Part 3

in the language of another, the "goose which cackles at the door of the Treasury vault:" notorious as a Southern supporter of the Squatter Sovereignty doctrine, with two votes on record in favor of the Wilmot Proviso. He may be reckoned as _very_ "dangerous to the South:" last, but not least in this dread array of "dangerous men," is

ANDREW JOHNSON,

the present Governor of Tennessee, and Cincinnati aspirant: he voted _three_ times for the Wilmot Proviso, and so doubtful are his doctrines on the slavery question, that many slaveholding members of his own party regard him as _extremely_ "dangerous to the South."

By the way, in 1842, this same _Gov. Johnson_ was a Senator in our State Legislature, and introduced the following _Abolition_ resolutions, commonly called his _White Basis System_:

"_Resolved, by the General Assembly of the State of Tennessee_, That the basis to be observed in laying the State off into Congressional districts shall be the voting population, WITHOUT ANY REGARD TO THREE-FIFTHS OF THE NEGRO POPULATION.

"_Resolved_, That the 120,083 qualified voters shall be divided by eleven, and that each eleventh of the 120,083 of qualified voters shall be entitled to elect one member in the Congress of the United States, or so near as may be practicable without a division of counties."

The position of Gov. Johnson is this: he wishes the State entitled to her slave representation _as a State_, but _in her own borders_ the representative districts are to be made according to her white population! In other words, he desires the State to retain her _ten_ Congressmen, representing both her white and slave population, but wishes them appointed throughout the State without regard to the slave population: so that the county containing ten thousand white inhabitants, and double that number of slaves, should be entitled to no more representation than the county containing _ten_ thousand white inhabitants and no slaves!

We heard Johnson last summer, in his debate with Gentry, in Campbell county, contend that the county of Campbell should have the same representation in Congress as the county of Shelby, which he stated had FIFTEEN THOUSAND NEGROES! He appealed to the prejudices and passions of the poor--inquired of the hard working-men of that county how they liked to see their wives and daughters _offset_, in enumerating the strength of the county, by the "_greasy negro wenches of Shelby, Davidson, Fayette, Sumner and Rutherford counties_." He made a real, stirring abolition appeal to the poor, and non-slaveholding portion of the crowd, which was in the proportion of _ten to one_ of that county, to array them against the rich, and especially against the owners of large numbers of slaves. He told them that these Negro wenches belonged to the lordly slaveholders of Middle and West Tennessee, and that as our Constitution now is, these wenches were placed on an _equality_ with the fair daughters and virtuous wives of laboring men. On this ground he advocated his infamous amendment to the Constitution, which would incorporate his "White Basis" scheme!

This is a rank Abolition measure, and fraught with more danger to the South than any thing proposed by the whole brood of Abolitionists, Free Soilers, and Black Republicans at the North. Already the South is weak enough, and not at all able to vote with the North in our National Legislature. The effect of this scheme is to deprive the South of one-third of her strength in Congress. Not only is this the effect, but it is the design of the mover. We hold that Johnson is a Free Soiler, and has been for years. It is stated by his Northern Democratic friends, that when he quit Congress, he came home to run for Governor--with a determination, if defeated, to remove to some of the Northwestern States, and take a new start! Had he been defeated by Maj. Henry in 1853, he would now be a Black Republican in one of the Free States, running for office! And yet the propagator of this infamous Abolition doctrine of a "White Basis" representation--this demagogue who arrays the poor against slaveholders, is the man for the ultra guardians of the slave interests of the South! A man who would not own negroes when he could, but loaned his money out at interest, and left his wife and daughters to do their own work--a man who is at heart and in his doctrines a rank Free Soiler--a man who has only remained in the South to _experiment_ upon office-seeking! This is the man that Georgia, Alabama, Virginia, Mississippi, and Carolinas, rejoiced to see elected Governor of a Southern slave State!

It was seeing the position of Johnson on this question that induced the "_Democratic Herald_" in Ohio, in June, 1855, thus to notice our race for Governor:

"TENNESSEE.--An animated contest is going on in this good old Democratic State for Governor, and the largest crowds flock to hear the candidates that ever attended political meetings since the Hero of New Orleans used to address the masses in person. The present incumbent, Andrew Johnson, is the Democratic candidate, and a _Mr. Gentry_, a _pro-slavery_ renegade from the Federal Whig ranks, is the opposing candidate, brought out by a Know Nothing conclave. This man is on the stump abusing the Catholics, and denouncing them for their tyranny, while he openly advocates the _slavery doctrines of Southern Niggerdom_! On the other hand, his competitor, Gov. Johnson, well and favorably known to our leading Democrats of Ohio, HAS NO SYMPATHIES WITH SLAVERY, and is the advocate of such amendments to the Federal Constitution as will give all power to the people, and EFFECTUALLY PUT DOWN THE INSTITUTION OF SLAVERY!"

Now, this showing up of Democracy, on the Slavery question, may look _shabby_ to many ultra Southern men, and it may induce them to charge that the Democratic party are _inconsistent_. We defend them against the charge of _inconsistency_, and maintain that what would be called _inconsistency_ here, is nothing but _Democracy_. For instance, A. O. P. Q. X. Y. Z. Nicholson, the editor of the great official organ of Democracy at Washington, said, editorially, and "by authority," so late as 1855:

"IT IS NO PART OF THE CREED OF A DEMOCRAT, AS SUCH, TO ADVOCATE OR OPPOSE THE EXTENSION OF SLAVERY. HE MAY DO THE ONE OR THE OTHER, IN THE EXERCISE OF HIS RIGHTS AS A CITIZEN, AND NOT OFFEND AGAINST HIS DEMOCRATIC FEALTY!"

Precisely so! A man may advocate the _abolition_ of slavery where it exists; he may, as a Black Republican, arm himself with Sharpe's rifle, and go into Kansas, and shoot down pro-slavery men, and still be a consistent Democrat, if he vote for the party, and stand by the nominees of the party conventions! Hence, all the factions at home and from abroad--all religions--all the ends and odds of God's creation are now associated together, and are battling in the same unholy cause, in the name of _Democracy_!

And further to exhibit the inconsistency of this Democratic and Foreign party, it will be recollected that, in 1844, they nominated SILAS WRIGHT, of New York, for Vice-President, to run on the ticket with COL. POLK--a position he declined, because he would not agree to be _second best_ on the ticket. In a letter to JAMES H. TITUS, ESQ., bearing date April 15, 1847, MR. WRIGHT says:

"If the question had been propounded to me at any period of my public life, Shall the arms of the Union be employed to conquer, or the money of the Union be used to purchase Territory now constitutionally free, for the purpose of planting Slavery upon it, I should have answered, No! And this answer to this question is the Wilmot Proviso, as I understand it. _I am surprised that any one should suppose me capable of entertaining any other opinion, or giving any other answer as to such a proposition._"

Now, if SILAS WRIGHT, one of the great "Northern lights" of Democracy, held these sentiments in 1847, what must they have been in 1844, when that party sought to elevate him to the second office within the gift of the nation? But we are just reminded of what is said in "the law and the prophets," that is to say, "_It is no part of the creed of a Democrat_, AS SUCH, _to advocate or oppose the extension of slavery!_" What a party!

[From the Knoxville Whig for Sept. 22, 1855.]

TO REV. A. B. LONGSTREET,

PROFESSOR OF METHODISM, ROMANISM, AND LOCOFOCOISM.

REVEREND SIR:--I see a _pastoral address_ of yours, to "Methodist Know-Nothing Preachers," going the rounds of the Locofoco Foreign Sag Nicht papers of the South, occupying from four to six columns, according to the dimensions of the papers copying. I have waded through your learned address, and find it to be one of more ponderous magnitude than the Report made to the British House of Commons, by Lord North, on a subject of far greater interest! And as I am one of the class of men you address, notwithstanding your great advantage over me in point of age and experience; and as no one has made a _formal_ response to your _pious warnings_, it will not be deemed insolent in me to take you up.

My first acquaintance with you was in 1847, at an Annual Meeting of the Georgia Conference, held in Madison; and although the impressions made upon my mind by you, on that occasion, were any thing but favorable to you, as a man, still, I am capable, as I believe, of doing you justice. I supposed you then to be the rise of sixty years, certainly in your _dotage_ and among the _vainest_ old gentlemen I had ever met with. You obtained leave, as I understand, by your own seeking, to deliver a lecture to the Conference, upon the subject of _correctly reading and pronouncing the Scriptures_. I was in attendance, and listened to you with all the attention and impartiality I was capable of exercising. I thought it a little _presumptuous_ for any one man to assume to teach more than one hundred able ministers how to read and pronounce the inspired writings; and the more so, when I knew that several of the number were presidents and professors in different male and female colleges, and that many others of them were graduates of the best literary institutions in the South. Still, my apology for you was, that you was a vain old gentleman, and that to listen to you, respectfully, was to obey the Divine teaching of one who has taught us to "bear the infirmities of the weak." Your _samples_, both of reading and pronunciation, were amusing and novel to me. And so far as I could gather the prevailing sentiment, it was, that to adopt your style would render the reading of the Scriptures perfectly ridiculous.

In your address to "Methodist Know-Nothing Preachers," I discover that you are still the man you were at Madison, in 1847: you have a great deal to say about _yourself_, and make free use of the personal pronoun I! _I_ advise--_I_ believe--_I_ am satisfied--_I_ will not agree--_I_ warn and caution--_I_ fear, or _I_ apprehend, etc. To parse the different sentences in your partisan harangue syntactically, little else is necessary but to understand the _first person singular_, and to repeat the rule as often as it occurs: a peculiarity which characterizes every paragraph in your labored address. Beside, the frequent use of the pronouns _I_, _me_, _my_, _mine_, etc., too frequently occur to be worth estimating. And it will be seen, upon examination, that not merely the verbiage, but the sentiment, is thus egotistic throughout, exhibiting a degree of arrogance and self-importance, only to be met with in a _Clerical Locofoco_, used by bad men for ignoble purposes. To carry out the idea of your _vanity_, you say in the winding up of your address:

"And now, brethren, have _I_ or Mr. Wesley hit upon one good reason why you should not have joined the Know-Nothings? If either of _us_ have, then _I_ beseech you to come from among them. If _we_ have not, there is yet another in reserve which, if it does not prevail will show--or prove to my satisfaction at least--that if _an angel from heaven_ were to denounce your order, you would cleave to it still."

Any other man but yourself would, from considerations of _modesty_, have given JOHN WESLEY the preference, in this connection, and come in as _second best_. But no, you are _first in place_, and, in your own estimation, in _importance_ likewise, as a religious teacher.

I have no doubt you consider yourself a much greater man than John Wesley ever was; and in proof of this, I need only cite what you have said in reference to Mr. Wesley's opposition to Romanism:

"Even good old John Wesley caught the spirit of the times, and wrote that letter, from which it appears he thought if the Catholics got into power, they would abuse Protestants. What abuse they could have heaped on them, greater than they heaped on Catholics, short of cutting their throats, I cannot conceive."

The only superior you acknowledge is CARDINAL WISEMAN, a bigoted Roman Catholic, and you seem to knock under to him quite reluctantly, and not without informing the public that you have been a laborious student for forty years, and "_a profound thinker_." Here is your praise:

"I have been a pretty severe student for near forty years, and a laborious, if not _profound thinker_ for a long time; but when I compare myself in intellectual stature with that man, I shrink in my own estimation to the insignificance of a mite."

So much by way of noticing vanity. You are a literary and theological star of the first magnitude! You are an encyclopedia of the learning, science, patriotism, and religion of the country! Sir, if you possessed a little more _sheep-faced modesty_, and could exhibit a little less of _lion-headed impudence_ than you do, you would be a much more useful, not to say successful minister of the New Testament!

Sir, you have taken the field in opposition to Know-Nothingism, _professedly_ through your deep and abiding concern for Christianity, and the interests of Methodism. You say:

"You cannot surely be so weak as to suppose you can crush Romanism by Know-Nothing agencies; but you have almost ruined Methodism by them already.

"Now the ruler of this nation is spoken evil of by your party continually, and therefore, in the judgment of Wesley, I might stand up in the pulpit and defend him."

The truth is, you are influenced alone by partisan political feelings; and occupying a position in a Mississippi College, in the midst of Fire-eating Disunion Progressive Democracy, you desire to please them, rather than serve the interests of your country or Church. To take the stump, or the pulpit, in defence of _Frank Pierce_ and his corrupt administration, would be a pleasant talk to you, who have been, all your life-time, an inveterate Locofoco in politics, and "a profound thinker" in favor of its iniquitous measures and principles. In your early political training, you have been swayed by interest and popular favor, and in most cases at the expense of truth, just as you now are, in your mad vindication of Romanism. A tool for others to work with, till you have found yourself in a condition to use such tools as you yourself have been, you are now a trimmer and weathercock, leading on men of less sense than yourself, to such distinction as interest and ambition may dictate!

Sir, you take the ground, throughout, that there is no danger of Catholics in this country, and that they do not seek to establish their religion. Here is a specimen of your logic:

"Thank God no religious sect can tyrannize over another in this country, so long as they all respect the Federal Constitution. Until we see, then, the Catholics treating that instrument with disrespect, it is madness to entertain fears of them and worse than madness to form combinations against them."

Now, sir, the foregoing statement is untrue, and in making it you could not have been sincere. You are a man of too much sense, and of too much information, to believe what you are wickedly trying to palm upon others. Brownson's Quarterly Review, the most able, as well as the most authentic organ of Catholicism in the United States, employs the following language to the American people--mark it:

"_Are your free institutions infallible?_ Are they founded on _Divine right_? This you deny. Is not the proper question for you to discuss, then, _not_ whether the Papacy be or be not compatible with republican government, but whether _it be or be not founded in Divine right_? If the Papacy be founded in Divine right, it is supreme over whatever is founded only in human right, and then your institutions should be made to harmonize with it: not it with your institutions!!! The real question, then, is not the compatibility or the incompatibility of the Catholic Church with _democratic institutions_, but, Is the _Catholic Church the Church of God_?

"Settle this question first. But in point of fact, _democracy is a mischievous dream, wherever the Catholic Church does not predominate_, to inspire the people with reverence, and to teach and accustom them to obedience to authority."

Here is still plainer language from the Roman Catholic Bishop of St. Louis:

"Heresy and unbelief are crimes; and in Christian countries, as in Italy and Spain, for instance, where all the people are Catholics, and where the Catholic religion is an essential part of the law of the land, they are punished as other crimes."

Here is what the _Boston Pilot_ says, a Catholic paper of high standing:

"_No good government can exist_ without religion, and there can be no religion without an _inquisition_, which is wisely designed for the promotion and protection of the _true faith_."

Here is the _Shepherd of the Valley_, published under the eye and with the approbation of the Bishop of St. Louis:

"The Church is, of necessity, intolerant. Heresy she endures when and where she _must_; but she hates it, and directs all her energies to its destruction. If Catholics ever gain an immense numerical majority, religious freedom in this country is _at an end_: so say our enemies--_so say we_."

And here is what the _Rambler_ says, a devoted Catholic periodical, high in the confidence of the Bishops and Priests of that Church:

"You ask if he (the Pope) were lord in the land, and you were in the minority, if not in numbers, yet in power, what would he do to you? That, we say, would entirely depend on circumstances. If it would benefit the cause of Catholicism, he would tolerate you--if expedient, he would imprison you, banish you, fine you, probably he might even hang you; but, be assured of one thing, he would never tolerate you for the sake of the 'glorious principles' of civil and religious liberty."

I could give other quotations of this character, which have met your eye long since, but I forbear, as they would extend my letter beyond the limit I have prescribed for myself. These are the publications which, in part at least, have given rise to the Know-Nothing organization, so cordially hated by you.

You say there is no danger of injury to our institutions from the rapid strides of Romanism. Allow me to ask your attention to the following remarkable political prediction by the Duke of Richmond, late Governor-General of Canada, and a British noble, who declared himself hostile to the United States on all occasions. Speaking of our Government, this deadly enemy said:

"It will be destroyed; it ought not, it will not be permitted to exist." "The curse of the French revolution, and subsequent wars and commotions in Europe, are to be attributed to its example; and so long as it exists, no prince will be safe upon his throne; and the _sovereigns of Europe are aware of it_; and they have _determined upon its destruction, and have come to an understanding upon this subject, and have decided on the means to accomplish it_; and they will eventually succeed by SUBVERSION _rather than conquest_." "All the low and surplus population of the different nations of Europe will be carried into that country. It is and will be a receptacle for the bad and disaffected population of Europe, when they are not wanted for soldiers, or to supply the navies; _and the governments of Europe will favor such a course_. This will create a surplus and majority of low population, who are so very easily excited; and they will _bring with them their principles_; and in nine cases out of ten adhere to their ancient and former governments, laws, manners, customs, and religion; and will transmit them to their posterity; and in many cases propagate them among the natives. These men will become citizens, and, by the constitution and laws, will be invested with the right of suffrage." "Hence, _discord_, _dissension_, _anarchy and civil war will ensue_; and some popular individual will assume the government, and restore order, and the sovereigns of Europe, the emigrants, and many of the natives will sustain him." "The Church of Rome has a design upon that country; and it will in time be the established religion, and will aid in the destruction of that Republic." "I have _conversed with many of the sovereigns and princes of Europe, and they have unanimously expressed these opinions relative to the government of the United States, and their determination to subvert it_."

But, sir, after eulogizing Catholics for their devotion to religious toleration in this country, you make two assertions, touching the Methodist Church, for which I wish to arraign you, and for which the authorities of said Church ought to arraign you, under that section of our Discipline which forbids _railing out against our Doctrines and Discipline_. You say:

"And if I were to take the stump against you, I would say to the honest yeomanry of the country. 'Good people, if you think your liberties will be _any safer in the hands of Methodists than Catholics, you are vastly mistaken_.'

"I would add, in humiliation but in candor, 'You have ten thousand times more to fear, just at this time, from Methodists, than Catholics; simply because the first are more numerous than the last, because the first are actually in the field for office, while the last are not.'"

If you have this opinion of the Methodist Church, you cannot be an honest man and remain within her jurisdiction. You ought to leave her communion forthwith, and go over to Rome; and in doing this, you would _not have far to go_! Occupying the position you do, and holding the sentiments you do, I would not send a child to any school or college over which you might preside. Nor do I think any Protestant parent or guardian ought to patronize any school under your care. Your influence, whatever you may possess, is against the Protestant faith, and in favor of Catholicism. In a word, you are a dangerous man in a Republican government.