CAMPAIGN OF 1855. DEMOCRATIC MEETING IN NORFOLK COUNTY IN THE FALL OF 1854.-HON. HENRY A. WISE'S LETTER UPON KNOW-NOTHINGISM. During the latter part of the summer of 1854, the newspapers of Virginia began to direct their attention to the gubernatorial canvass that was to come off in our state in the next year. Various prominent individuals were spoken of by their respective friends, when, in the early part of September 1854, the citizens of Norfolk county determined to hold a meeting and correspond with these distinguished gentlemen in order to obtain from them an expression of opinion in regard to the new party then said to be organizing in the state, under the cognomen of Know-Nothings. The committee of correspondence appointed by this meeting wrote to the following gentlemen, viz: Ex-Governor William Smith, Lieut. Governor S. F. Leake, Hon. John Letcher, Hon. James A. Seddon, and Hon. Henry A. Wise. All of these gentlemen very promptly answered, and all satisfactorily, with the exception of Ex-Gov. Smith. He answered after a long time, but evasively. Mr. Wise's answer was prompt, plain, satisfactory and elaborate. In his letter to this committee was recognized the true spirit of a southern republican and statesman. There was no document that appeared on the subject which bespoke so truly the sentiments of the Democratic party of Virginia in their utter detestation of secret political societies and religious intolerance. We give this masterly production an appropriate insertion in the beginning of this compilation: Dear Sir:-I now proceed to give you the reasons for the opinions I expressed in my letter of the 2nd instant, as fully as my leisure will permit: I said that I did not "think that the present state of affairs in this country is such as to justify the formation, by the people, of any Secret Political Society." The laws of the United States-federal and state laws-declare and defend the liberties of our people. They are free in every sense-free in the sense of Magna Charta and beyond Magna Charta; free by the surpass ing franchise of American Charters, which makes them Sovereign and their wills the sources of constitutions and laws. If the archbishop might say to King John, "Let every Briton, as his mind, be free; -we may say that our American Charters have more than confirmed these laws of the Confessor, and our people have given to them "as free, as full, and as sovereign a consent" as was ever given by John to the bishops and the barons, "at Runnimede, the field of freedom," to which it was said Britain's sons shall come, Shall tread where heroes and where patriots trod, In this country, at this time, does any man think anything? Would he think aloud? Would he speak anything? Would he write anything? His mind is free, his person is safe, his property is secure, his house is his castle, the spirit of the laws is his body-guard and his house-guard; the fate of one is the fate of all measured by the same common rule of right; his voice is heard and felt in the general suffrage of freemen; his trial is in open court, confronted by witnesses and accusers; his prison house has no secrets, and he has the judgment of his peers; and there is nought to make him afraid, so long as he respects the rights of his equals in the eye of the law. Would he propagate Truth?-Truth is free to combat Error. Would he propagate Error?-Error itself may stalk abroad and do her mischief and make night itself grow darker, provided Truth is left free to follow, however slowly, with her torches to light up the wreck! Why, then, should any portion of the people desire to retire in secret, and by secret means to propagate a political thought, or word, or deed, by stealth? Why band together, exclusive of others, to do something which all may not know of, towards some political end? If it be good, why not make the good known? Why not think it, speak it, write it, act it out openly and aloud? Or, is it evil, which loveth darkness rather than light? When there is no necessity to justify a secret association for political ends, what else can justify it? A caucus may sit in secret to consult on the general policy of a great public party. That may be necessary or convenient; but that even is reprehensible, if carried too far. But here is proposed a great primary, national organization, in its inceptionWhat? Nobody knows. To do what? Nobody knows. How organized? Nobody knows. Governed by whom? Nobody knows. How bound? By what rites? By what test oaths? With what limitations and restraints? Nobody, nobody knows!!! All we know is, that persons of foreign birth and of Catholic faith are proscribed, and so are all others who don't proscribe them at the polls. This is certainly against the spirit of Magna Charta. Such is our condition of freedom at home, showing no necessity for such a secret organization and its antagonism to the very basis of American rights. And our comparative native and Protestant strength at home repels the plea of such necessity still more. The statistics of immigration show that from 1820 to 1st January, 1853, inclusive, for 32 years and more, 3,204,848 foreigners arrived in the United States, at the average rate of 100,151 per annum; that the number of persons of foreign birth now in the United States is 2,210,839; that the number of natives, whites, is 17,737,578, and of persons whose nativity is "unknown," is 39,154. (Quere, by the by:--What will "Know-Nothings" do with the "unknown?") The number of natives to persons of foreign birth in the United States, is as 8 to 1, and the most of the latter, of course, are naturalized. In Virginia the whole number of white natives is 813,891, of persons born out of the State and in the United States, 57,502, making a total of natives of 871,393; and the number of persons born in foreign countries, is 22,953. So that in Virginia the number of natives is to the number of persons born in foreign countries, nearly as 38 to 1. Again-the churches of the United States provide accommodations for 14,234,825 votaries; the Roman Catholics for but 667,823; the number of votaries in the Protestant to the number in the Roman Catholic in the United States, as 21 to 1. In Virginia the whole number is 856,436, the Roman Catholics 7,930, or 108 to 1. The number of churches in the United States is 38,061, of Catholic churches 1,221; more tnan 31 to 1 are Protestant. In Virginia the number of churches is 2,383, of Catholic churches is 17; more than 140 to 1. The whole value of church property in the United States is $87,328,801, of Catholic church property is $9,256,758, or 9 to 1. In Virginia the whole value of church property is $2,856,076; of Catholic church property, $126,100, or 22 to 1. In the United States there are four Protestant sects, either of which is larger than the Catholics: In Virginia there are five Protestant sects, either of which is larger than the number of Catholics in the State. In Virginia, as 108 to 1 The number of Protestant churches is to the number of Catholic In the United States, as 31 to 1 In Virginia, as 140 to 1 In Virginia, as 9 to 1 22 to 1 The value of Protestant church property in the United States, is to the value of Cath olic church property as There are four Protestant sects, each of which is larger than the Catholic, in the United States, and the aggregate of which exceeds the Catholic by a majority of 9,804,250 votaries, and, adding one sect smaller, by a majority of 10,447,848. In Virginia there are five Protestant sects, each larger than the number of Catholics in the state, and the aggregate of which exceeds the Catholics by a majority of 765,426 votaries. Now, what has such a majority of numbers, and of wealth of natives and of Protestants, to fear from such minorities of Catholics and naturalized citizens? What is the necessity for this master majority to resort to secret organization against such a minority? I put it fairly: Would they organize at all against the Catholics and naturalized citizens, if the Catholics and naturalized citizens were in the like majority of numbers and of wealth, or if majorities and minorities were reversed? To retire in secret with such a majority, does it not confess to something which dares not subject itself to the scrutiny of knowledge, and would have discussion Know-Nothing of its designs and operations and ends? Cannot the Know-Nothings trust to the leading Protestant churches to defend themselves and the souls of all the saints, and sinners too, against the influence of Catholics? Can't they trust to the patriotism and fraternity of natives to guard the land against immigrants? In defence of the reat American Protestant churches, I venture to say in their behalf, that the Pope, and all his priests combined, are not more zealous and watchful in their master's work, or in the work for the mastery, than are our Episcopal, Presbyterian, Baptist, Methodist, Lutheran, and Congregational clergy. They are, as a whole church militant, with their armor bright; they are zealous, they are jealous, they are watchful, they are organized, embodied, however divided by sectarianism, yet banded together against Papacy, and learned and active, and politic too as any brotherhood of monks. They need no such political organization to defend the faith. Are they united in it? Do they favor or countenance it among their flocks? To what end? In the name of their religion, I ask them-Why not rely on God? And do the Know-Nothings imagine that the pride and love of country are so dead in native hearts, that secret organizations are necessary to beget a new-born patriotism to protect us from foreign influence? Now, in defence of our people, I say for them that no people upon earth are more possessed with nationality as a strong passion than the freemen of the United States of North America. Nowhere is the filial and domestic tie stronger, nowhere is the tie of kinship more binding, nowhere is there more amor loci -the love of home, which is the surest foundation of the love of countrynowhere is any country's romance of history more felt, nowhere are the social relations on a better moral foundation, nowhere is there as clear identity of parentage and offspring, nowhere are sons and daughters so educated to liberty," nowhere have any people such certainty of the knowledge of the reward of vigilance, nowhere have they such freedom of self-government, nowhere is there such trained hatred of kings, lords and aristocracies, nowhere is there more self-independence, or more independence of the Old World or its traditions-in a word, nowhere is there a country whose people have, by birthright, a tithe of what our people have to make them love that land which is their country, and that spot which is their home! I am an American, a Virginian! Prouder than ever to have said, "I am a Roman citizen!" So far from Brother Jonathan wanting a national feeling, he is justly suspected abroad of a little too much pride and bigotry of country. The revolution and the last war with Great Britatn, tried us, and the late conquest of Mexico found us not wanting in the sentimentality of nationalism. Though so young, we have already a dialect and a mannerism, and our customs and our costume. A city dandy may have his coat cut in Paris, but he would fight a Frenchman in the cloth of his country as quick to-day as a Marion man ever pulled the trigger of a Tower musket against a redcoat Englishman in '76. And peace has tried our patriotism more than war. What people have more reason to love a country from the labor they have bestowed upon its development by the arts of industry? No: as long as the memory of George Washington lives, as long as there shall be a 22d of February and a 4th of July, as long as the everlasting mountains of this continent stand, and our Father of Waters flows, there will be fathers to hand down the stories which make our hearts to glow, and mothers to sing "Hail Columbia" to their babes-and that song is not yet stale. There is no need to revive a sinking patriotism in the hearts of our people. And who would have them be selfish in their freedom? Freedom! Liberty! selfish and exclusive! Never; for it consumeth not in its use, but is like fire in magnifying, by imparting its sparks and its rays of light and of heat. Is there any necessity from abroad for such secret political organizations? Against whom, and against what, is it levelled? Against foreigners by birth. When we were as weak as three millions, we relied largely on foreigners by birth to defend us and aid us in securing independence. Now that we are twenty-two millions strong, how is it we have become so weak in our fears as to apprehend we are to be deprived of our liberties by foreigners? Verily, this seemeth as if Know-Nothings were reversing the order of things, or that there is another and a different feeling from that of the fear arising from a sense of weakness. It comes rather from a proud consciousness of over-weening strength. They wax strong rather, and would kick, like the proud grown fat. It is an exclusive, if not an aristocratic feeling in the true sense, which would say to the friends of freedom born abroad: "We had need of you and were glad of your aid when we were weak, but we are now so independent of you that we are not compelled to allow you to enjoy our Republican privileges. We desire the exclusive use of human rights, though to deprive you of their common enjoyment will not enrich us the more and will make you 'poor indeed!'" But not only is it levelled against foreigners by birth, but against the Pope of Rome. There was once a time when the very name of Papa frightened us as the children of a nursery. But, now, now! who can be frightened by the temporal or ecclesiastical authority of Pius IX? Has he got back to Rome from his late excursion? Who are his body-guard there? Have the lips of a crowned head kissed his big toe for a century? Are any so poor as to do his Italian crown any reverence? Do not two Catholic powers, France and Austria, hold all his dominions in a detestable dependency? What army, what revenue, what diplomacy, what church domination in even the Catholic countries of the old or the new world has he? Why, the idea of the Pope's influenee at this day is as preposterous as that of a gunpowder plot. I would as soon think of dreading the ghost of Guy Fawkes. No, there is no necessity, from either oppression or weakness of Protestants or natives. They are both free and strong; and do they now, because |