"Neither does the American party propose, in the slightest degree, to interfere with any of the rights secured to Roman Catholics, in common with others, by the Constitution. If they choose to worship a great doll as the Virgin Mary—to burn tall wax-candles in daylight—to pray to God in an unknown tongue—to believe that a simple wafer is the actual body, and common wine the very blood of our Saviour—to enforce the celibacy of the clergy—to worship the host—to believe that old toe-nails and pieces of wood are precious relics—to prevent their people from reading the Bible—to refuse to send their children to Protestant schools—to retain the confessional and the nunnery—to pin their faith to unauthenticated traditions—to assert that theirs is the only true Church, and to perpetrate a thousand ridiculous mummeries—the members of the American party with one accord will say, molest them not, disturb them not, trouble them not; the religious privileges of this country are as free to them as they are to us, and we will not, by law or by violence, interrupt or interfere with them in the slightest degree. But knowing that the Catholic Church was for a thousand years allied to the State; that it claimed dominion, in temporal as well as spiritual affairs, over the kings of the earth; that it regards the Pope as the Vicegerent of the Almighty; that he wears the tiara as the symbol of his power in heaven, earth, and hell; that Romanists treat all other professions as heretics; that its Archbishops, Bishops and Priests are sworn to persecute all who differ with them; that the persecuting spirit of that Church has been displayed, for centuries, in the most odious acts of cruelty as well as the most despotic tyranny that ever cursed the earth; that fire and faggot, confiscation and torture have been its favorite weapons; that no age, or sex or condition has been exempt from its inhuman butcheries and demoniac lusts; that it exterminated the Albigenses and Waldenses; that it caused the gutters of Paris to run with human blood on St. Bartholomew's day; that it lighted the fires of Smithfield; that through the instrumentality of Tyrconnel and Catholic and Irish Rappadees, it perpetrated the inhuman atrocities of the Irish Massacres; that, it drove the Huguenots from France, and the Puritans from England; that it has delighted in the chains and dungeons of the Inquisition, and shouted, with fiendish exultation, at the cries and groans of the victims in the auto da fe; that no republican government has ever flourished under its sway; that it regards ignorance as the mother of devotion, and denies the obligation of an oath; that it gave rise to the Order of Jesuits, the most detestable sect that the earth has ever seen; that, in the midst of the blaze of the nineteenth century, it has burned the Bible in America and imprisoned men and women in Europe for no other offence than that of reading it; that, abusing the freedom of the press and speech secured in the United States, it unblushingly avows that all Protestantism is heresy—that it is a crime—and punished in Christian countries like Spain and Italy as a crime; that it has banished the Bible from Protestant schools, when under its control; that it has intermeddled in political elections, and is struggling for political power; that it wears a mask and claims to be harmless in this country for present effect, although it has never renounced one of its dogmas in any authoritative mode; that it is typified, in the Bible, as the Man of Sin and the Great Whore of Babylon; that it comes to us as an angel of light, but is allied with the Prince of Darkness: knowing all these things, and believing that the Roman Catholic Church, now that it is covered with the broad wings of Modern Democracy, partakes of its meat and is pampered by its patronage, is, infinitely, the most dangerous political power with which the people of the United States have ever been compelled to grapple, the American party invites all who love national liberty more than Democracy; who prefer civil and religious freedom to the spoils of office; who revere the memory of Tyndale, Luther, and Calvin; of Cranmer, Latimer, and Ridley; of the seven Bishops; of Fox; of the Puritan fathers; of Wesley and Hall; of the Reformers and Protestants of every name, and, more than all, of our revolutionary ancestors, to burst the fetters of party and come to the rescue of their bleeding country, bleeding at every pore from wounds inflicted by Democratic hands, amidst the jeers of European despots, the shouts of foreigners in our midst, and the taunts and sneers of Catholics and Jesuits all around us!
"Let not Protestant ministers be intimidated by the impudent assaults of a venal press, or the fierce denunciations of infuriated politicians, from doing their whole duty in the pulpit and at the polls. No Presbyterian has ever denied to a Methodist the right to question his religious faith, and no Methodist will dispute the right of other denominations to impugn his creed. Methodists have assailed the Presbyterian doctrine of election. Presbyterians, in turn, have assailed their ideas of perfection and falling from grace. Both have controverted the Baptists' views of immersion, and all have denied the Episcopalians' doctrine of apostolic succession. These and many other points of difference have, from the foundation of our government, often been the subjects of earnest, protracted, and excited discussion; but when did any American Protestant ever deny to another American Protestant the constitutional right to differ with him in opinion, and to express that difference through the press, in the pulpit, or any other constitutional mode? Yet, it has been reserved for Democratic presses to attempt, for electioneering purposes, to curb the free spirit of Protestant ministers: to denounce them as "Reverend Hypocrites;" and, when beholding at home and abroad, on the land and on the sea, among Christians and Pagans, in the halls of legislation, in churches and schools, in free speech, and in a free press, and in ten thousand other forms, the magnificent and glorious results of the Reformation, to ask, with impudent assurance, 'What has Protestantism done for the world?' Not satisfied with the storm of execration which such an infamous interrogatory produced, the Nashville Union and American, the leading Democratic paper in Tennessee, in a very abusive article entitled 'What has it accomplished?' under date of April 26, 1856, thus speaks, among other things, of what he styles 'the Know Nothing Organization:'
"'It has done more than this: it has gone into the Church and converted the pulpit into a political rostrum—it has turned the attention of the ministry from the peaceful paths of Christianity to the arena of political turmoil—it has pulled down the banner of the Cross, and placed in its stead the red flag of intolerance and proscription.'
"While Protestant ministers, in the enjoyment of the rights secured to them by the Constitution, have, as before stated, often engaged in controversies with each other as to their differences in matters of Church government and speculative faith, they have, with one accord, from the foundation of the government, preached and published their views against the Roman Catholic Church—which arrogates a superiority over them all, and stigmatizes them as sects—long before the American party ever had an existence. But because, in the course of events, it has become necessary for politicians to inquire what effect an acknowledgment of the temporal supremacy of the Pope may have upon our free institutions, the Democratic party—if it is to be judged of by its organ—would gag the Protestant clergy, deny to them a right which they have always exercised, and, if they dare to oppose the colossal strides of Rome, denounce them as having converted the pulpit into a political rostrum,' and as having raised 'the red flag of Intolerance and Proscription.'
"It is not for me to prescribe, nor do I desire to dictate the duty of Protestant ministers; but if, in the combined efforts which the Catholics have been making under the patronage of European despots and noblemen, and the encouragement of Democratic demagogues in our own country, they see that this tremendous corporation has planted its footsteps in all our large cities—is possessing itself of the North-West and the Mississippi valley—and is encircling them, as it were, with a wall of fire: if they see that the newspapers and periodicals of that corporation have published doctrines in this free country which they would scarcely avow in the Roman Catholic countries of Europe: if, in one word, they believe that they are to be persecuted and exterminated by Catholics, or take care of themselves before it is too late—then Protestant ministers, agreeing as they do in all great doctrines, and differing only as to those which are not absolutely essential, will cease to disagree among themselves, at least until after they avert a common danger, and will rally as a band of brethren to resist, in such mode as they may deem proper, the encroachments and the insults of Rome, and all her satellites and allies.
"If I do not greatly err in the estimate which I place upon the Protestant clergymen of America, the Democratic party and the Catholics will discover, sooner or later, that the same spirit which caused the Protestant fathers to brave the perils of the boot and the stake: to stand, without flinching, before such miscreant judges as Jeffreys and Scroggs: to yield two thousand pulpits and look beggary and starvation in the face, rather than compromise with conscience; and, above all, to risk the untried dangers of the ocean and settle among savages—will nobly animate their descendants, and they will act in a manner worthy of themselves and of the great cause which is intrusted to their keeping.
"Never was a more unfounded charge made against any party than that of proscription against the American party. It is only the political feature—the allegiance to the Pope of Rome—which we have felt called upon especially to oppose: leaving it to Protestant ministers to expose, if they choose, the absurdity of Catholic theological tenets.
"It is a historical fact that the Romish clergy of France in 1682, under the lead of Louis XIV., made a declaration that 'Kings and sovereigns are not subject to any ecclesiastical power by the order of God in temporal things, and their subjects cannot be released from the obedience which they owe them, nor absolved from their oath of allegiance.' The doctrine of this declaration is called indifferently 'the Gallican, or the French, or the Cis-Alpine doctrine. That of the Court of Rome is called the Italian, or trans-Alpine doctrine."
"Under the solemn assurance of the Louisiana delegation that the native Catholics of Louisiana do not acknowledge the temporal supremacy of the Pope, they were admitted to representation in the American Council and Convention, and this fact abundantly proves that there is no desire to persecute Catholics for their religion, but only a determination to resist their political doctrine, which, although denied by Mr. Chandler in Congress, has been incontrovertibly established by the history of that Church for ages, the avowals of Mr. Brownson, the rebuke of Mr. Chandler by the Dublin Tablet, and other overwhelming proofs.
"In concluding this letter, it would, perhaps, be proper to dwell upon the claims of Messrs. Fillmore and Donelson to the support of the American people of all parties; but their characters are so well known, and I have already so extended my remarks, that I deem it unnecessary to observe any thing more than that Mr. Fillmore, by the faithful discharge of his duty, won the most cordial approbation of his political enemies as well as political friends, and had the confidence of the whole country when he retired from office, and has done nothing since to destroy it; while Maj. Donelson, as our Minister to Texas, to Prussia, and to Denmark, sustained the dignity of our country and acquitted himself with honor—denounced the unhallowed proceedings of the Southern Convention—struggled manfully, as the Democratic editor of the Washington Union, in behalf of the Compromise, and never withdrew from it until May, 1852, when, so far as I understand his course from his public acts, being unwilling to 'blow hot and cold' on the slavery question, and to aid the Democratic party in wearing a Northern and a Southern face, he indignantly retired from it, and subsequently attached himself to the American party in the hope that it could carry on his most cherished object—the preservation of the Union.