Port Tobacco times, and Charles County advertiser. (Port Tobacco, Md.) 1845-1898, 1875-11-19
bort Gobafro Quues
PORT TO BfA~C G e=s
Friday Morning, November 10, J.. 1875.
sectarian Pa2scs. Z

paign on ?"-according to the New York
1ribane-was the query made a day OF
two since of politician high in the coun
ellis of the Administration. sDo?" SAID
he, That's easy enough. Well revive
acknowledgement with the anti-foreignel
feature left out, and make the fight against
the Catholics and for the maintenance OF
the school system. On that Well take all
the religious sentiment of New England
and gather in all the Germans of the West
and Northwest who believe in Bismarck
and hate the Pope" That these were no
idle words we are panied to believe All
the indications are that it is the purpose
Of the INSCRIPTIONS leaders of the Repub-
lican party to have recourse to the uncall-
editor and cruel trick of stirring up the
bitterness of sectarian prejudices through
out the land in order to hold on for four
years more to the loaves and fishes of place
and power. 1t matters little to them that
the Catholics have nowhere made any
such issue, or any pretext been given for
making the charge that they wish to de-
stroy the public schools of the country
or that the National Government has moth
ing whatever to do with the subject, but
that each State has its own school system
controlled and comfortable only by its own
legislation. Any Infringement of this
right would be most disastrous blow to
the great fundamental and conservative
doctrine of Home Rule, on the successful
sustaihment of which depends the whole
system of constitutional checks and bal
ances through which alone are to be per-
petuated the harmonious and consistent
working of our republican form of gov
eminent.
In our opinion no greater disaster could
befall us as nation than that the Federal
Government should take away from the
States the right to regulate this most i'm
portant of their domestic affairs and as
sumo control of it itself Itwould be blow
which would go far to destroy the whole
doctrine of States Rights and build upon
their ruins centralized and imperial
government. We all recollect what an
outcry went up from one end of the land
to the other, when the Republican leaders
undertook to force through Congress the
Civil Rights bill, with the odious school
feature attached, and how outraged pub
lie sentiment compelled these leaders to
quail before it and abandon the school
clause. This was not only because of the
mixed school provision, but also because
it was an attempt to place under Federal
control and management an institution
the regulation of which peculiarly belong
ed to the States. If the present outcry
about the public schools is another attempt
of the Republicans to place those instititu-
tons under the control of the United
States authorities, then we say the people
should rise up and rebuke in unmistaka-
BILE tones this glazing attempt at centrali-
cation. If it does not mean this, it means
that the Republican leaders are willing,
in order to retain power, to have recourse
to the desperate means OF embittering po-
litical strife by inflaming the passions of
the ignorant and exciting the prejudices of
the bigoted as only religious question
can. Notwithstanding they know that
the present common school system is so
firmly established on non-sectarian princi-
pies that no church or set of men would
be so foolish AS to undertake to alter it in
this respect, yet they see in pushing this
sectarian issue desperate chance for re-
tanning power, and they are willing to
adopt it at any cost. So we might as
well recognize the fact at once and be pre-
pared to meet it.
The issue is not one of our seeking, but
has been inexcusably Haunted forth by
Republicans themselves when not par
ticle of difference existed between the two
parties on the subject; when no action of
any men or set of men had been taken
which could by any possibility arouse the
solicitude of any member of the Evangel-
ical denominations, nevertheless this par
ty has been vigorously battling and pro-
poses to continue to battle against its
imaginary antagonists. Already we have
seen the assertion, under the official sane
ton of the "Republican Congressional
Executive Committee" that 1.-The disci-
pline of the Romish church, inspired by
Jesuitical teachings, makes common cause
with Democracy in its endeavor to over
throw the Republican party and with il
the free school system which it sustains.'
This gross libel, both on our party and
the Catholic church, is said to have been
written by Grants chaplain and bosom
friend, the Rev. John P. Newman, of the
Metropolitan church of Washington, and
who was recently sent travelling all ovei
the world at the public expense as ''In-
spector of Consulates''-an Office unknown
to the law.
When did the Republican party become
identified with our public school system
Why the system was established and in har.
monious working everywhere long before
that party had existence in the pestilen-
tial Imagination of even such as Wendell
Phillips, Lucretia Mott and the rest Of
the anti-slavery agitators. The only time
the party of great moral ideas ever took
any action in relation to the subject was
when they sought to engraft on it the obi
Gus mixed school feature. On the other
hand, the record of our party is clear or
this subject, especially as regards the non
sectarian character of the schools. Jeffer
son, the great Apostle of Democracy, first
announced the great principle of secular
izing the government and politics OF the