that they actually held the balance of power, and com-
pelled the majority to yield to their demands, or would
threaten to go over to the minority. They first re-
quired one member of the Legislature, which was
granted; then two, they were yielded. And then,
whatever they wished and as they plealed. In a
meeting of this Society, the Loco Foco party had
AMERICAN ORGANIZATIONS. 263
its origin. The foreigners liad become so powerfal
and domineering tliat the Americans resisted their
Yotes and blew out the lights! The foreigners re-
lighted them by Loco Foco matches, and carried the
measure by their own votes. This was the fatal mo-
ment when Americans went over to Eomanism. Sub-
sequent to the formation of the Tammany Society, but
at the same epoch in our national history, was the
Order of Cincinnati, another strong political society,
which made ineligible to membership, any American
who was not a native born son of the soil. AYashing-
ton himself was President-General of that Order, to
the close of his life. As Andrew Jackson had been a
leader of the Tammany before its degenerate days.
In 1839, the Pope's agent, Bishop Hughes, called a
public meeting at Carroll Hall, in the City of New
York, lectured his people and nominated his own
political ticket. The Democrats with whom he usually
cooperated, had not that year made selections suited
to his peculiar taste, and he determined to prove them,
where the balance power was deposited.
Having failed to get a portion of the School Fund,
appropriated by the Legislature, this wily Jesuit had
the daring audacity, relying on his influence over the
ballot-box with mercenar}^ politicians of all parties, to
obtain a committee, appointed by himself, to go into
the Public Schools of New- York, and wherever books
inimical to the Romish Creed were found, to expunge
all objectionable passages from the same.
That act aroused the sentiment of American nation-
ality in the native sons which was demonstrated by
264 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE.
petitions, processions, inflammatory banners, and de-
nunciatory meetings, and drove from tlie ballot-box in
disgust and contempt many of the noblest and truest
American men.
In 1843, a few Democrats met by accident in a black-
smith's shop, in the lltli Ward of New York city, and
canvassing the j^alpable evils perpetrated upon us by
the foreign hierarchy of Rome, resolved to do some-
thing to arrest it. A meeting was soon after called,
over which Mr. John Culiver presided, and after
adopting rules to govern their action, and organizing
the 11th W^^tl, they caused a similar movement in
the 17th, both strong Democratic Wards, and thus con-
tinued their proceeding, until this organization existed
in a majority of the Wards in I^ew York city. It was
not imtil after the first powerful Democratic Wards
had originated the idea and embodied it into action
and energy, that a single Whig had joined their ranks.
These meetings were then in secrec}', not only to save
their destruction, but the lives of the joarties who were
engaged in them. And when they had advanced by
their operations to the grand harmony of action, they
called a public meeting at the 14th Ward Hotel, the
heart of an Irish district in the city, and publicly pro-
claimed and ratified their principles !
In the following November election, Messrs. Jesse C.
Wood and Mangle M. Quackenboss, old Tammany Hall
leaders, in the days of Andrew Jackson, were pre-
sented as their candidates. Military Hall in the
Bowery, opposite Spring street, was the established
head-quarters of this party, and Mr. Alexander Cope-
AMERICAN OKGAXiZATIONS. 265
land, another distinguislied Tammany Hall leader, was
elected chairman of the executive committee, beside
many other prominent of&cers, who, unwilling to be
duped, had turned away in pity and disgust on the
discovery of the '^Yelled Prophet!" As that ma-
chinery is most ingenious which contains principles
for correcting its own imperfections, so this American
organization continued to improve upon experience
and its full development in the succeding winter,
months secured the nomination and election the fol-
lowing spring, 1844, of Mr. James Harper, as their
Mayor, with a majority of the Common Council.
The pride of having taken from our national shield
some of the misfortune inflicted by our enemies, in-
duced the call of a meeting by the Americans, at the
Park, to give expression to their joy. AYhen Bishop
Hughes, writhing under the friction of defeat, wrote to
the mayor and advised him not to allow that meeting
to take place, or it would end in bloodshed! The
warning menace of the Pope's officer, caused its aban-
donment ! But the American people, who are to their
country, as the law to the sword, are resolved by God's
mercy and strength to-day, evermore to direct its
stroke and temper its force! It was then that Mr.
Jesse C. Wood, a valiant soldier in the American
cause, volunteered in the spirit of the heroes and mar-
tyrs of '76, to risk life to extend this American or-
ganization over the State, and amidst danger, difficulty
and eminent personal peril, he succeeded in Albany,
Troy, Schenectady, Syracuse, Auburn, and Buffalo,
and made provision for a State Convention, the suc-
12
266 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE.
ceeding fall, wliicli nominated its State Ticket at Utica.
Mr. Thomas K. Woodruff and Judge Campbell were
thus sent to the House of Eepresentativcs of the United
States, with a majority of delegates to the Assembly
from the city of New York, and Mr. George Folsom
to the Senate of that State. Mr. Wood, free from am-
bitious aspirations and above the desire or expectation
of pecuniary reward, still continued his patriotic labors,
and in the winter of that year organized a majority of
the towns of Westchester, the entire counties of Putnam
and Dutchess, half of Columbia, and several in Orange
and Sullivan counties, in that State. These are the
services which will command the lasting approbation
and love of the American people, and place the actors,
in the elevation of humanity, above the reach of
Bishops with their mitres, or kings with their sceptres !
The butchery of Americans, perpetrated in Philadel-
phia by the Irish Jesuits, next advanced on the move-
ment of Bishop Hughes in New York. But in using
the tools they cut their own lingers, and out of it arose
the "Native American Party,"of that city. The " shoot-
ing down" Americans for the exercise of freemen's
privileges, aroused simultaneouly the spirit of resist-
ance in Boston, the old Cradle of Liberty, which had
that magnificent tea party, of whom all patriots have
heard. The " Order of United Americans" had then
seven lodges there, and the " Sons of America" also,
their "encampment," the "Shifaer Club," which had
been formed about this period, guided and directed by
the true instincts of American nationality, announced a
meeting at Fort Hill, in the centre of the Jesuit foreign
AMERICAN ORGANIZATIONS. 267
population of Boston, upon which their Priests procured
five hundred muskets and other warhke equipments,
and following the illustrious example of their ISTew
York Archbishop, threatened insurrection and blood,
if the Americans carried out their programme. A vast
arm J, numbering some ten to fourteen thousand, arose
at this signal of defence, composed of young men of
every avocation, clerks, mechanics, and farmers, from
the adjoining towns, who marched in procession, armed
with the Stars and Stripes of our country waving over
their heads, and there gave expression to national sen-
timents and American principles and purposes. While
Bishop and Priests combined, these men were neither
"cowards nor the sons of cowards," but bravely faced
their foes. The prominent speakers on that occasion,
were Messrs. Gowan, Oxton, Hildreth, Foster Bryant,
Jesse Mann, and Wilham Scudder Tisdale, of New
York city. Noble sons of worthy sires !
More than eight years subsequent to the great
and patriotic Order of United Americans, and fif-
teen after the first Native American Association,
the germ of the Know-Nothing Order arose, from
whence has been developed the national party, which
in God's providence has revealed itself, not only in
capital cities, but has crowded every highway, and
entered every hut and hamlet in our land, and is now
the bahu of mercy to our suffering country.
A few individuals residing in the city of New York,
who had hived the facts in connection with the cruci-
fiers of American liberty in that citj^, and could no
longer endure the chiding, insult, and neglect of the
268 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE.
native-born citizens, wlio, bruslied aside and thwarted
by tlie political parties with which thej had inflexibly
cooperated, for foreigners who were enriched and re-
warded by the honor and emoluments of office, until
becoming the balance power and standing perpen-
dicularly upon American rights and prerogatives, had
announced the fatal fact, with an insolent audacity,
which irresistibly aroused the power and thunder of
the national thought. Hence, an alliance was then
formed of native born sons of all parties, animated by the
determined principle to prevent foreigners from holding
any office, joolitical station, and manifesting especial
hostility to the foreign Catholic or Papist, as infinitely
least American in his sympathies, more scornfal and
arrogant, the most servile and degraded, both from
ignorance and bigotry. This organization was intended
to operate only upon the municipal affairs of the city
of ISTew York, and to bring her native born -citizens to
see the consuming fire, with such deep earnestness as
to place themselves, at least upon a level with the
alien. Its rugged sterling worth gained it rapid
strength, and a few " Councils," or " Wigwams,*'
bound by secret rites and obligations, were formed,
and exerted in some of the Wards a powerful and im-
portant influences in the municipal elections of that
city.
The alien Catholic population had spoken in the mean-
while in unmistakable and emphatic verdict against us
by concerted associations of that entire portion of the
population, and in some of the cities of the adjoining
States, such had been the violence of attack upon the
AMERICAN ORGANIZATIONS. 269
Bible, tlie legal observance of tlie Sabbath, and the
greatest glory of our peculiar institutions — the Public
Schools — that the want of some such organization be-
came a feeling with the American people ! Learning of
the existence of the new association in New York, citi-
zens of different States when visiting that city, embraced
the occasion to be admitted to membership, who, on
returning to their homes, quick and resolute, instigated
the establishment of similar associations to resist the
foreign influence in their own municipalities. The clear
graphic sight of the vigorous action of this system,
now developed the idea of a national organization for
national ends. It was truly the bursting fire, as if by
accident, which God had overruled to pierce the mar-
row of our national troubles. After difficulty and
disorder, the leaders of this great movement, agreed
for the common benefit, to divide their sceptre, and the
act of separation was so decreed. The one party call-
ing its subordinates "Wigwams," and "Lodges," were
assigned the IS'orth and East, as the field of their oper-
ation, while the other, bearing the title of " Council,"
were destined to the South and West. New York
was the head-quarters of both, and the " State Wig-
wam" and the ^' State Council" of the State of New
York were respectively regarded as the national heads
of their sections, until five State Wigwams or Councils
had been formed, when a congress of delegates from
these would constitute a national body.
The sweet native graces of these principles began
immediately to melt and inflame the national heart,
and subordinate Councils or Wigwams were formed in
270 THE GREAT AMEBICAN BATTLE.
New Jersey, in April, 1853 ; Marjdand, the following
May ; Connecticut, in July ; Ohio, in October ; Penn-
sylvania, in December of the same year. The gen-
erous, all-embracing love of country, soon knit without
mystery an extended American brotherhood and strong
in understanding, as American in character, a conven-
tion composed of one delegate from every Council,
Lodge, and Wigwam in the United States, was con-
voked. On the 14th of May, 1854, at 81 East-
Broadway, New York cit}^, the Empire State of New
York, with New Jerse}^, Maryland, Massachusetts,
Yirginia, Ohio, and the District of Columbia, thus res-
ponded to the call, and looking to a closer and firmer
growth, a consolidated union was the result, and under
the name of "Grand Council" of the United States, a
meeting was appointed for the 14th of June, in the
same year. The light in the mean while had found its
way through small apertures, in Indiania, New Hamp-
shire, Maine, Kentucky, Georgia, Alabama, Rhode
Island, Illinois, and Michigan, and in the order named.
When, therefore, the Grand Council assembled on the
14th of June, at the former place, it was found neces-
sary to remove to the Odd Fellow's Hall, to accommo-
date the increased number of delegates. A striking
portrait in this feature of the movement, was that this
Council was a representation from thirteen States ! It
now became thoroughly compacted into harmonious
life and action, and after a most exciting session of
three days, their Constitution and Ritual were adopted
on the 17th of June. As if to catch the essence and
rapture of Liberty, at every progress this happened to
AMERICAN OPvGAXIZATIOXS. 271
be also, tlie anniversary of the battle of Bunker Hill !
Under that enactment, with such subsequent amend-
ments as time has shown to be expedient, this Order
lias since been established in ever}^ State and Territory
which is sheltered under the American Union.
Thus free from ambitions yearnings, and advancing
comparatively under an uncertain guidance, has a seem-
ing trivial event become, under a beneficent destiny,
the cornucopia of power and effort and wise action, for
the second deliverance of the American people.
The ofiicers of the f-rst Grand Council were as fol-
lows: —
James W. Barker, Esq., New York City, President.
W. W. Williamson, M.D., Alexandria, Va., Yice-Pres.
Charles D. Deshler, New Brunswick, N. J., Cor. Sec.
James M. Stephens, Esq., Baltimore, Md., Rec. Sec.
Uenry Crane, M.D., Cincinnati, 0., Treasurer.
The officers of the present National Council are :
E. B. Bartlett, Esq., Covington, Ky., President.
Charles D. Freeman, Esq., Philadelphia, Pa., Yice-Pres.
Charles D. Deshler, New Brunswick, N. J., Cor. Sec.
James M. Stephens, Esq., Baltimore, Md., Rec. Sec.
Henry Crane, M.D., Cincinnati, Ohio, Treasurer.
CHAPTEK XIX.
TH^^ JESUITICAL ATTEMPT TO DESTROY
THE AMERICAN NAVY.
" Oh for a tongue to curse the slave,
"Whose treason, like a deadly blight,
Comes o'er the 'Councils of the brave,'
To blast them in their ' hour of might.' "
Has America indeed a paralysis of tlie lieart ? Can
sTie no longer penetrate the mystery wliicli began lier
life and heat ? Has she surrendered her recruiting force,
and become lost to sensibility, by the exhaustion put
upon her by the Eomish Hierarchy, the Anti- American
government which now afflicts and saddens her peo-
ple ? Thank God, we have yet a claim ! and the wail
and clamor of complaint and sorrow which has gone
out in thunder tones must arouse the national heart,
and shake its strong foundation from centre to extreme !
The pride of our country has been broken, our
American navy, which has so nobly, fearlessly, and
majestically illustrated the honor and dignity of Ameri-
can liberty, and linked her sparkling glory to admira-
tion and Avonder, in all lands and climes, has suddenly
been collapsed — crushed, and placed under the curse
of humiliation and punishment, not merely by the
lower agents, "the Eetiring Xavy Board," but by the
272
% A^
-gr£5jed"byJ C -
/{^c -y^.Jf. J^zr...
iL^oe^
f\4ji
No;c
HP^n
^NO
O^
ATTEMPT TO DESTROY AMERICAN NAVY. 273
President of the United States, the Secretary of the
ISTavy, and the same un-American influence which has
given and supported the original distinction of the
present National Executive ! A frightful parricide has
thus been made upon America's maternal heart, and
without the solemn grace of dying like men, two hun-
dred and one officers have been struck off in a single
flake, and at least five hundred American families, who
were wrapped but yesterday in the laugh of security
and triumph, in the faith of American integrity, are
now bowed down under the shock of surprise, which
the secret sword of malice or caprice has sent into their
throbbing, unsuspecting bosoms.
An act ostensibily to promote the efficiency of the
navy, but really to destroy it, was by carnal weapons
and worldly devices, thrust upon the country during
the last hours of the former Congress, and approved
on the 28th of February, 1855.
It bore from its inception only the brightness of the
grave, and so conscious were its factors of its want of
mercy, dignity, and strength, that it escaped prostration
by party tactics, and was borne through the two houses
of Congress by attaching it to the Appropriation bill,
and thus, unnoticed, because unseen and unobserved,
made its foot-print silently over that political race-
course. This act of Congress then provided "the
finding of a Judicial Commission of fifteen officers of
the Navy, selected by the Goverment to carry out the
law, which "finding" was approved by the President
and Secretary of the Navy, under whose " instructions"
the whole matter was perfected. And thus by a " Bill"
12^
274 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE.
â– which senators and members now frankly acknowledge
they had neither digested nor read, have the noblest
American citizens been betrayed, their honor sullied,
and their dearest rights as officers and men, shamefully
outraged and trodden under foot. It was by the votes
of a Democratic Congress that the act was passed, and
by the Secretary of the Navy and President Pierce's
sanction and approval, that the scythe was whetted by
that Board of "fifteen," which has mowed the flower
of the I^avy from American soil. ISTo culprit, advocate
or accuser was seen at that bar, from whence these
American men have been knocked off from the service
of their country, and tyranny and cruelty could inflict
no greater torture than to condemn freemen without fur-
nishing a charge, or permitting a defence ! More absolute
power than has thus been arrogated, was never exercised
by any government on the face of the earth. Why has
the American ISTavy been withered by this sweeping
execution, stripped of its just domains, when the
country's appeals to its force, as its right arm of defence,
was never more determined? Why are her brave
spirits, whose intense labor and endurance in the
service of the people, whose blood and language, and
religion and laws are all American, shuffled like dice
by political Jesuit throw-holders ? The • cruel indiffer-
ence and unscrupulousness with which this late action
of the National Executive has shaken the very citadel
of American liberty and smitten with smiling implaca-
bility the American Navy ; in this the blessed day of
its revenge upon true Americans — calls upon this
people to rise in the spirit of the heroes of '76, who
ATTEMPT TO DESTKOY AMERICAN NAVY. 275
took oppression and scandal from the American name ;
and whether it be principal or accomplice, make a stand
against offenders by that warning hour of reckoning
for those who would ruin and enslave their country,
and bring disgrace and degradation upon her sons,
under the form of law !
But whence the arbitrary discretion of this act, which
has not a vestige of constitutional right, and is violative
of those of the individual States of the Union ? Let
the American people who have been eaten as meat and
bread by the corrupting, corroding, consuming, foreign
oppression of the repacious foe of Kepublicanism, fathom
the question ! and realize in this action of the govern-
ment, a deliberate, concerted attempt, on that part of the
enemy, which detests freedom and maintains the "gov-
ernment of authority" to blemish the honorable life
of the American Navy, and to throw into the back-
ground, men who had never flinched before persecuting
tyrants or hostile armies ; and without fear or scruple,
vfere ready to offer up their lives for the honor and
glor}^ of their own beloved country. It was this same
Komish influence which induced the acknowledgment
from a leader of the Democratic party, in sullen and
resentful candor, that it had elected every democratic
President from the days of Mr. Munroe ! The inten-
sity and energy with which it has furbished and made
efiicient the present onset upon the navy, can no more
be doubted, than its claim for victory and dominion in
all other cases, where the interests of Americans were
to be sacrificed.
The seat of a Eoman Catholic Postmaster General
276 THE GREAT AMEEICAX BATTLE.
in the Cabinet, ^\'itli two ISTortliern Abolitionists, as well
as the foreign missions, were fresh engines of power,
obtained as the price of the last Presidential vote ! The
Pope of Rome by his encyclical letter of 1840, looked
at slavery as an artist ; and to hasten his supremacy in
the United States, through aliens in language, manners,
and intellectual constitution, he there essays to excite
scorn and disgust between the northern and southern
sections of this blood-bought Union, that the Papacy
might appropriate the benefits of this sectional exas-
peration, to drench our country in its vinegar and galh
And when the merciless atrocity upon the American
ISTavy, which emanated from the judgment-seat at
"Washington, has been fearlessly exposed by tlie iron
courage of American men, the Church of Rome will
have been found the skilful leecher which has bled the
hearts of her sons and quivered the lips and made
weeping eyes around so many unfriended, unprotected
fire-sides — Helpless widows who brought their noble
sons in boyhood and dedicated them afresh to the
service of their country, and thus feeling the compen-
sation of their own loss, suffer in secret this dauntless,
gigantic oppression, which has disgraced their sons,
divorced them from the service of the country they
taught them to love ; far more, than they mourn the
penury, to which it has possibly subjected them.
It was Mr. Mallory, a Roman Catholic Senator from
Florida, who first introduced a bill of this character in
the Congress of the United States, and who is now
adding to the pangs of wounded American honor, by
his uncompromising defence of the action of the ISTavy
ATTEMPT TO DESTROY AMERICAN XAYY. 2n
Board ; the Secretary^ wlio administered the rules and
reguL^tions for their guidance and the President who
approved it! "Having carefully examined and de-
liberately considered the report ! " And the death-
darkness of its action — without records, charges, argu-
ment or evidence by which the reputation or usefulness
of these two hundred and one ofdcers could justly be
tainted — ^he mingled his streng-th with the error of that
disgraceful judicial torture, and with a gag to the
mouths of these gallant men, dragged them out by
public injustice to die ofiicially, from the active list of
the American Kavy. Our arms, arts, science, letters,
commerce, agriculture have all been slackened by this
stunning blow, and the American people want light
upon the matter — liglit that shall show her men as
they have ever looked in the issue and the fight,
neither concealed by intrenchments nor hid in Mexican
ditches !
Mr. Samuel F. Dupont and Mr. Godon, members of
this scarlet board, are Eoman Catholics, while Mr.
Shubrick, the President, is so connected by marriage.
Why were Komanists thus anxious to subjugate the
American Navy? AYhy did they desire to impair
its vigor? It was for the same purpose for which
his Holiness the Pope sent his Bull to agitate slavery,
and obtain the repeal of the Missouri compromise,
effected through the patronage of the National Execu-
tive ! It was to sap the foundation of our democratic
liberty and our glorious Constitution of Government,
which is hateful to European State-Church Absolutism,
and the cunning disciples of Jesuitism, who run wild
278 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE.
witli delight in crippling tlie only arm of tlie national
defence, with which the United States of America could