The leaders of the Catholic body, and, in due measure, the great body itself, are credited by many persons with certain views and intentions concerning the institutions, laws, and political destinies of this republic which necessarily cause them to regard the increase of our numbers and the extension of our influence in the nation with alarm. Such persons would like to know what we would really undertake to do with this republic, if we had the power to do what we pleased. We are willing to let them know precisely what our opinion about the matter is, and to use our best endeavors to explain what those principles of the Catholic Church are which must form the conviction of every one of her devoted and instructed members upon the right and just method of applying the divine law to the various conditions in which a state may exist; from that in which the church is at her lowest point of depression, to that in which she is at the summit of her influence. In our own case, as citizens of the United States, the manner in which Catholic principles require us to act, as voters, judges, legislators, with that degree of influence we now have, and in which the same [pg 616] principles would require us to act if we were equal or superior in number and influence to non-Catholics, if we were in the majority, or if we were practically the whole people, is a topic upon which we think it desirable that all should be enlightened, as well those who are members of the church as those who are aliens from her fold. Stated in an abstract form, the question is, What is the ideal Christian state when actualized in its perfection, and what is the difference between that state and the one which is the best practically in our real circumstances?
In discussing this theme we must beg the indulgence of our readers if we begin at a considerable apparent distance from the practical point we intend to come at eventually. We have to lay down some general principles about government, and to make some explanations about the American Constitution, before we can grapple with the main difficulty. In our opinion, many maxims usually taken for granted by speakers, writers, and by their blind followers, in treating of political constitutions, and specially of our own, are sheer assumptions which will not bear examination. Such are, that in general, the spiritual and temporal orders are in their nature and ought to be kept separate from each other, and are really separated in our own political constitution. Those sophistical maxims have been combated by Dr. Brownson so frequently and victoriously that we can scarcely hope to produce any new arguments or more lucid expositions to convince those whom he has not been able to satisfy. Sometimes, however, a sound from an unexpected quarter startles the attention which has remained sluggishly insensible to a louder and more continuous booming to which it has been accustomed for a long time. We trust, therefore, that the authority of a great foreign writer, who is a Protestant withal, and one of the most celebrated historians of the age, will claim some little deference from those who may refuse it to any one of ourselves. And we accordingly resort to Prof. Leo, of Halle, rather than to any Catholic author, for an exposition of the general relation of the state to the church, and of the particular form of that relationship in the United States.
In the introduction to his great work, Lehrbuch der Universalgeschichte, Leo develops with masterly force of reasoning the fundamental principle upon which his entire work is constructed, and which is, in truth, the architectonic law of the history of the human race. The history of mankind is the evolution in successive and progressive stages of the grand plan of God to conduct the human race to its prefixed supernatural end of beatitude in God through the incarnation of the Word. The organization of the various portions of the human race in distinct nations, with their laws, political institutions, and governments, is subordinated to this end, and therefore subordinated to that higher and more universal organization in which all are included, and which dominates over all—the church. The nations which have been broken off from the church which God established from the foundation of the world for all mankind, have been broken off through sin, revolt against God, defection from the movement of the human race on the line marked out by the Creator towards its end and destiny. Yet, even in this defection, they derive all their [pg 617] constitutive and organic principles and forces from their previous union with the divine society or church, and are formed by religious ideas which are merely perverted, corrupted, travestied imitations of the revealed dogmas which their forefathers had received. All true reform, restoration, renovation, and improvement must be effected by a return to unity, a reincorporation into the church, and a reflux of organic life from the centre into the chilled and deadened members.
“No religion can unfold itself among men, extend itself, or maintain its existence, without social relations existing between men themselves. Every religion presupposes a state originating together with itself or already previously formed; but it is equally true that no state is conceivable without a religion, for every state includes a system of moral conceptions, and is itself a system and manifestation of moral conceptions; and a system of moral conceptions without a religious force underlying it is something unthinkable.”
Here we have the statement of the universal principle that the religious and political orders, the spiritual and the temporal, or, otherwise, church and state, are, like soul and body, though distinct, inseparable in living, organized humanity. The author then goes on to prove the truth of his assertion by the example of our own republic, apparently the most notable exception to his rule, and an instance sufficient to disprove to most men of modern habits of thought the universality of the rule as an organic principle of society.
“In appearance, some particular religion may leave the state free to shift for itself or make itself free from it, and some particular state act in the same way toward religion; but this is only in appearance, for when, for example, the North American state proclaims that the religious confession is a matter of indifference in respect to its existence, it proceeds on the assumption that there could not be any religious confession, except such an one as should include in itself that which constitutes its own proper religious force. Just suppose that a religion like that of the Assassins or Robber sects of the East should make its appearance in North America, and you would speedily see how the entire body politic would be violently agitated by efforts to cast out this foreign religious force, and to annihilate it within its own precinct. You would see then at once that the North American state, in spite of all its contrary assurances, has its own religion, and a state religion at that, as the collision of some of the North American states with the Mormons has already amply proved. This North American religion of state only avoids assuming the name and aspect of a religion or an ecclesiastical organization, and manifests itself rather altogether in the ethical institutions of the state as they are for the time being, and consequently permits a most extraordinary variety of religious doctrines and churches to exist alongside of the state, yet only under the tacit condition that they all acknowledge that which is the religious force of the state as their own. If, therefore, the North American state proclaims that religion is an indifferent matter, it proceeds from an absurd imagination that there cannot be any religion which does not include in itself that particular religious force which its own moral subsistence has need of. In point of fact, religion and the state form one ethical whole, precisely as in individual men the soul remains an inseparable whole, although we separately consider particular faces of its exterior surface as special faculties—understanding, will, etc. Religion and state are one single ethical whole, which, although divided into distinct members, and apparently separated in these, must always be united in one germinating point and a common vital root.”[151]
A singular corroboration of the doctrine of Leo in its application to the United States is furnished by the following extract from the New York Herald. If it seem to any one singular that we [pg 618] cite the Herald on such a question, it will cease to appear so when we explain our reason for doing it. This well-known paper is remarkable for a certain tact and sagacity in divining and expressing the instinctive dictates of American common-sense upon questions which concern practical, temporal interests. We cite it, therefore, in this instance, as a proof of the fact that the public sensibility is stirred by any practical collision of a foreign and hostile religious force with the latent religious force underlying our own legislation, just as Leo says it must be. Theories and phrases are disregarded; and the mouth-piece of popular opinion strikes at once, promptly and surely, upon the very head of the nail, and drives it home. It is very singular to see, in the extract we are about to cite, how the instinct of self-interest and self-preservation evolves by a short process the same conclusion which the philosopher establishes as the result of long study and thought. Here is the extract in full, with some passages marked in italics by our own hand, to which we wish to call special attention, as containing the nucleus of the whole matter, and agreeing almost verbally with the language we have quoted from Dr. Leo:
“Brigham Young And Polygamy—Will The Prophet Take Sensible Advice?
“Judge Trumbull, United States senator from Illinois, has just had a conversation with Brigham Young in Salt Lake City, which, as reported, is of more than ordinary significance and importance. It seems that as the judge was taking leave of Young, the latter remarked that on returning to Congress he (the judge) might hear of some persons—obnoxious federal officials—being put out of the Territory, and, if done, he might be sure it would be for just and good reasons. Judge Trumbull replied by requesting Young, before he took any step of that kind, to make known his grievances to President Grant, remarking that the President was a just man, intending to do justice to all, but that he would not permit a violation of law to go unpunished, and adding that it would ‘not be safe to molest public officers in the discharge of their duties.’ The judge then asked Young if he promised obedience to the Constitution and the laws of the Union. The latter replied that he would adhere to the Union, but that there was ‘one enactment of Congress which the Mormons would not obey,’ namely, the one forbidding polygamy.
“Here, then, is the whole Mormon question in a nutshell—the positive declaration on the part of the Mormon leader that federal officers, sent to Utah, unless acceptable to himself, should be banished the Territory, and that there was at least one law of Congress he positively refuses to acknowledge or obey. Now, what is the plain duty of the national government in the face of these revolutionary averments? It is to see that the enactments of Congress are enforced without respect to persons or religions, and that the representatives of the federal government legally appointed for that purpose shall be upheld and protected, if it be necessary to employ the whole power of the nation. This Mormon matter demands decisive action on the part of the administration. President Grant has already declared his purpose of enforcing the laws impartially, even the most obnoxious, and there is no good reason why the Mormons should be exempted from the operations of this policy. The fact is, Brigham Young and his satellites have been treated with too much leniency and good-nature by the United States government ever since they settled upon the national domain, and whatever they have done for the improvement of the wilderness in which they settled they have done for their own benefit, and have reaped the rewards of their industry and frugality. Among the many other settlements that have sprung up in the great West and grown into populous cities and States since the Mormon hegira from Nauvoo, where can one be shown to have defied the United States government, and to have treated its laws and its public officials with the contempt and insolence the Mormons have? On the contrary, among the most loyal States in [pg 619]the Union, and among those which sent into the field the greatest armies during the struggle for our national existence, are States in which the earlier pioneers had to undergo as many perils, hardships, and privations in organizing their communities, in subduing the forests and the savage, and in implanting the seeds of civil and religious liberty and constitutional law, as ever the Mormons did in erecting their Salt Lake empire, and in establishing in the heart of the nation's public domain a religious organization the corner-stone of which is a dogma abhorrent to modern civilisation and in violation of all the received rules of decent social and domestic life and society. Therefore the claims of these impertinent and rebellious Mormon squatters for immunity from the operations of the general laws of the country, on account of the service they have rendered in improving a barren waste, but more properly in making fortunes for themselves out of the Gentiles and the government, are idle and ridiculous. Greater hardships and more personal sacrifices, we repeat, have been undergone by settlers in other tracts of territory, now become great and prosperous States, respecting the laws and fighting for the national flag, than ever these Mormon adventurers encountered from the time when old Joe Smith went into the tablet business, after the manner of Moses, and founded the Mormon sect, up to the moment of the conversation Brigham Young held with Senator Trumbull, as related above. They have no claims for political sympathy, for immunity from legal responsibilities, nor for hardly the consideration paid to other religious communities; for the odor of their sanctity is foul, and their moral practices are unlike those of all modern Christians. We say, therefore, to Brigham Young and his deluded followers, that they had better accept the sensible advice of Judge Trumbull, consult with President Grant before they proceed to extremities, accept the laws of Congress in regard to polygamy, as well as in regard to everything else they are required to, and either haul in their rebellious horns or prepare to pack up their baggage for a tramp to some distant country outside the boundaries of the United States. You must obey the law, Prophet Brigham, or you must march. Uncle Sam has stood your nonsense long enough. He will tolerate it no longer.”