such iron speed upon the early infancy of religious
liberty in these American States, that to save further
blood, no attempt by Protestants was made to seek it
upon this soil, until a new benediction and an invisi-
ble strength lighted the Puritan altar from Plymouth
Eock, and without constraint, struck from that stone-
bound coast a cord of love to God and good will to
man, to which the nation vibrated in tones of silver.

The Spanish Jesuit, who murdered this Protestant
colony, dwelt twelve years in St. Augustine, and as-
sisted by Franciscan monks, erected the horrible Span-
ish Inquisition. The present United States' barracks
occupies the site of a monastery then dedicated to that
work. The irresistible intelligence of the American
people in honoring their national dignity and trust,
can no longer make a shameful application of the
crushing vengeance of this Papal Inquisition, which



AMERICA BAPTIZED IN PROTESTANT BLOOD. 247

has agonized witli blood, and exhaled its death vapors
from the first Protestant settlement upon American land.
Is it not enough to arouse their independent action, to
know that the sickening contagion of foreign Jesuit
Popery which now infests America, and is every mo-
ment endangering the principles on which our nation
rests, has made its dark stains, and tarnished the earliest
beams of glorious liberty which ever shone beneath
our American skies ?

Drake, twenty years later, captured St. Augustine,
and burnt and plundered it under the sympathy of a
Protestant Queen of England. A Frenchman seems
to have been spared from the Protestant massacre,
to quicken the pulse of this action. The Span-
iards' fortune became the prey of stratagem and spoil,
as they, v^ho had grown grey in devouring piety
and innocence, fled from their death-grapple. Before
another quarter of a century, the Florida natives razed
the city to the ground. And then, as if to avenge
slaughtered innocence, came the impatient Davis,
in wild madness, and xAth his menacing forces, after
the city had been founded for eighty years, kept a per-
petual watch over the actions of those corrigible men,
and gained over them a final, though ignoble victory.
At the commencement of the eighteenth century,
Spain had so damaged by crime and usurpation the
new world, that the Pope, who watched the wind and
the tide of success, dignified that government as "the
Defender of the Faith," and warmed by that venerable
and pompous distinction, nothing like the enjoyment of
life, property and conscience could be tolerated. These



248 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE.

had been already snuffed out of Florida ; and the main-
spring and fountain of Papal power was exercised all
over these dominions. The Anglo Saxon and Protest-
ant liberty were too feeble to contend effectually against
this gorgeous hierarchy — ^and with the vassalage of
mind and feeling, supported by sumptuous pageantry
and splendid solemnities, tyranny and force were fast
rooting out, by horror and the vulgar atrocity of In-
dian aid, the blood and faith of the American colonies.
The slaves were enticed from Georgia into the wilds of
Florida by the GcTv^ernor of St. Augustine. Bound, as he
declared, in conscience, to draw to themselves as many
negroes as they could, in order to convert them to the
faith of the Romish Church. And in the rash ambi-
tion of these Jesuits, they had prepared a scheme of
brutal profligacy to exterminate all the Protestant
colonists, when a signal Providence threw them into
terrible disorder, and prevented again their horrible
abominations from being reduced to practice. In de-
fiance of their sinning, suffering and action, the English
retained possession of Florida for twenty years, when,
in 1784 it was ceded back to Spain. The Anglo-Ameri-
can and Protestant remembering the devouring gulf
which had drank in the free Protestant spirit at Fort
Caroline, saw its yawniiigs still, and leaving all but
life, sought instant escape from the danger and licen-
tiousness of Jesuit punishment. The terror and ex-
cesses of popular insurrection had now become so full
of warning, that no new channel was provided for the
natural operations of Popery, until the American war
of 1812. But within, a train was laying to fill the



AMERICA BAPTIZED IN PROTESTANT BLOOD. 249

mine '>vitli an explosive element. The prosperous
marcli of American institutions was silently working
destruction to the stabilit}' of Papal power, and its arbi-
trary government. When, intoxicated to sympathy by
the rights and privileges exercised by Americans, and
a war arose, and under the fiery burnings of popu-
lar enthusiasm, St. Augustine was again in ferocious
struggle, and the flush and tumult of victory, taken out
of Spanish rule. The American government, sound,
steady and erect, lifted its hand to Florida's parched
lips, and in deep-minded, truth-loving sincerity, became
its purchaser from the King of Spain, and it was at
length clasped in the maternal arms of these United
States! And now, with the lance, sword, and free
space, the stars and stripes of American nationality
were unfurled from the Castle on the 17th of
June, 1821, and under the government and promis-
ing auspices of our American Grcneral, Andrew Jack-
son, St. Augustine glided into Anglo-American sun-
light, and threw off the torpid slumber of bigotry, in-
tolerance and despotism.

No longer like weak lamps in the night, her sons
and daughters rushed into the old State capitol, and in
the overflowing delight of a bridal feast, gave evidence
of their living energy in the right of " freedom to wor-
ship God," which Popery, for centuries had not only
repelled from Florida, but settled by the entire exter-
mination of Protestants, in the shedding of their blood.
Churches of various sects and creeds now were reared
under Protestant influence, and the city was soon re-
generated by influences favorable to religious freedom.
11^



250 THE GKEAT AMERICAN BATTLE.

A Metliodist minister, it is stated, suiting tlie action
to tlie word, made plain and direct efforts at once, to
scatter liglit among the people. As lie vrent from
liouse to house, in his mission of* mercy and good will,
he was accosted by a priest for such impertinent inter-
ference, who significantly threatened to frustrate his
purpose. Without the altercation of words, he pointed
the Pope's minion to the American flag, which then
proudly waved over the Castle, and now, for the first
time, silenced its oppression, and thus reminded him.
that under that, our fathers had stood, until all owned
it the invincible shield of their power which can never
be shivered while American men h'ave a grain of grate-
ful appreciation for that highest of all privileges, the
" freedom to worship God."




'/^/c



nr FT'INi'r.SYLli&TvLl



CHAPTEE XYII.



THE ORDER OF UXITED AMERICANS.



THE UNITED DAUGHTEES OF AMEEICA.



" Our Country's glory is our chief concern :
For this we struggle and for this "svo burn :
For this we smile, for this alone we sigh ;
For this we live, for this would freelv die."



The ardent desire of the Anglo-Saxon to see the
light of the American sun, and to convert the Indians'
patch garden into liberty's paradise, caused benignant
manifestations from the English monarch, for the sin-
gular vicissitudes through which his Virginia adventur-
ers had passed. And especially for the first visible and
palpable league which Avas made in the cause of free-
dom, by the remarkable exercise of Christian forgive-
ness under such felicitous and touching circumstances !
A costly scarlet robe, with a jewelled crown, and other
appendages were sent over by that government, as in-
dicative of grateful and generous appreciation, to their
great Indian king, Powhatan, who assured by his son
and daughter, that it was no surrender of power, but in-
dicated only harmonious action, he was induced to put



252 THE GEEAT AMERICAN BATTLE.

on all but the crown, and this he viewed with such
evident dissatisfaction, that no persuasion or entreaty
could induce him to bend the head or knee, and it was
only by pressing his shoulders with affectionate force,
that they at last succeeded in placing it on his brow 1
Thus eloquent in homage to liberty, and disdainful
to tyranny, has ever seemed the very soil, the w^oods,
the beasts, and the birds of America ! Under the same
sweet feeling of freedom did the national spirit rise in
the "United Order of Americans," when they saw its
blessings fluctuating and tlie national sentiment about
to flee away. And in the heat of America's youthful
blood, laid claim to the favor of the good, the protec-
tion of the powerful, the help of the active, and the
love of the patriotic. After an informal meeting at the
residence of E. 0. Koot, Esq., in the city of I^Tew York,
early in December, 1844, this American brotherhood
assembled by agreement, on the 21st of the same
month, to consider the vast import of our national life.
And as a precursor to a more profound rapture and
reverence for country, by a singular coincidence just
thirteen sons then appeared, as though to represent the
original thirteen States, to open a more accessible field
for our independence as Americans, and to impart more
glorious images of those divine principles which are to
our country its imperishable good. These were :

James Harper, E. C. Eoot,

Simeon Baldwin, E. D. Eoot,

a. P. Parser, T. B. Minor,

William Atkinson, G. W. Parsons,



THE OlWFAl OF U:sITED AMElilCANS. 2o3

C. A. Whitney, Daniel Talmage,

Thomas E. AVhitney, G-. E. Belchee,

l. d. bueling.

This Order, 5.0 ^-ingularly and beautifully conceived
in fervid, tlioiiglitfiil, energetic patriotism, is now a
briglit appearance for the boundless happiness of the
American people ! Its patriotic chivalry has widened
its domain, and the cheerful devotion of woman to its
principles and purposes, iills with gay and graceful
images the patriot heart, and pushes aside gloom and an-
ger and sadness, at the sight of her heroic action. This
organization holds no ferula or horn-book of party in its
hands. It is neither hampered or hemmed by a strug-
gle for poAver or place, but venturing boldly into their
secret recesses, it demands investigation, and contends
with activity for the salvation of our country and the
stern culture of all her interests. "To control, like
Washington, that party S23irit — the bane of free govern-
ment," and "shut up every avenue of foreign influ-
ence," as he directed and advised; to unite in one har-
monious choir, the Protestant Bible and Constitutional
Liberty, and to maintain the indestructible vitality of
both, is the helmet of this great action, and to
put away the wrangling violence and distrust, which
so alarmingly prevails within our national borders.
That fair flowering patriotism which blossomed far
and wide around our Washington, and on whom
depended its growtli and life, has at length been
broken by the stem. Its leaves have languished
and threaten to droop and wither away, and to keep



254 THE (iEEAT AMEllICAX BATTLE.

close to the tree from whence it sprouted, this order
make him still their culminating star in patriotic aspir-
ings, and fashion their visible and entire action by his
guidance ; as the expressive characteristic of that full
life, which must occupy the void left by an overruling
God, in the memory of every son and daughter of
the American soil! All that is worthy and lovely
echoes through the national heai't at the mere mention
of his name, and teaches that the very inspiration of
liberty should keep his ashes hot, and thus will its
boughs remain in their green freshness, and America
the rallying point for freedom throughout the world.

By a faith which deepens by free daring and heroic
constancy, we have stood in the brunt of battle and
smote the enemy of our liberties with giant strokes
and prowess, until it sued our hand and owned our
nation, the summit and key-stone of civil and religious
blessing. Washington was truly a skyey messenger
to take a fresh step into our American world, and
wilder deeds and more superhuman actions have fol-
lowed his advent, than in any similar period connected
with the dignity and destiny of man. The Georgia
Charter, the last of the old thirteen colonies, was not
a trivial or insignificant event of the same epoch, of
Washington's birth, for with it came the Wesleys, the
great pioneers of Protestant faith, in the western world.
Virginia, which, in 1607, had first been snatched from
the Indian breast, and nursed with Christian milk, had
now grown to a population of sixty thousand.

New York walked five years later in the same rocky
path, and amid groves and shadv thickets, and mur-



THE OEDER OF UNITED AMEEICANS. 255

muring water-falls cut a cliannel which gushed liberty
out of its native rocks. Eight years later came Massa-
chusetts, with her Puritan band, whilst the rack was
sweeping stormfully across the heavens, the ocean roll-
ing its chafed waters into heaps, and the forest only
sounded in the breeze. And in deep enthusiasm for God,
and freedom to worship Him, it hid the magnitude of
its great struggle in the completeness of that victor}^
And this leaven element, which was nourished with-
out faltering or irresolution, soon infused a spirit
into all the Colonies, which could not be bent by the
yoke of an enemy. The aggregate amount of souls,
then in the thirteen colonies, at the birth of AYashing-
ton, was about half a million, less than the present
annual immigration into the American States ! The
earliest American war was waged by France against
England in 1744, and terminated four years after by
the peace of Aix la Chappelle. The American colon-
ists then filled with the grand disinterestedness and
noble desires for country, struck back the invader
and "the strongest fortress of North America cap-
itulated to an army of undisciiDlined New-England
mechanics, farmers, and fishermen." But when
France sought supremacy over our fertile Mississippi
valley, and to weave a thread between Canada and
the Gulf of Mexico, the American soil became
the gTcat battle-field ! The Anglo-American and the
Englishman could not be wrenched asunder, and in
one faith and one hope, they defied France and her
Colonists until her banner could float no longer in a
North American breeze! Washington, though a



256 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE.

stripling, was in the fire of tliis controversy at arms,
and to Braddock's refusal to be advised by so young
a guide, ^vas tlie beam and glory shorn from the banks
of the Monongahela ! Thus, in 1763, the second Ameri-
can war closed and the next epoch dates in our national
annals! One hundred and twenty -five years Avere
consumed in gathering together the American material
which then gave greatness and glory to American valor
and the American name. No murmuring in the Avil-
derness, no painful longings to track with the eye, or
by the nose, the directions and intersections of tyranny
from whence they had fled. The rivers of blood, the
receding of the waters and the voice of Almighty God,
were to our fathers tlie out-works and abutments by
which they reached the pinnacle of our greatest glory.
And did freedom in its highest clearness ascend
their temple height as despotism passed out ? Oh no !
It was first by making Americans a peculiar people,
that they became zealous of good works ! They were
a drilled soldiery for the battle of freedom before the
Revolution came, and the primary movement was the
general education of all the people, so that the mighty
tide of cultivated thought, sanctified and purified by a
heavenly sun, blossomed in brightness at every altar,
and around every hearth-stone ! Power was then the
emblem of goodness, there was no stumbling and cry-
ing for help, but in the faithful worship of God, the
image of activity and self-reliance was before the eyes
of all, and with these practised senses grew that inde-
pedence in thought and that consciousness of religious
and political equality, to which they responded in the



THE ORDER OF UNITED AMERICANS. 257

Declaration of Independence of '76, and secured thirteen
years later in the great Constitutional Code, wliicla
fathomed and found out the only self-subsistent govern-
ment, and gave the first and last demonstration of that
liberty which we believe is destined to bless the uni-
versal world ! This is the incarnation of Americanism,
the thought which mast arch all her temples, and rise
to equal height, in every native or adopted bosom. To
make more thankful all her sons for this glorious free-
dom, which shines for all. To stamp and label our
dear country for eternit}', by teaching first the soul to
shun the traitorous demagogues, scheming despots, and
designing Jesuit Papists, foreign or native, and in one
manly universal American brotherhood, plant, count,
will, breathe, act, purely for country until its national
love in one stream of patriotic affection, shall roll and
swell, and flow all over the land. This is the sole aim
of that great organization of ''United Americans,"
which arose from that little assembly of thirteen sons,
and which, like the thirteen original States, has within
eleven years, reflected its bright genial rays from the
Atlantic to the Pacific shores. And Avhen the ques-
tion came: "Is this nation to last; is it to glorify God
throughout all ages ; is it set up as the pattern by which
all others are to be framed?" it made its holy appeal
to hirtli-place and showed by the uninterrupted flow
into the current of American blood, the true elevation
of our great nationality. And standing in the same
cohesive steadfastness and valor for our freedom, and
simultaneous in origin with the " United Americans,"
were the two powerful auxiliaries, the "Sons of America"



258 THE GEEAT AMERICAN BATTLE.

and the " United American Mechanics, " distinguished
for the same obstinate haughtiness for American lib-
erty and girded with a harness as bright as it is powerful
amid conflict or defeat, they will make no compromises
with the enemy, but though maimed and impoverished,
warrior-like, in thoughtful and manly sensibility for
American life, will march to the last fight for victory
and triumph. This reverence for God above us, the
sparkling liberty around us, and the sod which covers
our fathers' tombs beneath us, brought an out-fit of love
from the depth of woman's heart, and, staggered at the
sight of the foe, she could no longer hide her sorrow
from the sight of liberty, and without quaint device,
again appeared on its exterior edifice ! To mingle her
affections and sj^ecialities, not with this or that party,
but for God and her country, her own dear native
land !

For ten years the "United Daughters of America"
have been professed helpers, in leading the nation out
of its moral obstructions into light and peace. Their
calmness reveals the vastness of their yet unmeasured
strength, and coming not unsought, but as humble co-
workers for truth, freedom, and an earnest effort to
open to the world, all the grandeur and glory of their
country, and to render imperishable the goodness and
virtue, which are characteristic of our republican
institutions.

This order numbers nine flourishing chapters in the
city of New York alone, and invoking no stately pre-
sence, its equity, mercy, and serene humanity are en-
dearing it to the hearts of their American Sisters, who,



THE ORDER OF UNITED AMERICANS. 259

perceiving its sacred lineaments, have organized in
various States, and are entertaining their pure prin-
ciples, bj actively emulating their devotion to country
tlirougliout our wide-spread union. There is no mine
of the Eevolution from whence the smallest particle of
the spirit of liberty was smelted, whose inward spring
and deepest obscurity had not been penetrated by the
patriotic love of woman. The innocent blood of Miss
M'Crea and her mother, shed by a savage foe in the
early struggle for our national Independence, put that
solemn garb upon the people which doubled their
hearts, flowed over all doubts and swept hosts into the
ranks of the American army. To unstring the sincAvs
of the enemy's strength, by the daring and danger of
espionage, was the painful mission of woman, often
performed without a fainting heart throughout the war
of American Independence.

In the voluminous and interesting researches of
Colonel Thomas L. McKenny, the former efficient head
of the Indian department of the government, we find
the largest imbibing of the Aboriginal character and
heart. And the wave and surge of civilization, de-
velop there the same innate desire to live and work
for kindred, home, and country.

At the Chippeway treaty of cession, in 1820, anar-
chy threatened annihilation, authentic signs had passed,
and darkness floated on the ground of the Indians' in-
terest, when Mrs. Johnson, the daughter of their great
chief, AVa-ba-jick, summoned to her council in silence
and concealment, the Indians who had resisted the
United States commissioner, and exposed the nature



260 THE GREAT AMEPJCAX BATTLE.

of this crisis, wliich -was about to try tlie edge of their
axes with such singular and shining power, that they
felt the effect of her own nobleness and the treaty was
unanimously signed the same evening. To this more
than regal act, General Cass attributed his entire suc-
cess in accomplishing the designs, with which he haJ
been entrusted.



The Arch Chancery of the Order of United Ameri-
cans held its annual session in the city of JSTew York,
on Tuesday, November 20, 1855, when the following
officers were elected for the current j^ear : —

A. B. Ely, Esq., of Massachusetts, A. G. S.
J. B. Cevelaxd, of New Jersey, A. G. 1st C.
G. AY. S^irni, of Connecticut, A. G. 2d C.
E. B. Dearbohn, of Massachusetts, A. G. C. of C.
W.W. OsBORN, of New York, A. G. C. C.
William Hunt, of New York, A. G. F. C.
J. H. PuRDY, of Pennsylvania, A. G. C. of E.
Wm. S. Arextz, of New Jersey, A. G. S. at A.
Rev. J. W. B. AYood, of Brooklyn, N. Y., A. G. C.



CHAPTER XYIII.

ST. TAMMANY AND OTHER AMERICAN
ORQANIZATIOXS.



'Oh Heaven our bleeding country save !
Is there no arm on high to shield the brave?
Yet though destruction sweep thoBo lovely plains,
Eise fellow-men ! Our country yet remains !
By that dread name we wave the sword on high
And ewear with her to live — with her to die !"



As the dimensions of the tree are rarely regulated
by the size of the seed, so the consequences of our
American Party, like that of our American Revolu-
tion, have even now excelled the apparent magnitude
of the causes by which it made its present appearance
before the American people. And that they may
know all that is certain and reject all that is doubtful,
it seems best on this occasion to take the shortest, but
the clearest road to truth.

The St. Tammany Society, or Columbian Order, Vv'as
so called, from Tammanard, a renowned Delaware
Chief It originated immediately after the formation
of our present Constitution in 1788, and hence was the
first native American Order in these United States.
The cardinal doctrines of its creed were the exclusion
of foreigners from all political interference whatever
with the affairs of our country, as in manifest conflict

261



262 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE.

with our Republican Liberty and the American policy.
The Sons of the Revolution were the founders of this
Order, and it was under the teachings of Washington,
the leader of those armies, which under God, conducted
our nation to victory and glorious freedom, added to their
own experience and observation, that they saw the
necessity at that early period of a purely national or-
ganization, to uphold the true principles of American
faith and practice, and in the language of our country's
Father, to prevent the evil of the foreign action of
"these men, who have no attachment to the country,
further than interest binds them." And here Ameri-
cans before the eyes of Washington and under the
light of his countenance, this national society had the
zealous cooperation of the heroes of the Revolution,
his companions in battle, and flourished under its strin-
gent restrictions for ten years previous to his death.

The sublime idea of deliverance from foreign influ-
ence, was thus for years advantageously cherished by
them. But, money-loving, spoils-devouring, office-
seeking politicians began to join them, and the day of
dispensation was at hand. The first foreigner who
thus opened the door was a Scotchman, others fol-
lowed before it closed, until they had so multiplied,