Chapter 11

Mr. Lathrop, a Presbyterian Elder, and a Delegate from Louisiana, read to the Convention from the ritual of the subordinate organizations of the American party of Louisiana, and showed that, while it admitted those to membership who professed the Roman Catholic religion, IT REQUIRED OF THEM THE DENIAL OF ALLEGIANCE TO ANY TEMPORAL AUTHORITY NOT COGNIZABLE IN THE STATE AND UNITED STATES CONSTITUTIONS; and from each secured a pledge, UPON OATH, that they would not divulge the secrets of the Order! He defended the Louisiana Catholics, as being true Americans, recognizing no civil or spiritual power in their Priests, and resisting every attempt, whether by a Bishop or Priest, to interfere with the institutions of our country. He cited cases which had occurred in Louisiana, of controversies between the Clergy and Laity, for the control of Church property, and the decisions of courts over which Gallican Catholic Judges presided, in favor of titles and control vesting in Trustees, the Laity. He showed that the native Catholics of Louisiana were the friends of common schools, and the advocates of popular education. He proclaimed aloud that the native Catholics of his State recognized no persons as proper depositaries of office, who acknowledged an allegiance to any person, civil or ecclesiastical, superior to that of the laws and Constitution of our country. He proclaimed that the Nuncios of the Pope of Rome hated these Louisiana Catholics, with a more perfect hatred than they did the "apostle heretics" called Protestants! This speech was received with unbounded applause, the question was called, and, as we have before stated, it was sanctioned, very properly too, by a vote of 67 to 50!

The American party not only advocate religious toleration, but religious liberty, which is a very different thing. Toleration is not the word in our vocabulary--it does not express enough, because it implies the right to _permit_ or _prohibit_. We contend for LIBERTY, the meaning of which is, that men are not responsible _to each other, to Popes, Bishops, or Priests_, for their religious opinions or practices, and that consequently religion is not a subject of toleration.

The Catholics, proper, have taken an oath of allegiance to the Pope of Rome, a "foreign prince, potentate, and power," and their obligations to him are higher, more sacred, and more binding, than any obligations they can take upon them to support the laws and Constitution of this country. These are the men that we refuse to vote for, or put in office. They are not and cannot be true Americans. The oaths of the priests bind them to war upon all Protestant sects, and upon all Republican powers of Government. These oaths bind them to the foot of the Papal Throne; and with these oaths upon their souls, they cannot be true citizens of this Republic without perjury. And if guilty of perjury, the State prison should be their residence.

In our next, we shall consider this subject more at length, in connection with the oath of allegiance to our country, and the Catholic evasion of that oath.

THE CATHOLIC QUESTION--No. 2.

Ambiguous terms in swearing--The case of Judge Gaston--Temporal power of the Pope--Catholic authorities in Europe--The spirit of the Catholic press in America!

We are told by the Democratic sympathizers with the Catholics, that all Catholic emigrants to this country take an oath of allegiance to the United States upon becoming naturalized. Yes, they do, and the oath after it is taken, has no more weight with them, than has a regular-built Know Nothing speech.

Here is a paragraph from SANCHEZ, the highest authority in the Catholic Church, Pope Pius only excepted. This writer, "by authority," shows how this oath of allegiance is evaded by a mental reservation:

"It is lawful to use ambiguous terms to give the impression a different sense from that which you understand yourself. A person may take an oath that he has not done such a thing, though in fact he has, by saying to himself it was not done on a certain day, or before he was born, or by any other similar circumstances, which gives another meaning to it. This is extremely convenient, and always very just, when necessary to your health, honor or prosperity."

Here, then, we have it from the highest Catholic authority, that Catholics are absolved from all allegiance to this government, because they take the oath of allegiance without committing perjury, by the holy process of a mental reservation--the use of "ambiguous terms," setting forth one thing while they swear another! We have no doubt that Chief Justice TANEY, a devoted Catholic of Baltimore, and now at the head of the Supreme Court of the United States, took his oath of office requiring him to support the Constitution, with this same mental reservation. We have no doubt that those Catholic Judges upon the Federal Bench in several States in the Union, and those Catholic Attorney Generals, appointed to office by Mr. Pierce, so understood their oaths of office, and of allegiance! And the practice of Post-Master General Campbell, a bigoted Catholic, and a member of the order of Jesuits, proves that he so understood his oath to support the Constitution. As true Catholics, they are bound to swear with this mental reservation, because they could not owe allegiance to a government of "heretics," such as they believe ours to be. As Catholics, they are bound to overthrow our Constitution, and aid in the destruction of our government.

It is a matter of history that when the Legislature of North Carolina elected Judge GASTON to the Supreme Bench in that State, he hesitated as to whether he would take the oath or not. And why? He was, although an able man, and in all the private relations of life a most excellent man, a decided and devoted Roman Catholic. This is not all. The oath of a Judge in that State, which is not common in other States, requires the man taking it to avow his belief in the Protestant religion. Judge Gaston asked for a few days to consider--he went instantly to Baltimore, as was believed, to consult the Catholic Bishop, who then resided there--obtained a dispensation, as was supposed--wrote back that he would accept the office--returned, was qualified, and to the day of his death was on the Bench! This affair illustrates Romanism. And what Rome was, she is, and always will be. Can Rome change? Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots?

Here is what Philopater, an approved Catholic authority of the first grade, says, touching the principle in controversy:

"All theologians and ecclesiastical lawyers affirm that every Christian government, as soon as it openly abandons the _Romish faith_, is instantly degraded from all power and dignity: all the subjects are absolved from the oath of fidelity and obedience which they have taken, and they may and ought, if they have the power, to drive such government from every Christian State, as an apostate, heretic, and deserter from Jesus Christ. This certain and indubitable decision of all the most learned men is perfectly conformed to the most apostolic doctrines."

Our Locofoco advocates of Romanism deny that the Pope lays claim to the supremacy charged by the American party. On this point, we desire that the Catholics may speak for themselves. One of their standard writers, FARRARIS, in his Ecclesiastical Dictionary, a work endorsed by their Council of Bishops and Cardinals, under the article headed "Pope," uses this emphatic and expressive language:

"The Pope is of such dignity and highness, that he is not simply man, but, as it were, God, and the vicar of God. Hence the Pope is such supreme and sovereign dignity, that, properly speaking, he is not merely constituted in dignity, but is rather placed on the very summit of dignities. Hence, also, the Pope is rather father of fathers, and he alone can use this name, because he only can be called father of fathers: since he possesses the primacy over all, is truly greater than all, and the greatest of all. He is called most holy, because he is presumed to be such. On account of the excellency of his supreme dignity, he is called bishop of bishops, ordinary of ordinaries, universal bishop of the Church, bishop of diocesan, of the whole world, divine monarch, supreme emperor, and king of kings."

PETER DENS, of Maynooth College notoriety, whose "Theology" is the highest Catholic authority known this side of the Vatican at Rome, gives entire the Bull of Pope Sixtus V. against the King of Navarre and the Prince of Conde, whom he styles the _sons of wrath_. In this Bull, issued in the year 1585, he says:

"The authority given to Saint Peter and his successors, by the immense power of the eternal King, _excels all the power of earthly kings and princes_. It passeth uncontrollable sentence upon them all. And if it find any of them resisting God's obedience, it takes more severe vengeance on them, casting them down from their thrones, however powerful they may be, and tumbling them down to the lowest parts of the earth, as the ministers of aspiring Lucifer."

Here is what _Daniel O'Connell_ said so late as 1843, and he was a true Catholic and a true exponent of this faith:

"You should do all in your power to carry out the intentions of His Holiness the Pope. Where you have the electoral franchise, give your votes to none but those who will assist you in so holy a struggle.

"I declare my most unequivocal submission to the Head of the Church, and to the hierarchy in its different orders. If the Bishop makes a declaration on this bill, I never would be heard speaking against it, but would submit at once unequivocally to that decision. They have only to decide, and I close my mouth: they have only to determine, and I obey. I wish it to be understood that _such is the duty of all Catholics_."--_Daniel O'Connell_, 1843.

Here comes one of the Pope's organs in France:

"A heretic, examined and convicted by the Church, used to be delivered over to the secular power and punished with death. Nothing has ever appeared to us more necessary. More than one hundred thousand persons perished in consequence of the heresy of Wickliffe; a still greater number for that of John Huss; and it would not be possible to calculate the bloodshed caused by Luther; and it is not yet over."--_Paris Univers._

"As for myself, what I regret, I frankly own, is that they did not burn John Huss sooner, and that they did not likewise burn Luther; this happened because there was not found some prince sufficiently politic to stir up a crusade against Protestants."--_Paris Univers._

But here is the Pope himself arguing with the authorities already quoted:

"The absurd or erroneous doctrines or ravings in defence of liberty of conscience, is a most pestilential error--a pest, of all others, most to be dreaded in a State."--_Encyclical Letter of Pope Pius IX., Aug._ 15, 1852.

Now, let us hear their organs in our own country:

"Heresy and unbelief are crimes, and in Christian countries, like Italy and Spain for instance, where all the people are Catholics, and where the Christian religion is an essential part of the law of the land, they are punished as other crimes."--_R. C. Archbishop of St. Louis._

"For our own part, we take this opportunity of expressing our hearty delight at the suppression of the Protestant chapel at Rome. This may be thought intolerant, but when, we would ask, _did we ever profess to be tolerant of Protestantism_, or favor the doctrine that Protestantism _ought to be tolerated_? On the contrary, we hate Protestantism--we detest it with our whole heart and soul, and we pray that our aversion to it may never decrease. We hold it meet that in the Eternal City no worship repugnant to _God_ should be tolerated, and we are sincerely glad that the enemies of truth are no longer allowed to meet together in the capital of the Christian world."--_Pittsburg Catholic Visitor_, 1848.

"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."--_Boston Pilot._

"You ask, if he (the Pope) were lord in the land, and you were in a 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--possibly, _hang you_--but be assured of one thing, he would never tolerate you for the sake of the _'glorious principles' of civil and religious liberty._"--_Rambler._

"Protestantism of every form has not and never can have any rights where Catholicity is triumphant."--_Brownson's Quarterly Review._

"Let us dare to assert the truth in the face of the lying world, and, instead of pleading for our Church at the bar of the State, _summon the State itself to plead at the bar of the Church, its divinely constituted judge_."--_Ibid._

"I never think of publishing any thing in regard to the Church without submitting my articles to the Bishop for inspection, approval, and endorsement."--_Ibid._

In view of the foregoing, and other facts and arguments which we will hereafter present, we cannot be mistaken in our views of Roman Catholicism. We cannot tamely surrender our dearest rights as Protestants, without a struggle. We cannot cry peace, peace, when there is no peace!

"Protestantism, of every kind, Catholicity inserts in her catalogue of moral sins; she endures it when and where she must; but she hates it, and directs all her energies to effect its destruction."--_St. Louis Shepherd of the Valley._

"Religious liberty, in the sense of a liberty possessed by every man to choose his religion, is one of the most wretched delusions ever foisted on this age by the father of deceit."--_The Rambler_, 1853.

"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 in this country, religious freedom is at an end. So say our enemies. So say we."--_Shepherd of the Valley._

"The liberty of heresy and unbelief is not a right.... All the rights the sects have, or can have, are derived from the State, and rest on expediency. As they have, in their character of sects hostile to the true religion, no rights under the law of nature or the law of God, they are neither wronged nor deprived of liberty, if the State refuses to grant them any rights at all."--_Brownson's Review, Oct., 1853_, p. 456.

"The sorriest sight to us is a Catholic throwing up his cap, and shouting, 'All hail, Democracy!'"--_Ibid, October, 1852_, pp. 554-8.

"We think the 'masses' were never less happy, less respectable, and less respected, than they have been since the reformation, and particularly within the last fifty or one hundred years, since Lord Brougham caught the mania of teaching them to read and communicate the disease to a large proportion of the English nation; of which, in spite of all our talk, we are often the servile imitators."--_Shepherd of the Valley, Oct. 22, 1853._

THE CATHOLIC QUESTION--No. 3.

The Catholic Church supreme over all authorities--Meddling in Political Contests--Brownson's Review and the Boston Pilot reflecting the sentiments of that Church--Protestants advocating Romanism--The Nashville Union in 1835.

The Anti-American, Foreign-loving, Catholic admirers of the Locofoco school of politics, everywhere seek to frighten native Protestant citizens with the bugbear cry of religious proscription. But let Americans and Protestants watch with increased vigilance both the Roman and Locofoco Jesuits around them. To call the damnable and accursed system of political intrigue practised for past centuries by the Roman Church by the term _Religion_, is a solemn mockery of the hallowed word. Religion teaches love and obedience to God, and the legally constituted authorities of the country. Romanism teaches fear of and obedience to a crowned potentate called the Pope, and opposition to all Protestant governments, as worthy to be cast down to hell! The one tends to free and ennoble the soul: the other to enslave and debauch every faculty of man's nature which likens him to the Almighty! The one is republican: the other is barbaric, and at war with every principle of free government!

The American party does oppose and denounce Romanism _as a political system at war_ with American institutions; and we here ask candid men to weigh the evidence we shall adduce to sustain this charge. We shall quote none other than Roman Catholic authority--the organs of Romanism--so as out of their own mouths to condemn them. Brownson's Review is the accredited organ of Romanism in the United States. He ostentatiously parades the names of the Archbishops and Bishops on the cover of his Review, to give it the stamp of authority, and asserts in the work:

"I NEVER THINK OF PUBLISHING ANY THING IN REGARD TO THE CHURCH WITHOUT SUBMITTING MY ARTICLES TO THE BISHOP FOR INSPECTION, APPROVAL, AND ENDORSEMENT."

Let us then look to his pages for an exposition of the doctrines of his Church. In the January number for 1853, he says:

"For every Catholic at least, the Church is the supreme judge of the extent and limits of her power. She can be judged by no one; and this of itself implies her absolute supremacy, and that the temporal order must receive its laws from her."

The uniform practice of the Church of Rome has been, and still is, to assert her power--not in _words_, but in _deeds_--to GIVE OR TAKE AWAY CROWNS--to depose ungodly rulers, and to absolve their subjects from their "horrible" OATHS OF ALLEGIANCE!

Again, in the July number for 1853, Brownson says:

"The Church is supreme, and you have no power except what you hold in subordination to her, either in spirituals or in temporals.... You no more have political than ecclesiastical independence. The Church alone, under God, is independent, and she defines both your powers and hers."

"They have heard it said from their youth up that the Church has nothing to do with politics; that she has received no mission in regard to the political order."

"In opposing the nonjuring bishops and priests, they believed they were only asserting their national rights as men, or as the State, and were merely resisting the unwarrantable assumption of the spiritual power. If they had been distinctly taught that the political authority is always subordinate to the spiritual, and had grown up in the doctrine that the nation is not competent to define, in relation to the ecclesiastical power, its own rights--that the Church defines both its powers and her own, and that though the nation may be, and ought to be, independent in relation to other nations, it has, and can have, no independence in the face of the Church, the kingdom of God on earth: they would have seen at a glance that support of the civil authority against the spiritual, no matter in what manner, was the renunciation of their faith as Catholics, and the actual or virtual assertion of the supremacy of the temporal power."

In the same number, page 301, he says:

"She (the Church) has the right to judge who has, or has not, according to the law of God, the right to reign: whether the prince has, by his infidelity, his misdeeds, his tyranny and oppression, forfeited his trust, and lost his right to the allegiance of his subjects; and therefore whether they are still held to their allegiance, or are released from it by the law of God. If she have the right to judge, she has the right to pronounce judgment, and order its execution: therefore to pronounce sentence of deposition upon the prince who has forfeited his right to reign, and to declare his subjects absolved from their allegiance to him, and free to elect themselves a new sovereign."

We might multiply authorities of this kind on this point, to an almost indefinite extent, from the debate between Bishop Hughes and Mr. Breckenridge, and the controversy between Hughes and Erastus Brooks, but it is wholly unnecessary.

As early as 1844, the Catholics took their stand as a body in the arena of political strife; and the illustrious CLAY and the virtuous FRELINGHUYSEN were the victims of their particular hostility. Mr. Frelinghuysen was the President of the Board of Foreign Missions, and this was made the _excuse_ for the bitter animosity of the Catholic press, and of the clergy and membership of the Catholic sect, against Mr. Clay. Brownson, in his July number for 1844, in the very heat of the contest, thus assailed Mr. Clay:

"He is ambitious, but short-sighted. He is abashed by no inconsistency, disturbed by no contradiction, and can defend, with a firm countenance, without the least misgiving, what everybody but himself sees to be a political fallacy or logical absurdity.... He is no more disturbed by being convinced of moral insensibility, than intellectual absurdity.... A man of rare abilities, but apparently void of both moral and intellectual conscience.... He is, therefore, a man whom no power under that of the Almighty can restrain; he must needs be the most dangerous man to be placed at the head of affairs it is possible to conceive."

The Boston Pilot, another Catholic organ, published under the eye of the Bishop, discloses _the same plot_, in its issue for the 31st of October, 1844, only six days before the election! Here is what this organ said:

"We say to all men in the United States, entitled to be naturalized, become citizens while you can--let nothing delay you for an hour--let no hindrance, short of mortal disease, banish you from the ballot-box. To those who are citizens, we say, vote your principles, whatever they may be--never desert them--do not be wheedled or terrified--but vote quietly, and unobtrusively. Leave to others the noisy warfare of words. Let your opinions be proved by your deliberate and determined action. We recommend you to no party; we condemn no candidate but one, and he is Theodore Frelinghuysen. We have nothing to say to him as a Whig--we have nothing to say to Mr. Clay or any other Whig, as such--but to the President of the American Board of Foreign Missions, the friend and patron of the Kirks and Cones, we have much to say. We hate his intolerance--we dislike his associates--and shudder at the blackness and bitterness of that school of sectarians to which he belongs, and amongst whom he is regarded as an authority."

Protestants! do you hear that? Old Line Whigs! do you hear that? If so, do you think that Americans are warring upon civil and religious liberty, when they take an oath that they will rebuke such infamous sentiments? These appeals of Brownson, Hughes, and the Pilot, had the effect to defeat the Clay ticket in New York, and that State lost him his election. The Catholics were all at the polls, and voted for Polk and Dallas. On the 9th of November, 1844, Frelinghuysen wrote to Mr. Clay as follows: