Americanism Contrasted with Foreignism, Romanism, and Bogus Democracy in the Light of Reason, History, and Scripture;

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:

"More than 3,000, it is confidently said, have been naturalized in this city (New York) alone since the first of October. It is an alarming fact that this foreign vote has decided the great questions of American policy, and contracted a nation's gratitude."

And after they achieved the victory of 1844, Brownson came out with this avowal:

"Heretofore we have taken our politics from one or another of the parties which divide the country, and have suffered the enemies of our religion to impose their political doctrine upon us; but it is time for us to begin to teach the country itself those moral and political doctrines which flow from the teachings of our own Church. We are at home here, wherever we may have been born; this is our country, and as it is to become THOROUGHLY CATHOLIC, we have a deeper interest in public affairs than any other of our citizens. The sects are only for a day; the Church for ever."

When Gen. Cass made his speech in the Senate, in 1852, in favor of free worship and the rights of conscience for Americans abroad, reflecting on the Catholics by name, Brownson came out in his October number, and said:

"We are glad to see Gen. Cass laid on the shelf, for we can never support a man who turns radical in his old age."

In the same number, Brownson continues:

"The sorriest sight to us is a Catholic throwing up his cap and shouting, 'All hail, Democracy!'"

This too at the very time he was supporting the Democratic party in the Presidential contest! He would sooner have heard the cry, "All hail, Catholicism!" and he was only using Democracy as an instrument to advance his primary wish!

We offer no comments on the foregoing extracts, of our own, but leave every reader to judge for himself. The price of liberty is eternal vigilance. We apply the remark to religious as well as civil liberty. All we ask of the people is to be vigilant. Do not support men at the ballot-box who are in league with these enemies of our Republic, and of the Protestant religion!

Behold the enemy is at our gates! A foreign priest has been lecturing here in Knoxville, within the last ten days, avowing sentiments similar to these, and claiming that this country would ultimately become a Catholic country! The crisis is approaching! Rouse up, Americans, and hasten to your country's salvation! Not a moment is to be lost! God and our country, must be the watchword of every Christian and patriot, of every political party in the land. America expects us all to do our duty!

And is there no cause for alarm?

Eighteen months ago, a Protestant minister, Baptist, Methodist, or Presbyterian, might expose Romanism, and warn his congregation against its corrupting influences, for hours at a time – come down out of his pulpit, and his congregation would, without distinction of party, say, "Well done, good and faithful servant!"

But let him now dare allude to Romanism – he offends one-half of his congregation – he is preaching politics – they will hear him no more; or forsooth, which is more common, they will withhold his support and starve him out! Are not these signs alarming?

But here in Tennessee, Protestant Tennessee, on the 15th of May, 1855, the Nashville Daily Union, the organ of the self-styled Democratic party, came out at the Capital of the State with this daring broadside against the Protestant clergy and their religion:

"A Church that can boast of an existence of thirteen centuries – passing through all the various vicissitudes of her eventful career unscathed, can certainly show, with all her atrocious barbarity, many bright spots which may be placed in favorable contrast with the Protestant Church, with its thousand and one wrangling sects. Men are beginning to see through the transparent gauze that veils this Know-Nothing movement. They are beginning to ask 'What has Protestantism done for the world? What has she done to alleviate and elevate the down-trodden? Is the race any better off for having accepted her faith? These REVEREND HYPOCRITES – these scribes and pharisees, are treading on a terrible volcano. They will find their treasonable schemes and infernal plotting against the liberties of man tried and condemned by the pure light of God's own truth and love, which shines and throbs in every pulsation of humanity's heart. If Protestantism prove recreant to her high trust, she will have to pass the ordeal of enlightened public opinion and be consigned to her merited obscurity.

"Popery, with all its crimes against God and man, adapts itself to the times and to the circumstances, and thus saves itself from being absorbed in the mass of conflicting elements."

THE CATHOLIC QUESTION – No. 4

A Catholic Priest the Minister from the Rivas-Walker Government – Nicaragua, Texas, and Gen. Jackson – Bishop Hughes and Orestes Brownson – Buchanan bidding for the Catholic vote – A. H. Stephens, of Georgia – Lord Baltimore and Religious Toleration

Three months ago, Parker H. French arrived in Washington, as the Representative of the Walker Government of Nicaragua – an American-born citizen and a Protestant – but the Government declined to recognize him, upon the ground that Walker's Government was not established even de facto. Since then, our Government has recognized Walker's Government, and endorsed his war upon Costa Rica, although the former objection of our Government lies with as much force against such recognition now as it did three months ago. That the approach of the Cincinnati Convention, and the importance of conciliating the "Young American" wing, and the Filibustering division of the Democratic party, had great influence in producing this recognition, there can be no sort of doubt. But a still more palpable reason why this Government gave its sanction to the Rivas-Walker Government is, that Padre Vijil, the second Minister sent here, is a ROMAN CATHOLIC PRIEST, and a shrewd Spaniard – better understands the influences that prevail at Washington. When we remember that a Roman Catholic, and a member of the Order of Jesuits, is a member of Pierce's Cabinet, the Postmaster-General – and when we remember that Democracy now, without the Catholic-Foreign vote, is almost a nullity in the United States, we have a clear solution of this preference given the Spanish priest, Padre Vijil, over the American citizen, but a few weeks afterwards! As a sign of the times, the fact is one worthy of note. It shows, at least, that when Protestantism cannot prevail with the Administration of Pierce, Roman Catholicism can; and that hence, when we proclaim the power of the Pope, even in America, we but utter demonstrable facts. Romanism is even carrying Democracy from all its old wayside land-marks. In December, 1836, Gen. Jackson sent a special message to the Senate of the United States, in relation to a proposition to recognize the new Government of Texas, and he gave reasons against it, which are exactly applicable to this Rivas-Walker affair:

"Upon the issue," he says, "of this threatened invasion by Mexico, the independence of Texas may be considered as suspended; and were there nothing peculiar in the relative situation of the United States and Texas, our acknowledgments of its independence at such a crisis could scarcely be considered as consistent with that prudent reserve with which we have heretofore held ourselves bound to treat all similar questions."

The existing Government of Nicaragua is in a far more critical condition now than that of Texas was in 1836, when Gen. Jackson went on to say:

"It becomes us to beware of a too early movement, as it might subject us, however unjustly, to the imputation of seeking to establish the claim of our neighbors to a territory, with a view to its subsequent acquisition by ourselves. Prudence, therefore, seems to dictate that we should still stand aloof, and maintain our present attitude, if not until Mexico itself, or one of the great foreign powers, shall recognize the independence of the new Government, at least until the lapse of time or the course of events shall have proved, beyond cavil or dispute, the ability of the people of that country to maintain their separate sovereignty, and to uphold the Government constituted by them. Neither of the contending parties can justly complain of this course. By pursuing it, we are but carrying out the long-established policy of our Government – a policy which has secured to us respect and influence abroad, and inspired confidence at home."

But Romanism is rapidly leading Democracy to the Devil! Archbishop Hughes – the head and front of the Papal Hierarchy in this country – has openly declared the grand aim and object of the Catholic Church is "TO MAKE ROME THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA FOR THE WHOLE WORLD!" This same Archbishop is now engaged in raising an immense fund, for the avowed purpose of establishing a College in Rome, for the education of a high order of Priests and Jesuits for the United States; the Roman Pontiff deeming the education of Priests defective if obtained in this land of liberty! This same Archbishop Hughes has now actively enlisted for the Presidential contest, for 1856, in order, to use his own language, "to break the spinal cord of the American Party." The Irish Catholic vote is to be fused with the Black Republicans in the North, to prevent the success of the Fillmore ticket, and the Irish and German Catholic vote is to be cast for Democracy in the South and North-West – the Archbishop stipulating for special legislation for Rome, and for promoting this mammoth college!

Orestes Brownson, a leading Catholic authority, and the editor of Archbishop Hughes's organ – one of the most zealous as well as able advocates of Romanism in America – declares: "THE POPE IS MY INTERPRETER OF THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES!" The Supreme Court at Washington is subordinate to the Vatican, situated at the foot of one of the seven hills upon which Rome is built! Through the influence of the Jesuit who is a member of Pierce's cabinet, the Papal Nuncio, who was sent from Rome two years ago, clothed with foreign authority, was received by our government at Washington, and sent around the lakes to the North-West at government expense; and allowed to adjudicate upon a secular question AFFECTING TERRITORIAL JURISDICTION in the great State of New York!

Mr. Buchanan, one of the several candidates before the Cincinnati Convention for the Presidential nomination, said, in a public speech in Baltimore, just before the meeting of that Convention, by way of bidding for the Catholic vote:

"In the age of religious bigotry and intolerance, Lord Baltimore was the first legislator who proclaimed the sacred rights of conscience, and established for the government of his colony the principle, not merely of toleration, but perfect religious freedom and equality among all sects of Christians."

Lord Baltimore was a Catholic; and with a view to enlist the same influence, Hon. Alexander H. Stephens, of Georgia, sent forth a published speech last summer, from which we make the following extract:

"The Catholic colony of Maryland, organized under the auspices of Lord Baltimore, was the first to establish the principle of free toleration in religious worship on this continent.

"The Colony of Maryland afforded protection to all persecuted sects."

Now, in order to judge of Mr. Buchanan's "perfect religious freedom and equality," and Mr. Stephens's "principle of free toleration," let us examine an Act passed April 21, 1649, when Lord Baltimore was in the zenith of his power:

"Denying the Holy Trinity is to be punished with death, and confiscation of land and goods to the Lord Proprietary (Lord Baltimore himself!) Persons using any reproachful words concerning the Blessed Virgin Mary, or the Holy Apostles or Evangelists, to be fined £5, or in default of payment to be publicly whipped and imprisoned, at the pleasure of his Lordship, (Lord Baltimore himself!) or of his Lieutenant-General." See Laws of Maryland at large, by T. Bacon, A. D. 1765.16 and 17 Cecilius's Lord Baltimore.

S. F. Streeter, Esq., of Baltimore, is the author of a work entitled "Maryland two hundred years ago." In this work, at page 26, Mr. Streeter says: