The Congressional Globe, [Volume 16]: Twenty-Ninth Congress, First Session, Appendix Page: 49
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1845.]
APPENDIX TO THE CONGRESSIONAL GLOBE.
49
29th Cong 1st Sess.
Naturalization Laws—Mr. Levin.
New Series No. 4.
evasion, or any other criminal corruption growing
oat of a, general law- But the scope of the reso-
lution, which I have the honor to offer, reaches to
a higher point* and extends to a wider limit*. It
proposes, an inquiry into the present relative influ-
ence of the population of Europe upon the institu-
tions of this country, in comparison with those rela-
tions as they existed in times gone by—say forty
years, or half a century ago; so that we may distinct-
ly understand the position which the foreign popu-
lation now bears to ours, and which the circum-
stances of this country now bear towards Europe.
The question is big with importance. Tt cannot
be doubted but that this inquiry, confided to com-
petent hands, will prove intensely interesting. But
that is a minor consideration. Can it fail to prove
eminently useful?—useful in its most enlarged and
comprehensive sense? The revolutions that occur
eitiong nations, and their relative influence towards
each other during a period of half a century, are
too stupendous and startling to be treated with
silent indifference or stolid apathy. The wise
statesman is always awake to the changes of time.
He who slumbers on them must sink in the bil-
' lows that he ought to ride. A long period of peace,
unparalleled in the history of modem Europe,
has been shedding its influences, for good or for
evil, over the destinies of the world. Whether
beneficent or otherwise, it has been our lot to share
in the results, moral and political, of this tremen-
dous event. We owe it to ourselves to inquire
in what manner it has approached us. We owe it
to our children, for whose benefit we hold in trust
their great estate of freedom. We owe it to God,
who, in his infinite love and mercy, has given us
this sublime system of Government as a means of
elevating the human character to the highest point
of perfection, by a full development of all the fac-
ulties of man as a rational, responsible, and self-
governed being. And here I come to the very pith
and marrow of the whole argument that presses
upon the nation—the wisdom and policy of this
inquiry- Unlike the people of Europe, we are
self-governed, and in all things wc present, not
only a perfect contrast to their condition, but the
discrepancy between us leads to perpetual col-
lision, cither moral or physical, and not unfre-
quently both. This contrast" pervades every re-
lation of life, government, morals, and manners.
A contrast like this, running through all the va-
rious and complicated relations of a country, must
necessarily be attended by a contrast of feelings,
opinions, and sympathies, and this, too, on points
vitally affecting our republican institutions. With
exceptions, too frivolous to merit consideration,
Europe is under the universal sway of kings, who
govern by a power superior to, and above, thai of
the people, and which imposes upon them the iron
fetters of abject slavery, "divine right." Such
marked and decided contrast of opinion could
hardly fail to be attended by collision, both moral
and physical. Nationally, we have seen this
manifested in our wars with Europe. In a social
relation, we have seen it displayed in the terrific
riots that have deluged the streets of our cities in
blood. This collision broke frightfully upon our
senses when it scattered a peaceful meeting of
American citizens, assembled at Philadelphia,
under the regis of the Constitution, to devise meas-
ures for the preservation of their rights. Drilled
bands of armed foreigners rushed with impetuous
fury upon native-born Americans, who carried 110
weapons but what equal rights had given them.
In the majesty of freemen, they stood armed only
with moral power. The element opposing them
was physical force. It was an imported element—
an European weapon—one peculiar only to the
feudal institutions of the Old World, and one
which never could have come in collision with the
opinions of a free people, had not the barriers
of their rights been rudely broken down by
the inroads of foreign cabals. Observe the pe-
culiar traits of this outrage. The citizens of a dis-
til tt in Kensington, in which they were born,
call a public meeting 111 their own ward. It
is broken up by an armed band—the followers
and disciples of the demagogue to whom I have
alluded, on the assumed ground that it was an
Irish quarter, within whose limits no American
dare to tread, except at the peril of his life. Here,
then, you behold an " Irish quarter" in America—
governed by Irish laws, Irish passions, and Irish
4
prejudices—all inimical to freedom of speech—all
combining to strangle freedom of thought. It is
the same thing if you expunge ths word " Irish,"
and substitute that of French, Spanish, or Italian.
I speak to the principle involved in the argument,
without appealing to the prejudices coiled up within
a name. But that outrage is now a part of our
history. It-was an outrage of that foreign popula-
tion, known as the followers of "Daniel O'Con-
nell," who had claimed the district for a series of
years as an " Irish quarter," sacred from the in-
trusion of American laws, American sheriffs, and
American institutions. Here, sir, I repeat, we
comc to history—the history of those collisions
naturally incident to the unbridled passions of
those foreigners; who, having been accustomed in
the Old World to physical force, arc strangers to
constitutional rights, and ignorant of the moral
power of opinion that gives sanctity to law with-
out an appeal to the rifle, the musket, or the bayo-
net. Had an outrage of a similar character been
committed on the dcck of an American ship, by
any of the Powers of Europe, who could have
braced themselves to the damning act of treading
under foot that flag that now floats in triumph over
the dome of this Capitol, and of assassinating in
cold blood ten American citizens, martyrs to free-
dom, would it not justly have provoked us into a
war? As surely as that there throbs one pulsation
of honor in an American heart! What, sir, would
be just cause for war with a foreign Power, I re-
peat, is ample cause for inquiry into the character
and tendency of foreign cabals, matured in the very
heart of our country, to wage an exterminating
war against American citizens, for the purpose of
perpetuating in this country passions and feelings
that have no natural affinity to our institutions.
I will not attempt to portray the burst of indig-
nation that would have swept over this land of free-,
dom if the outrage perpetrated in the " Irish quar-
ter" had been committed on the deck of an Ameri-
can ship by any of the subjects of her Britannic
Majesty. No language could convey an adequate
idea of the popular fury that would have lagecl in
the hearts of the American people; the fire of ven-
geance would have shot from every eye; every
bosom would have heaved with indignation; every
tongue would have evoked curses, loud and deep,
011 the wrong-doers, till the whole land, shaken by
one wild cry, would have pierced the very skies
with the flames of war. Why was all so calm—
content? It happened to be on the eve of a Presi-
dential election, when both parties were equally
anxious to seize upon this marketable commodity,
which is now boasted of as the controlling vote of
the Republic—the "balance of power" between
the conflicting Whigs and Democrats.
In their eagerness to secure that banded foreign
vote, they emulated each other in their efforts to
misrepresent and distort the facts, in order that
they might disease and poison the popular mind.
The Democrats succeeded, it is true, m securing
that vote, but it is still a marketable article; and,
like the elephants of Pyrrhus of Epirus, that scat-
tered desolation, not through the army of Curius
Dentatus, but through his own, so may this stu-
pendous army of foreign voters, so sedulously
guarded, and so proudly confided in, pro%e ulti-
mately not the shield of their strength, but the
very instrument of their destruction.
It is not for me to give a name to that awful
apathy which pervades "the two old parties of the
country in reference to this brand of shame on the
brows of the nation. What outrage d:d Great
Britain commit anterior to the Revolution of 1776
equal to this? I mean any outrage on principles or
on persons? Examine well into all her offences—
contrast them with this outrage—and then say
whether the hue of the milk-white dnve is not the
color that contrasts with this black and bloody
tinge of the tragedy in this " Irish quarter?" This
aggression is not a personal one. It was not a
party aggression, though committed upon natives.
It was not a native, but a national degradation.
The Constitution conferred sanctity on that meet-
ing. The flag of the Union gave protection to the
e\ercisc of a legal right. The insult is, then, on
the republic, and the republic must vindicate its
independence, or rest under the reproach of the ig-
nominious wrong.
I adduce these facts, not with the view of imbo-
dying them into a report, but as just cause for in-
quiry. I am aware, sir, that various efforts have
been made by our opponents to throw incidents
into our'cause which never were intended to form
a part Of our political creed, and which do not now.
We have been denounced as sectarians—as fanat-
ics'and bigots. Can such a charge lie against us ?
If the blackened walls of St. Augustine and St. Mi-
chael's remain to tell of the outrages committed
by a mob, there stands the church of St. Philip de
Neri, a monument of the protective power of na-
tive-born Americans. Who defended that church
at the peril of their lives but native-born Americans,
of Southwark, with Thomas D. Grover at their
head, who determined to save the church or perish
in the ruins? No, sir; we wage no war against
freedom of conscience! It requires no demonstra-
tion to assure us of the importance of religion to all
the secular interests and sensual passions of life.
To the king 011 his throne, or the peasant at his
plough—the miser on his money-bags, or the beg-
gar gnawing his crust—the privilege to worship
Glod after the dictate of our own heart is the most
precious gift that humanity can enjoy. If the
pages of history were not crowded with illustra-
tions of the fact, the throbs of every immortal spi-
rit that pants to enjoy a hereafter would alone be
sufficient to attest the solemnity of the passion
which clusters around the grave all the majesty of
an eternal life, the passage to which must be ob-
structed by no human power—daikened by no su-
perstitious shadow—taxed by no avaricious tyran-
ny. Shake the crown from the brow of the king—
hurl the throne from the emperor's feet—dash the
sword from the warrior's grasp—take pomp from
the proud, or pageantry from the powerful—blast
love by perfidy, or poison friendship by deceit;—
all these are trivial calamities that have their cure
in life, or their balm in time : but there is 110 reme-
dy for the frauds of religion—no balm for the
wrongs of violated conscience.
Sir, i thank God that I have this opportunity of
disabusing the popular mind of the spurious im-
pression, that the people whom I have the honor
to represent chcrish any deshe to fetter or interfere
with the sacred rights of conscience, which no men
011 earth respect more profoundly than they do.
So far from interfering with freedom of con-
science, sir, we will resist any sect that shall ever
attempt to invade its sanctity—we will resist any
sect that attempts to combine, as such, to accom-
plish a political object, whether that sect be Baptist,
Methodist, Presbyterian, Episcopalian, or Roman
Catholic. Let them attempt it when and where
they may, and they will encounter from us the
most determined hostility, the most unyielding re-
sistance. If this be fanaticism, if this be bigotry,
lot gentlemen make the most of it.
Mr. Speaker, all that I have said has been drawn
from me by the latitude that has been given to this
debate, which ought to have been confined to the
naked question of reference. I have avoided touch-
ing upon the merits of the main question, which we
ask to bring in proper form to the consideration of
the House, and which, I repeat, a select committee
will alone enable us to accomplish. Will the House
permit us to place before the nation such records,
drawn from the proper departments, as will show
that, unless some remedy be applied to this great
and growing evil, the day is not par. distant
WHEN THE A MER1 CAN-BORN VOTF.R WILL FIKTD HIM-
SELF IN A MINORITY IN HIS OWN LAND ! Or will yOU
continue to tell us that because wc are not as liberal
as we might be to foreign ignorance and foreign
orimc, you will shut out this appeal, which comes
up to you in all its freshness from the hearts of the
American people?
God has implanted in those hearts, sir, the prxn-
cipltTon which we act. It is that love of home,
or love of native land, which, in times of peril,
rises to a glory. Shall we deny to the people of
other lands what we claim for ourselves ? Yet,
miscalled liberality, in some of our Whigs and
Democrats, would deny this sublime attribute to
I the foreigners who flock among us. They com-
| pliment, them by the denial of a virtue, whose lus-
j tre is the pride and boast of all men and all na-
tions, and this slander on their character they call
"liberality;" and, with that inconsistency which
always distinguishes men who confound natural
relations, andwho forget that love of Ameiicaand
love of American institutions, if a virtue in us,
would be a vice in them, they charge the I^ativc
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United States. Congress. The Congressional Globe, [Volume 16]: Twenty-Ninth Congress, First Session, Appendix, book, 1846; Washington D.C.. (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc30770/m1/57/: accessed April 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.