New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1856-11-21

forts on the part OF The EIPTesS anu oInor hno"-
Nothing tools of the Buccaneers to stir up relig
GUS prejudice against the candidate Of the Repub-
Ecsn party. This was thiog which the Bdchan.
GERS could not have managed alone, without evil
dent risk and danger 1t is comparatively safe to
kick or shoot an freshman, as was shown BY the
murder Of Heating, which, for aught that appears,
did not lose The Sham Democrats, who refused to
exrel the murderer from the House, one single
Irish vote. But to assa the Irish religi n, to de-
nOunce it as disqualification for the Presidency,
might likely enough have cost the Sham Democrats
few hundred supporters not one ofwhich they were
in condition to spare. 1t was very convenient,
therefore, to be able to turn over this JOB to 30
handy and active an ally as The Express and its
affiliated organs.
The only other instance in our history of any
similar appeal TO theological hatred carried into a
Presidential election is TO be found in the attacks
made upon Jefferson on the score of his religion.
The resemblance however, between the two cases
is not very great, and even those Jealous religion
lists who might admit the rightlulness Of the
attacks upon Jefferson, can find nothing in them
to Justify those made upon Fremont. In the
first place. those who assaied Jefferson were
neither calumnators nor liars, nor was it neces-
cary to manufacture testimony as The Express
so industIiOusy did in Fremonts case, to sustain
the charge against him. In the second place, the
charge against Jefferson was not that he belonged,
or had belonged to particular religious sect; the
charge was that he belonged to no sect at ALL but
was disbeliever in the Christian Revelation. In
the third place those who made and urged the
charge could plead that they did it only by way Of
reclamation for attacks made by Jefferson and his
supporters ON themselves. Between Jefferson and
those of the clergy who enjoyed or had enjoyed, TO
greater or lees extent, the position of public
establishment, there was no love lost. The steady
front presented by the New-England States in
support Of the Wasbingtonian policy, and against
the party of which Jefferson was the head and
leader as also the greater part of the opposition
which he experienced in the Middle States was
ascribed by him almost entirely to clerical infu
ence. The feelings which he entertained toward
the educated Clergy may be found fully expressed
in bis since published private correspondence, in
which he speaks of the New-England States rs un-
fortunate priest-riGden communities, led by the
Lose By body Of men "whO had got smell OF
"union between Church and State"-the natural
enemies of science and truth associated together in
a conspiracy against the liberties of the people,
1t is true that Jefferson, with his usual eau
ton, avoided the public expression of these senti-
uents; but the objects of them had an instructive
feeling of his hostility which, indeed, was Pa'pably
enough e,inced in his attentions to Paine, whom he
4 a L obt bn,,, in puhlic sal frOu
France-where he had been employed not merely
in composing his "Age Of Reason" but on some
very bitter llbcls upon Washington-and in his
patronage of Bishop Of Connecticut, who accused
the New. England clergy of being engaged in con-
tpiracy of Church and State against Christianity
and the Federal ULiOn-a charge, by the way,
which our journal Of Commerce, though far
from incliDing, as Bishop did, to free thinking,
seems very much disposed to reiterate, and for
which it may perhaps be rewarded, as Bishop was,
with an ofice-beipg like certain Judas, not dis
inclined to carry tine bag.
The assaults made upon Fremont, and the at.
tempt 20 excite religious prejudice against him,
il will he seen at once, had no such warrant,
sufficient or insufficient as it may be esteemed.
lie was rot charged with hostility, secret or open,
TO Christianity, ror with giving aid and comfort to
ifs enemies and ass aan,s; but merely with having
| adhered TO, or inclined to, thai section of the
| Christian Church to which his father had belonged,
and out of which, first or last, Immediately or de-
riyatiyely. all our American sects have drawn their
| origin. He was not even charged with any ex-
preston or feeling of hostility toward Protestant
ism, but merely with having been seen on some
occasions in a Catholic church, and with an imag-
ned secret leaning to that faith; and this charge,
instead of being founded in fact, was the mere
baseless coinage of political hostility and deliberate
falselocd. No Roman Catholic gave the least faith
TO if. Nj single vote was given to Fremont on
the strength of any supposed leaning OF his 20
Catholicism. The very Catholic editors engaged In
propagaiing this falsehCod all electloneered and
voted against him. while Jefferson had the cordial
support of the great body of the Thinkers, no
less than Of that great body of sectaries who for
gave his free thinking in consideration OF his hos
tility to standing orders, and to all laws giving
forced support to cergymen Of any description.
There is no doubt that cons derable number
of exceedingly wesk-minded indlyiduals-enough,
perlrps. TO have secured Buchanans defeat
were Induced by this calumny to vote against FIRE.
noli but the Jealous support given to him by the
great body of the Northern clergy, Of all Prot
estant sects-not on religious grounds, but as the
representative of the moral sentiment OF the nation
as opposed to Slavery Extension, guttapercla and
Border Rufhanism-afords gratifying proof that, in
,p;te Of sec.arian jealousies and prejudces, which