Kansas weekly herald., 1854-10-06

individuality and of giving him a badge in
seciety according to the accident of his birth
was one of the main results, as it is one of
the chief props, of arrogance in man, and
OF despotism In governments.
A man is born Christian and he has
all the characteristics of the Jew.
A man is born Jew, and he has all the
impulses of the Christian.
A man is born Roman Catholic, who
detests Pope and Jesuitism.
A man is born Protestant, and his sem
suous nature leads him to the most sens
uous religion.
A man is born in Europe, with all the
instincts of republican.
A man is born III America, with procliV-
tiles to exclusiveness and aristocracies.
Don't you see your short-sightedness
You cannot judge men by what they pro-
fess to be, or by what, from the inference
of their birth, you suppose them to be.
Y GU must Judge them by what they are. If
you wage war against all who are corrupt,
whether born here or abroad, whether Cath
olics or protestants, you will succeed, be-
cause there is Justice and common sense in
your war. From the moment, however,
you descend from that comprehensive plat
form and single out one or the other acci-
dents of birth as your special enemy, you
will not only fail in your endeavor to reform
but you will destroy the republic which you
wish to save by destroying the principles of
religious liberty and political equality upon
which it is founded.
"Let every man worship his God ac-
cording to his own fashion" And if you
can prove over and over that Jesuitism has
poisoned the world and that Roman Catho-
licism is only compatible with despotism,
there are legions of others who are ready
to prove, not less emphatically, that Christ
like tolerance and mercy are regenerating
the world, and that the majesty of practical
Christianity, embodied as it is in enlighten-
ed republicanism, will crush and shiverfe
pieces the influence of Pope and Pope
all the world over. Everybody admits the
nischieyious influences springing from the
mental blindness of the first generation of
foreigners: everybody admits the mischiev-
Gus influences of priests and iesuits; and
undoubtedly we subject ourselves to much
suffering by our tolerance. But we would
have to subject ourselves to still more suff-
ering by our intolerance, because you can
not shake the pillars of religious liberty
and political equality upon which our de-
mocracy rests, without shaking the whole
fabric of our institutions.
Christianity would never have become
the ruler of the worlds conscience, if the
early Christians had not suffered and died
for the sake of their principles. Your in
stitutions will never command the respect
of the world if you cannot bear suffering
if at the first sensation of pain you commit
suicide by trampling upon the principles
which are the most potent guarantee of
your national security.
can well fancy your feelings. You
find of a sudden corruption blighting your
institutions, the trail of the serpent of sla-
very blackening the land all over-patriot-
ism mockery- morality farce-politi-
clans turned tricksters, statesmen dema-
gogues-the good men of the country too
fond of ease and comfort, too selfish, too fas-
tidious, to go through the ordeal of public
service-and the bad men of the country
welding the power. You are struck with
amazement and sorrow, but In your zeal to
reform you are blinded by your passions.
You have not the moral courage to strike
at the root Of the disease, and instead of
erecting national platform to annihilate
all corrupt influences, you single out one or
two. and thus hold out brevet of immuni-
ty to all the rest. You give currency to the
infatuation that all native American Prot
estants are immaculate, and all foreigners
and Catholics are corrupt. You make the
recovery of the American Protestants who
are morally sick, altogether impossible, by
making them believe that they are ideals
of perfection and instead of dispelling the
confusion of the foreigners mind by your
generosity, you make confusion worse con.
founded by your exclusiveness; and in
stead OF neutralizing the absurdity of the
superstition of the Papists by the exhibi-
ton of your forbearance, you makeit agleW
with red-hot fanaticism by your prosecutions
and hostility.
Is it fair, is it Just, is it American, to
seize the first occasion of discomfort to inn
itate the old worlds despotism, from which
this country has fortunately escaped? De-
pend upon it, by whatever name you may
now batpize your exertions, you give them
false name if YOU do not name them Des-
potism. s .F
| From the moment you give badge oil
superiority to one man over another, from
that moment you break the magnanimous
| equality which your laws have established,
from that moment you break the spirit of re-
publicanism, and you legalize the spirit oi
aristocracy. The American and Protes.
tant are the privileged class; the Cathelis
and adopted citizen form a lower class.
You argue; The adopted icitizen is toe
narfow-minded to comprehend our institu.
tons. BY crowding him out from your %:
flitical society, You rob him of the only:chal1ce
which he has of elevating his mind:
Yon argat farther: Thcrseo lri5: lhssftf al