The Irish standard., 1894-08-11
CALLED TO MIND.
Jefferson's Declaration That the
Constitution Gives Religious
Liberty to All.
HIS ASSURANCES CONFIRMED

The Ursulines Pray for the Success
"Old Hickory" at the Battle
of New Orleans.
Those individuals who, at the present
time, are endeavoring, in various parts
of the country, to extort from judicial
and legislative bodies interpretations of
that clause of our national constitution
which guarantees religious liberty to
every citizen that shall be prejudicial to
the Catholic church and it's institutions
here, might proftably study the opinion
rendered on that issue, in the opening
years of this century, by no less per-
sonage than Thomas Jefferson, who then
held the highest Office in the land, and
of whom the historian, Parton, said that
''of all the public men who have figured
in the United States be was incompar-
ably the best scholar and the most vari-
ously accomplished man." says the Bos-
ton Republic.
| When the United States government,
in 1903, purchased the Louisiana terri
tory from France, the Ursulines, of New
Orleans, IN which city the Daughters of
st. Angela Merici had been established
for upwards of three quarters of century,
became SO a,med at the reports, cur
rently circulated, that the federal gov
ernment intended to confscate their
little property and expel them from the
land, that Mother Teresa Farjon, then
the head of the community in the Crescent
City, in her own name and in behalf OF
her associates, wrote to President Jefer-
son asking if there was any foundation
for the disturbing rumors that found
their way into the convent. 'The Sage
Of Monticello" hastened to allay the good
sisters fears by addree sing them the fol-
lowing communication, in reply to their
letter: II have received, holy sisters"
said the President, "the letters you have
written to me, wherein you express
anxiety for the property vested in your
institution by the former government OF
Louisiana. The principles Of the consti-
tuition and government of the United
States are sure guarantee to you that
it will be preserved to you sacred and IN
violate, and that your institutions will
be permitted to govern itself according
to it's own voluntary rules without inter-
ference from the civil authority. What
soever diversity of shade may appear in
the religious opinions Of our fellow.citi-
zens, the charitable objects Of your
institution cannot be Indifferent to any,
and it's furtherance of The wholesome
purposes of training up it's young mem
bers in the way they should go cannot
fail to insure it the patronage OF the
government it is under. Be sure it will
meet with all the protection my Office
can give it,"
James Madison, then the secretary of
state, sent similar assurances to the
Ursulines of New Orleans, whose appre-
tensions were quieted by these official
declarations that the liberty guaranteed
by the constitution to all religions was
far different from that intolerance and
persecution advocated by the fanatics of
the present day. True, this letter Of
President Jefferson did not prevent the
wanton destruction, some thirty years
later, of the Ursuline Convent that stood
on Mount Benedict, here in the suburbs
of Boston; but that piece Of vandalism
was the work of mob whose members
had respect for no laws of the land, and
constituted crime for which the state
within those limits it was perpetrated
has ever since been deeply ashamed.
The religious liberty which the constitu-
ton insures every citizen is the same
to- day, however, as it was in the year in
which President jefferson penned the
foregoing letter, to inform the Ursulines
Of New Orleans that in accordance with
the principles underlying our form OF
government their property rights would
not only be always held sacred and in.
violate, but also that no civil authority
could ever legitimately interfere with
the management of their converts and
institutions of learning.
This presidential opinion has always
held good, even if it did not prevent Ger
tain iDiudicious and fanatical in dividuals
from acting in contradiction to it. An
att >mpt Of this kind was foolishly made
BY Henry Clay, in 1928, when that un-
fortunate trouble known as the Hogan
schism,' . occurred in Philadelphia. With
view OF restoring harmony. among the
Catholics Of that city, who became di-
vided on the pending issues, orders were
sent from Rome to two Philadelphia
priests to report to Cincinnati for duty
and to quit the Quaker city. This Was
plainly "a exercise of spiritual jnliallic.