Arkansas true Democrat., 1860-10-20
From The Catholic Sentinel. The Catholic Vote.

Every four years on the eve of the Pre- sidential election, we hear the outcry of the politicians about the "Catholic vote."- The very name is an insult to the Catholic body, besides being based upon calumny The epithet implies, and it is probably meant to imply, that Catholics ali vote to- gether, moving in unison like a flock of sheep under the guidance of their shepherd. This IS patent islander; for Catholics, like other citizens, are in the habit of voting their sentiments and of being, in conse- quence, much divided in opinion.
 1t is true that they were all compelled, through self-respect, and in natural self-de- fence, to vote against the know nothings at the last Presidential election. The tac- ties ot their adversaries, which made oppo- sition to the Catholic religion political test, left them no alternative but to vote for the democratic nominee. No one could blame them for this, for the issue was plain ly forced upon them. But before the ad- vent ot know nottingham, the Catholics of Kentucky, for example, were probably as much divided in sentiment as their fellow citizens, the majority of them. we believe, especially in the country, voting with the old whig party.
 At present, Catholics are again divided Tn Kentucky, and elsewhere, between the two sections into which the democratic par ty has been unhappily split. It is not true that the whole Catholic body is in favor of Douglas; we know of many of them in Ken lucky, both of native and of foreign birth. who are warm advocates of Breckinridqe. Elsewhere this is so, probably in even more marked manner. Thus in New York, the nominee of the Breckinrdge party for Governor, Mr. Brady, is Catholic, and the great Catholic leader of the New York bar, Charles O'Conor, esq.,. is also strong advocate of the same political ticket. In Massachusetts, in Maryland, and more par ticularly in the more southern States. this is even still more the case
 Perhaps the most contemptble allega- ton, made by certain nnprincipled or small fry politicians, is that which asserts that all Catholics in the country will vote for 1 Douglas because his present wife happens to be a Catholic!! This is as false as it is insulting. How many Catholics voted for Gen. Scott when the outcry was raised against him that his wife and daughter were Catholics, and that he himself was perhaps inclined in the same way? Not perhaps one in hundred? And why?- Simply because his politics, or those of the party which he represented, did not tally with their own political principles.
 We are no politicians, but we must enter our indignant protest against the tactics of certain crawling politicians who would thus drag the religion of Catholics into the political arena merely to snbserve their own interested purposes. Whether these poll. tlelans mean to caiole or insult Catholics, It IS all the same; their policy is in either case conten ptible. Catholics should vote their sentiments, just like their fellow-citi- zens of other denominations, or no denomi- nation; and they should regard any appeal made to them as religionists in favor of this | or that candidate as a direct and deliberate insult, and treat the politicians who make such appeals accordingly. Let us hear no more, then, whether from friend or foe, of the Catholic vote'