Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1892-08-04

ionged to another man. And now his
voice is lifted up in the land again, cry
ing for a New Missouri"
FATHER CUMMINGS CASE.
/ Mr.. Chairman, I might go on in
definitely, almost ad infnitum, calling
| up these cases of political persecution,
| which are part of the history of the
| state. The reports of the supreme
/, court from 1865 to 1874 are full of them.
\ There were a half dozen or more cases
| pending at one term of that court in
| ls67-indictments of lawyers, teachers
and preachers for the crime of practis-
ing their several professions without
first having the so-called "oath of
loyalty" Sir, could recite some har-
rowing stories of bitter wrong, of un-
1 reIenting persecution. could tell you
how one young man, only IL years old
| when the war began, the son
i of a widow, was DISTINGUISHED be
| cause he had an uncle in the con-
| federate army, for whom he acknowl-
| edged, on being examined, he would
have sympathized If he had been in
trouble. could tell you how young
| girl, whose father had been killed in
| the confederate army, and who alone
Il
| dicted for the crime of teaching school,
convicted and imprisoned. I could tell
| you how priest was dragged from his
pulpit and murdered in cold blood sim
! ply for preaching the the Word of God.
1 / could fill a volnme with these horrible
stories But will refer in detail to but
one additional case. It will illustrate
| how even those whose lives were conse.
Grated to the sacred work of bearing
1 tho Lords h01xy q
| sages OF peace and love and hope,
throughout the world, were followed
with a spirit of persecution as savage
and intolerant as ever dishonored our
civilization.
| Mr.. John A. Cummings was a priest
| in the Roman Catholic church. He was
| indicted in Pike county for preaching;
was tried, convicted and sentenced.
He appealed to the supreme court OF
the state, then composed of three re-
| publican judges. That court in No
vembcr, 1865, affirmed the Judgment of
| the circuit court, held the conviction
| lawful and sustained the law under
| which it was obtained. Father Cum
mings then appealed to the supreme
\ court of the United States-that most
august of all the judicial tribunals in
the world. That great court, in an
elaborate opinion, held the state con-
1 pTOVISiOu the
| conviction was had to be in conflict
with the constitution of the United
States and a supervision of the inalien-
able rights of every American citizen.
| / wish to make one or two brief quota
| tons from the opinion delivered in that
| case. The court said:
1.-The oath prescribed by the constitu-
| ton, divided into separate parts, en-
| braces more than thirty distinct sftirma-
L 60 f1<~,, &C.
| which it is directed constitute offenses
of the highest grade, to which, upon
conviction, heavy penalties are attached.
Some of the acts have never been
| classed as offenSes in the laws OF any
state, and some of the acts, under many
circumstances, would not even be
blameworthy.
THE oath thus required is, for its
severity, without any precedent that
we can discover. In the first place it is
retrospective; it embraces all the past
from this day; and, if taken ten years
hence, it will also cover all the inter
vening period. In its retrospective
feature we believe it is peculiar to this
country. In England and France there
have been test oaths, but they were
always limited to an affirmation
of present belief or present dis
position toward the government, and
particular instances of past miscon-
duct. In the second place, the oath is
directed not merely against overt and
visible acts of hostility to the govern
ment, but is intended to reach words,
desires and sympathies also. And in
the third place, it allows no distinction
between acts springing from malignant
enmity and acts which may have been
prompted by charity, or affection or re-
la tionship. If one has ever expressed
sympathy with any who were drawn
into the rebellion, even if the recip-
tents of that sympathy were connected
by the closest ties of blood, he is as I'M
able to subscribe to the oath as the
most active and the most cruel of the
rebels, and is equally debarred from
the offices of honor or trust, and the
positions and employments specified"
such was the stern judicial denunci-
alton of this barbarous and wicked law
by the highest court in the republic.
The state court was directed Ito dis
charge the defendant from imprison-
ment, and suffer him to depart without
day." Thus at last the prison door
swung open. the sunlight fell athwart
the dungeon, and this man of God
walked forth, free once moro to do his
part in lifting the world up and making
men better therein.
Mr. Chairman. / have not been recit-
ing ancient history nor foreign history;
it is both modern and domestic. 1t is
not of Poland's sad, pathetic story
have been speaking. These are not
sorrows that come sobbing out of the
midnight which has hung starless for
TOO years above the Emerald Isle.
These are not stories born on the shiv-
ering winds blown down from that
mighty despotism in northern Europe,
where men are hunted like wild beasts
and driven like cattle into hopeless
exile. have been telling you simply
of what occurred here in Missouri only
twenty years ago, when the republican
party was triumphant in this state,
and when the laws it put upon the
the officers of it's own choosing. I |
have been speaking of the same period
in our history to which Maj. Warner
referred, and of the same political
party whose achievements Mai. War
ner applauded. / thought, since the |
mai or had invited comparison and in
dulged in historical Renaissance, the
young men Of the state should know
more of the past than he |
seemed disposed to give them. ii
thought i would simply tear the veil |
away and let all the ghostly skeletons
out.
STONE NOT INroLERANT. l
2 Mr.. Chairman, perhaps / had as well |
pause here, before leaving this record |
Of priest butchering and political and |
religious intolerance, to notice an OBJ |
servation in Maj Warmers Sedalia |
speech. In that speech he used this
Language! = 81. ----.-'i