nationality. Already are Papal of&cials more depend-
ent on the lowest Komish emissar}^ in America, than
the highest political power with which her Constitution
entrusts her. In vain the efforts of brave men and
true women, in vain the sight of aged, dying patriots,
in vain all high and lofty endeavors, if the Press comes
not to succor liberty.
Shall the youth of America feel the morning of
life perilled by such a destroyer? Their education
abridged, shaped,, and murdered by Eomish despots ?
That sparkling liberty, innately welcome to every
American heart, slirouded from the very eyes of Amer-
ica? Who would shed a tear over the death and grave
of America's eternal foe ?
The note once sounded will be like the trump at the
city of Jericho ! Shall Eome's Vicegerent scourge
America for her love of God and liberty ? Let the press
MISSION OF THE AMERICAN PRESS. Bo
of America answer. It alone can translate its dead
languages, and pull its laws down from lofty spires,
and discourse and diffuse tliem to the deptlis of tKe
people. Think of Jesuitism supporting the govern-
ment of free America with its yawning gulf, which
makes tragedy for souls! Let the American Press
rise ; America expects it, entreats for it, hopes for it.
America is incarcerated in the Protestant faith of the
Gospel ; give this full force, and she can bear the woes
of the world. The Press is the pyramid which the peo-
ple have reared to guard America's welfare ; and honor-
ing its high destiny, it may rise to that height where
man is forbidden nearer to approach his Maker.
America can die but by suicide. The Press can cut
her throat. But will it ? Shall America become a
moon to wax and wane amid the sun of the Pope of
Eome ? What has Romish prelates to do with a living
God, or His worshippers, but to destroy both? Shall
this Atlas of Perfidy shoulder America, and bring her
to dust, by her cold pressure ? Let the Press feel its
mission to hurl back — to pull down — to crush this
crusade against our liberties.
The war ships are under sail, to conduct America to
prison and to death. Cut but a single artery, and her
blood will gush and flow over the land. The foot of
the Pope is now treading American soil; he nods like
Jove, and shakes her with his rattling thunder. Then
will the Press feel its glorious and divine mission, and
take the plague spot from our borders ? Let it demand
the anatomy of property, the anatomy of her aim and
6b THE GEEAT AMERICAN BATTLE.
end in America. Let it stop tlie rushing wave of Papal
usurpation, and become the breakwater of Poperj —
the guard for the land that Luther and Calvin, the
Puritans and Penn, sought out. The despotisms of the
world are in league against America — ^lier liberty is
the incubus they cease to cast off. Let the Press
take up her cause, before it languishes and dies. Let
it teach every son and daughter of America to adhere
to her Constitution, her laws, her Bible, before all pas-
sion, all interest, and all emolument. Heaven defend
as from the mummery existence of Popery, which de-
cays by contact ! Popish prelates are sending Cains
throughout our beloved Union, to incite flmaticism, to
curse our morality, and to walk impiously on the ruins
of our liberties.
Nowhere but in America is there entire freedom of
the Press, or freedom of speech, — nowhere beside 1
But here even, Papal subjects enjoy it not — the priests
deny them the .right.
The Press, then, though it espouses many principles,
and speaks as many tongues as were spoken at Babel,
is yet sustaining one grand idea in America — its liberty,
the people's liberty, their rights, their laws, their Con-
stitution, their freedom, theii' history, their geography,
their interests, The Mission of the American Press
emphatically is Liberty I Let this be above all her
monuments, and beneath all her graves. How, then,
does it permit the usurper of all human liberty to throw
the apple of Eros in free America ? Eome feels her
mission to rule the world: it remains for America to
MISSION OF THE AMERICAN PRESS. 87
deny tlie error. Eome deals in darkness : tlie Press
can drag it from its deep entrencliments and expose it
to the gaze of sharp-siglited, liglit-loving America. It
can sliow its hereditary constitutional habits, its scrof-
ula and lymph. And when the people see it, they will
be sopped and drugged by this machinery no longer.
An open field and fresh laui'els are now before the
American Press, and when it has shown the Komish
Church in the United States in its true political char-
acter — how it stands and serves only to assume and
govern — it has cut a loAver basin, and given a deeper
ray into its opaque sphere, and its history may then be
written in American annals. This is the divine mis-
sion of the Press, the last act in its nobility and exal-
tation. Show America how Komanism is as the limb
to the body, and the breath to the mouth of three mill-
ions of human beings, who profess to embrace Ameri-
can nationality ! Every forest, and mine, and stone
quarry, the man whose property is his axe, his plough,
or his wheel-barrow, who has no enthusiasms, no aspir-
ings, contented, self-respecting, but wishing to keep
the middle way, feels the great question at issue, which
is plainly to sever the Church of Eome from the Gov-
ernment of the United States of America.
Liberty of conscience, freedom of will, and the right
to worship God thereby, are the principles of America's
Bible, on w^hich she wrote her everlasting Constitution ;
and while the stars and the stripes- of her national
banner float over the Capitol of the American States,
38 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE.
her people will resist unto death any system which in-
terposes her eternal decision.
Experiences, fortunes, governings, readings, and
writings, have at last awoke the nation into life, and
called into existence her great American Party, to
crush that fanatical zeal which thirsts only for power,
and which has succumbed to rituals and pomps, joined
in chants and processions, to foster and appropriate its
baneful influences for momentary success at the Ameri-
can ballot-box. The accident of birth does not unna-
tionalize an American citizen — a citizen who has sought
refuge for and on account of our free institutions. How
many such, now within our temple, are among the
brightest ornaments to its Avails ; who stand out in bold
relief in reference to the building, and would serve as
figures by which to model statues of calmness and con-
tinence to American liberty! And in the faithful
inventory of truly American hearts, which tread her
soil to-day, thousands upon thousands of those who
beat most fervently to her Bible and her constitutional
liberty, have made it the home of their adoption. They
stand here for truth, and will not for States, or reve-
nues, or churches, or the reputation of all Europe, for-
feit American freedom and American nationality. Let
the Press, then, the censor of morals and manners,
meet the issue fairly, w^hich is the Papal foreign influ-
ence attempting to hold the balance of power against
America, and not the Protestant foreign influence,
which is decidely American.
MISSION OF THE AMERICAN PEESS. 89
When the Press shall have cast up the figures, the
people will see the foot of the column. Here it has
prerogative, not privilege. Here, especially, by its
newspaper Press — the most glorious form for men's in-
terest typography ever assumed — intelligence is brought
to the very doors, and set on the tables, and laid on the
pillows of the humblest and lowliest of America. In
Kew York City alone, the great commercial metropolis
of the nation, the newspaper circulation equals almost
that fo the whole of Great Britain ; while those of
the American Union exceed the combined presses of
the world ! From five to ten millions of newspaper
copies are scattering intelligence, and flooding the
nation with a vast wave of light. England boasts of
her Times^ which exerted so powerful an influence upon
the great Reform Bill — France of her Rhenish Mercury^
which obtained, by its influence, the name of the Fifth-
Ally which warred against Napoleon — but what were
they in comparison with many of the American news-
papers, sending out from thirty to forty thousand copies
daily, and coming in contact with the whole mind of
America. Perhaps five hundred millions of sheets an-
nually emanate from the newspaper Press of America.
In France and Spain, and wherever Popery has had
the ascendant, there has the Press been fettered, audits
Editors trammeled.
The Press — the free Press — the enlightened Press —
the political Press — the moral Press — the spiritual
Press — nay, the infidel Press of America, come, and
give impressive language by national phrases, and,
40 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE.
without painting or quibbling, move sea and land for
America. The Press is the ship America wants for
her billows ; the ark which saves Bible, and Sabbath,
and Liberty ; a front force, which will never abandon
the adversary while one drop of vital power trickles
upon a shrub in America.
Eome has put her sly paw upon America's great
shoulder, snaj^ped at her Constitution, and is pawing
and clawing at its vitality. A caterpillar with wings,
before America thought it a butterfly ! And America
craves now the bold, self-relying, self-sustaining power
of her Press to show her real life, its sweet, before she
smarts and is stung. ]Let it come to recruit her strength ;
to open avenues of new intelligence ; to beat back ad-
vancing and opposing armies, and save her graves, her
blood, and her humanity.
" "What God in His mercy and wisdom designed,
And armed with His weapons of thunder,
Not all the earth's despots and factions combined,
Have the power to conquer or sunder !
The union of lakes — the union of lands —
The union of States none can sever —
The union of hearts — the union of hands —
And the Flag of our Union forever
And ever !
The Flag of our Union forever 1"
CHAPTER m.
THE MEN OF AMEBICA.
" The holiest spot a smiling sun
E'er shed his genial rays upon,
Is that -which gave a Washington.
Sound the clarion peals of fame !
Ye -who bear Columbia's name 1
"With existence, freedom came I"
With irresistible T\dll America sprang the cliasm
between two worlds, and started into life ; and with a
ray of glory on her brow, she opened her young arms
to mankind, and offering them her life, her truth, her
hopes and her humanity, called all men brethren.
Eight was her father, Justice her mother, and God,
who made these, her religion. And now, when God
is urging forward her salvation, she calls on man, who
is her column and her arch, to bear her onward— to
cut the cable — to drop the link which has bound her
to a foe who has kissed her dust but to curse and
crush her.
Let her sons never forget her star — that star of vic-
tory which gave her independence, and a government
to preserve it. And when her doves are moaning and
(41)
42 THE GEEAT AMERICAN BATTLE.
groaning, and her robin and tlirusli are driven back
for pelican and stork, America calls aloud for tkat Je-
rusalem of manly hearts to shiver off, to tear away, to
fling afar, the source of these stifled groans and dis-
tressing sobs, which is taking all the lustre from her
eye and paralyzing the very limbs of America.
It was the inextinguishable spark in the souls of her
real men that made her struggle from her birth. It
was chartered rights then ; it is chartered rights now.
American men would not be taxed without their con-
sent, and this was the initial step to America's freedom.
They contended for the cause of Hampden and Sidney,
for trial by jury, for the Habeas Corpus and the Magna
Charta. England resisted; her Parliament was de-
clared omnipotent ; courts of admiralty to try Ameri-
can men enacted ; the charter of Massachusetts Bay
revoked ; the port of Boston shut up, and armies and
navies to teach America submission, ansvrercdhcr long
and earnest remonstrance. The blood of Lexington
and Bunker Hill showed American lions, and made
American martyrs. Union ! Union ! rent the air, the
sky, and the rocks of America. Independence burst
upon her with sun-like centrality, and acknowledging
responsibility only to the Supreme Euler of the uni-
verse, they became one people, and the church-bells
rang America one people, ever and forever !
The Declaration of Independence, then, was the work
of American men. They said they were, and of right
ought to be, free. It was issued on the authority of
aU the people in their collective character, and, defado^
MEN OF AMERICA. 43
every enfranchised citizen of America was a signer of
that immortal charter of American liberties. America
was not saved by pen and paper, but by the living
faith of her living people, which worked through fire,
and undaunted and steadfast they fathomed the rapid
and invincible tide Avhich Avas rising to overthrow her.
Each man seemed a legion ; he held the ramparts, de-
fied the musketry, and subdued England's great artil-
lery. These men held Bibles, not tapers, in their
hands ; they knelt not on church-steps, nor did pen-
ance, but with prostrate hearts they implored the liv-
ing God.
They were men of one faith — one oath ; not men
who held the ballot-box for America, and the oath of
fidelity to the Pope of Rome.
But the articles of confederation could not bear up
the principles of America's independence. The debts
and current expenses of the Union went unpaid, be-
cause there was no power in Congress to enforce them ;
and when the States refused, Congress went to France,
Holland, and Spain, and made loans to this end ; but
amid all this the cause triumphed, and America as one
people took her station in the front rank of nations.
The heroic leader of her armies surrendered his commis-
sion ; her soldiery were disbanded, but unpaid ; muti-
ny and danger threatened ; a single frigate, the rem-
nant of her gallant navy, was dismantled and sold ; the
expenses of the nation curtailed; but the people saw
that the independence which had been purchased with
44 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE.
blood and treasure would avail notliing without a gov-
ernment formed by themselves.
America had her men. There was Washington,
suffering under the injustice and cruelty inflicted upon
his companions-in-arms. There was Madison, Hamil-
ton, and Jay. When at Mt. Yernon, in March, seven-
teen hundred and eighty -five, the Constitution of the
United States of America was conceived. And, as
preliminary to its birth, a convention was assembled
at Annapolis, Maryland, in seventeen hundred and
eighty-six, from five of the Central States, which pre-
pared the way for that of all the States, which met at
Philadelphia in seventeen hundred and eighty-seven,
when, abolishing the Confederation, on the authority
of the people they framed a Constitution in accordance
with her Declaration of Independence and her Pro-
testant Bible, and joining it to these, made one indi-
visible structure, as solid and constant as the globe.
And thus, for the first time, was completed the revolu-
tion of thirteen years, wliich achieved and perfected
American liberty. At the head of this Convention
was Washington, and prominent among its actors
Franklin and Sherman, who had signed her Declara-
tion. That Constitution has abided sixty-six years.
Not one artisan of all the builders survives this im-
mortal work, which made her very stones cry out, Oh
America, you are saved ! and mankind echoed back.
Oh world, you are saved ! It was the breath, the
energy, the faith of true men that has wafted America
MEN OF AMEEICA. 45
as a breath of life over a sin-stricken world, and
peopled her a living city for a God-submitting race.
Thirteen primitive States rallied around her Constitu- / ^
tution then, eighteen younger sisters have since rein- S
forced her. Four millions of souls footed her first
census columns, thirty millions now penetrate from the
Atlantic to the Pacific shores, and dot the fruitful
valleys of her great Mississippi. Friends of right, of
independence of mind and soul, panting to break the
bonds which bound them to moral tyranny and super-
stition, fled to her, because, republican and democratic,
she eschewed all authority but the rights of mankind,
responsibility to God, and consent of the people.
Shall the story of that triumphal march of "Wash-
ington from Mount Yernon to New York ever become
stale ; — that civic wreath of American laurels, dropped
upon his brow by a blooming boy, significant of his
dear America ? Of that band of matrons who welcom-
ed him to Trenton, the breakwater of British tyranny,
the turning point in the war of Independence, when
the women of America strewed flowers and chaunted
the song of triumph, in now beholding, as their Pro-
tector, the man who had defended and saved their
mothers? This was America's great baptismal day,
when all the sons of God and liberty sang for joy.
Here, then, was the first Executive in America — her
President Washington! American sons behold that
spectacle ! The first act of the Congress under this
Constitution, was to regulate and administer the oaths
required by it. The homage of religious faith was
46 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE.
thus superadded to all obligations of temporal law,
and in conformity with the Declaration of Independ-
ence, which appealed to God as the Judge of the act
and the motives of American men. Two erratic
sisters were found among the thirteen States, Ehode
Island and North Carolina — ^the former never partici-
pated in the Constitution; the latter, though repre-
sented, never ratified it. But, without either, the
Government and Washington moved on, and though
treated as aliens, or foreigners, by the first acts of Con-
gress, they came, unsolicited, within two years, and
Avere kindly received into America's maternal arms.
Mne States alone would have given full force and
vitality to this stupendous machinery of Government.
The establishment of justice with foreign powers
thus became entrusted to the men who, of all others,
best knew the value and cost of American liberty.
Then, truly, America was in the cradle, and her for-
eign relations were inconsiderable. The Baltic was an
unknown sea to American navigators — the Mediter-
ranean was interdicted by the Mahomedan warfare of
Barbary powers — the southern parts of France, Spain,
Portugal, the Mediterranean, and African Islands, all
closed ; and the " old mother" everywhere our rival,
excluding us from all commerce Avith her in American
bottoms, which was soon followed by France, who,
seeing our future greatness shadowed forth under the
bright auspices then presented, joined Spain, to debar
us from our great Mississippi.
Yet America was manned with that inextinguishable
MEN OF AMEKICA. 47
spirit of liberty, wHcla would not suffer lier to be
smitten on tlie clieek, or hung between two dogs — and
tlien ask are we men ? And slie hoisted her Stars and
Stripes upon a thirty -ton schooner in the very sight
of the city of Taho. Her men did not wait to see the
Constitution perfected, but in the same confidence with
which they declared Independence before they fought
for it and won it, they set about enlarging the domain
of commerce and navigation. The Boston merchants
started the Columbia and AYashington on a voyage of
circumnavigation and discovery, which resulted in
finding the Columbia river, and in securing the right
of extending our territory from the Atlantic to the
Pacific shores. The character of Washington's admin-
istration gave permanence to that of the government.
All that looked painful, difficult, and insurmountable,
vanished and was made easy ; children who went
astray returned to their mother ; and upon that altar,
free from concealment, and in God's sight, one hope,
one faith, and one destiny, awaited this one people.
Our fathers saw the triumph of right, and left with
their sons their speaking actions. Shall the heroic
generations of the past be slighted now? We contend
against a foe of feverish passions, active, fervent, po-
litical, full of intrigue and cunning, not only able to
create revolt, but powerful to organize and direct in-
surrection. It is the Komish Hierarchy, the Jesuit
Priesthood, the political church in America. Her peo-
ple fall short in suspecting the reality, the immensity
of this danger. The woes and experiences of the past
48 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE.
cannot be lost, if our free institutions are to be saved.
Is America to become the Sodom and Gomorrali for
this machinery ? The Babel of Priests and Prelates ?
Is she to be martyred for innocence and truth, for the
performance of God's work? Our fathers saw (but
knew not) their entrance — may the sons see the exit.
When America decides, she will reach the goal.
Her men are her national guard, her troops her
power, to hoist her flag when and where the nation
wills it ! To give peace and liberty, American men
struck tyrants, and hurled back their thrones, and she
cannot harbor enemies within her borders now. Her
heroes were invincible then — she has heroes still.
Our fathers founded liberty on the enfranchisement
of the mind. That age abolished all gods of flesh in
Church and State, and left no idol and no god but
G-od.
They counted not numbers but principles, and re-
jected restrictions, distinctions and exclusions. If
America halts now, she rejects and condemns the very
men who gave the whole world America.
She was born "I am," and started a front force
against Popish tyranny and priestly superstition.
The deeds of America have been great, how much
more so the men who conceived them ! ISTothing could
exhaust their resources, and her sons have but to look
to their fathers to see the mirror of humanity which
made them heroic, magnanimous, disinterested.
And though we have lost the witnesses of that great
age when America started into life, we have the faith
MEX OF AMERICA. 49
wLicli lioyers between death and the grave. Shall the
question, then, be avoided ?— shall men treat it cau-
tiously, that they may not compromise their interests ?
What interests ? Is it a minor matter to conduct po-
liticians to preferment by the courtesy of Komish emis-
saries, and leave Jesus Christ, the living God, dis-
honored? — leave home, and family'-, and domestic
hearths, and all the sacred influences which make men
happy, to give party chances ?
Surrender the infant, unarmed and helpless, to satisfy
this vast, mute tyrannical empire of perfidy and sin ?
The Pope of Eome thus governing America ; putting
her out of court without a hearing from mankind!
This trifling with liberty, by political tricksters, this
ecclesiastical prudence and sagacity of the Romish
Hierarchy !
This, then, is a contest for a principle dearer than
that which led the people to dissolve the Confederacy
and make the Constitution ; because it judges and de-
cides this infant for Heaven or Hell ; it introduces into
the blood, and transmits from age to age, an hostility
to the liberty of America's soul, and sways all civil
institutions, upon which it presses its deadly fangs —
it is a frightful wound on America's maternal heart.
She has been awoke, glory to God, and will sleep no
more until things change ! Her American spirit has
aroused her American Party, and a day of justice is at
hand. Right is coming to sit in judgment ; oh, men
of America, let it be the day of her deliverance !
If what God created with one word could be exter-
3
50 THE GEEAT AMERICAN BATTLE.
minated with one word, tlie Pope of Eome would anni-
hilate America before to-morrow morning ! Oh that
God would descend upon their altars in America !
This intolerant system which has lived for ages to
deny justice, liberty, and God — to implant herself in
America and preside over her ballot-box ! And as the
ballot-box is the deposit of America's liberty and sal-
vation, American men need but to know the discov-
ered truth, to make them Avary in choosing to whom
they intrust it.
America wants no gold, incense, or myrrh, but her
toleration, her liberty, her Declaration of Independence,
her Constitution, and her Bible. She is the Colossus
of Freedom ! Our dearly -loved country ! Could we
be surprised if her crops should fail, if her land should
refuse her increase, and, like a tired, worn-out beast,
prefer to lie down and die, sooner than go farther ;
while those who profess to hate her are seeking to pos-