Port Tobacco times, and Charles County advertiser. (Port Tobacco, Md.) 1845-1898, 1875-09-10
A knOW.NOthing Revival.

OF BALTIMORE CITY
KnOw-NOthing Revival.
The Republicans in Ohio having found
that Mr.. Morton's ''key note" of another
Southern rebellion was not likely to assist
them in the present contest in that State,
have had recourse to another raw-head
and bloody-bones cry for the purpose of
driving votes from the Democratic ranks.
This time it is the allegation that there is
an alliance between the Catholic clergy
and the Democratic party to virtually de-
stroy the public school system of that
State. We should not have alluded to
this at all, except for the persistent efforts
of tie Baltimore american to introduce
this firebrand of sectarianism into the po-
litics of this State. We can only under
stand this incendiary course of that paper
at the present time, under the supposition
that this is secondary Development of
the Know-Nothing virus with which it
was so thoroughly inoculated during the
days when that party held high carnival
in the City of Monuments under the lead
OF that arch-demagogue, Henry Winter
Davis, sustained and applauded, as he
was, in all he said and did by the Ameri-
can and its now defunct co-iaborer, the
Baltimore Clipper. We suppose the i'm
mediate and provoking cause of this out
break the old disease just at this parti-
cular time is that the Democratic party
has as its nominee for Governor the Hon.
John Lee Carroll, member of the Roman
Catholic church. The american can find
no other objection to this gentleman, for
he stands to-day before the people of his
native State, sans peur ct sans reproche, and
that paper is too wary and polite to as
sail him directly on this ground, but seeks
by arousing sectarian passions and preju-
dices against the hierarchy of the Roman
Catholic church, insiduously to poison the
minds of the voters of this State against
Mr.. Carroll, because he thinks proper to
worship God after his own fashion and
that of his fathers. And, in order to do
this, finding nothing in the history of that
church or of the Democratic party within
this State to justify such an appeal to the
most inflammable of all the prejudices to
which poor frail, passionate humanity is
subject, it is compelled to travel to Ohio
and even to Prussia for examples of the
aggressiveness of the Roman church. With
the assumed insubordination Of the Ro-
NAN clergy in Germany, we do not pro-
this distance, and with the partial
information vouched us. to deal any more
than with the godlessness of Bismarck
himself, but with regard to the issues in
the Ohio campaign, and the misrepresen-
tations of the american thereon, we do feel
ourselves as Democrats called upon to
speak.
In its issue of the gath ult., the american,
with much hypocritical depreciation, pub
fishes an article ON sSectarianism in Poll
tics" which, for insidiousness, is only
equalled by another editorial two days
afterwards. Protesting much regret at
the necessity of discussing so grave ques-
ton at the present time, in speaking of
the Ohio campaign, it says: ''The issue is
brought up by the Catholic church, and
the responsibility must rest entirely with
it." Now let US see what this issue is and
how it was brought up in Ohio. During
the last session of the Legislature of that
State the following bill was introduced by
one Geghan:
An act to secure liberty of conscience in matters
of religion to persons imprisoned, or detained
SECTION l. Be it enacted By the General -Assen,-
bly, Of the State of Ohio. That liberty of con-
of crime, or by reason of detention in any penal,
reformatory, or eleemosynary institution or any
house of refuge, workhouse. jail. or public asy-
lum in this State, person in such institution
shall be compelled to attend religious worship or
instruction of a form which is against the die
tates of his her conscience and 1t shall be the
duty of every director, trustee, superintendent,
or other person having in charge any such insti-
tuition to furnish ample and equal facilities to all
such persons for receiving the ministrations OF
the authorized clergymen of their own religious
denominations and persuaslons, under sucn rea-
Sonable rules and regulations as the trustees,
directors, managers, or superintendents shall
make; but no such rules shall he so constructed
as to prevent the clergymen of any denOmina-
ton from fully administering the rites of his de-
nomination to such inmates, provided such min
1stratlon entails no expense upon the pubic
treasury.
The bill passed and became law. Now,
in all soberness we ask the question, can
any fair minded or just man see aught in
This bill which is not in accordance with
the fundamenrat Prfnefptes of o...- s.--@...=
ment, which recognize religious liberty
and allow every man to worship God after
the dictates of his own conscience and do
not compel him to do SO otherwise? Is
there any reason why person confined in
public institution, penal or charitable,
should be deprived of this dearest right
That such law was needed to guarantee
it is in itself reproach to civilized
community; and that its passage by a
Democratic Legislature is made the sub
ject of apprehension by Republicans is the
best evidence of the necessity for its adop-
ton. It is of this bill that the american
of the Goth, says: GAS everybody knows,
there is tacit alliance between the Demo
cratic party and the Catholic church il
this campaign in Ohio, growing out of the
passage by the last Legislature of the
Geghan bill. The avowed purpose of the
church, it is charged, is to break up the
common school system" Now, having
established by assertion the alliance be-
tween the church and the Democratic
party, and also the purpose of the former
to break up the public schools, the Ameri-