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

by William Gannaway Brownlow · English · Gutenberg #28328 · 613,542 chars · public domain (US)

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

Author: William Gannaway Brownlow


        
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                Most recently updated: January 4, 2021

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AMERICANISM CONTRASTED WITH FOREIGNISM, ROMANISM, AND BOGUS DEMOCRACY IN THE LIGHT OF REASON, HISTORY, AND SCRIPTURE; ***




Produced by Bryan Ness, Josephine Paolucci and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net. (This
book was produced from scanned images of public domain
material from the Google Print project.)






[Illustration: REV. W. G. BROWNLOW.]




AMERICANISM CONTRASTED

WITH

Foreignism, Romanism, and Bogus Democracy,

IN THE LIGHT OF

REASON, HISTORY, AND SCRIPTURE;

IN WHICH

CERTAIN DEMAGOGUES IN TENNESSEE, AND ELSEWHERE, ARE SHOWN UP IN THEIR
TRUE COLORS.

BY

WILLIAM G. BROWNLOW,

EDITOR OF "BROWNLOW'S KNOXVILLE WHIG."

        "----Go to your bloody rites again:
    Preach--perpetuate damnation in your den;
    Then let your altars, ye blasphemers, peal
    With thanks to Heaven, that let you loose again,
    To practice deeds with torturing fire and steel,
    No eye may search, no tongue may challenge or reveal!"

            THOMAS CAMPBELL.

Nashville, Tenn.:
PUBLISHED FOR THE AUTHOR.
1856.

ENTERED, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1856, by
WILLIAM G. BROWNLOW,
In the Clerk's office of the District Court for the Middle District of
Tennessee.




Dedication.


TO THE YOUNG MEN OF AMERICA.

YOUNG GENTLEMEN:--Almighty God has conferred on you the peculiar honor
and the eminent responsibility of preserving and perpetuating the
liberties of this country, both civil and religious. That the American
people are on the eve of an eventful period, will not be doubted by any
sane man, who can discern the "signs of the times." Indeed, it is an
every-day remark, that, as a nation, we are in the midst of a crisis.
If, however, a crisis ever did exist in the affairs of this Nation,
since its independence was first achieved, which called upon the NATIVE
AND LEGAL VOTERS of the country to watch with sleepless vigilance over
their blood-bought liberties, that crisis must be dated in the year of
our Lord, ONE THOUSAND EIGHT HUNDRED AND FIFTY-SIX! The great
Commonwealth of Humanity, in behalf of the momentous interests of Truth,
Liberty, and Religion, calls upon the present generation of YOUNG MEN,
who will have the issues of a coming revolution to meet, to qualify
themselves for the task.

There never was a time known, since the dark days of the Revolution,
when the civil and religious liberties of this country were so much
endangered as at the present time. This danger we are threatened with
from _Foreign influence_, and the rapid strides of _Romanism_, to which
we may add _Native treachery_, connived at, as they are, by certain
leading demagogues of the country, and a powerful and influential
political party, falsely called _Democrats_, who seek the Foreign and
Catholic vote, and are willing to obtain it at the expense of Liberty,
and the sacrifice of the Protestant Religion!

The great criminal of the nineteenth century, the PAPAL HIERARCHY, is
now on trial before the bar of public opinion, having been arraigned by
the AMERICAN PARTY. You are called on to decide, YOUNG MEN, as you wield
the balance of power, whether this Criminal, arraigned for treason
against God, and hostility to the human race, deserves the execrations
of all honest and patriotic men, and avenging judgments of a righteous
God! In order to decide this grave question, YOUNG _Gentlemen of the
Nineteenth Century_, you are to consider the inevitable tendency of the
principles of the Church of Rome--the actual results of these tendencies
as embodied in history--the indictment brought in by the AMERICAN PARTY,
and the testimony of the witnesses. When you have intelligently
considered the part the self-styled _Democratic Party_ has acted in this
infamous drama, you will feel it to be your duty to indict the
corporation claiming the right to be called the Great Democratic Party,
as _accessory_ to the treason, crimes, and infamy, of the aforesaid
Papal Hierarchy!

To you, then, Gentlemen, is this brief work most affectionately
inscribed by

     THE AUTHOR.




PREFACE.


For the last twenty-five years, the writer of this work has employed
much of his time in the reading and study of the controversy between
Roman Catholics and Protestants. And those who have been subscribers to
the paper he has edited and published for the LAST SEVENTEEN YEARS, will
bear him witness that he has kept up a fierce and unceasing fire against
that dangerous and immoral _Corporation_, claiming the right to be
called the HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH. This he has done, and still continues
to do, because he believes firmly that the system of Popery, as taught
in the standards of the Church of Rome, as enforced by her Bishops and
Priests, and as believed and practised by the great body of Romanists,
both in Europe and America, is at war with the true religion taught in
the Bible, and is injurious to the public and private morals of the
civilized world; and, if unchecked, will overturn the civil and
religious liberties of the United States. Such, he believes, is its
tendency and the design of its leaders.

Popery is deceitful in its character; and the design of this brief work
is, in part, to drag it forward into the light of the middle of the
nineteenth century, to strip the flimsy vizor off its face, and to bring
it, with all its abuses, corruptions, and hypocritical Protestant
advocates, before the bar of enlightened public opinion, for judgment in
the case. Roman Catholics misrepresent their own creed, their Church,
and its corrupt institutions. The most revolting, wicked, and immoral
features of their _holy and immutable system_, are kept out of sight by
its corrupt Clergy, and Jesuitical teachers; while, with a purpose to
_deceive_, a _Protestant sense_ is attached to most of their doctrines
and peculiarities. By this vile means, they designedly _misrepresent
themselves_, and impose on the public, by inducing charitable and
uninformed persons to believe that they are not as profligate as they
are represented to be. This game has been played with a bold hand in
_Knoxville_, for the last twelve months, and it is being played in every
city and town in the South and West, where Romanism is being planted.
One object, then, of this _epitomized_ work, setting forth the
boastings, threats, and disclosures of leading Catholic organs and
Bishops, as to their real principles and designs upon this country,
suffered to go forth in their more excited moments, or unguarded hours,
is, to spread before the people, in a cheap form, true Popery, and to
strip it of its _Protestant garb_, which it has for the time being
assumed.

An additional reason for bringing out this publication, at this
particular time, is, to expose a corrupt bargain entered into by the
leaders of the Catholic Church, and the leaders of a corrupt and
designing political party, falsely called the Democratic party. One of
the most alarming "signs of the times" is, that while Protestant
ministers, of different persuasions, only two brief years ago, could
preach with power and eloquence against the dogmas and corrupting
tendencies of _Romanism_, and pass out of the doors of their churches,
receiving the compliments and extravagant praises of their entire
congregations, let one of them now dare to hold up this Corporation as a
dangerous foreign enemy--let him warn his charge against the influence
of Popery, or but only designate the Catholic Hierarchy as the "man of
sin" described in the Scriptures, and one half of his congregation are
grossly insulted: they charge him with meddling in politics; and, by way
of resentment, they will either not hear him again, or they will starve
him out, by refusing to contribute to his support!

The hypocritical and profligate portion of the Methodist, Presbyterian,
Baptist, and Episcopal membership in this country, are not so much
misled by Popery, as they are influenced by _party politics_, and are in
love with the _loose moral code_ of Romanism. It lays no restraints on
their lusts, and gives a loose rein to all their unsanctified passions
and desires. Backslidden, unconverted, or unprincipled members of
Protestant Churches, find in Popery a _sympathizing irreligion_, adapted
to their vicious lives; and hence they fall in with its disgusting
superstitions and insulting claims. They are, therefore, ensnared with
the delusions of Popery, of _choice_. In other words, Popery is a
system of mere human policy; altogether of Foreign origin; Foreign in
its support; importing Foreign vassals and paupers by multiplied
thousands; and sending into every State and Territory in this Union, a
most baneful Foreign and anti-Republican influence. Its old _goutified_,
immoral, and drunken Pope, his Bishops and Priests, are _politicians_;
men of the world, earthly, sensual, and devilish, and mere men of
pleasure. Associated with them for the purpose, in great State and
National contests, of securing the Catholic vote, are the worst class of
American politicians, designing demagogues, selfish office-seekers, and
bad men, calling themselves _Democrats_ and "Old-Line Whigs!" These
politicians know that Popery, as a system, is in the hands of a Foreign
despotism, precisely what the Koran is in the hands of the Grand Turk
and his partisans. But corrupt and ambitious politicians in this
country, are willing to act the part of traitors to our laws and
Constitution, for the sake of profitable offices; and they are willing
to sacrifice the Protestant Religion, on the ancient and profligate
altar at Rome, if they may but rise to distinction on its ruins!

The great Democratic party of this country, which has degenerated into a
_Semi-Papal Organization_, for the base purposes of power and plunder,
now fully partakes of the intolerant spirit of Rome, and is acting it
out in all the departments of our State and General Governments. What
Romanism has been to the Old World, this Papal and Anti-American
organization seeks and promises to be to this country. What is Popery in
Roman Catholic Europe? It is as intolerant in politics as in religion:
it taxes and oppresses the subjects and citizens of every country; it
interdicts nations; dethrones governors, chief magistrates, and kings;
dissolves civil governments; suspends commerce; annuls civil laws; and,
to gratify its unsanctified lust of ambition, it has overrun whole
nations with bloodshed, and thrown them into confusion. So it is with
this "_Bogus_" Democracy: it wages a war of extermination against the
freedom of the press, and against the liberty of speech, the rights of
human conscience, and the liberties of man: hence its indiscriminate
proscription of all who dare to unite with the AMERICAN PARTY, or openly
espouse their cause. Popery aims at universal power over the bodies and
souls of all men; and history proclaims that its weapons have been
dungeons, racks, chains, fire, and sword! The _bastard_ Democracy of the
present age has united with the Prelates, Priests, Monks, and Nuns of
Romanism, and is daily affiliating with hundreds of thousands of the
very off-scourings of the European Catholic population--stimulating them
to deeds of violence, and to the shedding of blood! To-day, they sustain
a _Baker_ in the foul murder of a _Poole_, in New York, because he was a
member of the so-called Know-Nothing party, which had just routed, in an
election, this Foreign Locofoco party! To-morrow, we find this same vile
party, its editors and orators, sustaining a Foreign Catholic Mob in
Louisville, Ky.; and the members of the same party, in surrounding
States, exulting over the murder of Protestant Americans! And in the
next breath, as it were, we find these sons of Belial, falsely called
_Democrats_, after reaching the power they lusted after in Philadelphia,
sending up shouts over the lawless deeds of a Foreign Catholic riot,
which made the ears of every American citizen to tingle!

Under the guidance of an ALL-WISE PROVIDENCE, the Protector of our
Republic, and of the Protestant Religion, it is in the power of the free
and independent voters of these United States to cause this enemy's long
"_arm to be clean dried up, and his right eye to be utterly darkened_,"
by elevating to the two first offices within the gift of the world,
MILLARD FILLMORE and ANDREW J. DONELSON!

I am, candid Reader, your fellow-citizen,

     W. G. BROWNLOW.

     KNOXVILLE, July, 1856.


AMERICANISM CONTRASTED

WITH

Foreignism, Romanism, and Bogus Democracy.




INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.

     The Creed of the American Party--The Platform misrepresented by
     Mr. Watkins--Official Vote on the adoption of the new
     Platform--What the Abolitionists and Democrats say of the
     Platform--Seceders from the Nominating Convention, and their
     Address.


Lord Byron, just as the war of Greece approached, said: "It is not one
man, nor a million, but the _spirit of liberty_ which must be spread;"
and, carrying out the same bold idea of liberty, he continues, "It is
time to act;" or, in the language of the Know Nothing salutation, "It is
time for work;" for "what signifies _self_, if a single spark of that
genius of liberty worthy of the past, can be bequeathed unquenchably to
the future?" In the language of a fair poetess:

              --"Our country is a whole,
    Of which we all are parts; nor should a citizen
    Regard his interests as distinct from hers:
    No hopes or fears should touch his patriot soul,
    But what affects her honor or her shame."

The civilization--the nationality--the institutions, civil and
religious--and the mission of the United States, are all eminently
American. Mental light and personal independence, constitutional union,
national supremacy, submission to law and rules of order, homogeneous
population, and instinctive patriotism, are all vital elements of
American liberty, nationality, and upward and onward progress. Foreign
immigration, foreign Catholic influence, and sectional factions
nourished by them--and breeding demagogues in the name of _Democracy_,
by a prostitution of the elective franchise--have already corrupted our
nationality, degraded our councils, both State and National, weakened
the bonds of union, disturbed our country's peace, and awakened
apprehensions of insecurity and _progressive deterioration_, threatening
ultimate ruin! To rescue and restore American institutions--to maintain
American nationality, and to secure American birthrights, is the mission
and the sole purpose of the AMERICAN PARTY--composed of conservative,
patriotic, Protestant, Union-loving, native-born citizens of every
section, and of every Christian denomination--self-sacrificing patriots,
who prefer their country, and the religion of their fathers, and of the
Bible, to a factious name, a plundering political organization, and an
infamous Papal hierarchy!

The paramount and ultimate object of our AMERICAN ORGANIZATION is to
save and exalt the Union, and to preserve and perpetuate the rights and
blessings of the Protestant religion. We contend that American
principles should mould American policy; that American mind should rule
American destiny; that all sectional parties, such as a party _North_,
or a party _South_, should be renounced; that all sectional agitations,
such as are kept up by Abolitionists, Free Soilers, and Black
Republicans, should be resisted; that Congress should never agitate the
subject of domestic slavery, in any form or for any purpose, but leave
it where the Constitution fixes it; that as the destiny of the country
depends on the mind of the country, intelligence should rule; that the
ballot-box should be purified, and corrupt Romanism and foreign
influence checked; that any allegiance "to any foreign prince,
potentate, or power"--to any power, regal or pontifical, should be
rebuked as the most fatal canker of the germ of American independence;
that every citizen should be encouraged to exercise freely his own
conscience; and that the popular mind should be enlightened, and the
popular heart rectified, by proper and universal Christian education.
This is the essence of the American creed; and when methodized into a
Political Decalogue, it constitutes the _Ten Commandments_ of the
American party.

In this connection, and at this point, we will give the much-abused
Platform of the American party, adopted at the session of the National
Council, February 21, 1856. Examine the Platform, and answer to your
conscience the question: What true American head can disapprove--what
pure American heart can revolt? Can men taking their stand on this
Platform be the enemies of civil and religious liberties? Can either
civil or religious liberties rest secure on any other grounds? And must
not those "Bogus" Democrats and Anti-Americans, therefore, who wage war
against this citadel of American birthrights, act as enemies to the
Federal Constitution, enemies to the Union, to the mental independence
of American citizens--enemies to the Protestant religion, and enemies,
consequently, "to civil and religious liberty?"

     PLATFORM OF THE AMERICAN PARTY.

     1st. An humble acknowledgment to the Supreme Being for his
     protecting care vouchsafed to our fathers in their successful
     Revolutionary struggle, and hitherto manifested to us, their
     descendants, in the preservation of the liberties, the
     independence, and the union of these States.

     2d. The perpetuation of the Federal Union, as the palladium of
     our civil and religious liberties, and the only sure bulwark of
     American Independence.

     3d. _Americans must rule America_, and to this end,
     _native_-born citizens should be selected for all State,
     Federal, and municipal offices, or government employment, in
     preference to all others: nevertheless,

     4th. Persons born of American parents residing temporarily
     abroad, should be entitled to all the rights of native-born
     citizens; but,

     5th. No person should be selected for political station,
     (whether of native or foreign birth,) who recognizes any
     allegiance or obligation of any description, to any foreign
     prince, potentate, or power, or who refuses to recognize the
     Federal and State constitutions (each within its sphere) as
     paramount to all other laws, as rules of political action.

     6th. The unqualified recognition and maintenance of the
     reserved rights of the several States, and the cultivation of
     harmony and fraternal good-will between the citizens of the
     several States; and to this end, non-interference by Congress
     with questions appertaining solely to the individual States,
     and non-intervention by each State with the affairs of any
     other State.

     7th. The recognition of the right of the native-born and
     naturalized citizens of the United States, permanently residing
     in any Territory thereof, to frame their constitution and laws,
     and to regulate their domestic and social affairs in their own
     mode, subject only to the provisions of the Federal
     Constitution, with the privilege of admission into the Union
     whenever they have the requisite population for one
     Representative in Congress. _Provided always_, that none but
     those who are citizens of the United States, under the
     constitution and laws thereof, and who have a fixed residence
     in any such Territory, ought to participate in the formation of
     the constitution, or in the enactment of laws for said
     Territory or State.

     8th. An enforcement of the principle that no State or Territory
     ought to admit others than citizens of the United States to the
     right of suffrage, or of holding political office.

     9th. A change in the laws of naturalization, making a continued
     residence of twenty-one years, of all not hereinbefore provided
     for, an indispensable requisite for citizenship hereafter, and
     excluding all paupers, and persons convicted of crime, from
     landing upon our shores; but no interference with the vested
     rights of foreigners.

     10th. Opposition to any union between Church and State: no
     interference with religious faith or worship, and no test-oaths
     for office.

     11th. Free and thorough investigation into any and all alleged
     abuses of public functionaries, and a strict economy in public
     expenditures.

     12th. The maintenance and enforcement of all laws
     constitutionally enacted, until said laws shall be repealed, or
     shall be declared null and void by competent judicial
     authority.

     13th. Opposition to the reckless and unwise policy of the
     present administration in the general management of our
     national affairs, and more especially as shown in removing
     "Americans" (by designation) and conservatives in principle,
     from office, and placing foreigners and ultraists in their
     places: as shown in a truckling subserviency to the stronger,
     and an insolent and cowardly bravado toward the weaker powers:
     as shown in reöpening sectional agitation, by the repeal of the
     Missouri Compromise: as shown in granting to unnaturalized
     foreigners the right of suffrage in Kansas and Nebraska: as
     shown in its vacillating course on the Kansas and Nebraska
     question: as shown in the corruptions which pervade some of the
     departments of the government: as shown in disgracing
     meritorious naval officers through prejudice or caprice; and as
     shown in the blundering mismanagement of our foreign relations.

     14th. Therefore, to remedy existing evils, and prevent the
     disastrous consequences otherwise resulting therefrom, we would
     build up the "American party" upon the principles hereinbefore
     stated.

     15th. That each State Council shall have authority to amend
     their several constitutions, so as to abolish the several
     degrees, and institute a pledge of honor, instead of other
     obligations, for fellowship and admission into the party.

     16th. A free and open discussion of all political principles
     embraced in our platform.

The HON. MR. WATKINS, a renegade from the American ranks, in East
Tennessee, delivered a speech in Congress on the 6th of May, 1856; which
speech we find reported in the _Washington Union_--a speech which
betrays an utter ignorance of the point he undertook to discuss. It is
due to _his betrayed constituents_ that we should expose his ignorance,
and the blundering fallacy of his attempts to justify his turning
_Locofoco Cataline Judas Sag-Nicht_! He says, as reported by his
political organ-grinder:

     "But, sir, the platform recently adopted by the Philadelphia
     Convention cannot receive my approbation. I cannot support Mr.
     Fillmore, or any other distinguished Whig, upon that platform.
     The only solitary plank in the Philadelphia platform of June,
     1855, was the twelfth section--that section which denied to
     Congress the right to interfere with slavery in the
     Territories, declaring the doctrine of non-intervention, and of
     popular sovereignty in the Territories. But, sir, that plank in
     the platform was stricken out by the convention recently held,
     and the sixth resolution of the platform then adopted
     substituted in its place. And what does that resolution
     endorse? Is there any non-intervention in the sixth resolution
     of the Philadelphia platform? Is there any denial of the right
     of Congress to interfere upon the subject of slavery in the
     sixth resolution of the Philadelphia platform? Certainly not."

In lieu of the _June_ platform, we have this _February_ platform. The
June platform contained _no such denial to Congress_, as is here alleged
by Mr. Watkins, of the right to interfere with slavery in the
Territories! And it is marvellous, indeed, that a grave Member of
Congress should undertake to discuss Platforms, which he had either
never read, or the purport of which, if he had ever read them, he had
either wholly forgotten, or lacked the sense to comprehend! The twelfth
section of the June Platform says:

     "And expressly _pretermitting any expression of opinion_ upon
     the power of Congress to establish or prohibit slavery in any
     Territory, it is the sense of this National Council, that
     Congress OUGHT NOT to legislate upon the subject of slavery
     within the Territories of the United States."

Thus, instead of _denying_ to Congress the right to interfere with
slavery in the Territories, as erroneously and recklessly charged by
this new-born Democrat, all opinion on that subject was "_expressly
pretermitted_" in the June Platform! Mr. Watkins was in such a hurry to
join the Forney, Pierce, and Catholic Democracy, that he did not stop to
examine even the Platform which most disgusted him! But this is not the
worst blunder which he committed in that speech. He turned to the new
Platform, and asked, with an air of triumph:

     "Is there any non-intervention in the sixth resolution of the
     (new) Philadelphia platform? Is there any denial of the right
     of Congress to interfere with the subject of slavery in the
     sixth resolution of the (new) Philadelphia platform?"

And he answers, "_Certainly not!_" The ignorant man, it would seem, only
read as far as to the sixth section of the new Platform; and even _that_
section contains a direct affirmative answer to his question; which, in
order to place the American party in a false position, he answers,
"_Certainly not!_"

Now, we ask such as may have noticed his _misrepresentations_, to read a
_little further on_, at least to the end of the 7th section of this new
Platform, and see where it leaves Mr. Watkins! Turn back to the 7th
section, and it will be seen that this section, instead of
"_pretermitting any opinion_" on the question, announces the doctrine
that the citizens of the United States permanently residing in the
Territories, have a "_right_" to frame their Constitution and laws, and
to regulate their domestic affairs in their own mode, subject only to
the provisions of the Federal Constitution!

The _New York Evening Post_, a Pierce and foreign Democratic organ, thus
alludes to the action of the Convention which nominated FILLMORE and
DONELSON:--

     "The 12th section of the June Platform, it is true, had been
     abrogated; BUT IT HAD BEEN REPLACED BY ANOTHER, MEANING
     PRECISELY THE SAME THING!"

The _Cincinnati Gazette_, an Abolition, Anti-American Foreign sheet,
came out in opposition to the American nominees, in its issue of Feb.
29th, 1856, on account of the _Pro-slavery_ character of the new
Platform. The Gazette says:--

     "We are glad that the action of the Convention _proved so
     decided as to leave no doubt as to the character of the
     Platform_. THE LATTER IS CLEARLY AND DECIDEDLY PRO-SLAVERY AND
     NEBRASKA, _and in this respect corresponds precisely with the_
     PRINCIPLES OF THE PIERCE DEMOCRACY! _Fillmore and Donelson_ are
     therefore presented to the American people as candidates for
     the Presidency and Vice Presidency, ON A THOROUGH AND DECIDED
     NEBRASKA PRO-SLAVERY PLATFORM, and the citizens of Northern
     States are asked to vote for them!"

The _New York Tribune_, whose editor was a prominent member of the
Pittsburgh Black Republican Convention, and who is violent in his
opposition to FILLMORE and DONELSON, says:

     "The object of the Know Nothings has dwindled down to this--TO
     DEFEAT THE REPUBLICAN PARTY! That is to say, this is the object
     of those who have managed the Philadelphia Convention, and
     nominated Mr. Fillmore. I have diligently inquired for a member
     who voted for _Banks_ for Speaker, and now supports _Fillmore_;
     but up to this time--more than three days after the
     nomination--I have not heard of one. That sort must be scarce!"

The following is the OFFICIAL vote on the adoption of the new Platform
by the National Council, which met four days previous to the Nominating
Convention:

     NEW HAMPSHIRE--_Nays_--Messrs. Colby and Emery.

     MASSACHUSETTS--_Yeas_--Messrs. Ely, Weith, Brewster, Robinson,
     and Arnold. _Nays_--Messrs. Richmond, Wheelwright, Temple,
     Thurston, Sumner, Allen, Sawin, and Hawkes.

     CONNECTICUT--_Nays_--Messrs. Sperry, Dunbar, Peck, Booth,
     Holley, and Perkins.

     RHODE ISLAND--_Yeas_--Messrs. Chase and Knight. _Nays_--Messrs.
     Simons and Nightingale.

     NEW YORK--_Yeas_--Messrs. Walker, Oakley, Morgan, Woodward,
     Reynolds, Chester, Owens, Sanders, Whiston, Nichols, Van Dusen,
     Westbrook, Parsons, Picket, Campbell, Lowell, Sammons, Oakes,
     Seymour, Squire, Cooper, Burr, Bennett, Marvine, Midler,
     Stephens, Johnson, Wetmore, Hammond, and S. Seymour. _Nay_--Mr.
     Barker.

     DELAWARE--_Yeas_--Messrs. Clement and Smithers.

     MARYLAND--_Yeas_--Messrs. Codet, Alexander, Winchester,
     Stephens, and Wilmot. _Nays_--Messrs. Purnell, Ricaud, Pinkney,
     and Kramer.

     VIRGINIA--_Nays_--Messrs. Bolling, McHugh, Cochran, Boteler,
     Preston, and Maupin.

     FLORIDA--_Yea_--Mr. Call.

     NEW JERSEY--_Yeas_--Messrs. Deshler, Weeks, Lyon, and
     McClellan.

     PENNSYLVANIA--_Yeas_--Messrs. Freeman, Nelclede, Gossler,
     Smith, Gillinham, Hammond, Wood, Gilford, Pyle, Farrand, and
     Williamson. _Nays_--Messrs. Johnson, Sewell, Jones, Parker,
     Heistand, Kase, Kinkaid, Coffee, Carlisle, Crovode, Edie,
     Sewell, and Power.

     LOUISIANA--_Yeas_--Messrs. Lathrop and Elam. _Nays_--Messrs.
     Harman and Hardy.

     CALIFORNIA--_Yeas_--Messrs. Wood and Stanley.

     ARKANSAS--_Yea_--Mr. Logan. _Nay_--Mr. Fowler.

     TENNESSEE--_Yeas_--Messrs. Brownlow, Bankhead, Zollicoffer,
     Burton, Campbell, Donelson, Harris, Bilbo, and Beloat.
     _Nays_--Messrs. Nelson, Reedy, and Picket.

     KENTUCKY--_Yeas_--Messrs. Stowers, Campbell, Raphael, Todd,
     Clay, Goodloe, and Bartlett. _Nays_--Messrs. Shanklin, Jones,
     Carpenter, Gist, and Underwood.

     OHIO--_Yeas_--Messrs. White, Nash, Simpson, and Lippett.
     _Nays_--Messrs. Gabriel, Olds, Ford, Barker, Potter, Stanbaugh,
     Rodgers, Spooner, Hodges, Kyle, Lees, Swigart, Allison,
     Fishback, Thomas, Corwine, Chapman, Ayres, and Johnson.

     INDIANA--_Yeas_--Messrs. Sheets and Phelps. _Nay_--Mr.
     Meredith.

     MISSOURI--_Yeas_--Messrs. Edward, Fletcher, and Hockaday.
     _Nay_--Mr. Breckenridge.

     MICHIGAN--_Yea_--Mr. Wood.

     WISCONSIN--_Yeas_--Messrs. Lockwood, Cook, Chandler, and
     Gillies.

     DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA--_Yeas_--Messrs. Ellis and Evans.

     ILLINOIS--_Yeas_--Messrs. Danenhower and Allen. _Nays_--Messrs.
     Jennings and Gear.

     IOWA--_Nays_--Messrs. Webster and Thorrington.

     _Yeas_--108. _Nays_--77.

We will close this chapter by giving the delegates who seceded from the
Nominating Convention, with the Address published by them on the
occasion. That recession was a more inconsiderable affair than has been
represented by the foreign party of this country. The author of this
work was the Chairman of the large Committee on Credentials, and
reported TWO HUNDRED AND SEVENTY-SEVEN delegates, which report was
received without opposition, as to numbers. Of these, _forty-two_ only
seceded, viz.: 13 out of 28 from Ohio; _one_ of two from New Hampshire;
6--all--from Connecticut; 2 out of 13 from Massachusetts; _one_ out of 3
from Illinois; 7 out of 27 from Pennsylvania; _one_ out of 4 from Rhode
Island; 5--all--from Michigan; 5--all--from Wisconsin; _one_--all--from
Iowa; 42 out of 277--not a _sixth_, and but little over a _seventh_ of
the whole!


ADDRESS.

The seceders or "bolters" made the following address, to which they
appended their States and names. What they say of the _Louisiana_
delegates, we have explained in another portion of this work:

     "The undersigned, delegates to the nominating Convention now in
     session at Philadelphia, find themselves compelled to dissent
     from the principles avowed by that body; and holding opinions,
     as they do, that the restoration of the Missouri Compromise, as
     demanded by a majority of the whole people, is a redress of an
     undeniable wrong, and the execution of it, in spirit at least,
     indispensable to the repose of the country, they have regarded
     the refusal of that Convention to recognize the well-defined
     opinion of the country, and of the Americans of the free
     States, upon this question, as a denial of their rights and a
     rebuke to their sentiments; and they hold that the admission
     into the National Council and nominating Convention, of
     delegates from Louisiana, representing a Roman Catholic
     Constituency, absolved every true American from all obligations
     to sustain the action of either of the said bodies.

     "They have therefore withdrawn from the nominating Convention,
     refusing to participate in the proposed nomination, and now
     address themselves to the Americans of the country, and
     especially of the States they represent, to justify and approve
     of their action; and to the end that a nomination conforming to
     the overruling sentiment of the country in the great issue may
     be regularly and auspiciously made, the undersigned propose to
     the Americans in all the States to assemble in their several
     State organizations, and elect delegates to a Convention to
     meet in the city of New York, on Thursday, the 12th day of June
     next, for the purpose of nominating candidates for President
     and Vice President of the United States."

     OHIO--Thos. H. Ford, J. H. Baker, B. S. Kyle, W. H. C.
     Mitchell, E. T. Sturtevant, O. T. Fishback, Jacob Ebbert, Wm.
     B. Allison, H. C. Hodges, L. H. Olds, W. B. Chapman, Thos.
     McYees, Charles Nichols.

     NEW HAMPSHIRE--Anthony Colby.

     CONNECTICUT--Lucius G. Peck, Jas. E. Dunham, Hezekiah Griswold,
     Austin Baldwin, Edmund Perkins, David Booth.

     MASSACHUSETTS--Wild. S. Thurston, Z. R. Pangborn.

     ILLINOIS--Henry S. Jennings.

     PENNSYLVANIA--Wm. F. Johnston, S. C. Kase, R. M. Riddle, T. J.
     Coffey, John Williamson, J. Harrison, S. Ewell.

     RHODE ISLAND--E. J. Nightingale.

     MICHIGAN--S. T. Lyon, W. Fuller, W. S. Wood, P. P. Meddler, J.
     Hamilton.

     WISCONSIN--D. A. Gillis, John Lockwood, Robt. Chandler, G.
     Burdick, C. W. Cook.

     IOWA--L. H. Webster.


THE ELECTION OF BANKS--THE SLAVERY QUESTION.

One of the issues in the Presidential contest now going on, is the
_slavery question_. A. O. P. X. Y. Z. Nicholson, of the Washington
Union, who canvassed this State in opposition to Scott, and shed his
_crocodile_ tears before every crowd he addressed, because so good a man
as Fillmore, who had stood firm for the _rights of the South_, had been
set aside by an ungrateful Convention at Baltimore, to give place to
Scott, the favorite of _Seward_--this miserable hypocrite, we say, now
comes out and says, "Fillmore's abolitionism will suit the North."

The Central Democratic Committee for East Tennessee, in a call for a
District Convention at Clinton, in May last, through the _Knoxville
Standard_, conclude said call in this language:

     "The time has again arrived when the national Democracy must
     rally to their country's call and preserve the Constitution as
     it is in its purity, and perpetuate the union of the States
     from the rain which the _Black Republican Party of the North_,
     aided by THEIR KNOW-NOTHING ALLIES OF THE SOUTH, would bring
     upon them. By order of the

     "CENTRAL COMMITTEE."

The _Sag-Nicht Convention_ held at Somerville, on Thursday the 8th of
May, and which selected D. M. Currin as their Electoral candidate,
adopted the following resolution:

     "_Resolved_, That we have been appointed by the Democracy of
     this Electoral District to organize to fight, in the coming
     Presidential election, the BLACK REPUBLICANS AND KNOW-NOTHINGS.
     _Resolved_, That we _can_ beat them, and we _will_ do it.
     _Resolved_, That we will cordially receive the _co-operation of
     all Old-Line Whigs_ who will assist us in carrying out these
     resolutions."

Now, the charge is here made that the Know-Nothings of the South are the
allies of the Black Republicans of the North. This is the impression
intended to be made, first by these _concealed calumniators_ at
Knoxville, and afterwards by the _open and avowed slanderers_ of the
same party at Somerville! With such _wholesale lying_ as is displayed in
both of these cases, we have but little patience: we only give their
language, to show their recklessness in making such an issue. And
although this Foreign party claim to be the guardians of Southern
interests, we propose to show, before we conclude this chapter, that
they are themselves the "allies of the Black Republicans of the North,"
and are giving them more "aid and comfort" than all the other parties in
the country!

FRANCIS P. BLAIR, former editor of Gen. Jackson's organ at Washington,
was the President of the Black Republican Convention at Pittsburg, in
February last! _John M. Niles_; Democratic Senator in Congress, was
President of the Black Republican Convention held in Connecticut! In the
Pittsburg Convention, over which Blair presided, PRESTON KING, ABIJAH
MANN, DAVID WILMOT, and JACOB BRINKERHOFF, Old-Line Democrats, figured
conspicuously.

For two long and cold winter months, the Democrats, both North and
South, voted for _Richardson_, of Illinois, for Speaker, a violent
_anti-slavery man_, whose speeches _against_ slavery, and in _favor_ of
Abolitionism, were matters of record in the Congressional Globe, and
were delivered on the floor of Congress so late as 1850! The _immortal_
75 Democrats did not cease to vote for this man _Richardson_, until GEN.
ZOLLICOFFER, of Tennessee, read his speeches upon him, in the presence
of his friends!

On the 2d of February, SAMUEL A. SMITH, of Tennessee, a Democratic
Representative in Congress, _renewed_ his motion to adopt the PLURALITY
RULE. His proposition, which it was evident would elect _Banks_, was
carried by Black Republican votes, who went for it in a body. This would
still not have elected _Banks_, but for the fact that the following
_Democrats_ voted for the odious plurality rule: _Clingman_, _Herbert_,
_Hickman_, _Jewett_, _Kelley_, _Barclay_, _Bayard_, _Wells_, _Williams_,
and SAMUEL A. SMITH! Mr. Clarke was the only American who voted for the
odious rule!

MR. CARLILE, a national American, of Virginia, before the vote was taken
upon this plurality rule, offered the following substitute for it:

     "_Resolved_, That the HON. WM. AIKEN, a Representative from the
     State of South Carolina, be, and he is hereby declared Speaker
     of the Thirty-Fourth Congress."

GOV. AIKEN is a sound Southern Democrat--never was any thing else--but
COL. SMITH _objected_, and demanded the _previous question_, which cut
off MR. CARLILE'S resolution, and which was to prevent its adoption! The
candidate of the Democratic party, at that time, MR. ORR, immediately
_withdrew in favor of_ GOV. AIKEN, upon the introduction of MR.
CARLILE'S resolution; and to _prevent Aiken's election_, SAMUEL A. SMITH
cut off said resolution by a call of the previous question!

Banks was elected by _one_ vote, and this could not be accomplished
until SEVEN DEMOCRATS got _behind the bar_, and refused to vote at all!
These were HICKMAN, PARKER, and BARCLAY, of Pennsylvania; CRAIG, of
North Carolina; TAYLOR, of Louisiana; RICHARDSON, of Illinois; and
SEWARD, of Georgia! Any _two_ of these _Southern_ Democrats could have
made AIKEN Speaker, but they did not want him--they knew Banks to be a
_Democrat_, if he were a Black Republican--and to elect him, they
believed would give them the strength of that odious party in the coming
contest.

We have before us the _Washington Union_ of Sept. 27th, 1853, giving,
editorially, a glowing account of the Massachusetts Democratic State
Convention, reporting the speech of Nathaniel P. Banks, of Waltham,
concluding that report in these words:

     "Mr. Banks emphatically and decidedly, on his own part, and on
     that of the _Democrats of Massachusetts_, disclaimed the truth
     of the rumors in certain newspapers that an arrangement had
     been entered into with another political party in the
     Commonwealth concerning the distribution of State offices. It
     was his and this Convention's and all true Democrats' desire,
     belief, and determination, that Henry W. Bishop should be
     elected governor of Massachusetts, and that the other
     Democratic State officers should also be elected. He was not
     afraid of defeat, and less afraid of _Whig success_, which, to
     judge by its recent effects, was simply equivalent to a defeat.
     [Applause.]"

It may be said, and doubtless will be, that _Banks_ has allied himself
with the Republicans. But Banks says he has _always been a Democrat_,
and that he was _nominated as a Democrat in his district_. And certain
it is, that he was elected Speaker by DEMOCRATS, under the _compulsion_
of an odious plurality rule, and the _gag_ of the previous question!

It will be said, and said truthfully too, that SIX AMERICANS FROM THE
NORTH voted for MR. FULLER, of Pennsylvania. So they did; and in doing
so, they voted for a sound national and conservative man. But did this
justify _Southern_ Democrats in _dodging_ the question, and thereby
electing a Black Republican Speaker? Gov. Aiken was the candidate of the
_seven_ Democrats--he was not the candidate of the _six_ Americans!
Democracy, moreover, had refused to vote for an American under any
circumstances, and had, on the first day of the meeting of Congress,
passed a resolution insulting the whole American party, in caucus! We
would have seen them banished to the farthest verge of astronomical
imagination, before we would have voted for any man that favored that
insulting resolution!

In 1847, by a _unanimous vote_, both branches of the Legislature of New
Hampshire adopted resolutions denunciatory of the institution of
slavery, and approving of the Wilmot Proviso. These resolutions were
reported to the House, by the Representative from Hillsboro, the native
town of _Gen. Pierce_, and were in the _handwriting_ of Pierce!

On the 2d of October, 1847, the Democratic Soft-Shells, who are now the
supporters of Pierce's administration, and fill the offices he has to
dispose of in New York, held a State Convention, and declared their
"_uncompromising hostility to slavery_" in a string of resolutions they
adopted and ordered to be published.

On the 16th of February, 1848, a Democratic State Convention for New
York convened at Utica, to appoint Delegates to the National Convention
to nominate candidates for President and Vice President, at which a
string of anti-Southern resolutions were adopted, denouncing "_slavery_
or _involuntary servitude_," as repugnant to the genius of
Republicanism.

On the 18th of July, 1848, the Democratic Soft-Shells held a
mass-meeting in the park of New York, and, by way of making perfect
their organization against General Cass, declared, by resolutions, their
"_uncompromising hostility to slavery or involuntary servitude!_"

On the 13th of September, 1848, a Democratic mass-meeting convened at
Buffalo, in New York, and, in a general Abolition jubilee, adopted
resolutions condemning and denouncing the institution of slavery!

In 1852, while the contest was going on between Pierce and Scott, the
_Washington Union_ said, editorially:

     "THE FREE-SOIL DEMOCRATIC LEADERS OF THE NORTH, ARE A REGULAR
     PORTION OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY; AND GENERAL PIERCE, IF
     ELECTED, WILL MAKE NO DISTINCTION BETWEEN THEM AND THE REST OF
     THE DEMOCRACY IN THE DISTRIBUTION OF OFFICIAL PATRONAGE, AND IN
     THE SELECTION OF AGENTS FOR ADMINISTERING THE GOVERNMENT!"

The Black Republicans recently held a meeting in New York, at which
_Benjamin F. Butler_, of "pious memory," and Van Buren Swartwout
notoriety, presided! On his right hand sat, as Vice President of the
meeting, _Moses H. Grinnell_, one of the Democratic "pipe-layers" of
1840, whom this Van Buren Attorney-General Butler made efforts to send
to the State prison! Another Vice President, gravely looking on, and
arranged in dignified grandeur upon the stand, was John W. Edmonds,
ex-"blanket contractor" in a large swindle, and a practical
spiritual-rapper! A third and last Vice President was the notorious _Dr.
Townsend_, the sarsaparilla man, who has not yet wound up his
controversy with a man of the same name, as to who is the greatest
rascal in the way of manufacturing this medicine!

Among the other officers, secretaries, and prominent men in the meeting,
was _C. A. Dana_, of the Tribune office, a _Fourierist_, who, at a
public meeting on a former occasion, toasted "Horace Greeley, Charles
Fourier, and Jesus Christ!" Prominent in the meeting was _C. A.
Stetson_, of the Astor House, an _Amalgamationist_. Henry J. Raymond,
the Abolition editor of the Times, and _Rudolph Garrigue_, a noisy
German Abolitionist, looked and acted as though they believed the
salvation of the Union depended upon the success of the Republicans! A
fellow who made frequent motions, an Irishman by the name of _McMorrow_,
had served an apprenticeship of twelve months in the State prison, for
breaking open a store after night! The principal speaker, who spoke for
two hours on the subject of slavery, was the notorious _Bingham_, an
itinerant Abolitionist from Ohio. It was a queer medley of men, parties,
principles, and characters--two-thirds of all the active partisans in
the meeting having held offices in the ranks of Democracy! And still,
that party boasts of its Northern wing being sound upon the slavery
question.

And here is the resolution of the 8th of January _Democratic_ Convention
in Ohio, appointing delegates to the Cincinnati Pow-wow:

     "_Resolved_, That the people of Ohio now, as they have always
     done, look upon slavery as an evil, and unfavorable to the
     development of the spirit and practical benefits of free
     institutions; and that, entertaining these sentiments, they
     will at all times feel it to be their duty to use all power
     clearly given by the terms of the national compact, to prevent
     its increase, to mitigate, _and finally eradicate the evil_."

To show, just here, where Tennessee Democrats stand upon the infamous
Wilmot Proviso question, we give the following extract from a recent
number of the _Nashville Patriot_:

     JAMES K. POLK,

     who, in 1847, approved the Oregon bill, which contained this
     odious and unconstitutional clause: next in order is

     CAVE JOHNSON,

     now President of the Bank of Tennessee, who voted for the same
     bill which Mr. Polk sanctioned: next we have

     AARON V. BROWN,

     an aspirant before the Cincinnati Convention, who did likewise:
     then comes

     JULIUS W. BLACKWELL,

     a star whose light has been quenched in obscurity, but who
     voted with his colleagues for the Oregon bill in '47: next in
     the procession of Southern men "dangerous to the South" is

     BARCLAY MARTIN,

     President Pierce's U. S. Mail Agent, who cast a similar vote:
     following him we have

     LUCIEN B. CHASE,

     author of the History of the Polk Administration, at present a
     resident of New York city, but at the time he exhibited himself
     as "a dangerous man to the South," a representative in Congress
     from this State: he is succeeded by

     FRED. P. STANTON,

     for ten years a Democratic Congressman from the Memphis
     district: he voted for the Oregon bill, with the Wilmot
     Proviso annexed: behind him in the march is

     ALVAN CULLOM,

     a Democratic Congressman, who has squatted on the _other_ side
     of one of his native mountains in the fourth district, and been
     quiescent for some years: he was one of the Tennessee
     "dangerous men:" he voted twice for the Wilmot Proviso: in the
     same category is

     GEORGE W. JONES,

     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.

Upon the subject of religious toleration by the Catholics, you seem to
have fallen into the same error adopted by the Hon. Mr. Stephens, of
Georgia--a man for whom you have great regard now, but who, in the days
of _Clay Whiggery_, was a stench in your Locofoco nostrils! Mr. Stephens
made the assertion, in a public speech in Augusta, that "the Catholic
Colony of Maryland, under Lord Baltimore, was the first to _establish_
the principle of free toleration in religious worship." The Colony of
Maryland was a Catholic Colony, and the "Toleration Act" was written by
Lord Baltimore himself. That Act is dated 21st April, 1649, when Lord
Baltimore was in the zenith of his glory. Here is the language of that
"Act" of religious toleration:

     "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_.

God deliver us from such toleration! _Death_ was the penalty for
expressing certain religious opinions, not acceptable to Lord Baltimore
and the Holy Catholic Church! Fines and _whipping at the post_ was the
penalty for speaking against the image-worship of the Catholic Church.
But I need not pursue this subject further: the _onus propandi_ is on
your side.

Speaking of Mr. Wesley, you say:

     "If Wesley were alive, what would he think of your midnight
     plots, and open tirades against Papists? But a letter of his
     has been going the rounds of the newspapers, which the Know
     Nothings obviously think gives the sanction of that good man to
     their movement. Not so. Mr. Wesley was not the man to write as
     inconsistently as their version of this letter makes him
     write."

Why, sir, Mr. Wesley goes much further in his political opposition to
Roman Catholics than the American party have ever proposed to go. The
American party say only that they will not vote for Catholics, or put
them in office, because their principles are antagonistic to the spirit
of Republican institutions. Mr. Wesley lays down the comprehensive, but
_true doctrine_, in this very letter, that "_no government not Roman
Catholic ought to tolerate men of the Roman Catholic persuasion_." And
to show how fully and clearly he sustains this position, I quote from
his letter at length. You will find the letter in Vol. 5, page 817, of
Wesley's Miscellaneous Works, dated January 12th, 1780. It was
originally addressed to the Dublin Freeman's Journal. Here is what Mr.
Wesley says, in the very letter you seek to _deny out of_:

     "I consider not whether the Romish religion is true or false:
     build nothing on one or the other supposition. Therefore, away
     with all your common-place declamation about intolerance and
     persecution for religion! Suppose every word of Pope Pius's
     creed to be true! Suppose the Council of Trent to have been
     infallible; yet I insist upon it that no government not Roman
     Catholic ought to tolerate men of the Roman Catholic
     persuasion.

     "I prove this by a plain argument--let him answer it that
     can--that no Roman Catholic does or can give security for his
     allegiance or peaceable behavior. I prove it thus: It is a
     Roman Catholic maxim, established not by private men, but by
     public council, that 'No faith is to be kept with heretics.'
     This has been openly avowed by the Council of Constance; but it
     has never been openly disclaimed. Whether private persons avow
     or disavow it, it is a fixed maxim of the Church of Rome. But
     as long as it is so, nothing can be more plain than that the
     members of that Church can give no reasonable security to any
     government for their allegiance and peaceable behavior.
     Therefore, they ought not to be tolerated by any government,
     Protestant, Mohammedan, or Pagan. You say, 'Nay, but they take
     an oath of allegiance.' True, five hundred oaths; but the
     maxim, 'No faith is to be kept with heretics,' sweeps them all
     away as a spider's web. So that still no governors that are not
     Roman Catholics can have any security of their allegiance.

     "Again, those who acknowledge the spiritual power of the Pope
     can give no security of their allegiance to any government; but
     all Roman Catholics acknowledge this: therefore they can give
     no security for their allegiance. The power of granting pardons
     for all sins--past, present, and to come--is, and has been for
     many centuries, one branch of his spiritual power. But those
     who acknowledge him to have this spiritual power can give no
     security for their allegiance, since they believe the Pope can
     pardon rebellion, high treason, and all other sins whatever.
     The power of dispensing with any promise, oath, or vow, is
     another branch of the spiritual power of the Pope: all who
     acknowledge his spiritual power must acknowledge this. But
     whoever acknowledges the dispensing power of the Pope, can give
     no security for his allegiance to any government. Oaths and
     promises are none: they are as light as air--a dispensation
     makes them null and void. Nay, not only the Pope, but even a
     priest has power to pardon sins! This is an essential doctrine
     of the Church of Rome. But they that acknowledge this, cannot
     possibly give any security for their allegiance to any
     government. Oaths are no security at all; for the priest can
     pardon both perjury and high treason. Setting their religion
     aside, it is plain that, upon principles of reason, no
     government ought to tolerate men who cannot give any security
     to that government for their allegiance and peaceful behavior.
     But this, no Romanist can do; not only while he holds that 'no
     faith is to be kept with heretics,' but so long as he
     acknowledges either priestly absolution, or the spiritual power
     of the Pope.

     "If any one pleases to answer this, and set his name, I shall
     probably reply. But the productions of anonymous writers I do
     not promise to take any notice of.

     "I am, sir, your humble servant,

     "JOHN WESLEY.

     "CITY ROAD, January 12, 1780."

But, sir, you know as well as any living man that the history of the
Church, from the days of the first Pope down to the iniquitous reign of
Pius IX., sustains Mr. Wesley in his views on this subject, and
justifies the steps taken by the American party. Notwithstanding the
oft-repeated profession of Catholic liberality and Romish toleration, so
triumphantly paraded by you, and other interested aspirants and
unprincipled demagogues, the Catholic Church has invariably shown
herself to be destitute of both, whenever she had the opportunity of
using them. Sir, _intolerance_ is an element of her faith, and
_persecution_ a specimen of her piety; and no man knows it better than
you do. In taking upon herself the obligation of "true obedience to the
Pope," the Catholic Church imposes upon herself a task that proves
beyond all doubt she cannot, under any circumstances, remain faithful to
that obligation, and yet maintain "allegiance" to such a government as
ours!

Sir, I have no patience with a Protestant minister who stands forth as
the apologist of Catholicism; nor have I any confidence in one who does
it, provided he is a man of _intelligence_, as I admit you to be. The
only excuse I can render for your strange and inconsistent conduct is,
that you are in your dotage; that you are a violent old partisan; and
that you are the tool of designing demagogues, infamous disunionists,
and unmitigated repudiators. I shall not be at all surprised to hear
that you have apostatized from the Methodist Church, and gone over to
the Roman Catholics. I learn from the Little Rock Gazette, a Democratic
paper, that but the other day, Gov. E. N. Carway, of Arkansas, a member
of the Methodist Church, had actually apostatized from Methodism, and
the Protestant faith, and united with the Roman Catholics. And what
makes his defection from the faith of his fathers still more notorious,
his organ is down upon the Protestant clergy in bitter and unrelenting
denunciations! I believe that _you_ are preparing to go over to the
Roman Catholics; and to justify your change, when the time comes, you
now assert, "in humiliation but in candor," you say, that the people
"have _ten thousand times more_ to fear from Methodists than from
Catholics." If you believe this, you ought to leave the Methodist Church
_instantly_, even without the formalities of a withdrawal or
expulsion--even though you should be denied admittance into the Catholic
Church! I deny that we have "_ten thousand times more to fear_" from the
_Devil_ than we have from the Catholics; and according to your argument,
_the Methodists are worse than the Devil_! This, their most bitter
revilers and enemies do not believe; and for obvious reasons. The
Methodist Church has no St. Bartholomew's Day, with its rivers of blood
staining her garments: she never indiscriminately slaughtered the
Albigenses, or Waldenses, or Huguenots: she never established an
infernal Inquisition: she never lit up the fires of Smithfield: never
burned the Holy Bible, and prohibited, upon pain of eternal death, the
printing and circulating of God's word; and last, but not least, she has
not sought to keep the people in ignorance. Wherever Methodism has been
planted, the people have become great and happy. If you please, wherever
_Protestantism_ has prevailed, the people have been prosperous and
happy. But look to Old Spain, Italy, the German Confederacies, Sardinia,
Naples, Austria, Belgium, Portugal, Bavaria, Baden, South America, and
Mexico, where Romanism is the established religion, and the places of
her influence are a hissing and a by-word in the eyes of the civilized
world! Protestantism has done more for the world in the last hundred
years than the Roman Catholic Church has for the _eighteen hundred
years_!

Sir, the Puritans, of New England; the Hollanders, of New York; the
Quakers, Lutherans, and German Reformed, of Pennsylvania; the Baptists,
of Rhode Island; the Episcopalians and Presbyterians, of Virginia; the
Lutherans and followers of Wesley and Whitefield, of Georgia; the
Huguenots and Episcopalians, of the Carolinas; and the Seceders in
several of the States, who were the religious pioneers of these States,
were all Protestants and Know Nothings; and if they were living, they
would be ashamed of you and your teachings. They selected this
wilderness country as their home, in order that they might enjoy those
religious privileges from which they had been debarred in the old world,
by the very Church and people you are seeking to vindicate.

But you will say, as you have done in substance, that this is no longer
the characteristic of Romanism. Why is it not? Has she ever changed for
the better? When did she renounce her doctrines and practices? Never!
Rome is the same tyrannical system now, where she has the power, that
she ever has been, and for ever must be. Wo to this land of ours, if
ever Rome gets the ascendancy here! Her creed is the same here and now,
in this respect, that it has everywhere been, and must always be. It is
her boast that she is always right, and knows no change. She practices
her unholy inquisitorial and Jesuitical doctrines in this country, as
far as she can and dare act them out. Her whole system is adverse to our
republican institutions and she hesitates not to declare it. She has
publicly burned our Bible in different States in this Union, and
recently, in New York and Pennsylvania. Archbishop Hughes, the Head of
the Catholic Church in this country, has taken an oath, administered by
the Pope of Rome, of which this is a part:

     "Heretics, schismatics, and rebels to our said Lord (the Pope)
     or his aforesaid successors, I will, to my utmost power,
     _persecute and wage war with_."

The Church of Rome declares all who are not its members to be heretics.
It is painful, in view of all these things, to see an old Protestant
minister, whose head has been withered by the frosts of seventy
winters, openly in the field advocating a Church whose Bishops, Priests,
and members are "drunken with the blood of saints."

There is but one remaining feature of your singular address to Know
Nothing Methodist Preachers to be replied to, and I am through. You
assail the new party on the score of its _secrecy_, and of its
_concealment_ of its acts from the public. Had this objection come from
any one but a Methodist Preacher, and a known advocate of
_Class-meetings being held with closed doors_, I would now dispose of it
without occupying as much space as I shall do in my concluding remarks!

Notwithstanding all the _secrecy_ in the new Order of Know Nothings has
been set aside by the act of the National Council which created it; and
notwithstanding our members tell all about their Councils, where and
when they meet, and our orators read out and publish to the world our
obligations, rules, and principles, it is still objected that ours is a
secret Order, liable to be used for bad purposes; that we travel about
with dark lanterns; that our proceedings are not restrained by the
wholesome check of public opinion!

Now, this, the great objection to our Order, comes from men who belong
to Lodges of Free Masons and Odd Fellows, and who have taken all the
_binding_ oaths attached to the different _degrees_ of these respective
Orders! The same objection is urged against the American party, by men
who belong to the Order of Sons of Temperance, who have deemed a _rigid
secret organization_ necessary to combat successfully a _domestic_ evil!
It is urged in bitterness against the Order, by demagogues and
partisans, who have acted for years with the _secret political
conclaves_ of their respective parties, who have held their meetings
with _closed doors_--kept their _places_ of meeting a profound
secret--and when they have adjourned, they have enjoined _secrecy_ upon
all present! Last, but not least, this _secret feature_ is urged against
the American organization by the vile apologists for the Catholic
Church, and its corrupt Priesthood and membership, in this country.
These demagogues know that the Roman Catholic Church is a _secret
society_, directed by a talented, designing, and villainous
HIERARCHY--absolutely controlled by an _anti_-Republican Priesthood, to
a degree which has never been exercised by any political party in the
known world! The _Confessional_ is a secret tribunal, before which every
member of that Church is required to make known, not only _immoral_
actions, but every thought and purpose of the heart, and upon pain of
incurring the anathema of the Church, which is equivalent to a sentence
of eternal damnation! The corrupt order of JESUITS, the infamous society
of SAN FEDESTI, and the infinitely infernal society of IRISH RIBBON
MEN--these are all oath-bound societies of the Catholic Church,
connected directly with the horrid operations of the "_Holy
Inquisition_."

Now, I put the question to any man of reason and common sense, if Roman
Catholics and their _patriotic Democratic_ admirers and advocates, in
this country, are not the last men on earth who should object to the
_secret_ doings of the order of Know Nothings, even if their secrecy
were kept up? Every Roman Catholic in the known world is under the
absolute control of a secret society, by considerations not only of a
_temporal_, but of an ETERNAL WEIGHT!

But I am not done with these _Democratic_ opposers of SECRECY. The
Convention which formed the Constitution of the United States, sat in
the old State House in Philadelphia, _with closed doors, from the 25th
of May to the 17th of September_, wanting only eight days of four
months. That body of men had a Doorkeeper and Sergeant-at-arms, both
under oath, to keep their doors barred, and all their proceedings a
secret. So says Mr. Jefferson's biography! And such men as Washington,
Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Franklin, Harrison, Hancock, Hopkins, and
others, composed that body! During the war of the Revolution, General
Washington, Generals Lee, Wayne, Marion, and others, organized a _secret
American Society_, with its branches extending from North to South,
having their _passwords_, _signs_, and _grips_, and writing to each
other in figures, and "an unknown tongue," as the Know Nothings have
been doing, and all, too, with a view to oppose Foreign intrigues and
oppressions! It is as well known as any political truth, that General
WASHINGTON, at the time of his death, was the _President_ of the
Cincinnati Society, a secret political society, in which, we see it
stated on unquestionable authority, no man was eligible to membership
unless he was a _native American_. The _Columbian Order_, known as the
"_Tammany Society_," was a secret political society, and highly
influential, and maintains its existence to this day, and without danger
to the liberties of the country. Gen. SAM HOUSTON publishes to the world
that himself and Gen. JACKSON were members of this Society. What say the
_anti_-Americans to all these facts? Do they believe that Gen.
Washington, or Jackson, would have united with any association or order
not purely American? Would either have entered into any political
league, when _secrecy_ was enjoined, if he had not approved of the
principle of secrecy in political associations? Never! From the
characters of Washington and Jackson--the sacrifices they made for their
country, united with their fervid patriotism, and their known preference
for every thing _American_, I do not doubt for one moment, that if they
were both now living, they would unite with the veritable Order of Know
Nothings!

I believe the hand of God to be in this very movement, and as much in
the _secrecy_ of it, in the outset, as in any other feature. I regard
the movement as one growing out of a great crisis in the affairs of our
country, and a precursor of a sound, healthful, and vigorous
nationality, and which will ultimately prevent the liberties of this
country from being destroyed, by the machinations of such demagogues and
factionists as now seek to _excuse_ Romanism, and fellowship Foreign
Pauperism. Secret societies are only dangerous to despots and tyrants,
and history shows that these above all others have made war upon them.
They have denounced and proscribed Masonry in every quarter of the
globe, where they have had the power. The Pope, with the aid of his
Cardinals, has crushed the ancient order of Free Masons in his
dominions. There is not a Masonic Lodge in Italy. In our own country,
not a single Catholic is to be found associated with the order of Free
Masons; and why? Masonry is founded upon the Bible, and requires the
reading of the Protestant Bible in all its Lodges, and this don't suit
Romanism. We state these general and historical facts, without knowing
any thing of our own knowledge of Masonry.

In the young and growing city of Knoxville, it is within our own
knowledge, that many of the Irish Catholics attached themselves to the
Order of the Sons of Temperance, with a view, as they said, of throwing
around them the wholesome restraints of the Order. On the first visit of
a priest to the city, commonly called "Father Brown," these Irish
Catholics began to drop off one by one, until not one of them is now in
the Order, and most of those who were, are daily seen drunk in our
streets. Indeed, some of them in withdrawing had the candor to
acknowledge that the priest required them to do so! And why? Because, in
all the Divisions of the Sons of Temperance here, we have the Protestant
Scriptures read, and have Protestant prayers offered up. This don't suit
the Church of Rome!

     I have the honor to be, very truly and frankly,

     W. G. BROWNLOW.




TO THE RIGHT REVEREND AARON V. BROWN, M. S.


SIR:--I have received by mail a pamphlet copy of your "Letter to the
Bishops, Elders, and _other_ Ministers, Itinerant and _Local_, of the
Methodist Episcopal Church South," covering twenty-eight octavo pages. I
thank you for a copy of your _Pastoral_ address; and I am happy to be
able to _infer_ from its teachings that you have made a profession of
religion, before taking upon yourself "Holy Orders." I suppose the
_time_ of your conversion, you date back to the memorable period when
you "saw sights" on Mount Pisgah, and had conferred on you the degree of
_Modern Seer_, and entered upon the duties of "High Priest" of
Democracy! As I am one of the parties addressed, and the customs of the
Church and the country require a response to so grave a document, I have
felt it incumbent upon me to perform the task. I may style this the
_Last_ epistle of Aaron, the Priest, and illustrious Chief of Foreign
Catholic Sag Nicht Locofocoism!

My first impulses were, upon reading your address, to call for your
_credentials_, and to examine into your _authority_ for assuming to
dictate to the entire Ministry of the Southern portion of the Methodist
Church. You must either enter the Ecclesiastical ring under the
_imposition of the hands_ of BISHOP SOULE or _Andy Johnson_. If BISHOP
SOULE ordained you for the Ministry, and set you apart as the
Lieutenant-General of the Methodist Episcopal Church South, the
presumption is that he examined you on doctrinal points, and upon all
questions affecting the government of the Church, as was his duty, and
is our custom, and that he found you orthodox! It follows, as a matter
of course, that you renounced your heresy you advocated in the Hartford
Convention, held at Nashville, and that you obtained forgiveness for
that and numerous other "sins of omission and commission"--aye, for the
whole catalogue of your inward and outward iniquities, which so
_eminently_ disqualified you for the work of the Ministry! But if _Andy
Johnson_ ordained you for the work, of which there is no sort of doubt,
the Church South, through me, protests against your authority, and
utterly refuses to submit to your teachings. Our Church does not agree
with Johnson on the "White Basis" issue, or the great question of
slavery; and in proof of this, I cite to the fact of her separation from
the North, in 1844, upon this very question. She has within her bounds
of communion, rich men and poor, educated and uneducated, and is
unwilling to unite with him in arraying the poor against the rich, or
the unlearned against the learned. Nor does our Church believe that
Jesus Christ was a Locofoco, as Johnson asserts in his Inaugural, and
held that Christianity and Democracy, in converging lines, led to the
foot of Jacob's Ladder, and thence to heaven, _via_ Mount Pisgah, from
whose lofty summit you first beheld the promised land!

It therefore follows, that, in presenting yourself as a spiritual leader
in the Church, called to the work, as you have been, by _Andy Johnson_,
your case is fully met by a quotation from Job:

     "Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present
     themselves before the Lord, and _Satan_ came also among them."

A second passage, from the Book of Jeremiah, meets your case, and leaves
no doubt that the inspired Prophet had you in his eye:

     "We have heard the pride of Moab, (he is exceedingly proud,)
     his loftiness, and his _arrogance_, and his pride, and his
     haughtiness of heart.

     "I know his wrath, saith the Lord; but it shall not be so; his
     _lies_ shall not so effect it."

To be candid with you, Gov. Brown, I regard your address, under all the
circumstances, as a display of the most brazen-faced assurance and the
most unmitigated impudence I ever met with in my life! I have known for
years that you were capable of great presumption, but in this insolent
and dictatorial address you surpass _yourself_--you positively out-Herod
Herod! In the whole history of the country, and of parties, I venture
the assertion, that a parallel piece of impudence, and downright
bold-faced assurance, cannot be pointed to, as the act of any partisan.
It is really past all belief, if I had not your production before me.
But more of this hereafter.

Copies of your pamphlet were distributed through the aisles and seats of
the Annual Conference room in Nashville, and have been sent all over the
South, to members of other Conferences. Your _proof-sheet_ was seen ten
days before the meeting of the Middle Tennessee Conference, and your
"work of faith and labor of love" was ready for distribution when the
Conference first convened, but you held it back till the Conference was
ready to adjourn, and to a period so late, that a reply, if one had been
deemed necessary, could not be made. This was _cowardly_, and in keeping
with your political tactics and code of morals. In saying that this was
in keeping with your code of morals, I allude to the _Woodberry
affair_.

I shall now take up your address, Governor, and wade through its
twenty-eight pages of double-distilled Sag Nichtism, sublimated
impudence, and concealed advocacy of _Romanism_, mixed up with
contradictions, false assertions, and glaring absurdities, as it is,
from beginning to end. In the opening paragraph, you predicate your
right to instruct the "Bishops, Elders, and other Ministers" of the
entire Church, South, upon the real or assumed fact, that you are "The
son of a now sainted father, who for forty years ministered at your
altars, the co-laborer of that noble band of Christian ministers, who,
under Asbury and Coke, founded your Church in America!"

Alas, that any "sainted Father" should be represented by so degenerate a
son--an irreligious son--not a member of any Church--but having the
hardihood, in the face of those who know the facts, to disguise himself
in the priestly robes of a "sainted Father"--like an ass in a lion's
skin, to _bray out_ against better men than himself, or, like a wolf in
sheep's clothing, to _steal into the fold_, where that Father was
accustomed to minister in holy things, and with soft and honeyed words,
and hypocritical teachings, and Satan-like misrepresentations, seek whom
he may devour! You tell the "Bishops, Elders, and other Ministers," that
you really "approve" their "creed," and, what is still more
soul-cheering, you have "witnessed their growth and progress for years,
with the highest satisfaction." This is very _condescending_ in the "son
of a now sainted father!" It is quite flattering! But these "Bishops,
Elders, and other Ministers," would receive all this with a greater
degree of allowance, if they did not believe that your generous
patronage, so lavishly bestowed upon them and their "creed," was
prompted by a principle of which _selfishness_ is the soul! They
believe, and so express themselves in conversation, that your forced
smile of approbation, your reluctant eulogy, have both been wrung from
you, because you are a sycophantic partisan suitor for patronage, in the
way of votes for your party. These Clergymen whom you address, think it
a great pity that the "son of a now sainted father" should exhibit so
much "satisfaction" at witnessing their prosperity, in _theory_, and
manifest not one particle in _practice_. They think that you would be in
your proper place, to be found among the _mourners_, instead of the
_teachers_ in their Church; and that it is high time, considering your
age in life, and the extent of your iniquities, that you should be found
upon your knees, in an altar full of fresh straw, at an old-fashioned
Camp-Meeting, asking the pious to pray for you, and God, for the sake of
the forty years labors of "a now sainted father," to have mercy upon
you, and save your sinful old soul from that death that never dies.

Why, Sir, the Devil himself would blush to perpetrate such an act of
arrogance as you have done, in thus volunteering your advice to the
"Bishops, Elders, and other Ministers," of the Methodist Church. An old
political party hack, who is not now, and never was, a member of any
Church--an intriguing old sinner, who never even attends Church, and
who, in this respect, shows that he neither fears God, respects the
Christian Sabbath, nor "approves the creed" of any orthodox
denomination, to be lecturing a numerous body of Clergymen, as to what
they ought or ought not to do, it is the culmination of all that is
called effrontery! The "Bishops, Elders, and other Ministers" of the
Methodist Church, wish the _evidence_ of your conversion to God, before
they consent to obey you, as "having the rule over them." Your approval
of their "creed," and the "satisfaction" with which you have witnessed
their progress, is not sufficient to satisfy their doubting minds, as
long as you continue to ride into Nashville on Sabbath, and retail
political slang at the INN, or read Sag Nicht papers at the _Union
Office_, to the neglect of the house of God, and the evil example set
before young men, against the statute in such cases made and provided!
We must, as Ministers, hear you relate your experience, in a regular
class-meeting. Nay, more, knowing your _raising_, and your ability to
"deceive, even the very elect," we must see you down upon your
marrow-bones, surrounded by noisy and zealous officials, pounding you on
the back, and exclaiming, as in the days of your "sainted father," _Pray
on, Aaron_! We must hear you _groan_--we must see your sinful old bosom
_heave_--we must witness the falling of _big tears_, as you publicly
confess and manfully repent of your misdeeds--of the whole catalogue, of
all the inward and outward iniquities of your past life--your sins of
omission and commission, which God knows are more numerous than the
hairs upon your old sinful head! I say we must see all this, and even
more, before we can have faith in your teachings, as big as even a grain
of mustard seed!

But you are the "son of a now sainted father"--you derive great
"satisfaction" from the "growth and progress" of Methodism--you
"approve" the Methodist "creed"--and hence, a glorious future awaits the
Methodist Church: _provided_ always, that her "Bishops, Elders, and
other Ministers" hearken to and obey your teachings, a thing they are
very certain not to do, in the matter under consideration. It is a
melancholy fact, that many of the sons of Methodist, and other
Ministers, are very wicked and unpromising men; and it is equally true,
and certainly notorious, that where they turn out to be sinners, they
are sinners above all offenders, dwelling either at Jerusalem or
elsewhere! I have no hesitancy in pronouncing you as _hard a case_, in a
moral point of view, as ever came before the Church, and the only
appropriate reply her ecclesiastical dignitaries can make to your
address, is to appoint a day of fasting and prayer to God, for your
conversion, to be observed throughout her borders. I now, as the
appointed organ of the Church, set apart the first day of January, 1856,
and I pray you, as one desiring the salvation of your soul, to be in the
spirit and in a proper frame of mind on that day! Humble yourself before
God--tell him that you were in error in stealing the livery of Heaven to
serve the Devil in! Tell him that you are an old worn-out political
hack--that you have grown gray in the service of sin--that during the
whole of a somewhat eventful life, your labors have been in the dirtiest
pools of party politics--that you have been insincere and unscrupulous
in all your teachings and acts--that you stand before the people of
Tennessee publicly branded by _eight_ respectable and reliable citizens
of Wilson county, as a _falsifier_ in the Know Nothing controversy of
the past summer--and that you are sorry for having come forth steeped to
the nose and chin in political profligacy, to lecture grave Clergymen
upon subjects you ought to set at their feet and learn lessons about!
Tell your God, what he doubtless knows, that though the "son of a now
sainted father," you are as full of devils as ever Mary Magdalene
was--that like the "Imps of Sin," in Milton, these "yelp all around"
you--that this is no reflection upon a "now sainted father," whose
seeming neglect of your early training grew out of his continual absence
from home, as is the case with most Methodist Preachers,--aye, tell your
God, that once out of this scrape, you will never be caught in another
of the kind! You say,

     "From the foundation of our government, it has been a conceded
     and settled doctrine, that the various religious denominations
     should not, as such, intermeddle with the political contests of
     the day. No instance is now remembered where they have done
     so!"

This is a remarkable sentence, and partakes of the nature of your Wilson
county assertions! The history of the Church, and of the world,
contradicts every word of the foregoing, and demonstrates that the
"settled doctrine" of the Catholic Church, has ever been, as it still
is, to "intermeddle with the political contests of the day." I will
trouble you with two instances in which "religious denominations, as
such," have been guilty of what you deny. The Albany (N. Y.) State
Register, a paper which usually does not say what it cannot maintain,
states that ARCHBISHOP HUGHES has issued a mandate, _commanding_ all
Catholics in the Albany District, in the exciting State election now
coming off, to cast their votes for Mr. Crosby for the Senate. But Roman
Catholics, you falsely tell us, never "intermeddle with the political
contests of the day:" O no!

The other "instance now remembered," is the one in which you were a
candidate for a seat in the Legislature of Tennessee, in the county of
Giles: this was, according to my recollection, in 1831, or a quarter of
a century ago. At that time, there was a small Manual Labor School in
Giles, which had been incorporated by the Legislature, and at the head
of which was a _Presbyterian_. The gentleman who ran against you, if not
a member of the Presbyterian Church, "approved" their "creed," and
"witnessed their growth and progress for years with the highest
satisfaction." _You_ charged upon the stump that the Presbyterians were
seeking to establish their religion by law, to unite Church and
State--appealed to the Methodist and Baptist to put them down by
electing you, with a promise that you would check their march by
counter-legislation--and you were elected upon this issue. At the same
time, as the oldest inhabitants of Giles know, there were not fifty
Presbyterians in the county! But "no instance is remembered" in which
one sect has intermeddled with another--O no! You say:

     "In the mutations of parties in this country, a new one has
     lately arisen, to which, I apprehend, more of the Methodist
     ministers have attached themselves, at least in the State of
     Tennessee, than might have been expected. This party, known as
     the Know Nothings, is so _peculiar_ in its organization, that
     it seems strange to me that any minister or professor of
     religion should be willing longer to continue in it."

Your apprehensions are well-founded, when you suppose that a very large
proportion of the Methodist ministers in Tennessee are either members of
this new party or sympathize with it. And, sir, more of the ministers of
other denominations than you seem to be aware of, have either attached
themselves to this party, "in the mutations of parties," or act with it,
and endorse its aims and objects, than you have yet dreamed of! And "it
seems strange" to these ministers, and thousands of the purest and best
laymen in the Protestant ranks, "that any minister or professor of
religion should be willing longer" to oppose the principles of this
party, or array themselves under the black flag of Papal Rome, and of
the pauper emigrants with whom she is flooding our land! But, sir, the
object of your Address is, to persuade if you can, and if not, _to
drive_, by motives of fear, the Clergy of the Methodist Church from
their position on this great American and Protestant question. Alas, how
little does the "son of a sainted father" understand the material he
attempts to work upon! Methodist ministers are free men, the equals of
other moral and upright men in heroic virtues, and far in advance of
that of politicians in Tennessee who believe parties in religion, as in
politics, are only "held together by the cohesive power of public
plunder," and who assume to direct public opinion from a principle, of
which _selfishness_ is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end!
Sir, the violence, bitterness, and the very inflammatory tone, not to
say language, of your Gallatin, Lebanon, and Columbia speeches, are
enough, it seems to me, to _nauseate_ every good and conservative
citizen, and to disgust every "Bishop, Elder, and other Ministers,
Itinerant and Local, of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South." Even in
this Address, you insult these ministers on every page. I see not how
any preacher, with a true Protestant and American heart in him, can read
this address of yours through, without rising up from his seat and
saying: "I have voted with this Anti-Protestant and Anti-American party
for the last time."

In warning Methodist ministers to withdraw their sanction and
approbation of Know Nothingism, you say:

     "I therefore call upon them this day to come out of these
     lodges, and never return to them: at all events, never return
     to them until all _secrecy_, all their bits of red paper,
     (indicating _blood_, even by the selection of color,) all their
     signs and signals, are utterly abolished and dispensed with. I
     call upon them to do this, and to do it forthwith--by their
     hopes of heaven--by their obedience to the word of God--by
     their allegiance to the Constitution and laws of their
     country--to come out from any party which has adopted a mode
     and plan of organization so fatal to the peace of society, and
     the progress of true religion."

What egotism! _You_ call upon them! You make a freer use of the personal
pronoun _I_, than even old Parson Longstreet, the Know Nothing slayer of
Mississippi. To parse your different sentences syntactically, nothing
else is necessary but to understand the first person singular, and to
repeat the rule. Not only your verbiage but your sentiment is thus
egotistic throughout!

Your appeal to the ministers to come out of this organization, on the
ground of its _secrecy_, is a species of demagoguism, the more
disgusting when it is considered that you are a _Free Mason_, and have,
by all the arts and blandishment of your nature, sought to induce
ministers to go into that organization. But, then, there is no violation
of law or the Constitution in _Masonry_--"fatal to the peace of society
and to the progress of true religion"--no, nothing! Understand me: I am
not opposed to Masonry.

On this subject of the Romish creed, which you excuse, and even
_advocate_, you admit that there are "_alleged_ abuses," which have
prompted the Protestant Churches to unite themselves with this new
Order! Then you insultingly tell these Churches this tale:

     "But they ought to have remembered, that even a virtuous
     indignation can never justify _proscription and persecution_:
     these bring no remedy to the real or supposed evils, but are
     sure to increase and aggravate them. These errors in faith, and
     abominations in practice, if they really exist, were known to
     the Wesleys, and Cokes, and Asburys, who founded your Church:
     to the Lees, the Bruces, the Capers, the Logan Douglasses, the
     Summerfields, and the Bascoms, who subsequently extended and
     adorned it. But they never proposed to kindle, in this
     enlightened age of Christianity, the consuming fires of
     RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION."

Now, sir, every distinguished "founder" of the Methodist Church you have
named, from WESLEY to BASCOM, has written and preached against the
"errors in faith, and abominations in practice," of the Romish Church,
and they each and all have taken this very ground upon the religious
issues. I have heard _three_ of these men preach, and I am familiar with
the writings of the rest, and know whereof I speak.

You _intentionally_ deceive and misrepresent the American party, when
you charge that they seek to proscribe one class of our citizens--that
they desire to interfere with the rights of conscience--and to say _how_
men should worship God. Why don't you inform your readers that
Archbishop Hughes, and other Catholic Bishops, were the first to
introduce religion into political discussion in this country? This would
not suit your purposes--it suits your objects, taste, and inclination
better, to slander the American party by wholesale, and to charge upon
its members the atrocities committed by your foreign and pauper allies.
We only choose to vote against them, and to vote for American-born
citizens and Protestants: which is as much our _right_, as it is the
right of these foreign Catholics to vote against and proscribe American
Protestants. For this, you and your villainous associates exhaust the
whole vocabulary of Billingsgate upon the American party. What is their
offence? Why, they simply place certain questions before persons
desiring to act with them, which they think, at least, may affect the
national welfare, and before the people of the Union, and ask their
opinion of these questions at the ballot-box. The American party has
always denied, and I again reiterate the denial, that we do, at all
proscribe, or in any way interfere with, any class of our foreign
citizens, save that we propose to send _convicts_ from European prisons
back to their own native and infamous dens, as fast as they land
here--but these are not _citizens_ of ours. I appeal to our Platform,
and our Book of Constitutions, and I offer to any man a handsome
reward--any man who will produce in either a statement containing the
proscription you falsely charge against us. I now say, Gov. Brown,
either do this, or cease your empty vaporing against the _proscriptive_
features of our system, as you are pleased to style it. You declaim most
lustily in favor of religious liberty for Catholics, which you know we
do not propose as a party to interfere with; and this you plead for at
the altar of Methodist "Bishops, Elders, and other Ministers," who know
there is no religious liberty for Protestants where Catholics have the
power to prevent it! You plead in the most plaintive tones for the
rights of foreign Catholics to be sworn into good citizens in less than
_one year_ after they land here, but do not seem to remember the
American Protestant wives and children, who have to subsist on charity
during our severe winters, in consequence of their husbands and fathers
being elbowed out of employment by the competition of foreign pauper
laborers!

Sir, the American party, if in power, would put a stop to that
proscription from office that has always characterized the party with
which you act, and which has made the present Administration so very and
so justly odious to the country. Proscription, indeed! Was there ever
such _glaring_ and _actual_ proscription for the sake of religious and
political creeds committed as by the present Administration? The
infamous Sag Nicht party with which you act, and of which you are a
leader and a High Priest, though the "son of a now sainted father," has
applied the political guillotine to almost every man in office who has
dared to differ with them in their high estimate of foreign paupers and
Catholic vagabonds, in many instances turning out native-born
Protestants, and filling their places with foreign Catholics. And yet,
with a degree of effrontery that throws the Devil far into the shade,
you turn round and charge the American party with proscription, and ask
the "Bishops, Elders, and other Ministers," of the Methodist Church, "by
their hopes of heaven--by their obedience to the word of God--and by
their allegiance to the Constitution and laws of their country," to come
out from a party so proscriptive! Why, sir, you out-Herod old Herod
himself! Your teachings contrasted with your practice, would cause a
crimsoned negative to settle on the cheeks of old Pilate! And still you
are the "son of a now sainted father"--you "approve" the "creed" of
Methodism, and have "witnessed its growth and prosperity for years, with
the highest satisfaction!"

You quote from the Declaration of Independence, to show that toleration
should be extended to Catholics and foreigners, and then insultingly
add, as if you supposed no Methodist minister had ever perused the
writings of Mr. JEFFERSON:

     "These are the words of Mr. Jefferson, but the immortal
     sentiment springs directly from the word of the living and true
     God. No: persecution at the stake, or by exclusion of Catholics
     from office, is not the weapon to be wielded by the Protestant
     Churches."

_You_ know that the notes of warning given to his countrymen by the sage
of Monticello, and the great APOSTLE of American Democracy, are in
harmony with the doctrines of the Know Nothing party. But you choose to
conceal this fact from the "Bishops, Elders, and other Ministers" of the
Methodist Church, in the vain hope that their numerous pressing and
official engagements will not allow them time to look up the documents.
In Mr. Jefferson's Notes on Virginia, written in 1781, and published in
1794, pages 124-5, I find the following _Know Nothing doctrine_:

     "But are there no inconveniences to be thrown into the scale
     against the advantage expected from a multiplication of numbers
     by the importation of foreigners? It is for the happiness of
     those united in society to harmonize, as much as possible, in
     matters which they must of necessity transact together. Civil
     government being the sole object of forming societies, its
     administration must be conducted by common consent. Every
     species of government has specific principles. Ours, perhaps,
     are more peculiar than those of any other in the universe. It
     is a composition of the freest principles of the English
     constitution, with others derived from natural right and
     natural reason. To these nothing can be more opposed than the
     maxims of absolute monarchs. Yet _from such we are to expect
     the greatest number of immigrants_. They will bring with them
     the _principles of the government they leave, imbibed in early
     youth_: or, if able to throw them off, it will be in exchange
     for an _unbounded licentiousness, passing, as is usual, from
     one extreme to another. It would be a miracle were they to stop
     precisely at the point of temperate liberty_. These principles,
     with their language, they will transmit to their children. In
     proportion with their numbers, they will share with us the
     legislation. They will infuse into it their spirit, warp and
     bias its directions, and render it a heterogeneous, incoherent,
     distracted mass. _I may appeal to experience during the present
     contest for a verification of these conjectures._ But if they
     be not certain in event, are they not possible? are they not
     probable? Is it not safer to wait with patience twenty-seven
     years and three months longer for the attainment of every
     degree of population desired or expected? May not our
     government be more homogeneous, more peaceable, more durable?"

Again, Mr. JEFFERSON, whilst our Minister to the Court of St. Cloud,
addressed a letter to JOHN JAY, dated November 14, 1788, in which he
uses this language:

     "With respect to the _Consular_ appointments, it is a duty on
     me to add some observations, which my situation here has
     enabled me to make. I think it was in the spring of 1784, that
     Congress (harassed by multiplied applications from foreigners,
     of whom nothing was known but on their information, or on that
     of others as unknown as themselves) came to the resolution that
     the interest of America would not permit the naming of any
     person, not a citizen, to the office of Consul, or Agent, or
     Commissary. _Native citizens, on several valuable accounts, are
     preferable to aliens, or citizens alien-born._ Native citizens
     possess our language, know our laws, customs and commerce, have
     general acquaintance in the United States, give better
     satisfaction, _and are more to be relied on in a point of
     fidelity_. To avail ourselves of our native citizens, it
     appears to me advisable to _declare, by standing law_, that no
     person but a native citizen shall be capable of the office of
     Consul. This was the rule of 1784, restraining the office of
     Consul to native citizens."

In 1797, Mr. JEFFERSON drafted a petition to the Legislature of
Virginia, on behalf of the citizens of Amherst, Albemarle, Fluvana, and
Gouchland Bounties, in which he uses the following language:

     "Your petitioners further submit to the two Houses of Assembly,
     whether the safety of the citizens of this Commonwealth, in
     their persons, their property, their laws and government, does
     not require that the capacity to act in the important office of
     _Juror, Grand or Petty, civil or criminal_, should not be
     restrained in future to native citizens, or such as were
     citizens at the date of the Treaty of Peace which closed our
     revolutionary war; and whether ignorance of our laws, and
     natural partiality to the countries of their birth, are not
     reasonable causes for declaring this to be one of their rights
     incommunicable in future to adopted citizens."--_Jefferson's
     Writings, Vol. IX., page 453._

Now, Sir, answer me in candor, are you not ashamed of having quoted Mr.
JEFFERSON, and of having so basely misrepresented his position on this
great American question? Did not Mr. JEFFERSON propose to carry his
opposition to foreigners much farther than the American party now do?

But, you vile old demagogue, though "son of a now sainted father," I am
determined you shall not escape the indignant powers of those "Bishops,
Elders, and other Ministers," whom you have wickedly sought to deceive.
It is known to you, and to the world, in what veneration all American
Democrats hold the Virginia Resolutions of 1798 and '99, and the fame of
Mr. MADISON, who was the ruling spirit of that session of the
Legislature. That Legislature passed the following Resolution, which you
may find by consulting Henning's Statutes at Large, Vol. 2, New Series,
page 194:

     "That the General Assembly, nevertheless, concurring in opinion
     with the Legislature of Massachusetts that every Constitutional
     barrier should be opposed to the introduction of foreign
     influence into our National Councils,--_Resolved_, That the
     Constitution ought to be so amended that _no foreigner, who
     shall have acquired the right, under our Constitution and laws,
     at the time of making the amendment, shall hereafter be
     eligible to the office of Senator or Representative_, in
     Congress of the United States, nor to _any office in the
     Judiciary or Executive_. Agreed to by the Senate, Jan. 16,
     1799."

I shall next consider two extracts from your Address, under one general
head, relating to the _temporal_ power of the Pope. You say:

     "But the genius of sophistry may fly to the rescue of
     Know-Nothingism, by pretending that it is not on account of
     _his religion_ that the Catholic is to be excluded from office,
     but because he is subjected, not merely to the spiritual but
     the _temporal dominion_ or jurisdiction of the Pope. No error
     has been wider spread than this."

Again:

     "A late distinguished Senator from Georgia, (Mr. Berrien,) in a
     recent address to the public, has copied a letter of Mr.
     Wesley, which may require a few observations. That letter was
     dated in January, 1780. All its conclusions were founded on the
     ASSUMED AND POPULAR OPINION of that day, that the Pope _did_
     claim a civil jurisdiction beyond his own dominions--that he
     _could_ absolve the subjects of other governments from their
     oaths of allegiance, and _that there was_ a principle in one of
     the tenets of that Church, that Catholics were justified in not
     keeping faith with heretics. Against these ASSUMED AND POPULAR
     OPINIONS, the Catholics of England in that day, as they now do
     in this country, were solemnly protesting."

This is a modest way of giving Mr. Wesley the _lie_, but it is
nevertheless quite _direct_, and is the more surprising, as it comes
from the "son of a now sainted father," who was a follower of Wesley, a
"co-laborer of that noble band of Christian ministers" he was
instrumental in starting out into the world--aye, the son of a "father
who, for forty years, ministered at the altars" this same Wesley
erected! In holding up John Wesley as the _vile calumniator_ of the
Catholic Church in England, it is well enough, Governor, to be modest
about it, and cautious in the selection of your words, as you are
addressing a class of men who believe in John Wesley, as a faithful man
of God, and one incapable of misrepresenting the Catholics of England,
the Pope of Rome, or any other sect or individual! John Wesley
ministered at the sacred altars of religion for more than sixty years;
he had with him the power of God, and the witness that he pleased Him;
and the last words he uttered, with his hands clasped, and his eyes
raised toward heaven, were these: "_The best of all is, God is with
us!_" And yet the sons and grandsons in the gospel, of this venerated
and sainted man of God, are insulted in Tennessee, by being told by an
_impertinent old sinner_, and a _vile old party hack_, that he was A
LIAR, while living, and the _slanderer of the Catholic Church_, now that
he is no more! If Mr. Wesley "_assumed_" falsehoods in reference to the
Romish Church in England, he either did it in _ignorance_, or with _a
guilty knowledge_ of the fact. He was a man of too much learning and
information for his friends to get him out of such an indictment under a
plea of ignorance. He is therefore, though dead, A WILFUL LIAR,
according to "Ex-Gov. A. V. Brown," for the Governor goes on to argue
the cause against him, and, on page 19 of his address, quotes _Catholic_
authority to _prove_ him a liar! Shame on the "son of a now sainted
father," and on the _holy seer of Pisgah_! O! Aaron, thou priest of
corrupt Democracy, you need not endeavor to gull "bishops, elders, and
other ministers," with your _whining cant_, while you thus traduce their
great spiritual head, who, under God, taught them the lessons of
salvation!

Gov. Brown, go with me, as one of the admirers of John Wesley, to the
humble dwellings of the miners of Cornwall, to the homely tents of the
colliers of Kingswood and Newcastle, and to the equally humble workshops
of the manufacturers of Yorkshire, in England, who are rejoicing in God
their Saviour that a Wesley was ever born into the world, and ask them
if they believe him capable of slandering the Catholics! Go with me
among the backwoodsmen of North America, and examine them in their lone
tents--go among the honest and virtuous settlers on our Western
frontiers, amid the interminable forests of the far off West, whose
thousands are brought into the fold of Christ, through the
instrumentality of Wesleyan ministers, and ask them if they think the
founder of their Church was _a wilful liar_!

Go with me to the rich pastures and luxuriant harvest-fields of your own
native Middle Tennessee: enter the neat cottages and stately mansions of
that glorious division of our State, and ask the intelligent and
educated females, who are rejoicing in God, in hope of future and
eternal life, through the prayers and sermons of Wesleyan ministers, as
instruments in the hands of God, if they believe the founder of their
Church was _a wicked calumniator_! Go to the islands of the sea, to the
burning sands of Africa, and ask the benighted converts from heathenism,
through the instrumentality of Wesleyan ministers, if they believe the
venerable founder of their Church was a man of truth!

Enter the dwellings of the rich and fashionable planters of the
South--ride around their sugar and cotton plantations, among the sable
sons and daughters of Africa, and witness the blessed fruits of the
pious life, Christian integrity, and triumphant death of John Wesley!
Come over to East Tennessee, Governor, and enter the log-cabins of the
virtuous, happy peasantry of the "hill country," and ask them whether
they believe Mr. Wesley or your Catholic authorities, touching the
temporal power of the Pope of Rome!

Alas! Gov. Brown, the Reformation dawned with LUTHER in Germany, but the
sun of its glory rose with Methodism in England; the first streaks of
_Protestant_ light were seen on the horizon of the sixteenth century,
but the meridian sun of the Reformation dawned in all his brightness on
the Wesleys and Whitefield! But America has been the land of the glory
and triumph of the doctrines of the man you labor to convict of the
awful sin of lying!

But you deny that the Pope of Rome, in _temporal_ matters, claims what
Mr. Wesley attributed to him in the letter copied by Senator Berrien.
You also deny that the Popes claim and have exercised the right to
interfere with matters of government, and the right to absolve their
followers in other countries, and under other governments, from their
allegiance to such rulers and governments. I will proceed to vindicate
Mr. Wesley, and, by the proof, saddle the lie on you! Whilst John was
King of England, he had the "Magna Charta," the great charter securing,
among other things, the right of trial by jury, wrung from him at the
point of the bayonet. This great charter was annulled by Pope Innocent.
Here is the proof:

     "While the king was employed in the siege of Rochester, he
     received the pleasing intelligence, that according to his
     request the charter had been annulled by the pontiff. Innocent,
     enumerating the grounds of his judgment, insists strongly on
     the violence employed by the barons. If they really felt
     themselves aggrieved, they ought, he observes, to have accepted
     the offer of redress by due course of law. They had preferred,
     however, to break the oath of fealty, which they had taken, and
     had appointed themselves judges to sit upon their lord. They
     knew, moreover, that John had enrolled himself among the
     crusaders; and yet they had not scrupled to violate the
     privileges which all Christian nations had granted to the
     champions of the cross. Lastly, England was become the fief of
     the holy see; and they could not be ignorant that if the king
     had the will, he had not at least the power, to give away the
     rights of the crown, without the consent of his feudal
     superior. He was therefore bound to annul the concessions which
     had been extorted from John, as having been obtained in
     contempt of the holy see, to the degradation of royalty, the
     disgrace of the nation, and to the impediment of the crusade.
     At the same time he wrote to the barons, re-stating his
     reasons, exhorting them to submit, requesting them to lay their
     claims before him in the council to be held at Rome; and
     promising that he would induce the king to consent to whatever
     might be deemed just or reasonable, to take care that all
     grievances should be abolished, that the crown should be
     content with its just rights, and the clergy and people should
     enjoy their ancient liberties."--_Lingard's History of
     England_, vol. ii., page 71.

Will it be said that this was not interfering with _temporal_ matters?
Will it be said that the right of trial by jury was a _spiritual_
matter? Will it be said that the tyranny of King John, and his
oppressions, of which the barons justly complained, were _spiritual_
matters? No sensible advocate of Romanism will say this!

The next instance of an interference by the Pope in temporal affairs, to
which I shall call your attention, Governor, is his excommunication of
Elizabeth, Queen of England. She was immediately preceded on that throne
by her sister Mary, who was a Catholic. For no other reason than that
Elizabeth was a _Protestant_, and would not submit her rights and
kingdom to the control of the Pope, Pius V. thundered forth at her
devoted head the following anathema, from his throne at the Vatican,
situated at the foot of one of the seven hills upon which Rome is built:

     EXCOMMUNICATION AND DEPOSITION Of QUEEN ELIZABETH OF ENGLAND.

     "Pius, etc., for a future memorial of the matter. He that
     reigneth on high, to whom is given all power in heaven and on
     earth, committed one Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church, _out
     of which there is no salvation_, to one alone upon the earth,
     Peter the Prince of the Apostles, and to Peter's successor, the
     Bishop of Rome, to be governed in _fulness of power_. Him alone
     he made prince over all people, and all kingdoms, to pluck up,
     destroy, scatter, consume, plant and build, etc. But the number
     of the ungodly hath gotten such power, that there is now no
     place left in the whole world which they have not essayed to
     corrupt with their most wicked doctrines. Amongst others,
     Elizabeth, _the pretended Queen of England, a slave of
     wickedness_, lending thereunto her helping hand, with whom, as
     in a sanctuary, the most pernicious of all men have found a
     refuge; this very woman having seized upon the kingdom, and
     monstrously usurping the place of the supreme Head of the
     Church in all England, and the chief authority and jurisdiction
     thereof, hath again brought back the same kingdom to miserable
     destruction, which was then newly reduced to the faith, and to
     good order. For having by strong hand inhibited the true
     religion, which Mary, the lawful queen, of famous memory, had,
     by the help of this See, restored, after it had been formerly
     overthrown by King Henry VIII., a revolter therefrom, and
     following and embracing the errors of _heretics_, she hath
     removed the royal council, consisting of the English nobility,
     and filled it with obscure men, being heretics; hath oppressed
     the embracers of the Roman faith, hath placed impious
     preachers, ministers of iniquity, and abolished the sacrifice
     of the mass, prayers, fastings, distinction of meats, a single
     life, and the rites and ceremonies; hath commanded books to be
     read in the whole realm, containing manifest heresy, etc. She
     hath not only contemned the godly requests and admonitions of
     princes concerning her healing and conversion, but also bath
     not so much as permitted the Nuncios of the See to cross the
     seas into England, etc. We do, therefore, out of the fulness of
     our apostolic power, declare the aforesaid Elizabeth, being
     heretic, and a favorer of heretics, and her adherents in the
     matter aforesaid, to have incurred the sentence of anathema,
     and to be cut off from the unity of the body of Christ. And,
     moreover, we do declare her to be deprived of her pretended
     title to the kingdom aforesaid, and of all dominion, dignity,
     and privilege whatsoever; and also the nobility, subjects, and
     people of the said kingdom, and all others which have in any
     sort sworn unto her, to be for ever absolved from any such
     oath, and all manner of duty or dominion, allegiance and
     obedience; as we also do, by the authority of these presents,
     absolve them, and do deprive the same Elizabeth of her
     pretended title to the kingdom, and all other things aforesaid.
     And we do command and interdict all and every one of the
     noblemen, subjects, people, and others aforesaid, that they
     presume not to obey her, or her admonitions, mandates, and
     laws; and those who shall do the contrary, we do innodate with
     the like sentence of ANATHEMA.

     "Given at St. Peter's at Rome, in the year 1569, and the fifth
     of our pontificate."--_Dowling's History of Romanism_, p. 564.

One more: Sixtus V. thunders his bull of excommunication at this same
Queen of England--incites Philip of Catholic Spain to make war against
her country--and graciously _gives_ the British Isles to Philip! Here is
the bull of Pope Sixtus:

     "We, Sixtus the Fifth, the universal shepherd of the flock of
     Christ, the supreme chief, to whom the government of the whole
     world appertains, considering that the people of England and
     Ireland, after having been so long celebrated for their
     virtues, their religion, and their submission to our see, have
     become putrid members, infected, and capable of corrupting the
     whole Christian body, and on account of their subjection to the
     impious, tyrannical, and sanguinary government of Elizabeth,
     the bastard queen, and by the influence of her adherents, who
     equal her in wickedness; and who refuse, like her, to recognize
     the power of the Roman Church: regarding that Henry VIII.
     formerly, for motives of debauchery, commenced all these
     disorders by revolting against the submission which he owed to
     the Pope, the sole and true sovereign of England; considering
     that the usurper Elizabeth has followed the path of this
     infamous king, we declare that there exists but one mode of
     remedying these evils, of restoring peace, tranquillity, and
     union to Christendom, of re-establishing religion, and of
     leading back the people to obedience to us, which is, to depose
     from the throne that execrable Elizabeth, who falsely arrogates
     to herself the title of Queen of the British Isles. Being then
     inspired by the Holy Spirit for the general good of the Church,
     we renew, by the virtue of our apostolic power, the sentence
     pronounced by our predecessor, Pius the Fifth and Gregory the
     Thirteenth, against the modern Jezebel: we proclaim her
     deprived of her royal authority, of the rights, titles, or
     pretensions to which she may lay claim over the kingdoms of
     Ireland and England, affirming that she possesses them
     unlawfully and by usurpation. We relieve all her subjects from
     the oaths they may have taken to her, and we prohibit them from
     rendering any kind of service to this execrable woman; it is
     our will, that she be driven from door to door like one
     possessed of a devil, and that all human aid be refused her;
     we declare, moreover, that foreigners or Englishmen are
     permitted, as a meritorious work, to seize the person of
     Elizabeth and surrender her, living or dead, to the tribunals
     of the inquisition. We promise to those who shall accomplish
     this glorious mission, infinite recompenses, not only in the
     life eternal, but even in this world. Finally, we grant plenary
     indulgence to the faithful who shall willingly unite with the
     Catholic army which is going to combat the impious Elizabeth,
     under the orders of our dear son Philip the Second, to whom we
     give the British Isles in full sovereignty, as a recompense for
     the zeal he has always shown toward our see, and for the
     particular affection he has shown for the Catholics of the Low
     Country."--_De Cormenin's History of the Popes_, p. 262.

Here is what Macaulay, a reliable historian, says of the baneful effects
of Romanism:

     "From the time when the barbarians overran the Western Empire
     to the time of the revival of letters, the influence of the
     Church of Rome has been generally favorable to science, to
     civilization, and to good government. But, during the last
     three centuries, to stunt the growth of the human mind has been
     her chief object. Throughout Christendom, whatever advance has
     been made in knowledge, in freedom, in wealth, and in the arts
     of life, has been made in spite of her, and has everywhere been
     in inverse proportion to her power. The loveliest and most
     fertile provinces of Europe have, under her rule, been sunk
     into poverty, in political servitude, and in intellectual
     torpor, while Protestant countries, once proverbial for
     sterility and barbarism, have been turned, by skill and
     industry, into gardens, and can boast of a long list of heroes
     and statesmen, philosophers and poets. Whoever, knowing what
     Italy and Scotland naturally are, and what four hundred years
     ago they naturally were, shall now compare the country round
     Rome with the country round Edinburgh, will be able to form
     some judgment of the tendency of Papal domination. The descent
     of Spain, once the first among monarchies, to the lowest depths
     of degradation, the elevation of Holland, in spite of many
     natural disadvantages, to a position such as no commonwealth so
     small has ever reached, teach the same lesson. Whoever passes,
     in Germany, from a Roman Catholic to a Protestant principality,
     in Switzerland from a Roman Catholic to a Protestant canton, in
     Ireland from a Roman Catholic to a Protestant county, finds
     that he has passed from a lower to a higher grade of
     civilization. On the other side of the Atlantic the same law
     prevails. The Protestants of the United States have left far
     behind the Roman Catholics of Mexico, Peru, and Brazil. The
     Roman Catholics of Lower Canada remain inert, while the whole
     continent round them is in a ferment with Protestant activity
     and enterprise."--_Macaulay's History of England_, vol. i., p.
     37.

I must be permitted to add, just here, that in 1848, when the people of
France expelled Louis Philippe from the throne in Paris, and established
a Republic, the present old drunken, goutified debauchee, Pope Pius IX.,
hurled at the French nation a fearful bull of excommunication, and
denied them the right of revolution! Was this interfering in temporal
matters? But no longer ago than the year 1854, this same old vagabond,
Pope Pius, issued orders absolving his followers from all allegiance to
the Sardinian Government, because that government chose to abolish the
infamous monasteries, which had been so long supported at the expense of
an oppressed people! Was this not interfering in temporal matters? I
could multiply authorities, Governor, to an indefinite extent,
sustaining Mr. Wesley's views, and falsifying all you say, but this
would swell my reply beyond what I intended in the outset. Let me call
your attention to Brownson's Review, for July, 1853, where you will find
all this power, and even more, claimed for the Pope, over temporal
sovereigns and their subjects, the world over! This _Review_ is the
acknowledged organ of _Archbishop Hughes_, the head and front of the
Catholic Church in North America.

You state that our Declaration of Independence absolved from every
possible obligation to the Pope in temporal matters. Your language is:

     "The moment it was read and proclaimed from old Independence
     Hall in Philadelphia, obedience in temporal matters, if it ever
     existed, ceased for ever, as to every native-born son in
     America."

You further add that the Constitution of the United States set aside all
temporal power of the Pope in this country, and that if any doubts
remain, the finishing touch is given by the following oath of
naturalization, taken by our naturalized citizens:

     "I do solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of
     the United States, and that I do _absolutely and entirely_
     renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign
     prince, potentate, or state, or sovereignty _whatever_."

Sir, do you suppose that the "Bishops, Elders, and other Ministers,"
whom you have the impudence to address, are all fools? Do you suppose
they are men of no reading or information? If they know any thing, they
certainly know that the oath of naturalization they, the Catholics,
take, weighs no more with them than a feather. A Catholic can evade the
force of any oath, by a _mental reservation_. Here is what Sanchez says,
the very highest Catholic authority, whose teaching, including this
interpretation of oaths, has been endorsed by the Council of Trent:

     "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 concealing 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."

In addition to this, let me tell you, if you never before knew the fact,
that Judge Gaston, a distinguished Jurist, and a gentleman of excellent
character, though a rigid Roman Catholic, of North Carolina, was
appointed to a seat upon the Supreme Bench of that State. The
Constitution of that State, unlike those of almost all other States,
requires every Judge to take an oath, among other things, that HE
BELIEVES IN THE TRUTH OF THE PROTESTANT RELIGION. Mr. Gaston asked time
to think over the matter--he repaired to the Archbishop at Baltimore,
doubtless obtained a dispensation--wrote back to Raleigh from there,
that he would take the oath--returned, and in due time solemnly swore
that _he believed in the truth of the Protestant Religion_. He died in
Raleigh, one of the Judges of the Supreme Court--but lived and died a
Roman Catholic!

During the past month, in this city, W. G. McAdoo, the Attorney General
for this Judicial Circuit, had some Irish Catholics brought before the
Grand Jury, to testify in cases of unlawful gaming and the retailing of
ardent spirits. The Clerk swore them on a common English Testament, and
they returned to the Jury room, and testified that they knew of no
cases! The Attorney for the Commonwealth then procured the _Catholic
Douay Bible_, with a large _Cross_ upon its outside, swore them upon
this--sent them in, and they _disgorged_, telling of various cases, and
enabling the Jury to find bills against even some of their own folks! An
oath, then, is nothing with strict Roman Catholics, who believe their
Priests can absolve them from the obligations of any and all oaths. For
notwithstanding your denial of the fact, it is notoriously true, that
the members of the Catholic Church believe their Priesthood to exercise,
by Divine right, the power to fix and determine their eternal destiny.
Nay, every Roman Catholic in the known world is under the absolute
control of the Catholic Priesthood, by considerations not only of a
temporal, but an eternal weight. This is what gives their Priesthood
such power and influence in elections; an influence they are using in
every State, against the American party. And it is this faculty of
concentration, this political influence, this power of the Priesthood to
control the Catholic community, and cause a vast multitude of ignorant
foreigners to vote as a _unit_, and thus control the will of the
American people, that has engendered this opposition to the Catholic
Church. It is this aggressive policy and corrupting tendency of the
Romish Church; this organized and concentrated political power of a
distinct class of men; foreign by birth; inferior in intelligence and
virtue to the American people, and not their religion and form of
worship, objectionable as these are known to be, which have called forth
the opposition of the American party to the Catholic Church.

But, sir, you occupy several pages in copying and commenting upon the
several oaths administered to the members of the American party--oaths
which, as you tell us, are revolting in their character, and lead to the
indiscriminate proscription of all foreigners. I meet all your
conjectures and wild speculations in reference to these several oaths
and obligations, by saying, just here, that I have taken them all, and
that they express my sentiments and feelings to the very letter; and I
am willing, for the remainder of my days, to go before an acting Justice
of the Peace, for the county of Knox, and have all three of these oaths
administered every Monday morning, upon the "Holy Bible and Cross."

You have failed, in your zeal to advocate Romanism and oppose the
American party, to tell the "Bishops, Elders, and other Ministers," whom
you address, that we resort to our oaths and obligations to combat
successfully the most powerful oath-bound organization the world ever
knew. The oath of every _Roman Catholic Bishop_ and _Archbishop_ binds
him to absolute and unquestioned obedience, not only to the present Pope
but to his successors, "canonically coming in," and to "oppose and
persecute" all who do not submit to his authority! The oath of every
_Priest_ binds him to the Church of Rome "as the chief head and matron
above all pretended Churches throughout the whole earth," and to
"further her interests more than his own earthly good." The oath of the
_Jesuit_ binds him to the Pope, as "Christ's Vicar-General," by "all the
saints and hosts of heaven," and to "denounce and disown any allegiance
as due to Protestants, or obedience to any of their inferior magistrates
or officers." The oath of the _San Fedisti_, a secret Order established
by the Papal government in 1821, binds them to sustain "the Papal altar
and throne, and to exterminate heretics, without pity for the cries of
children, or of men and women." The oath of the _Irish Ribbon Men_, an
Order established by the Papal government, and introduced into this
country by _Bedini_, the Pope's Nuncio, but a few years ago, binds him
"to extirpate all heretics, and all the Protestants, and to walk in
their blood to the knees." Is it not time to take the alarm, Governor,
and to combine to resist all these secret oath-bound associations, which
now threaten us with the loss of all that freemen and Protestant
Christians hold dear on earth?

It is a matter of utter astonishment to find a great political party in
this country, most of whom are native-born Protestants, taking sides
with a foreign Church, whose designs against this country, according to
the avowals of the Duke of Richmond, lately Governor-General of Canada,
are of the most wicked and fearful character! Speaking of this
government, the Duke said in a public address, on our northern border:

     "It will be destroyed: it ought not, and 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._"

The monarchs of Europe, says the Duke of Richmond, will aid in sending
us a surplus of "low, excitable, bad, and disaffected men," who will
bring with them their principles, and will adhere to their foreign
notions of government, laws, manners, customs, and religion--and that
religion Catholic; and yet _you_, the "son of a now sainted father," of
Protestant raising, have the brazen effrontery to call upon the
"Bishops, Elders, and other Ministers" of an American Protestant Church
to aid you, your corrupt party, and the monarchs of Europe, in
destroying both our government and Church!

Sir, it is passing strange that Protestant Christians and their children
should be found side by side with you, Bishop Hughes, Gov. Johnson, and
the thousands of bad men who are seeking to build up a Roman Hierarchy
in this free country of ours! What do you promise the country and
yourselves, if Romanism proves successful in this contest? The history
of the past informs us that Rome has slain 1,000,000 of Albigenses and
Waldenses; 1,500,000 Jews, in Spain; 3,000,000 Moors, in Spain. France
will never forget St. Bartholomew's Night, when 100,000 souls perished
in Paris alone! The blood of Protestants has fertilized the soil of
England, Germany, and Ireland. I mean by this, that enough of Protestant
blood has been shed to _enrich_ all the poor lands of England, Germany,
and Ireland, if it were properly distributed. In all, the authentic
records of the Romish Church show, (and of this she makes her boast,)
that she has put to death SIXTY-EIGHT MILLIONS of human beings, for no
other offence than that of being _Protestants_ in their religious faith!
Average each person slain at four gallons of blood, and medical writers
say a healthy person yields more, and it makes TWO HUNDRED AND
SEVENTY-TWO MILLIONS OF GALLONS!--enough to overflow the banks of the
Mississippi, and destroy all the cotton and sugar plantations in
Mississippi and Louisiana!

But you argue, in your blasphemous publication, that this is no longer a
characteristic of the Romish Hierarchy. Why is it not? Has she ever
changed for the better? When did she ever renounce these doctrines and
practices? Never, no, never! Hers is the same tyrannical system
now--where she has the power--that it always has been, and always must
be, in the very nature of things! It is her boast, and the boast of her
standard authors, that she is always right, and knows no change! And wo
to this land of ours, if ever Rome gets the ascendancy here! Her whole
system is adverse to our Republican institutions, and she hesitates not
to declare it! _Brownson_ says in his 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_."

No wonder, sir, that the American people are aroused! Such bold and
startling avowals are calculated to arouse and unite the somewhat
divided bands of Protestant Christians; to wake up a host of Luthers,
Calvins, Cranmers, and Wesleys; to bind together "the heretics condemned
in a mass." The very latest thing I have seen is the "Pastoral Letter"
of the Bishops of the Province of St. Louis, just issued. That document
explicitly says:

     "We maintain the superiority of the _spiritual_ over the
     _temporal_ order. We maintain that the temporal ruler is
     _bound_ to conform his enactments to the Divine law. We
     maintain that the Church is the supreme judge of all questions
     concerning faith and morals; and that in the determination of
     such question, the _Roman Pontiff, Vicar of Jesus Christ_,
     constitutes a tribunal from which there is no appeal; and to
     whose award all the children of the Church must yield
     obedience."

Now, sir, after this authoritative and official announcement, I don't
want to see any more of your wire-drawn distinctions between spiritual
and temporal allegiance to the Pope. These Bishops say that both are
alike binding. Nor do I want to see any more of your malignant efforts
to fix the _lie_ upon Mr. Wesley, for affirming in Europe, during the
past century, what the Bishops of the United States have announced, in a
Pastoral Address, in the present day!

Pope Pius IX. has, by a special act, made the Virgin Mary the special
patron of these United States; but the Protestants of this country have
also made a decree, and that decree is, that Jesus Christ, and not the
Virgin Mary, shall be the patron of these United States.

And I am happy to have it in my power to inform you, notwithstanding the
influence of your Address, that the "Bishops, Elders, and other
Ministers" of the Methodist Church, both North and South, are ready to
make a common, determined, prayerful effort to save our native land from
the threatened slavery of submission to the decisions of the Council of
Trent, and the equally corrupt conventions of Progressive Democracy!

Assuming what is notoriously _false_--that the Know Nothings are in
favor of all measures fatal to the South, and destructive to the
Constitution--you ask on page 25 of your _infinitely infernal_ Address:

     "What if a proposition be pending to repeal the Fugitive Slave
     Law--the Kansas and Nebraska law--the rejection of a State
     asking admission into the Union, because its constitution may
     tolerate slavery?"

You know, sir, that the 12th Plank in the Philadelphia Platform of the
American party is a safer guaranty upon this slavery question, and the
perpetuity of existing laws, than is to be found anywhere in the creeds
of political parties. Here it is in full:

     "The American party having arisen upon the ruins, and in spite
     of the opposition of the Whig and Democratic parties, can not
     be held in any manner responsible for the obnoxious acts or
     violated pledges of either; and the systematic agitation of the
     slavery question by those parties having elevated sectional
     hostility into a positive element of political power, and
     brought our institutions into peril, it has therefore become
     the imperative duty of the American party to interpose, for the
     purpose of giving peace to the country, and perpetuity to the
     Union. And as experience has shown it impossible to reconcile
     opinions so extreme as those which separate the disputants, and
     as there can be no dishonor in submitting to the laws, the
     National Council has deemed it the best guaranty of common
     justice and of future peace, to abide by and maintain the
     existing laws upon the subject of slavery, as a final and
     conclusive settlement of that subject in spirit and in
     substance.

     "And regarding it the highest duty to avow their opinions upon
     a subject so important, in distinct and unequivocal terms, it
     is hereby declared as the sense of this National Council, that
     Congress possesses no power, under the Constitution, to
     legislate upon the subject of slavery in the States where it
     does or may exist, or to exclude any State from admission into
     the Union, because its Constitution does or does not recognize
     the institution of slavery as a part of its social system; and
     expressly pretermitting any expression of opinion upon the
     power of Congress to establish or prohibit slavery in any
     Territory, it is the sense of the National Council that
     Congress ought not to legislate upon the subject of slavery
     within the Territories of the United States, and that any
     interference by Congress with slavery as it exists in the
     District of Columbia, would be a violation of the spirit and
     intention of the compact by which the State of Maryland ceded
     the District to the United States, and a breach of the national
     faith."

In the "wild hunt" for territory by the progressive Democracy, and their
efforts to settle our Western lands with foreigners who are to a man
Free Soilers and Abolitionists, the South has more to fear than from all
other considerations. What is Gov. Johnson's iniquitous Homestead Bill,
but a bid for foreigners? He proposes to give to the heads of families
one hundred and sixty acres of land, thus _hiring_ all the convicts and
paupers of Europe to come and settle in our Western States and
Territories! Sir, but let your progressive, sublimated,
double-distilled, converging-lines, Johnsonian Democracy bring into this
Union one million of Spanish Papists--black, brown, sorrel, and
tawny--under the guise of acquiring Cuba for the South: let them bring
eight hundred thousand French and English Papists, under the name of
acquiring Canada for the North: let them bring two millions of Mexican
Papists--brown, tawny, red and black, being a mixture of all colors and
all nations--under the specious pretence of "extending the area of
freedom"--let all this be done--and your party, made up of native
traitors, and foreign vagabonds, and Catholic paupers, are aiming at
it--let it be done, I say, and farewell to liberty, and all that is
sacred in this country! With five millions of Papists in our midst--four
millions and a half being of foreign birth, and four millions speaking a
foreign language--all taught from infancy to hate and detest
Protestantism as a crime--an American party would become an absolute
political necessity. Well do the Free Soil papers comprehend this
matter. Hear the infamous but influential _Chicago Tribune_, one of your
Douglass organs--one of your foreign Catholic organs. I quote from the
paper itself:

     "It is now a well-attested fact, that Atchison is a member of
     the Superior Order of the Spangled Banner, or Know Nothings,
     and that his infernal villainy in Kansas has been carried on
     under the protection and patronage of the lodges in Western
     Missouri. This is a matter that all men in the North should
     understand, that Northern voters may be exceedingly cautious
     how they give countenance or support to an Order that, in any
     of its phases or localities, is capable of producing such
     results. It is further said, that the members of that Kansas
     Legislature, now outraging all sense of right and justice by
     their devilish enactments, are the chosen men of the affiliated
     Know Nothings in Missouri and Kansas, who back then up in
     whatever thing they do. Atchison and his gang are the friends
     of the Order, and through it and Southern Know Nothing support
     they are sure that their efforts to establish a despotism in
     the Territory, if necessary, at the point of the bayonet, will
     be successful. These facts account for many things heretofore
     inexplicable, and they develop the true reason of the hostility
     of the border-ruffians to the foreign immigration that would,
     under other circumstances, people that vast and fertile country
     west of the Missouri."

Thus it appears that a host of _lousy_ foreigners, fresh from the
emigrant ships, in which they are brought over to this country as
_ballast_--having the right to vote conferred upon them by an infamous
_progressive_ Democratic feature in the Kansas Bill, were expected to
get the control of affairs in Kansas. It further appears, however, that
Senator Atchison and his pro-slavery associates supposed that, though
fresh from their farms, and crossing the line of their State into the
new Territory, they too had the right to vote without being
_naturalized_ in Kansas. Hence, in the estimation of this Sag Nicht
organ at Chicago, a great outrage is committed upon Germany, Ireland,
and Italy!

Sir, you need not lay the flattering unction to your soul, that you can
drive the clergy generally from the noble stand they have taken upon
this great question. Nor need you suppose, for one moment, that the
American party are conquered, though defeated in several States in the
recent elections. The party will remain true to its ends. Though it fail
to command office, it cannot fail to exercise large power. Office is not
always strength; but sometimes, nay, frequently, as in the case of the
present Administration, weakness, as time will prove! The aim of the
American party is, by fair party means, to correct a great social evil
and political wrong; and if they cannot do that, to mitigate the evil
and the wrong; if they cannot do that, to prevent its _further
increase_; and if neither can be done, why, then I confess to you, the
party will have failed. But, sir, if such a failure take place, rest
assured that the "Bishops, Elders, and other Ministers" of the Methodist
Church, South, will not help to bring about such a failure! We can
afford to let such minions of party as you are, rave and rant, and
publish their expositions, and issue their warnings to Churches: they
will all serve to swell our ranks. All true American hearts, not chained
to the car of party, or bound down by the cords of plunder, think alike
upon the great questions that have called the American party into
existence. Little do we regard the slanders of the pensioners of party.
Let their speeches and publications teem with wholesale slanders of our
creed: the political jockeyism of these thimble-riggers, as in your own
case, is too apparent!

From Maine to the shores of the Pacific the country is convulsed with
intense excitement upon this subject. Shall Americans govern themselves,
or shall Foreigners, unacquainted with our laws, and brought up under
monarchical governments, rule? Shall those who are temporally and
spiritually subject to a foreign prince be our legislators,
post-masters, foreign ministers, and military leaders, and change our
laws as they are directed by the Pope of Rome? Such results the American
party have set out to prevent. The present excitement will not cease;
true Americans and Protestants will labor and pray until our distracted
country shall be redeemed from the influence of civil and ecclesiastical
tyranny.

Now, Governor, I have noticed all your charges, arguments, and appeals,
but one, and that is the allegation that Methodist clerical Know
Nothings are _conspirators_. Your argument is--and I wish to represent
you correctly--"The offence of conspiracy is not confined to the
prejudicing of a particular individual; it may be to injure public
trade, to affect public health, or to _violate public policy_."

You cite Blackstone's Commentary, and other English Law Books, to
satisfy the Clergy as to the _law of conspiracy_. This done, you
overwhelm them with this sage and logical conclusion:

     "The gist of the offence of conspiracy consists in a
     confederacy to do an _unlawful act_, and the offence is
     complete when the confederacy is made."

I will concede, for the sake of the argument, that this is sound law,
and that yours is a logical deduction. Nay, I will concede more--I grant
that it is an unlawful act for native Americans, and Protestant
Christians, whether ministers or laymen, to resolve, or swear, as we
Know Nothings have all done, that we will not vote for Catholics and
Foreigners for public offices! I take the ground you do, that a man's
vote is not his own, and that it is only to be disposed of by the
leaders of the party with which he may act!

And now, if you and I, both great men, and _Doctors of Law_, are correct
in laying down the law, and the _privilege of voters in this free
country_, what an infamous body of conspirators the Democrats are, and
have always been! For a quarter of a century, they have conspired to
keep the Whigs out of office--have succeeded in doing so most of that
time--and have kept thousands of them who are poor from becoming rich!
More recently, they have conspired with Abolitionists, Free Soilers,
Fourierites, Spiritualists, Roman Catholics, Irish, French, and German
paupers, and all manner of European convicts, to keep the American party
out of office, and have succeeded in Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia,
Alabama, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, Texas, and other States--thereby
depriving the Americans of "lots" of money and honors, both of which
they need, and both of which are their _birthrights_!

The "Bishops, Elders, and other Ministers," whom you address, in
opposition to the great sin of _conspiracy_, would more cheerfully unite
with you to enforce law and order, and to prosecute offenders, but for
the fact that the _Abolition wing of your party_ once conspired against
them, to deprive their wives, children, widows, and orphans, of their
lawful portion of the great Book Concern in New York, and they were
compelled to punish the conspirators, at great expense, however, in the
District and Supreme Courts of the United States!

But, Sir, upon the subject of _oaths_, you are eloquent, apt in your
quotations of Scripture, and evince great learning in the legal
profession! You charge that "Know Nothingism is both unchristian and
unlawful, because of its _oaths_, which have no Scripture warrant for
their administration!" One of your quotations from the Bible is this:
"Swear not at all: neither by heaven, for it is God's throne: nor by the
earth, for it is his footstool." Your mind has undergone a great change
upon the subject of _oaths_ and _hard swearing_, since the 21st of
June, 1845, when you delivered your celebrated "Mount Pisgah" speech at
Athens. You then advised the people of the State to administer "horrible
oaths," and to swear by the "_heavens_," aye, "God's throne." But then
you were a Know Nothing. Here is what you say in your _revised_ copy of
that memorable speech:

     "Go up with me in imagination and stand for awhile on some
     lofty summit of the Rocky Mountains. Let us take one ravishing
     view of this broad land of liberty. Turn your face toward the
     Gulf of Mexico: what do you behold? Instead of one lone star
     faintly shining in the far distant south, a whole galaxy of
     stars of the first magnitude are bursting on your vision and
     shining with a bright and glorious effulgence. Now turn with me
     to the west--the mighty west--where the setting sun dips her
     disk in the western ocean. Look away down through the misty
     distance to the shores of the Pacific, with all its bays, and
     harbors, and rivers. Cast your eyes as far as the Russian
     Possessions, in latitude fifty-four degrees and forty minutes.
     What a new world lies before you! How many magnificent States
     to be the future homes of the sons and daughters of freedom!
     But you have not gazed on half this glorious country. Turn now
     your face to the east, where the morning sun first shines on
     this land of liberty. Away yonder, you see the immortal old
     thirteen, who achieved our independence; nearer to us lie the
     twelve or fifteen States of the great valley of the
     Mississippi, stretching and reposing like so many giants in
     their slumbers. O! now I see your heart is full--it can take in
     no more. Who now feels like he was a party man, or a southern
     man, or a northern man? Who does not feel that he is an
     American, and thankful to Heaven that his lot was cast in such
     a goodly land? When did mental vision ever rest on such a
     scene? Moses, when standing on the top of Mount Pisgah, looking
     over on the promised land, gazed not on a scene half so lovely.
     O! let us this day _vow_ that whatever else we may do, by
     whatever name we may be called, we will never surrender one
     square acre of this goodly heritage to the DICTATION of any
     king or potentate on earth. SWEAR IT! SWEAR IT! my countrymen,
     and let HEAVEN RECORD THE VOW FOR EVER!"

In conclusion, Governor, suffer a few words of advice, and I will bring
this letter, already too long, to a close. You are advanced in years,
nay, you have grown gray in the service of sin, and political intrigues;
and at most you have not long to live. Cease your political aspirations,
and turn your attention to future and eternal things! You have been a
member of our State Legislature; subsequently, a member of Congress; and
more recently the Governor of our State; honors and stations, to say the
least of it, equal to your merits and talents!

As a true "son of a now sainted father," from whom you have been
separated for many years, so demean yourself in future, that you may not
be separated, world without end! Humble yourself before God; confess
your numerous sins; and instead of lecturing God's ministers upon the
subject of party politics, ask them, with tears in your eyes, to pray
for you! Exercise a living faith in Christ, who came down from heaven,
and made upon the cross a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice,
oblation, and satisfaction, for the sins of the whole world. Thus
obtaining forgiveness, cease your Sunday discussions on political
subjects; attend at the house of God, and set an example to other
ungodly Sag Nichts, and lead a new and different life!

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

     W. G. BROWNLOW,

     _A Local Methodist Minister._




GOVERNOR JOHNSON AND EDITOR EASTMAN.


On the 9th of October, 1855, and while the Legislature was in session at
Nashville, we delivered a speech to an immense crowd on the Public
Square; which, after certain preliminary remarks, we will give to the
public, just as it was spoken. The reason why the call was made on us to
deliver the speech was, that we had, the previous weeks, delivered the
same, in _substance_, at Shelbyville and Clarksville, and the American
party at Nashville hearing of it, and approving what was said, desired
us to repeat it; and, to be candid, we desired to repeat it there and
then!

Mr. Wise, of Virginia, gained great notoriety, in the spring of 1855, by
his abuse and blackguardism, heaped upon the American party. He was
successful; and Johnson, of Tennessee, whose ambition was to gain a more
infamous notoriety, profiting by the example of Wise, plunged into the
lowest depths of Billingsgate, and piled his vulgar epithets upon the
party _indiscriminately_. Wise, then, like all inventors and
originators, has had numerous _imitators_, and among the most successful
of these are Johnson, of Tennessee; Stephens, of Georgia; and Clingman,
of North Carolina. But as an adept in low Billingsgate slang, coarse
blackguardism, and as a slanderer and maligner of better men than
himself, Johnson has excelled his patron, Wise, and left far in the
shades of the distant caverns of abuse, both Stephens and Clingman!

To prepare the public mind for the degree of severity we used in
reference to the Governor of the State, we will introduce as many as
_five_ different extracts from his speeches, in his late canvass for
Governor, at Murfreesboro' and Manchester; as reported by his partisan
organ, the _Nashville Union_, and his _pliant tool_, its Abolition
editor, _E. G. Eastman_:

     "THE DEVIL, HIS SATANIC MAJESTY, THE PRINCE OF DARKNESS, WHO
     PRESIDES OVER THE SECRET CONCLAVE HELD IN PANDEMONIUM, MAKES
     WAR UPON ALL BRANCHES OF CHRIST'S CHURCH. THE KNOW NOTHINGS
     ADVOCATE AND DEFEND NONE, BUT MAKE WAR UPON ONE OF THE
     CHURCHES, AND THUS FAR BECOME THE ALLIES OF THE PRINCE OF
     DARKNESS."--[Speech of ANDREW JOHNSON, at Murfreesboro'.

     "A DENOMINATION LIKE THIS, TO SET UP AS THE GUARDIANS OF THE
     RELIGION AND MORALS OF THE COUNTRY! A DENOMINATION BOUND
     TOGETHER BY SECRET AND TERRIBLE OATHS: THE FIRST OF WHICH, ON
     THE VERY INITIATION, FIXES AND REQUIRES THEM TO CARRY A LIE IN
     THEIR MOUTHS."--[Speech of ANDREW JOHNSON, at Murfreesboro'.

     "SHOW ME THE DIMENSIONS OF A KNOW NOTHING, AND I WILL SHOW YOU
     A HUGE REPTILE, UPON WHOSE NECK THE FOOT OF EVERY HONEST MAN
     OUGHT TO BE PLACED."--[Speech of ANDREW JOHNSON, at Manchester.

     "THEY ARE LIKE THE HYENA, AND COME FROM THEIR LAIR AFTER
     MIDNIGHT TO PREY UPON HUMAN CARCASSES."--[Speech of ANDREW
     JOHNSON, at Manchester.

     "I WOULD AS SOON BE FOUND IN THE CLAN OF JOHN A. MURRELL AS IN
     A KNOW NOTHING COUNCIL."--[Speech of ANDREW JOHNSON, at
     Manchester.

The _blackguard_ and _calumniator_ using this language, was elected by a
majority of two thousand votes: that majority being cast by _Foreigners
and illegal voters_; and consequently, his competitor, COL. GENTRY--than
whom there is not a more talented, patriotic, and honorable gentleman in
Tennessee--was fairly and justly elected. This, then, is the language
used by the Governor of Tennessee, _towards a majority of the legal
voters of the State_! Under these circumstances, we made the speech that
follows, to an immense crowd on the Square: the correspondence preceding
which, will explain itself:

                                   NASHVILLE, Oct. 10th, 1855.

     W. G. BROWNLOW, ESQ.:

     _Dear Sir_:--The undersigned, having heard your speech on the
     Square, last night, respectfully request that you embody the
     substance of the same, and publish it in the Knoxville Whig.
     The desire to see it in print is very general; and those who
     heard it approved its severity, without it were such as were
     bitter against the American party.

     Your friends,
     CHARLES G. SMITH,
     JOHN MORRISON,
     F. M. BURTON,
     ROBT. S. NORTHCUTT,
     SAML. DAVIS.


                                    NASHVILLE, Oct. 13th, 1855.

     MESSRS. SMITH, MORRISON, AND OTHERS:

     _Gentlemen_:--Your note requesting me to publish the substance
     of my remarks on the Square, last Tuesday night, has been
     received, and I would have replied sooner, but for my absence
     at Shelbyville. I have now made the same speech at Clarksville,
     Nashville, and Shelbyville; and my only regrets are, that my
     engagements prevent me from delivering the same speech at every
     point in this State, where Gov. Johnson held me up as the "High
     Priest of the Order," and argued therefrom the _want of
     respectability_ for the Order. In addition to your request, I
     have had verbal applications from many gentlemen to publish my
     remarks--gentlemen who have been mild and moderate throughout
     their political course. I shall, therefore, comply with your
     request and theirs, at my earliest convenience.

     I hold that no man's position in life should shield him from
     the rebukes he may merit by his bad conduct; and as for the
     present Governor of Tennessee, his wholesale abuse of the
     American party, towards whose members, without a single
     exception, he has indulged in language which ought not to be
     tolerated within the precincts of Billingsgate, no epithet is
     too low, too degrading, or disgraceful, to pay him back in.

     Respectfully, &c.,

     W. G. BROWNLOW.

FELLOW-CITIZENS:--The occasion which has called you together to-night,
is the special appointment of our young friend, Mr. Crowe, to whose
eloquence we have all listened with pleasure. I have made no appointment
to speak here; nor have I prompted the loud and long calls made upon me,
this evening, by this large Nashville audience. I shall speak to you;
but not upon the _issues_ of the late canvass, nor upon those of the
approaching canvass of 1856. I will discuss _Andrew Johnson_ and _E. G.
Eastman_; and if they are in the assembly, I hope they will come forward
and take seats on this stand, that I may have the pleasure of looking
them full in the face, as I denounce them in unmeasured terms: which is
my purpose to-night, let the consequences be what they may!

On a memorable night in August, after it was understood that _Andrew
Johnson_ was reëlected to the office of Governor, a procession was
formed in Knoxville, composed of the worst materials in that young and
growing city--such as drunken, red-mouthed Irishmen, lousy Germans, and
insolent negroes, with three or four men of respectable pretensions
thrown in, to exercise a controlling influence over these bad materials.
This riotous mob halted in front of my dwelling, in East Knoxville, and
_groaned_ and _sang_ for my especial benefit: all which was natural
enough--as they had triumphed over me in the election of a Governor. I
took no offence at their rejoicing over the election of Gov. Johnson, as
I told them; and for the reason, that I knew them to be of that class of
men who would _actually need the exercise of the pardoning power_, at
the hands of the present Governor, to release them from the
penitentiary, before his present term of service would expire!

From my humble dwelling, this _beautiful_ procession marched to the
Coleman House, on Gay street, yelling like devils, and insulting the
inmates of every house they passed. "Huzza for _Andy McJohnson_!"
exclaimed one. "Three cheers for _Andy O'Johnson_!" exclaimed another.
While, to cap the climax--"Well done, my _Johnsing_ and the _White
Bastard_," (meaning _Basis_,) exclaimed a drunken negro! Halting in
front of the Coleman House, the Governor elect mounted a goods box, and
under feelings of great excitement, hatred, and malice, delivered a
speech abusive of the whole American party, excepting none, in coarse,
bitter language, in a style peculiarly his own--adapted alone to the
foul precincts of Billingsgate--rounding his periods with a diabolical
and infernal _grin_, alone suited to a display of oratory by a land
pirate!

I reported this slanderous speech--not in as offensive style--as it was
delivered; for his _looks_ and _grins_ no man can report on paper. I
also wrote the substance of what he said to Major Donelson, in a letter,
of which I shall have something more to say before I leave this stand.
Just here, I will repeat what the Governor did say, and what I reported
him to have said in my paper. I wish this large audience to hear me
distinctly, and to recollect the points I make; for I shall wind up on
the Governor and his miserable tool, _Eastman_, with a degree of
severity you have not been accustomed to, but which shall be warranted
by the facts in each case.

Gov. Johnson said this new party of self-styled Americans professed to
have organized with a view to purify and reform the old political
parties. A beautiful set, said he, to reform! The Order of Know Nothings
was composed of the worst men in the Whig and Democratic parties. As a
_sample_ of these men, he pointed out _Andrew J. Donelson_, by
name--exclaiming as often as twice, _Who is Andrew J. Donelson?_ He is a
soured, office-seeking, disappointed politician, who has been kicked out
of the Democratic party. To illustrate his views more fully, he told the
crowd to imagine a large gang of _counterfeiters_ out there! and an
equally large gang of _horse-thieves_ out yonder! Take from these two
companies the worst men in their ranks, form a third party of these, and
you have a representation of this Know Nothing party. This was a
beautiful party to propose reform, or to speak of other parties being
corrupt! He was interrupted repeatedly; and I think I may safely say,
among hands, they gave him the d----d lie fifty times! James M. Davis, a
respectable mechanic, asked him if he would say that to Major Donelson's
face? He replied, that he heard the hissing of an adder, or a goose, and
went through with certain stereotyped phrases you have all heard from
his lips. This call upon him by Mr. Davis was not named in my newspaper
report, nor in my letter to Major Donelson. Indeed, I did not anticipate
a denial of his abuse.

Now, fellow-citizens, it was in this connection, as well as in the most
offensive language, that Gov. Johnson introduced the name of Andrew J.
Donelson, repeating it more than once, emphasizing upon it, and
repeating it with scorn and bitterness. This is the report, _in
substance_, I made of his speech through my paper, and in a letter I
addressed to Major Donelson. And to the truth of my report, there are
one hundred respectable gentlemen in Knoxville who will make oath upon
the Holy Bible. There are now a half-dozen respectable gentlemen in this
crowd who were in the street at Knoxville on that occasion, and heard
every word the Governor said, and will sustain me in my account of it.
Among these I will name Messrs. White and Armstrong, members of the
House, Senator Rogers, Col. James C. Luttrell, and Mr. Fleming, the
editor of the Knoxville Register.

Well, gentlemen--and I am proud to have an opportunity of vindicating
myself before so large a Nashville audience as this is--I say Major
Donelson came to Nashville, after receiving intelligence of the abuse of
the Governor, and was seen walking these streets with a _large and
homely stick_ in his hand, looking _grum_, as any gentleman would do
under the circumstances. The friends of Gov. Johnson seeing what would
likely be the result of this affair, asked for, and very properly
obtained that letter, with a view to laying it before their slanderous
and abusive Executive officer, that he might _lie out of what he said_
about an honorable and brave man; and thereby avoid the disgrace of a
cudgelling! Did he lie out of the scrape? He did: aye, he _ingloriously
lied out_ of what he had said--leaving Major Donelson no ground for any
difficulty with him: although the Major had a right to suppose that any
man base enough to make such charges, would have no hesitancy in lying
out of his disreputable and cowardly abuse. I therefore pronounce your
Governor, here upon his own dunghill, an UNMITIGATED LIAR AND
CALUMNIATOR, and a VILLAINOUS COWARD, wanting the _nerve_ to stand up to
his abuse of better men than himself!

But it will be said that the Governor _proves_ me a liar, by a citizen
of Nashville, who was present at Knoxville and heard his speech. That is
so, but I prove both him and his witness liars, by a multitude of
witnesses who were also present, and who are gentlemen of the first
standing. But who is it that testifies that I have lied? It is _E. G.
Eastman_, the editor of the Sag Nicht organ in this city. And who is _E.
G. Eastman_? He is a dirty, lying, and unscrupulous Abolitionist, from
Massachusetts, who once conducted an Abolitionist paper either in that
State, or the State of New Hampshire. He was brought out to this State
to lie for the unscrupulous leaders of his party. He is paid for
_telling_ and _writing_ falsehoods, and would, if the interests of his
party required it, and a consideration were paid him in hand, _swear
lies_ as readily as he would write them down for publication. He is a
poor devil, as void of truth and honor as he has shown himself to be of
courage and resentment. He edits a low, dirty, scurrilous sheet; and,
like his master, Gov. Johnson, never could elevate himself above the
level of a common blackguard. No epithet is too low, too degrading, or
disgraceful to be applied to the members of the American party, by
either of these Billingsgate graduates. Decent men shun coming in
contact with either of them, as they would avoid a night-cart, or other
vehicle of filth. As some fish thrive only in dirty water, so the
Nashville Union and American would not exist a week out of the
atmosphere of slang and vituperation. A fit organ, this, for all who
arrange themselves under the dark piratical flag of Andrew Johnson and
his progressive Democracy. I am the more specific in reference to
_Eastman_, because I understand he is in this assembly!

But, fellow-citizens, I am not yet through with this Knoxville speech of
the Governor. Maj. Donelson visited Knoxville, one month after this
slanderous speech was made against him; he visited there upon the
invitation of the American party, to address a Mass Meeting. I waited
upon Maj. Donelson, upon his arrival, and found him at the house of
Doct. Curry. I told the Major that I was tired of having questions of
veracity between me and Governors and Ex-Governors of Tennessee, and
that I desired that others should state to him what had been said by the
Governor. Accordingly, different gentlemen, citizens of character,
informed him that they were in the crowd and heard Johnson, and that he
did say all that was attributed to him, both in the letter he had
received from me, and in the two Knoxville papers. Consequently, when
Maj. Donelson made his speech next day, he denounced the Governor as a
miserable calumniator, and refuted his villainous charges, in a manner
becoming the occasion, and with a frankness which carried with it a
conviction of its truth, and gave satisfaction to his numerous friends.

And now, gentlemen, I take occasion to state, that there is no longer an
adjourned question of veracity between me and Johnson and Eastman. The
issue is between Johnson and Eastman, on the one hand, and various
respectable gentlemen of Knoxville, on the other hand. Either the
Governor and his man Friday have basely lied, or a number of the
citizens of Knoxville and vicinity, have testified to what is false. I
assert, once more, that the Governor and his dirty Editor have lied out
of the villainous abuse the former heaped upon better men than himself.
And if their friends are willing to see them remain under the charge,
the American party are satisfied with the settlement of the question.

Fellow-citizens, while I am on the stand, I will notice some other
points personal to myself. And before I enter upon these, I will call
your attention to the wholesale abuse of the Governor, of some
thirty-five or forty thousand voters in Tennessee. In his Murfreesboro'
speech, he asserted that "_the Devil, his Satanic Majesty, presides over
all the secret conclaves_" held by the Know Nothings, and that "_they
are the allies of the Prince of Darkness_." I quote from his printed
speeches from memory, but it will be found that I quote correctly. In
that same speech, he asserts that all Know Nothings are "_bound by
terrible oaths to fix and carry a lie in their mouths_!" In his
Manchester speech, I believe it was, he called all members of the new
party "_Hyenas_," and "_huge reptiles, upon whose neck the feet of all
honest men ought to be placed_." And in this same speech he says he
"WOULD AS SOON BE FOUND IN A CLAN OF JOHN A. MURRELL'S MEN, AS IN A KNOW
NOTHING COUNCIL!"

What an imputation upon nearly one half of the legal voters of
Tennessee! He has used the most odious terms his _limited_ knowledge of
the English language would enable him to employ, to deride, defame,
insult, and blackguard every man who has joined the new party, or dares
to act with them in politics. In the plenitude of his bitter and
supercilious arrogance, Andrew Johnson has indulged in language against
the entire American party, which would not be tolerated within the
precincts of Billingsgate, or the lowest fish-market in London. And from
Johnson to Shelby counties, during the entire summer, this low-flung and
ill-bred scoundrel, pursued this same strain of vulgar and disgusting
abuse. And whether speaking of the most enlightened statesman, the
purest patriot, or the most pious clergyman, he pursued the same strain
of abuse. With him, a vile demagogue, whose daily employment is to
administer to the very worst appetites of mankind, no virtue, no honor,
no truth, exists anywhere, but in the breasts of such as are either
corrupt enough or fool enough to follow him, and a few malignant
falsifiers who worship at his shrine. He is a wretched and vile caterer
to the morbid foreign and Catholic appetite of this country. "It is a
dirty bird that fouls its own nest," says the proverb; and it applies to
this man Johnson with as much force as to the dirtiest of the feathered
tribe.

    "Where is the wretch, so lost, so dead,
    Who never to himself hath said,
      This is my _own_, MY NATIVE LAND!"

He now disgraces the Executive Chair of this gallant State. Most of
God's creatures, human and brute, have an attachment to "HOME, SWEET
HOME;" but here is a contemptible and selfish demagogue who discards all
such feelings, and would transfer his country and home to strangers and
outlaws, to European paupers and criminals, if he could thereby receive
a temporary election, or receive a pocket-full of money. For such a
wretch I have no sympathy, and no feelings but those of scorn and
contempt, and hence it is that I speak of him in such terms.

On every stump in Tennessee, he held me up as "the High Priest of the
Order," representing Col. Gentry as _my_ candidate. Since I came to
Middle Tennessee, I have been informed that he pointed to the fancied
fact that I was the head of the Order, as an evidence of _its utter want
of respectability_. Turning up his nose, and grinning significantly, he
would inquire, _Who is William G. Brownlow?_

Now, gentlemen, since he makes this issue of _respectability_ with me, I
will accept it. Since he throws down the glove, I will take it up, and I
will show you that he is the last man on God's green earth to call in
question the respectability of other men, or their families! It would be
both cruel and unbecoming in me to speak of what the dishonest and
villainous relatives of Gov. Johnson have done, if he conducted himself
prudently, and did not abuse others with such great profusion. I am not
aware of any relative of mine ever having been hung, sent to the
penitentiary, or being placed in the stocks. I have no doubt that
persons related to me, directly or remotely, have deserved such a fate
long since. There is not a man in this vast assembly who can say, and
tell the truth, that he has no mean kin. Can Gov. Johnson say so?
Rather, can he say he has any other kind? He is a member of a numerous
family of Johnsons, in North Carolina, who are generally THIEVES and
LIARS; and though he is the best one of the family I have ever met with,
I unhesitatingly affirm, to-night, that there are better men than Andrew
Johnson in our Penitentiary! His relatives in the Old North State, have
stood in the Stocks for crimes they have committed. And his _own born
cousin_, Madison Johnson, was hung in Raleigh, for murder and robbery! I
told him of this years ago, in Jonesboro', and he denied it, and put me
to the trouble of procuring the testimony of Gov. John M. Morehead to
prove it! The Governor was petitioned to pardon Madison Johnson, and
declined, as he knew he suffered justly. This explains why this
_scape-gallows_ has been so bitter against Whig and Know Nothing
Governors. They have been so unfeeling, as to suffer his dear relatives
to _pull hemp without foothold_, when a jury of twelve honest men have
said that they deserved death! Is he not one of the last men living to
talk about a want of respectability on the part of any one? Certainly he
is!

Well, gentlemen, Johnson is again the Governor of Tennessee; but if he
could be mortified, he would have the mortification to know that he is
the Governor with a majority of the _legal native votes of the State_
cast in opposition to him. We all committed one capital blunder in the
late canvass, and that alone defeated Gentry, and elected Johnson. We
copied from the Book of Pardons a list of FORTY-SEVEN names of culprits
pardoned out of our State Prison by Johnson--some for negro-stealing,
some for counterfeiting, house-breaking, rape, and other _Democratic_
measures--more pardons than all his "illustrious predecessors" ever
granted. In copying this list, we said to the voters of the State that
Johnson had spoken his honest sentiments when he said he preferred
being among a clan of Murrell men, to being found in a Know Nothing
Council; and in the same breath we assured them that if Gentry was
elected, he would let all such rascals stay in prison as long as the
courts of the country decreed they should. And while thousands of
honorable, high-minded men voted for Johnson, under the lash of party,
or because they were blinded by his glaring demerits, it is not to be
disguised that all the _petit larceny_ and _Penitentiary men_ in the
State voted for him. There never was a time in Tennessee when there were
not five thousand voters who either _had been stealing_, or _intended to
steal_! These would naturally look to where they would find a friend, in
the event of their being overtaken by justice. In the person of Andrew
Johnson, they felt assured of "a friend indeed, because a friend in
_need_." He had publicly told them that he preferred the company of
Murrell men to the society of the most respectable lawyers, doctors,
preachers, farmers, and mechanics in the State, who met in certain
councils. The fact of his turning so many Murrell men out of the State
Prison, and of his having been _raised up in such society_, left no
doubt of the sincerity of his profession!

In conclusion, fellow-citizens, if Gov. Johnson cannot lawfully canvass
the State a _third_ time for the office he now fills, I hope the
Legislature will legalize such a race by a special act, and I propose to
be the candidate against him. I will show the people of the State in his
presence, from the same stand, who are Murrell men, and who are not able
to look honest men in the face!

If I have said any thing to-night offensive to your Governor, or any of
his friends or understrappers in this city, they know where to find me.
When I am not on the streets, I can be found at No. 43, on the lower
floor of Sam Scott's City Hotel, opposite the ladies' parlor. I shall
remain here for the next ten days only, and whatever punishment any one
may wish to inflict upon me, it must be done in that time. I say this,
not because I seek a difficulty, but because I don't intend it shall be
said that I made this speech and took to flight!

I thank you, gentlemen, for the patience with which you have heard me in
a matter personal to myself, and I hope you are prepared to acquit me of
lying in the Donelson case, although Gov. Johnson and Editor Eastman
bear testimony against me. I thank you, and now bid you good night!

       *       *       *       *       *

We beg leave to add, that in 

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