Yale University Library

39002004755964

•V*

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*&*

YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY
Purchased from the income
of the bequest of
WILLIAM ROBERTSON COE
Honorary M.A. 1949, for
material in the field
of American Studies

THE

CEISIS:

OK, THE

ENEftiES OF AMERICA

UNMASKED.

BY J. WAYNE LAURENS.

PHILADELPHIA :
G. D. MILLER.— PUBLISHER*"
1855.

Entered, according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1855, by
G. D. MILLER.
in the Clerk's OfEoe of the District Court of the United States in
and for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
Printed fcy T. K & P. Q. Collins.
Cue,)

PREFACE.
The most remarkable of all the circumstances;
which^distinguish our own country from others,
is its rapid growth. In the begining of .the seven
teenth century it was a wilderness, inhabited only
by savages and wild beasts. In the middle of
the nineteenth, it rivals, the oldest and proudest
nations of the world in population, wealth, intel
ligence and industry. When the territory of the
United States was first trodden by the settlers.
of Virginia, England, Prance and Germany could
boast centuries upon centuries of cultivation,
with some little knowledge of civil and religious
freedom. Since that period America has shown
the birth, childhood, youth and manhood, of a
model republic, which Europe has repeatedly
but vainly endeavored to copy.
All this implies rapid progress. Our country
(iii)

IV PREFACE.
has been aptly called the " country of progress."
It is also, as a necessary consequence, the theatre
of sudden changes. Hence many enactments which
were' politic and just in the infancy of the republic,
are pernicious and unjust at the present time.
Among these are the laws, totally different from
those of any other civilized nation, which give to
foreigners, after a very short residence, the rights
of citizenship.
When the country was just redeemed from the
Revolution, suchlaws seemed politic and were com
paratively harmless. Now they are portentous and
dangerous. They are rapidly filling the country
with powerful and unscrupulous enemies to her
prosperity and her excellent institutions, on which
that prosperity is founded.
These enemies, not content to enjoy peace
security and equal rights of citizenship, under
our constitution and laws, are boldly conspiring
to subvert our most revered institutions, to change
our laws, to destroy our liberties and to bring
the whole country into a state of civil, as they
already have, of financial dependance on foreign
countries. These' enemies are spread over the
whole land, but they abound chiefly in cities.

THE

ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.

CHAPTER I.
JESUIT INFLUENCE.

An American gentleman was passenger on board a
merchant ship, bound from London to Rio Janeiro.
There were among the passengers Englishmen, Ger
mans, Frenchmen, Spaniards, and Portuguese ; but
the person we refer to was the only American. Be
tween himself and the English gentlemen, there were
frequent discussions about politics, to which such of
the other passengers, as could speak English, would
listen, sometimes taking a part. Of course, our Ame
rican was a great friend to the institutions of his own
country ; and defended republican forms of govern-
(9)

10 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
men, freedom of the speech and of the press, the vote
by ballot, and all the other elements of popular sove
reignty through thick and thin. Assailed on every
side, he found his office of champion of freedom no
sinecure. Every calm morning and every pleasant
evening witnessed a new controversy on the deck or
in the cabin ; but he manfully held his ground against
a host of adversaries; and being fluent in speech,
strong in argument, skilled in logic, and full of lively
and sarcastic humor, he generally came out of the
debate with honor, taking care always to terminate the
action at precisely the right moment, and to quit the
field with flying colors.
Among the persons who listened with the greatest
attention to these debates, was a lean bilious looking
old Frenchman, who always took care to be present,
and who showed by his look and manner, that he was
deeply interested in politics, .although he never by any
chance uttered an opinion or made a remark on poli
tical subjects, in the general circle of the passengers.
In point of fact, this man was a Roman Catholic
priest, a Jesuit of high standing, who was going to
Bome station in South America, in obedience to an
order from his superior. He was a cosmopolite indeed.

JESUIT INFLUENCE. 11
Though not much past the middle point of life, he was
rather aged in appearance, in consequence of the great
variety and extent of the missions which he had per
formed in all quarters of the world, and in every kind
of climate. From Canada to Calcutta; from the
breezy heights of the Andes to the unwholesome
marshes of Java, by sea and by land, in season and
out of season, this man had journeyed on -the secret
errands of his order. Speaking fluently a dozen dif
ferent languages, and possessing the most perfect
power of dissimulation, as well as the most thorough
devotedness to the church, and thpse carefully trained
habits of obedience, which are so essential to tha.
character of an able and faithful Jesuit, he had. at
length become one of the most accomplished men of
his age.
As he listened to the conversation of the American
passenger, he could not help noticing, that he was
gradually making converts to republican views. Many
of these passengers, he observed, sought private inter
views with the American; and by careful eaves
dropping,' he ascertained that their object was to ask
questions about his country, and gain information re
specting the actual working of the American attempt

12 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
at self-government. When the passage was nearly over,
the Frenchman happening to be alone with the Ame
rican, in a retired part of the deck, where their con
versation could not be overheard, commenced a quiet
chat with him. Addressing him in English, which
be spoke with ease and precision, he thanked him
with apparent cordiality, for the entertainment he had
derived from his conversation or rather eloquent ha
ranguing to the other passengers, during the voyage.
He professed to have enjoyed their debates very
greatly ; and gave the American due credit for his wit,
his logic, his humour, his address, and his unbounded
good nature.
The American was much pleased at his compliments ;
for he had conceived a great respect for this silent and
attentive auditor ; and, in fact, had, in his own secret
mind, set him down as a hopeful convert to Ameri
canism ; he thanked him, therefore, with much feeling,
for his good opinion; at the same time disclaiming
any merit, for success in defending a truth so self-
evident, as that which is expressed in these few words 
that a nation ought to govern itself, and that by the
popular vote of its own citizens.

JESUIT INFLUENCE. 13
"This," said the Jesuit, with a quiet smile, "you
suppose to be the system of your own country ?"
"I do not suppose it," said the American, "I
know it."
" Now," said the Jesuit, " listen to me a few mo
ments and I will tell you what I know. Your presi
dent is elected by the conclave of cardinals at Rome,
the same who elect the pope.. Your people nominate
the candidates. Our confidential agents select from
the number, the one whom they believe to be the
most favorable to the interests of the church. His
name with those of the other candidates is reported
to the cardinals and the pope. When their decision
is announced to the confidential friends of the pope
and the cardinals, in the United States, they send
forth their orders through the priests ; and the whole
Roman Catholic vote is thrown for the candidate who
is favoured by the church. He, of course, is always
elected. Your parties are so equally divided on poli
tics, that this Roman Catholic vote, which is oast on
purely religious considerations, is always sufficient to
turn the scale."
The American looked rather blank at this announce
ment. He was quite taken aback. Especially was
2.

14 THE ENEMIES 0E AMERICA UNMASKED.
he staggered by the recollection that the candidate
for the presidency, who was sustained by the Irish and
German votes, was generally successful. He courte
ously thanked the Jesuit for the valuable information
which he had communicated : and during the short
remainder of the, voyage, he abstained from talking
politics and gave himself up to reflection.
Let us also reflect a little on the Jesuit's story. Per
haps it was a hoax, or a mere idle brag, intended to
annoy and mortify the American.
But is not the main point of his declaration true ?
Is it not true that in many very essential points this
country is governed by foreign influence? Is it not
even highly probable that Roman Catholic prelates
have a voice in the selection of candidates for very
high as well as low offices, even for that of the presi
dent himself. Was not Mr. Polk, a man of no mark
as a statesman and comparatively unknown to the
country, elected in opposition to Henry Clay, immea
surably the most able and popular man in the United
States ; and was not this accomplished by the Roman
Catholics voting against him en masse, because he was
suspected, and only suspected of favouring the native
American movement ?

JESUIT INFLUENCE. 15
Was not the present postmaster general, a man
without ability or antecedents, appointed to his im
portant office in consequence of,pledges given to Ro
man Catholic leaders; and has he not appointed
thousands upon thousands of Roman Catholic deputy
post masters, and required the appointment of Roman
Catholic clerks ?
With such facts as these stirring us in the face,
what reflecting American can fail to perceive that in
this direction at least the machinery of our govern
ment is to a certain extent directed by the agents of
a foreign power, the liege subjects of. the Pope of
Rome ?
The movers of this foreign political machinery in
this country are the members of two secret societies.
One is composed of the regular Roman Catholic
priests, always and every where a secret society. The
other is the Society of Jesus, as it is profanely
called — in other words the Society of Jesuits. All
history, past and present, gives assurance that these
precious gentlemen are not too scrupulously pious to
take a hand in the game of politics.
We will give the character of the Order of Jesuits

16 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
in the words of one of the ablest and best-informed
historians of the present day.*
" In the sixteenth century, the pontificate, exposed
to new dangers more formidable than had ever before
threatened it, was saved by a new religious order, which
was animated by intense enthusiasm and organized
with exquisite skill. When the Jesuits came to the
rescue of the papacy, they found it in extreme peril ;
but from that moment the tide of battle turned. Pro
testantism, which had, during the whole generation,
carried all before it, was stopped in its progress, and
rapidly beaten back from the foot of the Alps to the
shores of the Baltic. Before the order had existed a
hundred years, it had filled the whole world with me
morials of great things done and suffered for the faith.
" No religious community could produce a list of
men so variously distinguished ; none had extended
its operations over so vast a space ; yet in none had
there ever been such perfect unity of feeling and action.
There was no region of the globe, no walk of specula
tive or of active life, in which Jesuits were not to be
found. They guided the councils of kings. They
deciphered Latin inscriptions. They observed the
* Macauley.

JESUIT INFLUENCE. 17
motions of Jupiter's satellites. They published whole
libraries, controversy, casuistry, history, treatises on
optics, Alcaic odes, editions of the fathers, madrigals,
catechisms, and lampoons. The liberal education of
youth passed almost entirely into their hands, and was
conducted by them with great ability. They seemed
to have discovered the precise point in which intellec
tual culture can be carried without risk of intellectual
emancipation. Enmity itself was compelled to own
that, in the art of managing and forming the tender
mind, they had no equals. Meanwhile they assidu
ously and successfully cultivated the eloquence of the
pulpit. With still greater assiduity and still greater
success they applied themselves to the ministry of the
confessional. Throughout Catholic Europe the secrets
of every government and almost every family of note
were in their keeping. They glided from one Protes-
tant country to another under innumerable disguises,
as gay cavaliers, as simple rustics, as Puritan preachers.
They wandered to countries which neither mercantile
avidity nor liberal curiosity had ever impelled any
stranger to explore. They were to be found in the
garb of Mandarins, superintending the Observatory
at Pekin. They were to be found, spade in hand,
2*

18 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
teaching the rudiments of agriculture to the savages
of Paraguay. Yet, whatever might be their residence,
whatever might be their employment, their spirit was
the same, entire devotion to the common cause, im
plicit obedience to the central authority.
" None of them had chosen his dwelling-place, or his
avocation for himself. Whether the Jesuit should live
under the Arctic circle or the equator, whether he
should pass his life in arranging gems and collating
manuscripts at the Vatican, or in persuading naked
barbarians in the southern hemisphere not to eat each
other, were matters which he left with profound sub
mission to the decision of others. If he was wanted
at Lima, he was on the Atlantic in the next fleet. If
he was wanted at Bagdad, he was toiling through the
desert with the next caravan. If his ministry was
needed in some country where his life was more inse
cure than that of a wolf, where it wa's a crime to har
bor him, where the heads and quarters of his brethren,
fixed in the public places, showed him what he had to
expect, he went without remonstrance or hesitation to
his doom.
" But with the admirable energy, disinterestedness,
and self-devotion which were characteristics of the

JESUIT INFLUENCE. 19
society, great vices were mingled. It was alleged, and
not without foundation, that the ardent public spirit
which made the Jesuit Tegardhiss of his ease, of his
liberty, and of his life, made him also regardless of
truth and of mercy ; that no means which could pro
mote the interest of his religion seemed to him unlaw
ful, and that by the interest of his religion he too often
meant the interest of his society. It was alleged that
in the most atrocious plots recorded in history, his
agency could be distinctly traced ; that, constant only
in attachment to the fraternity to which he belonged,
he was in some countries the most dangerous enemy*
of freedom, and in others the most dangerous enemy
of order. The mighty victories whieh he boasted that
he had achieved in the cause of the Church were, in
the judgment of many illustrious members of that
Church, rather apparent than real. He had, indeed,
labored with a wonderful show of success to reduce
the world under her laws, but he had done so by relax
ing ler laws to suit the temper of the world. Instead
of toiling to elevate human nature to the noble standard
fixed by divine precept and example, he had lowered
the standard till it was beneath the average level of
human nature. He gloried in multitudes of converts

20 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
who had been baptized in the remote regions of the
East ; but it was reported that from some of these
converts the facts on which the whole of the theology
of the gospel depends had been cunningly concealed,
and that others were permitted to avoid persecution
by bowing down before the images of false gods, while
internally repeating Paters and Aves. Nor was it
only in heathen countries that such arts were said to
be practised. It was not strange that people of all
ranks, and especially of the highest ranks, crowded to
the confessionals in the Jesuit temples, for from those
confessionals none went discontented away. There
the priest was all things to all men. He showed just
so much rigour as might not drive those who knelt at
his spiritual tribunal to the Dominican or the Francis
can Church.
" If he had to deal with a mind truly devout, he
spoke in the saintly tone of the primitive fathers ; but
with that very large part of mankind who have reli
gion enough to make them uneasy when they do
wrong, and not religion enough to keep them from do
ing wrong, he followed a very different system. Since
he could not reclaim them from guilt, it was his busi
ness to save them from remorse. He had at his com-

JESUIT INFLUENCE. 21
mand an immense dispensary of anodynes for wounded
consciences. In the books of casuistry which had been
written by his brethren, and printed with the appro
bation of his superiors, were to be found doctrines con
solatory to transgressors of every class. There the
bankrupt was taught how he might, without sin, secrete
his goods from his creditors. The servant was taught
how he might, without sin, run off with his master's
plate. The pander was assured that a Christian man
might easily earn his living by carrying letters and
messages between married women and their gallants.
The high-spirited and punctilious gentlemen of France
were. gratified by a decision. in favour of duelling. The
Italians,- accustomed to darker and baser modes of
vengeance, were glad to learn that they might, with
out any crime, shoot at their enemies from behind
hedges. To deceit was given a license sufficient to de
stroy the whole value of human contracts and of hu
man testimony. In truth, if society continued to hold
together, if life and property enjoyed any security, it
was because common sense and common humanity re
strained men from doing what the Society of Jesus
assured them that they might with a safe conscience
do. So strangely were good and evil intermixed in

22 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
the character of the celebrated brethren; and the
intermixture was the secret of their gigantic power."
Such is the character of the Jesuits drawn by an
impartial hand. Such is the secret society organized
and in full activity in, these United States. Such is
the force of foreign trained bands engaged in the work
of establishing Jesuit ascendancy in this country, as
firmly as it is already established in many countries
in Europe.
How shall their designs be .resisted and defeated ?
We answer, by Hawk Eye's method of stopping a con
flagration on the prairie — namely — by " making fire
fight fire." We must oppose to them, an order of
free Americans, well organized, numerous ; extending
through the whole country, acting under one impulse,
and fixed in one resolve — that Americans shall rule
America. It is in vain that we oppose to the machinations of
of a secret and widely diffused order, the proceedings
of open political assemblies, who publish all their pro
ceedings and all their -intentions in the newspapers.
Politics may well be compared to war in the matter
of strategy. If your enemy knows your intentions,
you are in perpetual danger of defeat. If you aban-

JESUIT INFLUENCE. 23
don the power of secret action, you abandon, at the
same moment, all chance of success. If you would
save the institutions of your country from the sacrile
gious hands of Jesuit priests, you must "make fire
fight fire." You must retain the power of sometimes
taking your deadly enemy by surprise.
What some of the designs of the Jesuits are with
respect to this country is fortunately known by their
acts and the declarations of the journals under their
control. . To eradicate the whole system of public in
struction as at present organized ; to control the elec
tions, by using the Roman Catholic votes " to turn the
scale;" and to make the whole country a Roman Ca
tholic country, in which free thought, and free speech
are crimes punishable with imprisonment and death,
may seem to some very bold designs to entertain with
respect to this country. But these designs are by no
means too daring for Jesuit priests, as their public de
clarations show. To defeat them we must begin now,
before they have advanced further ; and we must oppose
them vigorously, sincerely, and, above all, systemati
cally. As a commentary on the readiness with which the
Jesuits change their professions to suit emergencies,

24 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
now, as well as formerly, we quote the following curi
ous transaction of the year 1854.
THE KINS OF NAPLES AND THE JESUITS.
Turin, Bee. 6. — Acurious quarrel has lately broken
out between the Neapolitan government and the Jesuits
of that kingdom. It appears that the latter had been
in the habit of teaching that the Pope was superior to
all the other sovereigns of the earth, and the former
has, for some unexplained reason, quite recently
thought proper to regard this not very novel doctrine
among Roman Catholics, as highly revolutionary. The
consequence was, that M. Mazza, the Director of Po
lice, sent for Padre Giuseppe, the chief of the Jesuits,
the other day, and told him they must discontinue this
practice, and should recollect that in 1848 they were
sent out of the country in carriages ; " but if these
things continue," said the worthy minister, "the gov
ernment will kick you out of the kingdom." "Woi vi
cacceremo a calci," were the precise words.. The reve
rend father, much distressed at the result of this inter
view, hastened back to his convent ; and lost no time
in compiling the following protest, which was published
at Naples a day or two after —

JESUIT INFLUENCE. 25
To Ms Royal Majesty Ferdinand II, of the Kingdom
of the Two Sicilies.
Sacred Royal Majesty —
Sire — With much surprise we have heard our sen
timents doubted regarding absolute monarchy; we,
therefore, think it necessary humbly to submit our
views in the present page.
Majesty, we not only in olden time, but also recently,
on our re-establishment in 1821, until the present day,
have always inculcated respect, love, and devotion for
the King our Lord, for his Government, for the form
of the same — that is, absolute monarchy.
This we have done, not only from conviction, but
also because the doctors of the company, who are
Francesco Suarez, the Cardinal Ballarmine, and many
other theologians and publicists of the same, have pub
licly taught absolute monarchy to be the best form of
government This we have done, because the internal economy
of the company is monarchical, and therefore we are
by maxim and by education devoted to absolute mo
narchy, in which Catholicism, by the wisdom and zeal
of a pious King, can alone have secure defence and
prosperity. 3

26 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
Majesty, that we both think, and believe, and sus
tain that absolute monarchy is the best of governments,
is demonstrated by the damage we sustained in the
year 1848. We were the victims of Liberalism,
because all Liberals were and are well persuaded
also, that the Jesuits are the supporters of absolute
monarchy. These things, oh, Majesty ! : are well known, and
Liberals would more easily believe that the sun would
not rise to-morrow, than admit that the Jesuits could
favor them ; and therefore every time they attempt a
revolution, their first object is to despoil the Jesuits.
For this reason the Liberals, by an inviolable canon
of their law, will not admit a Jesuit, or one who is
affiliated to the order, among them.
In fact, the Jesuits in the Kingdom of Naples have
always taught it to be unpardonable to make revolu
tions for the purpose of changing the absolute monarchy,
which the reigning dynasty has always maintained.
If this should not be sufficient not to be thought
Liberals, we humbly pray your Majesty to point out
what further we ought to do to be believed decided
absolutists. Certainly the Jesuits have never been, at any time,

JESUIT INFLUENCE. 27
or in any place, accused of Liberalism ; and what motive
should they have for not loving and defending the
absolute governmentrof the august monarch Ferdinand
IL, who has covered them with benefits ?
Finally, Majesty, of this sovereign beneficence we
have made no other use than for the good of Christian
morality and Catholicity, and the reigning dynasty,
to profess immutable fidelity to the absolute monarchy,
to which we declare ourselves always devoted, and we
hope your Majesty will graciously permit us to con
firm this sentiment at your Majesty's feet by word of
mouth. The present page is signed by me, by my " Fathers
councillors" (Padri Consultori,)"and all others present,
in the short time there has been for collecting their
signatures ; and if your majesty desires the signatures
of all the Jesuits of this province of Naples, they can
be speedily obtained/ In so much, we who sign this
are a full guarantee for their devotion by all proof to
the absolute monarchy. Giuseppe Maria Paladini,
della Compagnia di Gesu Provinciale,
(and 23 others.)
Collegia del Gesu Nuovo Sfapoli, Nov. 21.

28 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
It would be curious and instructive, says a cotem-
porary, to discover what are the convictions, the doc
trines, and the teachings of the numerous Jesuit schools
in our own country ; to what extent they instill poison
into the minds of American youth ; and whether they
contradict the profession of faith of their European
and Neapolitan brethren. What say the Roman Ca
tholic clergy in the United States to the above truly
Jesuitical petition ? Can we hope that they will con
tradict or condemn these principles, so expressed ? Do
they agree with the Fathers, or have they been favored
with some new and contradictory light ?

CHAPTER IL
FOREIGN INFLUENCE IN POLITICS.
Mr.Scroggs, who is staying atone of our crack
hotels, brought letters to us from our correspondent
in Manchester. He is a very nice person in his way.
He has an air of well fed respectability about him,
which betokens thrift in trade and good quarters. His
face is rosy, rubicand, and well filled out. His figure
is rotund and dignified. He gives you good port and
champagne when you dine with him, and does it with
an air of authoritative patronage, which, to an Ame
rican citizen is very edifying. It is true he speaks of
"am and heggs" for breakfast; but that is the fault
of his education and profession ; for Scroggs, although
his English guineas, and a large stock of assurance
3* (29)

30 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
have gained Aim admission into what is called good
society, as a gentleman, in this country, he is nothing
but a bagman, when he is at home.
Scroggs's thorough ignorance of all liberal know
ledge, his John Bull prejudices, and his ¦ admirable
self-conceit render him an entertaining subject. So
we sometimes amuse ourself by putting questions to
him and receiving very profound answers.
Yesterday, at the dinner-table, he was advocating
the claims of one of his countrymen to. some petty
office in the custom-house.
" Pray, Scroggs," said we, " what American citizen
was ever permitted to hold office in England ?"
"I ave eard say," said Scroggs, "that Lord Lynd-
hurst, the chancellor, was born in Boston."
" True," we replied, " but he was not an American
citizen. He was born a British subject ; and his
father, an old tory, took him over to England before
the Revolution. What other American holds office in
England ?"
"I never eard of hany hother," said Scroggs.
" Well, in what other country of Europe are Ame
ricans permitted to hold office and exercise political
power ? Where can they vote in an election, of any

MR. SCROGQS.-Pa^e30'.

FOREIGN INFLUENCE IN POLITICS. 31
kind ? Not in France, where even your Lord Brougham
found it impossible to become a citizen. Not in Aus
tria, where Americans are imprisoned on suspicion of
entertaining ' heretical opinions in politics. Not in
Germany, Switzerland, Italy, or Spain. In Russia
and Turkey, some ingenious and talented persons from
this country have ^received situations Of a semi-official
character, on account of some special knowledge, and
in cases where their services-could not well be dispensed
with. But in despotic countries, like Russia and Tur
key, all under the sovereign are necessarily slaves, in
the political sense of the word. No offices existvin
those countries which are of so independent a character,
even, as that which your friend solicits in our custom
house. The fact is, Scroggs, that in this instance, as
well as in all others, where we Americans deal with
Europe and European interests, the reciprocity is all
on one side."
" I thought," said Scroggs, " that it was a game of
give and take."
"Precisely so," we. replied, "only the giving is all
on our side, and the taking all on yours. When En
glishmen, Irishmen, Dutchmen, Germans, and Spa
niards, Portuguese, and Italians ask for offices here,

32 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED;
wegive them. But if an American could by any pos
sibility make such an ass of himself as to ask for an
office any where in Europe, and especially in England,
Scotland, or Ireland, he would be laughed at, and
scouted for his unparalleled impudence and presump
tion. ' Give office to a foreigner, and above all to an
American,' a turtle-fed alderman of London would ex
claim, 'the thing is preposterous.' And yet the per
sons holding office in'the United States, at this moment,
who were born in Great Britain or Ireland, are counted
by thousands. I tell you, Scroggs, the reciprocity is
all on one side."
"But then they become citizens," pleaded Scroggs.
" But that don't make them' Americans, by a long
shot,"1 we answered ; "there ought to be equal privi
leges on both sides. While an American is utterly
shut out and debarred from holding office in Europe,
Europeans should be dealt with in the same manner
here. It is not, fair to play at give and take, with the
giving all on our side and the taking all on yours."
Here Scrogg's attention was called off by some one
who wished to look at his pattern-books of British
calicoes made in imitation of American ones, and in-

FOREIGN INFLUENCE IN POLITICS. 33
tended to cut out the fabrics of Lowell, in the Ameri
can market ; and so our conference ended.
But, leaving Scroggs to his pattern-books and his
customers, let us consider for a few moments the pro
priety of defending ourselves from the immense foreign
influence which is ^aiming to control, and even to a
certain extent is at this moment actually controlling
tbe destinies of the country.
Is it not a fact that, for the la'st twenty-five years,
candidates for office have been constantly and openly
bidding for the foreign vote ? Even at thelast elec
tion, did we not have to witness the humiliating spec
tacle of a man rendered illustrious by his public ser
vices, stumping about the country and currying favor
with Irishmen and Germans, and endeavoring to gain
the. suffrages, which had already been sold by the Jes
uits to his opponent, to be subsequently paid for by
post office appointments? Do not foreign ruffians
bully and attack with force and arms American born
citizens at the polls, at every election ? Are not these
services to political aspirants paid for by appointments
in custom houses and post offices ? What would be
thought of an American opening his mouth to speak,
much less doubling his fist to.strike, at an election in

34 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
England, Scotland, or Ireland ? He would be immo
lated on the spot ; and the coroner's verdict would be
"sarved him right." The truth is that nations ought
to govern themselves, without foreign influence being
permitted for one moment to interfere.
Many of our leading statesmen have recently de
clared that no foreigner should be naturalized till he
has resided in this country twenty-one years. W©
might cite some very high political authorities on this
point. But we care for no man's authority in so plain
a ease. The thing is self-evident. _ Americans should
rule America ; and the voters are really the rulers.
None but a native . born American would ever have
been allowed to vote, if justice had been done, from
the beginning. The franchise should have been held
sacred. But the laws of the land should be respected.
Let those vote, whose vote is alreadylegalized. But
when we come to revise the naturalization laws, a piece
of public service which will soon have to be performed,
let us make thorough work of it, and in future grant
the privilege of voting to no man who was not born on
the American soil. We have had enough of artificial
naturalizing. In all future time, let nature do the
naturalizing herself.. Then there will be no mistake,

FOREIGN INFLUENCE IN POLITICS. 35
and no false swearing. Foreigners will cease to per
jure themselves in order to acquire the privilege of
fighting at the polls, and the interests of peace and
good morals will be promoted.
But we have a great deal of work to perform in the
mean time. It is necessary to put an end at once and
for ever to the degrading practice- of candidates for
office bidding for the foreign vote. Let every native
born American do his duty to his country and himself;
and the foreign vote will no longer be worth bidding
for. Let no American born citizen vote for a foreigner
or for a man who will appoint foreigners to offiee, and
the thing' is- done. We shall thus rid ourselves of the
greatest evil with which this country was ever cursed.
There has been a great deal of talk about liberality
towards foreign nations. But what foreign nation has
ever shown any liberality towards us ? Why should we
import voters, when we are permitted to export none?
They want a free trade in voters corresponding with
their free trade in other things, giving to them all the
advantage and to us none whatever. That is the Eu
ropean theory of free trade with the. United States.
We are often reminded of the great military ser
vices of foreigners in our armies in former times, and

36 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
we are charged with ingratitude in wishing to withhold
the franchise from those who have defended the soil.
But, with some brilliant exceptions, such as La Fay
ette, for example, these were mercenary soldiers,
who, if they received their pay, received all which
they bargained for, and have no right to demand
any more. Will the foreign legion whom the British
government are now about to hire to fight against the
Russians, ever become British subjects and voters?
The British understand their duty and their interests
too well to permit any such exercise of gratitude. It
is only Americans who are expected to reward foreign
hired soldiers, by making them citizens and voters.
To become an American citizen and a voter, a man
should have been born and educated among us. He
should be an American indeed. He will then have
some chance of understanding the nature of our insti
tutions, and the working of our system". He will have
no foreign prejudices to get rid of. He will have no
foreign preferences to forget. He will have no foreign
ignorance to be enlightened.
Our present system of making American citizens is
a perpetual source of difficulty, vexation, and expense.
A worthless fellow, named Koszta, comes to this coun-

FOREIGN INFLUENCE IN POLITICS. 37
try, and declares his intention to become an American
citizen. This he -does in order to protect himself
against molestation while carrying on political intrigues
abroad. Returning, to carry out his original intention,
he is seized by the Austrians, who choose to govern
themselves in their own way, without the intervention
" of pseudo- American citizens. An, American officer
reclaims him. The two governments are embroiled.
The American secretary of state is made to waste
much of his valuable time in writing a long defence.
The American congress wastes more time and squanders
many thousand dollars of the people's money in de
bating about this trumpery affair — and all this ''because
our naturalization laws require reforming. If these
laws were such as they, ought to be, another "Koszta
affair" would be impossible. But as the law now stands,
the success of this adventurer will probably be the
prelude to many more of the same sort. The present
naturalization laws place our government entirely at
the mercy of any foreign adventurer who chooses to
make them the instrument for embroiling the country
with foreign powers. They should be forthwith
reformed.. The following able summary of the baneful effects

38 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
of foreign influence is extracted from a recent inau
gural address of Governor Casey, of Delaware.
" The issue which has been so harshly forced from
abroad upon our people, has no features in common
with our past political controversies, the mere domestic
contests which have recognized a generous and frater
nal difference of opinion among those who agree in a
united devotion to our native land. The present is a
resistance to invaders who unite foreign minds • and
hearts in allegiance to a foreign Prince and Pontiff,
and standing between the American parties, have
dictated their own terms, and asserted their own
superiority. Under these influences, the ballot-box has
been corrupted, by their frauds, or subjected to their
violence ; American politics have been stained with
vices foreign to the American character ; and a large
portion of our most virtuous citizens have revolted, in
disgust, from the exercise of privileges so shared and
so degraded;- and the highest places of the Republic
have been abandoned to foreigners or their flatterers,
some of whom have dared to assert the alleged prero
gative of a foreign' Pontiff to free American citizens
from their allegiance to the government of their coun
try. In our foreign policy the settled principles of

FOREIGN INFLUENCE IN POLITICS. 39
American statesmanship are well nigh lost sight of ;
foreigners have been selected to represent the country
at the-principal courts of Europe ; and in the gratifi
cation of feelings, unshared by our people, they have
made the American name a reproach throughout a large
part of the civilized world. American principles and
policy, feeling, and interests, have been merged in their
alien opposites-; and in the press and on the platform,
foreign influences have overswayed the control and di
rected the action of parties and'the selection of candi
dates. The result of this conspiracy against the ori
ginal and native American liberty, substantially,
though not nominally, is devoted to foreign interests and
preferring persons of foreign birth. If its recognized
advocates have as yet failed to. proclaim allegiance to
a foreign monarch, they have made in most of the
States efforts to overthrow the American system of
public instruction; and have sought to exclude the
Bible from the American schools ; and have freely de
nounced the most. cherished principles of American
religious liberty; and all this, it should be remembered,
has sprung from those to whom all that our fathers
have won and that is dear to us, was freely offered ;
all this was foreign in its origin, authors, and acts —

40 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
all this was unprovoked, wanton, long patiently en
dured ; endured till foreign demagogues claimed our
country as their own, and made our rights and our
safety the counters with which they played the game
of foreign politics."
After noticing the noble resistance of Delaware to
this -foreign influence, as evinced in the late election,
Governor Casey thus enumerates the duties imposed
on American citizens in relation to foreign influence :
" That triumph, should it prove to be national, will
impose many and majestic duties. The first will be to
surround, as with a wall of fire^ which no pollution can
invade, that Holy of Holies, the ballot-box ; and closely
succeeding will rise the duty of regulating immigration ;
of closing the avenues which have communicated with
the prisons and lazar-houses of Europe ; of defeating
the ungenerous -policy by which foreign princes force
us to receive the moral abominations which their over-
cloyed country vomits forth, constraining us to support
their paupers, and to expose the property and lives of
our people to the ruffian skill and desperation of their
transported felons. As a tax and a peril the heaviest
and worst ; as a wanton wrong and outrage, it should

FOREIGN INFLUENCE IN POLITICS. 41
be redressed in the first hours of realized national
American victory.
"But the more pervading and vital triumph of the
second American revolution, will be those which will
establish, as the settled policy foreign and domestic of
the nation, the saving principle of American Independ
ence, as applied, not only to the right of suffrage, but
to the privileges, sacred and inestimable, of our honest
and hard-handed home labor. The policy by which
our country has been, in its trade, its currency, its
varied industrial pursuits, agricultural, mechanical,
and otherwise, and in its social habits- of expenditure
and luxury, thrust into and made a part of Europe, is
a treason against American honor and American inte
rests. It is a repudiation of all the- peculiar advantages
bestowed, by Providence, in requital of the virtues of
our fathers, upon our young and then unburdened
country. We have, to gratify the schemes of politicians,
and to glut the greediness of money changers, invited"
and drawn upon our country a common and almost an
equal share of the evils which attend, as^ their parasite
and clinging curses, the wasting vices and crimes of
Europe. Our true hearted independence, real happi
ness,- and secure policy are to be realized only by fos-
4*

42 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
tering our own American homes — their industry, mu
tual relations and mutual self-reliance. In regard to
every political virtue and hope, to all of pride and con
fidence associated with that American liberty which —
as the earthquake shakes and the tempest overshadows
all else of the civilized world — grows brighter- and
dearer to us, it is apparent that the time has arrived
when our own country must separate her policy from
the intrigues and machinations of Europe, from the
strategy and corruption by which European councils
and interests boastfully betrayed the independence of
American industry and made our land tributary,- as
it now unhappily is, to England and France ; forced
upon us, with their luxuries, their vices : and added
to their usurpation the heavy imposition of a monstrous
and perpetual debt — a debt shared by every Ameri
can ; a debt which drains our country of its specie, and
which subjects it, throughout every fibre of its giant
frame, to the agony of such a financial convulsion as
'£•'• that which afflicts us. Vain will be the patriotic throb-
bings of the great American heart, and vain the vigor
of .the American arm to re-achieve American Inde
pendence, until our land shall have been made inde-

FOREIGN INFLUENCE IN POLITICS. 43
pendent in that from which all power has its source —
her industry.
" Then and not till then, will she cease to be a Eu-
pean colony ; then will she be the America of our fa-
thers — truly-independent — rich in her own resources —
secure in her own strength, and happy in her own
freedom. The crimes and oppressions, the wrongs
and wars of Europe may terrify and torture their own
world, but not a ripple of the storm will break upon
our shores. Till that consummation shall have been
effected, our duty will be unfulfilled, and our triumph —
however glorious — incomplete, the oracles of our Ame
rican patriarchs and prophets will remain empty, and
the real mission, holy, calm, and beneficent of our
American destiny unachieved.

CHAPTER III.
FOREIGN INFLUENCE IN MUNICIPAL AFFAIRS — DESIGN
OF THE MONARCHS OF EUROPE.
A cotemporary writer* presents the following
startling facts in relation to foreign influence in mu
nicipal affairs, and also in relation to the designs of
European sovereigns with respect to the United States.
" We have already adverted to the startling fact
that of the Police force, of New York, seven hundred
and eighteen are natives of the United States, four
hundred and seventeen born in foreign countries, and
that thirty-nine of them had been in the State Prison.
The American Organ, commenting upon this, re
marks, ' Does any one believe that more than one-
third of the police force of New York would have been
* In the Philadelphia Daily Sun.
(44)

FOREIGN INFLUENCE IN MUNICIPAL AFFAIRS. 45
composed of foreigners, if the demagogues who con
trol that city had not relied upon the foreign vote to
sustain them in their corrupt practices ? j, It is cus
tomary, in this .country, to regard with horror the cor
ruptions of European governments. But in what
court of Europe, let us ask, does corruption walk more
unblushingly in noon-day, than for years she has
stalked with brazen face through the City Hall, of
New York ? Were it not for her large foreign popu
lation, New York would be as well governed as Boston,
or Charleston, or Philadelphia. Why not ? Her Ame
rican citizens are as honest, as virtuous, and as law-
abiding as those of any other city. It is the foreign .
element, forming so large a portion of her population,
which renders her a disgraceful exception to all the
other citizens of the United States. Two years ago,
three of her Aldermen were indicted by the grand
jury; and, as we write, one of her Common Council,
an Irishman, is an inmate of the Tombs, for aiding the
escape of the murderer of Poole — that -murderer him-
self a policeman and a foreigner !'
" The danger of making this" country a receptacle
for the bad and disaffected population of Europe, and
investing them with the rights of citizens has long ago-j

46 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
and often been pointed out. The Duke of- Richmond,
formerly the celebrated Colonel Lennox, was Governor
of Canada in 1815 — 16. The late Horatio Gates, a
native of Massachusetts, was at that time an eminent
merchant in Montreal, and was known and respected
by thousands in Canada and his native country. • Mr.
Gates reports the following remarks as having been
made in his presence by the Duke of Richmond :
"•The Duke, a short time before, his death, in speak
ing of the government of the United -States, said, ' It
was weak, inconsistent, and bad, and could not long
exist.' 'It will be destroyed ; it ought not, and will
not be permitted to exist, for many and. great are the
evils which originated from the existence of that gov
ernment. The cause of the French revolution, and
subsequent wars and commotions in Europe are to be
attributed to its example ; and so long as it exists, no
prince will be-safe upon his throne ; and the sovereigns
of Europe are aware of it, and they have determined
upon its destruction, and come^ to an understanding
upon this subject, and have decided on the' means to
accomplish it ; and they will eventually succeed J>y
subversion rather than -conquest.' 'As the low and
surplus population of the different nations of Europe

DESIGN' OF THE MONARCHS OF EUROPE. 47
will be carried into that country ; it is and will be a
receptacle for the bad and disaffected population of
Europe, when they are not wanted for soldiers, or to
supply the navies, and the European governments will
favor stich a course.' ' This will create a surplus and
majority of low population, who are so very easily ex
cited ; and they will bring with them their principles,
and in nine cases out of ten, -adhere to their ancient
and former governments, laws, manners^ and religion,
*.
and will transmit them to their posterity, and in many
cases proppgate them atnoag the natives.'
" " ' These men will become citizens^ and by the con
stitution and laws, will be invested with the right' of
suffrage. The different grades of society will then be
created by the elevation of a few and by degrading
many, and thus a heterogeneous population will then
be formed, speaking different languages, and of diffe
rent religions and sentiments, and to make them act;
think, and'feel alike, in political affairs, will be like
mixing oil and water ; hence disqord, dissension, anar
chy, and civil war will ensue, and some popular indi
vidual will assume the government and restore order,
and the sovereigns of Europe, the immigrants, and
many of the natives will sustain him.

48 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
"'The Church of Rome has a design upon that
country, and it will, in time, be the established reli
gion, and will aid in t,he destruction of that republic.
I have conversed with many of the sovereigns and
princes of Europe, and they have unanimously expressed
these opinions relative to the government of the United
States, and their determination to subvert it !' "
" Have not these prophetic words been verified !, The
question then arises, in the language of our Washing
ton cotemporary — shall this state of things continue?
Shall the United. States remain for ever a receptacle
for the ignorant, vicious, and disaffected population of
Europe? Shajl Europe be permitted for the. future to
vomit forth upon our shores annually, five hundred
thousand paupers, criminals, and vagabonds, of every
grade and hue, to beoomej after the lapse of five years,
American citizens, American law-makers, and. Ameri
can office-holders? This is the question which the
American people" are now required -to answer. We
say now. Because, if the settlement of this great
question.be postponed for five or ten years longer, it
will be too late to answer it, as it should be answered..
If postponed for a few years, the foreign party will
become so strong , that it will be impossible to effect

DESIGN OF THE MONARCHS OF EUROPE. 49
the reformation in our naturalization laws, so impera
tively required for the conservation and well-being of
our republican institutions. No ! Delays are not only
dangerous, they are fatal ! Now or never is the time
for action.

CHAPTER IV.
FOREIGN INFLUENCE IN MILITARY AFFAIRS. — FOREIGN
LEGIONS AMONG US.
It appears that the foreign residents in the United
States are quietly and steadily preparing a military
force, composed entirely of themselves, to be ready
for action when foreigners are sufficiently numerous
in the country to bring certain political questions to
the final arbitrement of the sword.
How this thing is managed in New York city, where
foreigners are more numerous than any where else in
the country, is apparent from the following communi
cation addressed by "A Citizen" to the editor of the
New York Tribune, and inserted in that paper under
the head, " Abuses in the First Division of Militia —
City of New York."
(50)

FOREIGN INFLUENCE IN MILITARY AFFAIRS. 51
" There are frequent applications made, and some
have been granted, for the organization of New Com
panies" and Regiments, and even Brigades, in the First
Division, apparently for no other object than to create
an additional number of officers, or to bring together,
into separate organization, the natives of a particular
country, when it is well known- that most of the exist
ing corps do not possess the Tequisite number of men
required by law, which declares that ' no uniformed
company shall consist of less than fifty non-commis
sioned officers and privates, nor more than one hun
dred,' This would admit in each regiment one thous
and men, exclusive of commissioned officers, the hon--
commissioned staff and musicians. It is notorious, at
least to the respective corps, that no regiment in the
City has ever paraded over five hundred men, and the
largest rarely over four hundred, while at least two-
thirds of the regiments do not parade over two hun
dred men. There is not a company in the City that
has one hundred effective men on the roll, and it is
deemed a remarkably prosperous, one that has fifty,
while the most of them parade from twenty to thirty
each. Why, then, organize new regiments and com
panies, when the existing ones are deficient in numbers,

52 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
and especially why organize bodies of Irish, Germans,
French, Swiss, &c, separately. If the natives of
those countries, being adopted citizens, desire to enrol
themselves in good faith as American citizen-soldiers,
they could find plenty of vacancies in the already or
ganized companies of the several Regiments of the Di
vision. If they are aliens, they have no right to be
members, and all such now attached should at once be
required to leave the companies in which they are en
rolled. It may not be generally known, but such is
the fact, that the officers in most of the foreign orga
nizations issue their military orders in a foreign lan
guage^ as well as are compelled to explain the military
exercise in a foreign tongue. The by-laws of most
of these companies, now recognized by law, are printed
in a foreign language, and an American officer, who
has to adjudicate upon their provisions, if he is not*
familiar with the language, has to require a translated
copy. Should this be permitted? Should it be ne
cessary to, the members -themselves ? If they are
American citizens, and desire to be good ones, fit to-be
enrolled, ' for the security of a free State,' they should
at., least acquire a knowledge of the language of the
country of their adoption. If they were enrolled in

FOREIGN INFLUENCE IN MILITARY AFFAIRS. 53
companies not exclusively composed of their own coun
trymen, they would more readily acquire this know
ledge, so important for a faithful discharge of their
duty. It is known that intelligent officers who have
been in command of corps composed chiefly of adopted
citizens have expressed great doubt of the propriety
of placing these corps in prominent positions, in case
of a riot or popular tumult. .Native American citi
zens, while they would be inclined to submit to the
arms of their own countrymen, would not willingly
yield to a force composed almost exclusively of fo
reigners, even though adopted citizens, especially if
they should hear orders given to such a force in, a lan
guage to them unknown. This is another reason why
these separate foreign organizations should notbe per-
. mitted, especially when on the banners of some is
* borne the device' of their nationality, and who clothe
themselves in the uniform of another country, in pre
ference to an American uniform. But this evil is even
deeper than is stated. In these organizations, there
are many, aye hundreds, who are not citizens even by
adoption, that is, they have not been in the country
long enough to become citizens. Should this violation
of law exist ? What reliance have we upon the boasted
5*~

54 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
bulwark of American freedom — its citizen soldiery —
when it is organized of those who are not citizens ?
¦These aliens are not responsible for these organiza
tions. They originate in some demagogue who wishes
the party for some other than the ostensible object.
The General, or superior officers, are anxious to' have a
longer tail to their show, regardless of the quality, if
they have quantity. As an evidence of this, it is
scarcely more than two years since, when a body of
Irishmen, (whether citizens or not is uncertain, but it
is believed the most of them are aliens,) desired to be
organized into a regiment, and attached to one of the
brigades of the First Division, and applied to several
of the commanding officers of brigades for their appro
bation. Most of them declined. One of them, however,
was about to yield, when the several Colonels of this
officer's brigade, under their proper signatures, remon
strated against its admission, urging some of the
reasons herein suggested. The remonstrance had its
effect, and the consent was withheld. The command
ing officer of this brigade retired, and one of the re
monstrating Colonels became his successor ; and soon
thereafter himself became an applicant for the admis
sion of this very body of Irishmen he was so strenuous

FOREIGN INFLUENCE IN MILITARY AFFAIRS. 55
in opposing when the tail would not be of any particu
lar advantage to the regiment he then commanded.
And, strange to aay, the Major-General himsejf, who-
at a Division Board, composed of officers representing
several brigades and regiments of the City, sanctioned
by his own vote certain principles laid down by the
unanimous vote 'of the Board against the admission of
any new corps in the division until, the "existing ones
should be filled according fto law, joined in the applfe
cation ; and this regiment is now attached to the
Second Brigade in this City. It is right, therefore, to
attribute the evil complained o| to the anxiety of some
of the General officers to make a great show without
regard to law orvpropriety. In regard to the admis
sion of these corps into the service of the State, it is
evident'but little pains is taken to ascertain whether
the persons making the applications under the laws
are eligible to be members. By the laws of the Federal
as well as State Government, the persons subject to
military duty are " all able-bodied white maAefcitizens,
between the ages of eighteen and forty-five years."
The Commander-in-chief may organize, a company
"whenever fifty persons, subjeefto military duty, shall
associate together for the purpose." What evidence

56 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
does the Commander-in-chief require that the fifty
persons thus applying are subject to military duty, i. e.,
are citizens ? After the companies are organized,
what restraint is there on Captains and Colonels to
preventr the admission of aliens in their corps ? It
becomes a matter of serious inquiry, when it is believed
that more than two-thirds of the members of the First
Division are of -foreign birth, and a large proportion
of that number are not even citizens. It is known,
too, that many of our native citizens are deterred from
joining uniform companies while the privileges are
thus abused. This subject needs the careful conside
ration of the Legislature, and an inquiry into all the
facts, that a remedy may be supplied. Tbis could' be
accomplished by the appointment of a Commission, of
say three citizens, with power to conduct such an in
vestigation as would lead to a full and faithful report."
The facts here disclosed by the " Citizen," with a
view to the correction of abuses, suggest very grave
reflections to all who love their country. Comment
seems quite unnecessary.
Perhaps it may be as well, however, to notice, in
this connection, the fearful rate at which foreign im
migration into this country is increasing.

FOREIGN LEGIONS AMONG US. 57
"When five years were fixed for the ^probationary
period before naturalization, immigration was counted
by units, now it comes on us by hundreds of, thou
sands — from seven thousand a year it has increased
to . nearly five hundred thousand. Estimating our
foreign population now at about four millions, it is
increasing in the ratio of twelve and a half per cent.,
while the entire population of the United States
between 1840 and 1850 only increased about six hun
dred thousand a year. From 1800 to 1810 only
seventy thousand foreigners arrived here, and from
1840 to 1850 there came two million one hundred and
sixteen thousand seven hundred and sixty-seven ; while
in 1810 our entire population was seven million two
hundred and thirty nine thousand eight hundred and
fourteen, and in 1850 it was twenty three million one
hundred and ninety one thousand eight hundred and;
seventy six — the increased immigration being as thirty
to one, and the increased population being a little
more than three to one. Is it not a proper regard for
our national safety, rather than a prescriptive policy,
which should induce a change in our naturalization
laws ?
" Are not the elective franchise and the ballot box in

58 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
danger of losing their purity and fore? Is it proper
that foreigners should hang an American Senator in
effigy, even though it be Stephen A Douglas ? Can
we look unconcernedly and see the efforts of the Ger
man Progressive Republican Party among us to abo
lish the Sabbath, and spread infidel doctrines in our
midst ? Look at the different character of the immi
grants now arriving from those who formerly came
here ; once they might possess the -elements of good
citizens, now they are the outpourings of poor houses,
penitentiaries,- jails, and 'penal colonies. They can
not, even with twenty-one years' probation, know as
much of our institutions as our young natives when
they come of age, and assume the legal duties of
citizens. They cannot eradicate their cradle born
sentiments of serfdom; or understand our beautiful
governmental system, which works with the harmoni
ous regularity of astronomical calculation.
" Viewing all these dangers, who can wonder that
many Americans advocate the total repeal of the Na
turalization Laws, unless some plan can, be devised-to
prevent frauds. Still we would, if it were impossible
to do any better, be very willing to try the plan pro
posed by Senator Adams, [viz ; to extend the resi-

FOREIGN LEGIONS AMONG.' US. 59
dence of aliens in our country before they can be Na
turalized, to twenty one years,] with the express un
derstanding that if future immigrants attempt to evade ,
it, or any perjury is practised, then total exclusion
shall be adopted as the only means of safety. But we
have no idea that any bill touching this question will
find favor with the present Congress, or that the next
will be able to frame its action so as to avoid the veto
of President Pierce ; but the whole field of ^contro
versy should be opened up and argued — the stubble
removed, and the harvest garnered for 1857, when
an American Congress and an American. President
will enact and approve such laws as will protect our
Nationality and restore to us the purity of sentiment
and action which distinguished our country before it
was visited by the ingushing streams-of foreign crime
and ignorance. The American Nation, we are con
vinced, desire the total and conditional repeal of the
Naturalization Laws, and nothing short of this will
4- "
content them
" If our readers are desirous to Tbiow what political
principles are held by our foreign residents, we give
the following public announcement as a specimen.
The Richmond Whig, of Virginia, says that a party

60 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
has been organized in that State, under the title of
the " German Democratic Association," which pro
claims the following as among its Radical principles :
"1. Universal suffrage. 2. The election of all offi-
cers by the people. 3. The abolition qf the Presi
dency. 4. The abolition of Senates, so that the Legis
latures shall consist of only one branch. 5. The
right of the people to call their Representatives
(cashier them) at their pleasure. 6. The right of the
people to change the Constitution when they like. 7;
All law suits to be conducted without expense. 8. A
department of the Government to be set up for the pur
pose of protecting immigration. 9. A reduced term
for acquiring citizenship.
REFORM IN THE FOREIGN RELATIONS OF THE GOVERN
MENT.
" 1. Abolition of all neutrality. 2, Intervention in
favor of every people struggling for liberty.
REFORM IN WHAT RELATES TO RELIGION.
" 1. A more perfect development of the principle
of personal freedom and' liberty of conscience ; con-

FOREIGN LEGIONS AMONG US. 61
sequently a. Abolition of laws for the observance
of the Sabbath ; b. Abolition of prayers in Congress ;
c. Abolition of oath upon the Bible ; d. Repeal of all
laws enacting a religious test before taking an office.
2. Taxation of church property. 3. A prohibition of
incorporations of all church property in the name of
ecclesiastics." ThiB is indeed madness or worse.

CHAPTER V.
FOREIGN INFLUENCE IN FINANCIAL AFFAIRS.
The most potent influences in the world are those
which are secret, or at least unobserved. Caloric,
magnetism, and electricity, pervade the whole physical
creation, and that perpetually and actively, without
attracting the attention of the common observer. In
the moral and political world, it is the same. Fraud,
bribery, and corruption are for ever at their dirty work,
in high places as well as low, while the mass of man
kind pursue their daily toil, without noticing the secret
agencies which are working out misery and distress
for the industrial classes.
In our own country, notwithstanding the interest
which every man takes in politics, this is peculiarly the
(62)

FOREIGN INFLUENCE IN FINANCIAL AFFAIRS. 63
case. It is the study of political leaders to divert the
attention of the people from the interests of industry,
or to lead them in the wrong direction by fraud and
imposture. It is true that in this country every man,
who can read at all, reads the newspapers ; but every
man does not inquire whose pay the newspaper is in.
We are often reminded that one of the greatest bless
ings a country can enjoy is a free press. But it is not
the business of the newspapers to inform us that the
greatest curse a country can suffer is a venal press.
We are occasionally told that this or that newspaper
has been bought up ; and consequently transferred its
allegiance from one political party to another. But
we are never informed that a great leading press in a
great commercial city has been bought by British gold,
to advocate the cause of British industry against Ame
rican industry. That is one of theseeret inflences at
work in our system — one among many. It is one of
those hidden causes, whose effects are apparent enough ;
but those are always charged to the folly and extrava
gance of the American people, not to the secret foreign
influences which really produce them.
Why are our mechanics and traders now paying

64 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
three, four, and five per cent, a month for the use of
money ?
" Because you let your wives and daughters wear
silk gowns,", says Scroggs.
Not so, Scroggs, it is because we suffer England to
rule our financial affairs, when, if we were the true
Americans we ought to be, we might rule them our
selves. Foreign influence, and not American extrava
gance is the cause of our present distress. Those who
suffer most do not permit their wives and daughters to
wear silk gowns, but they bring the distress on them
selves much more certainly and effectually by voting
for those who are under foreign influence.
In the middle ages, the aristocracy of Europe ruled
the people by main force. The masses were -unarmed
serfs ; the barons wore iron armor and owned all the
land, except what was owned by the Roman Catholic
church, which church was in close alliance with the
aristocracy. In the present age, the people are too
intelligent to be ruled in this coarse fashion ; and the
aristocracy of Europe, especially that of England,
rules by money. Fraud and corruption have taken
the place of force.
As Americans we would not interfere with this sys-

FOREIGN INFLUENCE IN FINANCIAL AFFAIRS. 65
tern, if it were only applied to Europe, but most unfor
tunately for us, it is also applied to this country.
London boasts herself — and truly too — the great
commercial and financial centre of the world. To
reach this point foreign countries have been conquered,
cheated, bribed and corrupted to an extent which has
no parallel in history. To make London the commer
cial and financial centre of the world, the British aris
tocracy have conquered, oppressed, and nearly ruined
India, attacked anuKravaged a portion of China, cheated
and ruined Portugal and Turkey, and by force and fraud
annexed and colonized other countries to such an ex
tent that the sun never sets upon her empire. This
country, England has twice attempted without, success
to conquer and reduce to- slavery, as she has India.
She can never accomplish this. The age -of force is
past with her. Imbecility directs her armies and na
vies, as we see by the events of the present war against
Russia. England has ceased to be a great military
power, because her inveterate system of corruption
has utterly demoralized her military. force, by giving
all the leading offices to stupid aristocrats, and refusing
promotion to merit in the rank and file. Lord Raglan
is their Napoleon.

66 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
}
But England does not wish to conquer us. She
only wishes to rule us by the secret influence of money.
"To rule you," says Scroggs, "what nonsense! we
have nothing to do with your politics."
You are mistaken, Scroggs. You have a great. deal
to do with our politics, and have always meddled
with our political affairs, as you do with those of
all other nations. But your ultimate object is not so
much to direct our political career, as to cheat us out
of our money, and this you are doing every day. You
wish London to be always, as it is unfortunately for
us, at present, our financial ruler. If we were true
to ourselves we could emancipate ourselves from this
thraldom at once. But hitherto foreign influence has
been too strong for us, because it was secret. We
propose to unmask it before the, people, and then it
will end. The American people can do. any thing
which they think it worth while to attempt. When
they were only three millions strong, they beat you in
an eight years' war, rather than submit to a trumpery
two penny tax on tea. Much more easily will they
beat you now, when they come to understand the true
nature of the contest. As soon as it becomes appa
rent to the native born American people, that the true

FOREIGN. INFLUENCE IN FINANCIAL AFFAIRS. 67
cause of the present distress of the country and the
utter prostration of its industrial interests, is foreign
influence, they will set the matter right. When it is
understood that the American- workmen cannot get
work, because the interests of British workmen, or ra
ther the interests of the aristocracy, who make British
workmen their slaves, are chiefly consulted by the law
makers of this country, then new laws will be made, a
new system — the American system — will prevail. You,
Scroggs, will have to. pack up your trumpery pattern-
books and go back to Manchester ; we shall manufac
ture ourywn cloth, hardware, and iron rails ; business
will revive.; London will cease to be our financial
ruler; and money will cease to be three per cent, a
month. We shall then have beaten England for the
third time and it is to be hoped we shall get rid of her
infernal influence for ever.
All this you say, Scroggs, is mere declamation.
Granted. So it is — mere declamation. We hke to
declaim sometimes. All Americans do, ever since
Patrick Henry bearded the king's minions in the Vir
ginia legislature, in old colony times. But we are
prepared to back up our declamation with a few facts.

CHAPTER VI.
FOREIGN IMPOSTURE IN* COMMERCE.
The facts to which we have alluded rej^ie to the
methods resorted to, by the oligarchy which governs
Great Britain, in order to render London the commer
cial and financial centre of the world, and to render
all other nations tributaries to the British.
Great Britain is an island of moderate extent, rais
ing corn enough to support the inhabitants. Her
enormous wealth has been accumulated by manufac
tures of cloth and iron, the sale of which she has made
it the object of her policy to5thrust upon 'other nations
to the ruin and destruction of their own manufacturing
industry. If a nation is possessed of natural advantages equal
(68)

FOREIGN IMPOSTURE IN COMMERCE. 69
or superior to those of Great Britain, it is her duty to
protect her mechanics against foreign influence, and
thus enable them, to manufacture for themselves. If
a nation has iron ore, and a climate and soil fit for the
raising of- wool and cotton, she ought never to import
a yard of cloth, a rod of rail for her iron roads, or a
single article of hardware from Great Britain, at the
risk of preserving the financial ascendancy of London
and enslaving- or starving her own mechanics.
In order to blind foreign nations to the nature of
the imposture, by which she cheats and robs foreign
nations, she calls hervpolicy-/ree trade. People love
the very name of freedom, and they are gulled by this
specious name into their own ruin. , In order to make
it more palatable to foreign nations, she hires writers
and buys up newspapers to cry down the opposite po
licy of protection TO national industry as a narrow
minded and illiberal system, opposed to freedom.
Where Great Britain applies her system to a coun
try under despotic rulers, she buys Up the government-
or cheats it by a commercial treaty, with all thg, real
advantages on her own side, as in the case of Portugal
and Turkey. Where the country is barbarous, or half
civilized, she conquers and enslaves it, annexing it as

70 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
a colony of her own, and forcing her free trade system
on the people at the point of the bayonet, as in India.
Where her immediate object is to poison and demora
lize the people of a foreign nation with a view to their
future subjugation and annexation, she first employs
her commercial marine in smuggling the poison into
the country, and when the government resists this
measure, she declares war, burns their seaports, mur
ders a few thousands of their people, and compels
them to permit the free trade in poison to go on, as in
the case of China, forced into submission by what is
called the "opium war." When the nation to be
cheated and enslaved is powerful and free, she works
by secret influence on the government, bribes execu
tive officers and legislators, buys up newspapers and
pays needy scribblers for decrying the policy of pro
tection to the national industry, as in the case of the
United States at the present time.
To show that we are not without ample support from
history in the assertions we make, we will now cite a
few pages from a writer of our own country, whose
works are treated with marked respect in every coun
try of Europe not under British influence, and whose
name is detested in England on account of the tremen-

F0RFIGN IMPOSTURE IN COMMERCE. 71
dous array of facts by which he has assailed the Bri
tish system of free trade. We mean, of course, Henry
C. Carey. In a recent work, he thus sets forth the
operations of British free trade in Portugal and Turkey.
Let Americans consider and read the facts, and com
pare them with what has been going on in this country
recently, and what is the state of facts at the present
time. " In point of natural advantages. Portugal is equal
to any country in Western Europe. The soil is capa
ble of yielding largely of every description of grain,
and her climate enables her to cultivate the grape and
the olive. Mineral riches abound, and her rivers give
to a large portion of the country every facility for
cheap intercourse, and yet her people are among the
most enslaved, while her government is the weakest
and most contemptible of Europe.
"It is now a century and a half since England
granted her what were deemed highly important ad
vantages in regard to wine; on condition that she
should discard the artisans who had been brought to
the side of the farmers, and permit the people of Eng
land to supply her people with certain descriptions of
of manufactures. What were the duties then agreed

72 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
on are not given in any of the books now at hand, but
by the provisions of a treaty made in 1810, cloths of
all descriptions were to be admitted at merely a re
venue duty, varying from ten to fifteen per cent. A
natural consequence of this system has been that the
manufactures which up to the date of the Methuen
treaty had risen in that country, perished under
foreign competition, and the people found themselves
by degrees limited exclusively to agricultural employ
ment. " Mechanics found there no place for the exercise of
their talents, towns could not grow, schools could not
arise, and the result is seen in the following paragraph.
" It is surprising how ignorant, or superficially ac
quainted, the Portuguese are with every kind of handi
craft ; a carpenter, awkward and clumsy, spoiling
every work he attempts, and the way in which the
doors and wood work even of good houses are finished,
would have suited the rudest ages. Their carriages
of all kinds from the fidalgo's family coach to the
peasant's market cart, their agricultural implements,
locks and keys, etc., are ludicrously bad. . They seem •
to disdain improvements, and are so infinitely below
par, so strikingly inferior to the rest of Europe, as to

FOREIGN IMPOSTURE IN COMMERCE. 73
form a sort of disgraceful wonder in the middle of the
nineteenth century. ' ' — Baillie.
The population, which, half a century since, was
three million six hundred and eighty three thousand,
is now reduced to a little more than three millions,
and we need no better evidence of the enslaving and -
exhausting tendency of a policy that limits a whole
people, men, women, and children, to the labors of the
field. At the close of almost a century and a half of
tmV system, the following is given,, in a work of high
reputation, as a correct picture of the state of the
country and the strength of the government.
" The finances of Portugal are in the most deplora
ble condition, the treasury' is dry, and all branches
of the public service suffer. A carelessness and a
mutual apathy reign not only throughout the govern
ment, but also throughout the nation; While improve
ment is sought every where else throughout Europe,
Portugal remains, stationary. The postal service of
the country offers a curious example of this, nineteen
to twenty-one days being still required for a letter to
go and come between Lisbon and Braganza, a distance
of four hundred and twenty-three and a half kelometres,
(or a little over three hundred miles) all the resources

74 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
of the state are exhausted, and it is probable that the
receipts will not give one third of the amount for
which they figure, in the budget." Annuaire de V Eco
nomic Politique 1849,. p. 322.
Some years since an effort was made to hring the
artisan to the side of the farmer and wine grower, but
a century and a half of exclusive devotion to agricul
ture had placed the people so far in the rear of those
of other nations, that the attempt was hopeless, the
country having long since become a mere colony of
Great Britain.
If we turn to Madeira, we find there further evi
dence of the exhausting consequences of the separa
tion of the farmer and the artisan. From 1836, to
1842, the only period for which returns are before me,
there was a steady decline in the amount of agricul
tural production, until the "diminution had reached
about thirty per cent, as follows.

WINE.

WHEAT.

BARLEY.

.836. 27.270 pipes.

8.472 qrs.

3.510.

.842. 16.131 "

6,863 "

2.777.

At this moment (1853) the public papers furnish an
' Appeal to America," commencing as follows : -

FOREIGN IMPOSTURE IN COMMERCE. 75
" A calamity has fallen on Madeira unparalleled in
its history. The vintage, the revenue of which fur
nished the chief means of providing subsistence for its
inhabitants, has been a total failure, and the potato
crop, formerly another important article for their food,
is still extensively diseased. All classes, therefore, are
suffering, and as there are few sources in the island to
which they can look for food, clothing, and other ne
cessaries of life, their distress must increase during the
winter, and the future is contemplated with painful
anxiety and apprehension. Under such appalling
prospects, the zealous and excellent civil governor,
Senor Jose Silvectre Ribeiro, addressed a circular letter
to, the merchants of Madeira, on the 24th of August
last, for the purpose' of bringing the unfortunate and
and critical position of the population under his gov
ernment to the notice of the benevolent and charitable
classes in foreign countries, and in the hope of excit
ing their sympathy with, and assistance to, so many
of their fellow creatures threatened with famine."
Such- are the necessary consequences of a system
which looks to compelling the whole population of a
country to employ themselves in a single pursuit — all
cultivating the land, and all producing the same

76 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
commodity ; and which thus effectually prevents the
growth of that natural association so much admired
by Adam Smith. It is one that can end only in the
exhaustion of the land and its owner. When, popula
tion increases and men come together, even the poor
land is made rich, and thus it is, says M. de Jonnes,
that " the power of manure causes the poor lands of the
Seine to yield thrice as much as those of the Loire."*
When population diminishes, and men are thus
forced to live at greater distances from each other,
even the rich lands become impoverished ; and of this
no better evidence need be sought than that furnished
by Portugal. In the one case, each day brings men
nearer to perfect freedom of thought, speech, action,
and trade ; in- the other, they become from day, to day
more barbarized and enslaved, and the women are more
and more driven to the field, there to become the slaves
of fathers, husbands, brothers, and even of sons.
Such, according to our authority, is the condition
of Portugal and her once flourishing colony of Ma
deira, after enjoying, in the fullest manner, for a cen
tury and a half, the advantages of free trade with her
beloved ally Great Britain. It is true Great Britain
* Statistique de 1' Agriculture de la France, p. 129.

FOREIGN IMPOSTURE IN COMMERCE. 77
buys her Port wine and makes it the principal article
of consumption in the way of wine ; but this is done
to make a show of reciprocity. The result of the free
trade system has .brought to Portugal ruin and pros
tration in all her material interests. The natural con
sequence that the country which conquered and held
one third of India, in the time of Albuquerque, when
England had not a colony in the world, has now sunk
to such political insignificance that the presence of a
British frigate, more or less in the harbor of Lisbon,
is sufficient to determine a change of dynasty for that
wretched country.

7*

CHAPTER VII.
FOREIGN IMPOSTURE IN COMMERCE.
(continued.)
England is fond of calling Turkey her " ancient
ally;" but that did not prevent her from aiding Rus
sia in annihilating the Turkish fleet, at Navarino, an
error which she is now expiating at Sabastopol. Nei
ther has it prevented her from ruining Turkey by the
same system of British free trade, which has ruined
Portugal. Let us see what the authority already
quoted says in this connection :
" Of all the countries of Europe, there is none pos
sessed of natural advantages to enable it to compare
with those constituting the Turkish Empire in Europe
(78)

FOREIGN IMPOSTURE IN COMMERCE. 79
and Asia. Wool, silk, corn, oil, and tobacco, might,
with proper cultivation, be produced in almost unli
mited quantity, while Thessaly and Macedonia, long
celebrated for the production of cotton, abound in
lands uncultivated, from which it might be obtained in
sufficient quantity to clothe a large portion of Europe.
Iron ore also abounds, and in quality equal to any in
the world, while, in another part of the empire, ' the
hills seem a mass of carbonate of copper.'* Nature
has done every thing for the people of that country,
and yet of all those of Europe, the Turkish rayah ap
proaches in condition nearest to a slave ; and of all
the governments of Europe, that of Portugal not even
excepted, that of Turkey is the most a slave to the dic
tation, not only of nations, but even of bankers and
traders.. Why it is so, we may now inquire.
" By the terms of the treaty with England, in 1675,
the Turkish government bound itself to charge no more
than three per cent, duty on imports, f and as this
could contribute little to the revenue, that required to
be sought elsewhere. A poll-tax, house-tax, land-tax,
*' Urquhart's Resources of Turkey, p. 199.
j- Equivalent to light port charges, the anchorage' being only
sixteen cents per ship.

80 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
and many other direct taxes, furnished a part of it,
and the balance was obtained by an indirect tax in the
form of export duties ; and as the corn, tobacco, cot
ton, of its people were obliged to compete in the ge
neral markets of the world with the produce of other
lands, it is clear that these duties constituted a further
contribution from the cultivators of the empire, in aid
of the various, direct taxes that have been mentioned.
So far as foreigners were interested, the system was
one of perfect trade and direct taxation.
"For many years Turkey manufactured much of
her cotton, and she exported cotton' yarn. Such was
the case as recently as 1798, as will be. seen by the
following very interesting account of one of the seats
of manufacture.
" Ambelakia, by its activity, appears rather a bo
rough of Holland, than a village of Turkey. This vil
lage spreads, by its industry, movement, and life, over
the surrounding country, and gives birth to an immense
commerce, which unites Germany to Greece by a thous
and threads. , Its population has trebled in fifteen
years, and amounts at present (1798) to four thousand,
who live in their manufactories, like swarms of bees
in their hives. In this village are unknown vices and

FOREIGN IMPOSTURE IN COMMERCE. 81
cares engendered by idleness ; the hearts of the Am-
belakiots are pure and their faces serene ; the slavery
which blasts the plains watered by the Peneus, and
stretching at their feet, has never ascended the sides
of Pelion (Ossa ;) and they govern themselves like their
ancestors, by their protqyeros, (primates, elders,) and
their own magistrates. Twice the Mussulmen of La-
nissa attempted to scale their rocks, and twice they
were repulsed by hands that dropped the shuttle to
seize the musket.
" Every arm, even those of, the children, is em
ployed in the factories ; while the men dye the cotton,
the women prepare and spin it. There are twenty-
four factories, in which yearly two thousand five hun
dred bales of cotton yarn, of one hundred cotton okes
each, were dyed. This yarn found its way into Ger
many, and was disposed of at Buda, Vienna, Leipsfc,
Dresden, Anspach, and Bareuth. The Ambelakioi
merchants had houses of their own in all these places.
These houses belonged to distinct associations at Am
belakia. The competition thus established reduced
very considerably the common profits ; they proposed
therefore to' unite themselves under one central com
mercial administration. Twenty-five years ago this

82 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
plan was suggested, and a year afterwards it was car
ried into execution. The lowest shares in this joint
stock company were five thousand piasters, (between
six and seven hundred pounds sterling,) and the highest
were restricted to twenty thousand, that the capitalists
might not swallow up all the profits. The workmen
subscribed their little profits, and uniting in societies,
purchased single shares, and besides their capital, their
labor was reckoned in the general amount, they re
ceived their share of the profits accordingly; and
abundance was sodn spread throughout the whole
community. The dividends were at first restricted
to ten per cent, and the surplus profit was applied
to the augmenting of the capital ; which in two years
was raised from six hundred thousand to one million
piasters, (twenty thousand pounds.)
'It supplied industrious Germany, not by the per
fection of its jennies, but by the industry of its spindle
and distaff. It taught Montpellier the art of dyeing,
not from experimental chairs, but because dying was
with it a domestic and culinary operation, subject to
daily observation in every kitchen ; and by the sim
plicity and honesty, not the science of its system, it
reads a lesson to commercial associations, and holds

FOREIGN IMPOSTURE IN COMMERCE. 83
up an example unparalleled. In the commercial history
of Europe, of a joint stock and labor company, ably
and economically and successfully administered, in
which the interests of industry and capital were long
equally represented. Yet the system of administra
tion, with which all -this is connected, is common to
the thousand hamlets of Thessaly, that have not emer
ged from their insignificance; but Ambelakia for
twenty years was left alone.'*
" At that time, however, England had invented ma
chinery for spinning cotton, and, by prohibiting its
export, had provided that all the c3tton of the world
should be brought to Manchester- before it could be
cheaply converted into cloth.
" The cotton manufactures at Ambelakia had their
difficulties to encounter, but all those might have been
overcome, had they not, says, Mr. Urquhart, been out
stripped by Manchester.'
"-They were outstripped and twenty years afterward,
not only had that place been deserted, but others in its
neighborhood were reduced to complete desolation.
Native manufactories for the production of cotton

*Beaujour's Tableau de Commerce de la Greece, quoted by Urqu
hart. p. 47.

84 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
goods had, indeed, almost eeased to wdrk. Of six
hundred looms at Scutari in 1812, but forty remained
in 1821, and of the two thousand weaving establish
ments at Tournovo in 1812 but two hundred remained
in 1830,*
" For a time, cotton went abroad to be returned in
the form of a twist, thus making a voyage of thousands
of miles in search of a spindle ; but even this trade
has in a great degree passed away. As a consequence
of these things there has been a ruinous fall of wages,
affecting all classes of laborers. ' The profits' says,
Mr. Urquhart, "have been reduced to one half, and
sometimes one third, by the introduction of English
cottons, which, though, they have reduced the home
price, and arrested the export of cotton-yarn from
Turkey, have not yet supplanted the home manufac
ture in any visible degree ; for until tranquillity has
allowed agriculture to revive, the people must go on
working merely for bread, and reducing their price, in
a struggle of hopeless competition. The industry, how
ever, of the women and children is most remarkable ;
in every interval of labor, tending the cattle, carry
ing water, the spindle and distaff, as in the days of
*Urquhart, p. 150.

FOREIGN IMPOSTURE IN COMMERCE. 85
Xerxes, is never out of their hands. The children
are assiduously at work, from the moment their little
fingers can turn the spindle. About Ambelakia, the
former focus of the cotton-yarn trade, the peasantry
has suffered dreadfully from this, though formerly the
women could earn as much in doors, as their husbands
in the field ; at present (1831) their, daily profit,
does not exceed twenty paras, if realized for often
they cannot dispose of their yarn when spun.
PIASTRES, PARAS.
Five okes of uncleaned cotton, at seventeen paras, 2 5
Labor of a woman for 2 days, at 7 farthings a day, 0 35
Carding, by vibrations of cat-gut, ¦ 0 10
Spinning, a woman's unremitting labor for a week, 5 30
Loss of cotton, exceeding an oke of uncleaned cotton, 0 20

Value of one oke of uncleaned cotton, Prs. 9 00
'" Here a woman's labor makes but two pence per day ;
while field labor, according to the season of the year,
ranges from four to six pence, and at this rate, the
pound of coarse cotton-yarn costs in spinning five
pence, p 147.
" The labor of a woman is estimated at less than four
cents per day, and ' the unremitting labor of a week,
8

86 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
will command but twenty -five cents. The wages of
men employed in gathering leaves and attending silk
worms are stated at one piastre (five cents) per day,
At Salonica, the shipping port of Thessaly they
were ten cents. — Urquhart, 268.
"As a necessary consequence of this, population
diminishes, and everywhere are seen the ruins of once
prosperous villages. Agriculture declines from day
today. The once productive cot to^fi elds of Thessaly
lie untilled, and even around Constantinople itself
there are no cultivated lands to speak of within
twenty miles,- in some directions within fifty miles.
The commonest necessaries of life come from distant
parts ; the corn for daily bread from Odessa ; the
cattle and sheep from beyond Adrianople, or from
Asia Minor ; the rice, of which- vast consumption is
made, from the neighborhood of Phillipopolis ; the
poultry chiefly from Bulgaria ; the fruit and vegeta
bles from Nicomedia and Macedonia. Thus a con
stant drain of money is occasioned without any visible
return except to the treasury or from the property of
Ulema : — Slade's Travels in Tuvkey, Vol ii. p. 143.
"The silk that is made is badly prepared, because
the distance of the artisan prevents the poor people

FOREIGN IMPOSTURE IN COMMERCE. 87
from obtaining good machinery and as a consequence
of this, the former direct trade with Persia has been
superseded by an indirect one through England, to
which the raw silk has now to be sent. In every de
partment of industry we see the same result. Birming
ham has superseded Damascus, where blades are now
no longer made.
" Not only is the foreigner free to introduce his wares,
but he may, on payment of a trifling duty of two per
cent., carry them throughout the empire until finally
disposed of. He travels by caravans and is lodged
without expense. He brings his goods to-be ex
changed for money, or what else he needs, and the ex
change effected, he disappears as suddenly as he came.
"'It is impossible,' says Mr. Urquhart 'to wit
ness the many tongued caravan in its resting place
for the night, and see, unladen and piled up together,
the bales froni such distant places to glance over the
very wrappers, and the strange marks and characters
which they bear without being amazed, at so eloquent
a contradiction of our preconceived notions of indis
criminate despotism and universal insecurity of the
East. But while we observe the avidity with which
our goods are sought, the preference now transferred

88 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
from Indiam to Birmingham, muslins from Golconda
to Glasgow chintzes, from Damascus to Sheffield steel,
from Cashmere shawls to English broadcloth; and
while at the same time, the energies of the commercial
spirit are brought thus substantially before us ; it is
indeed impossible not to regret that a gulf of separa
tion should have so long divided the East and West,
and equally impossible not to indulge in the hope and
anticipation of a vastly extended traffic with the East,
and of all the blessings which follow fast and revelling
in the wake of commerce.' — p. 133.
" Among the ' blessings' of the system is the fact that
local places of exchange no longer exist. The store
keeper who pays rent and taxes has found himself
unable to compete with the pedlar who pays neither ;
and the consequence is that the poor cultivator finds
it impossible to exchange his products small as they
are, for the commodities he needs, except on the ar
rival of a caravan, and that has generally proved far
more likely to absorb the little money in circulation,
than any of the more bulky and less valuable products
of the earth.'
" As usual in purely agricultural countries, the whole
body of cultivators is hopelessly in debt, and the money

FOREIGN IMPOSTURE IN COMMERCE. 89
lender fleeces all. If he aids the peasant before har
vest, he must have an enormous interest, and be paid
in produce, at a large discount, from the market price.
The village committees are almost universally in debt,
but t6 them, as the security is good, the banker
charges only twenty per cent, per annum. Turkey is the
very paradise of middle men, a consequence of the
absence of any mode of employment except in culti-
vatibn or in trade, and the moral effect of this may be
seen in the following passage : — "
'"If you see,' says Urquhart ' a Turk meditating
in a corner, it is on some speculation, the purchase of
a revenue farm, or the propriety of a loan at sixty per
cent. ; if you see pen or paper in his hand, it is making
or checking an account ; if there is a disturbance in
the street, it is a disputed barter ; whether in the
streets or in-dpors, whether in a coffee house, a seria,
or a bazaar, whatever the rank, nation; language of
the persons around you, traffic, barter, gain, are the
prevailing impulses; grusch,>para, florin, hia, asper,
amid the Babel of tongues, are the universally inteli-
gible sounds." — p. 138.
"We have thus a whole people divided into two
classes, the plunderers and the plundered ; and the
8*

90 THE* ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
cause of this may be found in the fact that the owners
and occupants of land have never been permitted to
strengthen themselves by the formation of that natural
alliance between the plough and the loom^ the ham
mer and the harrow, so much admired by "Adam
Smith. The government is as weak as the people, for
it is so entirely dependant on the bankers, that, they may
be regarded as the real owners of the land and the
people, taxing them at7 discretion ; and to them cer
tainly inure all the profits of cultivation. As a con
sequence of this, the land is almost valueless. A
recent traveller states that good land maybe purchased,
in the immediate vicinity of Smyrna, at six cents an acre,
and at a little distance vast quantities may be had for
nothing. Throughout the world the freedom of men
has grown in the ratio of the increase in the value of
land, and that has always grown in the ratio of the
tendency to have the artisan take his place by the
cultivator of the earth. Whatever tends to prevent
this natural association, tends, therefore, to the de
basement and enslavement of man.
" The weakness of Turkey as regards foreign nations
is great, and it increases every day. Not only am
bassadors, but consuls, beard it in its own cities ; and

FOREIGN IMPOSTURE IN COMMERCE. 91
it is even now denied that she has any right to adopt
a system of trade different from that under which- she
has become thus weakened.* Perfect freedom of com
merce is declared to be 'one of those immunities
which we can resign on no account or pretext whatever,
it is a-golden privilege which we can never abandon. 'f
" Internal trade scarcely exists, and, as a natural
consequence, the foreign one is insignificant, the whole
value of the exports being- but about thirty-three mil
lions of dollars, or less that two dollars per head.
The total exports from Great Britain in the last
year, amounted to but two millions two hundred and
twenty-one thousand pounds, or eleven million dollars,
much of which was simply en route for Persia ; and
this constitutes the great trade which has been built
up at so much cost to the people of Turkey, and that
is to be maintained as ' a golden privilege,' not to be
abandoned ! Not discouraged by the result , of past
efforts, the same author, looks forward anxiously for
the time when there shall be in Turkey no employment
* The recent proceedings in regard to the Turkish loan, are
strikingly illustrative of the exhausting effects of a system that
looks wholly to the exports of the raw produce of the earth, and
thus tends to the ruin of the soil and its owner.
-f- Urquhart, p. 257.

92 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
in manufactures of any kind, and when the people shall
be exclusively employed in agriculture ; and. the time
cannot, he thinks, be far distant, as ' a few pence
more or less in the price of a commodity- will make the
difference of purchasing or manufacturing at home.'*
" Throughout the book, he shows that the rudeness
of the machinery of- cultivation is in direct ratio of
the distance of the cultivator from the market ; and
yet he would desire that all the produce of the coun
try should go to a distant market to be exchanged,
although the whole import of iron at the present mo
ment for the supply of a population of almost twenty
millions of people, possessing iron ore, fuel, and unem
ployed labor in unlimited quantity, is but twenty-five
hundred pounds sterling per annum, or about a penny's
worth for every thirty persons ! Need we wonder at
the character of the machinery, the poverty and slavery
of the people, the trivial amount of commerce, or at
the weakness of the government whose whole system
looks at the exhaustion of the land, and to the exclu
sion of that great middle class of working men, to
whom the agriculturalist has every where been indebted
for his freedom ? . ,
* Urquhart, p. 202.

FOREIGN IMPOSTURE IN COMMERCE. 93
" The facts thus far given, have been taken, as the
reader will have observed, from Mr. Urquhart's work;
and as that gentleman is a warm admirer of the sys
tem denounced by Adam Smith, he cannot be sus
pected of any exaggeration when presenting any of its
unfavorable results. Later travellers exhibit the na
tion as passing steadily on towards ruin, and the people
towards a state of slavery -the most complete — the ne
cessary consequence of a policy that excludes the me
chanic, and prevents the formation of a town, popula
tion. Among the latest of these travellers is Mr. Mac
Farlane.* At the date of whose visit, the silk manufac
ture bad entirely disappeared, and even the filatures
for preparing the raw silk were closed, weavers having
become ploughmen, and women and children having
been totally deprived of employment. The cultivator
of silk had become, entirely dependent on foreign mar
kets, in which, there existed no demand for the pro
ducts of their land and labor. England was then pass
ing through one of her periodical crises, and it had been
deemed necessary to put down the prices of all agri
cultural products, with a view to stop importation. On
one occasion, during Mr. Mac Farlane's travels, there
. * "Turkey. and its Destiny," by C. Mac Farlane, Esq., 1850.

94 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
was a report that silk had risen in England, and it pro
duced a momentary stir and animation, that, he says,
' flattered his national vanity to think that an electric
touch parting from London, the mighty heart of com
merce, should be felt in a few days at a place like
Biljek.' Such is commercial centralization ! It ren
ders the agriculturalists- of the world- mere slaves, de
pendent for food and clothing upon the will of a few
people, proprietors of a small amount of machinery,
at ' the mighty heart of commerce.' At one moment
speculation is rife, and silk goes up in price, and then
every effort is made to induce large shipments of the
raw produce of the world. At thernext, money is said
to be scarce, and the shippers are ruined, as was, to a
great extent, experienced by those who exported corn
from this country in 1847^ ¦
" At the date of the traveller's first visit to Broussa,
the villages were numerous, and the silk manufacture
was prosperous. At the second", the silk works were
stopped, and their owners bankrupt, the villages even
gradually disappearing, and in the town itself scarcely
a chimney was left, while thecountry around presented
to view nothing but poverty and wretchedness. Every
where, throughout the empire, the roads are bad,

FOREIGN IMPOSTURE IN COMMERCE. 95
k
and becoming worse, and the condition of the cultivator
deteriorates ; for if he has a surplus to sell, most of
.. its value at market is absorbed by the cost of trans
portation, and if his crop is short, prices rise so high,
that he cannot^ purchase. Famines are therefore fre
quent, and child-murder prevails throughout all classes
of society. Population, therefore, diminishes, and the
best lands are abandoned, . ' nine-tenths' of them re
maining unfilled ;* the natural consequence of which
is, that malaria prevails in many of those parts of the
country that once were most productive, and pesti
lence comes in aid of famine for the 'extermination of
the unfortunate people. Native mechanics are nowhere
to be found, there being no demand far them, and the
plough,' the wine-press, and "the oil-mill are equally
rude and barbarous. The product of labor is, conse
quently, most diminutive,, and its wagfjs -two-pence a
day, with a little food. The interest of money varies
from twenty-five to fifty per cent, per annum, and this
rate is frequently paid for in the loan of bad seed that
yields but little to land or labor. •
" With the decline of population, and the disappear-
ance of all the local .places of exchange, the- pressure
* Mac Farlane, Vol. i. p. 46.

96 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
of the conscription becomes from year to year more
severe, and droves of men may be seen ' chained like
wild beasts — free^Osmanlees driven along the road like
slaves to a market'1 — free men, separated from wives
and children, who are left to perish of starvation amid
the richest lands, that remain untilled because of the
separation of the artisan, from the producer of food,
silk, and cotton. Internal commerce is trifling in
amount, and the power to pay for foreign merchandise
has almost passed away. Land is nearly valueless ;
and in. this, we find the most convincing proof of the
daily increasing tendency towards slavery, man hav
ing always become enslaved as land has lost its value.
" In the great valley of Buyuk-dere, once known, as
the fair land, a property of twenty miles in circumfe
rence had, shortly before his visit, been purchased for
less than one thousand pounds, or four thousand eight
hundred dollars.* In another part of the eountry, pne
of twelve miles, in circumference had been purchased
for a considerably smaller sum.f The slave trade,
black and white, had never been more active ;f and
this was a necessary consequence of the value of labor
and land.
* Mac Farlane, p. 296. f Ibid. Vol. i. p. 37.

FOREIGN IMPOSTURE IN COMMERCE. 97
" In this country, negro men are well fed, clothed,
and are gradually advancing towards freedom. Popu-
lation, therefore increases, although more slowly than
would be the case were they enabled to combine their
efforts for the improvement of their condition. In the
West Indies, Portugal, and Turkey, being neither well-
fed, clothed, nor lodged, their condition declines ; and
as they can neither be bought nor sold, they are aL-
lowed to die off, and the population diminishes as the
tendency towards the subjugation of the laborer be
comes more and more complete. Which of these con
ditions tends most to favor advance in civilization the
reader may decide."
Such is Mr. Carey's account of what British free
trade has done for Turkey. It was written before the
present war with Russia on the one hand, and Turkey
and her allies on the other, had commenced. It throws
some light on the motives of England in engaging in
the war. She was unwilling to have Turkey freed
from British free trade. The czar called Turkey a
" sick man," and wished to tak&charge of the invalid ;
but England wished to retain the privilege of doctor
ing him with a little more free trade. In endeavoring
to accomplish this object, England has incurred the
9

98 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
deepest and most indelible disgrace. Never was there
exhibited such imbecility and folly, as . that which the
aristocratic officers of the English army at Sebastopol
have shown. The rank and file, by their bull-dog
courage alone, saved the English army thus far from
utter annihilation. Whether that alone will ultimately
save it remains to be seen.
The hypocritical pretences under which England
has entered upon the war,-have been exposed by a mem
ber of parliament in his place. In a British paper,
just received, we find the following article :
" Mr. Cobden has been, asking some questions in
the British parliament, which are found rather hard to
answer. He saidj ' Before considering other questions
in relation to the war, it was necessary to ask what
was its object, respecting which he could never get
any intelligible notion. Some suppose it was to open
the Black Sea, or the Danube," to merchant vessels,
whereas both were open. Others imagined that we
had a treaty with the Sultan binding us to defend him
and his dominions. But Lord Aberdeen has declared
that no such treaty existed before the war. There was,
indeed, a strong feeling out of doors that Russia had
oppressed certain nationalities, and he assumed that

FOREIGN IMPOSTURE IN COMMERCE. 99
»
the statesman's ground of war was to defend the Turkish
empire against the encroachments of Russia, and to
keep the states of Europe within their present limits.
But were not the other nations of Europe as much in
terested as we in this object, and in withstanding a
deluge of barbarism ? And had we not accomplished
the object when Russia renounced all intention of in
vading Turkey, and as acknowledged by Lord J. Russell,
made proposals of peace on the basisof the four points ?
Austria and Prussia, it was said, had agreed to these
terms, and they were more interested in the quarrel
than we ; why, then, should we not entertain them ?
We were not to be Don Quixottes, to fight the battles
of the world. The destruction of Sebastopol would
not prevent its re-construction or the fortification of
some other port in the Black Sea. Nor would it secure
Turkey, which could' be safe only when its internal
condition was improved, and- its administration re
formed, and its resources developed; whereas war
demoralized the Turks — whom, since our arrival, we
had humiliated and degraded. The country had been
misled into a belief that the Mahommedan population
of.Turkey, which was perishing, was incapable of rege
neration, which was a delusion. Instead, then, of con-

100 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
tinuing war,^having accomplished its original object,
as declared in the Queen's speecn — why not take even
chance of the result of accepting the proposals of peace,
especially if, as Mr. Layard had predicted, the war
was only beginning ?"
In these remarks of Mr. Cobden, the real cause of
the war leaks out, probably without any intention on
his part. He says that " Turkey could "be safe only
when its internal condition was improved, its. admini
stration reformed, and its resources developed" — in
other words, when it should rid itself of the incubus of
British free trade. If England had not destroyed the
manufactures of Turkey, Turkey would not have be
come a sick man, Russia would not have invaded her
territory, western diplomacy would not have paralysed
her means of resistance,- and England and France
would not have engaged in a war under false pretences,
disgraceful alike in its motives and its conduct.
We now pass to another exhibition of the blessings
of British free trade.

CHAPTER VIII.
WHAT FOREIGN IMPOSTURE IN COMMERCE? HAS DONE
FOR INDIA.
Before the conquest of India, by the British, the
people of that country were comparatively free and
happy. This we learn from the testimony of British
writers. " The natives of Hindoostan," says Mr.
Greig, " seem to have lived from the earliest, down,
comparatively speaking, to late times — if not free
from the troubles and annoyances to which men in all
condition of society are more or less subject, still in
the full enjoyment, each individual, of his own pro
perty, and of -a very considerable share of personal
liberty." The Mahommedan conquerors respected, the local
9* (101)

102 THE ENEMIES -OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
institutions of the country, and permitted the people
to accumulate property without interfering with the
pursuits of industry. They thus protected the manu
facturers of the country effectually from the pernicious
system called free trade, which has since reduced them
to beggary and slavery. Manufactures were widely
spread, and thus made a demand for the labor not re
quired in agriculture. " On the coast of Coromandel"
says Orme, "and in the province of Bengal, it is diffi
cult to find a village in which every man, woman, and
child, is not employed in making a piece of cloth. At
present," he continues, " much the greatest part of the
whole provinces are employed in this single manufac
ture. Its progress," as he says, "includes no less
than a description of the lives of half, the inhabitants
of Hindostan." "While employment," says Carey,
" was thus locally subdivided, tending to enable neigh
bor to exchange with neighbor, the exchanges between
the producers of food, or of salt, in one part of the
country ; and the producers of cotton and manufac
turers of cloth in another, tending to the production
of commerce with more distant men, and this tendency
was much increased by the subdivision of the cotton
manufacture itself. Bengal was celebrated for the

FOREIGN IMPOSTURE IN COMMERCE. 103
finest muslins, the consumption of which at Delhi, and
in Northern India generally was large, while the Coro
mandel coast was equally celebrated for the best
chintzes and calicoes, leaving to- Western India the
manufacture of strong and inferior' goods of every
kind. Under these circumstances, it is no matter of
surprise that the country was rich, and that its people,
although often over-taxed, and sometimes plundered
by invading armies, were prosperous in a high
degree." "Nearly a century has now elapsed," says Mr. Carey,
" since, by the battle of Plassy, British power was es
tablished in India, and from that day local 'action has
tended to disappear, and centralization to take its
place. From its date to the close of the century, there
was a rapidly increasing tendency towards having all
the affairs of the princes and the people settled by the
representatives of the company established in Calcutta,
and as usual in such cases, the country was filled with
adventurers, very many of whom were wholly without
principles, men whose sole object Has that of the ac
cumulation of fortune by any means, however foul, as is
well known by all who are familiar with the indignant
denunciations of Burke; England was thus enriched

104 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
as India was impoverished, and as centralization was
more and more established."
We might give the details of the oppressive system
of taxation- and exaction by which the British have
brought the people of India into a state of com
plete and literal slavery. Their system of taxation
has reached a point unparalleled in history. One half
of the gross produce of the land is the average annual
rent, although in many cases it greatly exceeds that
amount. The Madras Revenue Board, May 17, 1817,
stated that the conversion of the government share of
of the produce of lands is in some districts as high as
sixty or seventy per cent, of the whole.
This statement sufficiently illustrates the effects of
the British domination in India, as applied to that part
of the population of India'which is engaged in agri
cultural pursuits ; but our present object is to show the
operation of British free trade in destroying the manu
factures of that country.
By a quotation above, cited from Orme, we have
shown the former existence of a flourishing manufacture
of cotton cloth. Much of this cloth was exported, and
it will be in the recollection of many of our readers,
that previous to the war of 1812, an article of muslin,

FOREIGN IMPOSTURE IN COMMERCE. 105
commonly called India cotton, was extensively used in
this country. The following extract from Mr. Carey's
work, will show how this branch of manufacture has
been destroyed by British free trade.
" India is abundantly supplied with fuel and iron
ore, and if she has not good machinery, the deficiency
is not chargeable to nature. At the close of the last
century, cotton abounded, and to so great an extent
was the labor of men, women, and children applied to
its conversion into cloth, that, even with their imper
fect machinery, they not only supplied the home de
mand for the beautiful tissues of Dacca and the coarse
products of Western India ;, but they exported to other
parts of the world no less than two hundred millions
of pieces per annum,* Exchanges with every part of
thejworld were so greatly in their favor, that a rupee
which would now sell for but one shilling and sixpence,
or forty-four cents, was then worth two smillings and
eightpence, or sixty-four cents. The Company had a
monopoly of collecting taxes in India, but in return it
preserved the control of their domestic market, by aid
of which they were enabled to convert their rice, their
salt, and their cotton, into cloth that could be cheaply
i * Speech of Mr. G. Thompson, in the House of Commons.

106 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
carried to the most remote parts of the world. Such
protection was needed, because while England prohi
bited the export of even a .single collier who might
instruct the people of India in the mode of mining
coal — of a steam engine to pump water, or raise coal,
or a mechanic who could make one — of a worker in
iron who might smelt the ore — of a spinning-jenny or
a power-loom, or of an artisan who could give instruc
tion in the .use of such machines — and thus systemati
cally prevented them from keeping pace with improve
ments in the rest of the world, — she at the same time
imposed very heavy duties on the produce of Indian
looms received in England. The day was at hand,
however, when that protection was to disappear. The
Company did not, it was said, export sufficiently largely
of the produce of British industry, and in 1813, the
trade to India was thrown open — but the restriction on
the export of machinery and artisans was maintained
in full force ; and thus were the poor and • ignorant
people of that country exposed to 'unlimited competi
tion' with a people possessed of machinery ten times
more effective than their own, while not only by law
deprived of the power to purchase machinery, but
also of the power of competing in the British mar-

FOREIGN IMPOSTURE IN COMMERCE. 107
*' f
ket with the product of British looms. Further than
this, every loom in India, and every machine calcu
lated to aid the laborer, was subject to a tax that in
creased with every increase in the industry of its owner,
and in many cases absorbed the whole profit derived
from its use.* Such were the circumstances under
which the poor Hindoo was called to encounter unpro
tected, the ' unlimited competition' of foreigners in his
own market. It was freedom of trade all on one side.
Four years after, the export of cottons from Bengal
skill amounted to one million six hundred and fifty-
nine thousand nine' hundred and ninety-four pounds
sterling ;f but ten years later it had declined to two
hundred and eighty-five thousand one hundred and
twenty-one pounds sterling ; and at the end of twenty
years, we find a whole year pass by without the export
of a single piece of cotton cloth -from Calcutta, the
whole of the immense trade that existed, but half a
century since, haying disappeared. What were the
measures used for the accomplishment of the work of
destroying a manufacture that gave employment and
food to so many millions of the poor people of the
* ' ' The Slave-Trade : Foreign and Domestic. " By H. C. Carey p. 1 1 3.
-j- Chapman's Commerce and Cotton of India, p. 74.

108 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
country, will be seen on a perusal of the following me
morial, which shows that while India was denied ma
chinery, and also denied access to the British market,
she was forced to receive British cottons free of all
duty. PETITION OF THE NATIVES OF BENGAL, RELATIVE TO
THE DUTIES ON COTTON AND SILK.
Calcutta, Sept. 1, 1831.
To the Right Honorable the Lords of Sis Majesty's
Privy Council for Trade, etc., The humble petition
of the undersigned, Manufacturers and Dealers in
Cotton and Silk Piece Goods, the fabrics of Bengal:
" Showeth — That of late years your Petitioners
have found their business nearly superseded by the
introduction of the fabrics of Great Britain into Ben
gal, 'the importation of which augments every year, to
the great prejudice of the native manufacturers.
" That the fabrics of Great Britain are consumed in
Bengal, without any duties being levied thereon to
protect the native fabrics.
" That the fabrics of Bengal are charged with the
following duties when they are used in Great Britain,
" On manufactured cottons, ten per cent.

FOREIGN IMPOSTURE IN COMMERCE. 109
"On manufactured Silks, twenty rfour. per cent.
" Your Petitioners most humbly implore your Lord
ships' consideration of these circumstances, and they
feel confident that' no disposition exists in England to
shut the door against the industry of any part of the
inhabitants of .this -great empire.,
" They therefore pray' to be admitted to the privi
lege of British subjects, and humbly entreat your
Lordships to allow the cotton and silk fabrics of Ben
gal to be Used in Great Britain 'free of dnty,' or at
the same rate which may be charged on British fabrics
consumed in Bengal.
. " Your Lordships must be aware of the immense
advantages; the British manufacturers deriya from their
skill in constructing and using machinery, which ena-
bles them to undersell the unscientific manufacturers
of Bengal in their own country ; and, although your
, Petitioners are not sanguiheln expecting to derive any
great advantage in having their prayers granted, their
minds would feel gratified by such a manifestation of
your Lordships' good will towards them ; and such an
instance of justice to the natives of India will not fail
to endear the British government_to them.
" They therefore confidently trust that your Lord-
10

110 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
ships' righteous consideration will be extended to
them as British subjects, without exception of sect,.
color, or country.
• " And your Petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever
pray." (Signed by one hundred and seventeen natives of
great respectability.)
"The object sought to be accomplished' would not
have, however, been attained by granting the prayer
of this most reasonable and humble petition. When
the export of cotton, woollen, and steam machinery
was prohibited, it was done with a view of compelling
all the wool of the world to come to England to be
spun and woven, thenceto be returned to be worn by
those who raised it — thus1 depriving the people of the
world of all power to apply their labor otherwise-.than
in taking from the earth, cotton-, sugar, indigo, and
other commodities for the supply of the great ' work
shop of the world.' - How effectually that object has
been accomplished in India, will be seen from the folr
lowing facts. From the date of. the opening of the
trade in 1813, the domestic manufacture and the ex-
port of- cloth have gradually, declined until the latter

FOREIGN IMPOSTURE IN COMMERCE. Ill
has finally ceased, and the export of raw cotton to En
gland has gradually risen until it has attained a height
of about sixty millions of pounds,* while- the import
of twist from England has risen to twenty-five millions
ef pounds, and of cloth, to two hundred and sixty mil
lions of yards, weighing probably fifty millions of
pounds, which, aided to . the twist, make seventy-five
millions, requiring for their production something more
than eighty millions of raw cotton. We see thus that
every pound of raw material sent ,to England- is re
turned/ i The cultivator receives for it one penny, and
when it returns to him in the form of cloth, he pays
for it from one to two shillings, the whole difference
'being - absorbed in the payment of the numerous
brokers, transporters, manufacturers, and operatives,
men, women, and children, that have thus been, inter
posed between the producer and the consumer. The
necessary consequence of this has been that every
where manufactures have disappeared. Dacca, one of
the principal seats- of the cotton manufacture, con
tained ninety thousand' houses, but its trade had al
ready greatly -fallen off,-even at the date' of the memo
rial above given, and its Splendid buildings, factories,
* Chapman's Commerce and Cotton of India, p. 28.

112 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
and churches are now a mass of ruins and overgrown
with jungle. The cottori of the district found itself
compelled to go to England that it might be twisted
and sent back again, thus performing a voyage of
twenty thousand miles in search of the little spindles,
because it was a part of the British policy .not to. per ^
mit the spindle any where to take its place by the side
of the cultivator of cotton.
." The change thus effepted has been stated in a recent
official report to have been attended with ruin and
distress, to which ' no parallel can be found in the
annals of commerce.' What were the means by which
it was effected is shown in the fact that, at this period
Sir. Robert Peel stated thai; in Lancashire, children
were employed fifteen" and seventeen hours per day,
during theweek, and on Sunday morning, from six
until twelve, cleaning, the machinery?. In Coventry,
ninety-six hours in the week,, was the time usually re
quired ; and of those employed many received but two
shillings and nine pence or sixty-six cents for a week's
wages. The object to be accomplished was that of
under-working the poor Hindoo, and driving him from
the market of the world, after jwhich he was to be
driven from his own. The mode of accomplishment

FOREIGN IMPOSTURE IN COMMERCE. 113
was that of cheapening labor and enslaving the laborer
at home and abroad.
" With the decline of manufacturers there has ceased
to be a demand for the services of woman or children
in the work of conversion, and they are forced either
to remain idle, or seek employment in the .field; and
here we have one of the distinguishing marks of
a state of slavery. The men, too, who were accus
tomed to fill up the intervals of other employments in
pursuits connected with the cotton manufacture, were
also driven -to the field, and all demand for labor,
physical or intellectual, was at an end, except so far
as was needed for raising rice, indigo, sugar, or cotton.
The rice itself they were not permitted to clean, being
debarred therefrom, by a duty double that which was
paid on paddy, or rough rice, on its import into En
gland. The poor grower of cotton often paying to the
government seventy-eight per cent, of the produce of
his labor, .found himself deprived of the power to trade
directly with the man of the loom, and forced into
' unlimited competition' with the better machinery,
and almost untaxed labor of our Southern States ;
and thereby subjected to ' the mysterious variations
of foreign markets' in which the fever of speculation
10*

114 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
was followed by the chill of revulsion with a rapidity
and frequency that set at naught all calculation. If
our crops were small, his English customers would
take his cotton ; but when he sent over more next
year, there had, perhaps, been a good season here,
and the Indian article became an absolute drug in the
market. It was stated some time since, in the House
of Commons, that one gentleman, Mr. Turner, had
thrown seven thousand pounds sterling worth of In
dian cotton upon a dunghill, because he could find no
market for it.'
" It will now readily be seen that the direct effect of
thus compelling the export of 'cotton from India was
to increase the quantity pressing on the market of
England, and thus to lower the price of all the cotton
in the world, including that required for domestic con
sumption. The price of the whole Indian crop being
thus rendered dependent on that which could be real
ized for a small surplus that would have no existence
but for the fact that the domestic manufacture had
been destroyed, it will readily be ^seen how enormous
has been the extent of injury inflicted" upon the poor
cultivator by the forcible separation- of the plough and
loom, and the destruction of the power of association.

FOREIGN IMPOSTURE IN COMMERCE. 115
Again, while .the price of cotton is fixed in England,
there, too, is fixed the price of cloth, and such is the"
case with sugar and indigo, to the production of which
these poor people are forced to devote themselves ;
and thus are they rendered the mere, slaves of distant
men, who determine what' they shall receive for all
they. have to sell, and what they shall pay for all they
require to purchase. Centralization and, slavery go
thus hand and hand with each other."
One more extract, from Mr. Carey's work, we in
troduce to show an incidental effect of British free
trade in India, on the moral condition and happiness
of another country— an effect at which humanity
shudders :
"'Calcutta grows, the city of palaces, but poverty
and wretchedness grows as the people of India find
themselves more and more compelled to resort to that
city to make their exchanges. Under the native rule,
the people of each little district could exchange with
each other food for cotton or cotton cloth, paying no
body for the privilege. Now every man must send his
cotton to Calcutta, thence to go to England with the
rice and indigo of his neighbors, before he and they
can exchange food for cloth or cotton, the larger the

116 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
quantity they send the greater is the tendency to
decline in price. With every extension of the system
there is increasing inability to pay the taxes, and in
creasing necessity for seeking new markets in which
to sell cloth, and collect what are called rents, and the
more wide the extension of the system the greater is
the difficulty of collecting revenue sufficient for keep
ing the machine of government in motion. This diffi
culty it was that drove the representatives of British
power and civilization into becoming traders in that
pernicious drug, opium.
" The very best parts of India," as we are told,*
" were selected for the cultivation of the poppy. The
people were told they .must either cultivate this plant,
make -opium, or give up their land. If they refused,
they were peremptorily told-they must yield or quit.
The same Company that forced them to grow opium
said, ' You must sell the oj>ium to us ;' and to them
it was sold, and they gave the price they pleased to
put upon the opium thus -manufactured ; and they
then sold it to leading speculators at Calcutta, who
caused it to be smuggled up the Canton river, to an
island called Sintin, and tea was received in exchange.
*ThompSon, Lecture on India, p. 25.

FOREIGN IMPOSTURE IN COMMERCE. 117
At last, however, the emperor of China, after repeated
threats, proceeded to execute summary justice ; he
seized every particle of opium ; put under bond every
European engaged -in the merchandize of it; and the
papers of to-day (1839) inform us that he has cut off
the China trade, root and branch." "
" Unhappily, however, the British nation deemed
it expedient to make war upon the poor Chinese, and
compel them to pay for the opium that had been de
stroyed ; and now the profits of the Indian govern
ment from poisoning a whole people have risen from
one million five hundred thousand pounds, sterling at
the date of the above extract, to the enormous sum of
three millions five hundred thousand pounds, or sixteen
million eight hundred thousand dollars, and the market
is, as we are informed, still extending itself. That the
reader may see and understand how directly the go
vernment is concerned *in this effort at demoralizing
and enslaving the Chinese, the following will sbow_:
"For" the supply and manufacture of government
opium there is a separate establishment. There are
two great opium agencies at Ghazeepore and Patna, for
the Benares and Bakar provinces. Each, opium agent
has several deputies in different districts, and a native

118 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
establishment. They enter into contracts' with the
cultivators for the supply of opium at a rate fixed to
suit the market. The land revenue authorities do not
interfere, except to prevent cultivation without per
mission. Government merely bargains with the cul
tivators as cultivators, in the same way as a private
merchant would," and makes advances to them for the
cultivation. The only difficulty found is to prevent
their cultivating too much, as the rates are favorable,
government a sure purchaser, and the cultivation liked.
The land cultivated is measured, and precaution is
taken that the produce is all sold to government. The
raw opium thus received is sent, to the head agency,
where it is manufactured, packed in chests and sealed
with the company's seal."*
It would seem to the author of this paragraph
almost a matter of rejoicing that the Chinese are
bound to continue large consumers of the drug. " The
failure of one attempt has shown," as he thinks —
" That they are not likely to effect that object ;
and if we do not supply them, some one else will ; but
the worst of it is, according to some people, that if
the Chinese only legalized the cultivation in their own
* Campbell, p. 300.

FOREIGN IMPOSTURE IN COMMERCE. 119
country, -they could produce it much cheaper, and our
market would be ruined. But for their sakes and ours
we must hope that it is not so, or that they wi$ not find
it out."* " Need we wonder, when gentlemen find pleasure in
the'idea of an increasing r evenue, fr om forcing this
trade in despite of all the efforts of the more civilized
Chinese government, that 'intemperance increases,"
where the British 'rule and system; has been long
established ?' Assuredly not. Poor governments are,
as we everywhere see, driven- to encourage gambling,
drunkenness, and other immoralities, as a means of ex
tracting revenues from their unfortunate tax-payers ;
and the greater the revenue 'thus obtained, the poorer
become the people and the weaker the government;
Need we be surprised that that of India should be rer
duced to become manufacturer and smuggler of opium,
when the people are forced to exhaust the land by
sending away its raw products, and when the restraints
upon mere collection of domestic salt are so great that
English salt finds a -market in India ? The following
passage on this subject is worthy of the perusal of
of those who desire fully to understand how it is that
*Ibid, p. 393.

120 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
the people of that country are restrained in the appli
cation of their labor, and why it is that labor is so
badly paid : —
" ' But those who cry out in England against the mo
nopoly, and their unjust exclusion from the salt trade,
are,egregriously mistaken. As concerns them, there
is positively no monopoly, but the most absolute free
trade. And, more than this; the only effect of the
present mode of manufacture in. Bengal is to give them
a market which they would never otherwise have. A
government manufacture of salt is doubtless more ex
pensive than a private manufacture ; buifc the result of
this, and of the equality of bad and good-salt, is, that
fine English salt now more or less finds a market in
India, whereas, were the salt duty and all the govern
ment interference discontinued to-morrow,. the cheap"
Bengal salt would be sold at such a rate that not a
pound of English or any other foreign salt could be
brought into the market.* Nevertheless the system
is regarded as one of perfect free trade !.
" Notwithstanding' all these efforts at maintaining
the revenue, the debt has increased the last twelve
years no less than, fifteen millions of pounds sterling
* Campbell, p. 384.

FOREIGN IMPOSTURE IN COMMERCE. 121
or seventy-two million of dollars ; and yet the govern
ment is absolute proprietor of all of India, and enjoys
so large a portion of the beneficial interest in it, that
private property therein is reduced to a sum absolutely
insignificant, as will now be shown. ¦
" The gross land revenue obtained from a coun
try with an area of four -hundred and ninety-one
thousand four hundred and forty-eight square miles,
or above three hundred millions of acres, is one hun
dred and fifty-one millions seven hundred and eighty-
six thousand seven hundred and forty-three rupees,
equal to fifteen millions of pounds sterling, or seventy-
two millions of dollars.* What is the value of private
rights of property, subject to the payment of,this tax,
or rent, maybe judged from the' following facts: In
1848^49, there were sold for taxes, in that portion
of the country subject to the permanent settlement,
eleven hundred and sixty-nine estates, at something
less than four years' purchase of the tax. Further
south, in the Madras government,, where the ryot-war
settlement is in full operation, the land ' would be sold'
for balances of rent; but 'generally it is not,' as we
* Campbell, p. 377.
11

122 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
are told, ' and for a very good reason, viz. that nobody
will buy it.' Private right in land being there of no
value whatsoever — 'the collector of Salem' as Mr.
Campbell informs us —
"Naively mentions ' various unauthorized modes of
stimulating the tardy' rarely resorted to by heads of
villages, such as ' placing him in the sun, obliging him
to stand on one leg, or sit with his head confined be
tween his knees.'*
" In the north-west provinces, ' the settlement,' as
our author states, ' has certainly been successful in
giving a good market value to good landed property ;'
that is, it sells at about 'four years' purchase on the
revenue. 'f Still further north, in the newly acquired
provinces, wfe find great industry, ' every thing turned
to account,' the assessment, to which the company
succeeded on the deposition of the successors of Run-
jeet Singh, more easy, and land more valuable.J The
value of land, like that of labor, therefore increases as
we pass from the old to the new settlements, being
precisely the reverse of what would be the case if the
system tended to the enfranchisement and elevation
of the people, and precisely what should be looked for
* Campbell, p. 350. f Ibid, p. 332. Ibid, p. 345.

FOREIGN IMPOSTURE IN COMMERCE. 123
in a country whose inhabitants were passing from free-
dom towards slavery."
With this extract we conclude the notices of the
effects of British free trade in foreign countries. We
might show its application to Ireland, whose manufac
tures were deliberately and systematically destroyed
by the application of the system of British free .trade
to that country. The effects which followed are fami
liar to all intelligent people. The Irish people were
ruined by it, and the country depopulated to such an
extent that Great Britain can no longer obtain recruits
, for her armies in the " sister island ¦;," but has recourse
to German mercenaries.
We now proceed to consider the ruinous effects of
British free trade on our own country.

CHAPTER IX.
WHAT FOREIGN IMPOSTURE IN COMMERCE HAS DONE
FOR THIS COUNTRY.
With respect to this country, the object of Great
Britain has been to make us tributury to British wealth
and greatness ; to enslave us, by confining us to agri
culture alone and to prevent our establishing manufac
tures or to destroy them when established. This policy
commenced in the colonial period, and has continued
to the present day, as we will now prove. A British
author, Joshua Gee, writing in 1750, thus sets forth
the policy, " Manufactures in American colonies should
be discouraged, prohibited.
" Great Britain with its dependencies is doubtless
(124)

FOREIGN IMPOSTURE IN COMMERCE. 125
as well able to subsist within itself as any nation in
Europe. We have an enterprising people, fit for
all the arts of peace or war. We have provisions in.
abundance, and those of the best sort, and we are able'
to raise sufficient for double the number of inhabitants.
We have the very best materials for clothing, and -want
nothing either for use or luxury, but what we h,av;e:at
home, or might have from our colonies ;. so that we
might make such an intercourse of trade among our-
selves,vor between us and them, as would maintain a
vast ¦ navigation. But we ought always 'to keep a
watchful eye over our colonies, to keep them from set
ting up any of the manufactures which are carried on
in Great Britain ; and any such attempt should be
crushed in the beginning, for if they are suffered to
grow up to maturity it will be difficult to suppress
them." 1 " Our colonies are much in the same state as Ire
land was in when they began the woollen manufacture,
and as their numbers increase, will fall upon manufac
tures for clothing themselves, if due care be not taken
to find employment for theni in raising such produc
tions as may enable them to furnish themselves with
all the necessaries from us." 11*

126 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
This is the British doctrine of free trade, set forth
in its native deformity by a British writer. It was
i> very faithfully carried out during the colonial period.
During the revolutionary war, the people were too fully
occupied to establish manufactures effectually. After
the peace, Great Britain had still a strong party in
this country, and her free trade policy was so effectu
ally imposed upon us, that, up to the breaking out of
the war of 1812, we still imported nearly aU our manu
factures of iron and cloth from that country. The
greatest service which the war of 1812 effected for the
United States was to compel it's people to establish
manufactories for themselves.
A cotemporary* whom we shall take the liberty of
quoting at some length," thus follows the course of
events, from that time forward.
" The war of 1812 found the country so nearly
destitute of the means of clothing itself, that the go
vernment was unable to procure blankets or woollen
cloth for its soldiers, or for the Indians .to whom such
commodities were due. How great was the difficulty
experienced by reason of the colonial condition in
which the nation had so long been kept, may be jud-
* North American, January, 1855.

FOREIGN IMPOSTURE IN COMMERCE."' * 127
from the fact that the Administration was obliged
to" take possession of Amelia Island, then held by
Spain, for the purpose of enabling certain' cargoes of
cotton and woollen goods owned by Mr. Girard and
others, and then at that island, to get within the Union,
in defiance of the non-importation laws. Such were
the straits to which we had been reduced by the con
stant maintenance of a policy that looked to having
among us none but farmers, planters, and traders,
almost, entirely excluding ' the manufacturers.
" The war gave efficient protection to manufacturers ;
and fOur years later, as we learn from a recent report
of a Committee of the' House of Representatives, the
quantity of cotton consumed within the Union,
amounted to no less than ninety thousand bales, or
one-third as much as was exported to foreign ports.
The woollen manufacturers, too had largely grown, and
employed a capital of twelve millions of dollars ; while
iron and other branches of manufacture had made
great progress-; and so completely had the domestic
market for food, that had been thus created, made
amends for our total exclusion, from the market of
Europe, that' the prices of flour in this market in the
years. 181 3 and 1814 ranged from- six to ten dollars,

128 the enemies of America unmasked.
and of pork from thirteen and a half to seventeen
dollars. " The peace came, and our farmers found opened
to them the markets of the world, by which they were
to be enriched, and by way of preparation therefore
the domestic market was sacrificed. Until 1818, certain
branches of manufacture continued to enjoy protection ;
in that year it was resolved that the duties of Congress
were limited to securing a sufficient amount of revenue,
and cotton and iron were condemned to suffer the fate
to which had already been subjected the manufacturers
of woollen cloths and hardware. The revenue, as the
people were then told, was superabundant, the years
1816 and 1817 having yielded no less than eighty
millions, and having enabled the treasury to make
payments on account of the public debt, amounting
to little short of fifty millions. It was a free trade
millennium, and protection was then, as now, to be re
garded as 'a blight.' If the artisans of the country
could not live without protection let them die, and die
they did. Manufactures of all kinds, of cotton, woollen
and iron, almost entirely disappeared.
" As a consequence, there existed throughout the
towns and cities of the Union the most intense distress.

FOREIGN IMPOSTURE IN COMMERCE. 129
In Philadelphia alone, with its then small population, it
was found, on examination, that nearly eight thousand
Workmen were wholly without employment. In Pitts
burg there were found two thousand ; and as all these
people were deprived of the means of purchasing food,
the prices of food of all kinds rapidly declined as the
necessity for dependence on foreign markets became
more fully established. Flour that, in this city, had
in 1817 and 1818 commanded ten dollars, fell in 1819
to six dollars and a half, and in 1820 to four dollars
and thirty cents ; and cotton and tobacco participated
in the fall. In many parts of the country, wheat was
sold at twenty-five, thirty and thirty-seven cents per
bushel, and at a later period prices declined to a still
lower point, and, as a natural consequence, the farmers
were every where nearly, when even not quite, ruined ;
and yet they were then almost entirely free from the
' blight' of protectibn, and in the almost perfect enjoy
ment of that which is regarded by the Union among
the first of blessings, free trade !
"As. a natural consequence, the power to pay for
foreign merchandize passed away, and the consump
tion which; in 1817 and 1818, had averaged ninety
millions, fell in the five years from 1720 to 1824 both

130 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
inclusive, to an average of fifty millions ; and yet,
small as was this amount, a constant drain of the little
specie that was in the country wa3 required, to pay
for it, as is shown by the following figures-:

1820 21

Excess Imports.

Excess Exports.
$2,413,169. 7,440,334.1,275,091.

1821 22

1822 23

1823 24

$1,365,288.,.

. 1

$1,365,283.
$11,128,594. 1,365,283.
balance :
: $9,763,311.
" W&have here an excess export of nearly ten mil
lions, and if to this be added, for wear and tear, for
loss-, and for consumption in the arts, only a million
and a half a year,- we have, in the short period of four..
years, a diminution of the precious metals in the
Country amounting to ho less than sixteen millions,
and yet the whole quantity had been estimated in 1818
at about thirty millions. Under such circumstances,
we need feel no. surprise that sheriff's sales were nu
merous. — that the rich were made -richer and the poor
poorer—- rnor^that the latter, in the effort, to avoid ruin,
FOREIGN IMPOSTURE IN COMMERCE. 131
should in many of the States, have invoked the inter
vention of the Legislature for the passage, of stay-laws,
by which the sales of property were prohibited except
under such circumstances as placed the creditor almost
entirely at the mercy of the debtor. . Such laws, as we
shall have occasion to show, have always, thus far fol
lowed in the wake of free trade.
" As a consequence of all this, the revenue fell off
greatly, and new loans were required for the» expenses
of government. . The amount of debt .contracted in
this free trade period was ho less than thirteen millions,
and this for a support of government in a.time^of pro
found peace; when the total .expenditure, excluding
that on account of the public debt, was, in some of the
years under ten millions, and averaged only twelve
millions. " Protection had delivered over to free trade a coun
try in a state of high prosperity, with an overflowing
revenue, and diminishing national debt. Six years of
free trade, however, were sufficient to change the scene,
and to present to the world a ruined people ; a declin
ing commerce, requiring a steady export of specie to
pay the balance of trade ; an exhausted treasury, and
an increased national debt."

CHAPTER VIII.
WHAT FOREIGN IMPOSTURE IN COMMERCE HAS DONE
FOR THIS COUNTRY.
(Continued.)
- r < 'i
We have shown that the war of 1812, by excluding
British manufactures from this country, acted in the
same way as a protective tariff; teaching the. people
the value of their own resources, and compelling them
to .establish manufactures of their own. To use the
language' of the authority last quoted,
" We have shown that soon after the war of 1812,
protection had handed the country over to the guar
dianship of free trade, in a state of high prosperity,
and that it had required but six years of this latter
(132)

FOREIGN IMPOSTURE IN COMMERCE. 133
government to produce the almost total destruction of
the manufactures of the country. We have also
shown that this had been accompanied by so great a
. diminution of the power to pay for foreign merchan
dize as to compel the Treasury to have resorted to
loans to enable it to meet the current demands upon
it, and that, too, in a period of profound peace ! This
state of things it was that caused the passage of *the
act of 1824, the first tariff act framed especially with
reference to protection. It was very imperfect, and
it required, of course, time to make itself felt ; and the
drain of specie continued throughout the fiscal year of
its passage, the exports in that year having exceeded
the imports by more than two and a half millions of
dollars. In the following year, however, a change was
produced, and the imports of the four succeeding years
exceeded the exports by about four millions of dollars.
It was small in amount, but considerable in its effect,
for in place of an excess export of two millions a year,
there was obtained an excess import of one, making a
difference of three millions a year. The people be
came again able to pay for foreign merchandize, and
the revenue, which for five years had averaged only
eighteen millions, rose to an average of twenty-four
12

134 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
millions. The Treasury ceased to have occasion to
resort to loans, and the payments on account of the
public debt in the three years ending in 1828, averaged
eleven millions a year, with large diminution in the
amount of principal.
" Such were the results of the very imperfect mea
sure of 1824, and by them its friends were encouraged
to the far more perfect act of 1828, the first really and
thoroughly protective tariff, ever given to the country.
Under it there was a rapid increase in the supply of
gold and silver, the- imports of the five years that fol
lowed its passage, having exceeded the exports by
eleven millions of dollars, or about as much as the ex
ports had exceeded the imports in the free trade period.
The value of domestic exports now grew rapidly, and
presented a striking contrast with the facts of that
period in which the community had enjoyed the bless
ings of free trade ; as is shows by the following figures :

1821,

$43,671,000

1829,

55,700,000.

1822,

49^874,000

1830,

59,462,000.

1823,

47,155,000

1831,

61,277,000.

1824,

53,649,000

1832,

63,137,000.

Total,

$194,349,000

239,576,000.

Average,

48,587,000

69,894,000.

FOREIGN IMPOSTURE IN COMMERCE. 135
" As a consequence of the increased ability to pay
for foreign merchandize, the revenue , grew rapidly,
each year in succession greater than its predecessor,
thus proving how steadily the people were improving
in their condition, though subjected to what the Union
is pleased to style ' the blight' of protection. The year
1828-29 gave twenty-five millions, and so did the fol
lowing one, but 1830-31 gave twenty-nine millions,
and 1831—32 no less than thirty-two millions, or as
much as had, under the free trade system, been ob
tained from the two years ending in September, 1821.
The payments on account of the public debt rose to
seventeen millions in 1832, and left at, the close of
that year so small an amount unpaid, that it became
necessary to establish entire freedom of trade in refe
rence to coffee, teas, wines, silks, and other articles
that could not be, or, at least, were not, produced at
home. The revenue, however, still increased, and the
receipts of the Treasury for 1833-34 reached the then
enormous amount of thirty-four millions, and thus pro
vided for the total extinction of the publicdebt, by the
payment of the three per cents, all of which were held
abroad, as had been a large portion of the other stocks
that had been paid since the. passage of the act of

136 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
1824. That year had terminated the borrowings of
the Treasury, and it had required but nine years of
protection to bring about the final payment of the debts
of the Revolution, of the war of 1812, and of the free,,
trade period from 1818 to 1824.
" Under, free trade, as our~ readers have seen, the
debt was increased, and, as much of it probably went
abroad, our foreign debt grew, while we were at the
same time exporting more gold and silver than we im
ported, to the extent of two and a half millions a year.
In the ten years that- followed the passage of the act
of 1824, no debt was contracted, while the payments
on account of' principal and interest amounted to a
hundred millions of dollars, by which our indebtedness
to foreigners was diminished probably thirty millions,
while the excess import of gold and silver exceeded
thirty millions. Such was the ' blight' of protection.
" As a consequence, there existed throughout the
country a degree of prosperity that had never before
been known, and such was the preparation that had
been made. by protection for delivering the people over
to the enjoyment of the blessings of free trade, pro
mised them by the Compromise Act that came into
existence at the close of 1833. By the provisions of

FOREIGN IMPOSTURE IN COMMERCE. 137
that Act, one-tenth of the excess duty over twenty per
cent., was to be reduced at that date — another tenth
at the close of 1835 — another ifi each of the years
1837 and 1839— and the balance in 1841 and 1842.
The reduction was, as our readers perceive, very gra
dual, and scarcely to be felt before 1835, except in so
far as it tended to prevent the extension of manufac
tures, that had gone on so rapidly from 1829 to 1833.
This, however, was almost unfelt, for the rapid in
crease in the domestic market had greatly diminished
the necessity for going abroad to sell either food or
cotton, and had tended much towards raising the prices
to be obtained for what was sent ; and thus the amount
of exports, which had risen from fifty millions in 1828
to seventy in 1833, grew in 1834, '35 and '36 to
eighty-one, one hundred and one, and one hundred and
six. millions. Thus was free trade enabled to profit by
the protection that had been granted from 1824 to '34.
"Never before had the country presented such a
reality of prosperity as existed in 1834, when the
' blight' of protection was in part removed, and when
the farmers and the planters of the country were
handed over to the ' tender mercies' of the free traders.
Upon that prosperity the latter traded for several
12*

138 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
years. The credit of the country was high, for we had
done what had never before been.done by any other
nation, having paid off the national debt, and having
to a great extent accomplished that object in the brief
period that had elapsed since the passage of the pro
tective tariff of 1824 — and having in the same period
rapidly and greatly increased our stock of the precious
metals. Never before had free trade had so fair an
opportunity for displaying its powers — for never before
had any people enjoyed the same advantages that were
then enjoyed by our own — and yet, at the close of
another period of seven years, we find it leaving a
people .hopelessly indebted abroad and broken down
under demands for payment that could not be com
plied with, and a government deeply indebted, and
without the means of supporting itself without the
creation of further debt.
" From 1829 to 1834, under protection, we had im
ported twenty-seven millions more gold and silver than
we had exported, and had paid a vast amount of fo
reign debt. From 1839 to 1842, under free trade, we
exported eight millions more than we imported, and con
tracted, a hundred millions of private foreign debt, and
the amount of public debt contracted, most of which

FOREIGN IMPOSTURE IN COMMERCE. 139
must have gone abroad, exceeded thirty-six millions.
The power to pay for merchandize that had, in 1832-
33, enabled us to consume to the extent of eighty-eight
millions, and that continued to grow so long as the
tariff continued to afford protection, until in 1834-35
it reached one hundred and twenty-nine millions, de
clined, thereafter so much, that in three years ending
in 1842 it averaged only ninety-six millions; In
the last of these years it was only eighty -eight milions,
with steady tendency to still farther decline, as the
increasing demands for specie to pay the balance *
between exports and imports tended steadily to destroy
all confidence between man and man, and confidence
in the present or future value of property. Banks
were every where in a state of suspension, and govern
ments in a state of repudiation. The Federal govern
ment was driven to the use of an irredeemable paper
currency, and even with that, found itself so totally
unable to meet the demands upon it, that the Presi
dent himself was unable to obtain his salary at the
Treasury, and forced to seek accommodation from the
neighboring brokers.
The domestic market for food and cotton had been
destroyed, and, with the increasing necessity for de-

140 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
pendence on foreign markets, there had been a decline
of prices so great that it required almost twice the
quantity that would have sufficed six years before to
pay the same amount of debt. Cotton fell to five and
nine cents ; pork and beef to eight dollars a barrel ;
wheat to one dollar and a quarter a bushel, and hams,
lard and butter to from six to seven and a half a pound.
The farmers and planters were unable to pay their
debts, and now, as before in free trade times, stay-
laws were required to protect the debtor against his
creditor. Sheriffs' sales were universal, where such
protection was not afforded. Merchants and manufac
tures were every where ruined, and laborers and arti
sans of every kind, by hundreds of thousands, were
unable to sell their labor, and consequently unable to
procure food for their families or themselves.
" Free trade had delivered the country up to protec
tion in 1824, with a commerce requiring a steady ex
port of specie, and producing a steady decline of credit
within and without its limits — and protection had ac
cepted the gift. Ten years after, the latter was called
upon to resign her charge, and that which she did re
sign was a country in the highest prosperity. Only
eight years afterwards free trade had dissipated her

FOREIGN IMPOSTURE IN COMMERCE. 141
great inheritance, and had nothing to transfer but a
country overwhelmed with debt — a treasury bankrupt,
and seeking every where for loans at the highest rate
of interest — a commerce ruined — and a people dis
graced and beggared."
" This was the termination of the second period dur
ing which the opposite effects of protection in enrich
ing the country, and British free trade in impoverish
ing it were respectively exhibited. One would
naturally suppose that two such lessons might have
sufficed for us ; and that we might have learned wisdom'
from experience. But foreign influence is strong in
this country, because it works under ground, in secret.
British influence in particular is cunning and unscru
pulous. The British aristocracy are veterans in diplo
matic craft. Their diplomastists are trained to their
business, while ours are all green hands ; those we have
abroad now, particularly green. The British over
reach us in all treaties, especially reciprocity treaties.
"Besides this, the British manufacturers understand
their own interest, and are willing to spend money for
the purpose of forcing their system of free trade on
foreign nations. They raised a fund of half a million
of dollars ostensibly to< diffuse information in the United*.

142 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
States on the advantages of free trade, — tfeally to
bribe presses and Legislatures. How successfully it
was employed, will appear in what is now to be said
respecting the third and last period of British free trade
as applied to this country.

CHAPTER XL
WHAT FOREIGN IMPOSTURE IN COMMERCE HAS DONE
FOR THIS COUNTRY,
(CONTINUED.)
We are anxious that our readers should be possessed
of the whole course of facts in connection with the
free trade imposture of Great Britain. * It is by far
the most baneful, and destructive form of foreign influ
ence under which Americans suffer. It is the most
formidable evil which we have to eradicate before
Americans can really govern America. To meet and
conquer and utfierly destroy it ie.^the first duty of true-
hearted, patriotic American citizens. But to do thig^
(143)

144 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
we must first fully understand what it is and how it
works. In order to bring down its history to the present
day, we .again have recourse to the language of the
able writer last quoted, where he describes the third
period of the opposite effects of protection to Ameri
can industry on the one hand, and British free»,trade
on the other. He says :
" Free trade had received the country from the hands
of protection, with money, flowing in from all quarters
— no foreign debt — credit high abroad and at home —
and prosperity universal throughout the land. Seven
years later, in 1842, when called upon to surrender
the control of affairs, it had to deliver up a country
from which money was steadily flowing — with an im
mense foreign debt — with a bankrupt government —
with credit annihilated at home and abroad — with a
people unable to sell their labor for what was required
for the purchase of food and clothing — and with a
whole farming and planting interest, compelled to ac
cept prices less by fifty per cent, than they had ob
tained but a few years before, when a vast domestic
market had so largely diminished the necessity for de
pending on foreign ones.

FOREIGN IMPOSTURE IN COMMERCE. 145
" Under such circumstances it was that protection
was called upon again to administer the affairs of go
vernment, and administer thein she did in such a. man
ner as speedily to dissipate the clouds by which the
nation was every where surrounded. Her advent to
power was followed by effects that seem now, when we
look back to them, to have been almost magical. For
a commerce with foreign nations that had required a
constant export of the precious metals, she substituted
one that gave us, in less than five years, an excess im
port of nearly forty millions, by. help of which credit
was every where speedily restored: - The Federal go
vernment was at once enabled to effect loans, which
before it could not do; but the rapidly increasing re
venue, resulting from the growing power. to consume
foreign merchandize, speedily removed ; all necessity
for borrowing /money, either abroad or at home. State
governments passed from a state of repudiation to one
of the highest credit. Mills, factories, and furnaces,
were again opened, arid labor was in demand, and once
again prosperity reigned throughout the land — ana
such prosperity as it had never known except in the
closing" yearsJ of the protective system established by
the laws of 1824 arid 1828. *
13

146 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
" How wonderful were the effects of the tariff of
1842 will be seen upon the perusal of the following
brief statement of facts. In 1842, the quantity of
iron produced in the country but little exceeded two
hundred thousand tons. By 1846 it had grown to an
amount exceeding eight hundred thousand tons. In
1842 the coal sent to market was but one million two
hundred and fifty thousand tons. In 1847 it' exceeded
three millions. - The cotton and woollen manufactures,
and manufactures "of every kind, indeed, grew with
great rapidity, and thus was made every where a de
mand for food, cotton, wool, tobacco, and all other
products of the field, the consequences of which were
seen in the fact that prices every where rose — that
money became every where abundant — that farmers,
and property holders generally, were enabled to pay
off their mortgages— that sheriffs' sales almost ceased —
and that the rich ceased to,be made richer at the ex
pense of those who were poor.
" Great, however, as was the change effected, it had
but commenced when the democracy in Congress,
elected as the friends of ' Polk, Dallas, and the tariff
of 1842,'- determined upon a change of policy. The
domestic market hadrbeen, in a great degree, annihi-

FOREIGN IMPOSTURE IN COMMERCE. 147
lated by the closing of mines, mills, furnaces, and ma
chine shops, and time was required to get -them once
again in motion — to collect together again the hands
that, under free trade, had been dispersed to the four
winds of Heaven — and to open or build new ones. All
these things had been doing, and were being done,
when at once protection was abolished, and the coun
try was again banded over to the government of free
trade. " For a time, as had been the case in the years that
followed the passage of the Compromise tariff of J.833,
the new system was enabled to trade upon the pros
perity that had been produced by the one it had sup
planted. Its effects, however, soon began to exhibit
themselves in the expulsion of the precious metals that
had been imported in the previous period, the three
years ending 1849-50,,exhibiting an export greater
than the import by thirteen millions of dollars. If to
this be added but little more than two millions a year
for wear and tear, loss, and consumption in the arts,
we have twenty millions less in the country than were
to be found here in 1847. Large as was this sum, it
would have been quadrupled but for the fact that, in
stead of paying for our imports, as we had done from

148 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
1842 to 1847, we gave bonds for them, and to an
amount not less probably than a hundred millions of
dollars, requiring six millions a year for the payment
of interest thereon. Merchandize of every kind flowed
in, and gold and silver flowed out, and the consequences
were seen in the stoppage of mills, mines, furnaces,
machine shops, and factories of every description, and
thus, as early as 1850, did we obtain evidence of the
fact that free trade and prosperity never travel in com
pany with each other. The former had broken down
the country in the period from 1818 to 1-824 — again
in that from 1835 to 1842 — and now, again, it was
producing effects precisely similar, shortj as had been
its hold on power.
" California, gold however^ was, then discovered,
and thus was the downward movement temporarily
arrested. In the first years a part of it remained
among ourselves, producing every where a demand
for labor, and power to pay for its products, while the
demand for miners abroad to go to California and
Australia, tended greatly to raise the prices of foreign
coal, lead, iron, and machinery of every description,
and thus to enable our own people to work to some ad
vantage. We, therefore, opened mines, and built fur-

FOREIGN IMPOSTURE IN COMMERCE. 149
naces and (mills, and for a time there was an appear
ance of prosperity that by many was supposed likely
to be permanent, and to furnishes evidence that pro
tection was no longer needed— that it had become an
' obselete idea,' and that, to use the words of the Union
it was a 'blight.' These, men had, however, not
studied the working of a system which looks to allow
ing the farmers and planters of the West, but a single
market in which to sell their food and their wool, and
• in which to purchase the cloth and the iron they re:
quire to consume— the system called free trade, and
which looks to giving the people of Manchester and
Birmingham a monopoly of the manufacturing machi
nery of the world. It is one that has ruined every
country that has submitted to it, and that has ruined
us whenever we have ceased to guard ourselves against
it by efficient protection to our farmers and planters
in their- efforts to bring the spindle, the loom and the
hammer to take their natural places by the side of the
plough and the harrow.
" In the past five years California has' supplied the
world with more than two hundred millions of gold,
most of which, had'we smelted our own iron and made
our own cloth, and had the makers of iron and cloth
13*

150 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
consumed our own food, would have remained among
ourselves, giving life to trade, and stimulating pro
duction in every part of the country. Instead of that;
however, we have found ourselves forced to consume
foreign cloth and foreign iron, representing almost
entirely the food of Germany and Russia, and have
not only been compelled to export a hundred and fifty
millions of gold, but to send with it a hundred, if not
over a hundred and fifty millions of bonds, so that our
foreign debt now requires probably twenty millions of
gold for the payment of its annual interest. We have
thus exhausted our credit, and now present to the
world the extraordinary spectacle of a community
owning one of the largest sources of supply for money
in which money cannot be borrowed except at twice,
thrice, quadruple, or even quintriple the usual rate of
interest. As a consequence of this, the makers of
railroads — men who have largely contributed to the
advance of the country — find themselves ruined. The
owners of mills, furnaces, and mines, are being ruined,
and from day to day we have to record the stoppage
of some of the most important establishments of the
country. Merchants are being ruined, for the people
of the interior cannot pay their debts, and they, them-

FOREIGN IMPOSTURE IN COMMERCE. 151
selves, cannot long continue to pay the usurious inte
rest that is now demanded. Banks are every where
failing and credit is dying out, while money is every
where being hoarded, and thus rendered useless to the
community. Ou^ streets, and those of all our towns
and cities, are thronged with men who are unable to
sell their labor, consequently unable to provide for
their wives and children. The times of 1821 and of
1842 •'have returned, or are rapidly returning again,
as they always return after free trade has had a few
years for the exhaustation of the stock in trade that is
invariably bequeathed to her by protection.
" The latter is, we are told a ' blight ;' but the
people might well desire always to be so blighted. It
carried us through the war of 1812, and left us at its
close in not only a sound and healthy, but highly pros
perous condition. It redeemed us from the depres
sion consequent upon the free trade measures pursued
from 1818 to 1824. It redeemed us from the depth
of poverty, discredit and despondency into which free
trade had sunk us in 1842. It is ready now at once
to restore credit, and confidence among our people —
to give life to trade, and to find employment for the

152 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
thousands and hundreds of thousands that are now
unemployed. " Free trade, on the contrary is, as we are assured
a blessing ; but it is one of those from which we well
might pray to be delivered. It found us prosperous in
1818, and it ruined us by 1823. It found us yet more
prosperous in 1847, and it has almost ruined Us by
1850 ; and now, in spite of the hundreds of millions
of California gold, we find ourselves, at the close of
the eight years of the tariff of 1846, surrounded every
where by evidences of approaching ruin, even where
the ruin has- not already been fully consummated."
The following summary history of protection and
free trade in this country, during the last forty years,
we clip from a New York paper. It is brief, but full
of instruction.
Protection died in 1818, bequeathing to British free
trade a trade that gave an excess import of specie — a
people among whom there existed great prosperity — a
large public revenue — and a rapidly diminishing public
debt. British free trade died in 1824,' bequeathing to pro
tection free trade a trade that gave an excess export
of specie — a people more prosperous than any that had

FOREIGN IMPOSTURE IN COMMERCE. 153
ever then been known — a revenue so great that it had
been rendered necessary to emancipate from duty tea,
coffee, and many other articles that we did not pro
duce — and a treasury free from all charge on account
of public debt.
British free trade died in 1842, bequeathing to pro
tection a trade that gave an exeess export of specie — a
people ruined, and their Governments in a' state of
repudiation — a public Treasury bankrupt, and begging
every where for loans at the highest rate of interest —
a revenue collected and disbursed in irredeemable
paper money — and a very large foreign debt.
Protection died in 1847, bequeathing to British free
trade a trade that gave an excess import of specie — a
highly prosperous people- — State Governments restored
to credit— a rapidly growing commerce — a large public
revenue — and a declining foreign debt.
British free trade has next to make its will, having
nothing to bequeath but a trade that drains us of our
specie — a people rapidly passing towards ruin — a de
clining commerce — and a foreign debt requiring for
the payment of its mere interest at least twenty mil
lions of dollars a year.

CHAPTER XII.
WHAT FOREIGN IMPOSTURE IN COMMERCE HAS DONE
FOR THIS COUNTRY.
(continued.)
Before going into details to show the effect of
British free trade in reducing the industry of our coun
try to its present prostrate and suffering condition, we
will transcribe the concluding remarks of the authority
last quoted, in which several very important particu
lars of the present condition of the country, too gene
rally overlooked, are brought distinctly into view ; and
the necessity of putting an end to British influence on
our affairs very forcibly argued.
" The Washington Union tells its readers that,
'without fear of successful contradiction,' it may as-
(154)

FOREIGN IMPOSTURE IN COMMERCE. 155
sert ' that the tariff of 1846 has no more to do with
the commercial revulsion following upon this cause,
than the passage of the Kansas and Nebraska bill.
These crises in commerce depend,' it says, ' altogether
upon miscalculation, resulting from unforeseen changes
in the financial and productive condition of the trading
and agricultural world, with which we are indissolubly
connected by the bonds of commerce.' Such being
the case, may we beg it to explain why it is that com
mercial revulsions always follow in the wake of free
trade, and never in that of protection ?' Up to that
time the country had never experienced a "revulsion so
serious as that which occurred in the six years that
intervened between the protective tariff of 1818 and
1823. . Serious, however, as was that one, it was ex
ceeded in its severity by the revulsion of 1841-42.
Being now at the outset of another, the severity of
which has, as we fear, yet to be experienced — and this,
after eight years of free trade — we may, as it seems
to us, consider commercial revulsions, by help of which
the poor are made poorer and the rich enriched, one
of the regular forms of free trade with those countries
with which, as we are here told, we are ¦* indissolubly
connected by the bonds, of commerce.' Will the Union

156 TnE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
be so kind as to give us any reasons for beheving that
such must not be the case ?
" Again. . From the time when the tariff of 1824
became operative and turned the tide of commerce so
as to enable us to increase our stock of the precious
metals, there were in the long period of ten years, no
revulsions except the temporary one produced in 1832
by the removal of the deposits from the United States
Bank. During that long period we went on steadily
paying off our debts in Europe, and increasing our
stock of the precious metals — and thereby securing
ourselves against the possibility of future revulsions.
And yet no sooner had free trade exhausted the stock
in trade that protection had secured, than we found
ourselves involved in difficulty, — our banks suspended,
our government reduced to borrow money, and our
people forced to beg their bread because of inability
to sell their labor. Will the Union tell us if this was
not so ? ^
" Further : — from 1842 to 1847 we had no revul
sions. Every thing went on smoothly, and money
became from day to day more abundant, as labor be
came from day to day more in demand, and as the
power of production increased. Severe as was the

FOREIGN IMPOSTURE IN COMMERCE. 157
English revulsion of 1846^48, we were wholly un
touched by it, because for the five years that had then
elapsed, the policy of the country had looked to
diminishing, instead of increasing, our dependence on
foreigners — to making a market at home for food and
cotton— to diminishing, not increasing our foreign
debt — and to strengthening, instead of weakening, the
nation. When the Union shall be enabled to find in
our history a period when protection has given us com
mercial revulsions, with their attendant panics and
hoarding money — or a period of free trade that has
not so resulted — it will, we think, be time for it to re
peat the assertion contained in- the above extract, but
not until then.
" The difficulty under which we now labor is, that
our markets are flooded with foreign manufactures,
while our own people are idle, the necessary conse
quence, of which is, that the balance of trade is stead
ily against us, requiring a constant export of specie to
pay the difference — and that, too, in spite of the fact
that we have for years past been building up a great
foreign debt, now requiring for the payment of its in
terest alone, not less than twenty millions of dollars a
year, This matter of interest is steadily kept out of
14

158 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
sight by the Secretary of the Treasury, by the Presi
dent, and by the free trade journals, and yet it consti
tutes the first claim upon our exports — and is so much
to be added to the balance that exhibits itself on the
face of, the treasury statements. The value of imports
exclusive of specie, in the year 1852-53, was two
hundred and sixty-four millions, and that of the exports,
also exclusive of specie, only two hundred and two
millions, leaving an adverse balance'ef sixty-two mil
lions, to which remained to be added not less than
eighteen -millions for the payment of interest, making
a total of eighty millions, in discharge of which we
sent twenty-seven millions of gold, and some thirty or
forty millions of bonds representing debts that have
yet to be paid. In the last fiscal year, the adverse
balance was about forty-five millions, to which ¦ has "
to be added twenty millions for the payment of
interest, making a total of sixty -five millions, in dis
charge of which we sent thirty-eight millions, to which
has to be added twenty millions for the payment of
sixty-five millions, in discharge of which we sent thirty
eight millions of gold, and probably four and twenty-
millions of bonds, the interest upon which has to be
paid in this, the next, and every suoeedingyear, until

FOREIGN. IMPOSTURE IN COMMERCE. 159
the principal shall be discharged. All this being well
known to the President, to the Secretary, to the
Union, and to its kindred journals, it may be regarded
as striking evidence of their conviction of the correct
ness of their views that they all so studiously avoid
reference to the vast mass of public debt that is being
created, or to the enormous amount of interest required
to be paid, and constituting the first offset against
the food and cotton we export.
" This perpetual drain of specie is the cause of all
our present difficulties, and it is, itself a consequence
of the system which looks to giving Great Britain a
monopoly of the manufacturing machinery of the world.
Whenever it has prevailed among us we have been
forced to export specie and bonds — as in the period
from 1818 to 1824— from 1838 to 1842— and from
1848 to the present time ; and therefore it is that it
has always been followed as it now is attended by dis
trust among the banks and merchants, by hoarding of
specie, and by ruin to the community.
" Credit is rapidly declining among us, and hoarding
is as rapidly increasing, and both must go on until the
point of ruin shall be reached, unless we have a change
of policy, tending to prevent the drain that now exists.

160 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
The time has come, as we are told by the Union, for
a change; but in what direction? Towards the
adoption of a policy that shall tend to set our people
to work to produce the things we now import, and thus
diminish the necessity for exporting gold ? Certainly
not. That would be undemocratic, for it would tend
to diminish distress among the poor, and lower the
rates of interest now obtained by the rich. The change
proposed is towards the further closing of 'mills, facto
ries, and furnaces ; the further discharge of workmen ;
the further dependance on Europe for a market in
which to sell all we produce and buy all we need to
consume ; the further manufacture of bonds ; and the
further export of coin — all of which must inevitably
produce further decline of confidence and further
hoarding of the precious metals.
" That such is the tendency of the measures pro
posed by the dominant party in Congress is well known
to our readers, and their adoption can have no other
effect than that of stopping more mills, more furnaces,
and more roads — the work in, or upon, which will
never again be resumed until we shall have a change
of policy in the opposite direction— and this is nearly
as true of the measure proposed by the Secretary of

*, FOREIGN IMPOSTURE -IN COMMERCE. 161
the Treasury, as by that of the Committee of Ways and
Means. Neither of these will do any thing to restore
confidence, or to give employment to our people, or
food to their now starving wives and children. If, how
ever, they desire to know what will do so, we will tell
them. Let them repeal the act of 1846 and replace
that of 1842 as the law of the land, and confidence will
then, at once, be restored ; for all will see that the
day for exporting bonds and specie has come to an end.
Money will then again become abundant and cheap.
Hoarding will then cease, for all will see that property
is bound to rise in value as our people become from
day to day more enabled to sell their labor. Mills,
factories, and furnaces, will then again be opened, and
new ones will be built, making demand every where
for laborers and mechanics, and giving them every
where the means to purchase food and clothing, which
now they have not. Roads that are now suspended
will be resumed, and new ones will be made, for we
shall then consume the iron made at home by help of
our own food and clothing, instead of, as now, the iron
of Britain inade by the help of the food of Germany
and of Russia. All will then again be prosperity, and
merchants, manufacturers, and land owners, laborers,
14*

162 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA. UNMASKED.
mechanics, will be^enabled once again to rejoice in the
adoption of a system that looks to the promoting the
interests of the American laborer, and not exclusively
those of the foreign manufacturer and trader. The
Administration that is represented abroad by Mr. Bel
mont— lieutenant of the great money-changers of our
day — is, however, as we greatly fear, little likely to
adopt any measures tending to restore confidence or
to reduce the price pi money. For all such we must
wait for another set of men. The free trade of 1818
to 1824 gave us Adams and the tariff of 1828 ; that
of 1835 to 1840 gave us Harrison and the tariff of
1842 ; and that now existing is bound to give us an
American President in 1856, when, if not before, we
shall certainly see a return to that policy which gave
usihe universal prosperity of 1834 and 1846."

CHAPTER XIII.
EXAMPLES OF THE PRESENT EFFECTS OF FOREIGN IM-
¦ POSTURE ON AMERICAN INDUSTRY.
(continued.)
A reader disposed to cavil at our argument might
say that it is easy to make assertions without regard
to the depression at present suffered by the industrial
classes - in our country ; and he might challenge the
proof. As we are disposed to give chapter and verse,
facts and statistics for whatever we assert, we now pro
ceed to copy from the New York Tribune, of Decem
ber 18th, 1854, a detailed report of the depression of
industry in that city and its vicinity, made by the re
porter of the paper. Of course it is necessarily ex
tremely-imperfect, and does not cover the whole or
(163)

164 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
even half the ground ; but it exhibits enough to show
that our argument rests upon a broad basis of indis
putable facts :
Iron Works. — The iron business in this city is very
much depressed, and large numbers of workmen are
destitute of employment. In a recent tour through
the foundries and machine-shops, we learned that upon
the average not more than one half the men are now
employed, and the anticipations of the future hold out
still gloomier prospects. In Brooklyn, some five
hundred men in this business have been recently
thrown out of employment, and about a like number
are now at work — many of them, however, upon half-
time. One shop that employs a large number of hands
has discharged a quarter of them and put the rest on
three-quarters time, and expects to be compelled to
discharge still more.
Messrs. Stillman, Allen, & Co., of the Novelty
Works, under date of the 15th inst., write us concern
ing the iron trade : " We consider the business at pre
sent in a very depressed condition. We have now
about twenty-five per cent, fewer men in our employ
than at the same season last year. Wages are falling,
but are yet higher than at this time last year ; the

PRESENT EFFECTS OF FOREIGN IMPOSTURE. 165
rise in the mean time having been considerable. It is
possible for us to say more of the prospect before us,
than that it is involved in uncertainty."
Printing. — Experienced men say that they have
not known so great a depression of the Printing busi
ness for many years. Many of the leading offices
have discharged two-thirds of their hands, and have
reduced the remainder to two-thirds of a day's work.
A large number of journeymen printers have left the
city — others are working a day or two' in the week
as substitutes in the offices of the daily journals ; but
many more are totally destitute of work. The scale
of prices, as established by the Union, has not been
materially departed from as yet, that we can learn,
although employers say that a considerable reduction
must take place unless business improves, and that
right speedily.
Stereotypers. — This business, as a consequence, ex
hibits much the same state of depression as pervades
that of Printing. At this time last- year, it was im
possible to obtain sufficient assistance to get out the
works in progress. Now, not more than one-third of
the Stereotypers are employed.
Type Founders. — In this* branch scarcely anything

166 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
is doing. We are informed that one house alone in
this city, for the past month, showed a decline of busi
ness to the extent of some forty thousand pounds of
type, as compared with the same period of last year.
Book-Binding. — In the -same category this branch
of book-making may be classed. At a recent meeting
of the Book-binder's Association it was stated that
the business had never been worse. The Tract So
ciety, Bible Society, Methodist Book Concern, Har
per's, and other establishments had either discharged
a number of their hands or reduced their hours of
labor. Of the thousand men engaged in this branch
of industry between two and three hundred are now
out of work..
Building. — The Builders have scarcely any thing
under way. Many of the- Masons, Bricklayers, Car
penters, Plumbers, and others have left the city, to
seek employment elsewhere. A large contracting
Mason estimated the quantity of business now doing
in his profession at about one-eighth of that of the
same period in 1853. He says that not more than
one thousand of the five to seven thousand usually em
ployed in New York are now at work. Workmen,
who last year commanded two dollars per day, can

PRESENT EFFECTS OF FOREIGN IMPOSTURE. 167
now be hired upon any street corner for one dollar
and fifty cents per day; and Laborers, who then com
manded ten to twelve shillings, are fortunate now if
employed at one dollar a day.
House-carpenters are among the principal sufferers.
Many of the small employers have closed their shops ;
the more extensive master carpenters have greatly re
duced the number of their hands, and curtailed the
hours of labor of those yet at work. We have not heard
that wages have been reduced in this branch." It is
scarcely necessary to speak of the condition of the
ship-yards, as some weeks since we gave an extended
statement of their business. The majority of the ope
rative ship-carpenters in this city, numbering many
hundreds of men, are now out of employment, and the
number deprived of labor daily augments, by the com
pletion of the work in progress. At a recent meeting
of the ship-owners and agents in this city, it was re
solved to reduce the wages of ship-carpenters from
three dollars to two dollars and fifty cents per day. It
has been estimated that at least one half of the ship-
carpenters in New York are unemployed. In the nine
ship-yards of Williamsburgh and Greenpoint, employ
ing, on the average, in goool seasons, an aggregate of

168 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
one thousand -persons, only two liundred and thirty-
seven men are now at work.
The depression of this branch of industry necessa
rily affects large numbers of operatives in other pro
fessions, as rope-makers, block-makers, curriers, rig
gers, and a host of others.
The Plasterers are no better off than the House-
carpenters. Although this branch of labor does not
employ near so many persons as the other, yet in pro
portion, the number unemployed is equally great. The
head of an ^extensive firm in the Plastering business
assures us that not more than one-sixth, or about two
hundred men, are ' now at work. Many pf these can
not now command more than ten shillings a day, where
twelve months ago they readily obtained fifteen.
Of the fifteen hundred Plumbers, it is estimated
that' not more than one-half are employed. We could
not hear of any reduction of the wages, although in
many shops the hours of labor have been reduced.
Other Trades.^-The Brass-founders and Brass-fin
ishers share in the general depression. Nearly all the
employers have reduced the hours of labor to one-half.
With the tanners and Morocco-finishers no marked
change has taken plaee;-that we could hear of.

• PRESENT EFFECTS OF FOREIGN IMPOSTURE. 169
Umbrella Makers. — This business shares in the ge
neral depression. We were informed by one manu
facturer, that where he employed three hundred per
sons last year, there are now only forty.
Batters.- — Not more than thirty per cent, of the
average force in this business is now employed. Wages
have not been affected as yet, nor have the hours of
labor been abridged with those'who are at work.
2Wors.— About one-half of the Tailors in New
York are out of employment. A leading wholesale
manufacturer of Clothing informs us that, next Sa
turday, at least one thousand persons who are now at
work will be discharged. Wages have not been. re
duced as yet. We are informed that from five to six
thousand Tailors in this city (mostly females) do not
know where to get the next job from. The prospects
are dull in the extreme ; the wholesale trade is said
to be dead.
Dry Goods. — There has been a great falling off in
the wholesale trade, estimated at sixty per cent. The
retail trade is reviving, for a short time, on account
of the holidays. There are some few exceptions — Stew
art, for example, with whom business has rarely been
better. They say they have sold as many costly
. 15

170 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED. ,
dresses .as ever. Stewart says women are more extra
vagant than in former years. He thinks the present
stringency in the money market will cause a great de
cline in the amount of importations in the next spring,
and a consequent increase in the consumption of home
manufactures. We have received reports of a like tenor frOm the
Jewelers, Piano-makers, Billiard-table-makers, Cabi
net-makers, Manufacturers of Hardware, Picture-
frames, Looking-glasses, Clocks, and Artificial Flower-
makers, and Boot and Shoemakers. AU concur in
stating that times were never worse with them ; many
have discharged large numbers of work-people, and
reduced the hours of labor of the others.
The Soap and Candle-makers are said to have been
less affected by the " hard times," than almost any
other business, probably from the fact that the. major
part of the work in this trade is performed in the win
ter and spring months.-
Organ-builders are also exempt from the general
depression, probably owing to the length of time for
which! orders v are given ahead, and occupy to be com
pleted. It is well known that upon many of the steamships

PRESENT EFFECTS OF FOREIGN IMPOSTURE. 171
sailing from this port the wages of firemen and coal-
passers have been reduced some twenty to twenty-five
per cent, and a very strenuous effort is being made to
reduce the rates of compensation upon ajl of them. *
The Erie Railroad Company has reduced the wages
of laborers employed in loading freight, and repairing
the track, from one dollar to eighty cents per day,
which is the rate of wages paid to the same class of
hands last winter. ' It was deemed better to thus re
duce the amount of compensation than to throw any
of the men entirely out of employment. It is not likely
that the men will refuse to come into this arrangement,
as to remain idle through the winter would be a ha
zardous experiment.
From the same paper, we copy the following account
of the depression of industrial interests in other parts
of the country, as manifested previously to the 18th
of December, 1854. Oi course the situation of affairs
has varied but little since.
From different parts the prevailing cry of "hard
times" is echoed and re-echoed far and' near.
In Detroit, Michigan, several hundred workers in
iron have recently been thrown out of employment.
In Buffalo, between three and four hundred men

172 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
in the iron business have been thrown out of employ
ment. The Saratoga and Sackett's Harbor Railroad,
after one hundred and fifty thousand dollars has been
expended upon it, and debts to the amount of two
hundred and fifty thousand dollars been contracted, has
been discontinued, throwing out of work some five thou
sand laborers, who are said to be suffering greatly in
the northern wilderness. The snow is upon them and
it is feared that many, particularly women and children
will die of cold and starvation.
In New Jersey the same stagnation is apparent.
The Burlington Gazette says : <
" A large proportion of the hands at Cooper's Roll
ing Mill, at Trenton, were discharged a few days
since, in consequence of the proprietors turning their
attention to another branch of iron work. On Satur
day last, a man folk down in the streets of Trenton
from faintness and exhaustion caused by hunger.
Be had not tasted any thing for three days. At New
ark the manufacturers are complaining, and at Plain-
field, where hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of
clothing is annually made, there is Jbut little doing.
We understand that the shoe trade is also suffering.
It is well known that at least one-tenth of the inhabi-

PRESENT EFFECTS OF FOREIGN IMPOSTURE. 173
tants of our city is engaged, in the manufacture of
ladies' shoes, and that tens of thousands of dollars are
paid out in the course of the year to binders and jour
neymen. .Prices are lower, and work is less abundant
than it was a few months since."
Pennsylvania suffers no less than her sister States.
The Reading Gazette says-:
" The recent and unexpected reverse which has
overtaken the iron trade^-so prosperous during the
last two years — -is, we are sorry to say, having its
effect upon the iron establishments in this country-
We learn that the Lessport Iron Company, and' the
Messrs. Ecker, have countermanded orders for a con
siderable quantity of machinery which they intend to
increase the productive capacity of their works, and
are making preparations^or a considerable reduction
of their business, to meet the hard times which stare
them in the face. We greatly fear that we shall shortly
be compelled to notice the discharge of many work
men from our manufactories."
In Philadelphia great numbers of workmen have
been dismissed ; the Messrs. Norris alone, discharged
six hundred from their locomotive works.
15*

174 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
The Germantown Telegraph, speaking upon the
same subject, adds :
" Even in the iron business, in which the proprie
tors of some of the principal establishments were
threatened with the crime of becoming millionaires in
a few days, the tables are turned, and their burdens
are greater than they can bear. Some of the largest
have either failed, suspended work,, or reduced the
number of their workmen to one half. And their
wages from twenty to twenty-five per cent. The result
of this is, that thousands of first rate artisans are
thrown out of work on approach of winter, with fami
lies depending upon them for support. But it is not
only the workers in iron who suffer — in nearly all the
manufacturing branches, trades, not sparing the mer
chant, who is a principal sufferer, the same condition
of things exists. Even the printing business — seldom
sensibly effected by the times — is in a most depressed
condition." The Telegraph asks, "What are the causes that
produce these hard, times ?" and replies,;
"It is because, we are' great buyers abroad, instead
of being great buyers at home. We send all our money

PRESENT EFFECTS OF FOREIGN IMPOSTURE. 175
to Europe, to pay for goods that we should manufac
ture ourselves."
The Wilmington Republican says :
"One hundred hands have been discharged by one
establishment in that city, twenty by another, and a
few by others. The difficulty of procuring funds to
make payment is assigned as the reason for this cur
tailment of the number of workmen."
" In Norristown, on Monday morning last, Messrs.
Thomas, Carson & West reduced the wages of those in
their employ twenty per cent. The Swede Iron Com
pany have also reduced the wages of their hands to a
like amount."
" Woodstock, Vermont, the firm of Daniel Taft &
Sons, manufacturers of iron tools &c, have been com
pelled by the pressure of the times to stop payment.
Their liabilities are stated at forty thousand dollars,
and their asserts must be much larger. At White
River Junction, near Lebanon, Messrs. B. Latham &
Co., iron founders and manufacturers of machinery,
and also of cars and steam engines, have been com
pelled to close their establishment. . The Rutland and
Washington Railroad Company owe them one hundred
thousand dollars which is unavailable, at least for the

176 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
present. They employed between seventy five and a
hundred hands."
In Massachusetts, affairs wear no very promising
aspect. The Boston ^Traveller has the following :
" During the summer mechanics and day-laborers
have commended their own prices, and it has been
with difficulty that contractors and master workmen
could get and keep sufficient workmen at any price.
But for some weeks there, has been a general falling
off in the demand for men, for the simple reason that
there has been a falling off of orders for work. Some
manufactories have been compelled to discharge large
numbers of hands, so that where there have been hun
dreds employed during the summer there are now few
or none but the foreman and the apprentices remain
ing ; and other establishments which, have not dischar-
their hands generally, have yet found it difficult to
keep them employed. We understand, also, that in
Worcester some of the large machine establishments,
are rapidly decreasing the number of their hands,
and also the number of hours during which they will
employ those who remain."
From Western Virginia. — A correspondent of The
Tribune, at Parkers-burg sends us the following ;

present effects of foreign imposture. 177
" The pressure for 'money has placed a bar for the
further construction of North Western Virginia Rail
road, so important to the prosperity of this place and
section of the country. Thirty days' notice,as required
by their contracts, is being given to the contractors
on the whole line, to cease work. This will prove ex
ceedingly disastrous to the poor laborers, '"who are
thus suddenly deprived of the means of subsistence at
this most inclement season. God pity them. The con
tractors ean go on provided they will take one-half of
their pay in the bonds of the Gompany.
" Provisions are enormously high for this region.
Less than eighteen months ago flour was sold at three
dollars and seventy-five cents per barrel ; now it is
eight dollars and a half, and all other things in pro
portion. It is as much as people can do to live at all."
13o much- for the statements of the newspapers of
December 1854. These are very significant facts.
They are few in number, very " few and far between,"
compared with what might easily be accumulated by
carefully examining a file of papers from all parts of
the country. But they are sufficient to show that the
industry of the country has been suddenly struck with
paralysis.

178 THE ENEMIES OF AM*ERICA UNMASKED.
If we inquire what is the immediate cause of this state
of things, every one promptly answers,, the scarcity of
money. If we inquire why money is scarce, the answer
is, that, under the free trade system the, importations
for the last year were three hundred millions of dol
lars. Much of this has been paid for in promises to
pay in the shape of Railroad bonds, state stocks, and
other stocks ; -but during the last half of the year these
having become unsaleable abroad, the deficiency has
been made up in gold and silver exported to Europe.
This has diminished the specie basis of our own paper
currency and greatly depreciated the value of stocks held
in this country, thereby spreading alarm and panic
throughout the country and causing capitalists to raise
the rate of interest to double quadruple and even
quintriple the legal rate, thereby sweeping off the
profits of our business men; merchants and manufac
turers particularly ; but by no means sparing the
farmers,, who lose by the losses of their customers and
the foreclosing of mortgages on their own lands. Those
who are out of debt hoard coin, instead of leaving it
in bank ; and as a result of all these circumstances
money is scarce. There is no mistake about it. There
is less coin in the country than there ought to be in a

PRESENT EFFECTS OF FOREIGN IMPOSTURE. 179
healthy condition of trade;' and it is rapidly being
hoarded away from mere panic. . ¦*
Three hundred millions of dollars, mostly spent in
manufacturers which ought to be produced in this
country, . and, under a protective tariff, would have
been jproduced here, is a large sum to be expended in
producing national ruin and distress. This is the
effect of foreign influence by which British free trade
has placed a heavy burden on. our. shoulders — foreign
influence applied to corrupt legislators and a venal
press and producing -the free trade tariff of 1846.
California gold staved off the ruin till the eighth year.
But it has come at last with a vengeance. All peo
ple are inquiring for a remedy. Doubtless there is a
remedy— ^an American remedy, not a foreign nostrum ;
but an American medicine which will effect a cure.
But before proceeding to consider this point, we will
glance for a few moments at the remedy which is seri
ously proposed by the foreigners who have settled
among us." It is among the most remarkable of the
signs of the times.

CHAPTER XIV.
THE FOREIGNERS' REMEDY FOR HARD TIMES.
Under our present system of naturalization laws, ad
ministered as they generally are by corrupt politicians,
foreigners, most of whom never were permitted to vote
or hold office in their own countries, are allowed to
vote here a- few days after they are landed. The effect
of this indulgence is exactly what might have been
anticipated. Ignorant and presumptuous, they are
not satisfied to adopt American views or learn the
tendency of American institutions ; but they bring
forward all the exploded -European heresies, and en
deavor to make them current here. They wish to in
struct us how to govern ourselves, and they preach
(180)

THE FOREIGNERS' REMEDY FOR HARD TIMES. 181
for political doctrine Fourierism, agrarainism, and that
particular form of red republicanism, which consists in
overturning the foundations of. society, and dividing.
the property acquired by the industrious among the
idle and dissolute.
In particular localities of this country, where these
foreign adventurers happen to be numerous, they en
deavor to take the direction of political affairs entirely
into their own hands, and where quiet voting or peace
able cheating at the polls wont answer the purpose,
rioting and the bludgeon are resorted to.
The city of New York is particularly unfortunate
in this particular ; and it is one of the blackest signs
of these dark times, that being our commercial metro
polis, it is the most un-American city in the United
States. Thousands upon thousands of foreigners ar
rive there almost every day, and great numbers of
them remain in the city. There, Scroggs's- from Bir
mingham and Manchester live by cheating the revenue
of its dues. British merchants monopolize a great
proportion of the commerce of the city, and aid with
great alacrity in displaying to this country the bless
ings of British free trade. The Irish Catholics in
the city are counted by tens of thousands. Germans
16

182 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
are so numerous that' in some streets of the city, Ger
man is the only language which one hears ; and French
red republicans find in New York a forum for their
declamations, and apparently hope to find a theatre
for displaying their talents at overturning, or at least
overawing governments and dictating the terms on
which ouwiers shall be supported in the Parisian style.
Recently, since by the aid of foreign influence and
British free trade, the industrial classes of this coun
try have been thrown out of employ in great numbers,
the foreigners of New York perforce have to suffer
with the rest. - Their distress is represented as being
very great. . Many thousands of them are out of em
ploy. They have held frequent meetings for the pur
pose of devising a. remedy for the evils- under which
they are snffering; and the remedy upon which they
have finally fixed is marked by that impudence and
audacity which is the too frequent characteristic of fo
reigners in this country. It is to demand from our
municipal and national governments an appropriation
of money and lands for their support. This is cool,
to say the least ; and some of our readers may doubt
the correctness of our assertion.
In order to silence such doubters, we -will give a

THE FOREIGNERS' REMEDY FOR HARD TIMES. 183
specimen of the declarations of these foreigners, made
through their mouth-pieces, at a public meeting held
in New York, on the 15th of January, 1855. The
proceedings are announced in the Berald, of the 16th,
under the following characteristic heading.
FASHION AND FAMINE.
EIGHT THOUSAND UNEMPLOYED WORKMEN IN FIFTH AVENUE,
MONSTER MASS MEETINGS IN WASHINGTON PARADE
GROUND AND THE PARK..
PROCESSION OF THE UNEMPLOYED.
WHAT THEIR SPEAKERS SAID.
A E Dp S SES  RESOLUTIONS.
&c, &c.,_ &c.
The report says, "A mass meeting of the unem
ployed Workmen was announced, to come off yesterday
afternoon, at the Washington Parade Ground, at three
o'clock. Long before the.hour published vast crowds
might be seen wending their way to the scene of the
proposed meeting, and by the time they were called to
order there could not have been less-than five thousand
persons in the Parade Ground and vicinity.

184 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
Then follows the advertisement and the address de
livered by the chairman Mr. Ira B. Davis, in which
the designs and demands of this mob of foreigners are
set forth. We copy this address ; and desire the
reader to take notice, that the charity of New York is
spurned, the opening of the city, state, and national
treasuries for their relief is demanded, and in case of
refusal intimations of riot and violence to ensue, are
distinctly given. Here is the address.
" Fellow citizens — You have been called together
this afternoon by the united action of the committee
appointed at the late meeting at Hope Chapel, to
gether with the. committee of conference composed of
delegates from various movements that have been
laboring to devise means to relieve the. great distress
of the producing classes. It is well known to you
that almost superhuman exertions have been and still
are being made to assuage the sufferings of the desti
tute, and we feel grateful for the generosity that is
manifested by those who have contributed, but we also
know that, the disease is too deeply seated to be healed
by any temporary charity that may be extended.
(Cheers.) We know that there are but slight induce
ments for capitalists to invest their money in trade,

THE FOREIGNERS' REMEDY FOR HARD TIMES. 185
and therefore the charity that may be extended will
fall far short of accomplishing the designs of the
donors-; (cheers;) and when "they learn that notwith-
standing^their contributions theevil is not abated, but
has daily and fearfully increased, and no prospect of
trade reviving by private enterprise, they will become
accustomed to the cry of the destitute-, and, tired of
contributing longer, their purse-strings will be tight
ened; and when charity is no longer extended to
those broken in spirit that accept of it now,_their dis
tress will render them frantic; and in their wild
despair they are more to be dreaded than those too
proud to accept charity, but simply demand the oppor
tunity to labor. (Sensation.) In view of this melan
choly picture of distress, and at the great distance at
which relief can be rationally expected from a reviving
of trade through the ordinary channels, and the in
competency of any movement of charity to supply the
wants of the unemployed ; and feeling assured that in
this extremity it is not only just that we should de
mand of our governments of the city-state and nation.
some extra exertions to repair the evils that have re
sulted from unwise legislation hitherto — (cheers) —
under these circumstances, your committee have con-
16*

186 THE ENEMIES OF. AMERICA UNMASKED.
>'
eluded that the demand set forth in the memorial pre-
sented to the Common Council by the committee from
Hope Chapel, was conceived in wisdom, and is deman
ded in justice. (Cheers.) The building upon the
public lands of the city would furnish direct employ
ment to many thousands of mechanics and laborers,
and by their being employed, with . their wages ' they
would be better ^enabled to support their families with
the necessaries of life, and thus by the purchase of
the products of other trades give a general stimulus to
business, so that every class of citizens, laborers and
traders, would share the benefit that would flow from
this act. (Cheers.) And though the renting of these
houses at cheap rents >to those that would .occupy them,
and .the necessary reduction- of rents in other parts
of the city, that would result from the building of
these houses, yet the capitalists would not be so seri
ously affected as many of them fear ; for the general
improvement of the condition of the people, and the
rents from their buildings would greatjy reduce the
rate of taxation ; and if these property holders are not
heavily taxed they cannot complain if they do not re
ceive such high rents, for it is the taxes they urge as
the excuse for their demanding such heavy rents.

THE FOREIGNERS' REMEDY FOR HARD TIMES. 187
(Cheers.) Yes, fellow citizens, the adoption of this
policy by our city would reflect honor upon our city
government, be a blessing not only to our own citizens
but to the civilized world, for it would point out a
mpre wise and equitable system than has hitherto been
adopted. (Cheers.) And in this hour ofdistress will
you be denied this just request ? (No, no, no.) Will
you allow these men to treat your petitions with con
tempt — and the men who inhabit those palaces that
surround you, whose storehouses are filled to reple
tion, who -have perhaps never done a useful day's
labor in their lives, to laugh at your misery and mock
at your attempts at redress? (No,- no, no.) And
though we know the property they possess is the re
sult of our handiwork, yet we say to them and to our
legislators, the time has come when this system of
plunder must be in some measure abated. Let
them keep what they have got, but they must not op
pose our seeking reform. (Cheers.) And we also ask
of our general government that a stop shall be put to
the system of land monopoly, for it is a fact that We
are not only the tenants of domestic capitalists, but
foreign, and often to the crowned heads and titled
aristocrats of the old world ; for they — knowing the

188 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
unsafety of their positions in this day of growing intel
ligence, when men are learning what are their rights
and losing their reverence for monarchy — many, of
them, purchase large tracts of land in this country as
a retreat, for which they make the occupants pay heavy
rents or a large advance on the price ; and, therefore,
Congress is called upon to limit the quantity that shall
be held, and make it free to the actual settler. And
as there is a large surplus of money in the treasury,
they should assist the hardy pioneer to settle it, which
would make the nation happy and prosperous, and the
government honored by the whole human race. And
now, fellow workmen, you must learn this important
fact — that your interests are one and the same — no
matter what land gave you birth, or what religion you
profess ; that the property of society is produced by
labor, and capitalists flourish best when they can
obtain labor cheapest, and every device is practised
by them to keep the working classes from fraternizing,
lest they should discover their true relations, and
by that union obtain them. Therefore, national and
religious prejudices are stimulated by these men
among the workers, and then they smile at you with
duplicity. But now you must unite as brothers, striv-

THE FOREIGNERS' REMEDY FOR HARD TIMES. 189
ing for great principles, the realization of which will
-make all happy and friendly with each other."
Thus far Mr. Davis. If this is not an incendiary
speech, and if the cheers and no, no, noes, do not indi
cate an incendiary disposition, we are at a loss to con
ceive how an incendiary speech could be framed, or a
disposition to violence and riot expressed by words;
In the address and resolutions which follow, the case
is argued and the conclusion drawn that the city trea
sury of New York, the public lands of the state, and
those of the United States, together with certain mil
lions of dollars in the treasury — number of millions
not specified — should forthwith be placed at the dis
posal of this New York mob, chiefly composed of fo
reigners. This is the foreigners' remedy for hard
times. To show that we do not rhisrepresent the case,
we give the address and resolutions, read by Mr. John
Commerford and adopted by acclamation !
ADDRESS AND RESOLUTIONS.
" Whereas, various editors of papers and others have
taken upon themselves to direct the action of the un
employed in our city and vicinity; and whereas these
persons seem to think that the people have no right to

190 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
look for relief from the municipal, state, or general
governments. We, the destitute and aggrieved par
ties, deny the soundness of such theory ; that the posi
tion is unsound, facts and the practice of legislation
must prove. That it was the intention of some of the
originators of our form of government that it should
be sternly just, and free from the dispensation of
favors to individuals or classes -in its operation, is true.
Without the- intention of claiming to be as well versed
in the metaphysical analysis of what a government
should be, as those who assume to teach us where we
should halt in our expectations — in our experience we
gather the knowledge that, in no conventional arrange
ment that ever led to the existence of government,
was it supposed that the result of such convocation
would ensure the equal protection of every member of
the state. Is it not too true, in the necessity for the
formation of a new or separate organization of govern
ment, that those who shaped its existence and launched
it on its career for good or evil, where those whose
station, desire and interest impelled them to appro
priate to themselves all the advantages of the compact.
Inthe formation of our system of government it is
useless to deny that we have escaped the predominat-

THE FOREIGNERS' REMEDY FOR HARD TIMES. 191
ing influences. The history of the creation of the sys
tem which gives us our vitality as citizens, shows that,
in the struggle to bring forth the security of ' life, li
berty, and the pursuit of happiness,' there were two
opinions — one, that government should be held as an
active coadjutor or medium, through which no ine
quality in condition of individuals or classes should be
evoked or fostered ; that a government to be effective
should be wielded by aggregating to itself the power
of its motion, by the^centripetal and concentrative ac
tion which it could manifest by restricting or extend
ing its favors, whenever it- chose to exercise these func
tions. Thus, we see, that while the first axiom, as
stated, has been received as a correct idea of a repub
lican, and, therefore, just government, the second has'
been the prevailing and practical application of the
general and state governments. It is not with the
theory of our government that we find fault, but with
its practice. With the evidence of the baneful effects
which have brought upon our wives and children the
paralysis and curse of want of employment, through
the action and favoritism of our legislation, shall we
be told to cease our murmurings and not call upon our
representatives to proceed and make us equitable res-

192 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
titution for the injuries which years of mislegislation
have inflicted ? Shall our complaints be dishonored
by those who look to the state and general treasuries
of the people as their own exclusive property ? Shall
those who have received the millions that have been
appropriated to individuals, states, railroads, and the
various companies who confederate for the purpose of
swelling the army of accumulating plunderers, tell us
to down and wallow in the inferiority of the condition
with which they have provided us ? As men who are
sensible of the injustice which is practiced by those
who, in our hour of calamity, arrogantly school us to
patiently succumb to the dreadful circumstances by
which we are surrounded, we will say to our advisers,
' Is it possible that you hold in your hands a scale
that in its adjustment is always made to preponderate
on the side of those who instruct the balance where to
fall ?' Does not the venality of our instructors betray
the motive of their attack ? Whenever we are satisfied,
by palpable demonstration, that by precedent we have
no right to exact labor and subsistence by legislation,
or wherever it can be established that no individual or
class has claimed and- received protection through the
action of government, then and not until then shall we

PRESENT EFFECTS OF FOREIGN IMPOSTURE. 193
listen to a species of sophistry that is as insulting to
our self respect as disgusting to our intelligence and
discrimination. - Therefore, be it
" Resolved, That in obedience to the wishes of the
great multitude who are at present in a state of desti
tution; we come. again to this body, to invoke its aid
to shield them from the. further. visitation and continu
ance of the . sufferings with which they are afflicted.
Entertaining the opinion that your wish to alleviate
the condition of the afflicted is apparently clouded by
the restraints imposed by the laws enacted by the state
for your government, we respect your intention to dis
charge your obligations. Whilst we thus measure the
nature of your position, we are nevertheless convinced
that you have the power to remove the obstructions
arising from the laws under which you act. An ap
plication by you to our representatives at Albany for
the alteration or suspension of any law that conflicts
with the interest, protection, or welfare of our citizens,
must have its paramount weight. The thousands who
are out of employment know, not where to look for re
lief, but to you. " Where can they look but to. their
immediate -representatives? In their hour of need,
they conjecture that , you are the great committee of
17

194 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
ways and means, whose duty it is to provide for their
famishing and shelterless families. Gentlemen, we
feel that the greatest weight of responsibility is unex
pectedly forced upon you. Never, since the organi
zation of this government, has any one state, city, or
locality been visited with the sad spectacle of seeing
Over one hundred thousand men, women, and children
bereft of employment and the- means of living. In
the consideration of the consequences of this unlooked
for prostration of the elements of vigorous industry,
there are but two alternatives to fall back upon.
" First, To extricate the people from the gloomy
prospect of want and despair, which is even now
wringing from them the bitter lamentations which pre
cede the wild determination ofturbulen.ee and crime.
"Second, That you may escape the necessity of
bringing into action the means or the weapons with
which tyranny is accustomed to sustain itself, when
ever it is called upon to render justiee or mercy to
those from whom it has extracted- their last farthing.
"Although this committee are satisfied that the
visitation pi this fearful calamity has not been -the re
sult of chance, and notwithstanding they are fully ac
quainted with the causes which have produced this

PRESENT EFFECTS OF FOREIGN IMPOSTURE. 195
state of things, they again reiterate the declaration
that the laboring classes are in no way answerable for
the condition in which they are found. If they have
been made tributary in producing the present evils, it
is only where they have exhibited their negligence in
the selection of the proper agents who could protect
them from that disastrous results of the corrupt and
unwise legislation of the period.
" Resolved, That our, municipal authorities are here
by requested to obtain from the legislature of this
state the passage of such alterations in any article of
the existing charter of this city as may give the above
named functionaries the power to levy taxes sufficient
to collect a revenue for the immediate employment of
such numbers of unemployed Workingmen as may be
deemed necessary.
"Resolved, That we also ask for the suspension of
that part of the present laws which gives the power to
the landlord of ejecting the tenant from his premises,
when such occupant, from want of employment, is un
able to pay for the. use of such shelter; and further,
that the state shall indemnify the landlords for any
loss that may accrue from said suspension.
"Resolved,- That as the unemployed workingmen

196 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
will not remain the recipients of charity, they call upon
the members of the Common Council to assist them
in demanding from the Legislature that the lands be
longing to the state be set apart and distributed, free
of charge, and that the division of the amount be al
lotted in proportion to the number of applicants.
" Resolved, That this meeting solicit the aid of our
city authorities in calling upon our representatives at
Washington to insist upon the immediate passage of
a homestead bill that will secure the actual settler the
unrestricted use of one hundred and sixty acres of
land. "Resolved, That this meeting also request the
Mayor, with' our City Council, to join with us in calling
upon Congress for the appropriation of — — millions
of dollars, and that said "moneys be proportionably set
apart for the purchase of implements of husbandry and
the means for the subsistence and conveyance of such
as may. need either the one or the other ; and that in
addition the government shall be empowered by the
appropriation to assess and hold the" lands of each
occupant subject to payments at such stipulated periods
as may be just to both parties."
The crowd, during the delivery of Mr. Davis's

THE GKEAT MEETING OF FOREIGNERS IN THE PARK.— Pare 197

THE FOREIGNERS' REMEDY FOR HARD TIMES. 197
speech, increased enormously, and the Parade Ground
seemed alive with the vasj; concourse.
The next proceeding was to march through the city
in force, so as to menace the American inhabitants,
and give them a clear intimation of what they were to
expect in case the exceedingly moderate demands above
set forth should not be comphed with. The reporter

"A procession was then formed,. so as to proceed in
a body to the Park, and present the above address to
the Common Council. They marched around the
ground without music or banners, , and certainly a
rougher or more uncouth set never paraded ,in this
city. The vastness of the crowd may be estimated
from the fact that they had eighty marshals. Mr.
Ben. Price officiated as Grand Marshal, assisted by
Messsrs. Arbuthnot, Antoine Rickel, C. L. Richter,
Robert Grant, K. A. Bailey, Charles Smith, and others'.
The procession filed out of the Parade Ground and
marched up West Washington Place to Broadway, from
thence to Clinton Place'. Here the cry was raised,
" Let us march up Fifth Avenue, and show ourselves
to the aristocracy." This suggestion was adopted,
and the motley assemblage paraded up that renowned
17*

198 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
locality, to the great astonishment of its denizens, who
might be seen crowding to the windows, and staring at
the unwashed and greasy workmen as they filed past
their palalial residences, minus banners or music. The
unemployed said nothing, but walked along silently
and sternly, though one of them somewhat facetiously
remarked that there was a strong smell of codfish in
that vicinity. They turned down Tenth street to
Broadway, and then to the Park. Here another crowd
had assembled, and by the time they were organized
in front of the City Hall steps, there could not have
been less than twelve thousand persons present. The
crowd in the line of march were drawn up in files of
eight and ten deep, and when the head of the cojumn
entered the Park, the rear was in the neighborhood of
Grand Street."
After the procession had entered the Park, and
formed themselves in front of the City Hall, they were
entertained with another series of inflammatory ad
dresses, Mr. Ira B. Davis leading off. The conclud
ing portion of his speech, apparently throws some
light upon the motives of his remarkable activity in
this business ; it seems he wishes to identify himself

THE FOREIGNERS' REMEDY FOR HARD TIMES. 199
with these foreigners in order to secure their votes on
some future occasion. He says,
"And now, when the Mayor of your city points out
the evil and suggests to the Common Council the ne
cessity of taking some measures to relieve the distress,
it is for you to back him up, and all the members of
the Common Council who are in your favor. (Renewed
applause.) We are assembled here without reference
to our political views ; we have determined, though, on
this — having agreed upon certain fundamental prin
ciples which would prove a blessing to humanity, we
say, whoever will take ground against this movement
we will remember them hereafter — we will tell them
that they shall never again represent us, and we will
keep to our word. (Applause.) This we are deter
mined to do.
Mr. Commerford, who succeeded Mr. Davis as
speaker, went over nearly the same ground with respect
to the remedy for hard times ; but seemed particularly
anxious to induce Americans to act with the foreigners,
and join them in the preposterous demands on the
public lands and the public treasuries.
The repqrt goes on to say that : —
Dr. Foerch next addressed the meeting in German,

200 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
and spoke of the condition of the laboring classes, and
necessity for their immediate employment. He was
followed by Mr. Macarthy, who protested on the part
of his fellow workmen against the charity which had
been offered by the wealthy, and said that they did
not require alms — it was the right to live by labor
which they were seeking to establish.
Mr. Smith made a few remarks, in the course of
which he inveighed bitterly against the Common
Council, which, he said, was endeavoring to starve
them out by delay. He also launched forth a phil-
lipic against the Know Nothings, and said when a
man came ' here and declared his allegiance to the
American flag, he was entitled to the same protec
tion as he who was born in the country. It appeared
to him a very narrow minded prejudice that would say
to a man, we will allow you the privilege of becoming
a citizen of this country, but deny you all the bene
fits "which might result from such citizenship.
Mr. Ira B. Davis — The committee who have been
appointed to present the memorial to the Common
Council are Mr. John Commerford, Robert Grant,
Lulovico Richter. Do you approve of them ?
" Yes," " yes," from the crowd and confusion.

THE FOREIGNERS' REMEDY FOR HARD TIMES. 201
It was also carried that the same committee memo-
ralize Congress and the State Legislature on the sub
ject mentioned in the address.
Mr. Fdward P. Blankman was the next speaker.
This, said he, is one of the most pitiable spectacles I
have ever seen. To see this vast assemblage, this sea
of upturned faces, who have come here to proclaim
that men, able and willing to work, are starving in
our midst. (Cheers.) We have come here to see what
can be done for the poor in this the hour of their deep
distress, not to discuss the propriety of holding a fancy
ball at the Opera House, (laughter and applause,) and
so raise money, for I am sure you would have too
much manliness to accept aid from any such source.
(Applause.) We do not ask that balls or festivals shall
be given for the unemployed, but we ask for that to
which they are entitled and should receive at the
hands of their law givers. (Applause.) The City
Fathers you have placed here should immediately de
vise some measures to employ those who are now starv
ing so that they may have the wherewithal to main
tain themselves and families through the inclement
weather. The Common Council is but the organ to
express your will, which to thern should be law ; and

202 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
if they do not obey you in your just demand, they
deserve to be impeached for dereliction of duty. (Ap
plause.) This is not a political gathering I see before
me. Men of all parties are here — whigs and demo
crats, and maybe some Know Nothings. (Laughter.)
As for myself I am a democrat, (great applause,) but
I came here not as a -politician, nor as desiring to in
fluence your votes, but as a man sympathizing with
the poor in their affliction. (Applause.) I " am one
of those who think natives and foreigners should be
considered alike in this matter. No distinction should
be drawn. To my mind the moment a man places his
foot on these shores he becomes one of us, and is en
titled to the same consideration and privileges as any
native citizen. (Loud cheers.) There is a proposition
now before Congress, called the Homestead Bill, to
give to the people the land God gave to us all. This
measure should pass, and the soil should be hereafter
kept for the poor in our midst and for those who may
land upon our shores. Gentlemen, the course you
have adopted in seeking relief from the Common
Council is a proper one, and should be persevered in.
If they will not pass it to-day, come again to-morrow
and use all legal means to compel them to att§nd to

THE FOREIGNERS' REMEDY FOR HARD TIMES. 203
your just demands. Stick to them till they will pass
a law to afford you permanent relief. (Great applause.)
The reader will observe that this Mr. Blankman
bids for the foreign vote, by expressing the opinion
that all foreigners should be admitted to equal pri
vileges with ourselves as soon as they land ; and stimu
lates the mob before him to compel the Common
Council to attend to their demands. He was suc
ceeded by a Mr. Furlong, described by the reporter as a
veryyoung gentleman. His speech is unworthy of notice.
Some one it appears, had suggested a doubt of the
power of the Common Council of New York city,
under the charter to apply the public money to the
purpose of satisfying the clamors of a mob of foreign
ers. This difficulty is thus disposed of :
The Chairman said : As it has been urged by the
Mayor and Common Council that the city charter
does not give them power to afford any relief, it is sug
gested that a memorial be sent to Albany, requesting
the Legislature, to confer on our city government
sufficient power to help the poor efficiently.
This proposition was put, and declared carried, amid
great applause.
Dr. F. W Underhill was the next speaker. He

204 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
had on different occasions tried to influence the mem
bers of the Common Council on behalf of the unem
ployed workmen. There, is a remedy which will give
the poor the relief they require. Ask the Legislature
to appropiate half a million of dollars, to be expended
in public works, so as to give them employment. Let
the city government also be* asked to do its share of
the work. Mr. Underhill was sure that the people
had some friends in the Common, Council; Mr. Peter
M. Scheneck was one of them ; but he regretted to
say that when the chairman of the Finance Committee,
Mr. Wandell, was asked his opinion on the subject of
the workingmen's memorial, he stated that he did not
think that the Common Council would be justified in
taking any action at all on the subject, and was de
cidedly opposed to the Councilmen even considering it.
But the people will remember these gentlemen when
they come before them for endorsement at the polls.
They should not forget the poor — they receive not only
thirty-two dollars a month, but also the pickings and
stealings besides. (Laughter.) The rights of labor
should be more attended to, so that eventually all ex
changes, the land and machinery, might be in the
working classes, to whom they rightfully belong. It

THE FOREIGNERS REMEDY FOR HARD TIMES. 205
is nonsense to say the poor cannot be relieved by our
city government ; for if any defect exists in the char
ter, it can be amended by the State Legislature in
five days, if they wish it. Mr. Underhill gave notice
that a movement was now on foot, and would soon be
made public, having in view the organization of a new
party based on the rights of labor. Such a movement
could not fail to be popular, and would result in a
great good to the community. (Enthusiastic cheering.)
Here the chairman announced that the Common
Council were in session, and it would be well for the
meeting to adjourn, to allow the committee an oppor
tunity to wait on the two boards.
The regular meeting at this stage of the proceed
ings adjourned ; but a large crowd still remaining, Paul
and other itinerant speakers amused and edified them
until near seven o'clock in the evening-
Such is the report of the great meeting of the New
York foreigners, of January the 15th, 1855, to devise
a remedy for the existing hard times, brought upon
the country by British free trade. The concluding
remarks of the last speaker point to the formation of
a new party. to control the affairs of that city j a party
which, judging from the declarations and .demands put
18

206 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
forth on this occasion, might very justly be denomi
nated the agrarian or the plunder party. In the
speeches,- made on this occasion, the idea of receiving
relief from charity is repudiated, while a demand is
made for employment.
If the reader will consider what happened a few
days after this meeting, he will be able to appreciate
the sincerity of this sentiment so far as it respects the
foreigners. By the North American, of January 22,
we learn that at the last meeting of the New York
Board of Commissioners of Emigration the following
curious proceeding -took place :
" Mr. Fagan, superintendant of the Emigrant Com
mission in Canal street, appeared before the Board
and stated that he had sent a number of newly ar
rived emigrants to several merchants, among whom
were Mr. Grinnell and Mr. Minturn to supply the
the places of the 'longshore men now on a strike.
When they arrived at the wharves, where they were
to be employed, they were' asked to go to work and
they refused unless they were given a dollar and seventy
five cents a day, and preferred to go back to the
offices and subsist upon charity than to work for less
than the wages demanded by the strikers. Mr. Fagan

THE FOREIGNERS' REMEDY FOR HARD TIMES. 207
also stated that it was quite a common thing for the
emigrants, when offered work in the country to decline
going there, preferring to remain in the city.
"Commissioner Kennedy — If these men will not
work when it is given them, I move that they take
their night's lodging in the street, and that we refuse
to harbor them, any longer.
" Commissioner Purdy — I am opposed to any such
faction; it would be cruel to do so. No doubt the
'longshore men have been influencing them. Besides
I can hardly blame these poor fellows, they don't wish
to reduce the wages of these workmen."
The emigrants here alluded to are paupers, main
tained at the public expense, in an institution over
which the Board of Commissioners have jurisdiction.
They are able bodied men, and are only supported
till they can procure employment. It seems that they
would rather live idly than earn an honest living by
work, and hence reject the offer of the merchants of
one dollar and a half a day. Most people will be ready
to exclaim with Commissioner Kennedy, if these men
will not work when the chance is given them, let them
be turned into the street. But there are also many
squeamish Commissioner Purdys, who occupy public

208 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
offices, or hope to do so, and who, with an eye to popu
larity, say " it would be cruel" to " blame these men."
Here we have a counterpart for the picture just
given, of the grand meeting in the Park. At the
meeting the foreigners demand the public lands to
live on, and the public money to buy agricultural im
plements that they may gain an honest living by
labor; in the subsequent transaction, we find the
foreigners refusing to labor for one dollar and fifty
cents a day, in the city and declining to go in the
country at all ; and then to crown the whole, when one
" commissioner wishes to do them justice, by refusing to
support them in idleness, another bids for the foreign
vote, by placing them again on the charity list.
It is the old story — foreign impudence imposing
upon American forbearance ; and American politi
cians exhibiting the basest subserviency to Foreign
Influence. Surely it is, high time that we had a really
American party in this country to put an end to this
sort of thing once and forever — If foreigners must be
permitted to browbeat, insult, New York ; at any rate
Americans should rule America. Having thus learnt
what is the foreigners' remedy for the present hard
times, we will now propose someAmerican remedies.

CHAPTER XV.
THE AMERICAN REMEDY FOR HARD TIMES.
The American people have been accustomed to prac
tical republicanism ever since the" cavaliers settled Vir
ginia, and the Puritans, New England. Even when
acknowledging the sovereignty of the king of England,
they managed all their affairs upon purely democratic,
or upon republican principles. Their town meetings,
and their colonial legislatures became the nurseries of
statesmen, every man acquired a spirit of freedom and
personal independence, utterly unknown in countries
which groan under the sway of absolute monarchs.
When Americans really feel that they are oppressed,
or even badly governed, they have a time-honored cus-
18* (209)

2J.0 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
torn of taking the matter in hand and setting it right.
If one method is not feasible, they resort to another ;
and never leave the business until it is settled to their
satisfaction. Thus, when our ancestors wished to ex
press their dissatisfaction with the principle of taxation
without representation, they first petitioned and re
monstrated. This being disregarded by the govern
ment, they entered into associations binding themselves
not to use tea, the article taxed. When this produced
no effect, they threw the tea into Boston harbor, or
or sent it back to England, or put it out of the way in
some other fashion. This being resented, and force
employed to produce submission to the tax, war, revo
lution, and independence followed, by a straight for
ward and natural sequence :
"Who would be free — themselves must strike the blow."
The people — the people it is, that must rectify ex
isting evils and restore the good old times, when labor
received its just reward, and the country was not taxed
and drained of its money down to the starving point,
to pamper the pride and extravagance of foreign
speculators. The people have already begun to take the matter

THE AMERICAN REMEDY FOR HARD TIMES. 211
in hand in a political way. They are already forming
associations in every state of the Union, destined to
protect American labor, by insisting on sound legisla
tive enactments for that very purpose. But this takes
time ; and, besides, it is not all that is required in the
case. We must have not only political associations
for our protections. We must remember that while
the statesmen of the first continental congress were
preparing for revolution, the women of America were
conscientiously abstaining from their favorite beverage.
" No taxed tea !" was their cry from Georgia to Maine.
In the year 1840, when every kind of labor in this
country was depressed to the starving point, in conse
quence of the free trade measures by which duties on
foreign imports had been reduced to very low rates, a
similar spirit was abroad in the country, and a rising
up of the people took place, which has seldom been
paralleled. "The free trade administration was dis
placed, and General Harrison was elected, pledged to
give us better times. Although he did not live to fulfil
his pledge, a tariff was enacted in 1842, which did give
us better times. Its effects was so palpable that all
parties acknowledged it. Even in Pennsylvania, the
election had to be carried under the party banner of

212 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
"Polk, Dallas, and the Tariff of 1842," and if ever
a public man went into office pledged by the wishes of
his constituents and his own sanction of them, to sup
port a measure, Mr. Dallas was pledged to support
that tariff against which he gave his casting vote in
1846. How his own state regarded his conduct was
fully evinced by their deserting the administration at
the next state election, and at the next presidential
election. The American people are always prompt in reme
dying national evils, whenever they are fully roused
and wide awake to perceive the actual existence of
those evils. They are fully aware at this moment
that something is wrong, because labor — American
LABOR IS NOT REWARDED AS IT SHOULD BE. They are
inquiring what it is that is wrong. Foreigners and
their hireling presses are endeavoring, as usual, to put
them on the wrong scent, to mystify, and humbug them
with false issues so as to continue to fasten upon them
the galling bondage resulting from the preference of
foreign to American labor. As we have already seen
in the preceding chapter, the foreigners in New York
would persuade us that all is wrong, because they are
not entrusted or rather presented with the public lands

THE AMERICAN REMEDY FOR HARD TIMES. 213
and the public money in the treasury. The hireling
presses tell us that all our distresses arise from extra
vagance and overtrading, which is not the real or chief
cause of the trouble.
We say that the wrong lies in a tariff which was con
structed under British influence and enacted through
the foulest and most corrupt intrigues for the very pur
pose of destroying American manufactures, reducing
the price of American cotton and other agricultural
products, and thus making the United States wholly
and completely tributary to British and other foreign
interests. We point to the present condition of the
country in proof of our assertion. We ask what has
become of the gold which has been passing out of our
country during the whole of the year 1854? Has it
not gone to Europe to pay for manufactures of cloth
and iron, which under the tariff of 1842 would have
been produced here ? If we manufactured the goods
which ought to be manufactured here, would not these
millions upon millions of specie which we have been
exporting last year, have been still in the country,
forming the basis of our circulating currency, stimu
lating and rewarding industry, gladdening the heart
of the laborer, and breathing the breath of life into

214 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
our whole system of business, which now seems at the
point of death.
Let any man look around and see with his own eyes
what presents itself in every city, town, and village.
Broadcloth coats on the backs of all who wear coats,
made of the produce of the looms of Europe, while the
newspapers tell us-that the last broadcloth faetory in
America has just expired, because the tariff of 1846,
through the contrivance of British agents and the
influence of British gold, puts a v,ery high duty on the
import of wool to keep foreign wool out of the country,
and a very low duty on cloth to enable the British to
kill up and crush out our factories.
Say, Americans ! Is this bearable ? Shall we
tamely look on and see American labor thus defrauded,
cheated of its rights by foreign intrigue and corrup
tion. Shall Europe for ever have the monopoly of
furnishing every yard of broadcloth worn in the United
States ? Now that our last broadcloth factory is
ruined and shut up, shall we never have another to the
end of time ? These questions are for the American
people to answer — and to answer not by words but by
actions. This thing is wrongs We call upon the
American people to set it right. .

THE AMERICAN REMEDY FOR HARD TIMES. 215
Again — Let any man walk the streets in town or
country and look about him. Will he not see silks
and brocades, from the looms of Lyons, worn by women
of all classes, even by servants and negro wenches.
Will he not see fine lawns, calicoes, muslins, jewelry,
and gew-gaws of every descriptions, all imported from
Europe, and worn by our women of all classes ? Is this
right ? In the name of George Washington and all
true American patriots, cannot the workmen of this
country produce every imaginable article of dress or
decoration which it becomes a true-hearted American
woman to wear?
Our country abounds in iron ore. It is to be found
in almost every state of the Union ; and whenever
labor receives encouragement from our government,
it is successfully and extensively wrought. But under -
the tariff of 1846, this branch of industry has been so
effectually discouraged, that of the thousands of miles
of railroads in our country, nearly -all are laid with
rails made in England. These are paid for in bonds
bearing interest, sold in England. The returns for
the bonds are made to this country not in money, but
in British manufactured goods. Thus in every railroad
that we make, we contrive twice to defraud American

216 THB ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
labor of its rights. First, by buying rails which Ame
ricans ought to make of their own iron, and, secondly,
by receiving, instead of hard cash, bales of English
b/oadcloth and calicoes, which we might just as well
produce in this country, if the people could only be
come sensible of their true interest.
The amount of these railroad bonds now held in En
gland is already so considerable that the annual inte
rest on them requires an export of California gold,
which is counted by tens of millions. In fact, the
whole tendency of our present system is to reward En
glish labor and defraud the American laborer of his
rights — to enrich England, and impoverish and enslave
America — enslave is the word, for debt is only another
term for slavery.
We have already remarked, that, when the American
people can fully be made to understand that an exist
ing system is wrong, they at once go to work and set
it right. Do any of our readers inquire how this is to
be done We answer, it must ultimately be done by
enacting a tariff to protect American labor*. But, as
we have already remarked, this requires time. We
can hardly hope for it under the present administra
tion" of the government. In the mean time, however,

THE AMERICAN REMEDY FOR HARD TIMES. 217
much may be done by the people taking the thing in
hand themselves, as they did in the old colony times,
and opposing to this avalanche of foreign productions
a stern determination to .dispense with them as far as
possible. Where there is a will there is a way ; and
while waiting for just and proper self-protective enact
ments, we may do much by an organized resistance to
our foreign oppressors. In this connection our readers
will- permit us to quote some very apposite remarks of
a cotemporary, the editor of the Philadelphia " Sun."
He says,
*' Our present desire is to advert to the means of
Protecting American Industry and elevating American
Labor, without the intervention of Congressional
action. We have too long been dependent upon the
workshops and manufactories of Europe, and slaves to
the fashions of London and Paris. Nearly a quarter
of a century has passed since that stern old patriot,
Andrew Jackson, said it was time for us to become
more Americanized, and yet his advice has been to
tally disregarded. We talk of protection to Ameri
can industry ; we find our wagon in the mire of foreign
importations, and instead of putting our own shoulders
to the wheels for the purpose of extrication, we call
19

218 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
upon Hercules or Congress for relief ! Congress may
impose cent, per cent, ad valorem duties, but still the
follies and frivolities of dress, the aping of the gaudy
saloons of St. James or Versailles, and the spread of
anti-republican luxuriousness, induce us to depend on
the shuttles of Great Britain for our cloths, and the
looms of France for our silks. With every great staple
for asserting national independence, indigenous to our
soil, we are still- the ' white slaves' of trans-Atlantic
capital, and it has now in the course of human events,
become as necessary to dissolve the ' business bonds
which have connected us with Europe, as it was ne
cessary in 1776 to sunder our political allegiance to
Great Britain, and assume among the powers of the
earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws
of nature and nature's God entitle these United
States. " The Jacksonian ecphosis should become the creed
of every patriot, and we should one and all determine
to become more Americanized. How can this be done !
We have scores of able writers and zealous advocates
of American Protection, who have theorized and sub
limated the whole question, but have never shown us
how it could practically be applied. Pamphleteers and

THE AMERICAN REMEDY FOR HARD TIMES. 219
editors have appealed to Congress ; political elections
have been lost and won on the Tariff question ; parties
have entirely changed fronts upon it — and yet nothing
has been proposed as efficient to the permanent pro
tection of our Industry, and the elevation of our
Labor. Where is the politico-economist of leisure and
grasping intellect to proclaim the terms of our second
Declaration of Independence, and win a renown as im
mortal as enwreathes the name of Thomas Jefferson ?
We see in the distant future, the gleaming of a brighter
destiny, but who will point the way to attain it ?
" Since the above was written, we find in the New
York Mirror, a paper ever earnest ' to strike the chord
of Americanism in regard to our individual and na
tional duty, as a people to cast off foreign fashions
and cloths — to return from the universal patronage of
the capital and labor of Europe, and henceforth pro
tect our own labor, be independent and stand by our
selves ;' — a paper which justly prides itself, though
' others may have thought of urging the same thing, ••4
and the idea may have been partially developed iii
tariffs and political protective essays,' that it 'took
the initiative in presenting and urging it on the broad
and only true grounds, — first, as a matter of duty

220 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED,
and necessity, if we wish to see American Industry per
manently prosperous and independent — and second,
as a matter of patriotic pride, of which every Ameri
can should have enough to be for ever dependent on
foreign products, when he or his countrymen can pro
duce as good, or better at home ;'— we find the follow^
ing cheering words and practical hints, which we com
mend to the earnest attention of men of business.
The Mirror says :
"This American idea smacking of no party or
policy, save the people and the public good, has taken
right hold of the public mind, and is already flowered
and bearing fruit. It has struck its roots deep m
public sentiment; and is being discussed and accepted
practically throughout the country. Governors of States
have endorsed it, and what is better, have donned suits
of American clothes ; associations and leagues are
forming to strengthen and push on therevolution ; the
press discovers in it the solution of the great problems,
' How shall we keep American labor bravely employed,
and how prevent commercial crises and money panics ?'
It was a live American idea, and we only had to ' trot
it out' and show it up to make it every body's favo
rite — the workingman's, the manufacturer's, and the

THE AMERICAN REMEDY FOR HARD TIMES. 221
merchant's. Accepted and popular, the practice
of it only requires to' become fashionable, to make it
universal and render its triumph complete.
" New England is astir with the ' clothe themselves,
idea,' and well she may b,e. Let us have this American
patronage of Europe's looms, and forges, and artisan
shops cut off, and our own resources developed by our
own skill and industry, and the factories of New En
gland will clap their busy hands and make glad music
through the length and breadth of the land. There
will be no forced idlers then. The ranks of the great
' operative' army (craftsmen of all sorts) will broaden
and deepen,. making broader the market for the earth
tiller. -, -Measureless resources that now lie dormant,
will awaken at the summons of revived industry, and
a nation, nobly independent at length, will wonder at
the blind folly which led it so long a captive to grace
the tciunlpjfs- 'of . foreign labor. Combined with the
politicar-.jwr-ificafion that is^going forward, the reali
zation of this new American industrial idea is the most
hopeful event of the day. In truth, the new industrial,
owes much to the new political idea. The dawn of a
healtheir and sturdier nationality shines through both.
The American is awakening to a true perception of
19*

222 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
his duty and destiny, and he will not rest until every
domestic stumbling block is removed and every foreign
shackle cast off.
" But to come to the point we had in mind when we
commenced this article — ' who will lead ?' not in New
England, nor up North, nor out West, nor down South —
but here — right here in this great city ! The cauldron
of industrial revolution begins to bubble — as ' old fo
reign garments drop off American suits are to be put
on — American products, in preference to foreign, are
to be used, and the hour for this change — wide and
radical — is close at hand. Americanism is to be the
fashion and the rage, as well as the quiet resolve.
Who will take time by the forelock, and lead the
Americanizing host? What clothesmaker, hatter,
shoemaker and men of all manufacturing crafts will
first hoist the banner and run out the sign — ' Protec
tion to American Industry — American fabrics made
and sold here.' Who is shrewd enough to thrust out
the first sickle for the coming harvest ? What misses
or mesdames will lead in dressing our women as re
publican American women should be dressed ? Who
will lead— who?"
Such is the recommendation of American writers,

THE AMERICAN REMEDY FOR HARD TIMES.
who are uncorrupted by the bribery of England. Such
are the views of those patriots who am desirous that
Americans should rule America ; and that our own
workingmen should no longer walk the streets un
employed, while the looms and forges" of Europe are
in full Activity, and a continuous stream of California
gold is flowing out of our own country to pay foreign
laborers and artisans and fill the coffers of foreign
capitalists.

CHAPTER XVI.
HOW AMERICAN WOMEN MAY ASSIST IN APPLYING
THE REMEDY.
The women of America are better treated than those
of any other country in the world. This fact is so
universally admitted that we do not deem it necessary
to bestow any time in arguing the point. Our women
receive the greatest degree of courtesy and kindness.
Their wishes are consulted on all occasions, and their
convenience is studied in all our social arrangements.
Hence it is that they exert an immense influence
on the whole course of American life, and when any
great object in the economy of life is to be attained
their good will and their aid becomes indispensable.
(224)

AMERICAN WOMEN MAY ASSIST IN THE REMEDY. 225
It is especially so in the great object of relieving the
present pressure of hard times.
In New England— in Boston, the cradle of the re
volution, they have already been appealed to, and that
successfully. There the work is already begun. We
desire to see it spread throughout the land. We there
fore copy from the Boston Transcript, one of the ap
peals which was made to the women there. In doing
so, however, we must first enter our protest against one
portion of the premises upon which the conclusions of
the writer were founded. He assumes that the Ame
rican people have been universally extravagant. This
we deny. The great mass Of the people have not been
extravagant beyond their means. Such a charge implies
dishonesty; and the American people are honest and
honorable. The excessive imports do not result from
the demands of the mass of the people for foreign luxu
ries, but from -the iniquitous contrivances of British free
trade. These luxuries are thrust upon us by foreigners ;
and those who have money buy and use them. But
the consumers are not generally the working classes
of the country. Still the effect is precisely the same.
If the wealthy buy so largely of foreign luxuries that
a large balance of trade is created against the country,

226 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
so as to drain off the specie, the consequent distress to
the working class is inevitable, and the poor and the
industrious classes are punished for the follies of the
rich. So far as iron, broadcloth, and cotton are concerned,
however, all classes sin and suffer alike. They sin in
not manufacturing them in our own country or rather
in not compelling the government to make such pro
tective laws as will enable the people to manufacture
them for themselves ; and they suffer by the hard
times which always follow a period of British free
trade. But we proceed to quote the Boston article. It is
entitled " Hard Times."
" Every body talks and thinks about the ' hard
times ;' and almost every body feels them, and knows
by bitter experience, what they mean. But very few
stop to consider, as carefully as they should, what is
the cause of all the suffering and anxiety they share
or witness, or what remedy there may be for either.
Some attribute our troubles to the banks, and demand
more discounts — as if the banks were not always eager
to do just as much business as they can do lawfully
and safely. Some attribute them to the great frauds

AMERICAN WOMEN MAY ASSIST IN THE REMEDY. 227
of agents, who haVe mismanaged the affairs of great
corporations, and so created a wide distrust — as if a
few unprincipled men could, by mere peculations, blight
a whole land worth a million times more than they have
cheated it out of. And others give other reasons for
them. Each of these reasons has some weight ; but
no one of them is of much significance, nor could all
put together produce such effects as we witness, or ac
count for them. It is the people — the mass of the
people — that make the trouble. No less power can
bring about such results. 'The universal extravagance
- has caused the universal depression and anxiety, that
is now felt.
" If an individual spends more than his income, every
body knows" that he must retrench or be ruined. If
the whole nation runs into similar extravagance — a
nation being only a jnass of. individuals — the whole
nation must retreneh or be ruined. In the United
States, for several years back, we have been spending
extravagantly, and the consequence is, that there is
now a general embarrassment and trouble ; and we
begin to hear a cry- to know the cause' and find the
remedy. The cause is as plain as- the way to church ;
the . remedy is equally plain, but by no means agree-

228 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
able. We have bought more than we can pay for
with our present incomes. We must, therefore, re
trench, or go on suffering more and more.
" That this is the true state of the case may be made
clear by two examples, taken from the opposite ex
tremes of our folly. The Secretary of the Treasury
tells us that in our last fiscal year we imported thirty-
three millions worth of silk goods. Silks we produce
at home only in small quantities, and it is the merest
luxury. We should be as warm and as well off, physi
cally, in all respects, without spending a dollar on it.
Now if we want to know what is done with it, look at
the dresses of our women whose husbands and fathers
cannot afford to pay for them, or at the drapery of
their parlors, which are becoming mere monuments of
vanity and bad taste by their heavy and inelegant ex
travagance. Or what, perhaps, is yet more obvious,
look at our large hotels, and the people who frequent
them. One of them, in New York, whose Ladies' Or
dinary was lately a sight like a show at a play house,
and had damask curtains in its drawing-rooms that
cost fifteen thousand dollars. At the last accounts
they were in the sheriff's hands. Private parlors of
the same fashion are coming fast to the same end.

AMERICAN WOMEN MAY ASSIST IN THE REMEDY. 229
" But let us go to the other extreme of our folly.
We are compelled to import silks if we must have them ;
but if there is any thing of . which we have enough,
and to spare, it is stones — marble and granite and the
sand stone, and all kinds of stones. New England and
the Middle States are full of them. But quantities
are now imported from France ! Churches and houses,
in no small numbers, are built of them in New York
and Brooklyn, and elsewhere. One person in New
York, we understand now offers a hundred tons of them
for sale. Next, we ought to hear of importing dirt to
cover up our own rocks, lest the sight of them should
reproach us with our senseless extravagrance. Sancho,
in Don Quixote, characterizes a man's folly by saying,
he wants better bread than can be made out of wheat.
Do we want better churches and houses than can be
built out of Quincy and Rockport granite, or Berk
shire and Vermont marble, or Connecticut sandstone ?
The very suggestion is ridiculous.
" But there is no need of such separate illustrations.
Our importations for the last two years show our ex
travagrance and folly, in the gross, just as plainly as
our French silks and French building stones show
them in detail. Take, for example, the years 1844
20

230 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
and 1845, and compare them with the years 1853, and
1854, and see what the Secretary of the Treasury
says about them ; we mean, what he says about mer
chandise and goods of every sort imported and con
sumed in the United States in those years, taking the
amount as estimated at the place whence they were
shipped. His table runs as follows :

TEAR.

VALUE.

POPULATION.

EACH PERSON.

In 1844,

$96,95,000.

19,741,000

$5,03

In 1845,

101,907,000

19,984,000

5,15

In 1853,

250,420,000

25,000,400

10,00

In 1854,

279,712,000

25,500,000

10,00

That is, in ten years, we have almost exactly double
the average, proportion of our importations for each
individual in the country. We have paid in the places
where the goods were shipped, ten dollars for every
man, woman and child in the. United States — includ
ing the slaves — and to these ten dollars we must add
charges and duties, and profits, that will bring the
whole up to an average of sixteen or eighteen dollars
of merchandize imported for each soul on our soil,
each of the last two years. Such a monstrous fact
needs only to be stated. It needs no Poor Richard

AMERICAN WOMEN MAY ASSIST IN THE REMEDY. 231
to cypher out its meaning and its consequences. If,
therefore, we intend to get out of our troubles, it is
plain that we must import less. But, to stop this ruin
ous importation, the people mu3t buy less of it. It is
their affair entirely. They can mend the times or make
them harder, just as they choose ; and no otber means
or power, on earth can do either.
" Now, ladies ! would you help your country out of its
trouble? Then resolve each one, and form leagues
with others of your sex, to purchase no article of dress,
ornament, or furniture, which is not made by your
own countrymen or countrywomen ! And let the
fathers, husbands, brothers, and beaux of America
come to the «ame laudable determination ! Then shall
we once* more see prosperity in our land, and financial
peace thougbout our borders ! Take a copy of the
following pledge upon a sheet of paper, and hand it
round for signatures :
PLEDGE IN BEHALF OF DOMESTIC INDUSTRY.
" In view of the ' Hard Times' arising from exces
sive importation, we hereby mutually promise not to
purchase any article of foreign manufacture which can
readily be obtained of home make, for the space of at

232 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
least one year, renewable at our pleasure. We will
emulate the noble example of our mothers, during the
Revolution — who refused to drink the foreign tea, or
wear the foreign silk forced upon our country by Bri
tish oppressors.
Signed by Martha Washington, Mrs. John Hancock
and others."
Such is the Boston appeal to American women. We
hope and trust that it will be responded to thorugh the
whole length and breadth of the land.

¦ CHAPTER XVII.
WHAT WOULD BE THE EFFECT OF THE AMERICAN
REMEDY.
We wish our readers to keep all the time distinctly
in view what is the precise length and breadth of the
remedy for hard times which we propose. It is the
ridding ourselves of foreign influence wholly and en
tirely, and establishing a complete financial as well as
political and social American Independence. We must
put away the unclean thing entirely from our midst.
Foreign goods must be dispensed with gradually at first ;
but, as near as may be, totally at last. . Foreign no
tions of government and social life must be repudiated.
Foreign interference in every shape must be rebuked
20* (233)

234 THE ENEMIES.OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
and excluded ; and Americans must rule America in
politics, finance, and society.
Whenever these objects can be, accomplished, this'
nation will become not only the freest, but the richest,
most prosperous and 'happy nation in the world. Hard
times will have become a matter of past history, a won
der and astonishment to our children, that shall here
after take our places in the .great theatre of action.
All the branches of industry will be amply rewarded.
The farmer, the manufacturer, and the trader, instead
of imagining that their interests are opposed to each
other, and that the protective laws- which favor one
class of American workmen injure another, will then
learn, by happy experience, that their true interests
are all identical. They will see and feel that all their
past sufferings have resulted from foreign influence
and the subserviency of their law-givers to foreign in
terests. They will know that the law which protects
the American mine and the American loom, protects
also the American plough. They will know that the
internal exchanges and internal commerce of the coun
try are of infinitely more value than the foreign com
merce. They will learn that the first and paramount
consideration of every American is the protection of

THE EFFECT OF THE AMERICAN REMEDY. 235
our homes; and the securing to every American work
man the peaceful enjoyment of his own fire side, safe
from the dread of those frightful hard times which are
the result of British free trade.
War is a dreadful evil ; but the last war with Great
Britain was a blessing to this country, by means of the
impulse; which it gave to our internal commerce and
home manufactures. Its effects on these important
interests were immediate and lasting, We have often
thought and said, that a new war with England would
be preferable to the present state of things ; and we
have just been reminded of this opinion by an article
in the New York Tribune, which we proceed to quote,
as follows :
" The Berald is an advocate of free trade, but once
and a while, unlike. its compeers of The Fvening Post
and Journal of Commerce, it tells the truth on the
other side. Thus, for instance, speculating on the
effect of a war between England and this country, the
Berald has the following :
" ' Of course, at first, the agricultural interests would
suffer from the want of a market for their cotton, corn,
and tobacco. But they have before been worse off in
this respect than they ever could be now with a popu-

236 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
lation of twenty-six millions ; and the depression has
never lasted over a year or two. Raw produce would
fall in price, and so would land ; but, at the same time,
manufactured articles would be enhanced, and mills
and factories would rise in every quarter of the coun
try. After a few months' inconvenience, the labor
which would be thrown out of employment by the fall
of agricultural produce would flock to the mills ; and
would soon find there all that any man has a right to
claim in this world — an opportunity of selling his labor
at a remunerative price. The crisis in England would,
of course, produce a corresponding crisis among the
foreign merchants here ; but this too would only be a
nine days' wonder. In the end — if the war or non-
intercourse lasted ten or fifteen years — this country
would then be in a position to command the world.'
" This is the simple truth, and we commend it to.
the reflection of all who are anxious to know how to
secure to every man in 'the United states ' an oppor
tunity of selling his labor at a remunerative price.'
There cannot be a question that, sufficient restrictions
on commercial intercourse with France, and England,
and Germany, would not only render this country
prosperous and powerful, but would for ever emanci-

THE EFFECT OF THE AMERICAN REMEDY. 237
pate it from all dependence on foreign countries for
manufactured articles, whether cotton, linen, woollen,
silk, or iron. But why need we wait for the awful
emergency of a war, with all its bloodshed and indivi
dual miseries, to assure to every laborer 'an opportu- '
nity of selling his labor at a remunerative price ?' A
brief legislative act will do it — a simple arrangement
of the tariff, which may be accomplished even without
enhancing the present aggregate duties. There is
not the slightest occasion to disturb our peaceful re
lations with one of the powers of the v world, in
order to achieve an end of such inestimable value to
our people, and to the cause of universal freedom. Nor
do we need to enact such a tariff for a period so long
as that above -suggested. Eight years of judicious
protection will suffice to put our industry in a- position
to defy the hostility of the world. If, by a peaceful
and inoffensive law, we can do this, why not attempt
it ? There is only one reason. This is, that the
country is governed by southern slave-holders — with
whom a few northern free-trade theorists, and unprin
cipled journals hke the Berald and the Journal, com
bine to maintain the free states, and,indeed, the coun
try at large, in a state of subserviency to European

238 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
manufacturers ; though this end is gained by depriv
ing myriads of American laborers of the opportunity
of selling their labor at a remunerative price."
So says the Tribune. This paper will always have
its fling at the slave-holders, But as the slave-holders
are Americans and brothers, we think it would be well
to leave off railing at them and call in their aid in the
good cause. If they could by reasoning be made to
understand that the benefits of protection to other
sections of the country would redound to their interest,
as it certainly would, they would cheerfully lend us
their assistance.
If the manufacture of cotton goods in this country
were so effectually protected as to be increased a hun
dred, fold, certainly the price of the raw material
would be much higher than it is now. The demand for
cotton in England will continue, for they must con
tinue to manufacture it for other markets, even if ours
is wholly closed to them ; and the building up of a
grand system of cotton manufactures, through our
whole country, north, south, east and west would give
such an impulse to the culture of cotton as it never
had before.
While we are defending American interests, we would

THE EFFECT OF THE AMERICAN REMEDY. 239
be understood to defend them all, southern as well as
northern. It is these sectional broils which serve the
interests of British free trade. The British maxim in
their proceedings all over the world is, and always has
been, "Divide and conquer." This gave them their
empire in India. The first conquests of Clive were
founded upon this maxim. So were the successes of
Hastings, and the more recent British commanders in
that country. This is also their maxim in their inter
course with us. They set the north against the south
by sending Thompson and other abolition missionaries
to the northern states ; and by praising and flatter
ing Mrs. Stowe ; and they set the- south against the
north, by making the southerners believe that the
northern manufacturers are their enemies ; and the
result of the whole operation is a new conquest for
England, a financial conquest accomplished by Bri
tish free trade laws, and resulting in sending all our
California gold to London, and bringing upon the
United States the crushing pressure of hard times.
Let us leave off sectional bickerings and quarrels, and
look to American interests. Let us resolve to seek the
welfare of the country, the whole country and nothing
but the country.

CHAPTER XVIII.
FOREIGN INFLUENCE IN EDUCATION AND RELIGION.
The influence exerted by the Roman Catholic
Church in this country, in education and religion is
not merely passive. It is meddling and aggressive.
We have in the United States a noble system of free
schools, supported by taxation on the people. This
system, commenced in the infancy of the colonies, by
the Pilgrim Fathers, of New England, has gradually
diffused itself to ah parts of the country, shedding the
blessings of freedom and intelligence, wherever it
prevails. It has " grown with our growth and strength
ened with our strength," until it has come to be recog
nized as the very palladium of American liberty.
(240)

FOREIGN INFLUENCE IN EDUCATION. 241
This noble system, the Roman Catholic priests have
been for many years endeavoring by every species of
intrigue to overturn and destroy. Not content with
demanding as their right that the Bible should be ex
cluded from the common schools, thus depriving all the
children frequenting them of the best and holiest means
of moral instruction, they have ventured upon the fur
ther demand that a portion of the money raised by
taxation, for the benefit of all, should be set aside to
be applied exclusively to the support of Roman Ca
tholic schools — a thing hitherto unheard of in the
history of the republic.
The object of this proceeding is altogether worthy
of the- Jesuit brain that conceived it., It is nothing
less than the complete overthrow of the whole system
of common schools. For it is perfectly clear that if
our legislators should grant this privilege to one sect,
other sects would "forthwith claim it ; and thus the
common schools, those in which all. sects participate in
equal means of instruction at the public expense would
cease to exist. A more disorganizing and dangerous
project could not be conceived. It has long been pur
sued with that unflinching perseverance by which the
Jesuits have always been distinguished, and it will never
21

242 the enemies of America unmasked.
cease to be pursued, until their influence is utterly
annihilated. This scheme of the Jesuits is aggressive. It is ut
terly hostile to enlightened freedom and to the best
interests of the country ; and this they know perfectly
well. But it favors their other schemes for building
up a Jesuit power on the ruins of freedom, since the
ignorance and superstition of the masses form the best
possible foundation on which to build their superstruc
ture of imposture and religious and political despotism.
If the system of common school education could be
broken up and destroyed, then the Jesuits would have
free play. Their influence would increase a thousand
fold. Ignorance and superstition would cover the land
as extensively as light and intelligence overspread it
now. No legend would be too ridiculous, no miracle
too monstrous, for the people to believe ; and political
power, as in many other countries where Catholicism
prevails, would speedily pass into the hands of Roman
Catholic priests and Jesuit confessors.
Some may suppose that the Roman Catholic church
of the present day is more liberal and more favorable
to education, science, and freedom, than it was in for
mer times. But this is not so. The Roman Church

foreign influence in education. 243
boasts that it is unchangeable. If you look into its
publications, intended for diffusion among the people,
you will find that they make demands on popular cre
dulity quite as monstrous as those of the dark ages ;
and implicit belief is inculcated as a religious duty,
whilst the least shadow of unbelief is threatened with
eternal damnation to the unbeliever.
In order to show our readers that the Roman Ca
tholic Church of the present day is as capable of the
grossest imposture on the people, as it was in the
darkest period of the middle ages, we will quote from
a recent publication, a well authenticated' and publicly
known instance of a very recent date. It is entitled,
A MIRACLE OF MODERN TIMES.
"Mr. Spencer, a gentleman favorably known to the
English public by his ' Travels in Circassia,' has given
in his late work, ' A Tour of Inquiry through France
and Italy,' the following curious account of one of
those pretended miracles by which Romish priestcraft
still endeavours to deceive the credulous multitude and
maintain its domination over the souls of men. We
quote it chiefly on account of the remarkable ingenuity
which it exhibits, and the success with which the cheat

244 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
was attended among the acute and inquiring people
of France in our own day.
" The miracle-worker was Rose Tainisier, a peasant
girl, gratuitously educated in a convent of nuns at Sa
lon Bouches-du-Rhone, where eventually she became
an inmate, and made herself remarkable by the fre
quent visits she asserted she was in the habit of re
ceiving from certain saints and angels — above all, from
the Virgin Mary. At length, waxing bolder, she de
clared herself endowed with a Divine commission to
restore what her people denominated religion in France,
and for that purpose left the convent, proceeding first
to her native village, Saignon, where she and all the
priests of the province' asserted her first miracle was
wrought, by causing, says the Abbe Andre, Rose's
biographer, the growth of a cabbage, sufficiently large
to feed the hungry villagers for several weeks, during
a season of such universal drought that all other vege
tation withered away. It was also asserted that Rose
refused every species of nourishment but consecrated
wafers, which angels were in the habit of purloining
from the sacred pyx of the church, wherewith to feed
this favorite of heaven. The saint, however, did not
remain long in her birth-place. The same angelic as-

FOREIGN INFLUENCE IN RELIGION. 245
sistants, by her own account, transported Rose to the
larger and more populous village of St. Saturnin.
Here her fame, which had hitherto been known only
to the simple vine-dressers and the mountain shepherds,
spread far and wide. The Abbe declares, that ' by
the intensity of her devotion she caused the represen
tation of a cross, a heart, a chalice, a spear, and some
times the image of the Virgin and Child, to appear on
various parts of her body, at first in faint lines, and
afterwards so developed at to exude blood ! thereby
exciting the amazement and pious admiration of every
beholder.' But she now worked in the' little church
St. Saturnin, the crowning miracle, by causing a picture
of Christ descending from the cross to emit real blood,
and that in the presence of the parish priest and a
numerous congregation assembled to witness the event.
This took place for the first time, on the 10th of No
vember, 1850. The scientific men of France, who
sent several deputations to ascertain the existence of
these singular appearances on the body of the St. of
Saturnin, came to the conclusion that intense devotion,
where the mind is absorbed in one subject, might from
known causes without intervention of any superna
tural agency, produce similar appearances, which they
21*

246 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
termed stygmates sanglant ! but when the statements
reached them of blood oozing through the wounds
painted on a picture, and at the command of a mere
mortal, they confessed that science could not afford a
satisfactory explanation of the phenonenon.
" The affair now assumed sufficient importance to
attract the attention of the government, when M.
Grave, the under prefect of the department, M. Guie-
lihut, judge d'instruction, M. Jacques, substitut du
procureur de la republique, and other civil and military
officers were dispatched to investigate the correctness
of the representations. Even Monsignor, the Arch
bishop of Avignon, was summoned with the higher
clergy of his diocese, to behold and verify the miracle.
On the day appointed by the saint for her perform
ance, these great civil and ecclesiastical dignitaries ar
rayed in the costume and insignia of office, attended
her invitation, together with thousands of the curious
and devout from every part of the province; and to
prove that no design was entertained of imposing on
the credulity of mankind, the painting, at the com
mand of his grace the archbishop, was removed from
its place over the high altar, when lo ! to the astonish
ment of the awe-struck multitude, the back, which

FOREIGN INFLUENCE IN RELIGION. 247
might have contained some machinery for carrying on
the imposture, disclosed a numerous colony of spiders.
Still the blood continued to flow, as fast as vhis grace
and the prefect wiped it away with thin cambric hand
kerchiefs from the hands, feet, and side of the figure —
and what a value did these handkerchiefs acquire !
They were immediately cut into shreds, and trans
mitted into every^part of France. The public autho
rities and the clergy were satisfied, the spectators were
satisfied, and the archbishop preached an eloquent ser
mon suitable to so great an occasion ; and, in order
that every thing should be done in due form, the pre
fect and all the high dignitaries affixed their names
and seals of high office to a public document, attesting
the truth of this most mysterious phenomenon, which
was forthwith dispatched to Paris, and by means of the
public press circulated . throughout every country in
Christendom. " Rose Tamisier was now at the very height of her
fame. A pilgrimage to St. Saturnin became the fa
shion of the day. While the sale of tin medals bear
ing her effigy increased a thousandfold, she derived
yet more substantial benefit from the jewelled crosses,
and images of the Virgin set in diamonds, presented

248 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
to her by her numerous friends. The scientific men of
France were puzzled ; chemical analysis proved that
undoubtedly blood it was which flowed from the pic
ture, yet neither eye nor microscope could detect the
smallest puncture in the canvass.
" Nevertheless, a chemist of Apt, M. Eugene Colig-
non, at length unmasked the impostor. With much
labor and research, he discovered that human blood,
disgorged by a leech, loses its fibrine, and might be
made to penetrate the surface of a painting, and then
issue forth in small globules, according to the quantity
employed ; and as such blood does not coagulate for
many hours, it would continue to flow from the pic
ture, however frequently wiped off, while a single drop
remained. " In short, the miracle was imitated successfully by
this gentleman, in presence of the public authorities
and the most eminent scientific men of the country,
and not a doubt remained on their minds that Rose
Tamisier was an impostor, particularly when it was
proved that she invariably insisted on being allowed
to pass some time in solitary prayer in the chapel pre
vious to performing the miracle. The cheat having
once become generally known, such a storm of public

FOREIGN INFLUENCE IN RELIGION. 249
indignation was raised as compelled the authorities to
have the impostor arrested, and tried as such at Car-
pentras, the chief town of the district ; but the jury,
influenced, as it was believed, through the confessional,
declared themselves incompetent to pronounce a ver
dict. The affair was, however, transferred to the as
sizes, at Nismes, where, about the middle of Novem
ber, 1851, after a long and patient investigation, aided
by the laborious efforts of counsel on both sides, the
saint was pronounced guilty of a fraudulent attempt
to injure public morals and religion, and condemned
to six months' imprisonment, with a fine of five hundred
francs, and costs.
" Since that time, nothing has been heard of
Rose Tamisier from priest or bishop; but her life,
written by the Abbe Andre, and containing no men
tion of Colignon's discovery, continues to be circulated
among the peasantry, with whom she is still the saint
of the marvellous cabbage and the bleeding picture.
The Church of Rome may well boast of her own un-
changeability, if she, in the midst of the nineteenth
century, as in the midst of the ninth, continues the pa
troness of falsehood and deception; and as long as
there exists among the depraved powers of fallen hu-

250 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
man nature that unaccountable capability for deceit,
and thirst for importance, which are so often met with
in the most shallow and uncultivated minds, so long
will instruments hke Rose Tamisier be found for Rome's
service. Surely, if Protestants had nothing else for
which to bless the Reformation, the least earnest among
them must feel thankful that, in the most remote of
their parish churches, no such impious fraud or subtle
mockery as that which we have detailed could be
practised." So much for the Miracle of Modern Times. The
story is very instructive. It suggests a number of
profitable reflections. The upper classes of society in
France, must be admitted to rank among the most
enlightened people in the world. And yet they were
completely carried away by this ridiculous imposture.
May we not suppose that much, of the same sort of
imposture is carried on by the Roman Catholic priests
in secret now, and more of it may be expected and in
a more public way hereafter ? If the priests can
break up the public school system, will not their whole
system of superstition have a clear field for success.
If Mormonism, a new delusion, could gain thousands
of converts, may not the Roman Catholic religion with

FOREIGN INFLUENCE IN RELIGION. 251
its ancient traditions and its immense foreign influence,
hope eventually to carry all before it ?
This story of the miracle in France certainly favors
this view of the matter.
We here have an instance in which not only were
the minds of the ignorant classes, so completely im
bued with the idea, that this woman was commissioned
by God to assist the promulgation of the doctrines of
the Church of Rome, but even those of a higher order
of intelligence were brought to believe in her so-called
mission ; men occupying the highest position in a so
cial point of view, assisted, by their example, in thus
giving credence to the story so artfully conceived and
illustrated. And thus it is, the Jesuits, by their cun
ning and artifices, so work upon the feelings of their
subjects, -as to. prepare them to believe any thing, no
matter how preposterous, to grasp at absolute power.
In this enlightened country, a country blessed by its
elevation above the power of despotism, where man
has a right to " worship God according to the dictates
of his own conscience," where civil and religious liberty,
have united to place us on an enviable footing in
contrast with the other nations of the earth, and
where freedom to act and think is guaranteed ; here,

252 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
where our Pilgrim fathers, driven by persecutions at
home, " Left unstain'd what" here " they found —
Freedom to worship God."
Here it is that the Church of Rome, not satisfied
with her failure in depriving us of the incalculable be
nefit of our free education system, in prohibiting the
reading of the Holy Word of God in our common
schools, and other acts of aggression, seeks to establish
and compel obedience to the laws of the Romish
Church.

CHAPTER XIX.
AGGRESSIONS OF THE ROMAN CATHOLIC PRELATES.
It should be constantly borne in mind that in the
earnest contest, recently commenced and now going
on, between the native born and Protestant party and
the Roman Catholic clergy, the latter are the aggressors.
They attack our institutions, and seek to undermine
the foundations of civil liberty. This is the same dirty
work which they have occupied themselves with in all
ages and countries since the days of Hildebrand. They
cannot keep their hands from it. They follow it even
here, in this land of freedom, with a perseverance and
audacity that is really astounding. They cannot be
made to understand that the air of this country is un-
22 (253)

254 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
wholesome for despots. They not only assail the free
institutions of Protestant's, but they persecute even
Roman Catholics themselves, whenever they exhibit
the least disposition to assert their rights as free men
in opposition to the tyranny and rapacity of their
prelates. They cannot learn that America is and must be the
land of freedom, both civil and religious. Indeed, as
a cotemporary* justly observes,
There is a certain class of persons in this world
who never learn any thing. Insensible to the expan
sive spirit of the age — blind as bats to the mighty
changes for the elevation of man's position in the so
cial and political scale, which are going on all around
and about them, they grope on in the darkness of the
past, with a contempt of consequences which belies the
hypothesis that they are imbued with any of the vita
lity, energy, intelligence, or quick perceptions, cha
racteristic of the American mind. These owls never
look forward to the future. The eleventh or twelfth
century, when priestcraft predominated j throughout
continental Europe, and the mind& of men, so saturated
with ignorance, superstition, and barbarism, that the
* New York Express.

AGGRESSIONS OF THE CATHOLIC PRELATES. 255
times well deserve the name given to them by the his
torians of that period — the Dark Ages — the eleventh
or twelfth century, we say, is the epoch to which, if
these fossils were permitted to have their way, they
would roll back this glorious nineteenth century of
ours. They come ' of the same school that put poor
Galileo to death, for venturing to declare that the
" world did move" — and it is never to be doubted, that
had they the power, (as heaven be thanked, they have
not) the Galileos of this day would share the same
fate — for the. same offence.
These blind men, whereof we speak, have their most
fitting representative in the Romish foreign born, fo
reign educated (if educated at all) hierarchy, which is
setting itself up on this side of the Atlantic as a " power
in the state." They have begun a struggle with the
people of this country, of a faring and most desperate
character. But had they only half the cunning and
craft that the disciples of Ignatius Loyola have often
exhibited in Europe, when they had a peculiar purpose
to accomplish — these alien emissaries of an Italian
potentate would not have thrown down the glove here
so soon. They should have waited awhile — before
provoking a contest, in which thus far they have been

256 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
worsted at every step. They have failed in prostitut
ing our public school system to the extent they had
desired and striven for ; they have failed in their ne
farious assumption of the right to stop the mouths of
men whochoose to preach in public places, unless their
preaching happened to accord with their own dogmas
and belief; they have failed in the no less nefarious
endeavor to procure homage, or respect even, from free
born American citizens, for their imported magnates
of the Bedini brand ; they have failed, signally failed,
in their attempts to exercise a territorial jurisdiction
in this state, by taking the church temporalities from
the laity, and placing them under their own personal
control. They have failed in a good many other things
within the few years past, — and failed so thoroughly
that one would naturally imagine they would be dis
posed to pause awhile, before contemplating new inno
vations upon the rights of the people. But no. The
great difficulty with this brazen faced Hierarchy is this ;
they can never forget that they are not in Rome — the
home of the most galling spiritual and political despo
tisms on the face of the earth. They cannot be made
to realize that they are in the United Sates of America,
living, moving, and having their being among men

AGGRESSIONS OF THE CATHOLIC PRELATES. 257
who are no more accustomed to clerical dictation than
they are to civil despotism, coming from abroad. As
they have rebelled against the one, — so depend upon
it — they will never put up with the other. Especially
as the world is just now having gratifying proof that
a man's religion, — his duty to his God, — is now ac
knowledged, by American Catholics, as well as Ame
rican Protestants, to be in no wise dependent upon, or
subordinate to, any temporal power whatsoever, —
whether that power sits on the seven hills of Rome,
or in the archiepiscopal palaces of its emissaries else
where. The Catholics of the American Republic have
often,' of late, demonstrated practically, this great truth,
which, in due time, will not be lost with their brethren
in other lands.
The newest manifestation of this stubborn disposi
tion on the part of the Romish Hierarchy, here, not
to learn any thing from experience, — especially not to
learn personal prudence, and a becoming deference to
public sentiment — the sentiment even of their own
flock, — is found in a difference which has arisen
between the congregation of a Romish Church, at
Middletown, Connecticut, and the Bishop that governs
that Diocese. The facts, as we gather them from the
22*

258 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
Bartford Courant, may be stated briefly thus : — Rev.
John Brady, has been for ten years the beloved pastor
of the church in question. He is nephew to Father
Brady of Hartford, and, like his uncle, had rendered
himself beloved by his flock, and respected . by the
whole Protestant community for his usefulness. Like
him, by his zeal and energy he gathered a large society
and erected a spacious and elegant church edifice. But,
in an unfortunate hour for him$ he remonstrated against
the proceedings of the Bishop which had not only sent
his uncle to the grave, but had persecuted him while
lying in it. He had committed the offence which a
Romish Bishop, in his tyranny, never forgives — he
had, like a free man, and a free citizen of this land of
liberty, opposed the wishes of his superior, and must
be punished. On Friday last, Bishop O'Rielly en
tered Middletown with a new priest for the church —
compelled Mr. Brady either to resign his place or be
silenced, and inducted the new man in his room. The
members of the congregation, of course, clung to their
old pastor, but what does the Church of Rome care
for the wishes of the people ? or what respect has a
Romish Bishop for the free institutions around him ?
A correspondent of the New Haven Palladium,

AGGRESSIONS OF THE CATHOLIC PRELATES. 259
writing, on Sunday morning, gives us the following
account :
This morning, early, having occasion to pass the'
church, I saw that some one had nailed up the doors,
and on the principal entrance was posted the follow
ing — "Let no man take this down till the Bishop
gives a reason for removing Mr. Brady from his be
loved congregation. Let no man dare to."
As the hour for morning prayers drew nigh, the
people began to gather around in little knots. discuss
ing among themselves the propriety of such proceed
ings. Soon the new priest, Rev. Mr. Manion, arrived,
and after viewing the scene and tearing the paper off
the door, wished to know, the cause of it. An elderly
man in the crowd calmly told him in substance, that
the course the Bishop had seen fit to take was entirely
against their wishes, for they did not want to part
with Rev. Mr. Brady, as he had been so long with
them and built them up as a society to what they were,
and that to remove him without giving a reason to the
congregation, they considered an outrage to their
feelings. Rev. Mr. Manion replied that he knew nothing
about that — that he was there by the Bishop's orders,

260 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
and if a reason was wanted, it was Rev. Mr. Brady's
business to see to it, — and further, that it was not in
cumbent upon the Bishop to give any reason to them,
that he was delegated by Almighty God to take charge
of their souls, and if he should give a reason for his
actions he would be no longer Bishop.
Delectable doctrine Mr. Manion ! But a few
more of these Father Brady and Buffalo Church cases,
xand it needs no ghost to come and tell that, — without
any .suggestion for advice from other quarters, — a
storm may gather among the Catholics themselves,
which ..will scatter to the winds the arrogant despotism
which, holding its commission from abroad, seeks to
hold them in chains, civil, political and spiritual. The
foreign Bishops will have to give way to American
Bishops. It will come to that in the end.
Since writing the above, we find a notice of fresh
tyrannical aggressions by the Catholics on Catholics,
and we quote it as the-latest. (May, 1855.)
The Savannah papers state that a serious discussion
is now in progress in that city, similar to the move
ments for independence of late years undertaken by
the Roman Catholics in Buffalo, Hartford, New Ha
ven, and in several other places in the north and west.

AGGRESSIONS OF THE CATHOLIC PRELATES. 261
A writer of their own chruch comes out in a bold and
lengthy article, and exposes the tyranny of their late
Bishop Gartland, and the assumptions and falsifications
of the present incumbent of the cathedral. He charges
the late Bishop with having taken from them their
chartered rights obtained from the Legislature, and
of setting aside their very constitution and by-laws.
" He changed our mode of government, took the reins
completely into his own hands, and not a member of the
Catholic Church had a voice in the disbursements of
the revenues accruing to the Church for the mainte
nance of the Bishop and his Priests, or the salaried
lay officers of the Church." The congregation was
too Catholic to demur openly, although silently cha
grined on the occasion. Georgia must legislate on this
subject and give American Catholics the right to manage
their own affairs without the intervention of any foreign
priests. New York has legislated on this subject ; and it is
a curious circumstance that the legislative' proceed
ings, intended to restore to trustees the property
hitherto held in fee by priests, should have brought
out the fact that Archbishop Hughes holds the entire
money power of the church in New York, having pro-

262 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
perty in his hands amounting to several millions of
dollars. As General Jackson thought the institutions
of the country endangered by the money power of the
United States Bank, what may we not- expect from
the exertion of a similar money power by Roman
Catholic priests ? They have no board of directors to
overlook their proceedings and check their intrigues.
Such a state of things should alarm Protestants, since
it has aheady spread a dire alarm among the laity of
the Roman Catholics themselves. If the faithful are
tyrannized over, oppressed and persecuted what may
we poor heretics expect " one of these days.'"

CHAPTER XX.
HOW JESUITS OPERATE LN AMERICAN POLITICS.
We have in the early part of this volume given a
general account of the Jesuits, as they appear in the
pages of history. To bring a sense of the danger?
arising from the operations of these propagandists,
more directly to our readers, we will advert to their
present character and operations in stimulating mis
chief among the people. An article in the Journal
of Commerce, attributed to Professor Morse, thus dis
closes their schemes. He says,
I have shown that a society (the " St. Leopold Foun
dation") is organized in a foreign absolute government,
having its central direction in the capital of that go-
(263)

264 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
vernment at Vienna, under the patronage of the Em
peror of Austria, and the other despotic rulers— -a so
ciety for the purpose of spreading Popery in this coun
try. Of this fact there is no doubt. This St. Leopold
Foundation has its ramifications through the whole of
the Austrian empire. It is not a small private asso
ciation, but a great and extensive combination. It
embraces in its extent, as shown by their own docu
ments, not merely the Austrian empire, Hungary, and
Italy, but it includes Piedmont, Savoy, and Catholic
France ; it embodies the civil and ecclesiastical autho
rities of these countries. And is such an extensive
combination in foreign countries, for the avowed pur
pose of operating in this country, (no matter for what
purpose,) so trivial an affair, that we may safely dis
miss it with a sneer ? Have these foreign rulers so
much sympathy with our system of government, that
we may trust them safely to meddle with it, in any
way ? Are they so impotent in combination as to ex
cite in us no alarm? May they send money, and
agents, and a system of government wholly at vari
ance with our own, and spread it through all our bor
ders with impunity from our search, because it is nick
named Religion ? There was a time when the Ame-

HOW JESUITS OPERATE IN AMERICAN POLITICS. 265
rican sensibilities were quick on the subject oi foreign
interference. What has recently deadened them ?
Let us examine the operations of this Austrian So
ciety, for it is hard at work all around ni; yes, here
in this country, from one end to the other, at our very
doors, in this city. From a machinery of such a "charac
ter and power, we shall doubtless be able to see already
some effect. With its head-quarters at Vienna, under
thcimmediate direction and inspection of Metternicb,
the well-known great managing general of the diplo
macy of Fmrope, it makes itself already felt through
the Republic. Its emissaries are here. And who are
these emissaries ? They are Jesuits. This society of
men, after exerting their tyranny for upwards of two
hundred years, at length became so formidable to the
world, threatening the entire subversion of all social
-
order, that even the Pope, whose devoted subjects they
are, and must be, by the vow of their society, was com
pelled to dissolve them.
They had not been suppressed, however, for fifty
years, before the waning influence of Popery and Des
potism required their useful labors, to resist the light
of Democratic liberty, and the Pope (Pius VII.) simul
taneously with the formation of the Holy Alliance, re-
23

266 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
vived the order of the Jesuits in all their power. From
their vow of " unqualified submission to the Sovereign
Pontiff," they have been appropriately called the
Pope's Body Guard. It should be known, that Aus
trian influence elected the present Pope; his body
guard are, therefore, at the service of Austria, and
these are the soldiers that the Leopold Society has
sent to this country, and they are the agents of .this
society, to execute its designs, whatever these designs
may be. And do Americans need to be told what
Jesuits are ? If any are ignorant, let them inform
themselves of their history without delay ; no time is
to be lost : their workings are before you in every day's
events : they are a secret society, a sort of Masonic
order, with superadded features of revolting odious-
ness, and a thousand times more dangerous. They are
not merely priests, or priests of one religious creed;
they are merchants, and lawyers, and editors, and
men of any profession, having no outward badge, (in
this country) by which to be recognized; they are
about. in all your society. They can assume any cha
racter, that of angels of light, or ministers of darkness,
to accomplish their one great end,-the service upon
which they are sent, whatever that service may be.

HOW JESUITS OPERATE IN AMERICAN POLITICS. 267
" They are all educated men, prepared, and sworn to
start at any moment, and in any direction, and for any
service, commanded by the general of their order,
bound to no family, community, or country, by the
ordinary ties which bind men ; and sold for life to the
cause of the Roman Pontiff."
These are the men, at this moment, ordered to Ame
rica. And can they do nothing, Americans, to de
range the free workings of your democratic institu
tions ? Can they not, and do they not, fan the slight
est embers of discontent into a flame, those thousand
little differences which must perpetually occur in any
society, into riot, and quell its excess among their
own people as it suits their policy and the establishment
of their own control? Yes, they can be the aggressors,
and contrive to be the aggrieved. They can do the
mischief, and manage to be publicly lauded for their
praiseworthy forbearance and their suffering patience.
They can persecute, and turn away the popular indig
nation, ever roused by the cry of persecution from
themselves, and make it fall upon their victims. They
can control the press in a thousand secret ways. They
can write under the signature of " Whig" to-day, and
if it suits their turn, "Tory" to-morrow. They can

268 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
be democrat to-day, aud Aristocrats to-morrow. They
can out- American Americans in admiration of Ameri
can institutions to-day, and " condemn them as unfit
for any people" to-morrow. These are the men that
Austria has sent here, that she supplies with money,
with whom she keeps up an active correspondence, and
whose officers (the Bishops) are passing back and forth
between Europe and America, doubtless to impart that
information orally which would not be so safe com
mitted to writing.
Is there no danger to the Democracy of the country
from such formidable foes arrayed against it? Is
Metternich its friend ? Is the Pope its friend ? Are
his official documents, now daily put forth, Democratic
in their character ?
Oh, there is no danger to the Democracy, for those
most devoted to the Pope, the Roman Catholics, espe
cially the Irish Catholics, are all on the side of De
mocracy ! Yes ; to be sure they are on the side of
Democracy. They are just where I should look for
them. Judas Iscariot joined with the true disciples.
Jesuits are not fools. They would not startle our
slumbering fears, by bolting out their monarchical de
signs directly in our teeth, and by joining the opposing

HOW JESUITS OPERATE IN AMERICAN POLITICS. 269
ranks, except so far as to cover their designs. This is
a Democratic country, and the Democratic party is
and ever must be the strongest party, unless ruined
by traitors and Jesuits in the camp. Yes ; it is in the
ranks of Democracy I should expect to find them, and
for no good purpose, be assured. Every measure of
Democratic policy in the least exciting will be pushed
to ultraism, so soon as it is introduced for discussion.
Let every real Democrat guard against the common
Jesuitical artifice of tyrants, an artifice which there is
much evidence to believe is practising against them at
this moment, an artifice, which, if not heeded, will
surely be the ruin of Democracy ; it is founded on the
well known principle that " extremes meet." The writer
has seen it pass under bis own eyes in Europe. When
in despotic governments popular discontent, arising
from the intolerable oppressions of the tyrants of the
people, has manifested itself by popular outbreakings,
to such a degree as to endanger- the throne, and the
people seemed prepared to shove their masters from
their horses, and are hkely to mount, and seize the
reins themselves ; then, the popular movement, unma
nageable any longer by resistance, is pushed to the
extreme. The passions of the ignorant and vicious
23*

270 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
are excited to outrage by pretended friends of the
people. Anarchy ensues ; and then the mass of the
people, who are always lovers of order and quiet,
unite at once in support of the strong arm of force for
protection ; and despotism, perhaps, in another, but
preconcerted shape, resumes its iron reign. Italy and
Germany, are furnishing examples every day. If an
illustration is wanted on a larger scale, look at France
in her late Republican revolution, and in her present
relapse into despotism.
He who would prevent you from mounting his horse,
has two ways of thwarting your designs. If he finds
efforts to rise too strong for his resistance, he has but
to add a little more impulse to them, and he shoves
you over on the other side. In either case you are on
the ground.

CHAPTER XXI.
HOW THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH TREATS MEN OF
SCIENCE.
In all ages the Church of Rome, says a recent
writer, has been an opponent to scientific progress.
Light, from whatever source derived, it has always
been her policy to shun. During the dark ages, which
were the periods of her greatest prosperity, she main
tained a long and bitter struggle against the advance
ment of philosophical study. At a later period, as
substitutes for science, she introduced her relics, her
charms, and her amulets. Disease was not to be cured
by medicine, but by a bone, a tooth, or a finger-nail
of some monkish saint. Fire was not to be extin
guished by water, but by charms wrought by relics.
(271)

272 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA- UNMASKED.
Men did not accomplish any thing by their perseve
rance, but by virtue of an amulet suspended'around
their necks. Whole cargoes of those spurious reme
dies were exported (and are to this day) from Italy
into Roman Catholic countries. Relics were said to
have an infallible power in every emergency, in every
danger, and in every undertaking, and science was
therefore unnecessary ; it was condemned, indeed, as
inculcating infidelity in the sacred power of relics. No
trade was so profitable as that of a dealer in such
trash ; and an " Exhibition of Science and Art," as
tolerated and sanctioned by Rome in medieval times,
would have been a remarkable sight, and a sad expo
sition of the weakness and credulity of mankind.
Before the rise of scholastic philosophy, the giant
Science was indeed powerless ; his ancient strength
had departed from him, and the church held him cap
tive by her wily arts and her terrible frowns. The
philosophy of the schools was an attempt to harmonize
the absurdities and false doctrines of the papacy with
the philosophy of Aristotle, and we have a curious in
stance of the inconsistent policy of Rome in her treat
ment of the writings of this ancient author. A pro
vincial synod, held at Paris in 1209, ordered the

ROME'S TREATMENT OF SCIENCE. 273
metaphysical writings of the philosopher to be burnt.
Innocefit III. also forbade any to study his works, and
several succeeding popes sanctioned these prohibitory
measures. In 1261, however, Urban IV. in spite of
the disapproval of bis " infallible" predecessors in the
papal chair, issued a command to Thomas Aquinas
directing him to translate and write a commentary on
the works of Aristotle; but Pope Clement IV. in
the first year of his pontificate, renewed through his
legate the original prohibition ; yet a few years after,
the philosophy of Aristotle again became the favorite
study of the monks, and received the approbation of
the church. That book, so often suppressed and ana
thematised by infallible popes, became, at the close of
the thirteenth century, the text-book of monastic ra
tionalism, and from it the monks endeavored to find
arguments to prop all the' absurd doctrines of popery.
With this design in view, science, in the hands of the
schoolmen, became distorted into a marvellous system
of speculation. It is doubtful whether they under
stood their own writings ; it is certain that few can
understand them now. Metaphysics were employed
to explain supernatural mysteries, or to solve some
idle enigma of an unrestrained imagination ; physics

274 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
were studied andapplied to the elucidation of miracles ;
science was tortured to bear reluctant evidence to
the traditional dogmas of Rome, and all the keen and
subtle theories of intention, mental reservation, deadly
and venial sins, transubstantiation, etc., were invented
or maintained by scholastic philosophy. Science was
not allowed to disprove any dogma of the church ; ra
ther than a profitable error should be overthrown, it
was her policy to overthrow or suppress an unprofitable
truth. Science was only tolerated so far as it would
by unnatural distortions appear to support error.
This abstruse system served a purpose which the
medieval church ever regarded as important ; it cast
an appearance of difficulty around science, and tended
to sustain that monopoly in learning which the monks
had enjoyed for so many ages. It formed an impene
trable barrier between the priests and the laity — be
tween the learned and ignorant — and rendered all
attempts at encroachment on the part of the latter
next to impossible. Every effort was made to inspire
the unlearned with a reverential awe for the philosophy
of the schools ; and its professors were designated by
the ostentatious appellations of Profundus, Irrefraga
ble, Mellifluous, Angelic, or Seraphic.

Rome's treatment of science. 275
Any attempt to dissipate this system of technicali
ties, and to render science more serviceable to the in
terests of humanity, met with the immediate displea
sure of the church. She condemned all scientific
works which did not make science conducive to her
advancement, or which contained principles or discove
ries opposed to the learned expositions of the fathers.
All science was expected to harmonize with school and
patristic divinity, or it fell beneath a papal interdic
tion. Honorious ILL condemned the writings of Ere-
gena to 'be burnt, and excommunicated all who dared
to read or even to possess a copy of his book, " Divi-
sione Naturae."
Virgilius, bishop of Saltsburgh, was denounced as a
heretic for asserting the existence of antipodes.
The old scientific theories were palpably erroneous ;
but the church forbade any to set them right, and no
advance or alteration could be made unless the desired
change was first carefully examined and proved ortho
dox, or was found to offer convenient aid to support
opinions pleasing to the policy of Rome. Thus know
ledge, disguised and mutilated, became imprisoned
within the cloister ; its votaries were divested of all

276 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
freedom cf the mind, compelled by fire and the sword
to adopt contradictions for demonstrated truths..
Slander was a common weapon employed by the
church to suppress or discourage scientific investiga
tions. Students were denounced as magicians and
sorcerers. Even as early as the time of.Bede, philo
sophical studies were looked upon with suspicion.
That venerable author, in an epistle which accompa
nies his treatise on " Thunder and its Signification," ex
presses his sense of the danger of the task, and en
treats the protection of Herenfrid, at whose command
he had undertaken it, from the malignity of those who
would call him a magician for engaging in such studies.
If one so honored as Bede was thus in fear, how great
must have been the danger of less influential students !
Gerbert, Girald, Michael Scot, Grosteste, and Roger
Bacon were all accused of magic.
Roger Bacon was one of the most remarkable men
of the thirteenth century. He was both a prophet and
a martyr to science. He was a Franciscan friar,
having assumed the grey tunic of his order in the vain
hope of obtaining opportunities for study. Although
with them in body, he was not with them in mind;
instead of upholding ignorance and superstition, it was

ROME'S TREATMENT OF SCIENCE. 277
his aim to dispel them, and to argue against the pre
judices of his age towards science. He endeavored to
show that philosophy was not opposed to Bible truth,
and, as a necessary consequence, he incurred the
frowns and persecutions of the church. " The prelates
and Friarsjf he writes, " are starving me in prison,
nor will they suffer any to speakwith me, fearing lest
my writings should meet the eyes of any other than
the pope and themselves." His works were suppressed
and cast from the libraries of his own order. He was
called magician by his intolerant enemies, yet we find
him protesting "that it is a sinful practice when
wicked men, despising the rules of philosophy, irra
tionally attempt to call up evil spirits."
But it was to the interest of Rome to keep the
people dark ; science was the great antagonist to the
theory of miraculous power. " Without doubt," wrote
Bacon, alluding to miracles and charms, " there
is nothing in these days of this kind but what is
deceitful, dubious, and irrational; for instance, if the
nature of the load stone, whereby it draws iron to it,
were not discovered, some one or other who had
thereby a mind to cozen the people would so go about
his business as lest any bystander should discover the
24

278 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
work of attraction should be natural, to cast figures or
mutter forth . some charm!" Such language was
deadly to medieval science, and to the profitable ex
ercise of monkish skill. Jerome de Esculo, general of
the Franciscan order, condemned him to prison, and
the Pope immediately ratified the sentence.
For ten long and dreary years Bacon was incarce
rated in the dungeon of the convent of which he was a
member. He died at the old age of seventy-nine,
leaving among his cotemporaries the name of a magi
cian, but to posterity the reputation of a philosopher.
Many instances of persecution on the part of the
church towards lovers of science are recorded.
About the year 1316, Peter d'Apona a learned man
of Padua, was sentenced by the inquisition to be burnt
to death as a magician ; and about the same time,
Arnold de Villa Nova, a grey-haired old man in the
eightieth year of his age, was also burnt at Padua as
an " accused necromancer," for having engaged in
these forbidden studies. Henry of Arragon, Marquis
-of Villena, a poet and philosopher, who died at Ma
drid in the year . 1434, was accused of magic, and
would probably have suffered the same fate but for his
influence among the powerful. At his death, however,

Rome's treatment of science. 279
inquisition testified its hatred to science by commit
ting his library to the flames; - :i»jp [. r'-';-.-
The invention of printing and thejXiefofmation of the
sixteenth century at last broke down the barriers of
scholastic philosophy. The; human mind awakened
from its lethargy, and men out of the cloister ventured
to lift fffte veil with which priestly power had hid truth
from the "vulgar laity." The results were disas- -¦H
torous to a system built on error and falsehood, and <-
Rome, impatient and furious, sent out organized in
quisitors and oppressors of the human mind. Modern
science was denounced as heretical. The church not
only claimed to be the expounder of Scripture, but to
be the whole expounder of science too.
Philosophers were again regarded as magicians and
heretics, and excommunication and the fagot were
employed by the zealous champions of intellectual
darkness to annihilate both authors and their writings.
Ignorance might inwre personal safety, but knowledge
incurred danger to its professor ; and the church
became so jealous of any signs of an inquiring spirit
among the laity, that to be learned was thought here
tical. Cypriano de Valera, writing in the sixteenth
century, tells us that it was a common proverb in

;280 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
Spain, when speaking of a studious person, to say, he
is so learned that he is in danger of becoming a
Lutheran. The treatment of Galileo by the church of Rome is
a memorable instance of her opposition to scientific
progress. Study had revealed to the mind of the phi
losopher the truth of the earth's motion, and led him
to adhere to the Copernican doctrine. Fearlessly he
proclaimed and advocated his opinions, but his views
were opposed to the patristic notions of science. The
Dominicans, ever the evil genius to scientific discovery,
raised an alarm, and the church denounced the doc
trines of Galileo as both heretical and dangerous.
Galileo defended his opinions with masterly power
and argument and endeavored to prove that the testi
mony of Holy Writ was in perfect harmony with his
doctrine. This magnified his crime in the eyes of the
church ; it was deemed an evidence of gross presump
tion for a layman to search into the vista of science
with the lamp of Divine truth.
Galileo was cited before the inquisition, and a con
gregation of cardinals compelled him to renounce his
opinions. Years elapsed, and again Galileo issued out as the

ROME'S TREATMENT OF SCIENCE. 281
champion of science. In the year 1632 he pubhshed
his " Dialogue on the Systems of Ptolemy and Coper
nicus," in which he undertook to prove that the sun
was certainly immoveable, and that the earth revolved
round the sun. The work excited universal attention,
and Galileo was again summoned before the inquisition
at Rome, and condemned to imprisonment. Seven car
dinals signed a decree, declaring that " To say that the
sun is in the centre, and absolutely fixed, and without
local motion, is an absurd proposition, false in philo
sophy, and even heretical. To say that the earth is
not placed in the centre of the universe, but that it
moves, and has even a diurnal motion, is an absurd
proposition, false in philosophy, and an error in
faith." So much for the infallibility of the church in mat
ters of philosophy'; yet some even in our own day will
not believe the revelations of science, because not sanc
tioned by patristic theology : they cling with the most
eager tenacity to the old world science of the medi
eval monks, look dismally at the spread of knowledge
among the people, and try to oppose with their feeble
voice the light bursting upon us from all the avenues
of truth. A modern Roman Catholic archbishop, in
24*

282 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
his eagerness for orthodox science, has ventured to de
nounce the doctrines of Galileo and Sir Isaac Newton
as heretical, and testified his adherence to the scho
lastic theory that the sun travels round the earth !
These facts speak for themselves, and ought to be re
membered at a time when Dr. Wiseman has endea
vored to assume for his church the hitherto unheard-
of characters of a patron and a friend of science.

CHAPTER XXII.
HOW THE CHURCH OF ROME REWARDS VICE AND IMMO
RALITY.  A PATTERN CARDINAL.
Any one, who is famihar with the leading facts of
modern history, will hardly require to be told that the
Roman Catholic Church not only overlooks and tole
rates the grossest vices in her members, so long as
they remain devoted to her interests and obedient to
her tyranny, but that she often gives to the most vi
cious and profligate men her highest ecclesiastical
offices. A summary history of her openly dissolute
popes and cardinals would fill volumes. We will de
tain our readers with only a single specimen. (283)

284 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
A recent writer,* thus describes the character of
Cardinal Dubois, and the effects of his political admi
nistration in the unfortunate kingdom of France.
Guilliaume Dubois was the son of an apothecary at
the little town of Prives, and spent his youth in carry
ing pill-boxes and clysters to his father's patients.
Having studied for the Church, he was about to receive
holy orders, when he ran away with a servant girl, and
apparently destroyed his prospects for life. After a
year or two of connubial felicity, however, he grew
tired of his wife, left her, and went to Paris, where
he was fortunate enough to fall in with M. St. Lau
rent, the tutor of the Regent — then Duke of Chartres.
By this gentleman, young Dubois — who styled him
self the Abbe Dubois — was employed to give lessons
to his pupil, and St. Laurent dying soon after, the
apothecary's son obtained the vacant post. He was
well suited to the young Duke. Possessed of vast
learning, he was a still greater proficient in vice ;
nothing came amiss to him, from a discussion on the
merits of Cicero and Corneille to a petit souper a
quatre in the faubourg. The Dnchess of Orleans ad
mitted that, at first, he " assumed the tone of an honest
In Harper's Magazine.

A PATTERN CARDINAL. 285
man so well that she took him for one," but soon cor
rected her opinion. " The fellow," says this penetrat
ing woman, " believes in nothing ; he is a rogue and a
scoundrel ; he has the appearance of a fox creeping
from its hole to steal a chieken." He was fox enough
to see through and through the Duke, and soon mas
tered him completely.
Through life Philip never withdrew his confidence
from the unprincipled Abbe. When the former be
came Regent, the latter took office as confidential mi
nister, and soon controlled the whole administration.
His public labors were prodigious ; full twelve hours
a day he was in bis cabinet, receiving secretaries and
embassadors, dictating dispatches, digesting the day's
business for the Regent, and exercising a minute super
intendence over every branch of the public service.
The reward he sought for his unparalleled devotion to
his master's interests was rank.
Cardinals took precedence of the highest nobles at
court : Dubois resolved to be a Cardinal. There was
some trifling difficulties in the way. Though nomi
nally an Abbe, he had never taken holy orders ; he
had a wife living ; he was an avowed infidel ; and he
had openly led a life of glaring profligacy. It must

286 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
not be supposed that all the dignitaries of the Church
of that day were profligates, or infidels, or married
men, or laymen ; there were several orthodox Christians
and respectable men among them ; but certain it is
that Dubois had no trouble in obtaining, in the course
of a few days, the several orders of sub-deacon, deacon,
priest, bishop, and archbishop.
The next step was more difficult. Though half a
dozen kings supported Dubois's claims, the Pope re
fused to send him the hat, and the ambitious schemer
waited till Clement died. When the Conclave met to
choose his successor, Dubois managed matters just as
our political "leaders do at primary elections. With
all the money that could be raised by the French trea
sury, the Abbe de Tencin, a young- man whose sister
enjoyed Dubois's protection, was sent to Rome to buy
up the votes. He succeeded so well that Cardinal
Conti, having given a written pledge to bestow the,
next vacant hat on Dubois, was elected Pope. But
when the time came to fulfil his bargain, his Holiness
demanded more money. Dubois indignantly referred
to his written promise ; the Pope replied by sending
the hat to his brother. Dubois was finally compelled

A PATTERN CARDINAL. 287
to accede to his avaricious demands, and a few thousand
Louis secured the long-coveted rank.
Having attained the highest pinnacle of power and
consideration, Cardinal Dubois began to retaliate on
the nobility for the slights he had formerly suffered
at their hands. He took delight in insulting the whole
body of the peers ; and even shoved a lady of rank
out of his room, because she addressed him as " Mon-
signeur" instead of "Votre Eminence." His temper
was ungovernable, and his language so coarse and
profane, that he was ironically advised by his secre
tary to take an additional clerk, and give him, for sole
employment, the duty of scolding and swearing at
people. Notwithstanding these faults, he was so inde
fatigable in his office, that he was retained by Louis XV.
and during the early reign of that monarch wielded
supreme sway over France. The severity of his toils,
added to the effects of dissipation, at length told upon
his frame. Disease attacked him. Fearful of losing
his power, he concealed it ; and the pain made him
more morose and passionate than ever. On his death
bed he swore at his doctors, ordered the priests to be
turned out of the room, and died raving and cursing
every one around him.

288 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
Under the regency of Philip of Orleans:, and the
ministry of Cardinal "Dubois, the people of France en
dured miseries hardly to be described. The notorious
swindle of the Scotchman, Law, which owed it success
to the Regent's patronage, beggared the whole country.
When we call to mind that the amount of money in
circulation was much less than it is now, and was con
sequently more valuable in proportion to other com
modities, we can form some conception of the extent
of disaster that must have been produced by the total
failure of a bank which had issued paper to the
amount of nine hundred millions of dollars.
Reckless speculation had produced its usual fruits.
Crowds of adventurers had flocked to Paris. Mer
chants, professional men, mechanics, deserted their
business to dabble in shares. Everyday-life was at an
end. While the bank lasted, the scenes that were wit
nessed resembled the ancient Saturnalia. When it
fell, a despair that cannot be pictured overwhelmed
the people. Robbers and assassins walked the streets
in broad daylight. -Men were murdered and thrown
into the Seine, and no one seemed to notice it. In
the general calamity life seemed to have lost its value.
To complete the horrors of that awful period, the

A PATTERN CARDINAL. 289
plague suddenly appeared in Provence and Languedoc,
and swept away the population by thousands. Those
who fled died by the roadside ; those who staid died in
their bed, on their chair, in their office. Famine fol
lowed ; and those who escaped the pestilence perished
by hunger. It seemed as though a righteous Providence
was smiting the nation for the crimes it tolerated in
its rulers.

25

CHAPTER XXIII.
HOW ROMAN CATHOLIC PRIESTS INTERFERE IN AME
RICAN POLITICS.
We have already adverted to this subject in an early
chapter of this work. But it is a subject that will
bear re-examination and is not easily exhausted. Since
that chapter was written, a great prelate of New York
has returned from Europe, re-invigorated by an inter
view with His Holiness Pope , Pius the Ninth ; and
almost at the instant of his landing on our shores, he
dashes into politics, commencing by writing and pub
lishing a dictatorial letter intending to overawe the
legislature of New York, and prevent them from pass
ing a law to place church property in the hands of
(290)

HOW PRIESTS INTERFERE IN POLITICS. 291
trustees. This was nothing new for Archbishop
Hughes. He has often entered the political arena
before ; and often got baffled and defeated, as in the
present instance. Senator Brooks had declared in the
course of debate in the senate, that the Archbishop
avas possessed of immense wealth.
Archbishop Hughes returned from Rome, says a
cotemporary, about the time the legislature adjourned.
Senator Brooks came back to New York, when Arch
bishop Hughes, in a letter filled with sarcasm, denied
the assertions regarding his wealth, and facetiously
dared his assailant to proof. Mr. Brooks picked up the
glove, and in the course of half-a-dozen letters, showed
the world of Manhattan that his assertions were true.
He had a warm friend in Mr. Register Doane, and
the latter officer furnished him with copies of the con
veyances from time to time. It is proven that John
Bughes, Archbishop, ofc. is a~ very large landed pro
prietor. He asserts himself that he is a poor man.
Then comes this strange fact, being poor, how came
these conveyances (which are mostly for church pro
perty) to vest title in him in fee simple and absolute ?
Why are not the conveyances made to the trustees of
the churches? Either John Hughes owns all this

292 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
property, or he does not. If he owns it whence came
the money to purchase it ? If he does not own it,
where are the real owners? — who are they? — and
where is the record evidence to destroy his naked
ownership upon the registry? This is a dilemma,
either horn of which is an awkward one for a clergy
man to hang upon.
This controversy will have an immense effect upon
the country at large. The clothing of the lamb has
been stripped from the shoulders of the wolf. Ame
ricans perceive that there must be some cause for the
recent upheavings of the masses against foreign in
fluence and religious subtlety — that there ia truth in
snme of the warnings against that influence of religion
over politics which the latter has undertaken to de
stroy by the use of its own weapons. It is a great
thing for the world at large, too, that the head of the
Romish church in America turns out to have been a
blackguard in disguise, to whom equivocation is a cha
ritable word for personal application. For drawing
to a head a secret fester on the body pohtic of the
country, Mr. Brooks .should receive the thanks of the
whole Union. When so subtle a man as Archbishop
Hughes has failed in his conjunction of religion to

HOW PRIESTS INTERFERE IN POLITICS. 293
politics, we may be very sure that his disgrace will
deter other priests from soiling their robes with the
dust of the partisan arena.
But Archbishop Hughes is not the only Roman Ca
tholic priest who meddles with politics and exerts a di
rect and positive influence in elections and in legis
lative proceedings. We quote below a letter which
shows that at least one other priest has had a hand in
business of this sort.
The following letter was published first in Pittsburg,
in October, 1844. It was sent to that city by General
Markle, by the hands of an attorney of that place :
PRIEST FLANNAGAN'S LETTER.
Letter from Rev. T. Flannagan to General Markle,
post-marked " Fbensburg, April 5," and directed to
"Robstown, Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania.
Ebensburg, April 4th, 1844.
General Markle, Fsq.:
Dear Sir, — Permit me to intrude upon you under
my emergent circumstances. I presume you have
already noticed the case of the Flannagans now, upon
the expiration of two years, confined at , Ebensburg,

294 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
charged with murder; But, sir, after an industrious
course of perseverance during the two recent sessions
of the legislature, we have succeeded in having a new
trial, which will take place immediately; length of
time, with heavy expenses, has reduced my circum
stances so much that I am now necessitated to call on
my political friends. Then, sir, I wish to instruct you
that my politics have been the cause of all. You can,
if you doubt my veracity, ask General James Irvin,
now a member of Congress, also Mr. James Linton,
House of Representatives, what my influence is : it was
by my instrumentality the above named gentlemen were
elected; if you assist me now I will warrant your elec
tion. I am a Catholic clergyman, and it is in my
power to obtain for you a majority of the Pennsyl
vania Irish ; the Governor would not do any thing
for me because I differed with him in politics. I will
return to you whatever you will forward to me if you
are not elected ; there is nothing in my power but I
will do — money I want. Excuse my intrusion, being
a stranger to you.
Very respectfully, &c,
Rev. T. Flannagan.

HOW PRIESTS INTERFERE IN POLITICS. 295
Before taking leave, for the present, of the Roman
Catholic Clergy,- the reader will permit us to quote a
paragraph from the Lockport Courier, and make a short
commentary upon it. Speaking of the present contro
versy with Senator Brooks the editor says.
Archbishop Hughes, in the present, instance, stands
before the public in a plight which no man of respec
tability could covet. He commenced by charging
Senator Brooks with falsehood, for stating that he
(Bishop Hughes,) owned millions of property in his
own name in New York city. This charge the Senator
disproved, by quoting from the records conveyances of
over forty pieces of property. Thus crowded to the
wall, the Bishop tried to escape by the subterfuge that
this was " the property of God," and he only the trus
tee. Senator Brooks meets this, by showing that Arch
bishop Hughes sells and conveys away tjiis "property
of God."
The layman has not only dispoved the charge of
falsehood and sent it back to roost with him that made
it, but has also set the Archbishop an example of good
breeding in abstaining from the use of offensive epithets,
and thus sends back to the same roosting place, all
the Archbishop's expressions of contempt.

296 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
Since the above was penned, we have received the
New York papers of Friday morning, which contain a
card from Archbishop Hughes, in which, he asks " for
a suspension of ten days or two weeks" of the judg
ment of the public. Thus having abandoned the con
troversy and left Senator Brooks as a man unworthy
of his notice, the Archbishop finds public opinion so
strong aginst him, that he feels compelled to seek a
modification of it.
So much from the Lockport Courier. What we
wish particularly to comment upon is the contemptable
quibble of the Archbishop in calling his property " the
property of God," just as if every man's property was
not a trust held from the Supreme Giver of all good
for the stewardship of -which he must give account.
Does the Archbishop expect the pubhc to beheve
that Roman Catholic priests are not accustomed to
spend the money they receive from the people exactly
as they please ? The Roman Catholic Church boasts
that it is always the same. Has Archbishop Hughes
less control over what he calls " God's property," than
the Spanish and Italian prelates ? Does not the Arch
bishop of Havana spend his modest little salary of one
hundred thousand dollars per annum as he pleases ?

HOW PRIESTS INTEFERE IN POLITICS. 297
Do not the Cardinals in Rome emulate their predeces
sors in luxury and loose living ? Have Cardinals in
Rome ceased to indulge in pictures, statues, cameos
and kept mistresses, bought with "God's property."
If they have, we should hke to see the poof of it. We
have with us at this moment a friend just returned
from a vist to Rome, who says that the Cardinals re
main as always, just like Archbishop Hughes, men of
the world, gentlemen, of the highest" breeding, politi
cians of the school of Machiavelli, arbiters in matters
of taste and the fine arts, and stern denouncers of
liberalism and popular education in every form. How
they spend and always have spent the property of God,
all the world knows. Whether American Catholics,
after Senator Brook's disclosures are completed, will
tolerate the same sort of management of God's pro
perty we shall see. Enough has already been disclo
sed to account for Hughes's anxiety to stop the inquiry
and conceal the truth ; as well to account for his haste
on his return from Europe, to do his utmost for pre
venting a law which should give the contributions of
the people into the hands of trustees, with' the usual
guarantees and responsibilities. 26

CHAPTER XXIV.
GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS.
We have endeavored in the preceding pages to un
mask the real enemies of American prosperity and
progress. They are numerous, powerful, subtle, un
scrupulous and audacious ; and their number is rapidly
increasing. Their purpose is to change the form of go
vernment of this country, its whole civil polity, and its
religion, to regulate all the industrial pursuits of the
American people in such a way as to render American
labor wholly tributary to foreign capitalists, and specu
lators ; and to rule the country, bringing it wholly
(298)

GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS. 299
under foreign domination, through Jesuit intrigue and
the bribery of foreign gold. These agents are veterans
in diplomacy and intrigue. Their secret societies are
spread all over the land, existing wherever there is a
Jesuit college or a Roman Catholic Church. Their
open measures are urged in our legislative halls as the
result of truly liberal and democratic principles ; and
up to the present moment their success has been en
tirely unchecked.
Still we believe there is enough of the true Ameri
can spirit left in the country to defeat their designs,
if the Americans will diligently apply themselves to
learning the real truth and perform the duty which
that truth dictates. The American people are highly
talented and intelligent. They are capable of investi
gating any point which relates to their political welfare,
if they choose to, do it. In the old colonial times both
Burke and Pitt complimented the American colonists
on their proficiency in law, their sound parliamentary
eloquence and their political wisdom. It is not possi
ble that the descendants of the people compared by
Chatham with the ancient Greeks and Romans should
have lost all sense of nationality, all desire to be
American.

300 THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA UNMASKED.
We hope for better things. Especially as a party
calling themselves Americans, has recently sprung into
existence and declared that Americans shall rule Ame
rica. Last June this party carried the city of Phila
delphia by a heavy majority, having the votes of the
Whig party in their favor. This month (May 1855)
they have carried the same city against the fusion of
all the whigs, all the democrats, all the Roman
Cathohcs and all the foreign protestants, (this last is
a very numerous body in Philadelphia.) So far as
Philadelphia is concerned the march is Onward. If we
recollect rightly the same party carried the state of
Pennsylvania, the Keystone State, last autumn. It
occurs to us too, that something of the same sort has
happened, in those states where a former revolution,
having American nationality in view, took its rise, the
states, namely, of Massachusetts, New Hampshire and
Connecticut. Even New York, the paradise of for
eigners, exhibits systoms of restiveness under the for
eign rule which has so long degraded and disgraced
her. But as this was the last spot to be given up by
the British to American rule after the first revolution,
we shall not be disappointed if it should be their last
stronghold in the contest which has now begun. Sena-

GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS. 301
tor Brooks appears to bei ripping open certain dark,
recesses of villany with an unsparing hand. What he
discloses shows so clearly the extortion and oppression
to which the Roman Catholic people are subjected,
that we should not be surprised to see the congrega
tions joining the American movement, as some of them
did in the old Revolution, and going in for that un
heard of thing a republican Catholic Church. Stran
ger things have happened.
We wish it to be clearly understood that the ground
we occupy is purely politicial. We do not discuss the
religious dogmas of the Roman Catholic Church, or
interfere with its faith or worship. But we recognize
in the Roman Catholic Priesthood, and the Jesuit
Brotherhood, two distinct political organizations, united
in purpose and using religion as a mask for political
purposes, as they always have done in all ages and
countries. These we must and will oppose. We can
not do otherwise. We have not done with them yet.
What we have said in this little volume, is only a slight
intimation of what is coming. If hfe is spared they
shall hear from us again.

^Wyfr.

\*V

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