The true Democrat., 1856-01-01
For the True Democra Know Nothing Beauties.

Is inclined to mourn or laugh at human folly. to witness the absurditics which Know Nothings are sometimes driven, by their miserable errors. to adopt as for instance, when they assume that the progress of the age has had no infu- ence upon the minds and feelings of Catholics as we'll as upon the minds and feelings of the people of other denominations. That although Protestants once put each other as we'll as Ca- thocs to death on account of their religious faith, yet Protestants of the present age are too enlightened, are effected too much by the pro- gross of the age, to perpetrate such enormities any more; but the descendants of those Catho- lies who were persecuted at that time, too, are not 80 e6ected by that progress-Mr. Quail is- but Mr. Carroll is not; for this cause Mr. Carroll was deprived, by the Know Nothings in the ! last Legislature of his constitutional privileges. They would not vote for him for land agent be- cause he was Catholic-now the Know Noth- ing members of the Legislature had sworn, that in dscharging their duties, they would support the constitution of the State and of the United States They swore, too, in the Know Nothing council, not to vote for a Catholic for office. Our State constitution has these claus eS, and which belong to the most sacred and inviolable portion of that instrument, as being of the essential principles of liberty and free government" to wit "no preference shall ever be given to any religious establishment or mode of worship" Know Nottingham requires the governmental selecting it's officers to prefer those persons who belong to the Protestant mode of worship"
 Again the constitution declares in the same most sacred portion of 1t, that the civil rights, privileges or capacities of any citizen shall in no wise be diminished or enlarged on account of his religion" Does not Know Nottingham dlnalnish the privileges and capacities of such citizens as Carroll, Farrely, Palmer, Hanly and Clark on account of their religion? Did not Mir. Carroll experience it when he applied to the government for an office? And does not Know Nottingham enlarye the privileges and capacities of Protestants in the same ratio? Did not MT. Carroll's opponent experience it when he applied to the government for an office?
 Know Nothings say (vide Jere Clemens letter) that the government can refuse to give a man an office because of his religious belief with as much propriety as it can refuse to give one an office because of his political sentiments, and, of course, that these notions are in harmo- ny with the genius and spirit of the institu- tions of the country! The condition of mans mind, when he arrives at such conclu- sions, reminds me of the fix an old acquaint- ance, of rather atheistica tendencies, used to relate to me, he got into, when he suffered him. self to wander too far from the old beaten tract of common sense, he used to say, that he would get away into infinite space and eternity hunt ing up the beginning and the end of it. until he get so bewildered, that he found he should get to knoa0 nOthing at all; therefore, to become rational again he'd make fast tracts back to first principles. Such men we find become unatics, and any man not " down with the same com plant,'' may discover in Clemens last letter that he is considerably gone--poof man.-and If he were to get into Congress again he would make himself as big a fool, as the biggest in the late Massachusetts Know Nothing leg;sla- ture. He would be for enacting here the old British prosecuting code He is for extermnat- Ing Catholics by 'palns and penalties" for he intimates that the British government did wrong by repeating those laws. Now l sub- init, If a set of men have got so far out of time, upon whom is lost to such degree, all the poli- tipal of tho lo l. discover the difference, in gOuernneent like Mis, between refusing man an office on account of his religious belief, and refusing him an office on account of the measures of policy, he would have the government adopt? 1 submit, I say, that such Americans are not fit to rule Ame- rica" Ii man was constituted of materials so base that he could so easily shuff1e off his rei- zion, could as easily make up his mind to triffle with the awful and sacred relations that subsst between himself and his Maker-as we see some men can drop from point of 100 degrees of democratic heat, to 20 degrees below conser- vative zero; just to get an office, why, I SUD- pose, if there was good deal of difference be- tween religion and politics, the Know Nothing rule disregarding it, would not work much hard ship a man could turn Catholic or Protestant to it one case, and turn back again to suit another and the constitution would not have been so careful and so solemn in protecting men in the discharge of duties that hung so loosely about them
 The constitution of the United States de- carcs that mo religious test shall ever be re- quired as qualification to any office or public trust under the United States" The old tory method of England to keep Catholics out of office, was by making every office holder swear he was not a Catholic. This was the "test' there. Our Know Nothing plan involues "test" too, just as effective. There man could not get office if he was Catholic, it is to be the same here. There Catholics would be exclud- ed from office only so long as there was ma jority in the government in favor of it. The Know Nothing plan is to the same effect. Both methods apply a test but there is a little difer- ence in the mode, about as much as there would be in notifying Catholic that if he applied for an office, he would be required to blow out his own brains, and that, in the same event, he would have his brains Wowed out for him. It is not the first time that the friends of liberty have failed, in attempting to secure great right, to foresee the schemes that its enemies would concoct to defeat their object. The struggle for the last two hundred and fifty years between the whig and tory forces in the cause of liberty, furnish many instances, from the levying of ship-money, in which struggle the noble Hampden lost his life and the tyrant Charles lost his head, down to the present struggle between the same two forces under the names of democrats and "Americans."- ] I non tLnt great occasion the historian Mack