The morning star and Catholic messenger. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1868-1881, 1873-03-02
Brownson on Modern Americanism.
from Brownson's Review, New Series

From Brownson's Review, New Series.l
"My American couRtrymen
seem to me to have wonderfully deterior-
ated during the last third of century,
both intellectually and morally, and with
a rapidity unequalled in any other people
whose history is known. Their religious
ness seems to have well nigh become ex-
tinct, and their minds TO be turned out
ward and downward. They have lost all
spiritual conceptions, and have no longer
any spiritual aspirations. Their sectarian
religion has ceased to be either spiritual or
intellectual, and lapses into puny senti-
mentalism or pure emotionalsm. Method
ism is their highest and most cherished
form of religion, and Methodism is COM
pound of sentimentalism and animalism.
Nearly all the sects are more or less tainted
with it, and rely on animal excitement in
stead of rational conviction, and free aud
deliberate submission of the will to the
laws of God. Sectarianism ceases to be
dogmatic, and places religion primary and
almost exclusively in feeling, or an affect
little or no demand on the intellectual pow
ers of the soul. What of intellectual acti-
witty there is among my countrymen is
turned in the direction of business, me-
chanicaiinventions, or the physical sciences.
1t fares no better with morality, always
separated by Professionalism from religion /;
it becomes with the bulk of the American
people either external decorum, or simply
thrift-the art of getting along in the world.
1t inquiries not "what is true, what is
right I" but, "what is popular what will
the people approve or what will succeed z"
No heather people ever more devoutly
worshipped the tickle goddess Fortune,
than do the American, or more strictly
maintained success to be the test of merit.
They place even in their best moods the
ground of moral obligation in natural
sentiment called philanthropy, which atones
in their estimation for lifetime spent in
transferring by fraud, chicapery, overreach-
ing and stock gambling, the money of
others into ones own pockets by founding
protessorships in sectarian or secular col
leges, for propOting a false theology, or
false science or in erecting seminaries,
houses of refuge for the reformation of
juvenile offenders, or Magdalen asylums,
destined to be simply nurseries of error,
vice and crime.
We have politicians shrewd adroit man
ayers of elections, and manipulators of par
ties but l look in vain for q statesman in
office, or a candidate for office, whether
State or Federal. A man, to be elected,
must carry light weight, and be one whom
the politicians ahd business men can use
for the promotion of their private interests
or personal ambition. Nobody, who wants
office, whether legislative or executive,
cares to study the principles of civil polity,
or the science of craftsmanship. 1t would
only mako him carry weight and impede
his chances of success. The popular vote
will supply any conceivable lack of brains
or want of moral character. l wrote in
the Democratic RevietC, thirty years ago,
that never again would frst-class man
be elected to the presidency of the Union
and experience, thus far, has done justice
to the assertion. Martin Van Buren, was
the last man of superior ability, and with
como statesmanlike attainments that has
flled the Presidential chair. Since his de-