Daily Ohio statesman. [volume] (Columbus, Ohio) 1855-1870, 1868-06-12

Kew. DIR. h J. Breckenridge In Albany
keynote of the Radical Canvass
Religious Proscription-Openiu of
the Campaign of Hate-An Incendi-
ary Threat.
[From the Albany IN. " Argus. June2.l
The opening of the Radical campaign in
this city, in behalf of Grant and Colfax.
| was an OminOuS one. A meeting was got
ten up which was intended to illustrate
the enthusiasm with which the nomina-
tions were received; and to give the signals
and watchwords OF the assault upon the
Democracy.
Everything seemed auspicious to great
meeting. The Rev. DR.. Breckinridge was
solicited to open the campaign. He had
| presided over the Baltimore Convention
which nominated Lincoln and johnson, and
his name was relied upon to give character
to the new demonstration.
DR.. Breckenridge not only made parti.
san speech at the behest of political COM
mittee-invoking the name of God repeat
edly to give it pious air-but in his zeal
he overdid his work. Pointing out how in
the future, New England and the South
would have little to do in directing the
politics of the country, which would he in
the hands of the great Middle States reach
ing to the West, and particularly New
York, he said that "New York must be re-
| deemed from the disgrace she had brought
upon herself last fall" He alluded to the
city OF New York as containing so 600 Ro-
man Catholic voters, whom he denounced,
as the cause of the Radical defent: and he
said the State must be redeemed, even if to
do so, New York had to be burned to the
/ groundi
AT the close of his remarks, the audience
arose to their feet and gave him a hearty
round of cheers, followed by another for
the ticket.
A war cf sects is to follow a war of Sec
OIL nd fhac frsf 1c1 - 81, Iao
over the country. blasting its fields ard
olighting human lives, is to be invoked to
q new career. Not State against State, but
family against family, and brother against
brother, are to he armed for the encounter
| which these bloodhounds of Zion are bay
ing on.
There are hundred thousand Roman
Catholic electors in the Union who have
never voted the Democratic ticket! There
| are hundreds of thousands more who
would realize that in q war OF religious
hatred they would soon be victims But
there is another aspect of the case which
this reverend zealot probably has not con-
templated.
| The persons who would be most apt to
defy such an onset would be the Roman
Catholic clergy. What they fear is not out
ward persecution, but Indifference within.
In che laxity which our free system offers,
the flock is apt to wander from the fold.
Let the cry of danger come, and they can
be recalled. Nothing so tends to intensity
the sentiment of a sect as persecution.
That 1.-THE blood OF the martyr is the seal OF
the church" is as true of one religion as
mother.
The C'eUeland Plain Dealer in copying
the foregoing from the Albany Argus, ex-
presses our views exactly, and we, there
fore, adopt them. 1t is proverbial OF
clergymen, of all denominations, that they
make poor politicians, and worse states
men. And it is VIGOROUSLY true that when
ever they have been jostled out of their ap-
propriate sphere of duty, land have meddled
with the political affairs of the world, they
have not only degraded and brought
obloquy and deserved censure upon them
selves, but nave inflicted irreparable inju-
ries upon their churches and congrega-
tions. But, it being out of our line of duty
to give unasked advice to the churches
leaving them to manage their own affairs
in their own way, we merely indulge in a
| suggestion, from political standpoint, to
those who are likely to be the victims of
the crusade now fairly inaugurated. What
with GRANTS undisguised hostility to
the Israelites, and the vindctive as
saults of BREcKINRIDGDE upon the
Catholics, we may expect lively times
during the present campaign. Assisted as
the Radicals will be by Colfax, of well
known Know-NothiDg proclivities, pro-
scription in its most indicative and re.
pulsive form is to become the test of
loyalty" and unless the prosecuted de-
nominations oppose an organized and de-
termined resistance to these assaults upon
religious liberty, they will have nobody to
blame but themselves. This Robert j:
I.Breckinridge, once a Kentucky lawyer,
now the acknowledged leader of the Old
School Presbyterians, and, by the grace of
some Theological Institution, Doctor of
Divinity, has, for more than a
quarter of a century, been a re-
lentless and perfectly unscrupulous
prosecutor of the Catholic Church. Now
that he is recognized as a leader in the
Grant and Colfax faction, we are not sur
prised to find him engaged in the inaugu-
ration of campaign of hate; and while
trembling under the weight of ungovern-
able passions, and incapable of single
emotion of either charity or generosity,
proposing to put in requisition the torch
of the incendiary, as means for securing
the accomplishment of his ungodly pur-
pose. He is fit companion of Brownlow,
Butler, and their peers, who are to-day the
representative men of ''the party OF great
moral ideas" Let all men of just and libe-
raj views, unite and make common cause
against all such enemies to republican free
dom. The crisis demands intelligence and
effort.
1T pains us, says the Richland Shield and
Banner, to learn that our esteemed friend.
Mrs. Kate Weaver, of Newark, met with
heavy affliction on Saturday last, in the
sudden death, by accident of her only son
and child, Natty. just sixteen years of age,
in whom all her hopes and her deepest af-
fections were centured, tor he was lad of
unusual promise in intellect and character.
1t appears that he was out cunning in the
vicinity of Newark, and in handling his
gun in some way was instantly killed by
its accidental discharge. This is all we
have learned through her friends here. We