The Richmond palladium. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1855-1875, 1875-03-17
From Harper's Weekly.
A Divided Allegiance.

The election of an ultramontane
Senator from New York will necessa-
rily awaken new interest in the ques-
ton which Mr.. Gladstone has suggest
ed, and to which Dr. Manning has re-
Gently replied: Can a believer in the
Pope's infallibility be a good citizen
in free state? The strong assertions
of Dr. Manning or the casuistical ret
icence of DR.. Newman have failed al
together to shake the belief of most
intelligent persons that one who owes
implicit allegiance sto the Pope can
not at the same time perform his duty
to his country unaffected by the inau-
cnce of foreign master. In vain are
we told by Manning that the Pope is
too amiable a person to interfere In
matters that do not belong to him, or
by iNewman that conscience must
still be the final guide. The fatal
theory of an absolute rule still hangs
over us, and we are reluctantly
informed that the Roman priest is
endowed with temporal and spiritu-
al power from which there is no ap-
peal. Against such an authority what
Roman Catholic will venture to rebel?
But the question in reality is one of
fact. Are ultraelontane Roman Cath
olics any where good citizens Of any
modern state? Not certainly in Italy,
where they are invoking a foreign in
vasion and plotting the ruin of their
country: nor in Germany, where the
Catholic unions have already stirred
up dangerous excitement in all PARTS
of the empire, and where they even
strove to divide Germans when the
French were about to cross the Rhine;
not in France, where the Pope has in :
terfered to promote despotism; nor in
Spain, where the priests have never
ceased to excite horrible insurrec-
tions; nor in Ireland, Mexico, Brazil,
and the South American republics;
nor in our own. where Senator ker
nan and his allies have never failed
to encourage rebellion and threaten
the unity of the nation, and to vote in
solid masses for Infamous politicians
whose only merit was that they were
friendly to the ultramontane plans.
With us they had answered the ques
tion by their unpatriotic conduct long
before it passed MIR. Gladstone lips,
and we had discovered by fatal ex-
perience that no political leader could
be honest or trustworthy who obeyed
the Vatican rather than his country
A divided allegiance is all that SEN
ator Herman can give to his American
home, and the State Of New York will
be represented at Washington for the
next six years by one who is opposed
at heart to all the principles that lie
at the base of free Institutions. The
Democracy have reso!utely allied
themselves with the ultramontanes,
and We must expect in future no trace
Of tenderness for any honest or loyal
American feeling, or for any of those
instincts that led on the nation to
universal freedom. Mr.. Herman may
we'll be taken as the representative of
that class oe men who can alone salts
fly the controlling section of the Dem
ocratic party. He is the enemy OF un-
sectarian education, we are told by
the Freeman Journal. and could
never corsent to send his own chill
dren to the public schools; nor is it
easy to see how, as devoted Roman
ist, he could possibly approve sys-
tenn of instruction which an infallible
Pope has condemned. A liberal and
independent Roman Catholic might
perhaps venture to disobey his foreign
master; an ultramontane is bound by
the strict rules of the Syllabus. 1t is
safe to infer, therefore, that our new
Senator, though he may tolerate for a
time the American mode of instruc-
ton, will destroy it whenever he and
his party have the power. This is the
usual policy Of his Church, and one
that has served to make it ever the
more dangerous to civil society. be-
cause it is never to be trusted. No
one can forsee when the Pope will
think it an opportune moment to with
draw the slight degree of free will he
accords to his people, and may drive
our whole Irish Catholic population
into rebellion against freedom, or lead
them on to the destruction of our
whole system of education.
The Kernans. Kellys, and other
men of that class who now hold the
State and city of New York in subjec
ton, who have succeeded the Tweeds
and Sweenys of five years ago, with
apparently even more absolute power,
are the appropriate agents in the cru
SADIE against knowledge which was be-
gun anew by the Vatican Council of
1870. The aim of the Roman Church
is to check that wide flow of intelli-
gence which has covered the world
with useful inventions, and filled mod
ern races with literary progress. It
would seize upon every school and
college, and forbid them from teach
ing any thing that it does not approve.
1t would chain science, as It once i'm.
prisnnod. Galileo uould cupnroes Ia%