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Judge Haliburten asserts, that all America will be a Catholic country. That all America west of the Alleghanies will eventually be a Catholic country, I have no doubt, as the Catholics are already in the majority, and there is nothing, as Mr Cooper observes, to prevent any state from establishing that, or any other religion, as the Religion of the State; (“There is nothing in the constitution of the United States to prevent all the states, or any particular state, from possessing an established religion.”—Cooper’s Democrat) and this is one of the dark clouds which hang over the destiny of the western hemisphere.
The reverend Mr Reed says:—“It should really seem that the Pope, in the fear of expulsion from Europe, is anxious to find a reversion in this new world. The crowned heads of the continent, having the same enmity to free political institutions which his holiness has to free religious institutions, willingly unite in the attempt to enthral this people. They have heard of the necessities of the West; they have the foresight to see that the West will become the heart of the country, and ultimately determine the character of the whole; and they have resolved to establish themselves there. Large, yea princely, grants have been made from the Leopold society, and other sources, chiefly, though by no means exclusively, in favour of this portion of the empire that is to be. These sums are expended in erecting showy churches and colleges, and in sustaining priests and emissaries. Everything is done to captivate, and to liberalise in appearance, a system essentially despotic. The sagacity of the effort is discovered, in avoiding to attack and shock the prejudices of the adult, that they may direct the education of the young. They look to the future; and they really have great advantages in doing so. They send out teachers excellently qualified; superior, certainly, to the run of native teachers. (The Catholic priests who instruct are, to my knowledge, the best educated men in the states. It was a pleasure to be in their company.) Some value the European modes of education as the more excellent, others value them as the mark of fashion; the demand for instruction, too, is always beyond the supply, so that they find little difficulty in obtaining the charge of protestant children. This, in my judgment, is the point of policy which should be especially regarded with jealousy; but the actual alarm has arisen from the disclosure of a correspondence which avows designs on the West, beyond what I have here set down. It is a curious affair, and is one other evidence, if evidence were needed, that popery and jesuitism are one.”
I think that the author of Sam Slick may not be wrong in his assertion, that all America will be a Catholic country. I myself never prophesy; but, I cannot help remarking, that even in the most anti-Catholic persuasions in America there is a strong Papistical feeling; that is, there is a vying with each other, not only to obtain the best preachers, but to have the best organs and the best singers. It is the system of excitement which, without their being aware of it, they carry into their devotion. It proves that, to them there is a weariness in the church service, a tedium in prayer, which requires to be relieved by the stimulus of good music and sweet voices. Indeed, what with their anxious seats, their revivals, their music and their singing, every class and sect in the states have even now so far fallen into Catholicism, that religion has become more of an appeal to the senses than to the calm and sober judgment.
Volume Three—Chapter Eight
Remarks—Societies and Associations
Although in a democracy the highest stations and preferments are open to all, more directly than they may be under any other form of government, still these prizes are but few and insufficient, compared with the number of total blanks which must be drawn by the ambitious multitude. It is, indeed, a stimulus to ambition (and a matter of justice, when all men are pronounced equal), that they all should have an equal chance of raising themselves by their talents and perseverance; but, when so many competitors are permitted to enter the field, few can arrive at the goal, and the mass are doomed to disappointment. However fair, therefore, it may be to admit all to the competition, certain it is that the competition cannot add to the happiness of a people, when we consider the feelings of bitterness and ill-will naturally engendered among the disappointed multitude.
In monarchical and aristocratical institutions, the middling and lower classes, whose chances of advancement are so small that they seldom lift their eyes or thoughts above their own sphere, are therefore much happier, and it may be added, much more virtuous than those who struggle continually for preferment in the tumultuous sea of democracy. Wealth can give some importance, but wealth in a democracy gives an importance which is so common to many that it loses much of its value; and when it has been acquired, it is not sufficient for the restless ambition of the American temperament, which will always spurn wealth for power. The effects, therefore, of a democracy are, first to raise an inordinate ambition among the people, and then to cramp the very ambition which it has raised; and, as I may comment upon hereafter, it appears as if this ambition of the people, individually checked by the nature of their institutions, becomes, as it were, concentrated and collected into a focus in upholding and contemplating the success and increase of power in the federal government. Thus has been produced a species of demoralising reaction; the disappointed units to a certain degree satisfying themselves with any advance in the power and importance of the whole Union, wholly regardless of the means by which such increase may have been obtained.
But this unsatisfied ambition has found another vent in the formation of many powerful religious and other associations. In a country where there will ever be an attempt of the people to tyrannise over everybody and everything, power they will have; and if they cannot obtain it in the various departments of the States Governments, they will have it in opposition to the Government; for all these societies and associations connect themselves directly with politics. (See Note 1.) It is of little consequence by what description of tie “these sticks in the fable” are bound up together; once bound together, they are, not to be broken. In America religion severs the community, but these societies are the bonds which to a certain degree reunite it.
To enumerate the whole of these societies actually existing, or which have been in existence, would be difficult. The following are the most prominent:—
List of Benevolent Societies, with their Receipts in the Year 1834.
Many of these societies had not been established more than ten years at the date given; they must have increased very much since that period. Of course many of them are very useful, and very well conducted. There are many others: New England Non-resistance Society, Sabbath Observance Society, etcetera; in fact, the Americans are society mad. I do not intend to speak with the least disrespect of the societies, but the zeal or fanaticism, if I may use the term, with which many, if not all, of them are carried on, is too remarkable a feature in the American character to be passed over without comment. Many of these societies have done much good, particularly the religious societies; but many others, from being pushed too far, have done great mischief, and have very much assisted to demoralise the community. I remember once hearing a story of an ostler who confessed to a Catholic priest; he enumerated a long catalogue of enormities peculiar to his profession, and when he had finished, the priest inquired of him “whether he had ever greased horses’ teeth to prevent their eating their corn?” this peculiar offence not having been mentioned in his confession. The ostler declared that he never had, absolution was given, and he departed. About six months afterwards, the ostler went again to unload his conscience; the former crimes and peccadilloes were enumerated, but added to them were several acknowledgments of having at various times “greased horses’ teeth” to prevent their eating their corn. “Ho-ho!” cried the priest, “why, if I recollect aright, according to your former confession you had never been guilty of this practice. How comes it that you have added this crime to your many others?” “May it please you, Father,” replied the ostler, “I had never heard of it, until you told me.”
Now this story is very apropos to the conduct pursued by many of these societies in America: they must display to the public their statistics of immorality and vice; they must prove their usefulness by informing those who were quite ignorant, and therefore innocent, that there are crimes of which they had no idea; and thus, in their fanatic wish to improve, they demoralise. Such have been the consequences among this excitable yet well-meaning people. The author of “A voice from America” observes:—
It has been thought suitable to call the attention of mothers and daughters over the wide country to the condition and evils of brothels and of common prostitution, in towns and cities; to send out agents—young men—to preach on the subject; and to organise subsidiary societies after the fashion of all reforms. The annual report of “The New York Female Moral Reform Society” for 1838, (a very decent name certainly for the object), announces 361 auxiliaries and 20,000 members, with 16,500 subscribers (all females!) to the “Advocate of Moral Reform,” a semi-monthly paper, published by the parent society, devoted to the text of the seventh commandment, and to the facts and results growing out of its violation. “This same class of reformers have heretofore been accustomed to strike off prints of the most unmentionable scenes of these houses of pollution in their naked forms, and in the very acts of crime, for public display, that the public might know what they are: in other words, as may be imagined, to make sport for the initiated, to tempt the appetites and passions of the young, who otherwise would have known little or nothing about it, into the same vortex of ruin, and to cause the decent and virtuous to turn away with emotions of ineffable regret.”
I cannot help inquiring, how is it, if the Americans are, as they assert, both orally and in their printed public documents, a very moral nation, that they find it necessary to resort to all these societies for the improvement of their brother citizens; and how is it that their reports are full of such unexampled atrocities, as are printed and circulated in evidence of the necessity of their stemming the current of vice! The Americans were constantly twitting me about the occasional cases of adultery and divorce which appear in our newspapers, assuring me at the same time, that there was hardly ever such a thing heard of in their own moral community. Now, it appears that this subject has not only been taken up by the clergy, (for Dr Dwight, late president of Yale College, preached a sermon on the seventh commandment, which an American author asserts “was heard with pain and confusion of face, and which never can be read in a promiscuous circle without exciting the same feelings;”) but by one of their societies also; and, although they have not assumed the name of the Patent Anti-Adultery Society, they are positively doing the work of such a one, and the details are entered into in promiscuous assemblies without the least reservation.
The author before mentioned says:
“The common feeling on the subject has been declared false delicacy; and, in order to break ground against its sway, females have been forced into the van of this enterprise; and persuaded to act as agents, not only among their own sex, but in circumstances where they must necessarily agitate the subject with men,—not wives with husbands, which would be bad enough, but young and single women with young and single men! And we have been credibly informed, that attempts have been made to form associations among wives to regulate the privileges, and so attain the end of temperance, in the conjugal relation. The next step, of course, will be teetotalism in this particular; and, as a consequence, the extinction of the human race, unless peradventure the failure of the main enterprise of the Moral Reform Society should keep it up by a progeny not to be honoured.” (“A Voice from America.”)
Let it be remembered that this is not a statement of my own, but it is an American who makes the assertion, which I could prove to be true, might I publish what I must not.
From the infirmity of our natures, and our proneness to evil, there is nothing so corrupting as the statistics of vice. Can young females remain pure in their ideas, who read with indifference details of the grossest nature? Can the youth of a nation remain uncontaminated, who are continually poring over pages describing sensuality; and will they not, in their desire of “something new,” as the Prophet says, run into the very vices of the existence of which they were before unconscious! It is this dangerous running into extremes which has occasioned so many of these societies to have been productive of much evil. A Boston editor remarks: “The tendency of the leaders of the moral and benevolent reforms of the day to run into fanaticism, threatens to destroy the really beneficial effects of all associations for these objects. The spirit of propagandism, when it becomes over zealous, is next of kin to the spirit of persecution. The benevolent associations of the day are on the brink of a danger that will be fatal to their farther usefulness if not checked.”
Of the Abolition Society and its tendency, I have already spoken in the chapter on slavery. I must not, however, pass over another which at present is rapidly extending its sway over the whole Union, and it is difficult to say whether it does most harm or most good—I refer to the Temperance Society.
The Rev. Mr Reid says:
“In the short space of its existence, upwards of seven thousand Temperance Societies have been formed, embracing more than one million two hundred and fifty thousand members. More than three thousand distilleries have been stopped, and more than seven thousand persons who dealt in spirits have declined the trade. Upwards of one thousand vessels have abandoned their use. And, most marvellous of all! it is said that above ten thousand drunkards have been reclaimed from intoxication.” And he adds—“I really know of no one circumstance in the history of this people, or of any people, so exhilarating as this. It discovers that power of self-government, which is the leading element of all national greatness, in an unexampled degree. Now here is a remarkable instance of a traveller taking for granted that what is reported to him is the truth.” The worthy clergyman, himself, evidently without guile, fully believed a statement which was absurd, from the simple fact, that only one side of the balance sheet had been presented.
That 7,000 Temperance Societies have been formed is true. That 3,000 distilleries have stopped from principle may also be true; but the Temperance Society reports take no notice of the many which have been set up in their stead by those who felt no compunction at selling spirits. Equally true it may be that 7,030 dealers in spirits have ceased to sell them; but if they have declined the trade, others have taken it up. That the crews of many vessels have abandoned the use of spirituous liquors is also the fact, and that is the greatest benefit which has resulted from the efforts of the Temperance Society; but I believe the number to be greatly magnified. That 10,000 drunkards have been reclaimed—that is, that they have signed papers and taken the oath—may be true; but how many have fallen away from their good resolutions, and become more intemperate than before, is not recorded; nor how many who, previously careless of liquor, have, out of pure opposition, and in defiance of the Society, actually become drunkards, is also unknown. In this Society, as in the Abolition Society, they have canvassed for legislative enactments, and have succeeded in obtaining them. The legislature of Massachusetts, which state is the stronghold of the society, passed an act last year by which it prohibited the selling of spirits in a smaller quantity than fifteen gallons, intending thereby to do away with the means of dram-drinking, at the groceries, as they are termed; a clause, however, permitted apothecaries to retail smaller quantities, and the consequence was that all the grog-shops commenced taking out apothecaries’ licences. That being stopped, the striped pig was resorted to: that is to say, a man charged people the value of a glass of liquor to see a striped pig, which peculiarity was exhibited as a sight, and, when in the house, the visitors were offered a glass of spirits for nothing. But this act of the legislature has given great offence, and the state of Massachusetts is now divided into two very strange political parties, to wit, the topers and the teetotalers. It is asserted that, in the political contest which is to take place, the topers will be victorious; and if so, it will be satisfactorily proved that, in the very enlightened and moral state of Massachusetts the pattern of the Union, there are more intemperate than sober men.
In this dispute between sobriety and inebriety the clergy have not been idle: some denouncing alcohol from the pulpit; some, on the other hand denouncing the Temperance Societies as not being Christians. Among the latter the Bishop of Vermont has led the van. In one of his works, “The Primitive Church,” he asserts that:—
“The Temperance Society is not based upon religious, but worldly principles.
“That it opposes vice and attempts to establish virtue in a manner which is not in accordance with the word of God,” etcetera, etcetera.
His argument is briefly this:– The Scriptures forbid drunkenness. If the people will not do right in obedience to the word of God, but only from the fear of public opinion, they show more respect to man than God.
The counter argument is:– The Bible prohibits many other crimes, such as murder, theft, etcetera; but if there were not punishments for these offences agreed upon by society, the fear of God would not prevent these crimes from being committed.
That in the United States public opinion has more influence than religion I believe to be the case; and that in all countries present punishment is more to be considered than future is, I fear, equally true. But I do not pretend to decide the question, which has occasioned great animosities, and on some occasions, I am informed, the dismissal of clergymen from their churches.
The teetotalers have carried their tenets to a length which threatens to invade the rites of the church, for a portion of them, calling themselves the Total Abstinence Society, will not use any wine which has alcohol in it, in taking the sacrament, and as there is no wine without a portion of alcohol; they have invented a harmless mixture which they call wine. Unfortunately, many of these Temperance Societies in their zeal, will admit of no medium party—you must either abstain altogether, or be put down as a toper.
It is astonishing how obstinate some people are, and how great is the diversity of opinion. I have heard many anecdotes relative to this question. A man who indulged freely was recommended to join the society. “Now,” said the minister, “you must allow that there is nothing so good, so valuable to man as water. What is the first thing you call for in sickness but water? What else can cool your parched tongue like water? What did the rich man ask for when in fiery torments? What does the wretch ask for when on the rack? You cannot always drink spirits, but water you can. Water costs nothing; and you save your money. Water never intoxicates, or prevents you from going to your work. There is nothing like water. Come now, Peter, let me hear your opinion.”
“Well, then, sir, I think water is very good, very excellent indeed—for navigation.”
An old Dutchman, who kept an inn at Hoboken, had long resisted the attacks of the Temperance Societies, until one night he happened to get so very drunk, that he actually signed the paper and took the oath. The next morning he was made acquainted with what he had unconsciously done, and, much to the surprise of his friends, he replied, “Well, if I have signed and have sworn, as you tell me I have, I must keep to my word;” and from that hour the old fellow abstained altogether from his favourite schnapps. But the leaving off a habit which had become necessary had the usual result. The old man took to his bed, and at last became seriously ill. A medical man was called in, and when he was informed of what had occurred, perceived the necessity of some stimulus, and ordered that his patient should take one ounce of French brandy every day.
“An ounce of French brandy,” said the old Dutchman, looking at the prescription. “Well, dat is goot; but how much is an ounce?” Nobody who was present could inform him. “I know what a quart, a pint, or a gill of brandy is,” said the Dutchman, “but I never yet have had a customer call for an ounce. Well, my son, go to the schoolmaster; he is a learned man, and tell him I wish to know how much is one ounce.”
The message was carried. The schoolmaster, occupied with his pupils, and not liking the interruption, hastily, and without further inquiries of the messenger, turned over his Bonnycastle, and arriving at the table of avoirdupois weight, replied, “Tell your father that sixteen drams make an ounce.”
The boy took back the message correctly, and when the old Dutchman heard it, his countenance brightened up. “A goot physician, a clever man—I only have drank twelve drams a-day, and he tells me to take sixteen. I have taken one oath when I was drunk, and I keep it; now dat I am sober I take anoder, which is, I will be very sick for de remainder of my days, and never throw my physic out of window.”
There was a cold water celebration at Boston, on which occasion the hilarity of the evening was increased by the singing of the following ode. Nobody will venture to assert that there is any spirit in the composition, and, judging from what I have seen of American manners and customs, I am afraid that the sentiments of the last four lines will not be responded to throughout the Union.
Ode
In Eden’s green retreats
A water-brook that played
Between soft, and mossy seats
Beneath a plane-tree’s shade,
Whose rustling leaves
Danced o’er its brink,
Was Adam’s drink,
And also Eve’s.
Beside the parent spring
Of that young brook, the pair
Their morning chaunt would sing;
And Eve, to dress her hair,
Kneel on the grass
That fringed its side,
And made its tide
Her looking-glass.
And when the man of God
From Egypt led his flock,
They thirsted, and his rod
Smote the Arabian rock,
And forth a rill
Of water gushed,
And on they rushed,
And drank their fill.
Would Eden thus have smil’d
Had wine to Eden come?
Would Horeb’s parching wild
Have been refreshed with rum
And had Eve’s hair
Been dressed in gin
Would she have been
Reflected fair?
Had Moses built a still
And dealt out to that host,
To every man his gill,
And pledged him in a toast,
How large a band
Of Israel’s sons
Had laid their bones
In Canaan’s land?
Sweet fields, beyond Death’s flood,
Stand dressed in living green,
For, from the throne of God,
To freshen all the scene,
A river rolls,
Where all who will
May come and fill
Their crystal bowls.
If Eden’s strength and bloom
Cold water thus hath given—
If e’en beyond the tomb,
It is the drink of heaven—
Are not good wells,
And crystal springs,
The very things
For our hotels?
As I shall return to the subject of intemperance in my examination of society, I shall conclude this chapter with an extract from Miss Martineau, whose work is a strange compound of the false and the true:—“My own convictions are, that associations, excellent as they are for mechanical objects, are not fit instruments for the achievement of moral aims; that there has been no proof that the principle of self-restraint has been exalted and strengthened in the United States by the Temperance movement while the already too great regard to opinion, and subservience to spiritual encroachment, have been much increased; and, therefore, great as may be the visible benefits of the institution, it may at length appear that they have been dearly purchased.”
Note 1. Not long afterwards a prominent Presbyterian clergyman of Philadelphia thought fit to preach and publish a sermon, wherein it was set forth and conclusively proved, that on such and such contingencies of united religious effort of the religious public, the majority of the American people could be made religious; consequently they might carry their religious influence to the polls; consequently the religious would be able to turn all the profane out of office; and consequently, the American people would become a Christian nation!—Voice from America by an American Gentleman.
