But it will be said that Protestants have been guilty of persecution as well as Catholics. This assertion is unquestionably true. We confess, with regret, that Protestantism, although she admits the right of private judgment, has proved a foe to civil and religious liberty, But unlike Catholicism, she has made concessions; reluctantly, indeed, but still she has made them. Guizot confesses that her practice has necessarily been inconsistent with her profession of toleration. She, however, claims not, like Catholicism, to be the source and supreme controller of all political power; nor to be the sole disposer of crowns and kingdoms; nor has she elaborated a policy, adopted a systematic course of measures, and organized a clerical force for the acquisition of supreme and universal temporal and spiritual dominion. She has no central head, with spies penetrating all domestic and national secrets, and communicating to it the information they have acquired. She has no political-machinery ramifying every part of Christendom, and acting in concert for the promotion of her interests. She has no convents, nor nunneries; nor monastic vows; no father confessors; no religious confessional; no religious orders, no military knights; and no spiritual guides. She imposes no oaths of allegiance on her priests, requiring them to adopt every available method of subjugating all government under her authority. She has no inquisition, no rack and torture for her opponents; no pretensions to absolve subjects from their oaths of allegiance; no interdicts to alarm superstitious minds by the suspension of religious worship in disaffected kingdoms. She has never interfered between rulers and their subjects, concocting treason, fomenting sedition, and producing anarchy. She has never organized armies for the extension of her dominion, and for the subjugation of kingdoms to her authority. She has never butchered whole cities for unbelief, nor in one day put one hundred thousand heretics to death. She has done none of these things, yet her hands are not unstained with innocent blood. Would they were. Henry VIII., of England, persecuted with equal severity those who believed in the pope's right to temporal power, and those who disbelieved the other dogmas of Catholicism. The Church of England, under Charles I., inflicted the most atrocious punishment on the Irish Catholics; under James I., on the Puritans; and under Elizabeth, it oppressed both Catholics and dissenters with tyrannical measures, and illiberal disabilities. The Puritan Cromwell persecuted both Catholics and Episcopalians. In Ireland he wasted the Catholics with fire and sword; in Scotland he put whole garrisons of dissenters to death; and as his schemes for obtaining the royal dignity suggested, persecuted Covenanters, Republicans, and Puritans. When Charles II. was elevated to the throne he deprived 2000 dissenting clergymen of their livings; and by his five-mile act prohibited them from approaching within five miles of their former parishes. But the rigor of Protestantism eventually relaxed its severity. Under William III. some of the disabilities which oppressed the dissenters were removed; and under that of George III. additional toleration was accorded. Still it must be admitted that the ablest agents in extorting these concessions to religious liberty were the Free Thinkers of that age. Yet the Quakers, always the most respectable body of citizens, and the professors of the most harmless of all creeds, were still punished with fines, confiscation, imprisonment and death. All who disbelieved in the holy trinity were also subject to similar persecutions. Not until 1813 did Protestant England cease to punish a belief in Unitarianism with imprisonment, and legal disabilities. John Calvin, at the head of the Consistory of Geneva, had John Guet beheaded on a charge of attempting to overthrow the doctrines of the Calvinistic church; and Micheal Servetus arrested and burnt alive for having attacked the doctrine of the holy trinity. Even in republic America, under the elevating influence of liberal institutions, the intolerant spirit of religious bigotry predominates more or less over the mind of the Christian republic. In Massachusetts Baptists and Quakers were once fined, imprisoned, and burnt alive. In Virginia all Quakers that disbelieved in the holy trinity, and all persons that refused to have their children baptized were scourged, confined, banished or put to death. In Pennsylvania, under the charter of William Penn, all Atheists were excluded from official position. In Maryland disbelief in the holy trinity was declared to be a capital offence; and not until recently was any person, who professed not to believe in Christianity, unless a Jew, eligible to any office of trust or profit in the State; nor even to this day is any person eligible who disbelieves in a God. The statute books of every Protestant country bear testimony to the same illiberality. Humboldt, Cuviert Buffon, La Place, Gibbon, Voltaire, Hume, Jefferson, and other eminent scholars and patriots would, by the provisions of almost every State constitution in the Union, be debarred from filling the lowest office that they create. In fact the history of no religious sectary indicates it to be a bond of love, union, or concord. Every Protestant creed, sectary or conclave, is a perpetual source of mutual jealousy, animosity and persecution, The same intolerant spirit breathes its malignancy over the pages of the religious press. "If we are not Christians," says the Church Union, "let us make no hypocritical pretensions of founding governments on Christian principles. If we are, I believe that they should predominate over our whole life; let us have them incorporated in the basis of our government, and the national policy shaped by them. Let no one hold an office of trust or profit whose life is not conformably thereto." These holy ravings remind us of an attempt once made by the Puritans to incorporate the Bible into the British constitution. "The wrestlers with God," as they called themselves were, deliberating upon a motion to repeal the laws of England, and substitute in their place the laws of Moses and the prophets. But Cromwell averted the calamity by a peremptory dissolution of parliament, and a command to "the wrestlers" to go home; nor did he think it prudent to call them together again. The religious politics of the Methodist Home Journal are similar in tone with that of the Church Union. This infuriated orthodox theologian says: "They that deny the doctrines of Christianity, ignore the basis on which our government is founded. Can they be regarded as citizens? Ought any man who holds to this position be admitted to—or permitted to hold Christian citizenship under this government? We hold that to be consistent with ourselves. Infidelity should not be tolerated in our country, much less encouraged by those who openly profess and teach its doctrines." These assertions are the evident irrepressible ebullitions of innate treason to the republic. They ignore the basis on which our government is founded, and, according to the logic of this fanatic the sect that holds them ought not to be regarded as citizens, nor permitted to hold Christian citizenship under this government. But the knife with which this mad-man would cut his own throat Infidelity would wrest from him. The sacred basis of our government is equal political and religious rights. Had Methodism been chosen as the basis of our government, would a republic have been thought of? Never! Did not John Wesley, its founder and spirit, oppose the American revolution? Did he not write against it, preach against if, and labor publicly and privately to arrest its progress? Was there a man in England that inflicted deeper injury on the American cause? While English Infidels aided the struggle for independence with their pens, money and valor,—while English statesmen blushed at the barbarous conduct of their government,—this bigoted priest, a fugitive of justice from the State of North Carolina, defended it without shame or compunction. Even at this day Protestant priests have dared to assert that Infidels have no rights which they are bound to respect; but such miscreants have no rights, (for they surrender them by their assertions,) which any person is bound to respect. Such self-accursed, self-outlawed bigots, in conjunction with unprincipled demagogues and political aspiring judges, are to-day laboring to incorporate in the national constitution the fanaticism of the Church Union and of the Methodist Home Journal. When their holy treason shall have become a success, liberty will forsake her desecrated abode; despotism will occupy her temple; and, we fondly hope that, in the course of coming events the fanatics will not discover that they have legalized their own extermination. Had Constantine the Great, though frenzied with ambition and crimsoned with guilt, beheld the boundless ocean of gore which was destined to flow from an incorporation of Christianity with the civil power, and to roll its heavy surge over all future time, he would have been more obdurate than a fiend had he not cowled his head in horror at the frightful vision, and dropped in mercy the pen already inked to inaugurate the tremendous catastrophe. Yet how sickening is the thought that the example of this ambitious tyrant, loaded with the curses of ages, is now attempted to be imitated by Protestant priests, political judges, and United States officials. But thanks to nature, the play of the natural principles of liberty in the minds of some priests, have been too strong to be repressed by dogmatic creeds. Gloriously inconsistent with their principles, they have inscribed their names in imperishable honor on the scroll of liberty. Thankful for the few names blazoned there, freedom must drop a tear over the smallness of the number.
It will be asked, perhaps, notwithstanding the facts which have been adduced showing the political nature and designs of the Catholic church, what has the American republic to apprehend from it? It will be asked, Did not Catholics fight for the establishment of a free government in the revolutionary war? Did they not fight to defend it in the war of 1812? Did they not fight to preserve its unity in the late rebellion? No well informed person will answer these questions in the negative; and no candid person will fail to acknowledge the distinguished valor and liberality which they displayed on these occasions. Catholics are men; and the love of liberty is a natural principle of the human constitution. Ignorance may blind it; prejudice mislead it; and superstition overawe it; but when the natural vigor of its disposition is aroused it will assert its rights in defiance of creeds, shackles and stakes. It is not the nature, but the education of Catholics, and the religious despotism with which they are enthralled, that has so often deprived freedom of their homage and allegiance. The frequent opposition of Catholic princes to the policy and measures of the popes, the numerous leagues which they have formed, and the vast armies which they have raised in their support, abundantly show how often their reverence for the pope has been displaced by defiance to his authority, and contempt for his pretensions. The liberal minded people of France have, from an early date, boldly opposed the pope's claim to temporal power. St. Louis IX., in 1269, declared in a pragmatic sanction, that the temporal power of France was independent of the jurisdiction of Rome. Charles VIII., of France, in a pragmatic sanction issued in 1433, asserted for France, in conformity with the canons of the Council of Basle, independence of Rome in all temporal matters. Louis XIV., in 1682 convened a national council of the clergy at Paris, which decided that the Pope of Rome had no power to interfere, directly or indirectly, in the temporal concerns of princes and sovereigns; that the usages of the French church are inviolable; that the authority of the general councils is superior to that of the pope; and that the pope is not infallible in matters of faith. The popes, by the means of bulls, have attempted to nullify these acts, but nevertheless they form the distinctive principles of the Gallican Church, and also of other Catholic churches in different; kingdoms of Europe. The Fenian order is another happy instance of the predominance which patriotism may gain, in the minds of Catholics, over their reverence for the church and its despotism.
If Catholics have at various times chastised the pope, deprived him of temporal authority, assaulted his person, imprisoned and deposed him, it is not surprising that they fought in the defence of the independence and freedom of America, No one that has an adequate conception of the papal policy, will be much astonished that the Catholics were prominent leaders in the revolutionary war. It was a cause in which the pope himself, in perfect consistency with his pretensions, might have personally engaged. The pope claims England as his fief, and denounces her kings as usurpers. The success of a revolt intended to deprive England of her colonies was as gratifying to his revenge as it was flattering to his ulterior designs on the colonies themselves. In a republic he could plant his machinery, build up at will his monastic penitentiaries, erect his strong castle-like and secret-celled churches, leisurely select and occupy eligible and strategic points for citadels, and collect from every kingdom his most faithful and reliable subjects. Bishop Hughes asserted that Catholicism was friendly to republics, for they allowed its free development. But the development of Catholicism involves the subversion of republics, and the establishment in their place of political and religious despotism.
The insincerity of any proposed attachment to the American republic by popes or priests, is attested by the very occurrence of the Southern rebellion. Had the pope and priests been opposed to it a Catholic rebel would scarcely have been known; and had not the Catholics North and South been in favor of the rebellion, it could not have taken place. That singular and unnecessary intestine collision, in which the South gained nothing but disgrace, the North nothing but depopulation and empoverishment, and at the mystery of which leading secessionists were so much puzzled that they declared it to be the effects of a general lunacy, was nevertheless in perfect harmony with the profound and masterly policy of the Roman See, which comprehends in its toils the events of ages, and from the first projection of a plot to its final consummation, shapes every intervening circumstance to the fulfilment of its grand design. The Catholics North supported the cause of the Union, and the Catholics South the cause of the rebellion with votes, money and men; the rebellion, therefore, was not contrary to the teachings of the church. The depopulation of the native element of the North, the influx of foreign Catholics, the creation of an oppressive national debt, the demoralization consequent on civil war, the engenderment of civil antipathies, and the supplanting of colored servants by white Catholic servants, were all known prospective results of the rebellion; were all in harmony with the papal designs; and to realize which the Catholics of the North, and the Catholics of the South were stimulated by their priests to meet each in deadly conflict.
But dismemberment could not possibly have been intended by the secret projectors of the rebellion. It was an impracticable idea. The geography of the country interposed to its success an insurmountable obstacle. It was also inconsistent with the papal designs. But monarchy was not an impracticable idea. It encountered no difficulty in the country's geography. It was in harmony with the policy of the Roman See. The Catholic blood which was poured out in such torrents in the civil conflicts was not intended to effect dismemberment, but to create the elements conducive to the establishment of a monarchial government. Shortly after the close of the rebellion this soil, hallowed by the blood, and consecrated by the sepulture of millions of freemen, Catholic as well as non-Catholic, was attempted to be desecrated by the establishment of presses for openly advocating that execrable treason; and it has been asserted by the leaders of the late rebellion, that the civil war is not at an end; but that it will again break out, and then the battle field will not be the South, but every State, city and village in the Union. Perhaps they mean to intimate that it will be a repetition of the massacre on St. Bartholomew's eve.
To those who fondly dream that the republic of America has nothing to fear from the pretensions of the Pope of Rome, and his loyal subjects, we submit the following extracts:
"Heresy (Protestantism) and Infidelity have not, and never had, and never can have any right, being, as they undoubtedly are, contrary to the law of God."—Bronson's Rev., Jan., 1852.
"Heresy (Protestantism) and unbelief are crimes, and in Christian countries, as in Italy and Spain for instance, where the Catholic religion is the essential law of the land, they are punished as other crimes."—Bishop Kendrich.
"Protestantism of every form has not, and never can have any right, where Catholicism is triumphant; and therefore we lose all the breath we expend in declaiming against bigotry and intolerance, and in favor of religious liberty, or the right of any one to be of any religion, or of no religion, as best pleases him."—Catholic Rev., Jan., 1852.
"Religious liberty is merely endured until the opposite can be carried into effect without peril to the Catholic world."—Bishop O'Connor; of Pittsburg.