The true Democrat., 1856-05-20

why? Because they love the faith of tbe;r fathers and mothers, and will not tread with impious feet upon the graves of their ances. tors.
 The Sd sec, article 6, of the constitution. says that mo religious test shall ever be re- qu'red as qualification to any office or public trust under the United States' It is to be presumed that the drafters of that immortal instrument Tn looking down the vista of time ana anticipating the probable events of the fu- lufe iofesaw that collisions would take place between the different religious denominations of the country, and that the churches as they got power, wealth and numbers on their side would make the enore to secure supremacy of power by monoposlng the offices of the states and general government. It was to guard against this result and to prevent one church from he- coming great, wealthy aud powerful. to the ruin of another, that the clause to which vonr attention has been directed became part of the organic law of the republic.
 The actors in the passage of that great char ter of human rights, were we'll advised of W hat they were doing Their fathers and their fath- CTS ancestors, through many generations of the past, had tasted the bitter fruits of religious in. toerarce. The persecution for "conscience's sake,' that drove the Pilgrim fathers to the vast wllds of the American forests, were not forgotten; and the recent acts of the churches in the then colony of Massachusetts were still fresh Tn their memories. Besides this, was the bitter recollection of the past handed down to them by the historical record of Europe. Then. though 1t be an awful commentary upon human nature, and dark foul stain upon the history of the religion of God as taught in His holy writings they saw each church striving for power and supremacy at the ruin and impover- lshment of the others; and as one church grew nwealth and numbers, they also saw the dews ot governmental patronage falling upon it, whilst the other religious sects fingered out a stunted and slckly existence, or were swallow ed up In the vortex of persecution which pass ed over them.
 In this protection of one church to the ex- cluslon of others followed long train of dis astrouS consequences. The nearest and dear est right known to the human heart, that of worshippng God after the dictates of ones own conscience, was shattered and broken, and the great and inestmabe privilege of attending their own churches and paying adoration to their Creator after their own forms and customs was denied them by the laws of the country. Nor did the evil cease here. Tithngs were levied by law upon the outlawed churches to
 
 pular church. As natural consequence of these prosecutions, dislrusts, doubts, defections and finally atheism crept into the human heart Men ground down with bitter prosecutions, de- ned the privilege of worshipping God after their own conceptions of right and wrosg, and oppressed with burthensome taxation for the support of the church that they loathed and condemned either fell back into the vilest hv- pocrey, or flashing their fists into the face of Heaven declared that there was no God, and like the Jacobns of France, asserted that death was an eternal sleep"
 But darker and more terrible scenes thar these, if possible, followed these prosecutions Civil war, with all its horrid train of disaster: its burning houses. desolated fields, sack ed cities and villages, the knives of human be- ings red with the blood of their brothers, thei kinSnen and their neighbOrs-all followed r the dire struggles for church supremacy The bloody wars of the fifteenth and sixteenth cen. turies stand out as guidn. lights upon the pa. ges of history, as prominently as the Allegha ny mountains do upon the face Of the Amer can continent. All history, from the remotes antiquity down to the present period of time furnishes the important lesson that wheneve a government throws its protection around any one of the churches, to the injury and preiu ' dice of the others, that church becomes an en- zine of coercion and oppression to the balance of the churches.
 And yet, follow citizens, it is this blood, rlegu" that this mo leru ism''-this intensely AmerIcansed" party would usher in. In national council held at Philadelphia, in J unt 1855, before the face of the nation, and witt the eyes of the world looking upon their de llberations the Know Nothing party IeclareC man incompetent to fill office, and unworth, of the confidence of the community in whicl he lived, simply because he did not fall dowl and worship God as they did. By what right what authority, do these men interprise be tween mans conscience and his God?-anC who delegated to them the power to say, ml religion is right and yours wrong?-and unless you abandon the religion taught you in infan cy from mothers lips, and worship God as do, you shall be cut off from all civil and so cal rights and become being of mere mega tive powers? No such rights exist under tho constitution of the United States
 But this convention did not content itsel with attacking the rights of conscience, bu from the same quiver it winged another arrow at the place of mans birth. The misfortun, of a trans Atlantic birth in these latter days has become a matter of reproach. To hal
  bold steeps of the Switzer's mountain home or the green sod of the Emerald Isle, is t, come under tine ban of this secret party. AnC yet the time was in the history of our country that this class of population formed an essen tial element in bringing about those momen tous results that have made ours the most ex alted and prosperous nation on the face of tn, globe During the darkest hours of our rev olution, when the Continental army was dis pirited impoverished, and actually starving fol the necessary wants of life, the foreign born citizens of New York, Philadelphia, and Bos ton, came forward to their relief and by con trbutlons of money and clothing, enabled Washington to push onward in the accom- plishment of that freedom which we to-da, enjoy. In the war of 1812-'15, and more late ly in the Mexican war; the blood of the for elgner and the native-born mingled in on, common stream,-the price of your country honor and irsulted dignity. In all the privat social relations existing between man and ma1 and in all the moral qualities that constitut good citizens and good neighbors, this popula tion has never been found lacking. It wa reserved for the nineteenth century to mak the discovery that this was a dangerous ele ment of power we were fostering in our Do sons. In the solemn stiffness of the night when the moan of the whippowill, or the CT, of the ravinous wolf, alone are head we se the men that give countenance to these sian ders, creeping from their homes with stealth step to some dark avenue or secret hiding plac, and here in cold, calm deliberation, begin tn attack upon a class of people, which, up that period, had become so identified in fec ing and education with us, that they had a most entirely lost whatever of foreign blood ( prejudlces they had brought with them to tn country. Out upon such doubly-dyed hypoc iscy! The scheme is too apparent. The ve is too transparent not to be seen through
 Is but mere ruse to throw down the demo cratic party, and upon its ruins build up ne party, no matter how or by what means a complshed.
 But, fellow citizens, this same conventio so energetic in creating new and anomalol issues, attempts to define the power of Col gress over the admissablity or prohibition l slavery in the territories. We are free to at init that the 18th section of the Philadelph | platform as it then existed, was a good ar | only