The weekly Portage sentinel. [volume] (Ravenna, Ohio) 1854-1861, 1855-01-10
The National FreeSOiI Organ and
the Know NOthings.

At present, there is a bitter warfare car.
ried on between the Freesoilers and Know
Nothings. That our readers may form an
estimate Of the manner, and spirit manifest
ed in this controversy on the part of the
leading anti-Slavery organs, we copy the
following from the National Era. 1t is a
clear and powerful argument. 1t bears the
stamps of truth and candor. and will be
read with interest:
"Luther, Calvin, Fox and Wesly did not
organize secret orders, for the propagation
of their respective reforms. They wrote,
spoke, agitated openly, and manfuliy met
all the responsibilities belonging to their po-
sitions as reformers. They assumed that
the people hadintelligence and conscience,
and appealed to both openly, resorting to no
dark conspirGcieS, no secret ptotIings, no mys-
ieriouS clap-irGp, TO advance The cause Of
truth.
ga few years ago, universal clamor was
raised against the Free Masons, founded up
on the conviction in many minds that they
had become or were becoming secret pO-
litical party. Suppose two years ago, be-
fore the institution of this new order, it had
been generally avowed and admitted that
the Odd Fellows or the Masons had at last
resolved themselves into a political party,
whose deliberations and operations were all
carried on under an inpenetrable veil of Sc
crecy, with view of monopolizing the
political power of the country, what an out
cry we should have heard from every quar-
ter! Beyond all doubt, the clergy and the
anti Slavery party would have been fore
most in denouncing such an order, as insult
ing to popular intelligence, dangerous to
popular liberty, liable to the worst and most
runous corruptions.
"What is there in this new order to dis
arm their hostility to secret political asso-
Citations! for it SO happens that ministers,
especially of the Methodist and Presbyter
an denominations, are peculiarly favorable
to the ow-Nothings In their zeal against
Catholicism are they blind to the moral
character Of the means they employ to sub
vert it! Can they find in the warfare of
Luther, Calvin or Wesley precedent for Sc
cret political combinations against ecclesi-
nstical corruptions! Can they find exam
pie or sanction in the bold, courageous con-
duct of Christ and his Apostles! Can they,
in the whole history ofthe Christian Church,
point to any institution for the propagation
of the truth similar to that which they now
are encouraging, except that of the order of
the Jesuits, whose tactics are as concealed
as their own, far more comprehensive, but
in principle no more repugnaat to democrat
&c and Christian tnStituti0RS." O.. 4"
x
"Noble sons of noble sires, are we not!
Organizing a nation of twenty-five millions
of stalwart people into secret order, for
the purpose of saving ourselves from the
of an imbecile old man at Rome
unable to protect himself from the squalid
beggars that surround him, except by the
aid 0: foreign bayonets! God help our COM
mon sense"
= & g.
"We call upon euery louer of ciUH and re-
ligiouS liberty, every friend of Democratic
every believer in the necessity
of public responsibility, every Christian man
who reverences the wisdom. of his Savior,
erery Protestant rho hates the tactics of Jesu-
itism, to come out from this secret order,
which, whatever may be thought of its OBJ
jects, has resorted to course of action re-
pugnant to common sense and fair dealing,
to republicanism and Christianity, inevita.
bly, tends to the worst abuses, and may be-
come precedent for the most intolerable
tyranny"
That the Known Nothing party Of this
is decidedly pro-slavery in charac-
ter, no man who has been at all OBJ servant of
party movements for few months past can
doubt. Nor is it any wonder that it should
be-. All its principles, doctrines, and forms
ire despotic, and 1t is natural that one kind
If oppression should unite with another
We in the North, justly regard the institu-
ion of Slavery as social, moral, and poiti-
,al evil, and when religious despotsm be-
zones united with it, we are presented with
form of tyranny more to be dreaded than
my existing in Europe.
Many honest anti-Slavery men through
ut the North, joined this invisible organi-
alton, never dreaming, that by so doing, they
'ere Strengthening the hands of the slave
ower. They now see their error.
They have been deceived, betrayed;
nd with a candor alike hol orable to them
elves, and the principles they advocate,
hey come out and separate themselves from
n organization, whose foundations are laid
, falsehoof, > nd whose designs the total ov-
rthrow of civil and religious liberty. In
elligent freemen will not long submit to the
ictation of secret councils, or the despotic
diets of midnight conspiraeies. r