Essays and Reviews
Native Americanism
by Orestes A. BrownsonCatholicism compatible with Republican Government, and in full Accordance with Popular Institutions
by Fenelon
New York: Edward Dunnigan, 1844 8vo., 48 pagesWe have read this pamphlet with pleasure and instruction. It is written in good temper, and with a good share of ability. It triumphantly refutes the oft repeated slander, that the Roman Catholic Church is incompatible with republican institutions and popular freedom; and, though it contains expressions, and, if by a Catholic, concessions, which we do not approve or believe warranted, we commend it to the American Protestant Society, and especially to the so-called Native American party. Neither can hardly fail to profit by its careful and diligent perusal.
We have introduced this pamphlet simply as the text of some few remarks the subject of Native Americanism. We are ourselves native-born, and we hope not deficient in true love of country. Though not blind to the faults of our countrymen, and endeavoring on all occasions to place the love of God before the love of country, we believe we possess some share of genuine patriotic feeling. We know we have loved American institutions; and we are ready to vindicate them, with what little ability we may have, on any occasion, and against any and every sort of enemies. But we confess that we have and have had, from the first, no sympathy, with what is called Native Americanism. We have seen no necessity for a movement against foreigners who choose to make this land their home; and we have felt that such a movement, while it could lead to no good, might lead to results truly deplorable.
We have been accustomed to trace the hand of a merciful Providedence in reserving this New World to so late a day for Christian civilization; we have been in the habit of believing that it was not without a providential desiogn, that here was reserved an open field in which that civilization, disengaoing itself from the vices and corruptions of the Old World, might display itself in all its purity, strength, and glory. We have regarded it as a chosen land, not for one race, or one people, but for the wronged and downtrodden of all nations, tongues, and kindreds, where they might come as to a holy asylum of peace and charity. It has been a cause of gratulation, of ardent thankfulness to Almighty God, that here was founded, as it were, a city of refuge, to which men might flee from oppression, be free from the trammels of tyranny, regain their rights as men, and dwell in security. Here all partition walls which make enemies of different races and nations were to be broken down; all senseless and mischievous distinctions of rank and caste were to be discarded; and every man, no matter where born, in what language trained, was to be regarded as a man,-as nothing more, as nothing less. Here we were to found, not a republic of Englishmen, of Frenchmen, of Dutchmen, of Irishmen, but of men; and to make the word American mean, not a man born on this soil or on that, but a free and accepted member of the grand republic of men. Such is what has been boasted as the principle and the destiny of this New World; and with this, we need not say, Native Americanism is directly at war.
The great principle of true Americanism, if we may use the word, is, that merit makes the man. It discards all distinctions which are purely accidental, and recognizes only such as are personal. It places every man on his own two feet, and says to him, Be a man, and you shall be esteemed according to your worth as a man; you shall be commended only for your personal merits; you shall be made to suffer only for your personal demerits. To each one according to his capacity, to each capacity according to its works. This is Americanism. It is this which has been our boast, which has constituted our country's true glory. It is this which we have inherited from our fathers; it is this which we hold as a sacred trust, and must preserve in all its parity, strength, and activity, if we would not prove "degenerate sons of noble sires;" and it is this, which Native Americanism, so called, opposes,--and because it opposes this, no true American can support it.
There is something grateful to all our better feelings in the thought, that here is a home to which the oppressed can come, and find the rights, the respect, and the well-being denied them in the land of their birth. The emigrant's condition is not a little improved by touching upon our shores; and the condition of his brother-laborer, whom he leaves behind, is also not a little ameliorated, and the general sum of well-being is greatly augmented. On the simple score of philanthropy, then, who would not struggle to keep our country open to the emigrant, and be prepared to welcome him as a brother, and to rejoice that another is added to the family of freemen?
But even as a question of our own interest as a people, we should welcome the foreigner. If we would sit down and reckon up what we lose and what we gain by foreigners coming to settle among us, we should find the gain greatly overbalances the loss. Naturalized citizens constitute no inconsiderable portion of our population, and by no means the least important portion. Without these, what would have been our condition now! Whose labor has cleared away many of our Western forests, dug our canals and railroads? and by whose labor and practical skill have we introduced our manufactures, and brought them to their present high state of perfection? In all the branches of manufactures, in nearly all branches of mechanical industry, the head workmen, if we have been rightly informed, are foreigners. And why foreigners, rather than native-born? Surely, not because there is any partiality for foreigners over native Americans, but because they are more thorough masters of their business. Then, who man our navy, of which we are so justly proud? and who constitute, in time of war, the rank and file of our army? Not all foreigners, truly; but not a few who were not born on American soil. No small portion of our hardy seamen are of alien birth; but they are none the less true to our flag on that account, nor any the less freely do they spill their blood for our national defence or national glory. We do not agree with the assertion said to have been made by a foreigner residing amongst us, that native Americans are cowards, and if we did, we have still too much of the old Adam, and of the narrow feeling of former times, to suffer him, without rebuke, to tell us so. Americans are not deficient in courage, and will, when necessary, face the enemy as boldly as any other people on the globe. Nevertheless, our ranks are not dishonored by foreigners, and no native-born citizens have ever done our country's flag more honor or fought more valiantly in its defence, than the brave and warmhearted Irish; and none would do us more efficient service again, were we so unhappy as to be involved in a war. In the Reyolution, we found men not born in America could fight manfully for us, and then they were not considered as in the way of the native-born. It was no loss to us to reckon in our army a Montgomery, a Gates, a De Kalb, a Steuben, a Pulaski, a Lafayette. No; man is man, wherever born; and every freeman is our brother, and we should clasp him to our bosom.
As a party movement, the Native American party is contemptable. As a movement of native American citizens against foreigners who come amongst us to claim the rights and to perform the duties of citizens, it is founded on low and ungenerous prejudices, prejudices of birth, which we, as a people, profess to discard. We, as a people, recognize no nobility founded on birth; for our principle is, that all who are born at all are well-born. But what is the effort to confine the political functions incident to citizenship to native-born Americans, but the attempt to found an aristocracy of birth, even a political aristocracy, making the accident of birth the condition of political rights? Is this Americanism? The American who pretends it is false to his American creed, and has no American heart.
We, of course, do not oppose Native Americanism on the untenable ground, that every man has a natural right to be a citizen, and to take part in the administration of the governinent. The right of suffrage is a municipal right, not a natural right. But we, as a people, have adopted, with slight restrictions, the principle of universal suffrage. We, as a people, hold that the government is safest where all the people have a voice in saying what it shall be and who shall be its administrators. We adopt universal suffrage, not indeed as a right, but as a dictate of prudence. We hold that we select better men to rule us, and enact wiser and more equitable laws, by admitting the great body of the people to a participation of political sovereignty, than we should by confining the sovereignty to one man or to a few men. We hold that the people are best governed, when they constitute and manage the government themselves. This is the political creed of the country; and he is false to his country, who would abolish it, or defeat its practical application. Foreigners, who come here, have, then, in view of the acknowledged principles of the country, a right to be admitted to citizenship, to the rank and dignity of freemen; and could rightly complain of injustice, if not so admitted.
But we are told that the Naitive American party does not propose to exclude foreigners from the country, not from citizenship. It only wishes to prevent them from coming here and exercising the rights of citizens before being properly instructed in the duties of citizens. This plea is specious, but not solid. It is the public ostensible plea; but not the private, real one. The real design is, to exclude foreigners, to prevent them from coming here, by denying them the right to become citizens. We have never conversed with an advocate of the party who did not avow this. But take the plea as publicly offered. It is contended that foreigners, brought up under monarchical or aristocratical governments, cannot be expected, on arriving on our shores, to understand the nature of our peculiar form of government, and that it is necessary for them to serve a long novitiate before they can be prepared to enter upon the duties of freemen. The necessity of intelligence, of understanding well our peculiar institutions, on the part of every man who is to exercise the rights and to discharge the duties of a citizen, we certainly shall not dispute, whether the man was born at home or abroad. But the ignorance of the foreigners who come here is greatly exaggerated. Brought up under monarchical or aristocratical governments, one would naturally expect them to be averse to our democracy, and in favor of institutions similar to those with which they had been accustomed. But no complaint of this kind is ever made against them. Foreigners who come here and condemn our institutions, show contempt for them, and wish to exchange them for institutions similar to those they have left behind, are in general cordially welcomed, and treated with great consideration. The complaint is the reverse of this, their offence is in being too democratic, and in wishing the government to be administered on strictly democratic principles. It is not their ignorance of the real nature of democracy, but their intelligence of it, that constitutes their disqualification.
But pass over this. The naturalization laws, as they now are, require a foreigner to reside in the country five years before he can become a citizen, or be legally naturalized. This is, in general, five years after the man has become of full age. Now, it it fair to presume that an emigrant to this country, intending to come here and to make this his home, has before coming made some inquiries respecting the country, the character of its people, its government, and laws; and be may be judged to know as much of them as in general one of our own boys at the age of sixteen. In most cases he knows much more, but assume that he knows as much. Then he and the native-born are placed on the same footing. Each must wait five years before entering upon the discharge of his duties as a citizen; and who will pretend to say that a man from the age of twenty-one to twenty-six cannot learn as much of what those duties are, as the boy from sixteen to twenty-one? The law, as it now stands, exacts in reality as long a novitiate of the foreign-born as of the native-born; and even on the ground of time to be instructed in one's duties, no more needs to be altered in the case of the one than of the other.
But, politically speaking, this objection is not the real one. The political leaders, of the Native American party, are opposed to naturalized citizens solely on the ground that these citizens do not uniformly vote on their side. We do not discover that our politicians of either party object to the votes of naturalized citizens when given for them, nor to naturalizing them, if they feel sure of their suffrages. Why not say so, then, and let the honest truth come out? Surely, honest men, high-minded men, the true nobility of the earth, as all our political leaders are, can have no objections to avowing their real intentions, and the real motives from which they act. Such men will never show false colors!
But the objection to foreigners is not exclusively political, nor chiefly political. Below this is another objection, which operates chiefly amongst the laboring classes. The mass of the people, especially of those who live on from father to son in the same position and pursuit, retain almost forever their primitive prejudices. These in this country are of English descent,--for we are all of foreign extraction; and they have inherited from their ancestors, and still retain, two strong prejudices,--contempt of the Irish and hatred of the French. There is no use in disguising the fact. The assistance the French rendered us in the Revolution has mollified our feelings somewhat towards them, but we still bear them no real good-will. But the national English contempt for the Irish has been reinforced in America. The Yankee hod-carrier, or Yankee wood-sawyer, looks down with ineffable contempt upon his brother Irish hod-carrier or Irish wood-sawyer. In his estimation, "Paddy" hardly belongs to the human family. Add to this that the influx of foreign laborers, chiefly Irish, increases the supply of labor, and therefore apparently lessens the demand, and consequently the wages of labor, and you have the elements of a wide, deep, and inveterate bostility on the part of your Yankee laborer against your Irish laborer, which manifests itself naturally in your Native American party. But this contempt of the Irish, which we have inherited from our English ancestors, is wrong and ungenerous. The Irish do not deserve it, and it does not become us to feel it. It is a prejudice disgraceful only to those who are governed by it, and no words of condemnation are sufficiently severe for the political aspirant who would appeal to it. Every friend to his country, every right-minded man, must frown upon it, and brand an incendiary, as a public enemy, the demagogue, whether in a caucus speech in old Faneuil Hall or elsewhere, whether admired by the whole nation for his transcendent abilities or not, who should seek to deepen it, or even to keep it alive.
But, after all, the competition, which our native American laborers so much dread, is far less than they imagine. The foreign laborers do not, in general, come directly into competition with them. A great part of the labor they perform is labor which native Americans could not or would not perform themselves. Then, the increased demand for labor in other branches of industry, caused by the worries carried on mainly by the labor of foreigners, fully compensates, perhaps more than compensates, the native American laborers for any loss they may sustain in the few cases of competition which there really may be. Viewed in all its bearings, the influx of foreign laborers has very little, if any, injurious effect on our own native laborers. The immense internal improvements completed or in process of completion would never have been attempted, if the reliance had been solely on native labor, and, consequently, none of the additional labor employed in the various branches of industry, which the improvements have stimulated, would have been in demand. The laboring class, as a class, has really gained in the amount of employment by the increase of laborers, and of course, in the price of labor. Labor begets the demand for labor. Individuals may have suffered somewhat, in some particular branches but upon the whole the laboring class has been benefited.
But the real objection lies deeper yet. The Native American party is not a party against admitting foreigners to the rights of citizenship, but simply against admitting a certain class of foreigners. It does not oppose Protestant Germans, Protestant Englishmen, Protestant Scotchmen, nor even Protestant Irishmen. It is really opposed only to Catholic foreigners. The party is truly an anti-Catholic party, and is opposed chiefly to the Irish, because a majority of the emigrants to this couitry are probably from Ireland, and the greater part of these are Catholics. If they were Protestants, if they could mingle with the native population and lose themselves in our Protestant sects, very little opposition would be manifested to their immigration or to their naturalization. But this they cannot do. They are Catholics. They adhere to the faith of their fathers, for which they have suffered these three hundred years more than any other people on earth. Being Catholics, they hold religion to be man's primary concern, and the public worship of God an imperative duty. They accordingly seek to settle near together, in a neighborhood, where the Church may rise in their midst within reach of the altar where the "clean sacrifice " is offered up daily for the living and the dead, and where they can receive the inestimable services of the minister of God. Hence, they seem, because in this respect their habits differ from those of our Protestant countrymen, to be a separate people, incapable even in their political and social duties of fraternizing, so to speak, with their Protestant fellow-citizens. Here is the first and immediate cause of the opposition they experience.
But deeper yet lies the old traditionary hatred of Catholicity. The niijoritv of the American people have descended from anc@tors who were accustomed to pray to be delivered from the flesh, the world, the devil, and the Po pe; and though they have in a great degree rejected the remains of faith still cherished by their Protestant ancestors, they retain all their batred of the Church. If they believe nothing else. they believe the Pope is Antichrist, and the Catholic Church the Scarlet Lady of Babvion. When the Catholic Church is in question, all the infidels and nothingarians are sure to sympathize with their Protestant brethren. Pilate and Herod are good friends, -when it concerns crucif8,ino- the Redeemer of men. This is, perhaps, @ it should be. ile'nce, the great mass of the American people, faithful to their traditions, are inveterately opposed to Catholicity, and it is this opposition that manifests itself in Native Americanism, and which renders it so inexcusable and so dangerous.
We presume there are few who will question this statement. The 11 Nitive Americans " with whom we have conversed, all, to a man, avow it, and the late disgraceful riots and murder and sacrilege in Philadelphia prove it. There, no harm was done to Protestant forei(yners. Hostilitv was directed solely against Catholics. They were Catholics, who were shot down in the streets,-Catholic churches, seminaries, and dwellings, that were rifled and burnt. Even the most active members of the Native American party, if we may be pardoned the Hibernianism, are in many ea-es foreioners. The notorious ex-priest Hogan, a foreio,ner and an Irishman, deposed for his immoral conduct, is, if we are rightly informed, a most zealous iVative, and has been lecturing, in this city and vicinity in favor of Native Americanism, and we have heard no Nativist object to having men like him exercise ',he riohts of an American citizen. The Orangemen, foreio-nei-s as they are, did +lie Natives substantial service iu Ph-iladelphia, as it ha-, been said, and they threaten to do the @am@, here, if occasion serve. All this proves that the opposi- tion is not to foreigners, as such, but simply to Catholics, and especially to I?-ish Catholics.
Now against this, we hardly need say, we protest in the name of the Constitution, and the good faith of the country. The Constitution of this country does not merely tolerate different religious denominations, but it recognizes and guaranties to all men the free exercise of their relioion, whatever it mty be. It places all denominations, however great or however small, on the same footino, before the state, and recognizes the equal rights of all and of each. To this the faith of the country is pledged. We say to all, of all creeds, Come here and demean yourselves, in civil matters, as good citizens, and your respective faitlis tnd modes of worship shall all alike be legally respecte and protected. This is what we have professed; of this we make our boast; and this we consider our chief title to the admiration of the world. We have promised to all the fullest conceivable reli ious liberty. For this we have solemnlv pledoed 9 n our faith before the world and before Heaven. Are we pre- pared to break our faith?
But in gettin(r up a party -tgainst any one religious denomi- nation, are we not I)reakino, our faith, and perjuring ourselves in the sight of God and of men I What matters it to honest men, whether we do this directly or indirectly? What is the difference in principle between passing a law excluding under severe penalties, the exercise of the Catholic religion in this country, and, by our political and other combinations, rendering its exercise impossible? What is the differedee between excluding Catholics directly, and treating them in such a manner that they will be forced to exclude themselves?
Theo, again, the wisdom of the policy of combining for thti expulsion or exclusion of C. tholics may be gravely questioned. Where there is a multiplicity of denominations, there is safety for any one only so far as there is safetv for all. Combine and Duppres,, Catholicity to-day, and it may be some other one's turn to be suppressed tomorrow. The. precedent establisha the Catholics disposed o@ a new combination may be forraed against the Methodists, then against the Baptists, then against the Unitarians and Universalist,%, and then against the Episcopalians, or for the revival of the Classis of Amsterdam, or the Kirk of Scotland. Cannot all see that the safety. of each is in protecting all, and suffering a combination to be formed against none I
Moreover wliv should Protestants combine against Catholics? Have they not the Bible and private reason? and with these what has a Protestant to apprehend? Is he not abundantly able to meet and vanquish in the fair field of controversy the benighted and idolatrous Papist? Does he not believe that he has truth, reason, and revelation on his side? Does he not know that he has all the prejudices and Dearly nineteen tweiitietbs of the whole population of the country on his side? Are there not here odds enough in his favor? What, then, does he fear? With all these advantages, does be tremble before the Papist, and fear the meetinghouse may give place to the. church, the table to the altar, the bread and wine to the Rettl Presence? A sorry compliment this to Protestantism ! a sorry compliment to reason, to distrust its encounter with error in open field and fair combat! Were we Protestants, as we once were, -but, God be praised, are DO IODger,-we should blush to appeal against Povery to any other arguments than Scripture and reason. If with these we could not resist the spread of Catholicit,y, we should be led to distrust the sacredness of our cause, and to fear, that, after all, we bad not the Lord on our side. These political combinations betray the weakness of Protestantism, not its strength; the doubts, not the faith, of its upholders. If they are right in their premises, they need not these cornbinatiom to suppress Catholicity; if they are wrong in their premises, then they are warring, not against a superstition, an idolatry, as they pretend, but against God, and we leave it to them to decide what is the proper name by which they should be designated.
But we are told that Catholics are opposed, not '.Decause thev are Catholics simply, but because, being Catholi(s, they owe allegiance to a foreign power, and therefore cannot be good citi zens. No Catholic, it is assumed, since he owes allegiance to the Pope, can be bound by any obligation be may contract as a citizen. If we really supposed that any one among us could be so simple as to believe this, we would contradict it. But there are charges too absurd to need a reply. The Catholic does, in(leed, owe allegiance to the Pope as the visible head of the Church, but not as visible head of the state. Whoever knows ,my tliinf, at all of the obligation of the Catholic to the successor of St. Peter knows that it would be as absurd to conclude that the Christian, because he'owes allegiance to God, cannot be a good citizen, nor true to the obligations he contracts as a citizen to the state, as to infer thtt a Catholic cannot be a good citizpn because he owes allegiance to the visible head of his Church. So far as thi,,, allegiance is a fact, and so far as it is operative on the heart and conscience of a Catholic, it binds him to be a peaceful and obedient subject to the state, a faithful and conscientious citizen
But the Roman Catholic religion, we are further told, is incompatible with republicanism, hostile to popular institutions; from which it is to be inferred, we suppose, that Protestantism, as the negative of Catholicit , is compatible with republican in- C, y stitutions and friendly to popular freedom. It would, perhaps, be difficult to prove this. The most despotic states in Europe are the Protestant, and in Switzerland, for instance, the Catholic cantons are the most democratic. Despotism was hardly known in Europe prior to the Reformation, save in that portion not in communion with the Church of Rome; and we very much doubt if there be at this moment as much popular freedom in the Protestant states of Europe as there was in the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries. There are really fewer checks on arbitrary ponver, and there is more heartless oppression.
In this country, the only republican government that Protestantism can pretend ever to have f)unaed has been established, but it has not teen founded solelv by Protestantism. It owes ta origin to the circumstances in which the first settlers came berc, and to the impossibility, after indc@pend(,nce of the crown of Great Britain was proclaimed, of establishing any other than a republican form of government. We have existed as a rep,-,blic between sixty and seventy years. But it needs no very sharp observation to perceive that our relublic has virtually failed to accomplish the hopes of its founders, and that it is, without some notable cliano-e in the people, destined either to a speedy dissoItitioii, or to sink into a miserable timocracy, infinitely worse than the most absolute despotism. Protestantism, if it could oriol- zn nate, has not proved itself able to sustain it.
We need but-glance at our electioneering contests, becomin(r fi6reer and fiercer, more and more demoralizino,, with eich succeeding election, to be convinced of this. The election of our presidents costs us more than the whole civil list of Great Bi,itain. We have heard it suggested that the, election of General Harrison cost the Wlligs more thin fifty millions of dollars, the expenditures of the opposite party in attei-npting to re6lect Mr, Van Bi ' iren were no trifl(@. Hardly less has been expended in the campaion just closed. This is a tax no people can bear for any great length of time, without ruin, and the mplete prosti-ation of public and private niorality.
Protestantism, by its piincil)le,-Iiberty of private judrment, -may undoubtedly seem to favor civil freedom; and that it often attempts to e,,@tablish free popular institutions we do not deny; but it wants the virtue to sustain them. By this same principle, it multiplies sects without number, and virtually destroys, by dividing, the moral force of the nation. We see this with ourselves. Religion has little force in controlling our passions or pursuits. No one of the sects possesses a commanding influence over the people. The great mass of the people are left, therefore, to the corrupt passions of their own depraved natut-e. They cease to live for God, and live only for the world,to live for eternity, and live only for time. They become wed ded to tbinos of this world, their hearts bent only on wealth and honors. In business the ruling pass,.on is to get rich, in public life to rise to places of honor and emolument, in private life to gain ease and pleasure. Now, how long can a government which rests for its existence on the virtue and intelligence of the people, exist, or, if exist, answer its end, in a community where the great mas of the people are carried away by the dominant passions, wealth, place, and pleasure?
We may, be told that enlightened self-interest will suffice,.hat only instruct the people what is for their interest, and they will do it. This is plausible, but all experience proves to the contrary. Who does not know that it is for his real interes@ both for time and eternity, to be a devout Christian? And yet are all devout Christians? The wisdom and prudence of men's conduct cannot be measured by their intelligence. A corrupt man uses his intelligence only as the minister of his corruption. The more you extend intelligence, unless you extend the moral restraints and influences of the gospel at the same time, the more do you sharpen the intellect for evil. The people of the United States are far more instructed than they were fifty years ago, and yet have not half so much of the virtue necessary to sustain a republican government. We are never to expect men to act virtuously, simply because their understandings are convinced that virtue is the best calculation. You must make them act from a higher motive. They must be (roverned by relizion; act from the love and the fear of God,-from a deep sense of duty; be meek, humble, self-dedying; morally brave and heroic; choosing rather to die a thousand deaths than swerve from right principle, or disobey the will of God; or they will not practise the virtues without which liberty is an empty name,-a inere illusion.
Now, Protestantism never has, and never can, produce the virtues without which a republican government can have no solid foundation. It may have good words; it may say wise and even just things; but it wants the unction of the spirit. It does not reach and regenerate the heart, subdue the passions, and renew the spirit. It has never produced a single sain4 and the virtues it calls forth are of the sort exhibited by the old beathen moralists. It praises the Bible, but studies the Greek itnd Roman classics; boasts of spii@ituality, but expires in a vain formalism. For the three hundred year,, it has existed, it has proved itself powerful to destroy, but impotent to found; ready to begin, but never able to complete. Whatever it claims that is positive, abiding, it has inherited or borrowed from the ao;es @ind the laiids of faith. Its own creations rise and vanish as the soap-bubbles blown by our children in their sports. It has never yet shown itself tble to command human nature, or to say to the roused waves of passion, Peace, be still. It lulls the conscience with the forms of faith and piety; soothes vanity and fosters pride by its professions of freedom; but leaves the passions all their natural force, and permits the man to remain a slave to all his natural lusts. It Dever subdues or regenerates nature. Hence, tlirouohout all Protestautdom, the tendency is, to reproduce heathen antiquity, with all its cant, hollowness, hypocrisy, slavery, and wretchedneSS,-tO Darrow men's views down to this transitory life and the fleetidg shows of sense, and to make them live and labor for the meat that perisheth. We appeal to England, Sweden, Denmark, Protestant Germany, Holland, and our own country, for the truth of what we say. They were Protestant traders who trampled on the cross of Christ to gain the lucrative trade of Japan. It is in no spirit of exultation we allude to Protestant worldly-mindedness and spiritual impotency. Would to God the sketch were from fancy, or our own diseased imagination!
We do not mean to deny, that, in words, Protestantism teaches man , perhaps most, of the Christian virtues. It has even some @ y good books on morals and practical religion. Its clergy give good exhortations, and labor, no d@ubt, in good faith, for the spiritual culture of their flocks! No doubt, much truth, much valuable instruction, is given from Protestant pulpits. The Protestant clergy take no delight in the state of things they see around them. They would gladlv see Christ reign in the hearts of men; they, no doubt, would joyfully dispense the bread of life to their famished people; and they do dispense the best they have. But alas! how can they dispense what they have not received? The liviii,- bread is not on their communion table, rhey communicate, accordino- to their own confession, onlv a fiaure, a shadow; and how sball the. divine life be nourished with shadows? What we mean to say is, not that Protest@iiitisiii does not aim to bring men to Christ, to make them ptire and liolv, but tl)at it has no' power to do it. It does not control human nature, and produce the fruits of a supernatural faith, hope, and el)ai-ity. Its faith is i-nerely an opinion or persuaSIOD, its hope a wish, and its ebarity natural philanthropy. It neeessarilv leaves human nature as it finds it, and no pruning of that coi@t-ul)t ti-ee can make it bring forth good fruit. It is of the eartb,-earthy; and it will bear fruit only for the earth. With tinregenerat,-d nature in full activity, we can have only sensuality and mamiiion-worsbip.
Hundreds and thousands among us, who are by no means favorably disposed to Catholicity, see this and deplore it. Tbev say the aoe has no faith. They see the impotency of Protest- antisin; that under it all the vices are sheltered that, in spite of it, all the dano-ei-ous passions rage unchecked and they turn awav in dis,),ust fi-or7n its empty forms and vain words. Witness the response the bitino, sarcasms and withering irony of Carlyle t)rings from thousands of hearts in this i@epublic, the echoes which the chiselled words and marble sentences of Emerson also oi,ing. Witness, also, the movei-nents of the Come-outer,-,, the Socialists, Fouriei,ists, Communists. All these see that ProtestAnt-ism lips nothing but words, while they want life, realities, not vain sim?,tlacra. They err most egregiously, no doubt; they go from the dying to the dead; but their error proves the truth of what we advance.
Now, assaming our view of Protestantism to be correct, we demand how it is to sustain, or we, with it alone, are to sustain our republican government. Do we not see, in this growing love of place and plunder, with this growing devotion to wealth, luxury, and pleasure, with these fierce electioneerir-,g contests, r,ne no sooner ended than another begins, each to be fiercer and more absorbing and more destructive than the last, and eack drawino, within its vortex nearly the whole industrial interest of the countrv, and toacliin@r almost every man in his boner and -his pui,se, that we want the moral elements without which i republic cannot stand? A republic can stand only as it rests upon the virtues of the people; and these Dot the inere natural virtues of wordly pi@ude-.ice and social decency, but those loftier virtues which are possible to human nature only ts elevtted above itself by the infused babit of supernatural grace. This is a solemn fact to which it is in vain for us to close our eyes. Human nature left to itself tends to dissolution, to destruction, decay, death. So does every society that rests only on those virtues which have their origin, growth, and maturity in nature alone. This is the case with our own society. We have really n, ocial bond; we have no true patriotism; none of that patience, that self-denial, that loyalty of soul, which is iiecessari, to bind man to man, each to @eli, and each to all. Each is for himself. Save who can (Sauve qui peut), we exclaim. Hence a universal scramble. Man ovei@tlirows man, brother brother, the father the child, and the child the father, the dei-nagogtio all; while the devil stands at a distance, looks on, and enjoys the sport. Tell us, ye who boast of the glorious Reformation, if a republican form of goverdnieiit is compatible with this moral state of the people?
Even in matters of education we can do little but sharpen the wit, and i@ender brother more skilful and successful in plundering brother. With our multitude of sects, we may instruct, but not educate. Our children can have no moral training, for morality rests oi) tlieoloo, , and theology on faith. But faitli is @y expelled from out- schools, because it is sectarian, and there is DO one ftith in the country which can be taught without excitiiig the jealousy of the followers of a i@ival faith. Cut up into such a multitude of sects, there is and can be no common moral culture in the country, no true reliious traiiiidg. We give a little iiistri-iction in readiiio,,, writing, arithmetic, graiyimar, geography, perhaps history, the Greek and Roi-nan classics, and in the physical sciences; and send our children out into the world, to forn their niorals and their religion without other guide or assistant than their own short-sighted reason and perverted passions. How can we expect any thing from such a sowing, but whut we reap? and how, under Protestantism, which breaches every thing, and settles nothing, raises all questions and answers none, and therefore necessarily giving birth to a perpetual succession of sects, each claiming with equal reason and justice to have the truth, and the claims of all equally respected, as they must be, by the government, is this terrible evil to be remedied? Protestantism is just a-going to remedy it; but, alas! it does not succeed. It reminds us of a remark by a lady eating vegetable oysters,-" I always seem, when I cat vegetable @ysters, as if I was just a-going to taste of an oyster." So, when we examine Protestantism, hear its loud professions, witness its earnest striviugs, and observe each new sect it gives birth to, we say it is the lady eating vegetable oysters. It seems to itself that it is just going to light upon the truth, and to hit upon some plan by which it can remove the terrible evils it sees and deplores, and call forth the virtues it owns to be necessary; but, alas! it is only ust a-goiiig to taste the oyster : it never quite tastes it.
These facts, which we mention, are seen and felt by large numbers in our midst. Quiet, peaceable, but observing and reflecting men look on and observe our doings, and say to themselves, 11 This republicanism, after all, is a mere delusion. It is all very fine, no doubt, in theory, but exceedingly hateful in practice. Washinoton, and Hamilton, and others, were wiser than JeiTerson and Madison. So large a republic, with such frequency of elections, and so many thousan s epen ng on the fate of an election for their very means of snbsistence, so many ins afraid of being turned out, so many outs anxious to be turned in, and the number each year increasing with the extent and population of the country,-well, let the republic stand if it can, but a change to a monarchy will soon be inevitable." There are men who so reason, and they are neither few nor despicable; nor are they fairly answered by our Fourth of July gi,rifications, or hurrahs for Democracv, Vive la Republique Vive la Deinocratie! Vive la Liber@g! We do not agree with them;-f,,tr from it; but we should agree with them, if we saw nothing better for our republic than Protestantism. Protestants as they are, we say they reason correctly, and if the religion of the country remains Protestant for fifty years lon(yer, facts will prove it.
But with Catholicity the republic may be sustained, not because the Catholic Church enjoins this form of government or that, but because she nourishes in the hearts of her children the virtues which render popular liberty both desirable and practicable. The Catholic Church meddles directly with no form of government. She leaves each people free to adopt such form of government as seems to themselves good, and to administer it in their own wa-v. Her chief concern is to fit men for beatitude, and this she can do under any or all forms of government. But tl)e spirit she breathes into men, the grace-, she communicates, the dispositions she cultivates, and the virtues she produces, are such, that, while they render even arbitrary forms of government tolerable, fit a people for assertin,, and maintaining freedom. In countries where there are no constitutional checks on power, she remedies the evil by imposino- moral restraints on its exercise, by inspiring rulers with a sense of justice and the public good. Where such checks do exis@ she hallows them and renders them inviolable. In a republic she restrains the passions of the people, teacbes them obedience, to the laws of God, moderates their desires, weaus their affections from the world, frees them from the dominion of their own lusts, and, by the meekness, butiiilitv, loyalty of heart which she cherishes disposes them to the. practice of those public virtues which render a republic secure. She also creates by her divine charitv a true equality. No republic can stand where the dominant i,,iiDg is pride, which finds it- expression in the assertion " 1 am as good as you." It must be based on love; not on the determination to defend our own ri(ylits and interest-, but on the fear to encroach on the rights and interests of others. But this love must be more than the mere sentii-nent of philanthropy. Thii sentiment of philanthropy is a very unsubstantial aflair. Tdk as we will about its excellence, it never goes beyond love to those who love us. We love our friends and neighbors, but liate our enemies. This is all we do as philanthropists. All the fine speeches we make beyoiid-about the love of humanity, and all that-are fine speeches. Philanthropy must be exalted into the supernatural virtue of charity, before it can become that love which leads us to honor all men, and makes us shrink from eiicroacbin,r upon the interests of any man, no matter how low or how vile. We must love our neiohbor, not for his own sake, but for God's sake,-tlie child, for the sake of the Father; then we can love all, and jovfully make the most painful sacrifices for them. It is only in the bosom of the Catholic Church that this sublime charity has ever been found or can be found.
The Catholic Church also cherishes a spirit of independence, a loftiness and dignity of soul, favorable to the maintenance of liopular freedom. It ennobles every one of its members. The lowest, the humblest Catholic is a member of that Church which was founded by Jesus Christ himself; which has subsisted for eicrilteen Hundred years; which has in every a _ze been blessed with signal tokens of the Redeemer's love; which counts its. saints by millions; and the blood of whose martyrs has made all earth ballowed ground. He is admitted into the goodly fellowship of the faithful of all ages and climes, and every day, throughout all the earth, the Universal Church sends p her prayers for him, and all the Church above receive them, and, with their own, bear them as sweet incense tip before the throne of the almighty and eternal God. He is a true nobleman, more than the peer of kings or Coesars; for he is a child of the King of kings, and, if faithful unto death, heir of a crown of life, eternal in the heavens, that fadeth not away. Such a man is no slave. His soul is free; he looks into the perfect law of liberty. Can tyrants enslave him? No, indeed; not because he will turn on the tyrant and kill, but because he can die and i-eigil for ever. What were a mere human tyrant bef,,)rc a nation of such men? Who could e-,t@il)tish ai-bitrar government ovet them, or subject tli in to unwholesome or iniquitous laws
Here is out- hope for our republic. We look for our safety to the spread of Cttholicitv. We, render solid and iniperisbal)le our free institutions just in proportion %,, we extend the kingdom of God amorio, our people, and establish in their hearts the reign of justice and cliar4tv. And here, then, is our answer to those who tell us Catholicity is incompatible with fiee institutions. We tell thenb that they cannot maintain free institutions withott I it. It is not a free Government that makes a free people, but a free people that makes a free government; and we know no fi@eedom but that wherewith the Son makes free. You must be free within, before you can be free without. They who war a-ainst the Church, because they fziiiey it hostile to their civil freedom, are as ina(l as those wicked Jews who nailed their Redeemer to the cross. But even now, as then, God be thanked, from the cross a:,ceiids the prayers, not in vain, " Father, forgive them, for tliev know not what they do."
As to the effect this Native AiiiericaD party may have on the Church, or the cause of Catholicity in this country, we have no fears. We know it is a party formed for the suppression of the Catholic Cliure@ in our land. Protestantism, afraid to meet the champions of the cross in fair and open debate, conscious of her weakness or unskilfulness in argument, true to her ancient instincts, resorts to the civil arm, and hopes by a series of indirect legislation-for she dare not attempt as yet any direct legislation-to maintain her predominance. But this gives us no uneasiness. We know in whom we believe, and are certain. We see these movements, we comprehend their aim, and we merely ask in the words of the Psali-nist, " Why have the Gentiles raoed, and the people devised vain things? The kings of the earth stood up, tiid the princes met lolyet@er, aoainst the Lord, and against his Christ. Let us break their bands asunder, and let us cast their yoke from us. He that dwelleth in the heavens shall lauoh at tli in, and the Lord shall deride them. Then shall he speak to them in his anger, and troal.)Ie them in his i-age.11 Is. ii. 1-5. They wage an unequal contest who wage war aoaiDSt the Church of the Living God, who bath said to its Head, " Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee. Ask of me and I will give tbee the Gentiles for thy inheritance, and the utmost parts of the earth for thy posses sions." lb., 7, S. These may combine to put down Catholicity, form leagues against it, enlist all the powers of the earth against it; but what then? Nero tried to crush it in its infancy. Diocletian tried it. And Nero and Diocletian have passed away, and their mighty empire has crumbled to pieces and dissolved, leaving scarce " a wrack behind;" yet the Church has lived on, and the successor of the fisherman of Galilee inherited a power before which that of Rome in her proudest day was merely the dust in the balance. Pagan and Saracen tried to crush it, but Pagan and Saracen are scattered before its glory as the morning mist before the risino, sun. Heretic and schismatic have tried to exterminate it,-Lu'@ber, and Calvin, and ITenry of England, like the great drao-on whose tail drew after it a third part of the stars of heaven; and their own children are rising up and cursing their memory. The power,.; of the earth have tried to do it,-Napoleon, the Colossus who bestrided Europe, and made and unmade kings in mere pastime; but Napoleon, from the moment he dared Jay his hand on the Lord's anointed, loses his power, and goes to die at last of a broken heart in a barren isle of the ocean. Jew, Paoan, Saracen, heretic, seb@.3matic, iiifidel, and lawless power have all tried their band against the Church. The Lord has held thei-n in derision. He has been a wall of fire round about her, and proved for eighteen hundred years that no weapen formed against her sball prosper; for he guards the boner of his Spouse &,, his own. Let the ark appear to jostle, if it will; we reach forth no hand to steady it, and fear no harm that may come to it. The Church has survived all storms; it is founded upon a rock, and the gates of hell are impotent against it. It is not for the friends of the Church to fear, but for those who war against her, and seek her suppress r,ion. It is for them to tremble,-not before the arm of man, for no human arm will be raised against them; but bef)re that God whose Church they outrage, and whose cause they seek to crush. The Lord liath promised his Son the Gentiles for his inheritance, and the utmost parts of the earth for his possession. llc,- must and will have this nation. And throughout all the length and breadth of this glorious land shall his temples rise to catch the morning sun and reflect his evenin(r rays, and holy altars shall be erected, and the "clean sacrifice'7 shall be offered daily, and a delighted people shall bow in humility before them, and pour out their hearts in joyous thanksgiving; for so hath the Lord spoken, and his word shall stand.
So far as the spread of Catholicity in this country is concerned, we look upon this anti-Catholic party with no apprehension. If we deprecate the formation of such a party, it is for the sake of those misguided citizens who may unite to form it. It is because we see the terrible injustice of which they render themselves guilty, and the awful judgments they may provoke. We say to them, as St. Justin Martyr said to the Roman emperors, "Take heed how you hearken only to u-itist accusations; fear lest an excessive complaisance for superstitious men, a baste as blind as rasb, old prejudices which have no foundation but calumny, may cause you to pronounce a terrible sentence ad;ainst yourselves. As for us, nobody can harm us, unless we harm ourselves, unless we our-,elves become guilty of some injustice. You may indeed kill us, but you cannot injure us." It is for our countrymen, who will render themselves guiltv of gross wrong, of terrible sin, that we fear. They are CII(Yaged in an unholy cause, and, if they persist, cannot fail to draw down the judgments of Almighty God upon their guilty heads. They can shoot us down in the streets; they may break up our schools and seminaries; they may desecrate and burn our churches. Such things have been, and may be again; but it becomes those who have been and may be the perpetrators of such things to pause and ask themselves what manner of spirit thev are of; and how, in that dav of solemn reckoning which must come to us all, they will answer the inexorable Ju,lue for their abuse, their riot-,, their murder, and their sacri. leg:e. As they love their own souls, and desire good, we entreat them to beware how they plun(re deeper in sin, and rekindle the torch of persecution. For their sakes, not for ours, we pray them to pause before they go farther, and make their peace with the Son of God.
Adapted from
Essays and Reviews p. 420
Brownson's Quarterly Review January, 1845
Works, Vol. X, p. 17
Revised January 8, 2005.