"'2. To do this in such a way as to create a large demand for articles of British manufacture.
"'3. To make Romanism the predominant religion of this country.'
"The census tables will show that, since these plans were set on foot, in England and in Europe, to break down our government, there has been an astonishing increase in the foreign immigration to this country. Great as it was prior to the Revolutions in Europe in 1848, it has been amazingly augmented since that time. Millions of foreign money have been collected in Europe and expended since the organization of the society for the propagation of the faith, at Lyons in France, about the year 1822, in the United States. While an Austrian Emperor has had the charge, in a good degree, of the propagation of the Catholic religion in the United States, the public authorities in various parts of Europe have defrayed the expenses of their criminals and paupers to this country, as was clearly shown by Congressional investigations.
"What do these facts prove? Why, that the declaration of the Duke of Richmond, that the crowned heads of Europe intended to subvert our government, was true. What more do they prove? Why, that the effort to establish the Catholic religion in this country has, for more than twenty years, been conducted with steady perseverance, until the Catholics, who, in 1850, were more numerous, as the census compendium shows, than any one denomination of Methodists, are now no doubt stronger than all the Methodists put together, and stronger than any other denomination of Protestants.
"While these publications have been before the American people for more than twenty years, Democratic leaders have received, with open arms, the swarms of foreigners who have settled upon our shores. What care they for the slavery question, when they have seen this foreign immigration, according to the plan concerted in England, settling in the non-slaveholding States, and every year increasing the Abolition power? What care they for the Protestant religion, if the Catholics can only give them the numerical strength at the ballot-box? What regard have they for the preservation of our liberties, when European despots are seeking to undermine them, if those despots only send such myrmidons as will shout hosannas to Democracy and drive from the polls peaceful American citizens who oppose them? Is the preservation of the Union a matter of any consequence to them? Do they not in vision behold its scattered fragments and contemplate new confederacies, with hosts of new offices and millions of spoil?
"Can any one doubt that the Democratic party is in league with all the dangerous elements that have disturbed and are continuing to disturb our once peaceful and happy country, and that they stickle at nothing when votes are at stake?
"Look to their conduct in running Mr. Polk as a tariff man in the North, and an anti-tariff man in the South! Look to the two lives of Cass. Look to their equivocal position as to slavery and the Union. Look to their appeals to foreigners and Catholics by name in the elections of 1844 and 1852, and probably in 1848. Look to their alliance with Free Germans and Fourierites, Free Soilers and Secessionists. And, above all, look to the miserable cant with which they raise the hue and cry of persecution in favor of the Catholics, and, indirectly, deny to Protestant ministers the right to make war upon a huge corporation, calling itself a church, dealing in human souls, reeking with the blood of martyrs, and begrimed with more than ten centuries of oppression.
"No wonder that they have vilified and denounced the American party with every term of opprobrium that our vocabulary can furnish. No wonder they talk of dark lanterns and secret oaths and midnight assemblies. No wonder that they strive to frighten their followers with the notion that the American party is a raw-head and bloody bones, which should be shunned and avoided. For, if honest men of that party will only take the trouble to shake off the control of their leaders: to think, examine, to read, reflect, and act for themselves, there are thousands of Democrats in the South who would scorn, like the American party, an alliance with Abolitionists, and there are tens of thousands of Protestant Union-loving Democrats everywhere, who have only confided in, to be deceived and betrayed by, their leaders, and, if they discover, as it is hoped they will, that they have brought them to the crumbling verge of an awful precipice, they have patriotism enough and Protestantism enough to break away from them rather than make the awful plunge.
"I regret that I am admonished by the length to which I have extended this communication, that I cannot now discuss the Catholic question, as I had hoped to do at the outset, and I shall present only a few disjointed remarks in connection with it.
"The American party does not seek to impose any religious test such as prevailed in the reign of Charles II., when two thousand Non-conformist ministers were driven from their pulpits, or such, as in the same reign, was imposed upon Roman Catholics and continued from 1673 to 1828. The American party does not propose that any religious test, of any kind, shall be imposed by law, upon any person whatever, but it does seek to organize a public sentiment on the Catholic question, just in the same mode that, in times past, parties have sought to organize public sentiment upon the tariff question—the bank question—the internal improvement question—the temperance question, and every other question which has been the subject of difference. If it is lawful to say, I will not vote for you because you are a Whig, it is equally lawful to say—I will not vote for you because you are a foreigner. If it is lawful to say, I will not vote for you because you are a Democrat, it is equally lawful to say, I will not vote for you because you are a Catholic.