The New Orleans bulletin. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1874-1876, 1875-10-26
RACES AND RELIGIONS.

There are some indications that the Demo
cratic party will be called upon soon to defent
sgain the positions attacked in 1855 ane
1856 by the Native American party. A strong
anti Catholic undercurrent.i is flowing, which
shows no ripple upon the surface, but Il
working its powerful effects in silence. NJ
sooner do Catholics, in their zsal Tor tn
methods of instruction which they prefer
respectfully request that they may have tina
share of the school fund which their take;
have contributed left to be used for educa
ton according to the wishes Of Catholic
parents, than there is genera
bristling up Of disgruntled Rad
icals throughout the land. Even Grant, II
his late manifesto at Des Moines, calls upon
his party to "leave the matter of religion to
the family altar, the Church and private
schools, supported entirely by private contri'
buttons" and calls upon its members 10
"keep the Church and the State forever sep
arate." He asks them to "resolve that neither
the State nor the nation, nor both combined,
shall support institutions of learning other
than those sufficient to afford to every child
growing up in the land the opportunity OF
| good common school education, unmixed with
ectarian, pagan or atheistical dogmas." These
are utterances intended to pitch the key note
of the Radical party in the coming great
struggle.
The Radical party in the Northern States
was the immediate successor OF the Native
American party of 1856, which was disiu-
tegrated in that year with the defeat OF its
distinguished and very accomplished candi-
date, the admired and surely admirable Fill
more Outside of the borders of the then
slaveholding States nineteen in twenty of the
supporters of Lincoln and his party of Free
soil Republicans, and they carried into the
ranks of the new anti-Democratic party all
their prejudices against Catholics and all their
discriminating partiality for the native born
as against citizens born in foreign countries.
Nearly twenty years ago it seemed as if the
American people had made up their minds
definitely upon the question of religion in its
connection with politics, and the cognate
question Of nationality in its bearing upon
the full rights of residence and of citizen
ship. Divested of its peculiar form of pre-
sentation, which did the main issue little
good or hurt, the question was ably and
thorou ghly resented to the American colleg sc
of sovereign voters whether or not they ought
to object to a fellow-citizen either
because he was born on foreign soil
or because he was a member OF the
Catholic Church The people by very
emphatic vote decided that the people of one
faith had no right to object to the enjoyment
by the people of all other creeds Of all the
privileges to which there was no bar except
religious belief. And they decided with equal
emphasis that there was no just distinction to
be made between the citizen whose chance it
was to be born within our republic, and was
therefore citizen by chance, and the citizen
who, though born under foreign rule, had re-
nounced his original government sworn ale
glance to this government, and thereby be-
come citizen by choice.
Those two issues were to all appearances SO
thoroughly settled as to make any attempt to
revive them a failure SO sudden and COM
plete as to seem scarcely less than ridiculous.
The discussion of the religious branch was
referred back to the political parsons from
whom it sprang, while that branch relating to
birth and race was soon settled by the
iberality and sober common sense of the
people. 1t became and afterwards continued
the settled opinion and feeling that every
healthy honest emigrant who brought to our
shores will to work was an accession to the
wealth and strength of the States.
The time is past when party can revive
an old prejudice, once canvassed and con-
demned, and make it second time the
source of even a temporary strength and
vitality. If our political adversaries see fit to
make the attempt the result will be their dis
and utter discontinue. The
bitter prejudices Of incurable bigots may
seem for season to aid them, and those other
prejudices founded on birth and nationality
may appear to favor them still more, but be-
cause they are prejudices they will in each
mon sense of our thinking and voting people
In any event. bigots and proscriptionists
will meet with no favor from the Democratic
party, whose tenets and principles have not
changed in twenty years, and whose ranks
have been literally recruited by the very men
who were once jealous members of the Ameri-
can party. The Democratic party is a fixed
power for the maintenance of fixed princi-
Piles, and because it is the party of broad and
liberal tenets it receives constant accessions
from liberal men with broad views and gene
rous notions. The party will again, as always
heretofore, help the weak against the aggres-
sions of the strong
Our esteemed friend and fellow-citizen, Mr..
Thoo Adams tha able President of that