seeks to interfere with the religion of no man. without any sacrifice of principle, for political It cheerfully acknowledges that that is a mat

office.

The Roman church is now, and has been for near three hundred years, divided into two great parties. One of these is known as the Gallican, or French branch, and the other as the ultramontane or Italian branch.

The latter maintain that the power of the Pope is supreme in temporal as well as spiritual things. They hold that he is lord over all kings, and potentates, and governments of the earth; that the subjects and citizens of all governments owe to him a higher allegiance than to their immediate sovereign; and that the Pope has the power to subvert republics,

ter which rests and should continue to restbetween each individual and his Creator. It recognises the freedom of religious opinion, and of religious worship, in the broadest sense of the terms. It is as tolerant of the religious sentiments of Catholics as of Protestants. It proposes to interfere no more with the religious faith and worship of the one than of the other. Individual members of the order may be disposed to go further, but I challenge the production of evidence to show that the American organization, as a party, asserts any such doctrines. Turn to the authentic exposition of the principles of the party, an- to nullify laws, and to absolve both subjects nounced at Philadelphia, and see if it gives and citizens from their allegiance to any countenance to any such idea. The only provisions in the Philadelphia platform which bear on the subject of Catholicism in any form, are the following, viz., (the 5th).

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

And the 10th, which is in these words :Opposition to any union between church and state; no interference with religious faith or worship, and no test oaths for office.

It cannot be pretended that either of these, indicate any disposition to interfere with the freedom of conscience, or to persecute Catholics on account of their faith or worship. On the contrary, the doctrine emphatically proclaimed in the 10th section above quoted, "no interference with religious faith," "no union between church and state," and "no test oaths for office."

And yet, in the face of these solemn declarations of the creed of the party, our enemies persist in charging us with intolerance and persecution for opinion's sake.

This leads us to inquire why, and in what respects, there is any antagonism between the American party and the Roman Catholics?

That there is a controversy between the Americans and the ultramontane branch of the Roman church, will not be denied. But that controversy is not of a religious character, but purely political. It has nothing to do with the faith or worship of the members of that division of the church, but relates entirely to certain political opinions, avowed by them, in regard to questions, not of an ecclesiastical character, but, affecting the policy of the state.

sovereign or republic which may incur his displeasure.

The Gallican branch of the church recognise the supremacy of the Pope in all ecclesiastical matters, but utterly repudiate it in all temporal or political affairs.

Great misconception has arisen in the minds of men, from not understanding the difference between the two branches of the Roman church. And our adversaries, with a cunning worthy of Jesuits, have studiously endeavored to keep this important division in the back ground; whenever an American endeavors to show the danger of the ultramontane doctrine, and its irreconcilable antagonism to the principles of our Constitution, they deny that the Roman church entertains any such doctrines, and quote largely from members of the Gallican branch to prove their proposition!

Begging my readers not to lose sight of this marked distinction between the two branches of the church, I will now endeavor to exhibit, from the highest authority, the present position of parties on this most important question.

Politicians are not generally very well informed on questions of an ecclesiastical character, and they may, therefore, be very naturally led into error, by not understanding matters of detail.

A striking illustration of this fact was exhibited, but a little more than a year ago, in the Congress of the United States. In the course of a debate in that body, some allusion was made to the claims of the Pope to supremacy in temporal affairs. This at once drew from Mr. Chandler, himself a member of the Gallican branch of the church, an eloquent reply, in which he utterly disclaimed and denied any such assumption on the part of the Pope. The members of Congress not being profoundly versed in Catholic lore, were at

With the Gallican branch of the Roman once silenced, and the speech went to the church, which professes the same religious country as a conclusive answer to the unjust faith, and practises the same forms of worship, charge against the church. But unfortunately with the ultramontane branch-but which for Mr. Chandler, neither Protestants nor the repudiates the obnoxious political opinions- members of the ultramontane branch of his the American party have no controversy church were disposed to rest quietly under whatever. They can cordially extend to them his exposition of the doctrines of the church. the embrace of brotherhood, and sustain them, ❘ The press, both in this country and Europe,

teemed with articles denunciatory of the speech of Mr. Chandler as insincere, or founded in ignorance or cowardice.

Professor McClintock was among the first to correct the error. He said, "if Mr. Chandler had been well informed on the subject, he would have told his auditors there are two parties in the Catholic church on this question: one (the ultramontane party) affirming, and the other (the Gallican party) denying that the Pope, by reason of the spiritual power, has also a supreme power, at least indirectly, in temporal matters."

thority by virtue of his commission from Jesus Christ, as the successor of Peter, the prince of the apostles, and visible head of the church. Any defence of them on a lower ground must, in our judgment, fail to meet the real points in the case, and is rather an evasion than a fair, honest, direct, and satisfactory reply. To defend their power as an extraordinary power, or as an accident in church history, growing out of the peculiar circumstances, civil constitution, and laws of the times, now passed away, perhaps for ever, may be regarded as less likely to displease

He then proceeds to state the relative non-Catholics, and to offend the sensibilities

strength of the two powers, and shows that the ultramontane is largely in the ascendancy, and that the Gallican party is a mere faction, which is rather tolerated than cherished by the church. Indeed, Gallicanism is stigmatized as the "half-way house to Protestantism."

Professor McClintock then says:

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"It remains for me briefly to set forth the

of power, than to defend it on the ground of divine right, and as inherent in the divine constitution of the church; but even on the low ground of policy, we do not think it the wisest in the long run. Say what we will, we can gain little credit with those we would conciliate. Always to their minds will the temporal power of the Pope, by divine right, loom up in the distance, and always will they believe, however individual Catholics here and there may deny it, or nominal Catholic governments oppose it, that it is the real Roman Catholic doctrine, to be re-asserted and acted the moment that circumstances render it prudent or expedient. We gain nothing with them but doubts of sincerity, and we only weaken among ourselves that warm and generous devotion to the Holy Father, which is due from every one of the faithful, and which is so essential to the prosperity of the Church, in her increasing struggles with the godless powers of this world.'-Brownson's Review, Jan. 1854."

present state of Roman Catholic opinion. The ultramontane doctrine is held, 1st, by the Pope; 2, by all the cardinals, without exception; 3, by all, or nearly all, the Italian bishops; 4, by a majority of the bishops of Germany, Spain, and Portugal; 5, by about two-thirds of the French bishops. Among the religious orders it is held, -1, by the Jesuits without exception, as no man can be admitted to the order who denies it; 2, by a majority of the members of the other (sixty or more) religious orders, which vie with each other in devotion to the Pope, each of them having a general at Rome. As for the CathoThe Dublin Tablet, a Catholic publication lic journals,-1, the Civito Catolica at Rome of high authority, is equally emphatic in its condemnation of Mr. Chandler's speech. The writer, after arguing to prove the power of the Pope to depose sinful sovereigns, says:"Mr. Chandler goes a great deal furtherwe are sorry to refer to him so often-and trenches on the real spiritual power, which he is so anxious to guard inviolate. His words are these: 'I deny to the Bishop of Rome the right resulting from his divine office, to interfere in the relations between subjects and their sovereigns citizens and their governments.'

was established for the very purpose of maintaining this theory, and does maintain it most effectually; 2, the Historisch Politische Blatter, the most eminent Papal journal in Germany, is strongly ultramontane; 3, the Univers, of Paris, is more ultramontane than Bellarmine; 4, the Belgian papers, I think, without exception, are on that side; and 5, Brownson's Review, in this country, is what I have shown you above.

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"I have now done all that I promised to do in the beginning. May I not hope that, after reading this letter, you will rise in your place in Congress, at the first convenient opportunity, and restate your theory of the church? Does not your reputation as a scholar and a gentleman need such a vindication as you can only make by 'defining your position' anew?

"It is impossible that he can mean what these words imply. The Pope is at this moment interfering in Piedmont, defending one class of citizens there against the government -and yet, in the House of Representatives, a Christian denies the right! Governments may and do prohibit good works, and the Pope in

If you do not do this, my confidence in your terferes. They also encourage and commit candor and ingenuousness will have been evil-the Pope interferes, and good Christians sadly misplaced. If you do, I beg you to prefer the Pope's authority to that of the read in the course of your speech, the follow-state. The godless colleges in Ireland, the ing truthful passage from the coryphæus of hierarchy in England, the trouble in PiedRoman Catholic editors in America:

"There is, in our judgment, but one valid defence of the Popes, in their exercise of temporal authority in the middle ages over sovereigns, and that is, that they possess it by divine right, or that the Pope holds that au

mont-all bear witness together against this unchristian opinion which must have escaped from the speaker, who did not ponder his words."

The closing paragraph of the article in the Tablet is in these words

:

"Whenever the occasion occurred, she asserted her power, not in empty words only, but in deeds, to judge sovereigns, kings, and Cæsars, to bestow or to take away crowns, to depose ungodly rulers, and to absolve their subjects from their oaths of allegiance."

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

Ah! but (say our adversaries) this recognition of the temporal power of the Pope is a part of the Catholic religion, and therefore you are interfering with their religious freedom! So, it may be said, polygamy is a part of the religious faith of the Mormons, and abolition is an element in the creed of Theo- to her, either in spirituals or in temporals

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ecclesiastical independence. The church alone, under God, is independent, and she defies both your powers and her own."

"They have heard it said from their youth up, that the church has nothing to do with

politics, that she has received no mission in As early as 1844, the Catholics, as a body, regard to the political order.

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

In the samenumber, page No. 301, he says:"She (the church) has the right to judge who has or who has not, according to the law of God, the right to reign-whether the prince has, by his infidelity, his misdeeds, his tyranny and oppression, forfeited his trust and lost his right to the allegiance of his subjects, and therefore whether they are still held to their allegiances, or are released from it by the law of God. If she have the right to judge, she has the right to pro pronounce judgment, and order its execution: therefore, to pronounce sentence of deposition upon the prince, who has forfeited his right to reign, and to declare his subjects absolved from the allegiance to him, and free to elect themselves a new sovereign."

I might multiply authorities on this point, almost indefinitely, but it would seem to be unnecessary. Those who are disposed to pursue this subject, will find it ably treated in the speeches of Hon. Erastus Brooks, delivered last year, in the Senate of New York.

Can any man, who cherishes republican principles, tolerate sentiments like these? Is it not obvious that they are diametrically op

took their stand in the political arena. The illustrious Henry Clay and the virtuous and pious Theodore Frelinghuysen, were the nominees of the Whig party for the Presidency and Vice Presidency. I am not aware that there was any particular hostility entertained towards Mr. Clay, for at that time he was not a member of any church. But, Mr. Frelinghuysen was a member of the Presbyterian church, and what is more, he was the President of the Board of Foreign Missions!

This fact at once drew, not only upon him, but upon his distinguished associate, Mr. Clay, the bitter animosity of the Catholic press, and of the Catholic sect.

Brownson, in his number for July, 1844in the heat of the contest, thus assailed Mr. Clay:

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

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It will be seen that the denunciations of Mr. Clay are all vague and declamatory. No special objection is taken to him, and it is obvious that the opposition was not so much to him as through him to Mr. Frelinghuysen. The Boston Pilot, another Catholic organ, discloses the plot in its number of 31st October, 1844-about five days before the election! Here is what it said: "We say to all men in the United States, entitled to be naturalized, become citizens while you can let nothing delay you for an hour-let no hindrance, short of mortal disease, banish you from the ballot-box. To those who are citizens, we say, vote your principles, whatever they may be-never desert them-do not be wheedled

posed to the cardinal doctrine which lies at or terrified-but vote quietly, seriously, and the basis of all free institutions-viz.: the unobtrusively. Leave to others the noisy warsovereignty of the people? According to that fare of words. Let your opinions be proved by authoritative doctrine of Mr. Brownson, en- your deliberate and determined action. We dorsed by his church, -all power is in the recommend to you no party; we condemn no Pope. He is the supreme judge. If oppressed candidate but one, and he is Theodore Frethe people must look to him for redress. They linghuysen. We have nothing to say to him have no inherent and inalienable rights and as a Whig-we have nothing to say to Mr. the doctrines of the Declaration of Independ- Clay, or any other Whig, as such but to the

ence are all dangerous falsehoods!

President of the American Board of Foreign Missions, the friend and patron of the Kirks and Cones, we have much to say. We hate his intolerance-we dislike his associates-and we shudder at the blackness and bitterness

But let us now come to the more immediate purpose of this number, which is to show the aggressive spirit of the ultramontane Catholics their hostility to freedom of religiontheir intolerance of Protestantism-their in- of that school of sectarians, to which he beterference in politics, and their determination, longs, and amongst whom he is regarded as an if possible, to bring this country under the authority." dominion of Rome.

Presbyterians! Do you hear that! And do you think that Americans are warring on civil as he had taken pains to conciliate it by apand religious freedom, when they seek to re- pointing one of its members to a position in buke sentiments of this character!

his cabinet. But the moment a controversy

Appeals like these had their effect. The arose between the United States and Catholice

Catholics were rallied to the polls, and decided the election.

On the 9th November, 1844, Mr. Frelinghuysen wrote to Mr. Clay as follows: "More than 3000, it is confidently said, have been naturalized in this city (New York) alone since the 1st of October. - It is an alarming fact that this foreign vote has decided the great questions of American policy, and contracted a nation's gratitude."

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

Here we have a candid declaration, from the accredited organ of the church, that thenceforth Catholicism is to be made an element in the party contests of the country. Catholic politics are to be taught by the press, and Catholic votes are to be employed to make the country "thoroughly Catholic."

True to his professions, and keeping his eye single to Catholic interests, we find Brownson alternately denouncing both the great parties of the country, and vilifying without measure their leading men.

Gen. Cass having made a speech in the Senate in favor of free worship and the rights of conscience for Americans abroad, Brownson, after commiserating his "confusion of ideas" and "drivelling," said in his number for October, 1852 :

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

When Mr. Fillmore's administration closed, it was thus noticed by the "Freeman's Journal," the organ of Archbishop Hughes the provocation being a letter written by Mr. Everett, asking the Grand Duke of Tuscany to release Medais from imprisonment :

"It does not escape the independent judgment of the universe, that the administration, now happily defunct, has been as bigoted as it has been imbecile. The universe congratulates the country upon having elected a statesman for President, and for permitting the Unitarian ex-preacher, late Secretary of State, to return to his pulpit, to proclaim that Jesus is not God, and Mr. Fillmore himself to become a village lawyer."

From this it would seem that Gen. Pierce was a special favorite of the Catholic Church,

Austria, in regard to Kosta's case, we find Brownson, with the instincts of a Jesuit, making his religion paramount to his civil obligations, and taking sides against his own country. In his number for January, 1854, after reviewing the case, he says: "The secret of the whole transaction is not difficult to divine. It was to get up, if possible, a war with Austria, in accordance with the plans and ardent wishes of Ludwig Kossuth. For this purpose, we doubt not, Kosta returned, or was ordered by Kossuth to return to Turkey, and very possibly with the knowledge and approbation of our jacobinical government!"

Thus we see no political attachments-no gratitude for past favors, can bind this "Corypheus of Catholic editors," when the interests of his sect are in anywise involved! Catho licism is the all-absorbing idea!

Thus, in his October number, 1852, Brownson says: "The sorriest sight to us, is a Catholic throwing up his cap and shouting 'all hail Democracy!"" This, too, at the very time that he was supporting the Democratie party in the Presidential contest! He would sooner have heard the cry, 'All hail Catholieism!' and he was only using Democracy as an instrument to advance his primary wish!

These passages are sufficient to show that the Catholic press and Catholic church have avowed their purpose to enter the political arena, and to make their religion an element in the future party contests of the country.

Hear, too, how the "Freeman's Journal" invokes the Catholic Irish in this country to bear themselves :

"Irishmen learn in America to bide their time. Year by year the United States and England touch each other more and more nearly on the seas. Year by year the Irish are becoming more powerful in America. At length the propitious time will come; some accidental, sudden collision, and a Presidential campaign at hand. We will use the very profligacy of our politicians for our purposes! They will want to buy the Irish vote, and we will tell them how they can buy it in a lump, from Maine to California, by declaring war on Great Britain, and wiping off at the same time the stains of concessions and dishonor that our Websters, and men of his kind, have permitted to be heaped upon the American flag by the violence of British agents."

Who can wink so hard as not to see that a religious and not a political war was in the mind of the writer-a war not to advance American interests but to promote the cause of Catholicism in Ireland, was the real object in contemplation!!

Having thus shown the purpose of the organs of the Catholic church, to become a party to the political contests of the country, with a view to the advancement of its interests, let us now see in what way the power thus