St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1890-07-13


Il believe no historical fact can be
better established than that Washing
ton was not in Boston between the
years 1776 and 1889, and that he was
never there with Lafayette. That La
fayette said: IF the liberty of the
United States is ever destroyed it will
be by Romish priests is so improbable
that could not believe it, except on
the affirmation of some person that he
heard him say SO, and even then l
should suspect Misrepresentation. Any
rejecting man may conjecture many
causes much more likely, to say the
least. to destroy our liberty than
the Romish priesthood" He then
relates that be attended the we'd
ding of a granddaughter of Lafay-
cite in Paris; that the ceremony was
performed by Catholic priests, and that
Lafayette appeared to attend to it
throughout with as much solemnity as
any person present" 1t is historical
fact that, at the invitation of the Mar
Quis de la LuZerne, the French ambaS-
sador, both Washington and Lafayette
were present together at st. JOseph's
Catholic church in Philadelphia at the
close of the Revolutionary war to listen
to the chanting of solemn TIE Deum
for the victory achieved over Great
Britain, and that during his last visit to
America Lafayette attended the Cath
Ollie worship i'll the churches OF Phila-
delphia and Baltimore.
No one but Prof. Morse and poor Van
Pelt imagined for moment that Lafay-
cite was a Protestant. Even DIR.
Strong says he was Romanist.
Lafayette lived and died Roman Cath
Ollie, and was buried by "RomiSh
priests with great pomp and ceremony.
And yet Van Pelt, the Octagenarian,
tells us that Lafayette said to him:
ut is my opinion that If ever the Ibis
critics of this Countrywide United States
of America-are destroyed it will be by
the subtlety of the Roman Catholic
Jesuit priests, for they are the most
crafty, dangerous enemies to civil and
religious liberty"
Lafayette knew very well that Bishop
John Carroll had gone Oh an embassy
with Franklin and Chase into Canada.
and that though Jesuit he was sim
cere patriot, Jealous partisan of lib
erty, and, as De Courcey says, "One
of the real founders of American indie
pendence." The testimony of old Van
Pelt bears strange intrinsic evidence OF
having been gotten up for the occasion
to help out Prof Morse, and it reflects
more of his own prejudices than of the
language of Lafayette. However, the
venerable Van Pelt considerably
heightened and changed the Morse
motto, and pelted away at the Jesuits
in grand shape. About the same time
that Lafayette is said to bave spoken OF
'Romish priests" to Prof. Morse he
Ia cooaoJ, II, tho IRON oh nh m hprc
in which he distinctly and precisely
and Van Pelt attribute to him.
This undoubted fact convicts
these two witnesses of deliberately
bearing false testimony, or else it con-
victs Lafayette of saying one thing to
them, and another thing entirely con-
Trajectory before the French chambers.
The speech was delivered April 9, 1882,
and the subject in debate was the mo-
ton to Danish certain refugees from
France, including the Irish monks who
were sojourning with the Trappists at
Melleray. Lafayette opposed the bill in
the following words: ''Such measures,
gentlemen. are not among those which
will merit my eulogy. Mistake not
rigor for strength, nor despotlsm for
power; then you will not have
need of all these precautions, and
the Trappists of MelIeray will not be
more dangerous for you than are the
Jesuits of GEORGETOWN to the United
States" The Jesuits in the United
States, then, were not such desperate
characters as old Van Pelt would have
us believe that Lafayette thought
them to be. According to Morse's own
statements. the ''vivid'' recollections of
Van Pelt were exceedingly shadoWy.
Indefinite. wholly unsat isfactory, and
really amounted to nothing in the way
of evidence.
But DR.. Strong says there was in
vented thoroughly Jesuitical explana-
ton, as given by Bishop Kahn, of West
Virginia, that the motto in question was
quotation within quotation, taken
from a letter written by Lafayette to a
Protestant in New York. That is ex-
actIy what it is.
Dr.. Strong is wofully mistaken about
the "Jesuitical explanation" The
Lafayette letter was first mentioned in
the Cincinnati Enquirer by writer
whom that paper called a Protestant
gentlemen, staunch in the faith" The
Enquirer challenged Prof. Morse to ap-
pear before an impartial committee,
and pledged itself to produce the
"Memoires ct Manuscrits de Lafayette, -
published by his own family. in which
the letter could be found, but Morse
and his friends prudently deceived the
invitation. The Enquirer said: "His
veracity we believe to be as good as
Morse'S; and if the latter will come to
this city and risk any thing on
an impeachment Of it, the book
will be produced before committee
selected by the parties. There is no
doubt whatever that Prof. Morse Is all
wrong in the matter, or that those who
are quoting Lafayette upon his author
ity are grossly deceived. We assure the
public that it can place the most I'M
plicit confidence in the enquirer's COM
munication regarding tue Lafayette
forgery" The passage from the letter
is as follows: Il cannot but admire
your noble sentiments OF devotion
and attachment to your country and its
institutions. Nevertheless, l must be per-
mitted to say that the fears which, i'll
your patriotic zeal, you seem to enter
tain that, If ever the liberty OF the
United States is DESTROYED it will be by
without any shadow of foundation
WUdIGtCIs uC OOOh A1Ohi WhASh ohS
extract is taken was used by the Ency-
clopedia Britannica in preparing a
sketch of Lafayette. 1t is very rare.
but expect to soon procure copy for
examination by an impartial committee
in this city. 1t is really of little conse-
uuence whether Lafayette ever used the
words of the motto ascribed to him OF
not. The Catholic priesthood, as a
body, are not revolutionary; Oh the con-
trary they are most conservative. and
never speak against or denOunce the
constituted authorities, as Protestants
have done, for instance. in the Edgerton
Bible decision. Prof. Moore was the
first to drop this controversy, and in the
opinion of the secular press of the day,
he absolutely failed to prove the au-
thenticity of the quotation. For
half a century the motto was buried
in oblivion, until DR.. Strong reSurrected
it to adorn his chapter on ''Romanism.' u
Leon Bouland, an apostate priest, quoted
it two years ago in the Forum; Rev.
Burgess, of this city, used it in recent
debate; and the editor of a local morn:
ing paper quoted it the other day-all
OF. the authority of DR.. Strong. The
burden of proof now rests on DR.. Strong
to produce the motto from an original
source, and this he cannot do by falling
back on Morse and Van Pelt, no matter