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JUDGE GAYLE, of Alabama, formerly a Whig member of Congress, and a prominent man in his State and elsewhere, has written an able letter to some of his personal friends, from which we make the following extracts, bearing upon the political topics of the day. After considering and endorsing the platform of the American party as maintaining the great principles of free government, he gives reasons which ought to commend his views to all good citizens.

This remarkable party was formed some eighteen months since, to correct the flagrant abuses which had crept into public affairs, and which threatened the most serious consequences to the union of the States and the government. The arts of demagogues, and the corrupt practices of the two great parties of the country, had trained the public mind to regard with indifference, if not with approbation, the advancement of men without merit to the high and responsible trusts of the government, which had hitherto been reserved as the reward of experience, of wisdom, of tried patriotism, and of elevated and enlightened statesmanship.

Each of these parties professed to have some good principles, it is true, but all observing men witnessed, with disgust, the total disregard and abandonment of these principles in disgraceful and revolting scrambles for office.

The extraordinary increase of the foreign population had been witnessed with concern by all considerate Americans. Tides of immigration had wafted to our shores, in almost countless numbers, the people of all nations and all countries -of all grades, classes, and conditions--from the haughty Briton to the grovelling, besotted Chinaman; from the high-toned, educated gentleman, to the ignorant serf and convicted felon: all demanding and all alike admitted (none are

ever rejected) to the privileges of the ballot-box, thereby filling our halls of legislation with men of their own choice, and exerting a commanding influence in the passage of laws for the government of this American country of ours.

They had seen these people occupying, as they are constantly doing, extensive districts of country in large communities to themselves—having but little intercourse with our citizens, without which they can never acquire the true American impression of our government, or imbibe the true spirit of our laws. They had seen them form separate societies and associations, and organizing into large military bodies, to the exclusion of our people, showing an aversion to incorporate with them, or to assume the American character, and evincing a preference for the manners, habits, customs, and institutions of their respective nations.

They had seen them convene in large political assemblies, and with characteristic arrogance demand changes in our constitution and laws to suit the peculiar views in which they had been trained and educated from infancy.

And above all, and worse than all, they had witnessed the degradation of the country in our national legislature, by the passage of laws conferring upon unnaturalized foreigners the full right of suffrage in the territories, and all the other rights, privileges, and immunities which form the priceless heritage of the native-born citizen, in total disregard of the Constitution, which confers on Congress the power to pass uniform naturalization laws only.

The allegiance of these aliens is wholly due to the crowned heads of the countries from which they emigrated. They have no right to claim the protection of our government, or to petition for a redress of grievances. In case of war with the nations to which they belong, as alien enemies, they would be liable to be seized under the laws of Congress, to have their goods confiscated, and themselves imprisoned or sent out of the country. And yet it is upon these people, composed, as a large majorirty are known to be, of the vicious dregs of European society, that authority is conferred of controlling the ballot-box, and of exercising the high and responsible functions of our territorial governments. The right of suffrage has also been conferred on aliens in some of the States.

Now, if the foreign population has, at this early period of our history, acquired such commanding influence in our national and state legislatures, it requires no prophetic sagacity to predict that the day is not distant when they will control the destinies of this great republic.

This idea has strongly and universally impressed itself upon the public mind, and given rise to that truly noble and patriotic sentiment that "Americans shall rule America." This sentiment proclaims the existence of that intense American feeling and love of country which is a surer safeguard of our liberties than all our constitutions, and which can never more than partially animate the bosom of the foreigner, because nature has given him the same inspiration for his own native land.

The correction of these and other abuses, to the dangers of which no one can be indifferent, was the principal inducement to the formation of the American

party. They saw that they had their origin mainly if not entirely in our naturalization laws. A million and a half of American voters have banded together in one great political brotherhood to cause these laws to be repealed or modified; and roused and animated as they are by the feeling just stated, you can no more defeat them, in their purposes, than you can suppress the feeling itself.

The feature of this remarkable American party that has been deemed most assailable, and accordingly has been attacked with the greatest violence and rancor, is the secret or private character of its organization. Jacobin club, secret conspiracy, underground party, dark-lantern party, and such like epithets, have been unsparingly applied to it. These are very ugly names, intended to awaken popular prejudice, and to render an object hideous which is otherwise comely enough.

The party is composed of numerous societies or councils, dispersed through the country, and established at localities to suit the convenience of its members. These localities are made public, the times of meeting are made public, their membership is public, and, what is of more importance, the result of their deliberations is made public. These councils, or societies, to accomplish the great objects of their institution, went sedulously to work, and their joint efforts, in an incredibly short space of time, have enabled them to lay before the public, the great principles, to the support of which they stand pledged before the American people. Their consultations, as to the details of their platform, were necessarily private; but when their great work was done, they submitted it to public inspection, and if well done, the public will not take the trouble to inquire into the process by which it was accomplished.

The simple question is, are these private associations, formed for great public purposes, hostile in their tendency, as they are asserted to be, to the free institutions of our country, and to the true spirit of the Constitution?

The right of the people peaceably to meet together and to consult upon public affairs, whether their meetings are private or public, whether in the form of private societies or public assemblies, has never before been questioned in this country, even during periods of the highest political excitement and exasperation.

As evincive of the jealousy and apprehensions of the fathers of the republic, they classed the right of the people peaceably to assemble (privately or publicly and without restraint) with the right of petition, religious freedom, the freedom of speech and of the press, and in the first articles of the amendments of the Constitution, prohibited Congress from passing any law to abridge them in any manner whatever.

These have always been revered by the enlightened friends of free government, as among the great elements of human liberty, and it is to be regretted, that, without reflection it is hoped, they or any of them should be denounced by persons of standing and character, as hostile to our free institutions.

If there is truth in history, private political societies have ever proved them

selves the natural enemies of tyrants, and the natural and indispensable allies of republics. In despotisms they are resorted to by necessity, and in free governments through choice, as being more efficacious and convenient in compassing the objects proposed, whether they look to the improvements in government or to the correction of abuses. Since the accession of the house of Brunswick to the English throne in 1714, these private associations for all purposes, whether political, commercial, religious, or any other, have been of universal prevalence. They are so interwoven with the business of the people, in all its branches, that they have become a part of their social organization, and if any attempt were made to restrain them, a blaze would be kindled throughout England that it would be difficult to extinguish.

But of all countries in the world, they are most prevalent in the United States, especially those of a political character. They are the peculiar and exclusive machinery which have kept our political parties in motion during the entire period of our existence as a nation. This will be acknowledged by all, and denied by none. All the platforms that have ever been formed by these parties have been the result of private and secret meetings, of secret consultations and deliberations; and the mere matters of detail employed in their formation are never known, and never sought to be known, except at the instance of impertinent curiosity.

Pending our presidential elections, these societies are formed throughout the country under the name of clubs. They are as numerous as the cities, towns, villages, hamlets, and neighborhoods of the whole country, and all affiliated in a common brotherhood. The information of each is rapidly and secretly communicated to the others, and all their schemes, plans, and contemplated movements are as carefully withheld from the public as are the plans of hostile armies from each other. These periodical organizations are very much on the plan of those of the American party, and they are quite as secret in their character. No one has ever blamed or censured them for this, for it is obvious that without them success would be hopeless. It is therefore too late in the day to denounce private political associations, and anathemas come with a bad grace from those who invented, and have always resorted to them.

But the American party administer oaths to their members. This, in the opinion of its enemies, is very horrible, and the Billingsgate vocabulary is too meagre to supply appropriate epithets for its condemnation. It is, they say, anti-republican and anti-democratic. This accusation has been as inconsiderately made as that against the secret character of the order. If oaths are taken to bind men to a course of conduct that is moral, charitable, and benevolent in its purposes, or if they are taken to bind them to the support of the great principles of liberty as contained in the Constitution of the United States, such oaths cannot be regarded as either wicked, immoral, or unlawful. They are required to be taken by all public officers to support the Constitution, and it is not perceived that there is any thing wrong in requiring the members of a political party to come under the obligations of an oath to support the great princi

ples contained in the same instrument, such as the right of petition, the liberty of speech and of the press, the purity of the ballot-box, &c., which are among the cardinal principles of the new party, and it is devoutly wished that they may be faithfully maintained, even if it be by the instrumentality of oaths.

But it is said that the members are required to swear that they will be governed by the decisions of the majority, and particularly in the nominations of candidates for office. The answer to this is, that any member dissatisfied with any of the principles or regulations of the party is at liberty to withdraw from the order, and he becomes immediately released from any oath he may have taken.

The charge of religious proscription is not to be combated by argument or inferences. It is a fact to be determined by the platform itself. Conspicuous among the articles of that instrument is-" the protection of all citizens in the legal and proper exercise of their civil and religious rights and privileges, and the maintenance of the right of every man to the full, unrestrained, and peaceful enjoyment of his own religious opinions and worship."

Thus, gentlemen, you have my views and opinions briefly and hastily expressed, though deliberately formed, of the character, principles, and objects of the American party. They have been derived entirely from its own publications, and conversations with its members. I am not a member of the order, and have no connection with it beyond a lively sympathy in its efforts to establish and maintain the great conservative principles it has adopted. I am respectfully your obedient servant,

JOHN GAYLE.

II.

RELATIONS OF THE POPE TO THE CIVIL POWER.

Letter from O. A. Brownson.

BOSTON, Tuesday, June 12, 1855.

MY DEAR SIR: I have received this moment yours of the 7th instant, with its inclosure. I am a little at a loss to determine what course to take. There are no numbers of my Review wherein I have maintained the civil authority of the Pope in this country; but as there are several numbers in which I have discussed the relations of the two orders-temporal and spiritual-I think I shall, upon the whole, best answer your wishes by sending them. I will therefore order my publisher to send you all the numbers of 1853 and 1854.

You will find in the articles entitled the "Two Orders," January, 1855, "The Spiritual not for the Temporal," April, and "The Spiritual Supreme," July, of

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