If anything was ever open, fair, and free—if anything was ever blatant even—it was the Reformation. To quote from a mighty British pen: “It gave a mighty impulse and increased activity to thought and inquiry, agitated the inert mass of accumulated prejudices throughout Europe. The effect of the concussion was general, but the shock was greatest in this country” (England). It toppled down the full grown intolerable abuses of centuries at a blow; heaved the ground from under the feet of bigoted faith and slavish obedience; and the roar and dashing of opinions, loosened from their accustomed hold, might be heard like the noise of an angry sea, and has never yet subsided. Germany first broke the spell of misbegotten fear, and gave the watchword; but England joined the shout, and echoed it back, with her island voice, from her thousand cliffs and craggy shores, in a longer and louder strain. With that cry the genius of Great Britain rose, and threw down the gauntlet to the nations. There was a mighty fermentation: the waters were out; public opinion was in a state of projection; liberty was held out to all to think and speak the truth; men’s brains were busy; their spirits stirring; their hearts full; and their hands not idle. Their eyes were opened to expect the greatest things, and their ears burned with curiosity and zeal to know the truth, that the truth might make them free. The death-blow which had been struck at scarlet vice and bloated hypocrisy, loosened tongues, and made the talismans and love tokens of popish superstitions with which she had beguiled her followers and committed abominations with the people, fall harmless from their necks.
The translation of the Bible was the chief engine in the great work. It threw open, by a secret spring, the rich treasures of religion and morality, which had then been locked up as in a shrine. It revealed the visions of the Prophets, and conveyed the lessons of inspired teachers to the meanest of the people. It gave them a common interest in a common cause. Their hearts burnt within them as they read. It gave a mind to the people, by giving them common subjects of thought and feeling. It cemented their Union of character and sentiment; it created endless diversity and collision of opinion. They found objects to employ their faculties, and a motive in the magnitude of the consequences attached to them, to exert the utmost eagerness in the pursuit of truth, and the most daring intrepidity in maintaining it. Religious controversy sharpens the understanding by the subtlety and remoteness of the topics it discusses, and braces the will by their infinite importance. We perceive in the history of this period a nervous, masculine intellect. No levity, no feebleness, no indifference; or, if there were, it is a relaxation from the intense activity which gives a tone to its general character. But there is a gravity approaching to piety, a seriousness of impression, a conscientious severity of argument, an habitual fervor of enthusiasm in their method of handling almost every subject. The debates of the schoolmen were sharp and subtle enough: but they wanted interest and grandeur, and were besides confined to a few. They did not affect the general mass of the community. But the Bible was thrown open to all ranks and conditions “to own and read,” with its wonderful table of contents, from Genesis to the Revelation. Every village in England would present the scene so well described in Burns’s “Cotter’s Saturday Night.” How unlike this agitation, this shock, this angry sea, this fermentation, this shout and its echoes, this impulse and activity, this concussion, this general effect, this blow, this earthquake, this roar and dashing, this longer and louder strain, this public opinion, this liberty to all to think and speak the truth, this stirring of spirits, this opening of eyes, this zeal to know—not nothing—but the truth, that the truth might make them free. How unlike to this is Know-Nothingism, sitting and brooding in secret to proscribe Catholics and naturalized citizens! Protestantism protested against secrecy, it protested against shutting out the light of truth, it protested against proscription, bigotry, and intolerance. It loosened all tongues, and fought the owls and bats of night with the light of meridian day. The argument of Know-Nothings is the argument of silence. The order ignores all knowledge. And its proscription can’t arrest itself within the limit of excluding Catholics and naturalized citizens. It must proscribe natives and Protestants both, who will not consent to unite in proscribing Catholics and naturalized citizens. Nor is that all; it must not only apply to birth and religion, it must necessarily extend itself to the business of life as well as to political preferments.
Kenneth Raynor, of North Carolina, on Fusion of Fremont and Fillmore Forces.
Extracts from his Speech at Philadelphia, November 1, 1856.
My brother Americans, do you intend to let these mischief-makers put you and me together by the ears? [Many voices; “no, no.”] Then let us beat James Buchanan for the Presidency. [“We will—we will,” and great applause.] He is the representative of slavery agitation; he is the representative of discord between sections; he is the man whom Northern and Southern agitators have agreed to present as their candidate. If he be elected now, and the difficulties in Kansas be healed, at the end of four years they will spring upon you another question of slavery agitation. It will be the taking of Cuba from Spain, or cutting off another slice from Mexico for the purpose of embroiling the North against the South; and then, if I shall resist that agitation, I shall be called an Abolitionist, again.
My countrymen, God forbid that I should attempt to dictate to you or even advise you. I am not competent to do so. I know that divisions exist among you, while I feel also confident that the same purpose animates all your hearts. Do not suppose for one moment that I am the representative of any clique or faction.
Unfortunately, I find that our friends here are in the same condition in which the Jews were, when besieged by the Roman general, Titus. Whilst the battering-rams of the Romans were beating down their walls, and the firebrand of the heathen was consuming their temple, the historian tells us that that great people were engaged in intestine commotions, some advocating the claims of one, and some of another, to the high priesthood of that nation; and instead of the Romans devouring them, they devoured each other. God forbid that my brother Americans should devour each other, at a time when every heart and every hand should be enlisted in the same cause, of overthrowing the common enemy of us all.
Who is that common enemy? [Voices, “The Democratic party.”] Yes, that party have reviled us, abused us, persecuted us, and all only because we are determined to adhere to the Constitution of our country. Give Buchanan a lease of power for four years, and we must toil through persecution, submit to degradation, or cause the streets of our cities to run blood. But we will submit to degradation provided we can see the end of our troubles. We are willing to go through a pilgrimage, not only of four years, but of ten, or twenty, or forty years, provided we can have an assurance that at last we shall reach the top of Pisgah, and see the promised land which our children are to inherit. God has not given to us poor frail mortals the power, at all times, of controlling events. When we cannot control events, should we not, where no sacrifice of honor is involved, pursue the policy of Lysander, and where the lion’s skin is too short, eke it out with the fox’s [applause]—not where principle is involved—not where a surrender of our devotion to our country is at stake. No; never, never!
I know nothing of your straight-out ticket; I know nothing of your Union ticket; I know nothing of Fremont. I do know something of Fillmore; but I would not give my Americanism, and the hopes which I cherish of seeing Americanism installed as the policy of this nation, for all the Fillmores, or Fremonts, or Buchanans, that ever lived on the face of the earth.