ve vilified and denounced the American
party with every term of opprobrium that our vocabulary can
furnish. No wonder they talk of dark lanterns and secret oaths
and midnight assemblies. No wonder that they strive to frighten
their followers with the notion that the American party is a
raw-head and bloody bones, which should be shunned and avoided.
For, if honest men of that party will only take the trouble to
shake off the control of their leaders: to think, examine, to
read, reflect, and act for themselves, there are thousands of
Democrats in the South who would scorn, like the American
party, an alliance with Abolitionists, and there are tens of
thousands of Protestant Union-loving Democrats everywhere, who
have only confided in, to be deceived and betrayed by, their
leaders, and, if they discover, as it is hoped they will, that
they have brought them to the crumbling verge of an awful
precipice, they have patriotism enough and Protestantism enough
to break away from them rather than make the awful plunge.

"I regret that I am admonished by the length to which I have
extended this communication, that I cannot now discuss the
Catholic question, as I had hoped to do at the outset, and I
shall present only a few disjointed remarks in connection with
it.

"The American party does not seek to impose any religious test
such as prevailed in the reign of Charles II., when two
thousand Non-conformist ministers were driven from their
pulpits, or such, as in the same reign, was imposed upon Roman
Catholics and continued from 1673 to 1828. The American party
does not propose that any religious test, of any kind, shall be
imposed by law, upon any person whatever, but it does seek to
organize a public sentiment on the Catholic question, just in
the same mode that, in times past, parties have sought to
organize public sentiment upon the tariff question--the bank
question--the internal improvement question--the temperance
question, and every other question which has been the subject
of difference. If it is lawful to say, I will not vote for you
because you are a Whig, it is equally lawful to say--I will not
vote for you because you are a foreigner. If it is lawful to
say, I will not vote for you because you are a Democrat, it is
equally lawful