Daily American organ. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1856, 1856-05-15
WHOLE NO. 473.


Mr.. J. Crawford, editor Of the Protestant Amer
lean, published at Aberdeen, Mississippi, Il an
Irishman by birth, an accomplished scholar and
fearless and eloquent writer. He took strong
ground In favor Of the American party, and, hav.
ing been violently denounced for this by the editor
Of the Florence, Alabama, Gazette, he madr
powerful and overwhelming response, from which
we take these paragraphs. Many foreign-born
citizens, and not few natives might read them
with profit and edifcatIon
You charge against MS that We conduct Know
Nothing journal. Did 1t ever strike you, sir, "a
possible that the principles we advocate In lhis
paper, and which you fear win arouse the indgna.
ton OF your readers, are the principles we held
many years before the Know w-Nothings had an ex.
istence; that we have not gone to them, but that
they have come TO us that from the circumstan.
ces OF our foreign birth we knew the force and
necessity Of one great vital doctrine of the Amer.
lean party, long before circumstances forced it
upon their attention SO strongly that they cannot
avoid itS They must meet Il and crush 1t, or be
crushed by II.
II would be of considerable advantage 10 you,
sir II rclinqaishing your present Quixotic battle
against the American party, you would 90 and see
for yourself what Popery Is, where she has the
power. You are now running a muck" with all
the fury Of an eIasperated Thug against Know
Nothing newspapers-suppose you wipe your drip
ping brow and let your painting system cool and
get a little information on the subject Of Popery
with power in her hands. 1t win teach you char
ity for the opinions Of those you oppose, II win
give you time TO practice your native politeness;
and you may TO call serf slave, sycophant,
because we choose to set our face like flint"
against system which ensaves not the bodies,
but worse, infinitely worse-thc souls and minds,
the hopes the fears Of its votares
But Lot ua Iook at the charoa What ;a tla
crime ], an Irish Protestant, and found acting
with party whose leading object is to abolish the
temporal power Of Popery, am therefore crusading
against my own countrymen Shade Of common
sense. what ails the man, Did you expect me,
sir, to aid, eitherwith my pen or voice, system
which has hunted my fathers to the dungeon and
the gibbet; which gave them the rack for argu-
ment; which placed on their legs the iron boot,
and drove in wedge after wedge, till the marrow
ovcrran this Popish argument; C) which, huddling
women and children into house, applied the
torch, and caught them, as they rushed madly out,
on the heads OF their iron pixies? With what par
ty, pray, should be Just where am, sir, with
the American party; because it has raised its
mighty arm, and sworn by Him who veth forever
and ever, that such schemes shol never be enacted
on American soil
What is my crime? That at time when half
million Of Roman Catholics--thc blind tools Of
designing foreign princes--are pouring annually
upon our shores, ], an Irish Protestant when the
press is placed at my disposal, should cry, "Therc
is danger--for Gods sake protect yourself while
you can. knew them where they burned Bibles,
they murdered heretics, they set the law Of the
land at defiance, and would obey no law but the
law Of the Church" This is my only crime And
for this am called siage, sycophaas and object
And by whom? An American Protestant! A
man whose ancestors perilled all for freedom to
worship God" How long win that freedom last
when Popery becomes numerically supreme Not
an hour How often would he in Florence, visit
the Methodist Chapel, If the Pope could prevent it,
(and he is only waiting numerical strength.) All.
sir, there would be no chapel thcrc--the thundefs
of the Vatican would raze il from turret to lonn-
dation stone just as soon as IL had subjects enough
to carry cut its benests