Year: 1863

W huN 's SOHlC ud maui use OF 10 our
prejudice, besides it is not legaey we
would like-to bequeath to our posteritf.


TIE DEMOCRATIC PARTY RESPONSIBLE.


So stand the facts simply stated, and
yet in their very face, we venture 10 be-
ieve that very few Catholics. except old
American Catholics, in the slaYeholding
States, and not all even of them, are de-
iberately or intentionally disloyal, or on
moral and religious grounds in favor of
slavery, when brought forward as q dis
tinet and separate question Catholics
have generally, in late years at least,
been associated with the Democratic
party, and that party, since 1850, has
been politically q pro-slayerY narty
and from Its ranks have issued the chiefs
of the rebellion. Secession was the work
of the Democratic party IN the Southern
States, aided and encouraged up to q
certain point by the Democratic leaders
at the North, for reasons not difficult to
divine Catholics have become pro-
slavery through party associations and
party attachments. They have con-
founded opposition TO political Abolition
ism with the defense oil slssgery itself, and
mistaken fidelity to their party for 10y
atty to the nation. Not few of them
cannot conceive it possible for q man to
be a good Catholic and not support the
Democratic party; and 10 have large
number of them, leaving their political
party is next neighbor to renouncing
their church. The leaders of the rebel
lion at the South were also among the
first, in 1855, to meet and roll back the
Know Nothing movement, and the mass
of our Catholics have much more ready
sympathy with Southern shareholders
than they have with the more prosaic
population of the North The slave
holder seems to them nearer akin than
the Northern freeman or nobleman Of
the old world Here is, we apprehend,
the real secret Of the prO-slaveryism and
disloyal proclivities which we notice in a
large portion of our Catholic population,
or if not dsloyal proclivities, at least
lack of heart sympathy with the Govern
ment TO which they owe allegiance. Ii
is probable that the majority Of our CO
religionists consider the fearful struggle
for life in which the nation is now en-
gagged, is only an ordinary struggle for





parties, in which a man may take either
side or no side at all, without disloyalty
They seem not to understand that the
struggle is between the Government rep
resenting the nation, and rebels seeking
its overthrow, and that between the
legitimate government and rebels there
is but one side WHICH loyal citizen can
take If loyal he can neither side with
the rebels nor stand neutral When the
nation is engaged in struggle for its
existance against an armed rebellion,
neutrality itself is treason and made so
by laws of Solon-and taking sides in
any respect with the rebels is high
treason, and punishable as such. Yet
our Catholics have only followed their
Democratic leaders, who are, for the
most part, non-Catholics, and are more
censurable than they.


HATRED OF NEW ENGLAND


We maintain that Catholics are only
accidentally pro-slavery and disloyal in
their action. If the case were reversed,
and the Northern, especially the New
England States, were the seeding States,
and to put down their rebellion it were
necessary to emancipate their slaves, we
think there would be no more earnest
emancipationists, and no more loyal men
in the republic. The public opinion of
the Catholic body is formed mainly by
the Catholics in the Border Slave States,
and the Catholics in these States, iuclud-
ing the District of Columbia, are in
tensely Southern in their character and
sympathies, and bitterly hostile to New
ba Vanlyaa~
Southern sympathies and hatred of Yam
KEGS, or New Englanders, are diffused
through the entire Catholic body, even i'll
the New England States themselves
Catholics have been made to believe that
but for New England, nay, but for Mas
sachusetts, there would have been no re-
bellion, no civil war 1t is, they gener-
ally believe. the intermeddling policy of
Yankee abolitionists, of such men as
Garrison and Phillips, that has caused
all the trouble ridiculous belief, no
doubt, but strenueusly held by large
majority both OF our clergy and laity
Hence their extreme reluctance to be
found on the side Of the hated New Eng =
land against the darling South. 1t goes
decidedly against the grain. If the
New Ensander bGTisT By 6fFtdh Pad au net been "A
if he had been willing to have denounced
his Puritan ancestors as a set OF psalm
singing hypocrites without single vir-
tue, he would have been a great favorite
with American Catholics, and if he had
been willing to make his Reries0 tender
to the New York Freeman's Journal,
the redoubtable graduate of Fort La
favette, tie Able McMaster, as the Her
aid calls him, would, we doubt not, have
been a staunch Union man, and fore
most and loudest among the opponents
of the rebellion, and advocates of the
vigorous prosecution of the war, against
it. He is now one of the leaders Of the
copperheads, and a most belligerent
peace man; and yet if per impossible,
we we're to side with the rebellion, he
would renounce his copperheadism and
become loyal He is a man incapable
of acting from other than personal or
sectional prejudices, and we have some
times fancied he would rather go below,
than enter heaven with Yankee, or as
other than the chief of his clan. All
prejudices of this sort are silly, and yet
they have too much influence with us
Catholics ~ a- 1
THE OPPOSITION OF THE CHURCHES Co.'S


FESsED AND REPRoyED.