Obrázky na stránke
PDF
ePub

mere laAnd this that the genmost signal benefit.another conclusion, that

stitute, but for less than the hire of a bourer, they are defended. tleman calls a fine, is a And from this fact I draw the constitution has left nothing vague or undefined that was capable of being defined. And when it lays down the general rule, intending an exception, that exception is defined. And when it gave toleration to the religious professions and worship of all mankind, knowing that it was of the religion of the quaker not to fight, it pronounced the reasonable condition upon which that exemption was to be enjoyed. The catholic religion was surely as well known as that of the quaker. No christian could be ignorant of it: and for the same reason if the framers of the constitution intended any exception, they would have stated it. All catholics knew it because it was their religion. All protestants, because they must know that against which they protested or they know nothing. The catholic religion was as the genus, and the various species were composed of that and the essential difference. The subdivisions were but varieties. The catholic church contains at least two thirds of the christian population in the old world, and with respect to this article of auricular confession, it is still retained by the Greeks and oriental schismatics, after a seperation of 800 years.. In this continent, looking to Canada on the north, and the vast and populous nations to the south, three fourths are surely catholic. If so, three whole christian world are catholics. who made this constitution were as the learned gentleman has said, a protestant people, they were then a christian people, and if they were a christian people,

fourths of the
If the people

!!

is it likely that they made a constitution tolerating the religion of all mankind, and subjoined, by way of parenthesis, a proviso putting under the ban of a new and unprecedented proscription, three fourths of the christians that inhabit the globe? Would not this be a moral monster, incongruous and amorphous, like some frightful sport of nature, with a foot bigger than the whole body, and trampling on its own head? Can we slander the fathers of our constitution by supposing they did this either in ignorance or through equivocation ? No! For it needed little learning indeed to know all that I have stated. They needed not to be deep learned in the writings of the fathers, nor in the histories of general councils, canons, decretals, convocations, synods, or consistories; nor in legends, traditions, creeds, or catechisms, litanies nor liturgies, manuels nor missels, breviaries nor homilies. In that familiar volume of the commentaries cited yesterday, they would have found it all, set down under the head of offences against God and religion. They would have found as many models of proscription against jew and gentile, protestant and papist, as there are fashions or vagaries in a millener's shop. Some of which, I think, are great offences in themselves against God and religion.

It was with full knowledge of all this, and to close the door forever against religious contention, that the 38th article of our constitution was framed, by which all religions are put upon 'the very same footing, without preference or discrimination. From thence forward no frail man is to set himself up to judge his fellow, for his faith and usurp the power of the almighty judge, by whom all must be judged, nor are we to lay hands

[ocr errors]

on one another, or punish either by death, by fine, or by prison, the free exercise of religious worship or profession. If there be any, who does not see the wisdom of this enactment, let him open the page of history, and read of the bloody religious wars of Europe, of which the wounds are still fresh and bleeding. Let him reflect who his own fathers were, and he will find the cogency and wisdom of the act. From the time of that constitution, the waters of strife were no more to be let loose; and as rights undefined, are wrongs concealed; as exceptions lead to contentions and equivocations; so the principle was established like a beacon on a rock, to be a light and guide to all the world.

Under this constitution, it is lawful for one to say, I hold of Christ, another, I hold of Paul, another, I of Cephas, another, I of Appollos. One only exception there is, and that is the proviso, that this liberty of conscience shall not be construed, to excuse acts of licentiousness, or justify practices inconsistent with the peace and safety of the state, and this brings me closer to the point.

The District Attorney has laid it down, as though it were conceded, that the general principle of law is with him, and that we who claim an exception, must shew ourselves entitled to it. I explicitly deny that proposition. The constitution here lays down the general rule, that all mankind shall be tolerated, without preference or discrimination, and we claim no exception from that rule. It is our adversary that would enforce the proviso, and take advantage of it against us; and it was for him to shew how we fell within it. It was for him to shew in what our acts were licentious, or our practices dangerous. The modest worth and unambitious courses of this pas

It

[ocr errors]

tor, often to be found by the bed of sickness, or in the abode of sorrow, but never in the repairs of revel or disorder, repels all idea of licentiousness. It remained then to fall back upon the subject of danger. And truly, Mr. Attorney with all his invention, was much put to it to imagine a case of danger. It was a dangerous pass for him and his argument. My colleague had pointed out from Blackstone's commentaries, that the danger which served as an apology for the proscriptions of the catholics in the British empire, was that of the pope and the pretender. The gentleman could not bring himself to say he was afraid of those persons. And yet Mr. Justice Blackstone had laid down that when the family of the one, and the temporal power of the other was reduced, or at an end, the catholics might safely enjoy their seven sacraments, auricular confession, and all. But if the gentleman had gone still further and maintained that the pope and pretender were on board Sir John Borlase Warren's fleet, it would have been little less surprising than the danger he did suppose, namely, that should there be a conspiracy of catholics to deliver up this city to the enemy, and that they should confess to the priest, and the priest conceal it, and so the city be lost. If the catholic is to hold his rights, and have the equal benefit of the constitution, upon the hard condition of satisfying the doubts of all doubters, and the cavils of all cavillers; if all possible things, however insupposeable, are to be supposed against him, this argument may do. But then the 38th article of the constitution is a dead letter to him; for under the pretence of dangers, figured merely in the imagination, all the old crimes, plots and massacres may be acted over again. But for my part I take all this as

probably it is meant, in pleasantry; and in truth, I fear as little from this part of the learned gentleman's argument, as he probably does from the pope, the pretender, or the catholic plot he talks of. I shall therefore, knowing as we all do, who they are that compose the bulk of the Roman catholics in this city, content my. self by supposing that they will not give the city to the English. No, not even if the troops of his holiness. himself, should join in alliance with the British to invade it. And I maintain in the presence of my clients, and in their name, that doctrine boldly and firmly. That though the catholics must acknowledge the pope as supreme head of their church, yet they know, their duty as citizens would oblige them to resist him as a temporal prince, if in that character, he should make war upon that country, which is theirs, and theirs by choice, the strongest of all ties. Yes,and if the government was too slow in providing them with arms, they would with their pickaxe, or their spade, or their cart-rung, or paradventure, some old sanctified shillelah, the trophy of days that are past, drive the enemy from his cannon, as it has happened before. This is my supposition. And I suppose further, that there is one only way to make such persons dangerous; that is, to put their clergyman in prison for not betraying the most holy of all engagements towards God or man.

When my learned adversary advanced that this was a protestant country, and that a grant had been made by the protestants to the catholics, one would suppose that they stood in this relation, that the protestant was the liege lord, and the catholic the vassal. We came here to argue this question with good temper, and our good

« PredošláPokračovať »