Wheeling daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, Va. [W. Va.]) 1852-1859, 1853-03-10
Archbishop Hughes and Mr.. Meagher.
interfering Correspondence.

AutercsIlnS correspondence
II will be remembered that some weeks since,
II. +. Meagher, Esq, the Irish patriot, made
speech at n dinner OF the Meagher Guards, of New
York, in which he referred to certain attempts that
had been made to silence him in regard to Gov.
Kossuth and the principles of civil and religious
liberty; and that he repealed with good deal of in
dignation such attempts to restrict his freedom of
opinion and of speech. An interesting correSpon-
dence is said to have passed between him and
Archbishop Hughes upon the subject, the sub
stance OF which is thus given i'll the New York
Times:-
The Archbishop wrote to Mr.. Meagher, referring
to the speech in question and desiring explicit
information as to the persons referred TO having
thus denounced hun. He said that by many he
had been understood referring to the Bishops
and the other officers of the Roman Catholic
Church; and his language was SO vague as to give
no sufficient warrant for the contradiction of the
rumor. He requested, Therefore, that he would
give him some more definite information upon the
subject.
Mr.. &Ieagher replied by saying that he had often
heen asked for similar explanations from various
quarters; but he had uniformly refused to give
them. The Official position and personal Charac
ter OF the Archbishop, however, entitled him to q
more full and definite statement of his meaning,
which he was quite willing 10 give. The Language
used, he said was intended to be broad enough TO
cover the cases Of all, Of " hatever character or
description, who had denounced him for avowing
lis devotion to the principles of civil and religious
liberty. He had been educated i'll the Catholic
schools OF Ireland; and one of the lessons most
thoroughly impressed upon his mind in those
schools, was that England was guilty of outrageous
tyranny in requiring, in any form, from the Irish
people, conformity TO the doctrines and worship OF
the Established Church. He there learned that
freedom of conscience was one of the inalienable
rights of man. that religious worship was thing
with which Governments had no right to interfere;
and that any law making dissent i'll matters OF re-
ligiOn from the religion OF the State crime, pun
lshable by law, was an outrage upon justice and
humanity.
He believed these principles to be just and true;
and he could not conceive that any consistent
Catholic should hold them 10 be true for Ireland
and false for the rest of the world. And yet the
Archbishop must be aware that certain papers in
the United States, claiming TO be representatives
OF the Catholic church, and 10 have the support
and sanction of its high authoritieS-of which he
named the New York Freeman's Journal, the
Buffalo Celt, the Boston Pilot and the Pittsburgh
Shepherd Of the Valley--had denounced him in
the most violent terms for having avowed these
opinions, and declared ms readiness 10 stand by
them in their APPLICATION 10 whatever cases might
arse He thought the ArchpiShop ought to de-
clare explicitly whether the views of those papers
met his appreciation. For himself, he considered
them utterly false-at war with the principles OF
liberty-at war with the Archbishops principle as
set forth in his lecture the .tCathoc Chapter
-un- American, and calculated TO place the Cath
olic church III false position before the country
a I'D the world.