New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1857-05-25

entirely on the contempt for and dstrust Of the men
of that race eynced BY the laws Of tho States up to
| the time of the Declaration Of Independence and
since. at is hardly consistent says Judge
fancy, speaking for these five shareholders, with
90 the respect due to these States to suppose that
4" they regarded at that time as felow-ctizens and
members of the sovereignty, class of beings
:" whom they had thus stigmatized; whom, as we
are bound out Of respect TO the State sovereign
" ties, to assume they had deemed it just and ne
cessary thus to stigmatize, and upon whom they
"had imposed such deep and enduring marks of
degradation; or that, when they met in conven-
" ton to form the Constitution, thcy looked upon
them as portion of their constituents, and de-
signed to include them in the provisions so care
fully inserted for the security and protection of
the liberties and rights of their citizens"
| Such is the argument, and the whole argument, of
these FIVE Shareholders on this point. This argu-
ment We propose now to submit to test which
may serve, perhaps, to convince even ChietJustce
fancy himself that this foundation is totally insult
fcient to sustain the superstructure attempted to
be built upon it.
II 20 hsppens that persons of African origin and
| descent have not been and are not now by any
| means the sole objects Of antipathy to the ruling
class in these United States. If hi, Honor the
Chief Justice, and his slaveholding brethren
on the bench, will bestow a little attention
| on the history and the statutes Of the Colonies
and the States, and even upon the existing cond
ton of public sentiment, they will discover another
class which has been and is an object Of antpathy
and suspicion not inferior in amount and intensity
to that exhibited toward the negroes. We mean
the Catholics. Down to the Declaration Of indie
pendence-down in fact, to the present moment
Catholics have been regarded as class of citizens
very dangerous to the liberties and wel-being of
the ruling class, against which they might at any
time enter into dangerous plots with foreign
powers and whom, therefore, it was, and by
portion of the community still is, deemed Just
and necessary to subject to many determinations,
and to restrain by laws and regulations drawing
marked distinction between them and the rest of the
community. The five shareholders quote Kent's
Commentaries rs authority for the statement that
in 1s4o Maine was the only State of the Union in
which negroes and persons OfAfrcsn descent stood
as to civil rights perfect level of equality with
the rest of the community Now, little study of
Colonial history will show these learned Judges
that down to the Declaration of Independence,
Pennsylvania was the only one of the Origna! thir
teen States in which the Catholics possessed that
most valuable of all social privileges the right of the
public worship of God, according to the dictates and
with the ceremonies of their own relgion-an ines
Unable and transcendent right, yet denied to
the negroes, bond or free, in any Of the States of
the Union, so far as We are aware, though in some
Of them it has been subjected particularly Of late,
to certain restrictions, such az the holding of the
meetings in the day time and in the prsseucc OF one
more white men.
In the Chief Justices own State Of Maryland,
though that province had been originally planted
by Catholic colony and though many of the wealth
lest inhabitants, including his own ancestors,
were of that faith this antipathy against Catholics,
and precautionary and restrictive legislation against
them, were carried to great lengths; doubtless for
the reason which prompts the greater severity
of the laws Of the Slave States aganstfree negroes
because their number, position and influence were
thought 10 make them more formidable. Mass
could not be said publicly; Catholics were forbid
den to preach or to teach; children were even
tempted to change their religion BY the offer OF an
immediate share i'll the property OF their Catholic
fathers. So Notifying and annoying were the dis
abilities to which the Catholics of Maryland were
subjected by the legislation of that State that the
father of Charles Carroll, though one of the wealth
lest men in the province actually formed in conse-
quence scheme of emigroting with his family to
the new French province Of Louisiana, just as the
Maryland cslored men of to-day are driven by SINH
lar enactments TO contemplate emigration 10 Lioe-
ria In Massachusetts, and New-iOrk, Catholics
were regarded as no better than chronic plotters,
if not at all times in fact at all events in nclina-
ton with the French Of Canada, for the subjuga-
tion%f these Protestant provinces to hated and
dreaded Catholic dominatOn-a very similar
liebt 10 that in which free cOlOred now re-
garded in several Southern States. Any Jesuit
or Popish priest " who presumed to come within
their territories was, in the language OF their stat
utes, strongly resembling the phraseology of laws
now in force in some Southern States as TO free
negroes coming into them, TO be deemed and sc
counted an incendary and disurber Of the pablic
peace and safety, and more than all that, :" an
enemy Of the true Christian religion "a charge
and pretty serious too, never yet broughsA
that We are aware, against free negroes. The pun
isbment denounced by these acts against such ntrd
ers was perpetual Imprisonment, or death if an es
cape were attempted; pretty fair Offset to the
Carolina laws though, it must be confessed, not
quite coming up to their mark for selling into per-
petual bondage free negro sailors who, being cast
away, instead Of resigning themselves to be swal-
lowed up by the more mercifuf waves, had the au-