The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1875-10-02
For The Cecil Whit
RELIGION IN POLITICS.

There is probably nothing that the aver
age American views with more positive dis
like than any attempt to carry any religious
sect into the domain of politics, yet it is a
state of affairs that we may as we'll make
up our minds to face. That the Church of
Rome is persistently pushing itself into the
arena of American politics, is proposition
too self-evident for contest.
Tile Cecil Democrat, in it's late issue, lifts
up its hands in holy horror at the idea of its
would-be Governor being called to account
for his religion. Its complaint has this much
of justice in it: Mr.. Carroll has as much
right to his opinions as the rest of us. 1t
is not as Romanist, but as a representa-
tive of a system, that Professionals object
to John Lee Carroll. That the Church of
Rome has declared unreenting war on the
schools and through them, upon Repubi-
canism, is proposition that every one who
reads the papers can lily afford to deny. 1t
is only now that Romish bishops have Or
dered their people to vote a certain ticket
when Romish priests distribute election
tickets from the pulpits, when Legislatures
distribute the public money by thousands
and millions for the benefit of the Romish
that Church for a certain party, that the
Protestant mind revolts and prepares to
meet the Church that has abandoned the
religious for the political arena on its own
obosan uroupd IF tbe Cburcb Of Ror,n
made the subject of attack, it is only be-
cause it has itself provoked attack; cit is
only because" to use the words of Glad
stone, sit has taken up and refurbished
anew, every rusty weapon that it had been
fondly supposed to have disused."
Every Marylander, exclaims The Demo-
crat, should be ashamed to object to Car
roll as Catholic" in face of the memory
of the virtues of his grand father and the
liberation of Calvert. Charles Carroll may
have had all the virtues of his age in add-
ton to his happening to outlive his brother
signers of the Declaration, but neither fact
proves his grandson, an aristocrat by birth
and education, and tool in the hands of as
State, or escaped the penetentiary, fit to
fill the office to which he aspires. That
good men have bad sons is proverbial, the
same may be true of the grand son in this
case. Just here l would like to add few
words in regard to the liberation of Cal
vert. There is no doubt that he was more
liberal than his Church, for he is the only
Romanist from Hildebrand to Bayley that
was ever supposed to be willing to live in
peace with "heretics," yet his reputation
for tolerance rests on rather small grounds.
1t is not to be supposed in the first place
that England, early in the reign of Charles
l., would have allowed an exclusively Rom
ish colony to be established in America. 1t
is still more certain that penal laws of the
most severe character were enacted against
those denying the divinity of Christ. Laws
full as severe as any in New England against
the Quakers. AS Unitarian, have no re-
spect for the liberation that punished Uni
tarians and Jews with Imprisonment and
Punishment. AS friend of equal rights
object to placing the statue of the Romish
Calvert on the same pedestal with the Bap-
fist Williams, the real pioneer of religious
federation.
The day is not far away when the friends
of free education, and of free religion as
well, will have to unite for the salvation of
American Republicanism. The Church of
Rome is being spurned aside as an unholy
thing in almost every nation Of Europe.
Shall we in the face of its thousand years of
blood stained history, give it favors that no
other church thinks of asking? Proudly
Boosting its infallbility and swearing its
allegiance to a foreigner, it is laboring to
overthrow the very semblance of liberation
for other sects. Its priests openly boast
that the day is not far away when the toler-
alton of Professionalism will cease in Amer
lea.
This is the foe we have to meet, it is not
John Lee Carroll; he may be as harmless
as Bunyan's toothless, palsied giant. Just
here let me say that l am equally ready to
meet any other church as firmly that makes
the demands of the Romish one. In the |
coming, all ready begun fight, between
medieval superstitution and ignorance and
modern freedom, no true American, no
true Marylander, can long hesitate which
flag to follow. The only true platform is
that of Jefferson-absolute separation of .
Church and State. PROTESTANT.