FOREIGN CONSPIRACY
AGAINST THE
LIBERTIES OF THE UNITED STATES:
THE NUMBERS OF
BRUTUS,
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE NEW-YORK OBSERVER.
REVISED AND CORRECTED WITH NOTES, BY THE AUTHOR.
—— Oft fire is without smoke,
And peril without show.
~Spencer.
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NEW-YORK:
LEAVITT, LORD & CO., 182 BROADWAY,
G. & C. CARVILL & CO., 108 BROADWAY,
BOSTON-CROCKER & BREWSTER,
47 Washington-street.
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1835
Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1835, by LEAVITT, LORD &. Co., in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Southern District of New-York.
West & Trow, Printers.
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Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Morse, Samuel Finley Breese, 1791-1872.
Foreign conspiracy against the liberties of the United States.
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RECOMMENDATIONS.
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NEW-YORK, Jan. 1, 1835.
To Messrs. Leavitt, Lord & Co.,
Gentlemen,—Learning that you are about to publish in a small volume, the articles, signed Brutus, (which recently appeared in the New-York Observer, shewing that a conspiracy is formed against the United States by the Papal powers of Europe,) the undersigned, who read those articles with interest, have great satisfaction in expressing their approbation of your undertaking. These articles are written by a gentleman of intelligence and candor, who has resided in the south of Europe, and enjoyed the best opportunities for acquaintance with the topics on which be writes.
While we disapprove of harsh, denunciatory language towards Roman Catholics, their past history, and the fact that they every where act together, as if guided by one mind, admonish us to be jealous of their influence, and to watch with unremitted care all their movements in relation to our free institutions. As this work is now to be published in a portable form, and with additional notes by the author, we hope it may obtain an extensive circulation and a careful perusal.
Yours, with friendly regard,
JAMES MILNOR,
THOMAS DE WITT,
N. BANGS,
JONATHAN GOING.
*** The gentlemen who have signed the above letter represent four Protestant denominations, viz. the Episcopal, Presbyterian, Methodist, and Baptist.
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Extract from Zion's Herald a Methodist paper published in Boston, Mass.
"FOREIGN CONSPIRACY.—We commence to-day publishing this interesting series. The author is an American, who has resided for a long time in Italy and Austria. The same day that we had decided to publish them, we received a note, signed by Rev. Messrs. Lindsey, Fillmore, Kent, and Stevens, recommending and requesting that they should appear in the Herald."
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CONTENTS.
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Footnotes are integrated into the text in this format.
The first impressions of the improbability of a Foreign conspiracy considered—Present political condition of Europe favors an enterprise against our institutions—The war of opinions commenced; Despotism against liberty—The vicissitudes of this war—Official declarations of the despotic party against all liberty—Necessity to the triumph of Despotism that American liberty should be destroyed—The kind of attack most likely to be adopted from the nature of the contest—Reasons why our institutions are obnoxious to European governments—Has the attack commenced? Yes! by Austria—Through a Society called the St. Leopold Foundation—Ostensibly religious in its design.
Political character of the Austrian government—The old avowed enemy of Protestant liberty—Character of the people of Austria, slaves—Character of Prince Metternich, the arch contriver of plans to stifle liberty—These enemies of all liberty suddenly anxious for the civil and religious liberty of the United States—The absurdity of their ostensible design exposed—The avowed objects of Austria in the Leopold Foundation—Popery the instrument to act upon our institutions.
Popery in its political not its religious character the object of the present examination—The fitness of the instrument to accomplish the political designs of despotism—The principles of a Despotic and a Free government briefly contrasted—Despotic principles fundamental in Popery—Infallible testimony adduced—Papal claims of divine right and plenitude of power—Abject principles of Popery illustrated from the Russian Catechism—Protestantism from its birth in favor of Liberty—Luther on the 4th of July attacks the presumptuous claim of divine right—Despotism and Popery united against liberty of conscience, liberty of opinion, and liberty of the press—The anti-republican declarations of the present Pope Gregory XVI.
The cause of Popery and Despotism identical—A striking difference between Popery and Protestantism as they exist in this country—American Protestantism not controlled by foreign Protestantism—American Popery entirely under foreign control—Jesuits, the foreign agents of Austria, bound by the strongest ties of interest to Austrian policy, not American—Their dangerous power, unparalleled to any Protestant sect—Our free institutions opposed in their nature to the arbitrary claims of Popery—Duplicity to be expected—Political dangers to be apprehended from Popish organization—American Popery uncontrolled by Americans, or in America—Managed in a foreign country by a foreign power for political purposes—Consequences that may easily result from such a state of things.
Points in our political system which favor this foreign attack—Our toleration of all religious systems—Popery opposed to all toleration—Charge of intolerance substantiated—The organization of Popery in America connected with and strengthened by foreign organization—Without a parallel among Protestant sects—Great preponderance of Popish strength in consequence—The divisions among Protestant sects nullifies their attempts at combination—Taken advantage of by Jesuits—Popish duplicity illustrated in its opposite alliances in Europe with despotism, and in America with democracy—The laws relating to immigration and naturalization favor foreign attack—Emigrants being mostly Catholic and in entire subjection to their priests—No remedy provided by our laws for this alarming evil.
The evil from immigration further considered—Its political bearings—The influence of emigrants at the elections—This influence concentrated in the priests—The Priests must be propitiated; by what means—This influence easily purchased by the demagogue—The unprincipled character of many of our politicians favor this foreign attack—Their bargain for the suffrages of this priest-led band—A church and state party—The Protestant sects obnoxious to no such bargaining—the newspaper press favors this foreign attack; from its want of independence, and its timidity—An anti-republican fondness for titles, favors this foreign attack—Cautious attempts of Popery to dignify its emissaries and to accustom us to their high-sounding titles—A mistaken notion on the subject of discussing religious opinion in the secular journals, favors this foreign attack—Political designs not to be shielded from attack because cloaked by Religion.
The political character of this ostensibly religious enterprise proved from the letters of the Jesuits now in this country—Their antipathy to private judqment—Their anticipations of a change in our form of government—Our government declared too free for the exercise of their divine rights—Their political partialities—Their cold acknowledgment of the generosity, and liberality, and hospitality of our government—Their estimate of our condition contrasted with their estimate of that of Austria—Their acknowledged allegiance and servility to a foreign master—Their sympathies with the oppressor, and not with the oppressed—Their direct avowal of political design.
Some of the means by which Jesuits can already operate politically in the country—By mob discipline—By priest police—Its great danger—Already established—Proofs—Priests already rule the mob—Nothing in the principles of Popery to prevent its interference in our elections—Popery interferes at the present day in the political concerns of other countries—Popery the same in our country—It interferes in our elections—In Michigan—In Charleston, S. C.—In New-York—Popery a political despotism cloaked under the name of Religion—It is Church and State embodied—Its character at head-quarters in Italy—Its political character stripped of its religious cloak.
Evidence enough of conspiracy adduced to create great alarm—The cause of liberty universally demands that we should awake to a sense of danger—An attack is made which is to try the moral strength of the Republic—The mode of defence that might be consistently recommended by Austrian Popery—A mode now in actual operation in Europe—Contrary to the entire spirit of American Protestantism—True mode of defence—Popery must be opposed by antagonist institutions—Ignorance must be dispelled—Popular ignorance of all Papal countries—Popery the natural enemy of general education—Popish efforts to spread education in the United States delusive.
All classes of citizens interested in resisting the efforts of Popery—The unnatural alliance of Popery and Democracy exposed—Religious liberty in danger—Specially in the keeping of the Christian community—They must rally for its defence—The secular press has no sympathy with Protestants; in this struggle it is opposed to them—The Political character of Popery ever to be kept in mind and opposed—It is for the Papist not the Protestant to separate his religious from his political creed—Papists ought to be required publicly and formally and officially to renounce foreign allegiance and anti-republican customs.
The question what is the duty of the Protestant community? considered—Shall there be an Anti-Popery Union? The strong manifesto that might be put forth by such a union—Such a political union discarded as impolitic and degrading to the Protestant community—Golden opportunity for showing the moral energy of the republic—The lawful and efficient weapons of this contest—To be used without delay.
The Political duty of American citizens at this crisis.
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PREFATORY REMARKS.
THE following Numbers written for the New-York Observer in the beginning of the year 1834, and during several weeks of confinement by indisposition, have been, perhaps, more extensively copied into the religious journals of the different Christian denominations than any communications, (with perhaps a single exception,) of the same extent since the establishment of religious newspapers; and although the subject matter is almost altogether political, giving proofs of a serious foreign conspiracy against the government, yet the writer is not aware that a single secular journal in the United States has taken the pains to investigate the matter, or even to ask if indeed there may not be good grounds for believing it true. The silence of the secular press on a subject which has roused the attention of so large a body of the Protestant community may indeed be accounted for in part, perhaps altogether, from the all engrossing election contests which have agitated the country from one extremity of the land to the other; for the writer would certainly be very reluctant to adopt the belief, which has repeatedly been urged upon him by many, that the secular journals dare not attack Popery; he will not believe that dare not ever stood in the way of the duty of any patriotic independent conductor of the American press. Footnote: A friend to whom this part was read smiled, and said "you are sufficiently guarded in your language, but how many patriotic independent conductors of the American press are there? Can you name one?"
At the solicitation of many citizens without distinction of religious denomination or of political party, the writer has consented to collect the numbers into a pamphlet, adding notes illustrative of many matters which could not so well have been introduced into the columns of a newspaper.
That a vigorous and unexampled effort is making by the despotic governments of Europe to cause Popery to overspread this country, is a fact too palpable to be contradicted. Did not offcial documents lately published, put this fact beyond dispute, yet the writer had personal evidence sufficient to convince him of the fact and of the political object of the enterprise, while residing in Italy in the years 1830—31, from conversations with nobles and gentlemen of different countries, with the officers of various foreign governments, visiting and resident in the Roman and Austrian states, and with priests and other ecclesiastics of the Roman faith. Sometimes it was hinted to him as a check to too sanguine anticipations of the triumph of the experiment of our democratic republican government; sometimes it was told him by the former class in a tone of exultation that a cause was in operation which would surely overthrow our institutions and gradually bring us under a form of government less obnoxious to the pride, and less dangerous to the existence, of the antiquated despotic systems of Europe. In addition to these hints to the writer, concerning the efforts making by the governments of Europe to carry Popery through all our borders, other American travellers will testify to similar hints made to them. By one I am permitted to say, that the celebrated naturalist, the late Baron Cuvier, known also as a zealous Protestant, inquired of him with marks of concern, if it were indeed true that Popery had made such progress in the United States, as to cause the exultation (which it seems was no secret) among the legitimates of Europe. And again, that a distinguished member of one of the Protestant German embassies, in Rome also made similar inquiries of him, having heard much boasting of the progress of Popery in the United States, adding this pertinent remark, "they will be hammer or nails, Sir, they will persecute, or be persecuted." These facts may be of so much importance in aid of the other proofs of a conspiracy which these numbers unfold, as to show that among the various higher classes of Europe the enterprise of a Popish crusade in this country is not only a subject of notoriety, but is viewed with great interest, and is considered as having a most important political bearing.
In the following numbers the writer has chosen to rest the evidence of conspiracy mainly on official documents published in Vienna, because they have been translated and published, Footnote: In the New-York Observer, of the months of January, February, 1534. and are within the reach of any citizen of the country who chooses more closely to examine them. He has also availed himself of facts in the operations of Popish agents in this country, so far as their workings have been occasionally revealed.
The writer will add in conclusion, that he writes not in the interest of a sect or a party, for the question of Popery is not identified with either political party. He has lived too long in foreign countries to be able to identify himself with the local interests of mere party at home, whether in religion or politics. The great democratic features of his country's institutions, as contradistinguished from the despotic, monarchical and aristocratic systems of Europe, were admired by him as they appeared more boldly relieved, viewed from abroad in such striking contrast to all around him; and he is thoroughly persuaded that these democratic institutions, if suffered to have their unobstructed course, unobstructed except by the natural checks of education and religion actively and universally diffused and sustained, are more favorable to civil liberty and to the final triumph of truth, and consequently to human happiness, than any other civil institutions in the world. The writer entertaining these views has deemed it an imperative duty, at any sacrifice, to warn his countrymen, of a subtle enemy to the democracy of the country, and to conjure them as they value their civil and religious institutions, to watch the Protean shapes of Popery, to suspect and fear it most when it allies itself to our interests in the guise of a friend. Mistrust of all that Popery does, or affects to do, whether as a friend or foe in any part of the country, is the only feeling that true charity, universal charity, allows us to indulge.
NEW-YORK, January, 1835.
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