Page images
PDF
EPUB

the reply. They came to another, 'Whose house is that?' 'Mine, too, stranger.' To a third, 'And whose house is that?' "That's mine, too, stranger; but don't suppose that I am so darned poor as to own all the land about here.'

"What more do you want? Why, you are in the habit of discussing Federal politics; and permit me to say to you, very honestly and very openly, that, next to brandy, next to cardplaying, next to horse-racing, the thing that has done Virginia more harm than any other in the course of her past history has been her insatiable appetite for Federal politics. [Cheers and laughter.] She has given all her great men to the Union. Her Washington, her Jefferson, her Madison, her Marshall, her galaxy of great men, she has given to the Union. When and where have her best sons been at work, devoting their best energies to her service at home? Richmond, instead of attending to Richmond's business, has been too much in the habit of attending to the affairs of Washington City, when there are plenty there, God knows, to attend to them themselves. [Laughter.] If you want my opinions upon Federal politics, though, I shall not skulk them.

"The most prominent subject is that of the foreign war. It is said that this Administration is a 'do-nothing Administration.' To its honor I can claim of every fair-minded man of you-to its honor I can claim that it is at least preserving our neutrality in the foreign war. [Loud and prolonged cheers.] I concur with them in that policy; and here let me say that, so far as I am concerned, my sentiments are utterly opposed to any filibustering in any part of the world. [Cheers.]

"There is a Know-Nothing member elect from Massachusetts to the Congress of the United States. There is a United States Senator elect of the Know-Nothings who confesses the accusation which I make, that the new party of Know-Nothings was formed especially for the sake of abolitionism. [Cheers and hisses.] And there is a Know-Nothing governor, one of

[blocks in formation]

the nine, who are all ready to take the same ground. [Stamping of feet and some hissing.] Then, gentlemen, I have here an act of the Know-Nothing Legislature of Pennsylvania, which proposes to give citizenship to the fugitive slaves of the South. I have here, also, an article, which is too long for me to read, exhausted as I am, from the Worcester Evening Journal, an organ of Governor Gardner and Senator Wilson, which says to you boldly that the American organ at Washington is a proslavery organ, that it is not a true Know-Nothing organ, and that they speak for the North when they claim that they have already one hundred and sixty votes of the non-slaveholding States organized, eleven more than sufficient to elect a President of the United States without a single electoral vote from the slaveholding States.

"Now, gentlemen, having swept the Northern and the Northwestern non-slaveholding States of the Union, the next onset is on the soil of Virginia. This Worcester Fournal boasts that Maryland and Virginia are already almost Northern States; and pray, how do they propose to operate on the South? Having swept the North-Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, and all those other States-the question was: How can this ism be wedged in the South? And the devil was at the elbow of these preachers of 'Christian politics,' to tell them precisely how. [Cat-calls, derisive cheers, and other manifestations of the Know-Nothing element of the meeting.] There were three elements in the South, and in Virginia particularly, to which they might apply themselves. There is the religious element -the Protestant bigotry and fanaticism (for Protestants, gentlemen, have their religious zeal without knowledge as well as the Catholics). [A voice, 'True enough, sir.'] It is an appeal to the 103,000 Presbyterians, to the 30,000 Baptists, to the 300,000 Methodists of Virginia. Well, how were they to reach them? Why, just by raising a hell of a fuss about the Pope. [Laughter.] The Pope! The Pope, 'now so poor that none

can do him reverence,' so poor that Louis Napoleon, who requires every soldier in his kingdom to be at Sebastopol, has to leave a guard of muskets at Rome! Once on a time crowned heads could bow down and kiss his big toe, but now who cares for a Pope in Italy? Gentlemen, the Pope is here. Priestcraft at home is what you have to dread more than all the Popes in the world. I believe, intellectually, and in my heart as well as my head, in evangelical Christianity. I believe that there is no other certain foundation for this Republic but the pure and undefiled religion of Jesus Christ of Nazareth; and the man of God who believes in the Father, in the divinity of the Son and the Holy Ghost; the preacher in the pulpit, at the baptismal font, by the sick-bed, at the grave, pointing

'The way to heaven and leading there,'

I honor; no man honors him more than I do. But the priest who deserts the spiritual kingdom for the carnal kingdom, he is 'of the earth, earthy.' Whoever he be-Episcopalian, Baptist, or Methodist-who leaves the pulpit to join a dark-lantern, secret political society, in order that he may become a Protestant Pope by seizing on political power, he is a hypocrite, whoever he be. [Some applause, and cries of 'Good.'] Jesus Christ of Nazareth settled the question himself. I have his authority on this question. When the Jews expected him to put on a prince's crown and seat himself on the actual throne of David, he asked for a penny to be shown him. A penny was brought to him, a metal coin, assayed, clipped, stamped with the image of the State's representative of the civil power, stamped with Cæsar's image. 'Whose is this image and superscription?' 'It is Cæsar's.' 'Then render unto Cæsar the things which are Cæsar's, and unto God the things that are God's.' [Applause.] 'My kingdom is not of this world. My kingdom is a spiritual kingdom.' Cæsar's kingdom is political—is a carnal kingdom. And I tell you that if I stood alone in the State of Virginia, and if priestcraft—if the priests of my own mother-Church-dared

[blocks in formation]

to lay their hands on the political power of our people, or to use their churches to wield political influence, I would stand, in feeble imitation of, it may be, but I would stand, even if I stood alone, as Patrick Henry stood in the Revolution, between the parsons and the people. [Applause, and a cry, 'I'm with you.'] I want no Pope, either Catholic or Protestant. I will pay Peter's pence to no Pontiff, Episcopalian, Presbyterian, Baptist, Methodist, or any other. [Applause, and cries of 'Good.'] They not only appeal to the religious element, but they raise a cry about the Pope. These men-many of them are neither Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Baptists, Methodists, Congregationalists, Lutherans, or what not-who are men of no religion, who have no Church, who do not say their prayers, who do not read their Bible, who live God-defying lives every day of their existence-are now seen with faces as long as their dark-lanterns, with the whites of their eyes turned up in holy fear lest the Bible should be shut up by the Pope! [Laughter, applause, and derisive cheers.] Men who were never known before, on the face of God's earth, to show any interest in religion, to take any part with Christ or his kingdom, who were the devil's own, belonging to the devil's church, are all of a sudden very deeply interested for the Word of God and against the Pope! It would be well for them that they joined a Church which does believe in the Father, and in the Son, and in the Holy Ghost. ['Good.'] Let us see, my friends, what Know-Nothingism believes in. Do you know that, gentlemen?

"But, gentlemen, these Know-Nothings appeal not only to the religious element, but to the political element; not only to the political element, but to the agrarian element. Not only do they appeal to Protestant bigotry; not only do they ask Protestants to out-Herod Herod, to out-Catholic the Catholics, to out-Jesuit the Jesuists by adopting their Machiavelian creed, but they appeal to a forlorn party in the State of Virginia-a minority party-broken down at home and disorganized, be

cause their associates have become abolitionized at the North -they appeal to them as affording them a house of refuge. [Cheers and laughter.] There is a paper published in this town by one of the most respectable gentlemen of the State, who some time ago published an article which I must confess I did not expect to see in print from his pen. The Alexandria Gazette, one of the most respectable of the Whig papers of the United States, edited by one of the most conservative and respectable gentlemen that I know of among my acquaintances, one who has been advocating the doctrines and practice of conservatism ever since I knew him, is now proposing a fusion between the Know-Nothing and the Whig parties, simply for the reason that 'the Whigs are tired of standing at the rack without fodder.' [A voice in the crowd, 'Oh, go along,' and laughter.] One who used (as I well remember) to denounce corruption and the spoils very sweepingly, is now actually maintaining that the Whigs will not and can not go upon principle any longer and adhere to conservatism, because they are tired of waiting for office.

"And, sir, before George Washington was born, before Lafayette wielded the sword, or Charles Carroll the pen of his country, six hundred and forty years ago, on the 16th of June, 1214, there was another scene enacted on the face of the globe, when the general charter of all charters of freedom was gained, when one man—a man called Stephen Langton-swore the barons of England, for the people, against the orders of the Pope and against the powers of the King-swore the barons on the high altar of the Catholic church at St. Edmundsbury, that they would have Magna Charta or die for it-the charter which secures to every one of you to-day the trial by jury, freedom of press, freedom of pen, the confronting of witnesses with the accused, and the opening of secret dungeons. That charter was obtained by Stephen Langton against the Pope and against the King of England, and if you Know-Nothings do not know who

« PreviousContinue »