The right of suffrage bestows special prerogatives upon its possessors. It superadds legislative and magisterial functions to the obligations of private obedience; it communicates grace and dignity to the manly character, imposes definite and heavy responsibilities upon each individual, requires the humblest citizen to participate in the dignity of the highest offices, and holds the most exalted personages to a distinct accountability to the people. It permits every Catholic to share actively in the plans, policy, and beneficent enterprises of the church, and enables him in some sense to take part in the divine government of the universe, physical and moral.
It is a specific and precious gift bestowed on Catholics in this age and country, and we are compelled to stand in the full blaze of the light of the nineteenth century, which is rolling out its illuminated scroll before our dazzled eyes and almost bewildered understandings, charged with the manifold blessings or curses which must flow from the use or abuse of this momentous, one might almost say holy and hierarchical function.
An offer and promise are as distinctly made to the Catholics of this age as they were to the chosen people when released from the Egyptian bondage. A land of promise, a land flowing with milk and honey, is spread out before them, and offered for their acceptance.
The means placed at their disposal for securing this rich possession are not the sword, or wars of extermination waged against the enemies of their religion, but instead, the mild and peaceful influence of the ballot, directed by instructed Catholic conscience and enlightened Catholic intelligence.
A careful consideration of this subject is particularly important at the present epoch and century.
The nineteenth century is interesting to us because it is ours; because it is the expression and exponent of much that has been dark and obscure in the past, because it is the most fruitful and bountiful in material resources and advantages of any of which we possess authentic knowledge, because it shines glorious amidst the centuries by its own intrinsic light, and by the light derived from modern discoveries, investigations, and interpretations thrown back upon the past, and by it reflected in turn upon the present. It is especially important to us as Catholics, inasmuch as it seems to be a critical era in the religious history of the human race, and to have been selected by Providence as a new point of departure in many important particulars of his dealings with mankind.
The radical questions of the relations between the supernatural and the natural, faith and reason, Rome and the world, justice and injustice; between the material and transitory, and the immaterial and permanent; between that which is unchangeable in principle and those things which are progressive in action; between church and state, God and man, are sharply defined, boldly stated, pushed to their ultimate, logical, and practical extremes, and presented with all the arguments, inducements, promises, and threatenings of the most learned and eloquent advocates of the opposing causes to each individual Catholic for his election.
The issue is as distinctly placed before his mind as it was in the case of our first parents in Eden, of Europe in the religious revolution of the sixteenth century, of England in the days of Henry VIII. and his anti-Catholic successors.
It is a question of instant and pressing importance, which demands an immediate and definite answer. It must be met and answered by the Catholic of to-day, since to him are committed the obligation and business of perpetuating and regenerating society, purifying legislation, enforcing the administration of the laws, and setting an example of private and public virtue, justice, moderation, and forbearance. He has been furnished with an omnipotent weapon with which to accomplish this great work, and he is provided with an unerring guide to direct him in the administration of these important trusts. We do not hesitate to affirm that in performing our duties as citizens, electors, and public officers, we should always and under all circumstances act simply as Catholics; that we should be governed and directed by the immutable principles of our religion, and should take dogmatic faith and the conclusions drawn from it, as expressed and defined in Catholic philosophy, theology, and morality, as the only rule of our private, public, and political conduct. Those things which are condemned by Catholic justice, we should condemn; those things which are affirmed, we should affirm.
There can be no circumstance, condition, or relation in which the Catholic is left without his guide, and there is absolutely no excuse if he fail in the performance of this duty, upon which rests the future prosperity of civilized society.