Newspaper Page Text
4
fg^ip
REV. A. J. RYAN, Editor
AUGUSTA, Ga., NOVEMBER 21, 1868
CATHOLICISM AND A REPUBLIC-
Under this head, the Eatonton, (Ga.,)
Press & Messenger publishes an article,
the purport of which is that the Roman
Catholic Church is incompatible with Re
publicanism. We think that this asser
tion—for it is a mere assertion, and a
very false one at that—comes with a
very bad grace from any American Jour
nalist, and particularly from a Southern
Journalist. In Protestant America, as
some delight to call this country, Repub
licanism is the most “disgraceful fizzle”
that was ever seen in a National way.
It is completely “played out/’ to use a
cant expression of this enlightened age ;
and the individual who would attempt to
contrast its glories with the evils of Royal
ty, would only be laughed at by the
world for his pains. Don’t do it friends.
It is really—we were going to say—too
funny to think about; but we check our
selves, as it is, certainly, a very serious
thing for us of the South, this so-called
American Republicanism, at the present
time!
But Republicanism is a dead failure.
It presupposes an amount of human vir
tue that does not exist, and without that
virtue, it cannnot exist. That is the
whole cause of the failure, and not from
the presence or absence of any religious
clement. Was it Catholicism that made
it fail in Rome and Greece ? We rather
think not. Was it Catholicism that made
it fail in America ? We rather think
not. The only two pure and prosperous
Republics in the world, at this day, are
the little ones <|f San Marino, in Italy,
under the very shadow of St. Peter’s,
at/Rome, and Andorra, nestling amid
the mountains of the Pyrenees, in the
proud Empire of Spain. They are Ro
man Catjiolic Republics ; and they have
stood there, unshaken, for centuries,
amid the storms of Revolution and the
changes of political power. These are
the only two Republics in the world.
Where is there a Protestant one ? An
swer us that, you slanderers of the Cath
olic Church, if you can.
Who was it that gave Constitutional
Liberty to England ? Were not the Ba
rons who asserted that Liberty Catholics ?
Was not the Catholic Colony of Lord Bal
timore, settled in Maryland, the first to
proclaim Religious Liberty in America?
while Protestant Rhode Island was banish
ing Roger Williams; and Protestant Massa
dm,setts was burning witches and persecu
ting Protestants and Catholics alike ? Are
these the “benumbing effects of Catholi
cism V ’ When the South was battling
for Constitutional Liberty, was not the
Head of the “Popish Church/’ the Pontiff of
Rome, the only Sovereign who recognized
your Confederacy and tendered the respect
ed President of that Confederacy his sym
pathy and prayers ? Was it not Catholic
Prance who aided the United States to
achieve their independence; and Catholic
Prance who offered to mediate in the late
struggle for Southern Independence?
Were these some of the “benumbing ef
fects of Catholicism ?”
Algiers is cited as a Colonization fail
ure, because established by a Nation gov
erned by Catholic principles ! What of
India? That was established by Protest
ant England. What of Liberia ? That
was established by Protestant America,
They are as great failures to-day as Al
giers, or any other Catholic Colony. That
the establishment of the “Latin Race’’
with Maximilian as Emperor, in Mexico,
was a “disgraceful fizzle,” is not due to
the fact that the Emperor Napoleon was
a Catholic; but because Protestant Eng
land and Protestant America would not
give their aid and support to the move
ment there. If they had done so, Mexi
co would, to-day, be free from the evils of
American Republicanism, and rejoicing
in the existence of a Govern rnent of Peace
and Prosperity.
We might, if we had the time and the
patience, go on, and pursue this argument
farther, illustrating our position that
“Catholicism is not only not incompati
ble with Republicanism, but is favorable
to its existence,” with innumerable proofs
from the history of the past; but we for
bear. We might “answer a fool accord
ing to his folly,” and characterize the
assertions of our enemies as they-deserve;
but we shall be patient ; and misre
presentation and abuse shall be met by
facts and arguments. We only ask,
would it not be just as easy, in making
charges, to state truths as to state error ?
and would it not be more hon
orable, if you have no truths to base
charges upon, to make no charges at all ?
These questions we submit to our Eaton
ton cotemporary and to the paper from
which it took its extract; and, in con
clusion, commend to its attention the fol
lowing neat and beautiful tribute to the
Roman Catholic Church, by the Protest,
ant Historian, Macaulay, of England;
“There is not, and there never was, on
this earth, a work of human policy so
well deserving of examination as the
Roman Catholic Church. The history of
that Church joins together the two great
ages of human civilization. No other in
stitution is left standing which carries
the mind back to the times when the
smoke of sacrifice rose from the Pan
theon, and when camelopards and tigers
bounded in the Flavian Amphitheatre.
The proudest royal houses are but of yes
terday, when compared with the line of
the Supreme Pontiffs. That line we
trace back, in an unbroken series, from
the Pope who crowned Napoleon in the
Nineteenth century, to the Pope who
crowned Pepin in the Eight; and far be
yond the time of Pepin, the august dy
nasty extends, till it is lost in the twi
light of fable. (?) The Republic of Venice
came next in antiquity. But the Repub
of Venice was modern when compared
with the Papacy; and the Republic of
Venice is gone, and the Papacy remains.
The Papacy remains, not in decay, not a
mere antiquity; but full of life and
youthful vigor. The Catholic Church is
still sending forth, to the farthest ends of
the world, Missionaries as zealous as
those who landed in Kent, with Augustin;
and still confronting hostile Kings with the
same spirit with which she confronted
Attila. The number of her children is
greater than in any former age. Her
acquisitions in the New World have more
thau compensated her for what she has
lost in the Old. Her spiritual ascendan
cy extends over the vast countries which
lie between the plains of the Missouri and
Cape Horn—countries which, a century
hence, may not, improbably, contain a
population as large as that which now in
habits Europe. The members of her
community are certainly not fewer than
a hundred and fifty millions; and it will
be difficult to show that all the other
Christian sects, united, amount to a hun
dred and twenty millions. Nor do w ? c
see any sign which indicates that the term
of her long dominion is approaching.
She saw the commencement of all the
Governments, and of the ecclesiastical
establishments, that now exist in the
world; and we feci no assurance that she
is not destined to see the end of them all.
She was great and respected before the
Saxon had set foot on Britain—when
Grecian eloquence still nourished at An
tioch—when idols were still worshipped
in the temple of Mecca. And she may
still exist in undiminished vigor when
some traveller from New Zealaud shall,
in the midst of a vast solitude, take his
stand on a broken arch of London Bridge
to sketch the ruins of St. Paul’s.”
FOUL PLAY.
There is foul play on the part of Gov
ernments and Peoples, as well as on the
part of individuals. The foul play of
the latter is reprehensible as far as it goes;
but its effects are limited. The foul play
of the former is more deadly, because
its effects are more extended. There
may be “honor amoDg thieves,” and
sometimes, even, “when rogues fall out,
honest men come by their dues;” but, un
der the foul play of Government, there
is neither the honor of thieves, nor the
chances of remuneration for its victims.
The Government which boasts itself
•Mfflllffi ©S MI ®©IIS„
“the best the world ever saw,” is a Gov
ernment of foul play. Charles Read
and Dion Bourcicault gave the world the
Drama of “Foul Play /’ but the Gov
ernment of the United States has made
it a deep, a thrilling, and a bloody trag
edy. Its foul play has sunk our country
in ruin and despair; it lias filled our
land with widows and orphans; it
has given us thousands of crippled and
poor to support. And yet it is “the best
Government the world ever saw !” We
must admire it. We must adore it. We
must proclaim our love for it; and, in
accents of sorrow and humility, thank
it for its gracious forbearance in not
swinging every Southern Rebel to “a
sour apple tree.” Out upon such whin
ing hypocrisy ! It is not the part of a
brave people. It is not the part of men
who have struggled through four bloody
years for Southern independence, to now
“crook the pregnant hinges of the knee,
that thrift may follow fawning.” Oh!
but it is Policy. Out upon Policy, when
Principle is involved. Was it Policy to go
into a fierce war to establish a great Prin
ciple ? Was it for Policy that the South
struggled so long and so nobly against
such fearful odds ? Or was it for that
grand immutable Principle of Constitu
tional Liberty—that Principle which was
born away down in the dim ages of the
Past, revived at Runnymede, aud pre
served in the Declaration of American
Independence ?. If it was for Policy we
struggled, then for Policy we should bow
the head and bend the knee at every
stroke of the Tyrant’s rod. If it was for
Principle that we struggled, then for
Principle we should still struggle. If it
was worth so much sacrifice, it is worth
still more. War could not destroy it.
Tyranny could not destroy it. Suffering
cannot destroy it; and, by the help of
God, Policy shall not destroy it.
The Men of the South may falter be
fore the breath of Power; stout hearts
may quail before the beck of the Tyaant;
and brave souls may shrink back, appall
ed, before Ruin and Desolation; but, thank
God! the Women of the South are still
as true as steel to the Lost Cause, true
to Principle, true to Right, and though
in the surging tide of Policy, brave re
solutions , proud thoughts, and firm pur
poses, may go down forever ; still the
Memories of the Past, clustering and
twining around the grand Principle of
Constitutional Liberty, will be enshrined
in these Women’s hearts, as long as Time
shall last. The foul play of the Govern
ment may conquer the craven hearts of
men ; but it has no terrors for the puri
ty, the truth, and the patriotic courage of
Southern Women.
When the South set up her claims for
independence, it was proclaimed, North
and South, that a People oppressed by
their Government had a right to throw
off the yoke of bondage, and establish
their freedom. This was the boast of
Northern Politicians and the burden of
Fourth of July orations. Lincoln him
self declared it; Greeley, of the Tribune,
proclaimed it; and Seward reiterated it.
It was a Principle, they said, which our
Fathers of the Republic had fought for
and established. It was even, (falsely)
claimed as an American Principle, And
so the South undertook to assert it.
But the foul pla} f of Government
estopped her. That Government pledged
itsedf to her Commissioners that no overt
steps would be taken against the South ;
and at the very time the promise was
being made, armed ships with provisions
Fort Sumter were on the broad bosom of
the Atlantic.
After the war had progressed, that
Government left its thousands of soldiers,
who, by the fortunes of war, came into
the custody of the South as prisoners,
to perish by starvation and disease, re
fusing the proposals of the Confederate
Government for exchange or provision
ing them ! Its foul play butchered and
destroyed the very men who were help
ing it to uphold its power.
The war closed, and Johnson and
Sherman agreed upon terms of peace.
They were litnest and honorable terms to
both parties; but the foul play of the
Government again stepped in aud revoked
these terms ! Lee then surrendered to
Grant; our armies were disbanded; and
wc had no resource but to submit. That
Government offered us other terms—
terms of Reconstruction; we accepted
them; but its foul play again interfered,
and soon Military Despotisms were estab
lished in every one of the Southern States.
These States were proclaimed out of
the Union; their best citizens disfran
chised ; and their ignorant Negroes, their
late slaves, elevated to perfect equality
with the whites. And thus, the foul play
of the Government of the United States
has gone on day after day, week after
week, month after month, and year after
year, dragging our beloved section down
from its once high position, to poverty,
ruin, and despair; and thus it continues
through every phase of its actions to
wards the South. Yet, there are people
who tell us not only to bear it all pa
tiently, but to praise the hand that
strikes the blow, and be silent that we
may receive nothing worse !
Such craven cowardice, is almost as
ad as the Tyranny which we endure.
But it is hard that the brave, the good,
and the true, should suffer for the shame
ful conduct of these traitors and syco
phants of place and power. Let us hope,
however, that the day is not far distant,
when foul play shall cease; when Jus
tice will resume her sway in our land ;
when Principle will triumph over Policy ;
and the men and women of the South,
who have stood true to that Principle
and to their section, will see their reward
hi the peace and prosperity which shall
smile over the land, “redeemed, regener
ated and disenthralled,”
HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF-
From Mauaulay’s History of England, Tolume iv,
page 2*17.
“The Parliament elected in 1651, dur
ing that fit of joy and fondness which
followed the return of the Royal family,
represented not the deliberate sense, but
the momentary caprice of the Nation.
Many of the members were men who, a
few months later, would have no chance
of obtaining seats; men of broken for
tunes and of dissolute habits; men whose
only claim to public confidence was the
ferocious hatred they bore to Puritans
and rebels. The people, so soon as they
had become sober, saw, with dismay, to
what an assembly they had, during their
intoxication, confided the care of their
property, their liberty, and their religion.’’
How well and truly history repeats it
self! The human nature of to-day is the
same human nature of yesterday, and of
centuries ago. It changes only so far as
circumstances change- it; and is as de
praved and fickle now as it ever was.
One of the evidences of this is found in
the above extract. It will apply, with
but few exceptions, to the present history
of American affairs; and some day the
people will “become sober,” and they will
see, perhaps too late, to whom they have,
unhappily, “confided the care of their
property, their liberty, and their reli
gion.” If not too late, then the men
who have now gained place and power by
their hatred of Southerners and “Rebels,”
will be a by-word and a reproach in the
Nation; while “the Rebels” and the prin
ciples which they represented will live in
hearts of love and admiration.
Harmony Presbytery, S. o.,convened
at Camden, October 7th, passed, among
other items, the following:
“ 5. This Presbytery urges the people
of its Churches to establish and encourage
Schools and Colleges under Presbyterian
influence, and earnestly advises them not
to send their children to schools where
they are likely to be estranged from
their own Church.
[Southern Presbyterian.
What for ? Don’t you believe in the
right of private judgment; and don’t you
argue that it’s of no consequence what
Church a person belongs to, so that
person is a believer in Christ; and, so be
lieving, what difference does it make if
they do get estranged from your Church?
Say.
A Kentucky girl, who married a fellow
of mean reputation, was taken to task for
it by her uncle. “ I know, uncle,” she
replied, “ that Joe is not good for much;
but, he said I dared not have him, and I
won’t take a stump from anybody.”
NEW YORK CORRESPONDENCE
OF THE EANXER OF THE SOUTH.
Blundering . Bigotry and the Bayonet-
Grant to he President, and some observa
tions thereon — Xo power to harm the
South in the long run —The South united
at last—The South not powerless—The
Finances the Weak Point of the North —
A Broad Hint to the South—The Report
of the Secretary of the Treasury; a
Startling Exhibit —The Lib rian Presi
dent, Roberts, in New York—An inter
esting xie&tf a Negro Republic—Gen.
Forrest and Gen . Kilpatrick—A feu
kind words for the Banner .
New York, Nov. 17th, ISOS.
Banner of the South:
Blundering, bigotry, and the bayonet
have done their work. Grant is to be the
President, and the “trooly loil” now sur
round him, like prairie wolves ranged in
a circle round a buffalo bull, each licking
his chops in anticipation of a slice. The
office-seeking pressure, to be less meta
phorical, .is enormous, and the adulation
which accompanies it enough to sicken a
hyena. To read these Northern papers,
and to hear these people talk, one would
suppose that the centre of the Universe
was in this squat, little, befuddled man,
and that all things, in Heaven and Earth,
were at his disposal, and to move accord
ing to his will. He is to do this, they
say, and that ; the South is to cower
down before him, and hug its chains; and,
so far from being “rebellious” and disloil,
any more, is to swear that it rather admires
dirt as a steady diet than otherwise; the
currency is, at once, to go to par; the
bonds are all to be paid in solid gold;
and everything is to be serene, and love
ly, and “loil,” forevermore. The joke of
all this is, that, back of the little squat
man, lies the real power iu the land, a
bastard Senate and a revolutionary
House. The same laws that bind John
son in the Presidency will bind Grant;
for those laws are made to shackle the
Executive office, itself, and not this or
that particular incumbent. So long as
the new man goes along like a good
soul, and approves all that Congress
does, it will be all right; he will not feel
the Tenure of Office Act—the Act with
drawing the Constitutional command of
the Army, and all those other Ac s which
have hampered Mr. Johnson so heavily.
But once let him seek to trammel the
will of Congress, and those Acts will be
as good for Grant as thry now are for
Johnson. So far from repealing* them,
the Radical Congress means to keep
them in force, and up >n them will come
some of the heaviest struggles that have
vet been seen in Washington. In sublime
forgetfulness, however, of all this, the
very air here is blue with proud boasts of
what the “ General ” is to do for, it is
to be remarked that, where the term
President, as applied to Grant, is used
once, the military cognomen is used an
hundred times. The wires groan "with
fulsome dispatches, telling how he walked
through the White House grounds,
smoking his cigar, how he got off a bril
liant witticism, in saving he would take
the popular approbation as granted ; and
how lie has ordered his Military Secretary
to destroy all letters for office, and how
that functionary is, every morning, a foot
deep in that sort ot correspondence.
Here and there, in the midst of these
tidings, comes a word from the great
man, himself, uttered in the true auto
cratic vein, and saying, I will do this, or
I will do that, or 1 will do the other
thing, whereat all the “loil” cut a caper,
and all the “trooly loil” weep for joy.
Altogether, the spectacle is piteous, and.
on first view, might even seem to justify
despair; for, surely, it is a sad thing* to
even have it thought that the welfare of
so many millions of people as inhabit all
this country should be dependent on the
whim of a single military man. Happily,
however, that welfare is not so depend
ent. To use an expressive vulgarism,
this man “'hasn’t got the world in a
sling.” Circumstances are mightier than
the mightie t, and to the immutable laws
of Nature, even this great drum-beating,
horn-blowing, universal Yankee Nation
must succumb In the long run, neither
Grant nor the Cougress can especially
harm the South. All that has been done,
heretofore, is bad, very bad; but, for all
that, when you look back on it, has not
been without an accompanying compensa
tory good. The evils the South endures
are temporary evils, and, back of them,
lies this great fact, that the existence of
these evils has knit her people into one
solid unit. The old distinctions of W iiig
and Democrat, Union man or Secessionist,
have paled before the tremendous touch
stone of the ineffable and glorious natural
supremacy of the white blood. This is
threatened, this has been insulted, and —
save a few lumps of carrion here and
there—all who share that lineage, are new
ot one mind. Union is strength, and, as
one result of the base oppression heapeu
upon them, the people of the South have
now that union. Tne cry of the “loil