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A Plea for the West
By Lyman Beecher
Cincinnati: Truman and Smith, 1835
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Click to see the cover of this book |
A Plea for the West
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Who hath heard such a thing? who hath seen such things? Shall the earth be
made to bring forth in one day I or shall a nation be born at once I for as soon
as Zion travailed, she brought forth her children.--Isaiah,
lxvi: 8.
Ever since the era of modern missions,
men have ridiculed the efforts of
the church to evangelize the world, and
predicted their failure. "What," say they,
"do these Jews build?-if a fox do but
go up upon the wall, it will fall. The
world can never be. converted to Christianity by the power of man." And
full
well do we know it, and most deeply do
we feel it, and in all our supplications for
aid, most emphatically do we confess our
utter impotency; and could no power but the power of man be enlisted, it
would be indeed of all experiments the most ridiculous and hopeless. But
because man cannot convert the world to Christianity, cannot God do it?
Has he, not promised to do it, and selected his instruments, and commanded
his people to be fellow workers with him? And hath he said, and shall
he not do it?
Instead of its being a work of difficulty and dilatory movement, when the time
to favor Zion comes, it shall- outrun all past analogies of moral causes, as if
seed-time and harvest should meet on the same field, or a nation should
instantly rush up from barbarism to civilization.
But as all great eras of prosperity to the church have been aided by the civil
condition of the world, and accomplished by the regular operation of moral
causes, I consider the text as a
prediction of the
rapid and universal extension of civil an
religious liberty, introductory to the triumphs of universal Christianity. It is
certain that the glorious things spoken of
the church and of the world, as affected
by I her prosperity, cannot come to pass
under the existing civil organization of
the nations. Such a state of society as predicted to pervade the earth, cannot
exist under an arbitrary despotism, and the predominance of feudal institutions
and usages. Of course, it is predicted that revolutions and distress of nations
will precede the introduction of the peaceful reign of Jesus Christ on the
earth. The mountains shall be cast down, and the valleys shall be exalted-and
lie shall
overturn, and overturn, and overturn, till lie whose right it is shall reign
King of nations-King of saints."
It was the opinion of Edwards, that the
millennium, would commence in America.
When I first encountered this opinion, I
thought it chimerical; but all providential developments since, and all the
existing signs of the times, lend corroboration to it. But if it is by the march
of revolution and civil liberty, that the way of the Lord is to be prepared,
where shall the central energy be found, and from what nation shall the
renovating power go forth? What nation is blessed with such experimental
knowledge of free institutions, with such facilities and resources of
communication, obstructed by so few obstacles, as our own? There is - not a
nation upon earth which, in fifty years, can by all possible reformation place
itself in circumstances so favorable as our own for the free unembarrassed
application of physical effort and pecuniary and moral power to evangelize the
world.
But if this nation is, in the providence of God, destined to lead the way in the
moral and political, emancipation of the world, it is time she understood her or the
high calling, and were harnessed for the
work. For mighty causes like floods from distant mountains, are rushing
with accumulating power, to their consummation of good or evil, and soon our
character and destiny will be stereotyped forever.
It is equally plain that the religious and political destiny of our nation is to
be decided in the West. There is the territory, and there soon will be the
population, the wealth, and the political power. The Atlantic commerce and
manufactures may confer always some peculiar advantage on the East. But the West
is destined to be the great central power of the nation, and under heaven, must
Affect powerfully cause of free institutions and the liberty of the world.
The West is a young empire of mind, and power, and wealth, and free
institutions, rushing up to a giant manhood,
with a rapidity and a power never before witnessed below the sun. And if
she carries with her the elements of her preservation, the experiment will
be glorious--the joy of the nation--the joy of the whole earth, as she
rises in the majesty of her intelligence and benevolence, and enterprise,
for the emancipation of the world.
It is equally clear, that the conflict which is to decide the destiny of
the West, will be a conflict of institutions for the education of her
sons, for purposes of superstition, or evangelical light; of despotism, or
liberty.
I propose to consider in this discourse--
I. What is required to secure the civil and religious propserity of the
West.
II. By whom it must be done.
III. How it must be done. And
IV. The motive to do it.
1. The thing required for the civil and religious prosperity of the West,
is
universal education, and moral culture, by institutions commensurate to
that result--the all-pervading influence of schools, and colleges, and
seminaries, and pastors, and churches. When the West is well supplied in
this respeect, though there may be great relative defects, there will be,
as we believe, the stamina and the vitality of a perpetual civil and
religious prosperity.
2. By whom shall the work of rearing the literary and religious
institutions of the West be done?
Not by the West alone.
The West is able to do this great work for herself,--and would do it,
provided the exigencies of her condition allowed to her the requisite
time. The subject of education is no where more appreciated; and no
people in the same time ever performed so great a work as has already been
performed in the West. Such an
extent of forest never fell before the arm of man in forty years, and gave
place, as by enchantment, to such an empire of cities, and towns, and villages,
and agriculture, and merchandise, and manufactures, and roads, and rapid
navigation, and schools, and colleges, and libraries, and literary enterprise,
with such a number of pastors and churches, and such a relative amount of
religious influence, as has been produced by the spontaneous effort of the
religious denominations of the West. The later peopled states of New England
did by no means come rapidly to the same state of relative intellectual and
moral culture as many portions of the West have already arrived at, in the short
period of forty, thirty, and even twenty years.
But this work of self-supply-is not -completed, and by no human possibility
could have been completed by the West, In her past condition. No people ever did, in the first generation, fell the forest, and construct
the roads, and rear the dwellings and public edifices, and provide the competent
supply of schools and literary institutions. New England did not. Her colleges
were endowed extensively by foreign munificence, and her churches of the first
generation were supplied chiefly from the mother country;-and yet the colonists
of Now England were few in number, compact in territory, homogeneous in origin,
language, manners, and doctrines; and were coerced to unity by common perils and
necessities; and could be acted upon by immediate legislation; and could wait
also for their institutions to grow with their growth and strengthen with their
strength. But the population of the great West is not so, but is assembled from
all the states of the Union, and from
all the nations of Europe, and is rushing
in like the waters of the flood, demanding
for its moral preservation the immediate and universal action of those
institutions which discipline the mind, and arm the conscience and the heart.
Amid so various are the opinions and habits, and so recent and imperfect is the
acquaintance, and so sparse are the settlements of the West, that no homogeneous
public sentiment can be formed to legislate immediately into being the requisite
institutions.
And yet they are all needed immediately in their utmost perfection and power. A
nation is being "born in a day," and all
the nurture of schools and literary institutions is needed, constantly and
universally, to rear it up to a glorious 'and unperverted manhood.
It is no implication. of the West, that in a single generation, she has not
completed this work. In the circumstances of her condition she. could not do it;
and had it been done, we should believe that a miraculous, and not a human power
had done it.
Who, then, shall co-operate with our brethren of the West, for the consummation
of this work so auspiciously begun? Shall the South be invoked? The South have
difficulties of their own to encounter, and cannot do it; and the middle states
have too much of the same work yet to do, to volunteer their aid abroad.
Whence, then, shall the aid come, but from those portions of the Union where
.the work of rearing these institutions has been most nearly accomplished, and
their blessings most eminently enjoyed? And by whom, but by those who in their
infancy were aided; and who, having freely received, are now called upon freely
to give, and who, by a hard soil and habits of industry and economy, and by
experience are qualified to endure hardness as good soldiers and pioneers in
this great work?. And be assured that those who go to the, West with
unostentatious benev-
olence, to identify themselves with the people and interests of that vast
community, will be adopted with a warm heart and an unwavering right hand of
fellowship.
I But how shall this aid be extended, to our brethren of the West in the manner
most I acceptable and efficacious?
Not by prayers, and supplications only, nor by charities alone, nor by colonial
emigrations; for these, though they might cultivate their own garden, would -
for Obvious reasons be fenced in, and exert but a feeble general influence
beyond their own inclosures. Those who go out to do good at the West, should
go out to mingle with the people of t West, and be absorbed M* their multitude
as rain drops fall on the bosom of the ocean and mingle with that world of
waters.*
*I am happy,
since my return, to find myself so Ably sustained in this opinion by my friend
Judge. Nor is it by tracts, or Bibles, or itinerating missions, that the requisite
intellectual and moral power can be applied. There must be permanent powerful
literary and moral institutions, which, like the great orbs of . attraction and
light, shall send forth at once their power and
Hall, late of
Illinois, whose long residence at the West, and extensive opportunities for
observation, entitle his opinions on this subject to great respect.
In the Illinois Monthly of 1831, speaking of emigration, he says :-
their illumination, and without them all else will be inconstant and ephemeral.*
"I am happy to say to you, that the persons who have been induced by your
representations to remove to Illinois, are generally well pleased, and are doing
well. The best schools that we have now in Illinois, are those established by
the young ladies who came out for that purpose. The school at Edwardsville,
conducted by two young ladies, is very popular, and* deservedly so. The Vandalia
school commenced with five scholars, a month ago, and has now thirty-two, which
for a female school, in this quarter, is quite encouraging. Miss L--- is
doing very well, and is said to be very useful at Carrolton. Miss S--- has one
to Hillsborough, to keep an infant school. There will be several other female
schools established shortly..
"We owe a debt of gratitude to the friends of the Redeemer in Massachusetts, for
their great liberality in providing us with Sabbath school books, which we shall
not for many years be able to repay. The day
will assuredly go however, when the doings of the
Let it not, however, for a moment be supposed, that the schools of the West are
present generation of Christians will be looked back to with feelings of
admiration and gratitude, and when Illinois will remember Massachusetts as a
benefactor. "He is ever merciful and lendeth," is the language used in Scripture
to describe a good man; and surely if the lending, or giving, our money or goods
to another is praiseworthy, it is still more so to bestow intellectual riches,
and the means of Christian instruction. For my part, I feel grateful, and am
glad to have the opportunity of saying so to you.
"Multitudes have assented to the proposition, that Sabbath schools are among the
most efficient means of grace; and other multitudes recognize in them valuable
instruments for the dissemination of knowledge and morality--but we are
totally destitute of the facilities for selling such persons in motion. Me need,
especially, TEACHERS and BOOKS.
The latter I consider as most imperiously and immediately requisite, because the
former may. in some places, be supplied, while for the books we must at all
events be indebted to you, or to other of the friends of humanity.
We are also greatly in want of teachers, and give to this part of your plan our
cordial approbation. Pious persons coming out with this intention, and having
callings to support them, need be under no fear, if frugal and industrious, of
doing well."
to be sustained by the emigration of an army of instructors from the East. For
though for the present necessity, - the aid of qualified instructors is
not to be repelled, but invited; yet for any permanent reliance, it is but a
drop of the bucket to the ocean.
Nothing is more certain, than that the great body of the teachers of the West
must be educated at the West. It is by her own sons chiefly, that the great work
is to be consummated which her civil and literary and religious prosperity
demands.
But how shall the requisite supply of teachers for the sons and daughters of the
West be raised up? It can be accomplished by the instrumentality of a learned
and pious ministry, educated at
the West.
Experience has evinced, that schools and popular education, in their best
estate, go not far beyond the suburbs
But the ministry is a central luminary
in each sphere, and soon sends out
schools and seminaries as its satellites
by the hands of sons and daughters of
its own training. A land supplied with
able and faithful ministers, will of course
be filled with schools, academics, libraries, colleges, and all the apparatus
for the perpetuity of republican institutions. It always has been so--it always
will be.
But the ministry for the West must be educated at the West. The demands on the
East, for herself and for pagan lands, forbid the East ever to supply our wants.
Nor is it necessary. For the Spirit of God is with the churches of
the West, and pious and talented young men are there in great numbers willing,
desiring, impatient to consecrate themselves to the glorious work. If we
possessed the accommodations 'and, the funds, we might easily send out a.
hundred ministers a year-a thousand ministers in ten years-around each of whom
schools would arise, and instructors multiply, and churches spring up, and
revivals extend, and all the elements of civil and religious prosperity abound.
But we have said that the ministry
for the West must be a learned and talented ministry.
No opinion is more false and fatal
than that mediocrity of talent and learning will suffice for the West. That if a
minister is a good sort of a man, but somehow does not seem to be popular, and
find employment, lie had better go to the West. No; let him stay at home; and if
among the urgent demands for ministerial labor here, lie cannot find employment,
let him conclude that he has mistaken his profession.
But let him not go to the West. The men who, somehow, do not succeed at
the East, are the very men who will succeed still less at the West. If there be
in the new settlements at the West a lack of schools and educated mind, there is
no lack of shrewd and vigorous mind; and if they are not deep read in Latin and
Greek, they are well read in men and things. On their vast rivers, they go every
where, and see every body, and know every thing, and judge with the tact of
perspicacious common sense.
They are disciplined to resolution and mental vigor by toils, and perils, and
enterprises; and often they are called to attend as umpires to the earnest
discussions of their most able and eloquent men, which cannot fail to throw
prosing dullness in the ministry to a hopeless distance. No where, if a minister
is deficient, will he be more sure. to be "weighed in the balance and found
wanting. 71 On the contrary, there is not a place on earth where piety, and
talent, and learning, and argument, and popular eloquence are more highly
appreciated, or rewarded with a more frank and enthusiastic admiration. There
are chords in the heart of the West which vibrato to the touch of genius, and,
to the power of argumentative eloquence, with a sensibility and enthusiasm no
where surpassed.* A hundred ministers of culti-
vated mind and popular eloquence might find settlement in an hundred places,
and
a year before
this sermon was prepared, which shows his views at that time:
All your reasoning in favor of Professor Stowe's better adaptation for New
England than for the West is founded in a great and injurious mistake concerning
the character and condition of the West. It is a mistake, that the talents and
acquirements of Mr. S. would not be as highly and as justly appreciated here as
in Now England. A full proportion of the minds that are filling up the new
states of the West, are of the first order of intellectual vigor, and often of
taste and learning, and intellectual action ; and a large portion of the people
Min are not educated are persons of' shrewd mind, and quick discernment to
perceive the empty pretensions of men to learning and talents, and will respond
respectfully, yea, gladly, to the touch of real talent. But Ohio is not a
frontier state, or Cincinnati a now settlement, or the work demanded here that
of a pioneer. On the contrary, Cincinnati is as really a literary emporium as
Boston, and is rapidly rising to an honorable competition. Indeed, at the
present time, I firmly believe that there is, according to the number of her
inhabitants, as much intellectual and literary activity here as in Boston,
constituting an atmosphere which he would breathe with great pleasure, and in
which his literary attain. Monts would not pass undiscovered or unappreciated.
without the aid of missions, and only to
increase the demand for a hundred more.
Most unquestionably the West demands the instrumentality of the first order of
minds in the ministry, and thoroughly furnished minds, to command attention,
enlighten the understanding, form the conscience, and gain the heart, and bring
into religious organization and order the uncommitted mind and families of that
great world; and many a man who might guide respectably a well organized
congregation here of homogeneous character, and moving onward under the impetus
of long continued habits, might fail utterly to call around him the population
of a new country.
Of course, the institutions which are to lead in this great work of rearing the
'future ministry of the- West should be second to none in their endowments and
adaptation to this end. For it is such a work in magnitude as human instrument-
ality was never before concentrated upon. All other nations have gone up
slowly from semi-barbarism to a civilized manhood, while our nation was
commenced, with the best materials of the nation at that time the most favored
nation in the world, and yet was delayed in its growth, through two centuries,
by policy, and power, and war, and taxation, and want of capital. It is less
than fifty years since our resources have begun to be developed in great power,
and we have entered upon the career of internal improvement and national
greatness; and at the East, until recently, these movements were slow, as
capital gradually increased, and agriculture, and commerce, and art, led the
way. But the West is filling up -as by ocean waves; and such is her prospective
greatness,, that the capital of the East and of Europe -hold competition for her
acceptance and use, so that in a day, she is rising up to the high eminence that
all other nations have approached progressively through the revolution of
centuries.
But what will become of the West if her prosperity rushes up to such a majesty
of power, while those great institutions linger which are necessary to form the
mind, and the conscience, and the heart of that vast world. It must not be
permitted. And yet what is done must be done quickly; for population will not
wait, and commerce will not cast anchor, and manufactures will not shut off the
steam, nor shut down the gate, and agriculture, pushed by millions of freemen on
heir fertile soil, will not withhold her corrupting abundance.
We must educate! We must educate! or we must perish by our own prosperity. If we
do not, short from the cradle to the grave will be our race. If in our haste to
be rich and mighty, we outrun our literary and religious institutions, they will
never overtake us; or only come up after, the battle of liberty is fought and lost, as spoils to grace the victory, and
as resources of inexorable despotism for the perpetuity of our bondage. And let
no man at the East quiet himself, and dream of liberty, whatever may become of
the West. Our alliance of blood, and political institutions, and common
interests, is such, that we cannot stand aloof in the hour of her calamity,
should it ever come. - Her destiny is our destiny; and the day that her gallant
ship goes down, our little boat sinks in the vortex!
It was to meet these exigencies of our
common country in the West, that the Lane Seminary was called into being by
the munificence of the sons of the West; first by a donation from the two
gentlemen, whose name it bears, followed by the gift of sixty acres of land, on
which the institution is located, by Mr. Elnathan Kemper, and the sale of fifty
more at a reduced price and long credit by the
same benefactor; to which have been added fifteen thousand dollars by the
citizens of Cincinnati and the West, for the construction of two college
buildings and two professors' houses. To this has been added by our friends on
this side of the mountains, twenty thousand dollars from one individual, for the
endowment of the professorship of Theology; and by others, thirty thousand, for
the endowment of the two professorships of Biblical Literature and
Ecclesiastical History.
What we now need is a chapel for the accommodation of students and a fast
increasing community with a place of worship; the endowment of a Professor. ship
of Sacred Rhetoric, and a library. For the first we have dared to rely on
our friends in Boston and its vicinity. The library we hope to receive from our
friends in New York; and for the Professorship of Sacred Rhetoric we look up,
hoping and believing that God will put it into the heart of one or more individuals to endow it.
The motives which call on us to cooperate immediately in this glorious work of
consummating the institutions of the West, essential to the perpetuity of her
greatness and glory, are neither few, nor feeble, nor obscure.
The territory is 8,009 miles in circumference, extending from the Alleghany to
the Rocky mountains, and from the Gulf of Mexico to the Lakes of the North; and
it is the largest territory, and most beneficent in climate, and soil, and
mineral wealth, and commercial facilities, ever prepared for the habitation of
man, and qualified to sustain in prosperity and happiness the densest population
on the globe. By 24,000 miles of steam navigation, and canals and rail roads, a
market is brought near to every man, and the whole is brought into near
neighborhood.
When I first entered the West, its
vastness overpowered me with the impression of its uncontrollable greatness, in
which all human effort must be lost. But when I perceived the active intercourse
between the great cities, like the rapid circulation of a giant's blood; and
heard merchants speak of just stepping up to Pittsburgh-only 600 miles-and back
in a few days; and others just from Now Orleans, or St. Louis, or the Far West
and others going thither; and when I heard my ministerial brethren negotiating
exchanges in the near neighborhood--Only 100 miles up or down the river-and
going and returning on Saturday and Monday, and without trespassing on the
Sabbath;--than did I perceive how God, who seeth the end from the
beginning, had prepared the West to be mighty, and still wieldable, that the
moral
energy of his word and spirit might take it up as a very little thing.
This vast territory is occupied now by ten states and will soon be by twelve. Forty years since it contained only
about 150,000 souls; while now it contains little short of 5,000,000. At the
close of this century, if no calamity intervenes, it will contain, probably,
100,000,000-a day which some of our children may live to see; and when fully
peopled, may accommodate 300,000,000. It is half as large as all Europe, four
times as largo as the Atlantic states, and twenty times as largo as Now England.
Was there ever such a spectacle-such a field in which to plant the seeds of an
immortal harvest! -so vast a ship, so richly laden with the world's treasures
and riches, whose helm is offered to the guiding influence of early forming
institutions!
The certainty of success calls us to immediate effort. If we know not what to
do, if all was effort and expense in untried experiments, there might be some
pretext for, the paralysis of amazement
and inaction. But we know what to
do: the means are obvious, and well
tried, and certain. The sun and the
rain of heaven are not more sure to
call forth a bounteous vegetation, Man Bibles, and Sabbaths, and schools, and
seminaries, are to diffuse intellectual light and warmth for the bounteous
fruits of righteousness and peace. The corn and the acorn of the East are not
more sure to vegetate-at the West than the institutions which have blessed the
East are to bless the West.
But these all-pervading orbs of illumination and centres of attraction must be
established. Such is the gravitating tendency of society, that no spontaneous
effort at arms-length will hold it up. It is by the constant energy and strong
attraction of powerful institutions only that the needed intellectual and moral
be applied; and the present power can is the age, of founding them. If, this
work be done, and well done, our country is safe, and the world's hope is
secure. The government of force will cease, and that of intelligence and virtue
will take its place; and nation after nation, cheered by our example, will
follow in our footsteps, till the whole earth is free. There is no danger that
our agriculture and arts will not prosper: the danger is, that, our intelligence
and virtue will falter and fall back into a dark minded, vicious populace--a
poor, uneducated, reckless mass of infuriated animalism, to rush on resistless
as the tornado, or to burn as if set on fire of hell.
Until Europe, by universal education, is delivered from such masses of feudal
ignorance and servitude, she sits upon a volcano, and despotism and revolution
will arbitrate her destiny.
Consider, too, how quickly and how cheaply the guarantee of a perpetual and
boundless prosperity can be secured.
The West needs but a momentary aid, when almost as soon as received, should
it be needed, she will repay and quadruple both principal and interest. Lend a
hand to get up her institutions, to give ubiquity to her schools and sabbaths
and .sanctuaries, while her forests are falling and her ocean floods of
population rolling in, and afterwards we will not come here to ask for aid; for
there is a wealth and chivalrous munificence there, which, when it has first
performed the necessary work of self-preservation, will pour with you a noble
tide of rival benevolence into that river which is 11 to make glad the city of
our God."
All, at the West, is on a great scale, and the minds and the views of the people
correspond with these relative proportions. Already, where churches are formed,
they give more liberally than churches of the same relative condition at the,
East; -and, I have no doubt the
time is at the door, when the abundance of her means and enterprise will take
the lead in those glorious enterprises which are to emancipate the world.
It is not parsimony which renders momentary aid necessary to the West: it is
want of time and of assimilation for the consciousness and wielding of her
powers. And how cheaply can the aid be rendered for rearing immediately the
first generation of her institutions; cheaper than we could rear the barracks to
accommodate an army for the defence of our liberty, for a single campaign;
cheaper than the taxations of crime and its punishment during the same period,
in the absence. of literary and evangelical influence.
Consider, also, that the mighty resources of the West are worse than useless,
without the supervening influence. of the government of God.
To balance the temptation of such
unrivaled abundance, the capacity of the West for self-destruction, without
religious and moral culture, will be as terrific as her capacity for self-
preservation, with it, will be glorious. But all the moral energies of the
government of God over men, are indissolubly associated with "the ministry of
reconciliation." The Sabbath, and the preaching of the gospel, are Heaven's
consecrated instrumentality for the efficacious administration of the government
of mind in a happy social state. By these only does the Sun of Righteousness
arise with healing in his beams; and ignorance, and vice, and superstition
encamp around evangelical institutions to rush in whenever their light and power
is extinct.
The great experiment is now making, and from its extent and rapid filling up is
making in the West, whether the perpetuity of our republican institutions can
be. reconciled with universal suffrage. Without the education of the head and heart of the nation, they cannot be;
and the question to be decided is, can their nation, or the vast balance power
of it, be so imbued with intelligence and virtue, as to bring out, in laws and
their administration, a perpetual self-preserving energy? We know that the work
is a vast one, and of great difficulty; and yet we believe it can be done.
We know that we have reached an appalling crisis; that the work is vast and
difficult, and is accumulating upon us beyond our sense of danger and deliberate
efforts to meet it. It is a work that no legislation alone can reach, and
nothing but an undivided, earnest, decided public sentiment can achieve; and
that, too, not by anniversary resolutions and fourth of July orations, but by
well systematized voluntary associations; counting the worth of our
institutions, the perils that surround them, and the means
and the cost of their preservation, and making up our minds to meet the
exigency.
I am aware that our ablest patriots are looking out on the deep, vexed with
storms, with great forebodings and failings of heart for fear of the things that
are coming upon us; and I perceive a spirit of impatience rising, and distrust
in respect to the perpetuity of our republic; and I am sure that these fears are
well founded and are glad that they exist. It is the star of hope in our dark
horizon. Fear is what we need, as the ship needs wind on a rocking sea, after a
storm, to prevent foundering. But when our fear and our efforts shall correspond
with our danger, the danger is past'. For it is not the impossibility of self-
preservation which threatens us; -nor is it the unwillingness of the nation to
pay the price of the preservation,- as she has paid' the - price of the
purchase of our liberties. it is inattention and inconsideration, protracted till
the crisis is past, and the things which belong to our peace are bid from our
eyes. And blessed be God, that the tokens of a national waking up, the harbinger
of God's mercy, are multiplying upon us!
There is at the West an enthusiastic feeling on the subject of education; and
nothing has so inspired us with hope as to witness the susceptibleness of the
East on the same subject,. and the national fraternal benevolence with which you
are ready to put forth a helping hand. We have been sad, but now we are joyful.
We see, we feel that East and West, and North and South are waking up upon the
subject: a redeeming spirit is rising which will save the nation. We did not, in
the darkest hour, believe that God had brought our fathers to this goodly land
to lay the. foundation of -religious liberty, and wrought such won-
I would add, as a motive to immediate action, that if we do fail in our great
experiment of self-government, our destruction will be as signal as the
birthright abandoned, the mercies abused, and the provocation offered to
beneficent Heaven. The descent of desolation will, correspond with the past
elevation. No
punishments of Heaven are so severe as those for mercies abused; and no
instrumentality employed in their infliction is so dreadful as the wrath of man.
No spasms are like the spasms of expiring liberty, and no wailings such as her
convulsions extort. It took Rome three hundred years to die; and our death, if
we perish, will be as much more terrific as our intelligence and free
institutions have given to us more bone, and sinew, and vitality. May God hide
me from the day when the dying agonies of my country shall begin again. O, thou
beloved land! bound together by the ties of brotherhood and common interest, and
perils, live forever-one and undivided!
But whatever we do, it must be done quickly; for there is a tide in human things
which waits not,-moments on which the destiny of a nation balances, when the
light dust way turn the right
way or the wrong. And such is the
condition of our nation now. Mighty
influences are bearing on us in high
conflict, for good or for evil,-for an
immortality of wo, or blessedness; and
a slight effort now may secure what
ages of repentance cannot recover when
lost, and soon the moment of our practical preservation may have passed away.
We must educate the whole nation while
we may. All-all who would vote must
be enlightened, and reached by the re
straining and preserving energies of Heaven. The lanes. and alleys-the high
ways and hedges-the abodes of filth
and sordid poverty must be entered,
and the young immortals sought out,
and brought 'up to the light' of intellectual and moral daylight. This can
be done. God, if we are prompt and
willing,. will give us the time. But if,
in this our day, we neglect the things
that belong to our peace, we shall find
no place for repentance, though we seek it carefully and with tears.
But the vast amount of uneducated population in our land already calls upon us
loudly to set about the work of rearing every where the institutions requisite
for universal education.
According to the most accurate estimation which can be obtained, there are
in the United States about a million
and a half of children without the
means of education, and about 'an equal
number of adults, either foreigners or
native Americans, that arc uneducated.
These large masses of unenlightened
mind lie in almost every portion of
this nation, and frightful statistics have
been . officially given by legislative investigation in -several of our states.
In
one of the smaller eastern states there
are thirty thousand adults that cannot
read or write. In one of the largest
are four hundred thousand adults and children who have had no instruction, and no means provided. In one of
the western states, two-thirds of 'all the children in the state are destitute
of any provision for education. These are the states who have taken the' lead in
making legislative investigations. Equally
appalling developments await many of the
other states so soon as they have public
spirit enough to take the same method
for information. Every where, and in
ages, such masses of ignorance are
the material of all others most dangerous to liberty; for, as a general fact,
uneducated mind is educated vice. But the safety of our republic depends
upon the intelligence, and moral principle, and patriotism, and property of the
nation. These, whatever topical inflammation may break out and push on to
desperate measures, will by a common instinct of - self-preservation recoil
when the precipice appears, and will unite in measures of common safety. But if in this moment of recoil there be a
populace behind,-a million of voters without intelligence, or conscience, or
patriotism, or property, and driven on by demagogues to forbid recoil and push
us over, in a moment all may be lost. Half a million of unprincipled, reckless
voters, in the bands of demagogues, may, in our balanced elections, overrule all
the property, and wisdom, and moral principle of the nation.
This danger from uneducated mind is 'augmenting daily by the rapid influx of
foreign emigrants, unacquainted with our institutions, unaccustomed to self-
government, inaccessible to education, and easily accessible to prepossession,
and inveterate credulity, and intrigue, and easily embodied and wielded by
sinister design. In the beginning this eruption of revolutionary Europe was not
anticipated, and we opened our doors wide to the influx and naturalization of foreigners. But it is becoming a terrific
inundation; it has increased upon our native population from five to thirty-
seven per cent., and is every year advancing. It seeks, of course, to settle
down upon the unoccupied territory of the West, and may at no distant day equal,
and even outnumber the native population. What is to be done to educate the
millions which in twenty years Europe will pour out upon us?
But what if this emigration, self moved and slow in the beginning, is now
rolling its broad tide at the bidding of the ,powers of Europe hostile to free
institutions, and associated in holy alliance to arrest and put them down? Is
this a vain fear ? Are not the continental powers alarmed at the march of
liberal opinions, and associated to put them down? and are they not, with the
sickness of hope deferred, waiting for our
downfall? It is the light of our republican prosperity, gleaming in upon their
dark prison house, which is inspiring hope, and converting chains into arms. It
is the power of mind, roused by our example from the sleep of ages and the
apathy of despair, which is sending earthquake under the foundations of their
thrones; and they have no hope of rest and primeval darkness, but by the
extinction of our light. By fleets and armies they cannot do it. But do they,
therefore, sleep on their heaving earth and tottering thrones? Has Metternich
yet to form an acqaintance with history? Does he dream that there is but one way
to overturn republics, and that by the sword? Has he yet to learn how Philip,
by. dividing her councils, conquered Greece? and how, by intestine divisions,
Rome fell?
If the potentates of Europe have no design upon, our liberties, what means
the paying of the passage and emptying out upon our shores such floods of pauper
emigrants-the contents of the poor house and the sweepings of the streets ?-
multiplying tumults and violence, filling our prisons, and crowding our poor
houses, and quadrupling our taxation, and sending annually accumulating
thousands to the polls to lay their inexperienced hand upon the helm of our
power? Does Metternich imagine that there is no party spirit in our land, whose
feverish urgency would facilitate their naturalization and hasten them to the
ballot box?-and no demagogues, who for a little brief authority, however gained,
would sell their country to an everlasting bondage? A foreign influence acting
efficaciously on the councils of a republic, has always been regarded and always
proved itself to be
among the, most fatal to liberty. But
In no form can it' assume such power
as in the form of a consolidated mass Of alien votes, to balance in contested
elections the suffrage of the nation; rendering foreigners the most favored and
most courted people, and giving an easy predominance to foreign influence in our
national councils. That wily politician
does not sleep over our prosperity, despair of our overthrow. But he exults full
of hope that we sleep while he is sowing with broad cast among us the elements
of future strife, and preparing our ruin by the only means by which republics
have ever fallen.
It is the testimony of American travelers, that the territorial, civil and
ecclesiastical statistics of our country, and the action and bearing of
political ' causes upon our institutions, are more familiar at Rome and Vienna,
than with us; and that that tracts. and maps are in circulation, explanatory of
the capacious West, and pointing out the most fertile soils and
most favored locations, and inviting to emigration. These means of a stimulated
expatriation are corroborated by the copious and rapidly increasing
correspondence of those who have already arrived, and the increasing facilities
of transportation.
But if, upon examination, it should appear. that three-fourths of the
foreign emigrants whose accumulating tide is rolling in upon us, are, through
the medium of their religion and priesthood, as entirely accessible to the
control of the potentates of Europe as if they were an army of soldiers,
enlisted and officered, and spreading over the land; then, indeed, should we
have just occasion to apprehend danger to our liberties. It would be the union
of church and state in the midst of us. The church and "the state both in
Europe, and the pliant colonial church here. Her priesthood educated under the
despotic governments of Catholic Europe, and
dependent for their office,' support and
honors upon a foreign temporal prince,
on whose sanction to their laws and
doings they are as dependent as the
colonies were upon George the Third,*
and this prince, too, elected by Austrian influence and of course subservient to
Austrian bayonets, a priesthood not
*In the account of the last convocation or council Of the Catholic church in the
United Statcox sent to Europe, they say: "It was not thought proper to publish
its acts until they had been approved at Rome, whither they had been sent.
Quarterly Register, vol. 3, p. 06.
Lest the charge should seem gratuitous, of the pope being the creature of
Austria, it may be well to subjoin the language of an intelligent American who
was in Rome during the deliberations of the conclave respecting the election of
the present pontiff. He says:
"It was interesting to hear the speculations of the Italians on the
probability of this or that cardinal's election. Couriers were daily arriving
from the various despotic powers, 'and intrigues were rife elected by their people, or dependent on them during good behavior, or
accountable to them for their deeds, but dependent on a foreign jurisdiction,
and to a great extent on foreign patronage. This would, indeed, be a church and
state union-another nation within the nation-the Greek in the midst of Troy.
The simple fact, that the clergy of the Catholic denomination could wield in
mass the suffrage of their confiding people, could not fail, in the competition
in the anti-chambers of the Quirinal palace; now it was said that Spain would
carry her candidate, now Italy, and now Austria, and when Cardinal Capellani was
proclaimed pope, the universal cry, mixed too with low-muttered curses, was,
that Austria bad succeeded. The new pope had scarcely chosen his title of
Gregory XVI., and passed through the ceremonies of coronation, before the
revolution in his states gave him the opportunity of calling in Austria to take
possession of the patrimony of St. Peter, which his own troops could not keep
for an hour; and at this moment Austrian soldiers hold the Roman legions in
subjection to the cabinet of Vienna. In not the pope a creature of
Austria?" of ambition and party spirit, to occasion immediately an eager competition,
for their votes, placing them at once in the attitude of the most favored sect;:
securing the remission of duties on imported church property, and copious
appropriations of land for the endowment of their institutions;* shielding them
from animadversion by the sensitiveness of parties on account of their political
ends; and turning against their opponents, and in favor of Catholic, the
patronage and the tremendous influence of the administration, whose ascendancy
and continuance might, in closely contested elections, be thought to depend on
Catholic suffrage.
Nor is this all-the secular patronage at the disposal of an associated body of
men, who under the influence of their
*Senator Benton, of Missouri, we understand, has -introduced a bill to give two
thousand acres of land to a Catholic college. priesthood may be induced 'to act as one, for those who favor and against
those who - oppose them, would enable them to touch far and ' wide the spring of
action through our cities and through the nation. How many presses might they
influence by their promised patronage or threatened withdrawment? How
any mechanics, merchants, lawyers, physicians, in any political crisis, might
they reach and render timid, and temporizing, and prudent, not to say sturdy
eulogists of Catholics, lest they should lose the patronage of a sect, who alone
can wield a patronage to favor or to punish those who favor or obstruct their
views. And if while they are few and feeble, compared with the whole nation,
their consolidated action gives them such various and extended influence, how
will its power extend and. become omnipresent and resistless as emigration shall
quadruple their numbers and action on
the political and business men of the nation?
No government is more complex and difficult of preservation than a republic, and
in no political associations do little adverse causes produce more disastrous
results. Of all influences, none is more pernicious than a corps of men acting
systematically and perseveringly for its own ends upon a community unapprized of
their doings, and undisciplined to meet and counteract them, A tenth part the
suffrage of the nation, thus condense and wielded by the Catholic powers of
Europe, might decide our elections, perplex our policy, inflame and divide the
nation, break the bond of our union, and throw down our free institutions, The
voice of history also warns us, that no sinister influence has ever intruded
itself into politics, so virulent and
disastrous as that of an ambitious ecclesiastical influence, or which demands,
now and always, keener vigilance or a more active resistance.
But before I proceed, to prevent misapprehension, I would say that I have no
fear of the Catholics, considered simply as a religious denomination, and
unallied to the church and state establishments of the European governments
hostile to republican institutions.
Let the Catholics mingle with us as Americans, and come with their children
under the full action of our common schools and republican institutions,
and the various powers of assimilation, and we are prepared cheerfully to abide
he consequences. If in those circumstances the protestant religion cannot stand
before the Catholic, let it go down, and we will sound no alarm, and ask no aid
and make no complaint. It is no ecclesiastical quarrel to which we would call
the attention of. the American nation. Nor would I consent that the civil and religious rights of the Catholics
should be abridged or violated. As naturalized citizens, to all that we enjoy,
we bid them welcome, and would have their property and rights protected with the
same impartiality and efficacy that the property and rights of every other
denomination are protected; and we should abhor the interposition of lawless
violence to injure the property or control the rights of Catholics as vehemently
as if it were directed against protestants and their religion. For when the day
comes that lawless force prevails, argument and free inquiry are ended, and law
and courts are impotent and useless, and liberty is extinct, and anarchy by its
terrors will compel men to call in the protection of despotic power to save them
from the pursuing hell. The late violence done to Catholic property at
Charlestown is regarded with regret and abhorrence by protestants and patriots throughout the land, though the
excitement which produced it had no relation whatever to religious opinions, and
no connection with any religious denomination of Christians.
We are equally opposed to any attempt to cast -odium upon Catholics of the
resent generation for any maxims, doctrines or practices of past ages, which are
now by the competent authority of the pope or a general council disavowed. But
for all the political bearings of their unchangeable and infallible creed, and
for all the deeds of persecution and blood, justified by their principles and
perpetrated by Catholic powers, and not disavowed by his holiness or by a
council, the Catholic church is accountable, whatever may be the personal
opinion of particular individuals or particular departments of that great
community.
In our animadversions, however, even
on these things, a declamatory, virulent, contemptuous, sarcastic, taunting,
denunciatory style is as unchristian as it is in bad taste and indiscreet. The
invidious technics of the old controversy have gone into oblivion, and it is
impossible to bring back the image and body of the times gone by as they stood
in dreadful reality around our persecuted fathers; and however the urgency of
oppression in a rough age may palliate the use of such terms by them, sound
argument with mock firmness had been better even then: and it is one of the most
hopeful signs of the present times, that public sentiment demands such courtesy
of all religious controvertists now, and will not endure a dialect of rudeness,
ill-temper and violence. If the reaction upon Catholics for the use of such
language -is not as stem and powerful as on protestants, it is only because as
strangers I and a minority, more aggressive lan- guage will be tolerated in them than the protestant majority will be
permitted to hurl back; while even they, in the use of invidious terms, and the
manifestation of a virulent, discourteous and contemptuous spirit, are fast
using up both the sympathy and the patience of the community in their behalf.
Besides, the Catholics in great numbers are with us, and their increase
by emigration, if it can be regulated, can never be wholly prevented. Our
unoccupied territory, our national works, and their poverty and oppression
at home, will as certainly bring over adventurers as a vaccuum will call in the
circumjacent atmosphere; and it is impossible to avert the danger from so much
exile population but by a friendly approximation, and the ubiquity and powerful,
illumination of our institutions, and the overcoming influence of Christian
enterprise and Christian love. It is not the striking of the fist which will disarm
them, but words and acts of kindness
and the warm beating of our heart;
while contemptuous treatment Will augment their hatred of protestants, and
rivet their prejudice, and deliver them
over double bound to the power of their
priesthood, already too great for their
happiness and our safety.
In this view of the Subject, I cannot but regret the manner in which the
controversy between the Catholics and protestants has in various instances been
conducted, in which the style and temper, as the means of doing good, were the
very worst that could have been chosen, and the very best as the means of aiding
the cause they were intended to oppose. Important facts and powerful-arguments
have been given, but so mingled with invective and taunt, and sarcasm, and
reviling, as to injure the cause as much by the disgust occa- sioned as it was aided by the power of'
argument.
It is to the political claims and character of the Catholic religion, and its
church
and state alliance with the political and
ecclesiastical governments of Europe hostile to liberty, and the tendency upon
our republican institutions of flooding the
nation suddenly with immigrants of this
description, on whom for many years
European influence may be exerted with
such ease and certainty, and power, that
We call the attention of the people of this
nation. Did the Catholics regard them
selves only as one of many denominations of Christians, entitled only to equal
rights and privileges, there would be no
such cause for apprehension while they
peaceably sustained themselves by their
own arguments and well doing. But if
Catholics are taught to believe that their church is the only church of Christ,
out of whose inclosure none can be saved,-that none may read the Bible but by permission of the priesthood, and
no one be permitted to understand it and worship God according to the dictates
of his own conscience,-that heresy is a capital offence not to be tolerated, but
punished by the civil power with disfranchisement, death and. confiscation of
goods,-that the pope and the councils of the church are infallible, and her
rights of ecclesiastical jurisdiction universal, and as far as possible and
expedient may be of right, and ought to be as a matter of duty, enforced by the
civil power,-that to the pope belong the right of interference with the
political concerns of nations, enforced by his authority over the consciences of
Catholics, and his power to corroborate or cancel their oath of allegiance, and
to sway them to obedience or insurrection by the power of life or death eternal;
if such, I say, are the maxims avowed by
her pontiffs, "sanctioned by her councils, stereotyped on her ancient records,
advocated by her most approved authors, illustrated in all ages by her history,
and still unrepealed, and still acted upon in the armed prohibition of free
inquiry and religious liberty, and the punishment of heresy wherever her power
remains unbroken; if these things are so, is it invidious
and is it superfluous to call the attention of the nation to the bearing of such
a denomination upon our civil and religious institutions and equal rights? it
the right of self-preservation, and the denial of it is treason or the
infatuation of folly.
It is a duty also enforced by the unparalleled novelty and urgency, of our
condition; for since the irruption of the northern barbarians, the world has
never witnessed such a rush of dark-minded population from one country to
another, as is now leaving Europe and dashing Upon our shores. It is not the northern hive, but the whole
hive which is swarming out upon our cities and unoccupied territory as the
effect of overstocked population, of civil oppression, of crime and poverty, and
political and ecclesiastical design. Clouds like locusts of Egypt are rising
from the hills and plains of Europe, and on the wings of every wind are coming
over to settle down upon our fair 'fields; while millions, moved by the noise of
their rising and cheered by the news of their safe arrival and green pastures,
arc preparing for flight, in an endless succession.
Capitalists and landholders, who feel in Europe the premonitions of corning
evil, are transforming their treasures to our funds, and making largo
investments in land and facilitating emigration to augment the value of their
property. Our unoccupied soil is coming fast into the
European -market, and foreign capitalists
and speculators are holding competition with our own. So that, were there no
political and no ecclesiastical ends to be
accomplished, the rapid influx upon us of
such masses of uneducated mind of other
tongues and habits would itself alone demand an immediate and earnest national
supervision, on the same principles of
self-preservation that would dyke out the
ocean or turn the mountain torrent from
carrying desolation over our fields. For
the causes are mighty and radical which,
threaten us; while the peculiarity of our
organization in national and state governments gives potency to their action and
imbecility to our resistance.
But if this tremendous tide of European emigration is from two-thirds to three-
quarters of it under the direction of the feudal potentates of Europe,
associated to put down at home and abroad our liberal institutions of the world,
and to reach us are availing themselves of a religion which has always sustained their
thrones and been sustained by them--despotic constitution and doctrines,
and in all ages found the ranks of despotism, contending against the civil and
religious rights of man-a religion which
extinguished the lingering remains of Roman liberty, and warred for thirty years
against the resurrection of civil and religious liberty in modern Europe, and
holds now the mind in unmitigated bondage wherever its power is unbroken,
and is the mainstay of opposition to the
efforts of European patriots to break the
yoke - and ameliorate the condition of
man; if this religion is rising in the midst
of us by floods of annual emigration, by
its undivided suffrage-to balance our
elections and sway our destiny and by
the aid of royal munificence to endow
our institutions, and by underbidding and
gratuitous instruction to monopolize the
education, of the coming generations--,
why should we shut our . eyes, and stop our ears, and cry, Peace, while
destruction is coming?
There is no despotism so terrible as a popular despotism under the names and
forms of liberty, where ignorance and prejudice, and passion, and irreligion,
and crime are wielded by desperate political ambition and a corrupting foreign
influence; and if ever our liberties perish, it will be by the explosion of the
volcanic the European and American and foreign influence and American demagogues
in bad alliance, who will ride in the whirlwind and direct the storm. This I am
aware is strong language. But strong language is demanded; for this giant nation
sleepeth and must be awaked. For obvious and
imminent as is the danger, its development is recent, and the action of it on
many minds is prevented by a multitude
of careless, commonplace, fallacious max- ims pouring contempt on fear, and holding the community spell-bound; some of
which I must note and expose.
It is nothing but a controversy about religion, it is said-a thing which has
no thing to do with the liberty and prosperity of nations, and the sooner it is
banished
from the world the better.
As well might it be insisted that the sun has no influence on the solar system,
or the moon on the tides. In all ages, religion, of some kind, has been the
former of man's character and the mainspring of his action. It has done more to
fill up the eventful page of history, than all -moral causes beside. It has boon
the great agitator or tranquilizer of nations, the orb of darkness or of light
to the world,-the fountain of purity or pollution,-the mighty power of riveting
or bursting the chains of men. Atheists may rage and blaspheme, but they cannot
expel religion of some kind from
the world. Their epidemic madness, like the volcano, may at times break out, and
obscure the sun, and turn the moon into blood, and extend from nation to nation
the cup of God's displeasure, covering the earth with the slain and the
fragments of demolished institutions. But it can reconstruct nothing. It must be
temporary, or it would empty the earth of its inhabitants. It will be temporary,
because so bright are the evidences of a
superior power, and so frail and full of sorrow are men, and so guilty and full
of fears, that if Christianity does not guide them to the true God and Jesus
Christ, superstition will send them to the altars of demons.
But it is a contest, -it is said, about religion and politics have no
religion and sort of connection. Let the religionists fight their own battles;
only keep the
church and state apart, and there is no danger.
It is a union of church and state which we fear, and to prevent which we lift up
our voice: a union which never existed without corrupting the church and
enslaving the people, by making the ministry independent of them and dependent
on the state, and to a great extent a sinecure aristocracy of indolence and
secular ambition, auxiliary to the throne and inimical to liberty. No treason
against our free institutions would be more fatal than a union of church and
state; none, when perceived, would bring on itself. a more overwhelming public
indignation, and which all protestant denominations would resist with more
loathing and abhorrence.
And is there, therefore, no danger of a church and state union, because all
denominations cannot unite, and no one can elude the vigilant resistance
of the rest? Is there no other door at which the innovation can come in? How has
the union been constituted in
times past? Not as coveted by the church, and secured by her artifice or power,
but as coveted by the state, and sought for purposes of secular ambition
strengthen the arm of despotic power. It was Constantine who invited the church
into an alliance with the state,-nay, forced upon her the corrupting honor. It
was the kings of the earth who gave their protection to a despotic
form of corrupted Christianity; from which, when the power of superstition
overmastered the sceptre, they have been taking it away.
But in republics the temptation and the facilities of courting an alliance with
church power may be as great as in governments of less fluctuation. Amid the
competitions of party and the struggles of ambition, it is scarcely possible
that the clergy of a largo denomination should be able to give a direction to
the suffrage of their whole people, and not become for the time being the most
favored denomination, and in balance
elections the dominant sect, whose influence in times of discontent may
perpetuate power against the unbiassed verdict of public opinion. The free
circulation of the blood is not more essential to bodily health, than the easy,
unobstructed movement of public sentiment in a republic. All combinations to
forestall and baffle its movements tend to the destruction of liberty. Its
fluctuations are indeed an evil; but the power to arrest its fluctuations and
chain it down is despotism; and when it is accomplished by the bribed alliance
of ecclesiastical influence in the control of suffrage, it a
pears in its most hateful and alarming
form. It is true, that the discovery might
produce a -reaction, and sweep away the
ecclesiastical intermeddlers. But in political crises, calamities may be
inflicted in a day, which ages cannot repair; and who can tell, when the time
comes, whether the power will be too strong for the fetters, or the fetters for
the power? For none but desperate men will employ such measures for the
acquisition of power-, and when desperate men have gained power they will not
relinquish it without a struggle. -
The Lord deliver us from the alliance of any church with the state; for it will
be the alliance of ambition with ambition, of corruption with corruption, of
despotism with despotism, and of a persecuting irreligion with a persecuting
Christianity. It will produce a reaction, should the alliance ever take place;
but the conflict will be dreadful, and blood will flow.
We say, then, with the objector, only keep the church and state apart, and
there will be no danger. But while you watch the door at which the alliance
never did come, do not forget to watch the door at which it always has entered-
the door of the state inviting the alliance of church power to sustain its own
weakness and nerve its arm for despotic dominion.
"But why so much excitement about the Catholic religion? Is not one religion
just as good as another?"
There are some who think that Calvinism is not quite as good a religion as some
others. I have heard it denounced as a severe, unsocial, Self-righteous,
uncharitable, exclusive, persecuting system-dealing damnation round the
landcompassing sea and land to make proselytes, and forming conspiracies to
overturn the liberties of the nation by an unhallowed union of church and state.
There have been those, too, who have thought it neither meddlesome nor per-
secution to investigate the facts in the case, and scan the republican
tendencies of the Calvinistic system. Though it has always been on the side of
liberty in its struggles against arbitrary power-, though, through the puritans,
it breathed into the British constitution its most invaluable principles, and
laid the foundations of the republican institutions of our nation, and felled
the forests, and fought the colonial battles with Canadian Indians and French
Catholics, when often our destiny balanced on a pivot and hung upon a hair; and
though it wept, and prayed, and fasted, and fought, and suffered through the
revolutionary struggles when there was almost no other creed but the Calvinistic
in the land; still it is the opinion of many, that its well doings of the past
should not invest the system with implicit confidence, or supersede the scrutiny
of its republican tendencies. They do not think themselves required,
to let Calvinists alone;-and why should they? We do not ask to be let alone, nor
cry persecution when our creed or conduct is analyzed. We are not annoyed by
scrutiny; we seek no concealment. We court investigation of our past history,
and of all the tendencies: of the doctrines and doings of the friends of the
reformation;-and why should the Catholic religion be exempted from scrutiny? Has
it disclosed more vigorous republican tendencies? Has it done more to enlighten
the intellect, to purify
the morals, and sanctify the hearts of men, and fit them for self-government?
Has it fought more frequently or successfully the battles of liberty against
despotism? or done more to enlighten the intellect, purify the morals, and
sanctify the heart of the world, and prepare it for universal liberty?
I protest against that unlimited abuse with which it is thought quite proper to
round off declamatory periods against the religion of those who fought the
battles of the reformation and the battles of the revolution, and that
sensitiveness and liberality which would shield from animadversion and spread
the mantle of charity over a religion which never prospered but in alliance with
despotic governments has always been and still is the inflexible enemy of
liberty of conscience and free inquiry, and at this moment is the mainstay of
the battle against republican institutions. A despotic government and despotic
religion may not be able to endure free inquiry, but a republic and religious
liberty cannot exist without it. Where force is withdrawn, and millions are
associated for self-government, the complex
mass of opinions and interests can be reduced to system and order only by the
collision and resolution of intellectual and
moral forces. To lay the ban of a fastidious charity on religious free inquiry,
would terminate in unthinking apathy and the intellectual stagnation of the dark
ages. Whatever European nations may do, our nation must read and think from
length to breadth, from top to bottom. It is a perilous experiment we have
adventured upon; but it is begun, and we cannot go back. For mind has felt its
own power, and is girding itself for efforts never yet made, and with means and
motives never before possessed, and on such a field as before was never opened,
and it is only the mighty salutary action of mind which can carry us through.
It is an anti-republican charity, then, which would shield the Catholics, or any
other religious denomination, from the animadversion of impartial criticism.--
Denominations, as really as books, are public property, and demand and are
benefited by criticism. And if ever the Catholic religion is liberalized and
assimilated to our institutions, it must be done,
not by a sickly sentimentalism screening it from animadversion, but by
subjecting it to the tug of controversy, and turning upon it the searching
inspection of the public eye, and compelling it, like all other religions among
us, to pass the ordeal of an enlightened public sentiment.
"But are not the Catholics sincere?
why not, then, let them alone?" That
they are sincere in their faith there can
be no doubt. But what the republican
tendency of their faith is, depends on
what they believe, and not on the simple
fact that they do believe it. If they believe in the rights and duties of
universal
education, of free inquiry, of reading and
understanding the Bible, and in the liberty and equality of all religious
denominations, and that they and we are accountable only to God and the laws of
the
land, it is well. But if they believe that
the pope and the church are infallible,
that his ecclesiastical jurisdiction is uni- versal,--that he and the priests have the
power of eternal life or death, in the
bestowment or refusal of pardon as they'
obey or disobey them, that no man
may read the Bible without the permission of the priesthood, or understand
it but as they interpret and that every
Catholic is bound to believe implicitly
as the church believes, and that all
non-Catholics are heretics, and heresy a capital offence, and - the
extermination
of heretics by force duty; then the more anti-republican the elements of their
faith are, the, more - terrific is their sincerity, which on the peril of their
soul would make them the instruments of a foreign policy in overturning our
institutions for the - establishment of those of their own.
"But have there not been great and good men in the Catholic Church?" Doubtless.
Luther was a great and good man while he was in the church
or he had never left it; and other's have
given evidence of piety. who never did
abandon her communion. But does the
existence of a few good men in a church
and state union sanctify the system?--
are all systems containing men of talents
and piety, of good republican tendency?
There may be great and good men in
Russia, and Prussia, and Austria, and
Italy; but does that prove the republican tendencies of their religious systems?
It might be well to ascertain,
too, whether the great and good men
in the Catholic church have ever exerted a predominant influence in it,
and
have not rather endured they
could not reform, and if not persecuted,
were tolerated in an impotent minority
for the credit their virtues gave, without the power of changing the maxims and
tendencies of the system?
Whether Catholics are pious or learned,
is not the question but what are the
republican tendencies of their system?
I am pressing, upon republican America
that it is better for her to educate her population by her own sons and money,
than to rely on the schoolmasters and
charitable contributions' of, the despotic
governments of Catholic Europe-and
the more piety, and talent, and learning
they should bring to our aid, the more deep and indelible would be the
impression they might make adverse to our religious and political institutions.
"But have not the ~ Catholics just as good a right to their religion as other
denominations have to theirs?" I have said so. I not only, admit their equal
rights, but insist upon them; and am prepared to defend their rights, as I am
those of my own and other -protestant denominations. The Catholics have a
perfect right to proselyte the nation to their faith if they are able to do it.
But I too have the right of preventing it
if I am able. They have a right freely
to propagate their opinions and arguments; and I too have a right to apprise
the nation of their political bearings on
our republican institutions. They have
a right to test the tendencies of protestantism by an appeal to history; and I
by an appeal to history, have a right
to illustrate the coincidence between the
political doctrines and the practice of
the Catholic church, and to show that
always they have been hostile to civil
and religious liberty. The Catholics
claim and exercise the liberty of animadverting on the doctrines and doings
of protestants, and we do not complain
of it;--and why should they or their
friends complain that we in turn should
animadiert on the political maxims and
doings ' of the Catholic church? Must
Catholics have all the liberty-their own
and ours too? Can they not endure
the -reaction of free inquiry? Must we
lay our hand on our mouth in their presence, and stop the press? Let them
count the cost, and such as cannot bear the scrutiny of free inquiry return
where there is none; for though we would kindly accommodate them in all
practicable ways, we cannot surrender our rights for their accommodation.
But are not the Catholic priesthood useful to keep in order their unlettered
population, to secure the restitution of
property, and in cases. of popular tumult, by the waving of the hand to allay.
excitement and obviate violence?
But how much better it were if their people were so educated as not wrongfully
to take the property of their neighbors,
And what percentage do you imagine over returns to the owner by the
instrumentality of the confessional and the
priesthood. And as to the power of stilling tumults by waving the hand, were it
not better so to educate their people
parative homogeneity of character, opinions and interests, the result of our colonial training and revolutionary
struggle, and while the ship was navigated by those who aided in her construction and launching. But another
generation has arisen; and great difficulties are yet to be encountered, demanding equal wisdom, unity, and firmness,
and decision, and rendering the accumulation of a powerful adverse influence justly alarming. And of all others, a
religious influence, in the hands of ecclesiastics, and perverted to purposes of secular intrigue and political
intermeddling, is most to be feared. While religion, pure and undefiled, is as indispensable to the perfection of
society and the propitious results of government, as the sun is, to light, and order, and vegetation, and life, it
becomes such-only by being kept in its own-department, to send out through all relations its mild, purifying,
tranquilizing , but
mighty and all-pervading energy. But it is too much for one
class of men. to unite in the same hands the power of both
worlds. Instead of coalescing, they should be vigilantly and
efficaciously kept apart.
With sincere approbation and thanks
giving to God, I regard the article of
our constitution prohibiting forever an
alliance of any church with the state.
And though I regard as needless and
unjust, the constitutional exclusion of the
clergy in some states from eligibility to
office, as if ' the people were incompetent to be trusted in the
selection of their
own servants;. yet did I believe that they
-were incompetent, and that they would
not as a general fact confine the clergy
to their own vocation, I should much
prefer that the exclusion had been universal.: -For I have never
witnessed a clergyman active in the collision of party politics,
or absorbed in the secular cares of legislation, without
feeling and perceiving that others felt, that the man was out of
his place, and religion disgraced.*
*No doubt such avowals will surprise many, who have been led
to suppose that the writer, and, the Congregational and
Presbyterian denominations with which he has been associated,
are in the van of ambitious desire, and sinister intrigue, and
unholy plotting to compass a union of church and state in their
own behalf. I have only to say, that that the sentiments on
this subjected avowed in this discourse, are the sentiments of,
my whole life,: and the regulators of my conduct.; and
I have been repeatedly, in various forms, published
within the last
ten years ; and are in accordance with the views of the great
body of the Congregational
and Presbyterian ministers, whom, I now know and
have ever, known. Should any,- however, be still troubled in
mind by the apprehension of our machinations, they may well be
tranquilized if they will search the records of legislation and
political office in this nation, and in all the states, and
witness how harmless and impotent our intrigues must have been
to secure either legislative power or official trust; and how
large a portion of popular and governmental favor has fallen,
happily for us, as I think, upon clerical men without the sphere
of the Congressional and Presbyterian denominations. much power to be united in the. same hands. But how is the
peril augmented .when both these, with the sanctions of God's,
eternal government, are concentrated in clerical hands, and
directed to political purposes in the government of nations.
Such a priesthood, as a body, cannot be spiritual, or pure, or
safe, but always has been, and always will be, a corrupt and
intriguing priesthood, perverting its spiritual power over the
consciences of men, to the control of their physical and civil
action in accordance with its own will and the purposes of a
despotic government.
The history of five hundred years attests the baleful influence
which one of the feeblest political powers of Europe has been
able to exert upon the governments around him, by his spiritual
dominion over, the. consciences of their subjects. There. never
was a time when the pope could by the power of arms control the
policy of surrounding nations; and yet for ages, by the
terrors of his spiritual power over the consciences of their
darkened-minded subjects, he bound kings in chains and princes
in fetters of iron,--because, if they disobeyed his will, he
could by his power over the consciences of their subjects, in a
moment blast them with a curse and interdict, which would cause
them to be shunned like leprous men, or sent out like
Nebuchadnezzar to graze among oxen. It is the spiritual power
of the pope over the civil destiny of nations, through the
medium of his priesthood and the consciences of men, which has
in all periods rendered the elections of the pope a subject of
such high interest and earnest competition and intrigue by the
different nations of Europe.
By the reformation, half Europe was disenthralled from
the action of this dreadful power. And the extension
of commerce and the arts, the illumination of
science, the power of skepticism, and the advance of liberal
opinions and of revolution and reform, have done much in
Germany, Switzerland, France, Spain, and Portugal, to annihilate
this power of religion, perverted to secular ends. But in
Austria, and Bohemia, and Ireland, the spell is not broken; and
the perverted power of both worlds is concentrated to darken
and enslave mind, and perpetuate civil and ecclesiastical
despotism; while in the nations named, there are millions upon
millions,, whose -physical and civil action can be controlled by
the influence of their priesthood, through the medium of their
religion, as implicitly, and as accurately as the soldiers of
Frederick could be moved, to fight his battles.
But it is notorious, that the Catholic immigrants to this
country are generally of the class least enlightened, and
most implicit in their religious subjection to the priesthood,
who are able, by their spiritual ascendancy, to direct easily
and inffallibly the exercise of their civil rights and.
political. action. And it were easy to show, wore this the time
and place, that, they do interfere in the exaction of fees, in
the control of children, and in the, article of marriage, as no
protestant minister ever did or would dare to attempt; and that
a secular influence is beginning to be exerted over the
political action of their dependent, confiding people.
And is there no danger from a population of nearly a
million, augmenting at ;the rate of two or three hundred
thousand a year by immigration; whose physical power,
and property, and vote, ~ are, as entirely as in Europe,
within the-reach of clerical influence? Is it, then, a
vain hope of European potentates, endangered by our free
institutions, that they shall be able to clog and perplex and stop their movements by
thrusting in such a disturbing force,-- rearing up in fact a
distinct nation of their own subjects, organized and wielded by
them, in the midst of us? Is a perverted religious power so
feeble and innocuous, that its threatened
agency in our political movements is to
be kept over or despised? Religion is
the most powerful, dreadful cause, when
perverted, which ever mingled a malignant influence in the
politics of nations?
But for the alliance of religion with the
state, and the intrigues and power of the
priesthood, Europe had been for ages
comparatively tranquil,. instead of being,
like a volcano, in continued action, or a ship in battle, in a
constant blaze.
How dreadful were the wars of the reformation in Europe, and
the civil wars which followed, which could at any time have been
quenched, but that a perverted religious zeal inflamed them
The politics of the nation could at any time have been adjusted,
but the religion never. Far, far from us be the plague of that
burning which will break out and rage among us as it never raged
on earth, should a perverted religious influence introduce among
us this curse 'of nations. For holy as religion is, all the bad
passions gather about its perverted standard, and under the
sanctions of its hallowed name, and by all the augmented motives
of eternity, lot loose the malignant passion of the desperately
wicked heart.
And let me ask again, whether the Catholic religion,
in its union with the state, has proved itself so
unambitious, meek, and unaspiring so feeble, and easy to
be entreated, as to justify-a proud ,contempt of its
avowed purpose and systematic movements to secure an
ascendancy in this nation? It is accidental that in
alliance with despotic governments, it has swayed a
sceptre of iron, for ten
centuries over nearly one-third of; the population of, the
globe, and by a death of violence is estimated to have swept
from 'the' earth about sixty-eight millions of its inhabitants,
and holds now in darkness and bondage nearly half the civilized
world?
In all this long career of evil it is not the personal
character of individuals which perverted the system and sent out
the results, but the system which perverted personal character.
It was the energy of an absolute spiritual dominion in corrupt
alliance -with political despotism displaying their perverting
power and acting out their own nature. It is the most skillful,
powerful, dreadful system of corruption, to those who wield it
and of debasement and slavery to those who live under it, which
ever spread darkness and desolation over the earth.
And yet over all its track of blood it has -thrown the exterior
of high devo- tion, great sanctity, and eminent purity and benevolence.
It boasts a venerable antiquity, and claims a lineal descent
from primitive Christianity, and blazons on its roll of fame
the names of many holy and illustrious doctrines are true,
and some of its institutions are wise, and the self-denial
and good deeds of some of its clergy, and sisters of charity,
in the visitation of the sick and the education of the poor,
are worthy of imitation. But it is a religion, exclusive in
its claims and awful in its sanctions, and terrific in its
power of declaring sins remitted or retained; By the.
confessional it searches the heart, learns the thoughts, and
motives, and habits, and condition of individuals and
families, and thus acquires
the means of an unlimited ascendancy
over mind by the united influence of
both worlds. It is majestic and imposing it ins ceremonies,
dazzling by its
lights and ornaments, vestments and gorgeous drapery, and
fascinating by the power of music and the breathing marble and
living canvas, and all the diversified contributions of
art-strong in the patronage of the great, and the power of
wealth and the versatilities of art, and unlimited in its powers
of accommodation to the various characters, tastes, and
conditions of men. For the profound, it has metaphysics and
philosophy-the fine arts for men of taste, and wealth, and
fashion-signs and wonders for the superstitious-forbearance for
the sceptic--toleration for the liberal, who eulogize and aid
her cause--enthusiasm for the ardent--lenity for the voluptuous,
and severity for the austere--fanaticism for the excited, and
mysticism for moody musing. For the formalist, rites and
ceremonies-for the moral, the merit of good works, and for those
who are destitute, the merits of the saints at
accommodating prices--for the poor, penance--extreme unction for
the dying, and masses for the spirits in prison, who, by
donation, or testament, or by their friends, provide the
requisite ransom.
This is the religion so powerful in the combined energies of
earth and heaven--so dextrous in their application--so gigantic
in its past energies--so enslaving and terrible in its recorded
deeds, and yet in its present appearance, so mild, meek,
unassuming, and munificent, which is coming in among us, a
comparative stranger-the records of its history denied, or
forgotten, or covered by a charity that would belt the zones,
and span the earth-coming by numbers to outnumber us, by
votes-,to outvote us, and by the competitions of European
munificence to secure. an ascendant influence in the education
of the young republicans of our nation.
This religion is wielded by a priest-
hood educated, for the most part, in the despotic governments Of
Europe, of recent naturalization and retaining the
ecclesiastical and political partialities of their country and
early associations. Were they allied to us by family and ties of
blood, like the ministry of all other denominations, there.
would be less to be feared, and common interests would produce
gradually but certainly
an unreluctant assimilation. But as it is, they stand out from
society, a separate, insulated male ecclesiastical association,
with property and interests peculiarly their own; with an
irresponsible and despotic power over - the consciences, and .
physical and civil action of numbers, quite too great and
influential for the safety of republican institutions, where
every thing depends on the free and enlightened action of
public sentiment.
This anti-republican tendency of cleri-
cal influence is augmented in our nation,
by the fact that the control of suffrage,
and secular patronage, and education,
and power of conscience, is under the
predominant influence of the society of
Jesuits; an order of men associated at
the 'reformation, to stay its progress,
and sustain and extend the cause of the
papacy-clothed with high privileges and
devoted by oath to implicit obedience
to his holiness-possessing the advantages of an efficient
organization, and
the energy of a despotic will, equal
to the control of a commander-in-chief
over every officer and private in his
army, and wielding the power which
belongs to talent, learning, wealth, numbers, and a deep
knowledge of human
nature, and the means of touching dextrously every spring of
action, and so securing every complexity of movement
for religious and political purpose--
trained as courtiers, confessors, teachers,
diplomatists, saints, spies, and working men, to
influence and control the destiny of nations, and guided also by
a morality which permits, the end to sanctify the means. An
association of more moral and political power than was ever
concentrated on the earth-twice suppressed as too formidable for
the crowned despotism of Europe, and an overmatch for his
holiness himself-and twice restored as indispensable to the
waning power of the holy see. And now with the advantages of its
past mistakes and experience, this order is in full
organization, silent, systematized, unwatched, and unresisted
action among us, to try the dexterity of its movements, and the
potency of its power upon unsuspecting charitable, credulous
republicans.
That the Jesuits will ever regain their former ascendancy is not
to be apprehended; but is no influence of their secret
organization and intrigue, short of
its former terrific energy, to be feared? Was ever a more
ample field for intrigue opened before them than our country
presents, or more accessible and unwatched,--or filled with
materials mom powerfully adapted to perplex the movements of our
government, and make confusion worse confounded?
Doubtless, the Catholic religion can never acquire a permanent
ascendancy in this nation by force, and a formal union of church
and state; but a kingdom or nation divided against itself is
brought to desolation. And is it impossible to embody such an
amount of Catholic influence by copious immigration, and unity
of action, and Jesuit intrigue,. as to divide us? Is the task so
impossible, or difficult as to throw contempt upon the
systematized action of an order of men, once the most powerful
that ever conspired against liberty, or held competition with
despotic powers?
Were we all, as Americans and republicans, apprised of the
danger, and united in mild and efficient measures, it would
still be a subject of deep unrest and great difficulty. If none
were indiscreet and violent, and none sympathized with the
Catholics, as abused and persecuted, and none from a greater
hatred of the protestant than the Catholic religion and none
from secular interest, and political favoritism, sympathized
with them, the floods of unprepared, confiding mind, rolling in
upon us to augment the power of a Jesuit priesthood, might well
awaken solicitude and demand circumspection.
But who can preclude, in so exciting and delicate an emergency,
all but wise counsels and discreet action, or prevent the
affinities of prejudice, and hate, and political ambition from
gathering nominal, protestants about the Catholic standard; and
who can abide, the day,
should the politics of this nation become perplexed and
infuriated with the virulence of a religious controversy.
I It is true that Catholicity in Europe is on the retreat before
the march of liberal opinions and institutions; but it is no
less true that it is still in numbers, wealth, and political
dominion over mind, a terrible power, and presently such an
enemy as has often given a desperate battle; and inspiration
teaches that the dying struggles of this system will be among
the most gigantic and terrible, and such are the existing
prognostics of its destiny.
If the Catholic religion were simply an insulated system
of religious error, it might be expected to fade away
without a struggle before the augmenting, overpowering
light of truth; but it has always been, and still is, a
political religion, a religion of state; and though its
ambitious encroachments reconciled
the potentates of Europe to its waning -power, the experience of
the last thirty years has taught them, that they have overacted
in the humiliation of his holiness and the church, that her
downfall opens the door to revolution and the march of liberty,
that the Catholic church is as indispensable to the throne, as
the throne is to the church, and that without her influence over
mind, they cannot meet and stem the spirit of the age; and now
they are beginning, with now decision, to rally again around the
church, and to give to her their secular aid, while she repays
them by the energy of her spiritual dominion over mind.
Hence it is, that under the auspices of the Greek church, the
emperor of Russia declares, "as long as I live, I will oppose a
will of iron to the progress of liberal opinions," and has pre-
scribed to the ill-fated Poles a catechism
in equal quantities of despotism and blasphemy.
The empire of Austria is also hermetically scaled against the
admission of light.
A late intelligent American traveler in Austria, says:
In accordance with this Austrian policy of keeping out the
light and maintaining the empire of darkness, his present
holiness, pope Gregory XVI, lamenting, in 1832, the disorders
and infidelity of the times, says: so From this polluted fountain of
"Indifference," *Dwight. "Hither tends that worst and never sufficiently to be
execrated and detested LIBERTY OF THE PRESS, for the diffusion
or all manner or writings, which some so loudly contend for,
and so actively promote."
He complains, too, of the dissemination of unlicensed books.
And to aid him in the pious work of burning liberal books and
crushing the efforts of patriots to break their chains and
secure liberty, Austrian bayonets are placed at his disposal.
It is doubtless in the exertion of this plan of resuscitating
the Catholic religion on account of its political subserviency
to the thrones of Europe, that St. Domingo is coming into
remembrance, and that efforts are making to establish in that
island the spiritual dominion of a Catholic priesthood; and that
in all the South American continent the cause of liberty is on
the wane,' before the united influence of military chieftains
and the Catholic priesthood.
All the signs of the times indicate the coming on of
that next European conflict of which prophetic Canning
spoke, as long and dreadful, a war of opinion--a war of
liberty against despotism, and
which is to terminate in the emancipation or hopeless bondage of
the world.
In this view of the subject, the Catholicity of this nation,
and its rapid increase, cannot be safely regarded as a mere
insulated religion, but rather as one department of a
comprehensive effort to maintain despotic government against the
march of free institutions, by an invigorated union of
ecclesiastical and political power; and though the Catholics
among us may, as a body, be unapprized of this policy, and ought
not to be reviled, or denounced, or falsely accused, or assailed
by rumor, and invidious epithets, neither are they to be
unwatched, or entrusted with the education of the nation, or the
balance of her suffrage.
No opinion is more unfounded or
pernicious than the one so often expressed, that the Catholic.
church stands
on the same foundation in respect to
its republican tendencies, with all the
other religious denominations in our land, There is no
denomination but the Catholic which acknowledges implicit
subjection to the spiritual dominion of a foreign prince in whom
the church and state are united, and whose political relations
modify, by the intrigues of the European powers, his
ecclesiastical decisions--a prince dependent on the protection,
and under the control of one of the -most despotic governments
of Europe. There is no church but the Catholic in our land which
claims infallibility, and the right of a universal spiritual
jurisdiction, and makes heresy a capital offence, punishable
with political disfranchisement and with torture:, and
death-none. whose clergy are chiefly foreigners, dependent .for
investiture, and -honor, and- support,* on a foreign
jurisdiction, and whose most
*The bishop of
Kentucky, writing to Europe, says: "Generally, we ought to
consider all the bishoprics of America as sees destitute of all
resources, which can
active correspondence, and strongest and most powerful motives
of action, lie abroad and cluster about thrones, and
dominions, and principalities, and powers, adverse to
our institutions-none which claims and exercises -the
right of inhibiting the reading of the Bible but with
express permission of a priest, and denounces the right
of private interpretation, and inculcates, wholly, the
obligation of believing implicitly as popes and
councils have believed. There is in this country,
beside the Catholic, no denomination, any principles of
whose religion are anti-republican, or whose
influential officers denounce republican institutions,
free inquiry, and-the liberty of the press, as they
have been denounced by the reigning pope, and are
opposed by the Catholic potentates of
never be solidly
established unless, for half a century, they are aided by; rich
and pious souls in Europe." Quarterly Register, vol. 2--p.
196.
Europe-none which makes the confidential confession of sin to a
priest indispensable to forgiveness, or claims the right of
selling indulgences for sins past, or to come--of selling
prayers for the deliverance of souls from purgatory--none whose
interests are in the hands of a secret association of men, bound
by oath to obey, implicitly, his holiness, in the propagation of
the Catholic religion-- the most powerful secret organization
that ever existed, and now sustained by the royal munificence of
European-Catholics, and occupied in rearing powerful
institutions for the education of our sons and daughters. There
is in this country no religion but the Catholic
which claims the right of interfering with the
political affairs of nations by the interposition of
ecclesiastical authority, releasing subjects from
their paths of allegiance, and putting down and
setting up powers that be, or who have manifested desire, or commenced the attempt, by
the [word missing] of
lay trustees, to secure all church property in ecclesiastical
hands.
Among the deliberations of the late Catholic convention at
Baltimore, they say, in their European correspondence, that one
subject of consideration was,
The desire seems here to be avowed
*Quarterly Register,
vol 3--pp. 91 and 96.
of, securing the entire property of the Catholic church in the
United States, by some means in the hands of the clergy,
regarding the inspection and influence of lay trustees, even
though Catholics, as tending to schisms, despotism against the -
pastors, and constituting one of the greatest scourges of the
church.
But it is said the Catholic religion is not what it used to be,
the claims and dogmas, and bigotry, and persecuting maxims, and
superstitions of the Catholic church have passed away. She has
felt the spirit of the age, and yielded to its demands, and
henceforth, and especially in this - country, we - have to
-anticipate only a revised and corrected edition of the Catholic
church.
As republicans and christians, we certainly hail the day when
the Catholic church shall be reformed, and we are not reluctant
to believe, on proper evi- dence, that the Catholics of this
country perceive and renounce the
past unscriptural and anti-republican
claims, maxims, and deeds of the
church of Rome. We only desire that
their professions and disclaimers
should not be received in evidence
that the Roman church is reformed.
till the same authority which enacted
her erroneous maxims and authorized
the unchristian conduct, has conceded
her fallibility -and repealed the
criminal decisions of lice popes and
-councils, and professed repentance
for her evil deeds, and made procla-
mation that she admits her members to
the rights of conscience, and free
inquiry, and civil liberty; but so
long as
the infallibility of the church is claimed, and all her maxims
remain, unrepealed, and are rigidly enforced wherever the march
of liberal opinions has not compelled, a relaxation. Such
disclaimers can be regarded only as evidence of
what necessity extorts and expediency dictates, and the
accommodating policy of the church has always permitted to her
loyal sons.
Who is it then that makes the proclamation, that the
Catholic church has discovered her mistakes in past ages and is
reformed? Has the pope announced it? Has a general council de-
creed it? Has the Catholic convention at Baltimore placed it
upon their records? Has a single Catholic bishop or priest
admitted or claimed that the Catholic church has been, by the
proper authorities, revised and corrected in any material point
of doctrine, discipline, or practice. Not one--and no Catholic
will say it who has any character to lose, or frowns to fear
from superior power.
The church cannot be reformed as a church only by the
pope and a general council. The question of revision
and
change is therefore simply a matter of historical fact. When,
where, and in what
respects, has the pope and a general council changed the claims,
maxims, doctrines,
or established usages of the church?
When and where has it been decreed
that liberty of conscience, and civil liberty, are the
birth-right of man-that
reading the Bible is the right of man and
not a privilege to be conferred-that private interpretation is
the duty of man instead of implicit confidence in the exposition
of others-that persecution for conscience sake is tyranny, and
the deeds of the inquisition an abomination in the
sight of God. What one of her maxims,
avowed centuries ago, has she expunged
and does not rather enforce to the present hour at Rome and
Vienna? What are the powerful principles -of collision
which now agitate Europe and South
America but those of civil liberty and
despotic power? And on which side, when uncoerced, is his holiness, and his cardinals, and.
bishops, and priesthood? Every where in Portugal, in Spain, in
France, and in Italy,' and South America, on the side of
monarchical, and in opposition to liberal institutions.
But we have documentary evidence which settles the questions.
The following is from a treatise by M. Aignan, of the French
Academy, the second edition of which was published at Paris in
1818.
"The same pontiff, in his instructions to his agents
in Poland, given in 1808, professes this doctrine,
that the laws of the church do not recognize any civil
privileges as belonging to persons not Catholic; that
their
The present pontiff declares that
"Hither tends that worst and never sufficiently, to be
execrated and detested LIBERTY OF THE PRESS, for the diffusion
of all manner of writings; which some so loudly contend for,
and so actively, promoted" *Quarterly Register,
vol.3--p.89.
He complains, too, of the dissemination of unlicensed books.
To the question, " What is to be done?" I would say a few
things to obviate misapprehension, and indicate what would seem
to be the plain practical course.
In the first place, while the language
of indiscriminate discourtesy towards immigrants, calculated to
wound their feelings, and cast odium on respectable and
industrious foreigners, is carefully to be
avoided; an immediate and energetic
supervision of our government is demanded to check the influx of immigrant paupers, thrown upon our shores
by the governments Of Europe, corrupting our morals, quadrupling
our taxation, and endangering the peace of our cities, and of
our nation, it is equally plain, also, that while we admit the
population of Europe to
a participation in the blessings
of our
institutions and ample territory, it is both our right
and duty so to regulate the influx and the conditions
of naturalization that the increase shall not outrun
the possibility of intellectual and moral culture, and
the unregulated action of the European population bring
down destruction on ourselves and them. In what manner
the means of self-preservation shall be applied, it
does not belong to my province to say. Doubtless a
perfect remedy may be difficult, perhaps impossible;
but should we therefore look' upon the appalling scene
in pale amazement and trembling impotency? It would be
the consumma-
tion of infatuation, and the precursor of
ruin. Nothing is impracticable for the
preservation of our liberty and national
prosperity which ought to be done, and
nothing can ruin us but presumptuous
negligence or faintness of heart. But we
must act, and act quickly, and with
decision, or the stream will be too deep
and mighty to be regulated, and will
undermine foundations and sweep away
landmarks, and toll the tide of
desolation over us. Nor can the patriotic
solicitude of the people, and the states,
and the nation, be brought to bear
on this subject, immediately, to the extent of our political
wisdom and practical energy, and not mitigate the evil, and
avert the danger. But our past utter neglect on this subject, is
as wonderful as the carefulness of , the, - nations of the.
continent. Not an individual from this country can
traverse Europe, without the inspection of a host of spies and
police agents,
who make his person, character, and
business, as well known to the government as they are known, to
himself, and
no small portion of this vigilance is for
the purpose of precluding the possibility.
of any political republican action, ad
verse to their institutions. While we,
around the entire circumference of our
nation, leave wide opened -the door of
entrance, and all' the vital energies of
our institutions, accessible to any influence which the
anti-republican governments of Europe may choose to thrust
in upon us. Do these go governments
indulge a vain fear in thus environing the political influence *
of Americans, though only temporary residents,
and even wayfaring men? And have
we nothing to apprehend while European paupers flood us, and
Europeans occupy the soil, rear institutions,
wield the press, control suffrage, and
rush up rapidly to a competition of numbers? Is our government so compact and iron-sinewed as to
bid defiance, safely, to every possible disturbing
influence from abroad, which can be
made to bear upon it? Ought there
not to be a governmental supervision
of the subject of immigration, which
shall place before the nation, annually,
the number and general character of
immigrants, that the whole subject may
experience the animadversion of an en
lightened public sentiment, and the voice
of the people aid in the application of'
the remedy?
We entered upon the experiment of self-government, when a
homogenous people, with diffidence, and multiplied checks, and
balances in our constitution, and have watched and encountered,
with decision and care, the dangers developed
in the progress of its administration; but why should there be
such vigilance to guard our institutions from domestic per-
ils, and such reckless improvidence in exposing them,
unwatched, to the most powerful adverse influence which can be
brought to bear upon them from, abroad?
In respect to the Catholic religion, and its political bearings,
there is an obvious and safe course. It is the medium between
denunciation and implicit confidence, between persecution and
indiscriminate charity. It includes a thorough knowledge of the
principles, history, and present conduct of the papal church,
where its power is unobstructed. To this end, a book is emi-
nently needed, containing the authentic documents of the
Catholic church, accessible to ministers and intelligent laymen
of all denominations. These now are scattered through massy
folios, or quoted in versatile discussions, and cannot be,
readily appealed to, or consulted. A book of well-authenticated
documents,
without note or comment, would nearly supersede the necessity of
controversy, and afford ample material for public sentiment to
act upon, which, while it would not encroach on the rights of
Catholics, would, by no means, confide to their care the
education of large and influential portions of our republic. A
book of this description would not be invidious. If the Catholic
system does not contain principles and usages adverse to free
institutions, it would clear it of unmerited odium- and if it
does contain such principles it is the right and duty of the
nation to know it. There is nothing in Catholic, more than in
protestant human nature, to demand implicit confidence, or
preclude investigation and vigilance. No denomination of
Christians, and no class of politicians, are so good as to
justify implicit confidence, or supersede the necessity of being
watched., Responsibility to an enlightened public sentiment is the only effectual
guarantee of unperverted liberty and political
prosperity.
But to a correct and universal observation must be added
efficient universal
action, to rear up, immediately, those institutions, literary
and religious, which
are indispensable to the intellectual and
moral culture of the nation. Our own
population is fast outrunning the influence
of christian and literary institutions; and
if to us republicans it seems evil to supply them--if it grieves
us to encounter
the expense of maintaining the discipline
which is necessary to the perpetuity of
government in our way, we have no
cause to complain that the powers of
Europe should extend to us a gratuitous
education, which shall enable them to
avert the annoyance of our example,
and govern us their way. If we do not
provide the schools which are requisite
for the cheap and effectual education of
the children of the nation, it is perfectly certain that the
Catholic powers of Europe intend to make up our deficiency, and
there is no reason to doubt that they will do it, until by
immigration and Catholic education we become to such an extent a
Catholic nation, that, with their peculiar power of acting as
one body, they will become the predominant power of the nation,
or if not predominant, sufficient to embarass our republican
movements, by the easy access and powerful action of foreign
influence and intrigue. We have no right to complain that the
Catholics of this country, aided from Europe, should seek to
accomplish a work which we neglect,-and we do not complain
either of his holiness of Rome or of his majesty of Austria, or
his wily minister Metternich. They pursue the policy in
supplying our deficiency of education, which, with their views
of right and self-preservation, they ought to pur-
sue, and the Catholics in this country have a perfect right to
gather funds from Europe -to purchase lands-rear cathe-
drals-multiply churches-and sustain immigrant ministers, and to
sustain the unendowed bishoprics for fifty years to come, and
establish nunneries, and support the sisterhood, and establish
cheap and even gratuitous education amid all the destitute
portions of our land. They have a right to do it, and according
to their principles they ought to do it, and they are doing it,
and they will do it, unless as a nation of republicans, jealous
of our liberties, and prompt to sustain them by a thorough
intellectual and religious culture as well as by the sword, we
arise, all denominations and all political parties, to the work
of national education.
The sole object of this argument touching the Catholics is
not to repudiate them, but to present the facts in the case, and
appeal to the nation, whether
it will sustain its own institutions or the education of its own
people, or depend on the charity of the Catholic despotic
governments of Europe. I do it because when the facts are
stated, and the eye of the nation is fixed on the subject,
unless infatuation has fastened on us, there can be no doubt of
the result. Education, intellectual and religious, is the point
on which turns our destiny, of terrestrial glory and power, or
of shame and everlasting contempt, and short is the period of
our probation. Indolence and neglect will soon extend over the
land the lamentation, "The harvest is past, the summer is ended,
and we are not saved." The things which belong to our peace are
now before our eyes, and our sufficiency to secure them is vast
and manifold. As a nation we are disincumbered of debt, and from
our perilous resources might at once make provisions to endow
forever the colleges, academies, and
schools of the land. Each state, alone, is able to endow its own
institutions, and were all legislative provision withheld, there
are in the nation individuals of sufficient wealth and
patriotism, and munificence, when they perceive the perils and
the safeguards of our liberty, to call into being all those orbs
of light which are indispensable to tile safety and perpetuity
of our institutions. And were even those unmindful of their
privilege and duty, a republican phalanx, such as once fought
the battles and paid tile taxes of the revolutionary war, would
now command institutions for the defence of liberty to arise, as
their fathers did the forts and munitions of their day. Every
denomination would organize its willing multitude to give and
toil till intelligence and holiness should cover the land as the
waters cover the sea. But this various and superabundant ability
and willingness of the nation must be
called forth in plans of peaceable efficacy--the means must
be multiplied of providing and sustaining the requisite host of
qualified instructors. Institutions male,
and female, must be endowed to secure
cheaply, the requisite qualification. The
national intellect and morals, will never
rise to the exigencies of our preservation,
accidentally, or spring up under the hand
of ephemeral and inexperienced instructors. The early
culture of the national intellect, and heart, is worthy of
becoming a profession, and must become a profession, in the
hands of duly qualified men
and women -embracing the experience
of the past, and the accumulating knowledge of coming
generations. The education of the nation-the culture of its
intellect--the formation of its conscience,
and the regulation of its affection, heart,
and action, is of all others the most important work, and
demands the supervision of persons, of wise and understand-
ing hearts--consecrated to the work, and supported and highly
honored in accordance with their self-denying, disinterested,
and indispensable labors. It is here that we faulter, and that
the Catholic powers are determined to take advantage of our
halting by thrusting in professional instructors and
underbidding us in the cheapness of education-calculating that
for a morsel of meat we shall sell our birth-right. Americans,
republicans, christians, can you, will you, for a moment, permit
your free institutions, blood bought, to be placed in jeopardy,
for want of the requisite intellectual and moral culture.
One thing more only demands attention, and that is the
extension of such intellectual culture, and evangelical
light to
the Catholic population, as will supersede
implicit confidence, and enable and incline
them to read, and think, and act for them
selves. They are not to be regarded
as conspirators against our liberties, their
system commits its designs and higher
movements like the control of an army, to a few governing minds,
while the body of the people may be occupied in their execution,
unconscious of their tendency. I am aware of the difficulty of
access, but kindness and perseverance can accomplish any thing,
and wherever the urgency of the necessity shall put in requisi-
tion the benevolent energy of this Christian nation-the work
under the auspices of heaven will be done.
It is a cheering fact, also, that the nation is waking up-a
blind and indiscriminate charity is giving place to sober
observation, and a Christian feeling and language towards
Catholics is taking the place of that which was petulant, and
exceptionable. There is rapidly extending a just estimate of
danger. Multitudes who till recently, regarded all notices of
alarm as without foundation, are now beginning to view the sub-
ject correctly, both in respect to the reality of the danger,
and the moans which are necessary to avert it, and both the
religious and the political papers are beginning to lay aside
the language of asperity and to speak the words of truth and
soberness. Under such auspices we commit the subject to the
guardianship of heaven, and the intelligent ins
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"We have heard lately of several colonies which have been formed in the
eastern states, for the purpose of emigrating to Illinois; and we always hear
such information with regret. Not that we have any objection to emigration in
itself; on the contrary, few have done more than we, to encourage and promote
it. We ardently long to see the fertile plains of Illinois covered with an
industrious, an enterprising, and an intelligent population; we shall always be
among the first to welcome the farmer, the mechanic, the school teacher-the
working man, in short, of any trade, mystery, or profession-and we
care not from what point of the compass he may come; but wish to see them come
to Illinois, with a manly confidence in -us, and with the feelings, not of New
Englanders, or Pennsylvanians, but of American."
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*In confirmation of these views, it gives me plea
sure to refer again to Judge Hall, in his warm hearted
eulogy on the friends of the Redeemer in an eastern
state, for their benevolent enterprise and munificence
in aiding in the establishment of female schools and
Sabbath schools in the state of Illinois. It is contained in a letter to
the editor of the Sabbath School
Treasury of 1931.
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o f the city of God. All attempts to legislate prosperous colleges and
schools into
being without the intervening influence
of religious education and moral principle, and habits of intellectual culture
which spring up in alliance with evangelical institutions, have failed.
Schools wane, invariably, in those towns where he evangelical ministry is
neglected, and lie Sabbath is profaned, and the tavern supplants the worship of
God. Thrift and knowledge in such places go out, while vice and irreligion come
in.
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The following is an extract from a
letter which the author wrote to a friend of Professor Stowe, more
than
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44
ders in their preservation, and raised their descendants to such heights of
civil and religious prosperity, only to reverse the analogy of his providence,
and abandon his work; and though now there be clouds, and the sea roaring, and
men's hearts failing, we believe there is light behind the cloud, and that the
imminence of our danger is intended, under the guidance of Heaven, to call forth
and apply a holy fraternal fellowship between the East and West, which shall
secure our preservation, and make the prosperity of our nation durable as time,,
and as abundant as the waves of the sea.
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"And what are the people of Austria?
They are slaves, slaves in body and mind, whipped and
disciplined by priests to have no opinion of their own, and
taught to consider their emperor their God. They are the jest
and by-word of the northern Germans, who never speak of
Austrians but with a sneer, and as slaves unworthy the name of
Germans ; as slaves both mentally and
physically."*
Page 143
flows that absurd and erroneous
doctrine, or rather raving, in favor and defence of liberty of
conscience;' for which most pestilential error, the course is
opened for that entire and wild liberty or opinion, which is
every where attempting the overthrow of religious and civil
institutions ; and which the unblushing impudence of some has
held forth as an advantage to religion. Hence that pest, of
all others most to be dreaded in a state, unbridled liberty of
opinion, licentiousness of speech, and a lust of novelty,
which, according to the experience of all ages, portend the
downfall of the most powerful and flourishing empires."
"No moans must be here omitted,"
says Clement XIII., our predecessor of happy memory, in the
Encyclical Letter on the proscription of bad books-"no
cue calls for all our exertions, to exterminate the fatal
pest which spreads through so many works; nor can
the materials of error be otherwise destroyed than by
the flames, which consume the depraved elements of
the means must be here omitted, as the extremity of the
evil."
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"What is necessary to be done in
regard to trustees,
and the means of repressing their pretensions? It is
known what disputes and scandals have arisen on this
subject, and, it may be said, it is one of the greatest
scourges of the church in the United States ; and one
of the priests, writing to a mutual friend in Europe,
says: I The bishop has the happiness of governing his
churches without church wardens. By this method
you see we are at peace, although without help.
Were we to establish them ' they might be very useful
to us ; but we should fear schisms and dimensions; Of
all evils, the greatest despotism exercised against the
pastors, and division and disorder in many other
churches, assure us fully of this. Better then is poverty and
dependence on the charity of the faithful,
than tyranny.""*
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Passing to the 10th article of the
Concordat, in
which it is said that His Most Christian Majesty shall
employ, in concert with the Holy Father, all the means
in his power to cause to cease, as soon as possible all
the disorders and obstacles which obstruct the welfare
of religion, and the execution of the laws of the church
--Were [the protestants] to ask, although the profuse
shedding of their blood might have informed them,
What, are the laws of the church?" the acts of Pius
VII himself, and the writings on which the church
rests her authority would answer, "THE EXTERMINATION
OF HERETICS, THE CONFISCATION OF THEIR GOODS, AND
THEIR PRIVATION OF EVERY CIVIL PRIVILEGE."
To
Page 155
this the author subjoins in a note
in Certain portions of real estate, which had belonged to
ecclesiastics, had passed into the hands of protestant princes.
Pius VII, in 1805, complained of it to his nuncio residing at
Vienna; and reminded him. that, according to the laws of the
church, not only could not heretics possess ecclesiastical
property but that also they could not possess any property
whatever, since the crime of heresy ought to be punished by the
confiscation of goods. He added, that the subjects of a prince
who is a heretic should be released from every duty to him,
freed from all obligation and all homage. "In truth," said he,
"we have fallen on times so calamitous, and so humiliating to
the spouse of Jesus Christ, that it is not possible for her to
practise, nor expedient to recal so holy maxims; and
she is forced to interrupt the course of her just severities
against the enemies of the faith. But if she cannot exercise her
right to depose the partisans of heresy from their
principalities, and declare that they have forfeited all their
goods; can she ever permit that, to enrich themselves, they
should despoil her of her own proper dominions? What a subject
of derision would she not present to these very heretics and
unbelievers, who, while they insulted her grief, would say they
had discovered the method of rendering her tolerance?"
Page 156
marriages are not valid; that they
can live only in concubinage; that their children, being
bastards, are incapacitated to inherit; that the Catholics
themselves are not validly married, except they are united
according to the rules -prescribed by the court of Rome; and
that, when they are married according to these rules, their
marriage is valid, had they, in other respects, infringed, all
the laws of their country."*
"From this polluted fountain
of "Indifference," flows that absurd and erroneous doctrine, or
rather raving, in favor and defence of liberty of conscience;'
from which most pestilential error, the course is opened for
that entire and wild liberty of opinion, which is every. where
attempting the overthrow of religious and civil institutions ;
and which the' unblushing impudence of some has held forth as an
advantage to religion. Hence that pest, of all others most to be
dreaded in a state, unbridled liberty of opinion, licentiousness
of speech, and a lust of novelty, which, according t,6 the
experience of all age,, r portend the downfall of- the most
powerful and flourishing empires."
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"No means must be here omitted,"
says Clement
XIII., our predecessor of happy memory, in the Encyclical Letter
on the proscription of bad books-"no
means must be here omitted, as the extremity of the
case calls for all our exertions, to exterminate the fatal
pest which spreads through so many works; nor can
the materials of error be otherwise destroyed than by
the flames, which consume the depraved elements of'
the evil."
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