The Portsmouth inquirer. [volume] (Portsmouth, O. [Ohio]) 1849-1855, 1855-06-15


They would keep millions Of acres barren
and useless, for generation after genera.
ton, in order that their virgin soil may be
first broken, in the far future, by those
whose ancestors came from Europe in
some particular year. They thus endeav-
toswall out philanthropy by columns of
statistics, and justify prescription by the
rules Of arithmetic. Instead of apprecia-
ting a free press, they seek utterly to ig-
more It. Instead of pfoclaiming free
speech, they put padlocks on their lips,
and speak in whispers. Instead Of pub
lie meetings to consider public affairs, they
resort to secret assemblies, and illuminate
prosecutions in the dark. They admins
ter oaths lest their doings may be known,
and send out prejudiced and oath.bound
men to equivocate as witnesses, and do
wrong as jurors. Eow long could such
persons hold sway in any country with
out making its. people towards and its
government a despotism? Why, accor-
ding to the know nothing catechism, our
fathers should have thanked King George
for discouraging the emigration to this
country Of foreigners, and should have
insisted upon keeping every inch of Amer
lean soil for native born Americans. The
trainers of the constitution, in this view,
should have declared that Church and
State should be forever one and indivisi-
BILE; that a Protestant inquisition should
be established here 10 keep out a Catholic
one, that Congress should make no law
forbidding the people to "keep dark" OF
to prevent the press from being silent, OF
to restrain good citizens from holding Sc
cret meetings by the light of tallow can
dies, and in places reached only by dark
passages and narrow alleys. They should
have secured to every American the priv
ilcge of trial by packed jury, and il a
courtroom excluded from the public eye.
They should have required elections to be
carefully guarded, SO that no one could
not exchange grips and cabalist;c signs
with the inspectors at the polls. These
are the glorious privileges for which know.
nothingism contends. These are the uti.
American notions which viii soon make
t a deep disgrace ever to have been con-
nected with that pernicious organization.
Demagogdes may pamper it for d time
with the hope of Office. Good men may
sometimes be inisled by it for brief in.
terval, and think they are serving theft
country when they are really undermin-
ing its foundations. The order itself, in
a few instances, may succeed in getting a
snap Judgment on the people, and elec-
ting, its candidates. But it cannot exist
in republican government. Its seeds Of
dissolution are within itself 1t is founded
on wrong and saiseifcod, and - g'sars to
die. There are many public men who
will die with it; for the republic will moi
hereafter regard with confidence those
politicians who have looked with favor OF
such society. But the progress o
events will not be stayed by it. Immi
grants will still come here from the Ole
World, and viii still be naturalized. !
the laws of naturalization require to bt
corrected, the correction in due time will
be made. But Congress will establish ne
religious tests, and attempt no such i'm
possibility as to build a Chinese wa
around America; much less will the peo
pie tolerate any partition Of races among
themselves.