Both they who teach this and they who accept it as an essential part of religious faith, lack the true American spirit, whether native or foreign born—that spirit which presided over the councils of "the fathers" when they framed our Government, and which has given it strength and vigor, as well as beauty, for more than a century of time. They are manifestly prepared to see the world turned back toward the Middle Ages, when the destinies of all the civilized nations were subject to the arbitrament and will of the popes; when the State was held in subjugation by the Church; when kings were dethroned and their subjects released from the obligation of allegiance to them, in order to bring all the nations into conformity with the principles and policy of the papacy; and when the masses of mankind were regarded as mere "animals," possessing neither the capacity nor the right to govern themselves by laws of their own making. To accomplish these results they insist that there shall be absolute "unity of faith," and that everything which stands in the way of this is heresy and must be destroyed. In order to this they claim, as a dogma of faith, that the popes shall have free and uninterrupted access, through their hierarchy, to every nation and people in the world, so that heretical Governments may be destroyed and heretical people brought under papal dominion. Herein they indicate a desire to see revived in the United States the discord, strifes, and wars which scattered ruin and desolation over the fairest portions of Europe, which constrained France not to permit the bull "Unam Sanctam" to be published within her borders; Spain to modify it, and the leading nations—especially those acknowledged to be Roman Catholic—to eliminate from all papal bulls such features as threatened encroachments upon their rights and independence.
The Protestant people of the United States can not imitate these latter examples by resorting to harsh and severe measures of defense and protection. The civil and religious freedom they have established, as the foundation of their institutions, must remain universal. No man's conscience must be restrained, and no man's just rights invaded or diminished. Freedom of thought, of speech, and of the press, must remain the chief corner-stone upon which the national edifice shall rest. But in order to perpetuate these great rights, so essential to each and every citizen of the Republic, our common-school system, as now prevailing, must be sheltered and protected from Jesuit assault. We should even go further, and heed the counsel of Madison—one of our wisest and best Presidents—when, in one of his messages to Congress, he invited attention "to the advantages of superadding to the means of education provided by the several States a seminary of learning, instituted by the National Legislature," whereby the feelings, opinions, and sentiments of youth may be assimilated, and thus constitute a wall of security against foreign influences which can never be removed. And whether this shall be accomplished or not, duty to both the present and the future requires us to remember what the great Pope Clement XIV said in his bull suppressing the Jesuits by absolute extinction "forever," that "care be taken that they have no part in the government or direction of the same"—that is, the schools—because "the faculty of teaching youth shall neither be granted nor preserved but to those who seem inclined to maintain peace in the schools and tranquillity in the world." He knew the Jesuits far better than it is possible for us in this country ever to know them; and whether his act suppressing them was or was not one of infallibility, it constitutes a lesson of history which ought not to be forgotten. And while, in our treatment of them, we can do nothing at war with the liberal and tolerant spirit of our institutions, or unbecoming to ourselves, we should remember that
"Thrice is he armed that hath his quarrel just;
And he but naked, though locked up in steel,
Whose conscience with injustice is corrupted."
FOOTNOTES:
[282] The Council of the Vatican. By Thomas Canon Pope. Boston Ed., pp. 270-271.
[283] Vatican Decrees. By Gladstone. Page 159.
[284] De Montor, Vol. I, p. 476.
[285] Ibid., pp. 477-478.
[286] The Power of the Pope During the Middle Ages. By M. Gosselin. Vol. II, pp. 233-34.
[287] De Montor, Vol. I, p. 476.