that they should be deprived of the benefit of an education which the money of their parents contributed to provide; he would ask them if it were just that these children should come here with bare feet, during inclement weather-and why bare feet? because the money had been expended in books, which should have purchased them shoes. The Legislature did not intend that they should be thus excluded from the benefits of this system; nor yet that the children of the poor emigrant should not participate in it, for they are poor, and for the poor in an especial manner was it intended, that they might become good citizens. They, then, were the victims of a system which was so perverted that they could not, without sacrificing their consciences, send their children to participate in its benefits, for which they had, in common with other citizens, subscribed the funds.

Now, with this outline of the case, which he should be glad to see in print and sent abroad to justify their course, he came to the remedy; for he did not suppose they would present themselves to the constituted authorities and demand this money, unless they could show it was right. They did not ask a favor; but, according to sound judgment, a public right, to which they were entitled. Nor was it expedient that those in power should grant that which the Catholics demanded, until they had shown them some good and sound reason, and its justice and propriety; and, therefore, he was glad that their grievances were laid before the whole land and were not confined to that room. They must seize the public attention, and if their just claim was still denied, then let it be branded on the flag of America that Catholics were denied and deprived of equal rights. [Applause.] It appeared, from the history of their proceedings before his arrival, that difficulties had been thrown in their way most inexpediently, most injudiciously, and he might use a harsher expression still in respect to the sentiments put forth in relation to their agitation against the abominable system which excludes all Christianity, but does no good. That anybody calling himself a Catholic could have used such language was indeed surprising; and they could only suppose that such an individual did not know his religion or what this Common School System was. But let that pass. There had been another difficulty-that those to whom the law entrusted the disposition of this money were not the persons by whom it was originally recommended. It might happen, in some cases, that those not in power should be ready to recommend a measure with the hope that they might embarrass others. Now, in matters of this kind, reflecting men would not regret a benefit because those recommended it who were not usually of their own way of thinking. It reminded him of a man who should be without his breakfast till about eleven o'clock, and is then recommended by his enemy to take it; but, says another, "You know I have ever been your friend, while he has been your enemy, and I recommend you to wait." After listening to both advisers. the man says: "In the first place, have I the right to my breakfast? If so,

it is no matter who recommends it. It is not because this man or that man recommends it, but because I have the right to it, that I will take it. In addition, it is near twelve o'clock, and I feel hungry; and no doubt, after taking it, I shall feel better. Independently, then, of your advice-and you both wish me well-I have reasons of my own for eating my breakfast, with which I hope you will be satisfied." And so it was on this Common School Question. It was very silly to bring such reasons here as had been stated, and he hoped they were now excluded.

He feared he was taxing their patience and employing the time that would be more usefully employed by others, and therefore he would conclude with the remark, that they must bear in mind they were not to accomplish this work in a day. They would have to speak to those by whom they expected justice to be done them; they would have to diffuse light, for there were in the country public men of high honor and good feeling of all parties-men who really wished to be just; and if others were mere trading politicians, he hoped they would be mindful of that old adage, which was as true here as elsewhere, "Honesty is the best policy;" and if they wanted to be successful politicians, their course was to be honest politicians. He was aware that even where politicians were not honest, from Maine to Georgia, their policy was to appear so; but there were men independent of this class that were men of generous minds and pure motives, who sympathized with the people and were watchful of the interests of the country, and who would grant the justice to which Catholics were entitled, and drive out from this system that sectarianism which its professed friends say does not exist in it. In order, then, to proceed in the way which cases of the kind require, he would suggest the adoption of the fol lowing preamble and resolutions:

Whereas, The wisdom and liberality of the Legislature of this State did provide, at the public expense, for the education of the poor children of the State without injury or detriment to the civil and religious rights vested in their parents or guardians by the laws of nature and of the land: And, whereas, Catholics contribute and have always contributed their proportion to the funds from which that system is supported: And, whereas, the administration of that system, as now conducted, is such that the parents or guardians of Catholic children cannot allow them to frequent such schools without doing violence to those rights of conscience which the Constitution secures equal and inviolable to all citizens, viz.: They cannot allow their children to be brought up under a system which proposes to shut the door against Christianity, under the pretext of excluding sectarianism, and which yet has not the merit of being true to its bad promise: And, whereas, Catholics who are the least wealthy and most in need of the education intended by the bounty of the State, are thus cut off from the benefit of funds to which they are obliged to contribute, and constrained either to contribute new funds for the purposes of education among themselves, or else to see their

children brought up under a system of free-thinking and practical irreligion, or else see them left to that ignorance which they dread, and which it was the benevolent and wise intention of the Legislature to remove. Therefore,

1. Resolved, That the operation of the Common School System, as the same is now administered, is a violation of our civil and religious rights.

2. Resolved, That we should not be worthy of our proud distinction as Americans and American citizens, if we did not resist such invasion by every lawful means in our power.

3. Resolved, That in seeking the redress of our grievances, we have confidence in our rulers, more especially as by granting that redress they will but carry out the principles of the Constitution, which secures equal civil and religious rights to all.

4. Resolved, That a committee of eight be appointed to prepare and report an address to the Catholic community and the public at large, on the injustice which is done to the Catholics, in their civil and religious rights by the present operation of the Common School System.

5. Resolved, That a committee of three be appointed to prepare a report on the public moneys which have been expended by the bounty of this State for education, both in Colleges and in Common Schools, to which Catholics have contributed their proportion of taxes like other citizens, but from which they have never received any benefit.

The resolutions having been unanimously adopted collectively, the committees designated in the resolutions were then appointed by the chairman, as follows: Rt. Rev. Bishop Hughes, James W. McKeon, Thomas O'Connor, Dr. Sweeney, James W. White, James Kelley, Gregory Dillon, B. O'Connor, John McLoughlin: C. F. Grim, James W. McKeon.

ADDRESS

OF THE CATHOLICS TO THEIR FELLOW CITIZENS OF THE CITY AND STATE OF NEW YORK.

Speech of Right Rev. Bishop Hughes.

A GENERAL meeting of the Catholics of New York was held in the basement of St. James' Church, James street, on Monday, August 10, 1840, on the subject of Common School Education, and the claim of the Catholics to a portion of the Common School Fund. The meeting was very numerously attended. Thomas O'Connor, Esq., was again called to the chair, and the secretaries of the previons meetings were also re-elected.

The Right Reverend Bishop Hughes, having entered the room. accompanied by a numerous body of the clergy, was received with enthusiastic plaudits. He then, as the chairman of the committee appointed by the last meeting to prepare an address to the public on the subject which those meetings were convened to discuss, came forward and said, the object they had in view, in drafting and adopting a report, was that the public at large might be informed of the nature of their pretensions, and of the grievances of which they complained, in order that if there were in the public a sympathetic response to their cry for justice, it might come forth. For himself he had but little doubt of the issue, for he had great confidence in the public justice. And whatever might be the conduct of the editors of the daily journals, and of others who were but obscurely informed, or who,but darkly understood the nature of their position, he still hoped that when they comprehended thoroughly the ground on which Catholics stood, they would not persevere in the course of which their venerable chairman so justly complained. [Applause.] With the permission of the meeting, he would then read the draft of the report which was about to be submitted to them. The Right Reverend Prelate then read the following address, which was received with responsive cheers throughout:

ADDRESS

Of the Roman Catholics, to their Fellow Citizens of the City and State of New York.

FELLOW CITIZENS:

We, the Roman Catholics of the City of New York, feeling that both our civil and religious rights are abridged and injuriously affected by the operation of the Common School System, and by the construction which the Common Council have lately put on the laws authorizing that system, beg leave to state our grievances, with the deepest confidence in the justice of the American character; that if our complaints are well founded, you will assist us in obtaining the redress to which we are entitled-if they are not well founded, we are ready to abandon them.

We are Americans and American citizens. If some of us are foreigners, it is only by the accident of birth. As citizens, our ambition is to be Americans—and if we cannot be so by birth, we are so by choice and preference, which we deem an equal evidence of our affection and attachment to the Laws and Constitution of the country. But our children, for whose rights as well as our own we contend in this matter, are Americans by nativity. So that we are either, like yourselves, natives of the soil, or, like your fathers from the Eastern world, have become Americans under the sanction of the Constitution, by the birthright of selection and preference.

We hold, therefore, the same idea of our rights that you hold of

yours. We wish not to diminish yours, but only to secure and enjoy our own. Neither have we the slightest suspicion that you would wish us to be deprived of any privilege, which you claim for yourselves. If then we have suffered by the operation of the Common School System in the City of New York, it is to be imputed rather to our own supineness, than to any wish on your part that we should be aggrieved.

The intention of the Legislature of this State in appropriating public funds for the purposes of popular schools, must have been (whatever construction the lawyers of the Common Council put upon it) to diffuse the blessings of education among the people, without encroachment on the civil and religious rights of the citizens. It was, it must have been, to have implanted in the minds of youth, principles of knowledge and virtue, which would secure to the State a future population of enlightened and virtuous, instead of ignorant and vicious members.

This was certainly their general intention, and no other would have justified their bountiful appropriation of the public funds. But in carrying out the measure, this patriotic and wise intention has been lost sight of; and in the City of New York, at least, under the late arbitrary determination of the present Common Council, such intention of the legislature is not only disregarded, but the high public ends to which it was directed, are manifestly being defeated. Here knowledge, according to the late decision, mere secular knowledge, is what we are to understand by education, in the sense of the legislature of New York. And if you should allow the smallest ray of religion to enter the school-room; if you should teach the children that there is an eye that sees every wicked thought, that there is a God, a state of rewards and punishment beyond this life; then, according to the decision of the Common Council, you forfeit all claim to the bounty of the State, although your scholars should have become as learned as Newton, or wise as Socrates. Is then, we would ask you, fellow citizens, a practical rejection of the Christian religion in all its forms, and without the substitution of any other, the basis on which you would form the principles and character of the future citizens of this great Commonwealth? Are the meek lessons of religion, and virtue, which pass from the mother's lips into the heart of her child, to be chilled and frozen by icy contact with a system of education thus interpreted?

Is enlightened villainy so precious in the public eye, that science is to be cultivated whilst virtue is neglected, and religion, its only adequate groundwork, is formally and authoritatively proscribed? Is it your wish that vice should thus be elevated from its low and natural companionship with ignorance, and be married to knowledge imparted at the public expense?

We do not say that even the Common Council profess to require that the Christian religion should be excluded from the Common Schools. They only contend that the inculcation of each or any of its doctrines would be sectarianism, and thus lest sectarianism