsehood, and that we can say of him, but in a different sense,
what the poet said of Sheridan,~-he
N;  -XI     6 man
lTrough each mode of the lyre,
And was master of all."
Time will not permit me to go into further details on this
melancholy subject.  I presume the public is disgusted with the
exhibition which Senator Brooks has rendered it my painful but
imperative duty thus to furnish, on the authority of witnesses
and documents which he cannot gainsay. The reader, however,
cannot be more disgusted with it than the writer is. And if he
will cast his eyes back over the correspondence which has taken
place, he will see that I left nothing undone at an earlier stage
of its progress to warn and save Mr. Brooks from results which
he has determined on realizing to the bitter end.  I spoke of the
bad example to our youth which would result from his course,I reminded him that his reputation belonged not to himself; but
to his country, and that he was not at liberty to trifle with it.
I tried to rouse him  to the dangers of his career by language
approaching insult, in order to bring him  to an issue on some
specific question of veracity before he should have accumulated
upon his head the mountain which not only hides, but crushes.
It was all in vain.  If I was content with my " epithets," he said
he was content with his " facts."  And by this bold but desperate
course, Mr. Brooks must have flattered himself that he should
carry a large portion of the public with him, or, at all events,
that he should so befog the question as to enable him to escape
detection and exposure. That mass of "public opinion," so
called, which has been gathered from various newspapers into the
columns of the Express, shows that for a brief period Mr. Brooks
succeeded in his purpose  but should he ever enter on a contro



AND ARCHBISHOP IUGHES.                   195
versy again, let him not forget the motto prefixed to this letter,
in which the great Dutch philosopher proclaims an important
principle, namely: "L Light, the mother of Truth, will not permit
Deception to enjoy a long reign."
Before closing this communication, I must be allowed to say
a few words in reference to the style of vituperation employed
towards me by those editors whose adverse opinions have been
garnered in the columns of the Express.  They hold it as an
impertinence for a foreigner like myself to adventure on any criticism of the language which a native born American Senator may
think proper to employ to his prejudice. They have indorsed the
career and position of Mr. Brooks, in reference to the issue of
the late controversy, and in opposition to facts and truth. I hold
their opinions, therefore, at a very low estimate.  Nevertheless,
I must tell them  that I am  not a foreigner: I renounced for!
eignism  on oath nearly forty years ago. I procured from  the
proper court a certificate of political and civil birthright as an
American citizen, and I am not disposed to relinquish one jot of
the privileges to which, in the faith of the country, it entitled
nme.  But if I renounced foreignism, I did not renounce humanity.  And whilst I hold myself to be as true and loyal an American as ever claimed the protection of our national flag, I would
not exchange the bright memories of my early boyhood in another
land, and beneath a different sky, for those of any man living,
no matter where he was born.  Those editors who fabricate public opinion for the N. Y. Express, say that I am not an American.  But they are mistaken.  If principles and feelings which
are theorized, though, perhaps, not always realized in the system
of our free government, constitute an American, they were mine
from earliest memory-they were innate-they were inheritedthey were a portion of my nature. I could not eliminate them
from  the moral constitution of my nature and being, even if I
would.  In this sense I was an American rfrom birth.  I revered
justice and truth, as it were, by instinct.  I hated oppression
and despised falsehood.  I cherished, both for myself, and, as far
as practicable, for all mankind, a love of the largest liberty com



196         CONTROVERSY BETWEEN SENATOR BROOKS
patible with private rights and public order.  Of course, then,
when penal laws, enacted on account of mly religion, had rendered
my native land unfit for a life-long residence, unless 1 would belong to a degraded class, America, according to its professed
principles, was the country for me.  But I came not merely to
be an inhabitant, but a citizen of the United States. I have,
therefore, been an American-I am  an American-I will be an
American —   shacll be an American in despite of all the editors
that have rushed into the New York Express, with only half the
evidence before them, to record judgment in favor of Senator
Brooks, and against Archbishop Hughes.
In regard to the recent enactment of our Legislature, forcing
an unsolicited bill on the Catholics of New York, out of which
the late controversy with Senator Brooks arose, it is not, perhaps,
becoming for me to say much.  It is, I think, the first statute
passed in the Legislature of New York since the Revolution,
which has for its object to abridge the religious and encroach on
the civil rights of the members of one specific religious denomination.  Hitherto when any denomination of Christians in the State
desired the modification of its laws affecting Church property, the
Legislature waited for their petitions to that effect-took the same
into consideration, and when there was no insuperable objection,
modified the laws so as to accommodate them to the requirements
of the particular sect or denomination by whom the petition had
been presented.  Thus the law of 1784, though still on the statute
book, has become practically antiquated and obsolete.- From its
odious and oftentimes impracticable requirements, the Episcopalians, the Presbyterians, the Miethodists, the Dutch Reformed
Church, the Quakers, and perhaps others besides, have at various
times solicited exemption at the hands of the Legislature, and obtained special enactments more in accordance with their faith and
discipline respectively.   Now  this antiquated law is the one
which is revived, reinvigorated, strengthened by provisions for
contingent confiscation of Church property, and forced upon the
Catholics of the State of New York as sufficiently good for them.
They had not petitioned for it,-they did not desire it,-they




AND ARCHBISHOP HUGHES.                    197
will not have it, if they can lawfully dispense with its enactments.
1 am indebted to the kindness of a friend, perfectly competent
to form a judgment on the subject, for the following synopsis of
the hardships, provided for in the different sections of this Church
Tenure Bill:
lst.-It makes void a deed of land, if intended for religious
worship,-that is to say, it takes from every man (lay or ecclesiastic) the right, either to give to any individual, or to buy a lot,
to devote it to the highest purpose to which it can be devoted, the
adoration of the living God.
2d. —It avoids a last wvill of any real estate so used.  It thus
makes it unlawful for any man to leave such property by will to
any person, even his own children, and this notwithstanding he
may have purchased it and built a church upon it with his own
money.
3d.-It attempts to affect lands, held in fee simple absolute
with a newly created trust in law,-by a usurpation of judicial
functions-which, if tolerated, would destroy the Judiciary, and
make the Legislature supreme and despotic.
4th.-It would thus not only impair the validity of a vested
title, in violation of the Constitution of the United States, but it
would deprive a man of his property without judicial process, in
violation of our State Constitution and Bill of Rights.
5th.-By a short, summary sentence,-it would wrest frorn the
individual and from  his heirs and devisees all title to such property on his death, (no matter how lawfully acquired,) declaring
by a stretch of power, eclualled only by the assumed omnipotence
of Parliament, that on his death it shcll vest in thie Stcate.
The Constitution declares that the entire and absolute property in lands is vested in the individual owner, subject only to
the law  of escheat for defect of heirs.  Yet here we have a
statute above the Constitution-a statute cqf confiscation and ot
usurpation.  Mioreover it is the legislation of the strong against
the weak,-the legislation of political and religious animosity,
forcing, in the 19th century and. in this free land, upon one re



198                    CONTROVERSY, ETC.
ligious body a system  of church management hostile to their
church discipline.
lHow many are the private rights, hitherto declared sacred
and inalienable, which are stricken down by this bold enactment!
Surely there is matter in this act to make thinking men pause
and wonder that the transition from unrestricted freedom to absolute despotism is so easy and so rapid.
Such is the synopsis of the effects contemplated by what is
called the Church Tenure Bill. And the reader who has had the
patience to peruse the whole of this communication, will have seen
by what means it was introduced, and by what means its enactment has been accomplished.
+  JOHN, Archbishop of New Yorec.
liE  YORK, lAuay 1-th, 1855.












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OPiY  OF  A  LETTE
^ Mau#m1l~ng  W      l 6.1D.v  e l Sol  t e 1I1H  1^flepr
TO EDWARD DUNIGAN & BROTHER0
MJiost worthy and respected Gentlemen:
Some books, which, as it appeared by your qost
courteous letter, you wished to offer to our most holy Lord
Pope Pius IX., have been lately handed to him.  This act
on your part could not but please his Holiness, and the zeal
you constanztly show by the publication of works in defence
and protection of the cause of the Catholic Religion, gives
him? g'reat joy.
The Sovereign Pontifdf therefore, with great pleasure encourages you in your course by this letter, and returnzs you
his thanks for the gift which you offer.
I am, mzoreover, ordered to transmit a gold medal, which
the same benignz Pontiff sends, impressed with his august
effgy, and with it, as ca pledge of his paternal and especial
cafection- towards you, his Apostolic blessing, which, as an
auspice of all heavenly good, he lovingly grants you with the
most sincere affection of his heart.
I have only to profess my respects to you, Gentlemen, on
whom7  I earnestly im2plore all that is sa ving and propitious
from our Lord.
Gentlemen,
Yougr most humble and obedient Servant,
D OMIS1VIC PrIORAiMONTI,
Rome, July 6th, 1853.            _Latin Secretcay to his Iholiness,
To E.!DUNUIGAE V & BROTHER, Yew Yorc.
B ------      ---------—. —-— =  F~-~~~~M      I~




-L-BIBLES AND TESTAMIENTS.
PUBLISHED UNDER TIIE APROBATION OF THE
IOST REV. JOHN HUGI-IHES, ARCI-IBISHOP OF NEW  YORK.
DUNIGAN & BROTHER'S
NEW, CHEAP, SUPERBLY ILLUSTRATED, AND UNABRIDGED EDITION OF
The 9most complrelensive in th7e Enzgish, lcbn.agucge.
TI-IE HOIY  BIBLE, translated from the Latin Vulgate, diligently compared with the Hebrew, Greek, and other editions in
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English College at Douay, A. D. 1609; and the NEW TESTAMIENT,
first published by the English College at Rheims, A. D. 1582, with
useful notes, Critical, IHistorical, Controversial, and Explanatory,
from  the most eminent Commentators and able and judicious
critics,
M   1T i     es. Ge.r,     Leo TU(eyo            BoRPg DIo. 1.
Splendidly embellished by eminent Artists, after the great Masters.
This edition contains in full the many thousand  Critical, Explanatory, and Practical Notes illustrative of the Text, with References, Readings, Chronological Tables, and Indexes of the great
Original Work, being an exact reprint of the edition approved by
the Catholic hierarchy in England and Ireland.  It is published
under the approbation of the MOST REV. JOHN HUGHES, D. D., Archbishop of New York, and honored with the patronage of most of
the Archbishops, Bishops, and Clergy of the United States and the
Canadas.
Pri.ce-American morocco, embossed,... $14
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G




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" Given at New York, this 5th day of May, 1852, under our hand
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am LFX Etran, cc!s PE~rMOCEL MIDeRm37e69
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"I remain, &c.,   q    o B o.PD-r'eiq9
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faithful of my Diocese, as a choice family Bible, elegant in appearance
and rich in learning.
BP. OF LOUISVILLE."
"The larger will be the circulation of your unparalleled Family
Bible in the Diocese of Toronto, the happier will be, &c.,
"L t i rC~BlIgL3~~BP. OF Tlo     ORO."
BP. OF TORONTO."'
"Having examined the new edition of Haydock's Catholic Bible,
by E. Dunigan & Brother, I cheerfully unite with the other prelates in
recommending it to the faithful of the Diocese of Charleston, and of the
United States.
J6       A  ie   O EeynBosa
BISiOP OF CHARLESTON.'
"I cordially recommend Messrs. Dunigan & Brother's edition of
HIaydok's Bible, published under the sanction of Abp. Hughe., to the
attention and patronage of the Catholics of the Diocese of Erie.
G GL"xv   ~Ig ~o  p.o mB  oraIa."
BP. OF bERIE"
Br  r L uF."




IYV-CONTROYERSIA1 TREATISES.
PUBLISHED UNDER THE APPROBATION OF
THE MOST REV. JOHN HUGHES, D. D.,
ARCHBISHOP OF NEW YORK.
THE EIGHTH EDITION OF
A IP.evuievr oR /ti'frl  i~92n Six Letters.
Addressed to the Rev. Nicholas Murray, D. D., of Elizabethtown,
My  I e  f@t DR ec   o-'-Ln Ifirughe   ID  ID.
ARCIBIISHOOP o S NEW TORE.
These letters appeared originally in the New York Freeman's
Journal, and are now republished in book form.
They are marked by all the clearness of language, felicity of
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Krice-6J cents, or 50 cents per dozen.
ITOTICES.
In these letters the Rev. Nicholas Murray is exhibited to the public
in a very unenviable light, and is lashed with the power and sarcasm
which he well deserves.-Unitted States Ccctholic lalgazinze.
It is probable that Mr. Murray designed to get into a religious controversy with Bishop Hughes, and from being thus made the champion
of his own portion of Protestants, to elevate himself by the controversy.
The Amsericcan Bossuet had already annihilated the best champions of
the Protestant cause, and could not well stoop to argument on religious
matters with one such as these valuable letters show Mr. Murray to
have been.-Truth Teller.
B 




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"Given at the Episcopal residence, this 27th day of January,
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+ " JOHN HUGHES,
"BISHOP OF ONEW YORa."
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1"~his__   ___t^                          <&&




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P  I




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g k  Ptgga3T  tu                    tp1t S.                XTblm
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~     ~'~.~-..,^-   -                          -   -      ^   ^




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