Year: 1875

unWlse 20 remonstrate, provided thel
do it quietly without disturbing thu
public tranquility But neither tha


nor the amendment proposed by President
Grant is Of sufficient practical Importance tc
be undertaken at the risk of setting the coun-
try by the ears and infaming religious ami
mosities The democrats in Congress might
easily defeat the artful design of the Presi-
dent by accepting the substance Of his pro-
posed amendments, with such notifications
as could be made in their passage through
Congress-. They have only to accept the
proposition and help it forward to destroy
the motive with which it is offered. As
soon as the republicans should see that no
party capital was to be made out of it they
would quietly let it drop and the State Legis-
latures would not ratify so needless an
amendment. It's success as o party move
ment depends on its stirring up furious
agitation, and the democrats will play
into the hands of their willy adversaries
if they meet it with a vehement and noisy
opposition. 1t is q thing which would never
have been attempted but in reliance on the
folly of the democratic party in walking into
trap. To accept this measure is the surest
way to kill it. Except for party purposes it
is as harmless as it is useless, and the
moment it is found to be of no service as a
party weapon the republicans will slacken
their zeal and make no attempt to carry it
through the State Legislatures.


AS a stroke of party tactics the democrats
would do still better to accept it in the crude
form in which it is proposed in the Message.
WheRMr. Blaine presents his more moderate
proposition in the House the democrats could
make q great party hit by amending it into the
precise form and very words in which it
is offered in the Presidents Message. In
that form the Protestant feeling of the
country would revolt against it, because it
would necessarily exclude the Bible from
the public schools, and deprive the Protes
tant denominations of other advantages which
they enjoy in most parts of the country. There
are hundreds of thousands of school districts
in which there are no Catholics, and in all such
places the teacher, ifhe happens to be church
member, can not only read the Bible to his
pupils unchallenged, but give them Protes-
tant religious instruction. Such an amend
ment as President Grant proposes would both
exclude the Bible and destroy this privilege
Of religious instruction. An eminent Pres
byterian divine, the Rev. Dr. Baird, in his
elaborate work. Religion in America" says
that the exclusion of the Bible would leave
the Protestants the alternative of supporting
a school of their own. This will generally
be done by the Protestants," he says,
'rather than give up the Bible"


The democrats in Congress have only to
accept the Presidents amendments and in
sist on their being couched in his language
to rouse the Protestant feeling of the country
against this party project. 1t would be
great triumph for the Catholics to exclude
the Bible from all the common schools, and
the Protestant feeling Of the country could
be relied upon to defeat amendments having
that effect. There was never better oppor-
tunity for the democrats in Congress to
adroitly spike big republican gun