William Brownlow - Americanism Contrasted with Foreignism, Romanism, and Bogus Democracy in the Light of Reason, History, and Scripture;

In warning Methodist ministers to withdraw their sanction and approbation of Know Nothingism, you say:

"I therefore call upon them this day to come out of these lodges, and never return to them: at all events, never return to them until all secrecy , all their bits of red paper, (indicating blood , even by the selection of color,) all their signs and signals, are utterly abolished and dispensed with. I call upon them to do this, and to do it forthwith – by their hopes of heaven – by their obedience to the word of God – by their allegiance to the Constitution and laws of their country – to come out from any party which has adopted a mode and plan of organization so fatal to the peace of society, and the progress of true religion."

What egotism! You call upon them! You make a freer use of the personal pronoun I , than even old Parson Longstreet, the Know Nothing slayer of Mississippi. To parse your different sentences syntactically, nothing else is necessary but to understand the first person singular, and to repeat the rule. Not only your verbiage but your sentiment is thus egotistic throughout!

Your appeal to the ministers to come out of this organization, on the ground of its secrecy , is a species of demagoguism, the more disgusting when it is considered that you are a Free Mason , and have, by all the arts and blandishment of your nature, sought to induce ministers to go into that organization. But, then, there is no violation of law or the Constitution in Masonry – "fatal to the peace of society and to the progress of true religion" – no, nothing! Understand me: I am not opposed to Masonry.

On this subject of the Romish creed, which you excuse, and even advocate , you admit that there are " alleged abuses," which have prompted the Protestant Churches to unite themselves with this new Order! Then you insultingly tell these Churches this tale:

"But they ought to have remembered, that even a virtuous indignation can never justify proscription and persecution : these bring no remedy to the real or supposed evils, but are sure to increase and aggravate them. These errors in faith, and abominations in practice, if they really exist, were known to the Wesleys, and Cokes, and Asburys, who founded your Church: to the Lees, the Bruces, the Capers, the Logan Douglasses, the Summerfields, and the Bascoms, who subsequently extended and adorned it. But they never proposed to kindle, in this enlightened age of Christianity, the consuming fires of religious persecution."

Now, sir, every distinguished "founder" of the Methodist Church you have named, from Wesley to Bascom, has written and preached against the "errors in faith, and abominations in practice," of the Romish Church, and they each and all have taken this very ground upon the religious issues. I have heard three of these men preach, and I am familiar with the writings of the rest, and know whereof I speak.

You intentionally deceive and misrepresent the American party, when you charge that they seek to proscribe one class of our citizens – that they desire to interfere with the rights of conscience – and to say how men should worship God. Why don't you inform your readers that Archbishop Hughes, and other Catholic Bishops, were the first to introduce religion into political discussion in this country? This would not suit your purposes – it suits your objects, taste, and inclination better, to slander the American party by wholesale, and to charge upon its members the atrocities committed by your foreign and pauper allies. We only choose to vote against them, and to vote for American-born citizens and Protestants: which is as much our right , as it is the right of these foreign Catholics to vote against and proscribe American Protestants. For this, you and your villainous associates exhaust the whole vocabulary of Billingsgate upon the American party. What is their offence? Why, they simply place certain questions before persons desiring to act with them, which they think, at least, may affect the national welfare, and before the people of the Union, and ask their opinion of these questions at the ballot-box. The American party has always denied, and I again reiterate the denial, that we do, at all proscribe, or in any way interfere with, any class of our foreign citizens, save that we propose to send convicts from European prisons back to their own native and infamous dens, as fast as they land here – but these are not citizens of ours. I appeal to our Platform, and our Book of Constitutions, and I offer to any man a handsome reward – any man who will produce in either a statement containing the proscription you falsely charge against us. I now say, Gov. Brown, either do this, or cease your empty vaporing against the proscriptive features of our system, as you are pleased to style it. You declaim most lustily in favor of religious liberty for Catholics, which you know we do not propose as a party to interfere with; and this you plead for at the altar of Methodist "Bishops, Elders, and other Ministers," who know there is no religious liberty for Protestants where Catholics have the power to prevent it! You plead in the most plaintive tones for the rights of foreign Catholics to be sworn into good citizens in less than one year after they land here, but do not seem to remember the American Protestant wives and children, who have to subsist on charity during our severe winters, in consequence of their husbands and fathers being elbowed out of employment by the competition of foreign pauper laborers!

Sir, the American party, if in power, would put a stop to that proscription from office that has always characterized the party with which you act, and which has made the present Administration so very and so justly odious to the country. Proscription, indeed! Was there ever such glaring and actual proscription for the sake of religious and political creeds committed as by the present Administration? The infamous Sag Nicht party with which you act, and of which you are a leader and a High Priest, though the "son of a now sainted father," has applied the political guillotine to almost every man in office who has dared to differ with them in their high estimate of foreign paupers and Catholic vagabonds, in many instances turning out native-born Protestants, and filling their places with foreign Catholics. And yet, with a degree of effrontery that throws the Devil far into the shade, you turn round and charge the American party with proscription, and ask the "Bishops, Elders, and other Ministers," of the Methodist Church, "by their hopes of heaven – by their obedience to the word of God – and by their allegiance to the Constitution and laws of their country," to come out from a party so proscriptive! Why, sir, you out-Herod old Herod himself! Your teachings contrasted with your practice, would cause a crimsoned negative to settle on the cheeks of old Pilate! And still you are the "son of a now sainted father" – you "approve" the "creed" of Methodism, and have "witnessed its growth and prosperity for years, with the highest satisfaction!"

You quote from the Declaration of Independence, to show that toleration should be extended to Catholics and foreigners, and then insultingly add, as if you supposed no Methodist minister had ever perused the writings of Mr. Jefferson:

"These are the words of Mr. Jefferson, but the immortal sentiment springs directly from the word of the living and true God. No: persecution at the stake, or by exclusion of Catholics from office, is not the weapon to be wielded by the Protestant Churches."

You know that the notes of warning given to his countrymen by the sage of Monticello, and the great APOSTLE of American Democracy, are in harmony with the doctrines of the Know Nothing party. But you choose to conceal this fact from the "Bishops, Elders, and other Ministers" of the Methodist Church, in the vain hope that their numerous pressing and official engagements will not allow them time to look up the documents. In Mr. Jefferson's Notes on Virginia, written in 1781, and published in 1794, pages 124-5, I find the following Know Nothing doctrine :