Americanism Contrasted with Foreignism, Romanism, and Bogus Democracy in the Light of Reason, History, and Scripture; / In which Certain Demagogues in Tennessee, and Elsewhere, / are Shown Up in Their True Colors

The Black Republicans recently held a meeting in New York, at which Benjamin F. Butler, of "pious memory," and Van Buren Swartwout notoriety, presided! On his right hand sat, as Vice President of the meeting, Moses H. Grinnell, one of the Democratic "pipe-layers" of 1840, whom this Van Buren Attorney-General Butler made efforts to send to the State prison! Another Vice President, gravely looking on, and arranged in dignified grandeur upon the stand, was John W. Edmonds, ex-"blanket contractor" in a large swindle, and a practical spiritual-rapper! A third and last Vice President was the notorious Dr. Townsend, the sarsaparilla man, who has not yet wound up his controversy with a man of the same name, as to who is the greatest rascal in the way of manufacturing this medicine!

Among the other officers, secretaries, and prominent men in the meeting, was C. A. Dana, of the Tribune office, a Fourierist, who, at a public meeting on a former occasion, toasted "Horace Greeley, Charles Fourier, and Jesus Christ!" Prominent in the meeting was C. A. Stetson, of the Astor House, an Amalgamationist. Henry J. Raymond, the Abolition editor of the Times, and Rudolph Garrigue, a noisy German Abolitionist, looked and acted as though they believed the salvation of the Union depended upon the success of the Republicans! A fellow who made frequent motions, an Irishman by the name of McMorrow, had served an apprenticeship of twelve months in the State prison, for breaking open a store after night! The principal speaker, who spoke for two hours on the subject of slavery, was the notorious Bingham, an itinerant Abolitionist from Ohio. It was a queer medley of men, parties, principles, and characters—two-thirds of all the active partisans in the meeting having held offices in the ranks of Democracy! And still, that party boasts of its Northern wing being sound upon the slavery question.

And here is the resolution of the 8th of January Democratic Convention in Ohio, appointing delegates to the Cincinnati Pow-wow:

To show, just here, where Tennessee Democrats stand upon the infamous Wilmot Proviso question, we give the following extract from a recent number of the Nashville Patriot:

By the way, in 1842, this same Gov. Johnson was a Senator in our State Legislature, and introduced the following Abolition resolutions, commonly called his White Basis System:

The position of Gov. Johnson is this: he wishes the State entitled to her slave representation as a State, but in her own borders the representative districts are to be made according to her white population! In other words, he desires the State to retain her ten Congressmen, representing both her white and slave population, but wishes them appointed throughout the State without regard to the slave population: so that the county containing ten thousand white inhabitants, and double that number of slaves, should be entitled to no more representation than the county containing ten thousand white inhabitants and no slaves!

We heard Johnson last summer, in his debate with Gentry, in Campbell county, contend that the county of Campbell should have the same representation in Congress as the county of Shelby, which he stated had FIFTEEN THOUSAND NEGROES! He appealed to the prejudices and passions of the poor—inquired of the hard working-men of that county how they liked to see their wives and daughters offset, in enumerating the strength of the county, by the "greasy negro wenches of Shelby, Davidson, Fayette, Sumner and Rutherford counties." He made a real, stirring abolition appeal to the poor, and non-slaveholding portion of the crowd, which was in the proportion of ten to one of that county, to array them against the rich, and especially against the owners of large numbers of slaves. He told them that these Negro wenches belonged to the lordly slaveholders of Middle and West Tennessee, and that as our Constitution now is, these wenches were placed on an equality with the fair daughters and virtuous wives of laboring men. On this ground he advocated his infamous amendment to the Constitution, which would incorporate his "White Basis" scheme!

This is a rank Abolition measure, and fraught with more danger to the South than any thing proposed by the whole brood of Abolitionists, Free Soilers, and Black Republicans at the North. Already the South is weak enough, and not at all able to vote with the North in our National Legislature. The effect of this scheme is to deprive the South of one-third of her strength in Congress. Not only is this the effect, but it is the design of the mover. We hold that Johnson is a Free Soiler, and has been for years. It is stated by his Northern Democratic friends, that when he quit Congress, he came home to run for Governor—with a determination, if defeated, to remove to some of the Northwestern States, and take a new start! Had he been defeated by Maj. Henry in 1853, he would now be a Black Republican in one of the Free States, running for office! And yet the propagator of this infamous Abolition doctrine of a "White Basis" representation—this demagogue who arrays the poor against slaveholders, is the man for the ultra guardians of the slave interests of the South! A man who would not own negroes when he could, but loaned his money out at interest, and left his wife and daughters to do their own work—a man who is at heart and in his doctrines a rank Free Soiler—a man who has only remained in the South to experiment upon office-seeking! This is the man that Georgia, Alabama, Virginia, Mississippi, and Carolinas, rejoiced to see elected Governor of a Southern slave State!

It was seeing the position of Johnson on this question that induced the "Democratic Herald" in Ohio, in June, 1855, thus to notice our race for Governor:

Now, this showing up of Democracy, on the Slavery question, may look shabby to many ultra Southern men, and it may induce them to charge that the Democratic party are inconsistent. We defend them against the charge of inconsistency, and maintain that what would be called inconsistency here, is nothing but Democracy. For instance, A. O. P. Q. X. Y. Z. Nicholson, the editor of the great official organ of Democracy at Washington, said, editorially, and "by authority," so late as 1855:

Precisely so! A man may advocate the abolition of slavery where it exists; he may, as a Black Republican, arm himself with Sharpe's rifle, and go into Kansas, and shoot down pro-slavery men, and still be a consistent Democrat, if he vote for the party, and stand by the nominees of the party conventions! Hence, all the factions at home and from abroad—all religions—all the ends and odds of God's creation are now associated together, and are battling in the same unholy cause, in the name of Democracy!

And further to exhibit the inconsistency of this Democratic and Foreign party, it will be recollected that, in 1844, they nominated Silas Wright, of New York, for Vice-President, to run on the ticket with Col. Polk—a position he declined, because he would not agree to be second best on the ticket. In a letter to James H. Titus, Esq., bearing date April 15, 1847, Mr. Wright says:

Now, if Silas Wright, one of the great "Northern lights" of Democracy, held these sentiments in 1847, what must they have been in 1844, when that party sought to elevate him to the second office within the gift of the nation? But we are just reminded of what is said in "the law and the prophets," that is to say, "It is no part of the creed of a Democrat, as such, to advocate or oppose the extension of slavery!" What a party!

[From the Knoxville Whig for Sept. 22, 1855.]

TO REV. A. B. LONGSTREET,

PROFESSOR OF METHODISM, ROMANISM, AND LOCOFOCOISM.

Reverend Sir:—I see a pastoral address of yours, to "Methodist Know-Nothing Preachers," going the rounds of the Locofoco Foreign Sag Nicht papers of the South, occupying from four to six columns, according to the dimensions of the papers copying. I have waded through your learned address, and find it to be one of more ponderous magnitude than the Report made to the British House of Commons, by Lord North, on a subject of far greater interest! And as I am one of the class of men you address, notwithstanding your great advantage over me in point of age and experience; and as no one has made a formal response to your pious warnings, it will not be deemed insolent in me to take you up.

My first acquaintance with you was in 1847, at an Annual Meeting of the Georgia Conference, held in Madison; and although the impressions made upon my mind by you, on that occasion, were any thing but favorable to you, as a man, still, I am capable, as I believe, of doing you justice. I supposed you then to be the rise of sixty years, certainly in your dotage and among the vainest old gentlemen I had ever met with. You obtained leave, as I understand, by your own seeking, to deliver a lecture to the Conference, upon the subject of correctly reading and pronouncing the Scriptures. I was in attendance, and listened to you with all the attention and impartiality I was capable of exercising. I thought it a little presumptuous for any one man to assume to teach more than one hundred able ministers how to read and pronounce the inspired writings; and the more so, when I knew that several of the number were presidents and professors in different male and female colleges, and that many others of them were graduates of the best literary institutions in the South. Still, my apology for you was, that you was a vain old gentleman, and that to listen to you, respectfully, was to obey the Divine teaching of one who has taught us to "bear the infirmities of the weak." Your samples, both of reading and pronunciation, were amusing and novel to me. And so far as I could gather the prevailing sentiment, it was, that to adopt your style would render the reading of the Scriptures perfectly ridiculous.

In your address to "Methodist Know-Nothing Preachers," I discover that you are still the man you were at Madison, in 1847: you have a great deal to say about yourself, and make free use of the personal pronoun I! I advise—I believe—I am satisfied—I will not agree—I warn and caution—I fear, or I apprehend, etc. To parse the different sentences in your partisan harangue syntactically, little else is necessary but to understand the first person singular, and to repeat the rule as often as it occurs: a peculiarity which characterizes every paragraph in your labored address. Beside, the frequent use of the pronouns I, me, my, mine, etc., too frequently occur to be worth estimating. And it will be seen, upon examination, that not merely the verbiage, but the sentiment, is thus egotistic throughout, exhibiting a degree of arrogance and self-importance, only to be met with in a Clerical Locofoco, used by bad men for ignoble purposes. To carry out the idea of your vanity, you say in the winding up of your address:

Any other man but yourself would, from considerations of modesty, have given John Wesley the preference, in this connection, and come in as second best. But no, you are first in place, and, in your own estimation, in importance likewise, as a religious teacher.

I have no doubt you consider yourself a much greater man than John Wesley ever was; and in proof of this, I need only cite what you have said in reference to Mr. Wesley's opposition to Romanism:

The only superior you acknowledge is Cardinal Wiseman, a bigoted Roman Catholic, and you seem to knock under to him quite reluctantly, and not without informing the public that you have been a laborious student for forty years, and "a profound thinker." Here is your praise:

So much by way of noticing vanity. You are a literary and theological star of the first magnitude! You are an encyclopedia of the learning, science, patriotism, and religion of the country! Sir, if you possessed a little more sheep-faced modesty, and could exhibit a little less of lion-headed impudence than you do, you would be a much more useful, not to say successful minister of the New Testament!

Sir, you have taken the field in opposition to Know-Nothingism, professedly through your deep and abiding concern for Christianity, and the interests of Methodism. You say:

The truth is, you are influenced alone by partisan political feelings; and occupying a position in a Mississippi College, in the midst of Fire-eating Disunion Progressive Democracy, you desire to please them, rather than serve the interests of your country or Church. To take the stump, or the pulpit, in defence of Frank Pierce and his corrupt administration, would be a pleasant talk to you, who have been, all your life-time, an inveterate Locofoco in politics, and "a profound thinker" in favor of its iniquitous measures and principles. In your early political training, you have been swayed by interest and popular favor, and in most cases at the expense of truth, just as you now are, in your mad vindication of Romanism. A tool for others to work with, till you have found yourself in a condition to use such tools as you yourself have been, you are now a trimmer and weathercock, leading on men of less sense than yourself, to such distinction as interest and ambition may dictate!

Sir, you take the ground, throughout, that there is no danger of Catholics in this country, and that they do not seek to establish their religion. Here is a specimen of your logic:

Now, sir, the foregoing statement is untrue, and in making it you could not have been sincere. You are a man of too much sense, and of too much information, to believe what you are wickedly trying to palm upon others. Brownson's Quarterly Review, the most able, as well as the most authentic organ of Catholicism in the United States, employs the following language to the American people—mark it:

Here is still plainer language from the Roman Catholic Bishop of St. Louis:

Here is what the Boston Pilot says, a Catholic paper of high standing:

Here is the Shepherd of the Valley, published under the eye and with the approbation of the Bishop of St. Louis:

And here is what the Rambler says, a devoted Catholic periodical, high in the confidence of the Bishops and Priests of that Church:

I could give other quotations of this character, which have met your eye long since, but I forbear, as they would extend my letter beyond the limit I have prescribed for myself. These are the publications which, in part at least, have given rise to the Know-Nothing organization, so cordially hated by you.

You say there is no danger of injury to our institutions from the rapid strides of Romanism. Allow me to ask your attention to the following remarkable political prediction by the Duke of Richmond, late Governor-General of Canada, and a British noble, who declared himself hostile to the United States on all occasions. Speaking of our Government, this deadly enemy said:

But, sir, after eulogizing Catholics for their devotion to religious toleration in this country, you make two assertions, touching the Methodist Church, for which I wish to arraign you, and for which the authorities of said Church ought to arraign you, under that section of our Discipline which forbids railing out against our Doctrines and Discipline. You say:

If you have this opinion of the Methodist Church, you cannot be an honest man and remain within her jurisdiction. You ought to leave her communion forthwith, and go over to Rome; and in doing this, you would not have far to go! Occupying the position you do, and holding the sentiments you do, I would not send a child to any school or college over which you might preside. Nor do I think any Protestant parent or guardian ought to patronize any school under your care. Your influence, whatever you may possess, is against the Protestant faith, and in favor of Catholicism. In a word, you are a dangerous man in a Republican government.

Upon the subject of religious toleration by the Catholics, you seem to have fallen into the same error adopted by the Hon. Mr. Stephens, of Georgia—a man for whom you have great regard now, but who, in the days of Clay Whiggery, was a stench in your Locofoco nostrils! Mr. Stephens made the assertion, in a public speech in Augusta, that "the Catholic Colony of Maryland, under Lord Baltimore, was the first to establish the principle of free toleration in religious worship." The Colony of Maryland was a Catholic Colony, and the "Toleration Act" was written by Lord Baltimore himself. That Act is dated 21st April, 1649, when Lord Baltimore was in the zenith of his glory. Here is the language of that "Act" of religious toleration:

God deliver us from such toleration! Death was the penalty for expressing certain religious opinions, not acceptable to Lord Baltimore and the Holy Catholic Church! Fines and whipping at the post was the penalty for speaking against the image-worship of the Catholic Church. But I need not pursue this subject further: the onus propandi is on your side.

Speaking of Mr. Wesley, you say:

Why, sir, Mr. Wesley goes much further in his political opposition to Roman Catholics than the American party have ever proposed to go. The American party say only that they will not vote for Catholics, or put them in office, because their principles are antagonistic to the spirit of Republican institutions. Mr. Wesley lays down the comprehensive, but true doctrine, in this very letter, that "no government not Roman Catholic ought to tolerate men of the Roman Catholic persuasion." And to show how fully and clearly he sustains this position, I quote from his letter at length. You will find the letter in Vol. 5, page 817, of Wesley's Miscellaneous Works, dated January 12th, 1780. It was originally addressed to the Dublin Freeman's Journal. Here is what Mr. Wesley says, in the very letter you seek to deny out of:

"I am, sir, your humble servant,

"JOHN WESLEY.

"City Road, January 12, 1780."

But, sir, you know as well as any living man that the history of the Church, from the days of the first Pope down to the iniquitous reign of Pius IX., sustains Mr. Wesley in his views on this subject, and justifies the steps taken by the American party. Notwithstanding the oft-repeated profession of Catholic liberality and Romish toleration, so triumphantly paraded by you, and other interested aspirants and unprincipled demagogues, the Catholic Church has invariably shown herself to be destitute of both, whenever she had the opportunity of using them. Sir, intolerance is an element of her faith, and persecution a specimen of her piety; and no man knows it better than you do. In taking upon herself the obligation of "true obedience to the Pope," the Catholic Church imposes upon herself a task that proves beyond all doubt she cannot, under any circumstances, remain faithful to that obligation, and yet maintain "allegiance" to such a government as ours!

Sir, I have no patience with a Protestant minister who stands forth as the apologist of Catholicism; nor have I any confidence in one who does it, provided he is a man of intelligence, as I admit you to be. The only excuse I can render for your strange and inconsistent conduct is, that you are in your dotage; that you are a violent old partisan; and that you are the tool of designing demagogues, infamous disunionists, and unmitigated repudiators. I shall not be at all surprised to hear that you have apostatized from the Methodist Church, and gone over to the Roman Catholics. I learn from the Little Rock Gazette, a Democratic paper, that but the other day, Gov. E. N. Carway, of Arkansas, a member of the Methodist Church, had actually apostatized from Methodism, and the Protestant faith, and united with the Roman Catholics. And what makes his defection from the faith of his fathers still more notorious, his organ is down upon the Protestant clergy in bitter and unrelenting denunciations! I believe that you are preparing to go over to the Roman Catholics; and to justify your change, when the time comes, you now assert, "in humiliation but in candor," you say, that the people "have ten thousand times more to fear from Methodists than from Catholics." If you believe this, you ought to leave the Methodist Church instantly, even without the formalities of a withdrawal or expulsion—even though you should be denied admittance into the Catholic Church! I deny that we have "ten thousand times more to fear" from the Devil than we have from the Catholics; and according to your argument, the Methodists are worse than the Devil! This, their most bitter revilers and enemies do not believe; and for obvious reasons. The Methodist Church has no St. Bartholomew's Day, with its rivers of blood staining her garments: she never indiscriminately slaughtered the Albigenses, or Waldenses, or Huguenots: she never established an infernal Inquisition: she never lit up the fires of Smithfield: never burned the Holy Bible, and prohibited, upon pain of eternal death, the printing and circulating of God's word; and last, but not least, she has not sought to keep the people in ignorance. Wherever Methodism has been planted, the people have become great and happy. If you please, wherever Protestantism has prevailed, the people have been prosperous and happy. But look to Old Spain, Italy, the German Confederacies, Sardinia, Naples, Austria, Belgium, Portugal, Bavaria, Baden, South America, and Mexico, where Romanism is the established religion, and the places of her influence are a hissing and a by-word in the eyes of the civilized world! Protestantism has done more for the world in the last hundred years than the Roman Catholic Church has for the eighteen hundred years!

Sir, the Puritans, of New England; the Hollanders, of New York; the Quakers, Lutherans, and German Reformed, of Pennsylvania; the Baptists, of Rhode Island; the Episcopalians and Presbyterians, of Virginia; the Lutherans and followers of Wesley and Whitefield, of Georgia; the Huguenots and Episcopalians, of the Carolinas; and the Seceders in several of the States, who were the religious pioneers of these States, were all Protestants and Know Nothings; and if they were living, they would be ashamed of you and your teachings. They selected this wilderness country as their home, in order that they might enjoy those religious privileges from which they had been debarred in the old world, by the very Church and people you are seeking to vindicate.

But you will say, as you have done in substance, that this is no longer the characteristic of Romanism. Why is it not? Has she ever changed for the better? When did she renounce her doctrines and practices? Never! Rome is the same tyrannical system now, where she has the power, that she ever has been, and for ever must be. Wo to this land of ours, if ever Rome gets the ascendancy here! Her creed is the same here and now, in this respect, that it has everywhere been, and must always be. It is her boast that she is always right, and knows no change. She practices her unholy inquisitorial and Jesuitical doctrines in this country, as far as she can and dare act them out. Her whole system is adverse to our republican institutions and she hesitates not to declare it. She has publicly burned our Bible in different States in this Union, and recently, in New York and Pennsylvania. Archbishop Hughes, the Head of the Catholic Church in this country, has taken an oath, administered by the Pope of Rome, of which this is a part:

The Church of Rome declares all who are not its members to be heretics. It is painful, in view of all these things, to see an old Protestant minister, whose head has been withered by the frosts of seventy winters, openly in the field advocating a Church whose Bishops, Priests, and members are "drunken with the blood of saints."

There is but one remaining feature of your singular address to Know Nothing Methodist Preachers to be replied to, and I am through. You assail the new party on the score of its secrecy, and of its concealment of its acts from the public. Had this objection come from any one but a Methodist Preacher, and a known advocate of Class-meetings being held with closed doors, I would now dispose of it without occupying as much space as I shall do in my concluding remarks!

Notwithstanding all the secrecy in the new Order of Know Nothings has been set aside by the act of the National Council which created it; and notwithstanding our members tell all about their Councils, where and when they meet, and our orators read out and publish to the world our obligations, rules, and principles, it is still objected that ours is a secret Order, liable to be used for bad purposes; that we travel about with dark lanterns; that our proceedings are not restrained by the wholesome check of public opinion!

Now, this, the great objection to our Order, comes from men who belong to Lodges of Free Masons and Odd Fellows, and who have taken all the binding oaths attached to the different degrees of these respective Orders! The same objection is urged against the American party, by men who belong to the Order of Sons of Temperance, who have deemed a rigid secret organization necessary to combat successfully a domestic evil! It is urged in bitterness against the Order, by demagogues and partisans, who have acted for years with the secret political conclaves of their respective parties, who have held their meetings with closed doors—kept their places of meeting a profound secret—and when they have adjourned, they have enjoined secrecy upon all present! Last, but not least, this secret feature is urged against the American organization by the vile apologists for the Catholic Church, and its corrupt Priesthood and membership, in this country. These demagogues know that the Roman Catholic Church is a secret society, directed by a talented, designing, and villainous HIERARCHY—absolutely controlled by an anti-Republican Priesthood, to a degree which has never been exercised by any political party in the known world! The Confessional is a secret tribunal, before which every member of that Church is required to make known, not only immoral actions, but every thought and purpose of the heart, and upon pain of incurring the anathema of the Church, which is equivalent to a sentence of eternal damnation! The corrupt order of Jesuits, the infamous society of San Fedesti, and the infinitely infernal society of Irish Ribbon Men—these are all oath-bound societies of the Catholic Church, connected directly with the horrid operations of the "Holy Inquisition."

Now, I put the question to any man of reason and common sense, if Roman Catholics and their patriotic Democratic admirers and advocates, in this country, are not the last men on earth who should object to the secret doings of the order of Know Nothings, even if their secrecy were kept up? Every Roman Catholic in the known world is under the absolute control of a secret society, by considerations not only of a temporal, but of an eternal weight!

But I am not done with these Democratic opposers of secrecy. The Convention which formed the Constitution of the United States, sat in the old State House in Philadelphia, with closed doors, from the 25th of May to the 17th of September, wanting only eight days of four months. That body of men had a Doorkeeper and Sergeant-at-arms, both under oath, to keep their doors barred, and all their proceedings a secret. So says Mr. Jefferson's biography! And such men as Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Franklin, Harrison, Hancock, Hopkins, and others, composed that body! During the war of the Revolution, General Washington, Generals Lee, Wayne, Marion, and others, organized a secret American Society, with its branches extending from North to South, having their passwords, signs, and grips, and writing to each other in figures, and "an unknown tongue," as the Know Nothings have been doing, and all, too, with a view to oppose Foreign intrigues and oppressions! It is as well known as any political truth, that General Washington, at the time of his death, was the President of the Cincinnati Society, a secret political society, in which, we see it stated on unquestionable authority, no man was eligible to membership unless he was a native American. The Columbian Order, known as the "Tammany Society," was a secret political society, and highly influential, and maintains its existence to this day, and without danger to the liberties of the country. Gen. Sam Houston publishes to the world that himself and Gen. Jackson were members of this Society. What say the anti-Americans to all these facts? Do they believe that Gen. Washington, or Jackson, would have united with any association or order not purely American? Would either have entered into any political league, when secrecy was enjoined, if he had not approved of the principle of secrecy in political associations? Never! From the characters of Washington and Jackson—the sacrifices they made for their country, united with their fervid patriotism, and their known preference for every thing American, I do not doubt for one moment, that if they were both now living, they would unite with the veritable Order of Know Nothings!

I believe the hand of God to be in this very movement, and as much in the secrecy of it, in the outset, as in any other feature. I regard the movement as one growing out of a great crisis in the affairs of our country, and a precursor of a sound, healthful, and vigorous nationality, and which will ultimately prevent the liberties of this country from being destroyed, by the machinations of such demagogues and factionists as now seek to excuse Romanism, and fellowship Foreign Pauperism. Secret societies are only dangerous to despots and tyrants, and history shows that these above all others have made war upon them. They have denounced and proscribed Masonry in every quarter of the globe, where they have had the power. The Pope, with the aid of his Cardinals, has crushed the ancient order of Free Masons in his dominions. There is not a Masonic Lodge in Italy. In our own country, not a single Catholic is to be found associated with the order of Free Masons; and why? Masonry is founded upon the Bible, and requires the reading of the Protestant Bible in all its Lodges, and this don't suit Romanism. We state these general and historical facts, without knowing any thing of our own knowledge of Masonry.

In the young and growing city of Knoxville, it is within our own knowledge, that many of the Irish Catholics attached themselves to the Order of the Sons of Temperance, with a view, as they said, of throwing around them the wholesome restraints of the Order. On the first visit of a priest to the city, commonly called "Father Brown," these Irish Catholics began to drop off one by one, until not one of them is now in the Order, and most of those who were, are daily seen drunk in our streets. Indeed, some of them in withdrawing had the candor to acknowledge that the priest required them to do so! And why? Because, in all the Divisions of the Sons of Temperance here, we have the Protestant Scriptures read, and have Protestant prayers offered up. This don't suit the Church of Rome!

I have the honor to be, very truly and frankly,

W. G. Brownlow.

TO THE RIGHT REVEREND AARON V. BROWN, M. S.

Sir:—I have received by mail a pamphlet copy of your "Letter to the Bishops, Elders, and other Ministers, Itinerant and Local, of the Methodist Episcopal Church South," covering twenty-eight octavo pages. I thank you for a copy of your Pastoral address; and I am happy to be able to infer from its teachings that you have made a profession of religion, before taking upon yourself "Holy Orders." I suppose the time of your conversion, you date back to the memorable period when you "saw sights" on Mount Pisgah, and had conferred on you the degree of Modern Seer, and entered upon the duties of "High Priest" of Democracy! As I am one of the parties addressed, and the customs of the Church and the country require a response to so grave a document, I have felt it incumbent upon me to perform the task. I may style this the Last epistle of Aaron, the Priest, and illustrious Chief of Foreign Catholic Sag Nicht Locofocoism!

My first impulses were, upon reading your address, to call for your credentials, and to examine into your authority for assuming to dictate to the entire Ministry of the Southern portion of the Methodist Church. You must either enter the Ecclesiastical ring under the imposition of the hands of Bishop Soule or Andy Johnson. If Bishop Soule ordained you for the Ministry, and set you apart as the Lieutenant-General of the Methodist Episcopal Church South, the presumption is that he examined you on doctrinal points, and upon all questions affecting the government of the Church, as was his duty, and is our custom, and that he found you orthodox! It follows, as a matter of course, that you renounced your heresy you advocated in the Hartford Convention, held at Nashville, and that you obtained forgiveness for that and numerous other "sins of omission and commission"—aye, for the whole catalogue of your inward and outward iniquities, which so eminently disqualified you for the work of the Ministry! But if Andy Johnson ordained you for the work, of which there is no sort of doubt, the Church South, through me, protests against your authority, and utterly refuses to submit to your teachings. Our Church does not agree with Johnson on the "White Basis" issue, or the great question of slavery; and in proof of this, I cite to the fact of her separation from the North, in 1844, upon this very question. She has within her bounds of communion, rich men and poor, educated and uneducated, and is unwilling to unite with him in arraying the poor against the rich, or the unlearned against the learned. Nor does our Church believe that Jesus Christ was a Locofoco, as Johnson asserts in his Inaugural, and held that Christianity and Democracy, in converging lines, led to the foot of Jacob's Ladder, and thence to heaven, via Mount Pisgah, from whose lofty summit you first beheld the promised land!

It therefore follows, that, in presenting yourself as a spiritual leader in the Church, called to the work, as you have been, by Andy Johnson, your case is fully met by a quotation from Job: