“Gentlemen,” he said, with a certain grim emphasis on the word, “after Mr. Griffeth’s pyrotechnic display of eloquence, I cannot hope that my words will not fall with a dull sound on your ears. He has gone up like the rocket, and I must come down like the stick. I promise, however, to be brief, and to speak to the point. First, I thank him for having spoken like a gentleman, and left the subject clear enough for a gentleman to touch. On all that preceded him, I have but two comments to make. Concerning the attacks on the personal character of the Catholic clergy, I will only say, ‘Set a thief to catch a thief!’ To the misrepresentations of their creed, I would say, theologians should be better educated than to make them sincerely, and honest men should not fear to tell the truth, even of a foe.
“I come, then, to Mr. Griffeth’s argument: that these men, simply from human weakness, not from personal depravity, have always abused their power, and, being men, always will abuse it, and that, therefore, we must, in self-defence, either banish them from the country, or deny them the rights of citizenship; their doctrines all the time being perfect, or, at least, tolerable.
“I am not here to defend the character of the Catholic clergy. I know well that your deep-rooted prejudice
will not yield to any word of mine or theirs. They must live down your enmity with what patience they may; and the day will come, believe me! when the still, small voice of those lives that have been consecrated to God will silence and put to shame the blatant accusation and pseudo-patriotism which now overwhelm it. Whatever may have been proved against some, the whole world knows that that clergy has given for its admiration many a model of Christian behavior, and that among its missionaries have been, and are, men worthy to stand beside Peter, and Paul, and John—men enamored of the things of God, and dead to the attractions of earth. If it be true that you can find Judases in their company, it is equally true that apostolical laborers are not found outside of their fold. It may still be the apostolical church, though one in twelve were a Judas.
“This part of the question is, however, irrelevant. We stand here, if we are worthy to speak, for principle, and not for men. If the faults of partisans are to be used as an argument against an institution, no institution on earth can stand, and Protestantism and freedom must shake to their foundations.
“Assuming, though, that his assertion is true, and that the clergy have always been the enemies of freedom and enlightenment, though that would be strong circumstantial evidence against their future trustworthiness, still the conviction which he invokes is too grave and arbitrary for so just and enlightened a judge as our country promises to be. But I deny the truth of his premises, and, since proof is out of the question in this place, set my bare denial against his bare assertion.
“But if his assumption and conclusion were both true, if these men
were untrustworthy, and if we had therefore the right to refuse them equality, we are still bound to give that refusal, not with the howling of wild beasts, not with mobs and threatenings, but decently, and according to law, or we are ourselves unfit to be trusted with that freedom which we deny to them.
“No, I am not here to prove that the clergy of the Catholic Church are all saints, or even all good men; but I am here to say that, hate them as you may, you cannot, in these United States, under the constitution, you cannot with impunity persecute them, nor deprive them of any of the privileges which that constitution guarantees to them as rights. ‘Work in secret,’ do they? ‘Undermine,’ do they? And from whom does this accusation come? What of that society in which this movement takes its rise?—that society which now dominates the land, stirring up riots from Maine to Louisiana, making laws and changing laws, and setting the off-scouring of the earth in our high places? What of those lodges where men assemble to concert measures for governing the country, yet where no citizen can enter without the pass-word and oath of secrecy? Josiah Quincy, Senior, of Boston, a man whose name carries as much weight as any name here in this hall, has said of these same societies, ‘The liberties of a people are never more certain in the path of destruction than when they trust themselves to the guidance of secret societies. Birds of the night are never birds of wisdom.... They are for the most part birds of prey. The fate of a republic is sealed when the bats take the lead of the eagles.’ Our atmosphere is black with these same bats!
“To Mr. Griffeth’s parting anathema, I respond, ay and amen! Palsied be the hand that would quench one