Full text of "Civil and religious equality : an oration delivered at the fourth commemoration of the landing of the pilgrims at Maryland ..."

See other formats

P 184
.C4
Copy 2

THE

FOURTH CELEBRATION

LANDING OF THE PILGRIMS

OF MARYLAND.

O I^ -A. T I o 3sr

BY HON. JOSEPH R. CHANDLER.

CIVIL .A. KT ID E, EXi I C3-I O XJ S E Gi XJ -A. L I T "^ .

AN ORATION

DELIVERED AT THE
OF THE

LANDIiG OF THE PILGRIMS OF MARYLia

CELEBRATED MAY 15, 1855.

UNDER THE AUSPICES OF THE

01-

By Hon. JOSEPH R. CHANDLER,

A MEMBER OF THE SOCIETT.
TO WHICH IS PREFIXED A NOTICE OF THE PROCEEDINGS AT THE CELEBRATION.

" I will make no difference of persons in conferring offices, favors or rewards for, or in respect of
Eeligion." — Oath of office of the first Governor of Maryland.

"No religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under
the United States." — Constitution of the United States.

PHILADELPHIA:

J. B. CHANDLER, PRINTER, 123 CHESTNUT STREET, THIRD STORY.

1855.

Georgetown, D. C, May 21, 1855.
To THE Hon. J. R. Chandler,

Dear Sir : — At a late meeting of the Philodemic Society of Georgetown College,
the undersigned were instructed to extend to you the sincere thanks and un-
qualified congratulations of the Society, upon the distinguished manner in
which you represented them, as well as the cause of civil and religious liberty,
at the celebration of the landing of the Maryland Pilgrims, and, also, to express
the hope that you will allow the address delivered on that occasion to be pub-
lished. The undersigned take great pleasure in having the present opportunity
of expressing to you, personally, their high esteem and kind regards.

Your most obedient servants,

HENRY BAWTREE,
R. C. CAMP,
SCOTT B. SMITH.

Committee of Corresjjondence.

Philadelphia, Mmj 25, 1855.

Gentlemen : —

The address which I had the honor to deliver, at the request of the Philodemic
Society, at the celebration of the Landing of the Maryland Pilgrims, is placed
at your disposal, with my grateful acknowledgments of the courtesies of the
members of the Society, and the kind manner in which you have conveyed to me
their sentiments.

I have the honor to be,

With great respect.

Your obedient servant,

JOS. R. CHANDLER.

To Messrs. Heney Bawtkee,
R. C. Combs,
Scott B. Smith,

Committee of Correspondence of the

Philodemic Society of Georgetown College.

ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION

OF THE

LANDING OF THE PILGRIMS OF MARYLAND,

AT THE SITE OF ST. MARY'S CITY,

It was a beautiful thought, and does honor to those who entertained
it and gave it utterance, and finally put it into practice, to make a
public celebration of the " Landing of the Pilgrims of Maryland."
The commemoration of sacrifices for truth, is a perpetuation of reverence
and love for truth; and since "the glory of the children are their fathers,"
those who perpetuate the good fame of their ancestors, keep alive the
means of their own honor.

It was intended to present an interesting statement of all the proceed-
ings at the great celebration, of which this is only a memorial, not only
on account of the importance of such a festival, but also from the fact
that the fourth celebration, that which we now record, was, from seve-
ral circumstances, shared in and honored by a much larger number of
persons of both sexes and all conditions, than had assisted at any pre-
ceding commemoration of the Landing of the Pilgrims ; and let it be
recorded with gratitude to God, and honor to all, that persons of all
creeds were present, and participated in the general sentiment of
reverence for those who, by theory and practice, recommended civil
and religious equality.

The members of the Philodemic Society of Georgetown (D. C.)
College, who have made it a part of the objects and duties of their Asso-
ciation to hold a triennial celebration of the Landing of the Pilgrims,
had, with their customary forethought, made all provisions for the
interesting ceremonies at St. Mary's, having the hearty co-operation
and liberal contribution of the people of that vicinity; and on the
afternoon of the 14th, the Philodemics and the Young Catholic Society
of Washington, and other societies and numerous citizens of the Dis-
trict of Columbia and the adjacent parts of Maiyland and Virginia,
set forth for the place of celebration, having two steamboats well loaded
with those who were Pilgrims to the shrine where their fathers found
a home, and their religion had made a sanctuary. Among those on board
the steamer, besides the members of societies, were the Rev. Father
Stonestreet, Superior of the Order of Jesuits; the Rev. Father
Maguire, President of Georgetown College, and a great number of
other clergymen, professors in that institution. With them were the
Rev. John Donelan, of Piscataway, and the Rev. James D. Donelan, of
St. Matthew's Church, Washington. D. C.

The weather was providentially all that the most fastidious could ask
in such a climate, and men, women, and children seemed to do all
they could to make delightful the celebration to each other. Provi-
dence blest those efforts, by making it most interesting and gratifying
to all ; compensating those who had most laboriously ministered to the
success of the occasion, by evidences of the appreciation of their efforts
by othere, and a consciousness of duties well discharged.

The few pages which we can give to the account of the proceedings
of the day, would not suffice to record all the interesting occurrences ;
and a volume would be too small to portray the beautiful scenes,
the interesting groups, and the felicitations of old and long-parted
friends meeting, under such delightful circumstances as that day pre-
sented. Enlarged generous feelings were in active operation ; men
thought of the glory of their ancestry, and recalled with pride the
prominent features of that policy which distinguished the government
of the first settlers of St, Mary's county, and has become a part of the
inheritance of the State, and the principles of our National Government.

No peculiarity of creed was necessary to a Marylander, to enjoy pro-
perly a celebration of such a character and of events and principles such

as those commemorated. Accordingly, tliere were seen distinguislicd
men of various creeds, and of all republican political distinctions. Each
felt that by his presence there, he was doing honor not merely to the
memory of Lord Baltimoi'e, of Calvert and his followers, but he was
celebrating the adoption of the principles of civil and religious equality,
the rightful inheritance of every citizen of this country, of whatever
political creed or religious denomination. Piety and patriotism, Chris-
tian charity and active philanthropy, found exercise and gratification
in this beautiful festival.

The number of the company and the enjoyment of the festivity, were
greatly augmented by the contributions from the city of Baltimore ; and
as the proceedings of the day were ably and graphically reported for
the Daily American, of that city, we copy from that paper additional
details : —

THE BALTIMORE EXCURSIONISTS,

" The fine steamer Georgia, Captain Pearson, of the Norfolk Line, was
engaged by the Committee of Arrangement, appointed by the Catholic
Institute and the Young Catholic's Friend Society, under whose super-
intendence the Baltimore division of the celebration took place, and
Monday, 6 P. M., was appointed for her departure. Before that hour
a large company, rising two hundred in number, had assembled on
board, and in the interchange of friendly salutations and the bustle of
departure anticipated the enjoyment expected to be derived from the
excursion. Among those on board were Archbishop Kenrick, Bishop
Whelan of Wheeling ; Bishop Young of Erie ', Rev. Mr. Cochran, and
Rev. Dr. Lynch, of Charleston, and a number of the Roman Catholic
clergy of the city, together with ex-Governor Lowe, Judges Legrand
and Howard, of the Maryland Court of Appeals, and a number of well
known and highly esteemed citizens. A small company of ladies also
gave their welcome countenance to the excursionists, and added by
their presence to the general pleasure. Amidst the music of Lien-
hardt's band, the rattling crack of a small swivel, which became well
known for its noisy qualities before the party returned, the boat left the
wharf and as the evening pleasantly closed, passed down the river. A
spirit of sociability and kind feeling prevailed among the whole com-

jDauy, and had the immediate effect of disposing all to unite in increas-
ing the general stock of pleasure to be derived from the trip. The
promenade performance of the band, vocal music from different ama-
teurs, and the more quiet enjoyments of conversation, held their dif-
ferent votaries scattered throughout the boat, until as the night
advanced the company sank into partial quiet, and sought rest in the
spacious cabins of the boat, where arrangements for their accommoda-
tion had been made.

THE KENDEZVOUS AT PINEY POINT.

Four o'clock on Wednesday morning found the boat at anchor off
Piuey Point, and as daylight dawned we perceived that the steamers
George Washington and Powhatan, from Washington, and the Planter,
from the Patuxent, were already at the Point, with the excursionists,
who were to proceed with ourselves to the celebration. Between six
and seven o'clock the boats got up steam and moved for St. Inigoes,
which was the point for the religious observances of the day. The
morning was a beautiful one, and the broad Potomac, glancing in the
rays of the early suulight, presented a scene of surpassing beauty, to
which the simultaneous movements of the gaily decked and thronged
steamers gave an added charm. Amid the music of the bands, and a
morning salute from the Baltimore boat, the fleet moved down the
Potomac and soon turned into St. Mary's river. The quaint old wind-
mill, and the yet more quaint old house at St. Inigoes was soon in
sight, and entering St. Inigoes Bay the landing of the company was in
a short time effected, without any more serious contretemps than the
accidental ducking of some half dozen gentlemen, who endured their
misadventure with a good humor that even the laughter of their asso-
ciates could not rufile, and the whole company soon gathered on the
shore. An interchange of civilities with those who had come down in
the other boats followed.

THE RELIGIOUS OBSERVANCES.

Shortly after landing, the various Societies were formed in line, and
with banners displayed and music playing, luarched to the Church of

St. Inigoes, where the religious portion of the observances were to
take place. The company was here joined by Mr. Chandler, the orator
of the day, who, with his wife and daughter had been spending some
days with Colonel Coad, whoso extensive and highly improved pro-
perty lies immediately in the vicinity of St. Inigoes, and, also, by Rev.
Mr. Lilly, the parish priest of St. Inigoes and a number of ladies and
gentlemen of the neighborhood.

The procession was dismissed on arriving at the church, and the
services commenced immediately. High Mass was celebrated by the
Chaplain of the day. Bishop Whelan, assisted by Rev. Mr. Boyle, of
Washington, as Deacon, Rev. Mr. Hagan, of Georgetown College, as
sub Deacon, and Rev. James D. Donelau as Master of Ceremonies.
The choral portion of the services was performed by a choir led by the
Rev. Mr. King, Musical Preceptor of Georgetown College, accom-
panied by Lienhardt's full band. At the conclusion of the mass, Bishop
Whelan spoke briefly to the congregation which crowded every portion
of the church. He said that it was a day of joy and exultation for
those who had assembled to commemorate the landing of the pilgrim
fathers. Those ancestors, who, fleeing from religious persecution in
England, were the first to proclaim on the American shores perfect
civil and religious liberty. This fact, so honorable to them and so
glorious to us, he said, should not induce us to use invidious compari-
sons, but must urge us to the exercise of true charity — a charity like
theirs which embraced love to all, and was in perfect observance of the
rule to do unto others as we would have them do unto us. The cele-
bration, to-day, of the glorious event commemorated should make them
ever cherish, more and more, the sacred principles of freedom of con-
science.

The church being entirely insufficient to accommodate more than a
small portion of those who had assembled, many took the opportunity
to examine the objects of interest in the vicinity. The church itself is
a small, unpretending brick edifice, pleasantly surrounded by woods.
It is of recent erection, but occupies the site of the first church built in
Maryland, and in which the pilgrims first worshipped in the land. In
the quiet, shaded graveyard which surrounds it the principal object
that attracts attention is the neat white marble obelisk erected to the
memory of the Rev. Joseph Carberry, born May od, 177G, died May

25tli, 1849, wlio was for many years parish priest of St. Inigoes, and
by his irreproachable Hfe and hospitable and generous qualities, won an
esteem and respect that was not limited to those of his own charge or
faith, but was general and sincere among all the inhabitants in the
vicinity. The Rev. Mr, Lilly, who succeeded him, seems to be, in
many respects, similar, and evidently warmly attaches to himself those
who are placed under his care.

The old edifice at St. Inigoes has lost its antiquity of aspect, though
it has gained perhaps in appearance, by the white washing that now so
prettily relieves it amidst the green of the surrounding foliage ; but its
peaked roof, curiously shaped dormer windows, and multiplicity of
chimneys still indicate its claims as a material link with the past. Its
age is thought to be something over two centuries, as it was erected
about 1640-'45. It was built for Cecelius Calvert, the second Lord
Baltimore, and was undoubtedly the first brick house built in Blaryland.

Our stay at this point was necessarily brief, as the remainder of the
celebration was to take place near the site of the ancient city of St,
Mary's, some miles distant, on the main bank of the river. Re-embark-
ing, the boats were soon again under way, ruffling the placid bosom of
the St. Mary's with their unusual commotion.

THE CELEBRATION AT ST. MARY'S.

A very brief run brought us in sight of the beautiful headland and
sheltered harbor which no doubt attracted the pilgrims in the Ark and the
Dove, and induced them to choose it as the site of their first permanent
settlement. The aspect it now presented was in striking contrast to
that which must have met the eyes of the first settlers. As the boat
advanced, with the music of the bands and the cheers of the excur-
sionists blending, the whole hill side, from the water up, was thronged
with the people of St. Mary's county, who had assembled to attend the
celebration. The ladies and gentlemen of the county occupied the
centre and crown of the hill, whilst on either side the colored popu-
lation were gathered in clusters, showily and comfortably clad and
overrunning with superabundance of mirth, that perpetually exploded
in the wildest glee and the most extraordinary of laughs.

THE PROCESSION.

The excxirsionists were received, on landino;, by H. Gr. S. Key, Esq.,
Marshal-in-Cliief, and aids, appointed by the citizens of St. Mary's
county. The various Associations were formed as they moved off tlie
boats, and the line marched to the scene of the celebration in the fol-
lowing order :

Marshal-in-Chief— H. G. S. KEY.
Music.

The Philodemic Society, of Greorgetown, with the Chaplain and
Orator of the day. This society carried with it two beautiful banners.
The foremost bore upon it a painting representing the first celebration
of religious worship, by the pilgrims, after their landing in Maryland.
The figure of the officiating priest, and those of the principal pilgrims,
with a group of Indians in the rear, being presented with much effect.
Below is the quotation " The glory of the children are their Fathers,"
Prov. xvii. 6, and on the reverse the announcement that the banner
was presented to the Society by the ladies of St. Mary's county. The
other banner was presented to the Society by the ladies of the Cathe-
dral, of Baltimore. It bears on its front three figures, representing
father White, the priest who accompanied the pilgrims, Leonard
Calvert and an Indian warrior, with the inscription below, " Civic and
Religious Liberty." Following this Society came the members of the
Maryland Judiciary present, and next the reverend clergy.

The Faculty of Georgetown College, headed by their President, the
Rev. Bernard A. Maguire, and the students of the College followed, and
were succeeded by a numerous delegation of citizens of Virginia, bear-
ing a neat white satin banner with gold lettering, and accompanied by
a band of music.

Next in line came the Baltimore delegation, consisting of members
of the Catholic Institute, the Young Catholic Friends' Society, and of
the Calvert Beneficial Society, the whole under the direction of T.
Parkin Scott, Esq., first Vice-President of the Catholic Institute. The
Baltimoreans all wore crape on the left arm, in respect for the memory
of the late B. U. Campbell, Esq. They carried no banner, but were
distinguished merely by the American flag borne at the head. Lein-
hardt's band accompanied them.

Behind the Baltimoreans followed a long array of citizens of St.
Mary's county and other portions of the state.

After a march, which was rendered somewhat fatiguing by the heat
of the sun and the excessive dust, the procession reached the site of
the celebration, on the lands of Dr. J. M. Broome, who had liberally
tendered them for the purpose. The locality is known as the " Grover-
nor's Spring," it being on the spot where the first house for the use of
the Governor of Mai-yland was built, and is provided with a fine spring,
to which, in consequence of that fact, the above historic name had
been attached. The most generous and estensive arrangements had
been made here by the citizens of St. Mary's for the accommodation of
the visitors. A rostrum for the speakers was erected, and a long vernal
arcade, with seats arranged for the accommodation of the audience.

The arrangements having been comj)leted. Colonel Chapman Bil-
lingsley called the assemblage to order, and announced that the delivery
of the oration and other ceremonies would take place. Before reading
the order of proceedings. Colonel Billingsley spoke briefly and impres-
sively of the religious and patriotic associations connected with the
occasion, and said he was sure that those who had been brought together
by desire to join in the commemoration of such events, amidst scenes
so calculated to appeal to the most sacred feelings, would need no
request from him to preserve order and decorum whilst the ceremonies
were in progress.

The exercises were then opened with music from the bands ; after
which the choir sang the followino- ode : —

13
o r> E

On the Celebration of the Landing of the Pilgrim Fathers of Maryland, held on the
site of the ancient town of St. Mary's.

BY MBS. MAHY A. FORD, OF PHILADBLPHIX.

AiK — Araby's Daughter.
St. !Mary's ! St. Mary's ! awake from thy slumbers,

For footsteps are crowding thy late lonely plain ;
Its silence is broken by music's sweet numbers —

Awake thee ! and list to the patriot strain.
There rest on thy bosom no ruined old towers,

No relics of pride that have battled with time ;
But the low simple hearths which the waving grass covers

Have beautiful mem'ries of virtues sublime.

For here breathed the spirit of ardent devotion,

With freedom of conscience, a priceless bequest ;
Thy Calvert and pilgrims for this braved the ocean.

Then offered to others a haven of rest.
And planted the Cross, in its glory outshining

The pageants that herald a colony's bii'th ;
Beneath its blest shadow the Indian reclining.

Then fancied the Spirit-land nearer to earth.

His own loved Yeocomico* still smiled at even,

Unharmed was his wigwam that rose by the stream ;
The stranger's bi'ight faith, while it guided to heaven.

Yet gladdened the pathway of life with its beam.
And stiU round their mem'ry a halo is glowing.

That lights with mild lustre our coimtry's first page ;
Like the beautiful waters that past thee are flowing,

Their virtues glide on to a more distant age.

Then list thee, St. Mary's ! thou art not forsaken.

Though long years have flown o'er thy sleep by the wave ;
For patriots' hearts have now come to awaken

The glorious past from a hallowed grave.
New cities have risen, in grandeiu* and splendor.

In the beautiful land where thy dwellings first rose,
But dearer the mem'ry, more thi'iUing, more tender.

Of thee, on this spot of thy dreamless repose.

* Yeocomico was the name of the Indian village and tribe found there by the first settlers of
Maryland.

The Hon. Josepli R. Chandler was then introduced by Colonel
Billingsley, and received with long-continued and hearty applause. He
proceeded to deliver, in an earnest and emphatic manner, and with a dis-
tinctness of utterance that enabled his hearers to catch every word, the
oration of the day.

Notwithstanding its immense length, requiring over an hour in its
delivery, he was listened to with close and earnest attention, and fre-
quently drew forth the warmest tokens of approval. At its close, he
retired amid another hearty round of applause.

Music by the bands followed, and the President announced that by
special request, George Washington Parke Custis, who was present,
would make a few remarks. The venerable orator was warmly received,
and proceeded to express his thanks for the kindness with which the
"old man" had been greeted. He would not say he was among
strangers, because, among his countrymen, he had a home everywhere.
It was not by any worth of his, but his name, that earned for him their
kind consideration. He was cradled and brought up in Mount Vernon,
and the Father of his Country was the only earthly father he ever
knew. Mr. Custis then referred to different revolutionary incidents,
showing the bravery of the old Maryland band, the confidence reposed
in them by Washington, and after relating an anecdote of Carroll of
CarroUton, and paying a tribute to his devoted patriotism and honor,
remarked upon the celebration, and closed by reciting some original
lines upon the " Old Maryland Line."

There were numerous calls upon es-Grovernor Lowe for an
address; but the length to which the ceremonies had already been
protracted, and the fact that the citizens of St. Mary's were waiting
to entertain their guests, prevented Mr. Lowe from complying with
the call.

At the close of the ceremonies, the company were quickly assembled
around the dinner-tables, which were spread under the shade of the
trees, and covered with an abundance of the most substantial food.
The fiimous hospitality of St. Mary's county was most practically demon-
strated, and no effort on the part of the entertainers omitted to render
the enjoyment of all as full as possible. The arrangements of the pro-
cession and upon the ground, were under charge of the following
gentlemen : —

CMcf MarsJial—R. G. S. Key, Esq.

Assistant Marshals — Col. J. II. Sothoron, Z. D. Blakistone, William
D. Kirk, Dr. B. Jones, Dr. McWilliams, L. W. B. Hutchins, Dr.
Stewart, James Cresswell, Thomas Harrison, J. C. Wilburn.

Committee of Arrangements — George C. Morgan, Esq., George F.
King, Esq., Robert Ford, Mr. Hopewell, Dr. J. M. Broome, J. E. Coad.

The Committee of Arrangements received numerous letters, from
Governor Ligon and other prominent gentlemen, who were unable to
accept the invitation to be present on the occasion. The Governor
pleads official business, which rendered necessary his presence at
Annapolis.

A portion of the letters received by the Committee, from those who
had been invited, but were unable, from various causes, to assist in the
celebration, are subjoined. They express the feelings of a large class
of citizens, with regard to the celebration and the events and princi-
ples celebrated. It may be proper to add also, that the President of
the United States and members of the Cabinet had been invited, whose
letters to the Committee pleaded official demands upon their time, as a
reason for absence.

Letter from Governor Ligon.

Annapolis, May 8, 1855.

Dear Sir : — I have the pleasure of acknowledging the receipt of yoiir favor of
the 25th ult., informing me that the Committee of Arrangement for the Celebra-
tion of the Landing of the Pilgrims of Maryland, have honored me with the
appointment of " President of the day," on the occasion of the approaching
anniversary.

A reply to your letter has been delayed for some days, with the hope that it
would be in my power so to arrange my business here, as to say with certainty
that I could accept this very kind and flattering invitation. I regret very sin-
cerely to find now, that my official engagements at Annapolis dui'ing the present
month, will deprive me of the pleasure of participating with you in the proposed
celebration.

More then two centuries have passed away since the voices of the Pilgrims of
Maryland were lifted up from the shore of "old St. Mary's," to celebrate the
joyous occasion of the first landing and settlement of the infant colony. The
wisdom, justice, moderation, and charity which characterised the colonists of
Maryland, in all their intercourse with the savage tribes around them, and the
heroism displayed, under privations and amid the trying and perilous scenes

through which they passed, have not been surpassed by any people of whom
history gives us an account, and fui-nish the occasion of just pride and exulta-
tion to the entire people of the State.

A visit at any time to this consecrated spot, where the fathers and founders
of the State laid broad and deep the foimdations of our government, would be
an occasion of the deepest interest ; but at the present time, when the spirit of
intolerance and bigotry seem so rife in the land, and when so large a portion of
oiir coimtrymen seem ready to ignore the veiy principles and objects for which,
under Providence, our Government was established, it is particulai'ly appropriate
to recur to these primitive times, and to commemorate an event especially dear
to the people of Maryland, and held in grateful remembrance and veneration by
all who appreciate the blessings of civil and religious freedom. In the language
of a distinguished son and faithful historian of Maryland,* " surely such a
birthday of a free people is worthy of commemoration to the latest period of
their existence."

I beg you to acquaint the Committee with the cause of my absence, and to
thank them for the honor they have done me.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

T. WATKINS LIGON.
To George S. King, Esq.,

Secretary of Committee of Arrangements,

Leonardtown, St. Mary^s county.

The following are letters, among others, received by George S.
King, Esq., of Leonardtown, Secretary of the Committee of Arrange-
ments of St. Mary's county, from those of the other counties who had
been chosen Vice Presidents for the day, and were not able to be
present : —

Baltimore, April 27, 1855.
George S. King, Esq., Secretary, ^c.

Sir: — I have to thank you for your letter of the 25th inst., informing me of
my election as one of the Vice Presidents for the celebration of the Landing of
the Maryland Pilgrims, and am deeply indebted to the Committee of Arrange-
ments for the honor they have done me. I regard the occasion as one of high
and just pride to us as Marylanders, and of profound interest to all who cherish
those principles of religious liberty which seem at present to be in temporary
eclipse. While, therefore, I fear that imperative professional engagements may
render it difficult for me to meet you, I shall certainly do so, if I am able.
I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

S. T. WALLIS.

* J. V. L. McMahon.

Snow Hill, May 8, 1855.

Dear Sir : — Your letter announcing my selection as one of the Vice Presidents
upon the occasion of the "Celebration of the Landing of the Maryland Pil-
grims," to take iMace on the 15th of May inst., reached me to-day. Few things
•would give me more pleasure than to be with you. I know I should receive the
kindly greetings of many friends, and enjoy a hospitality as cordial as it is un-
bounded ; but the session of my court commencing upon the same day, will
compel me to be absent. I regret this the more, because I think there is more
than ordinary reason, at the i^resent time, for recurring to the early history of
our State. The mind and heart Avill both be benefitted by reverting to the com-
mon persecution which drove the Massachusetts and the Maryland Pilgrims to
seek a home iu the Western Continent, the common perils and oppressions which
they endured, and their common glorious emancipation.

Hoping that you may be favored in all things which may tend to render your
celebi'ation agreeable, and regretting my own inability to attend,
I remain your obedient servant,

J. R. FRANKLIN.
George S. King, Secretary.

Elkton, Md., 3Iay 2, 1855.

Dear Sir : — I have just received your letter, informing me that the Committee
of Arrangements for the celebration of the Landing of the Maryland Pilgrims,
on the 15th inst., has done me the honor to elect me one of the Vice Presidents
for the occasion, and inviting me to attend on that day. It would afford me
very great pleasure, I assure you, to unite in commemorating an event which
has been followed by so many civil and religious blessings, and in doing honor
to the memories of men who, far in the advance of the spirit of the age in
which they lived, laid the foundation of a prosperous and happy colony, by
granting security to property and liberty of conscience. But I cannot promise
to be certainly with you; for even if the Circuit Court, which has been ad-
journed to meet on Monday next, should not remain in session until the 15th
inst., I have a particular engagement for that day, which I fear may require my
presence elsewhere. I will attend, however, if I can do so without too much in-
convenience.

I have the honor to be,

Very respectfully,

Your obedient servant,

JOHN C. GROOME.
George S. King, Esq.
9

Chestertoion, May 10, 1855.

Sir : — I acknowledge the receipt of your letter, informing me tliat I had been
elected a Vice President of the meeting to be held on the 15th inst., for the
celebration of the Landing of the Maryland Pilgrims. An indisposition of more
than a week, from which I am not yet relieved, will excuse this tardy reply.

It will also make it impossible for me to attend on the occasion, which I regard
as abounding in historic interest, and in remembrances to which our State pride
may justly cling.

Very respectfully.

Your obedient servant,

J. A. PEARCE,
Geokge S. King, Esq.

Riversdale, May ?>d, 1855.

Sir : — Your favor, informing me of ipy election as a Vice-President for the
celebration of the landing of the Maryland Pilgrims, has been received, and I
regret extremely that I shall be unable to attend, as it would give me peculiar
pleasure to join in any manifestation of respect and veneration for the memory
of those who were the iirst to pi'oclaim religious toleration to all denominations.
It would be most fortunate if every citizen of Maryland could be present, and
have distilled into him the princii^les of the good men whom you desire to honor
by this celebration, and I should be particularly pleased to be present on this
occasion, in order that I might, on the ground first trodden by that Holy Band,
enter my protest against the monstrous doctrines and practices of a party which
is endeavoring to blot out from the escutcheon of our glorious old State, its
brightest ornament. With many thanks to the committee of arrangements for
the honor conferred on me,

I have the honor to be.

Respectfully, Your obedient servant,

CHAS. W. CALVERT.
To George S. King, Esq.,

Secretary of Committee of Arrangements,

We annex the following letter, received by the Committee of Invita-
tion of the Catholic Institute of Baltimore :

May 'Sd, 1855.

Gentlemen : — Accept my sincere thanks for your kind invitation to be the guest
of the members of the Catholic Institute on theii* excursion to St. Mary's city,
to celebrate the landing of the Maryland Pilgrims. My age and infirm health

put it out of my power to avail myself of the invitation -with -wliich you have
honored me. I truly regret it, for under a more favorable condition of health
and strength, it -would have given me real pleasure to accompany the members
of the Catholic Institute to a spot, and to celebrate an event, in which I have
ever felt the deepest interest.

With great respect, I am gentlemen.

Your obedient servant,

R. B. TANEY.

A letter was also received from Gen. Spear Smitli, assigning previous
engagements as the cause of his non-acceptance of the invitation with
which he felt himself highly honored.

Letters were also received from Hon. Judges W. L. Marshall, and
W. F. Griles, of Baltimore; Judges P. B. Hopper, of Queen Anne's
county; Judges J. B. Eccleston and Tuck, of the State Court of
Appeals; Hon. Wm. T. Goldsborough, of Dorcester (one of the Vice-
Presidents); Hon. J. R. Franklin, of Worcester, ditto; Col. Charles
Carroll, of Howard county, ditto ; Hon. Edward Lloyd, Speaker of the
last Senate of Maryland; and Thomas Swanu, Esq., of Baltimore, in
acknowledgment of an invitation to attend, but regretting their inability
to do so, the Judges on account of court sessions, and the others by
business engagements.

The historical ground which formed the site of the old city of St.
Mary's, attracted much interest, and the vestiges of that early settle-
ment were pointed out to numerous parties of the visitors. The Pro-
testant Episcopal Church and graveyard of St. Mary's parish now
occupy the headland upon which the town stood, whilst another portion
has upon it a seminary which is supported by the State. The church
is a plain, square building, and is constructed of bricks taken from the
old State House at the time of its removal. The cruciform remains of
the foundation of the old State House are still to be seen not far from
the church. Near the river there is shown a mammoth mulberry-tree,
which its size and appearance attest that it has flourished there for
centuries, and under wliich, tradition says. Lord Baltimore concluded
his equitable treaty with the Indian tribes who then inhabited this
region of countiy. The trunk of this tree cannot be less than thirty
feet in circumference. With the exception of one branch, which still
gives evidence of vigorous life, the old veteran of the forest appears to

be rapidly going to decay, whilst a creeping oak has forced its way up
through its trunk, and waves in green luxuriance over it. In a field
some distance from the landing, are the remains of the vaults of the
first Governor's house, the masonry of which is still in an excellent
state of preservation.

At five o'clock, the visiters again re assembled on board their respec-
tive boats, and, amidst parting cheers, the music of the bands, and the
roar of a salute of thirteen guns from the Baltimore boat, bid farewell
to St. Mary's.

Returning to the Potomac, the excursionists in a short time were
landed at Piney Point, where the Washington visitors designed remain-
ing over night, the Baltimoreans only intending to stop for a few hours.
After spending some time, enjoying the promenade, listening to the
music of the bands, and joining in the ball that was in animated pro-
gress, the Baltimoreans at ten o'clock returned to their boat, and at six
o'clock next morning were landed at Baltimore, the Georgia having
made the trip of one hundred and thirty miles in eight hours."

Thus closed the united celebration of the Landing of the Pilgrims
of Maryland. Those who lingered a few moments upon the broad
plain upon which was to be built the city of St. Mary's, and looked
down upon the beautiful river, enjoyed a sight rarely exhibited in this
country. The wide expanse of water, above and below, was crowded
with steamers, sailing vessels, and boats, all filled with joyous beings,
returning from the out-of-door celebration, and many of them to contri-
bute to and share in the in-door gaiety which was to close the festivities
of the day. Few scenes exceed in beauty that which meets the eye from
this eminence. It is a continual testimony of the taste of the Pilgrims :
it is an ample reward to the man of taste, who might travel days to
see it. But seen as it was then, in the beautiful light of a declining sun,
and in the exercise of the most delightful feelings of the human heart,
— ^joy in the association of the joyful, newly-awakened pride in the
honor of ancestry, and gratitude to God for his abundance of favors,
favors renewed in their remembrance, — it wanted no roseate hue like
that of Naples, to give it beauty, nor mouldering palaces like that of
Bfeia, to give it interest. It was lovely in itself, and rich in all the re-
miniscences which give pride to patriotism and confidence to religion.

o Ti j^rr X o i<T^

Br HON. JOSEPH K. CHANDLER.

The desire to make a commemoration of distinguished favors,
is among the "best impulses of the human heart. The gratifica-
tion of the desire has marked domestic, social and even national
movements in all ages, and has had for its sanction not only the
spirit of purest gratitude for the benefits of the past, but a hope
of connecting the favors, and the spirit they suggest with the
experience, of the future.

"Gratitude," says a French satirist, "is a strong sense of
favors to come," and the apothegm conveys more of truth than
at first blush it seems to imply ; and, correctly received, it has
less that is offensive than at first strikes the ear, or perhaps was
intended by the author.

Nothing merely present deeply concerns a human being. His
natm-e, his instincts, his impulses, lead him to look away from
the present and connect himself with the realities of the past, to
strengthen his hopes and his enjoyments of the future. This is
no accident of position, it is the gift of God. " He made us with
such large discourse looking before and after."

Scarcely a festival, domestic or national, among the Hebrews
was unconnected with the past. Gratitude for special providen-
ces, or sorrows for peculiar offences were the motives of the
feasts and fasts of the chosen people ; and the sanctity of the
weekly Sabbath was commemorative of the rest of the Most
High. — Their passovers preserved the recollection of the sparing
mercies of God towards the male born of their tribes in Egypt,
and their Purim kept bright the remembrances of salvation from
the destructive edict of the Assyrian monarch.

Year by year pagan nations, pagan municipalities, and pagan
individuals, made memorial of important events. Marathon,
Leuctra, Thermopolag, were remembered, and the obligations of
the present and hopes of the future Avere connected with the
illustrious past It was the great work of the orator and the
poet to pour the lustre of eloquence and song upon the loftiest
deeds of the departed, and it was the delight and honor of an
admiring people, to mark the names of the mighty dead, as they
left the shadows of the past, to grow lustrous in the praise and
gratitude of the present. As the summit peaks of the momitains
are kept visible and beautiful by the posthumous rays of that
sun which has gone to enlighten other worlds.

But I have said that gratitude for the past connects itself with
the enjoyments of the present and the hopes of the future. No
event deserves special commemoration that does not . appeal to
the present for evils avoided or benefits procured ; and that anni-
versary which is not sanctified by a commemoration of what
belongs to the present, and relates to the future is unworthy of
general or individual observance.

We commemorate to day the landing in 1634 of the emigrants
from Great Britain on the very spot on which we stand. Their
advent has been deemed of consequence sufficient for special
memorial. In these times, every day brings to our coast more
than a thousand European emigrants, who are crowding our
cities, peopling our plains, felling our forests, swelling our com-
merce and augmenting our national resources and national im-
portance. Let the future commemorate the benefits which they
shall have derived from these their ancestors. But to-day the
shadows of the past are entered, and the arrival of only two ship
loads of human beings is selected for a commemoration in which
science and the arts, patriotism and religion are deemed to have
an interest. What claim have the immigration and colonization
of Calvert and his followers upon our gratitude for a commemo-
ration ? Is it that we have descended from the stock of those
educated, high minded and generous emigrants, and would do

honor to tlie families of which we are a part ? Probably not
half of this assembly can trace their ancestral line to any of that
company. Is it that those Pilgrims fled away from religious
persecution at home and thus became confessors in the cause of
Christian truth ? Why, almost every one of the original colonies
of this country owes its foundation to the same spirit of religious
intolerance on one side, and religious independence on the other.
Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Pennsylvania present strong
instances of attachment to creeds and of sacrifices for their free
enjoyment. Is it that they, who fled from intolerance at home
and sought religious liberty here, were of our own creed, and
thus appeal to our denominational sympathies for grateful remem-
brance and ceremonious commemoration. We may safely say,
as members of that church of which these immigrants formed a
part, that mere endurance of persecution for conscience sake,
is too general for special commemoration ; and the bare profes-
sion of Catholicity is no enforcement of an appeal for perpetual
distinction.

Religion — Christianity — is a personal concern with each
individual, and man adopts and practices it for his own salvation.
He endures the present for the sake of its effect on his own
future, and he may abide amidst the embarrassments and fears
of legal persecution in a belief that it is more endurable than
the perils of removal. Or he may hasten to hide himself away
from the storm in the hope of reaching and enjoying the sun-
shine and calm of a situation that is exempted from those annoy-
ances.

Does he confess or does he apostatise amid antagonistic influ-
ences, his confession or liis apostacy is his own, and the greatest
consequences are his. Thousands, amid the terror of early
pagan persecution, gave fortune and life for the faith they pro-
fessed, and many shrunk from the anguish of the torture and the
terrors of the amphitheatre. Neither party from the simple act
appeals to us for commemoration of its proceedings. The
strength of faith and the hope of immortal salvation were the

prevailing motives, with one portion ; and weakness, that made
the present hide the mighty future, prevailed with the other.
In both cases personal feelings and views, attachments to the
present or trust in the future, merely individual considerations,
predominated, and if unconnected with subsequent events, by
indirect influence, none of those martyrs or apostates have a
claim upon consideration beyond their bare connection with the
history of the times of which they constitute a part.

And considered only as of and for themselves, the pilgrims of
St. Mary's, though demanding our admiration for purity of
character, loftiness of purpose, and clear, well defined sense of
justice in their aims ; yet considered as only for themselves and
their own times, these pilgrims entitled themselves to no special
commemoration, and they established as certainly they pre-
ferred, no claim upon the gratitude of succeeding ages. The
past and the present must be concerned to give character or
effect to a public celebration.

Who does not feel that the great current of human events
gives to the latter the influence and character of the former ages,
and the present catches and displays the characteristics of the
past, as the lower waters of the Mississippi owe a portion of their
quality and their depth to the sources and the streams above.

The claim of the past upon the present is then founded upon
the beneficial influence of the former on the latter ; and the pro-
priety and importance of the celebration, this day, are referable
to what the celebrants most value in what the celebrated in-
tended and performed.

It will be my aim, on the present occasion, to invite and lead
you to a consideration of certain important and distinguishing
characteristics in the early movements of the colony of INIary-
land ; and I shall, perhaps incidentally institute a comparison of
the conduct, laws and customs of some of the other colonies with
those of Lord Baltimore, especially Avith regard to the influence
of creed upon the pursuits of the colonists, of the effect of that
creed upon their treatment of the aboriginal inhabitants, the

owners and occupants of the soil which the colonists desired to
possess, and, above all, because connected with the motives
which influenced their emigration from Europe, the effect of that
creed on the regulations and enactments of the executive and
legislative bodies of those colonists, with regard to the freedom
of worship by difierent denominations and the entire political and
social equahty of men of different religious creeds.

I shall endeavor, also, to institute an inquiry as to the connec-
tion between the character of our present form of national
government, its exclusion and protections, and the plans and
objects of those who were the founders of the colony whence
sprung the State of Maryland. '

As patriots loving our country above all countries ; as philan-
thropists feeling for man in every relation of life, and respecting
the rights of man, however they may be exposed to injury and
neglect ; as Christians believing in the doctrines and loving the
example of the founder of our creed, and as Catholics interested
in all that concerns the history of our church, and all that illus-
trates its graces and its influences, the inquiry is one of deep
concern, and we have only to lament that the time and the pecu-
liarity of the celebration allow only a hasty reference to the great
and the most salient points of consideration, and compel us to
refer to future celebrations and more accomplished orators the
completion of a task that as much concerns the future as the
present ; a task always growing.

Who shall record the whole glories, the sufl"erings and triumphs
of the Church of Christ ? Who shall make mention of the ex-
perience of its members, which is that Church's history here, its
glories and its merits hereafter ? Who shall declare all the pro-
gress of that religion which, rising on imperial pagan Rome,
sustained the shock of its public contempt and the terrible inflic-
tion of its hatred — tamed the wild beasts of the amphitheatre —
shamed the persecutors till it poured its influence over their
hearts — moulded them to Christian graces, and prepared them
for those high responsibilities as Christians Avhich they might not

have incurred as heathens ; — responsibilities that brought down
the pagan hordes upon the mistress of the conquered world, and
gave her to desolation and ruin ; — that religion which paused in
awe amid the inflictions which a just God had sent, and while
the infidel victor was filling the palaces of the Caesars, or stalking
among the ruins of pagan pride and Christian ingenuity, con-
quered the conqueror, and led captivity captive, sending back
the ruthless invaders, missionaries of Christian truth and Chris-
tian peace. This is a theme that demands the inspiration of
poetry to begin on earth, and which the redeemed will perpetuate
in heaven.

The course which I am about to pursue, though it will not
admit, and I hope will not be regarded as requiring much atten-
tion to order, is favorable to a candid investigation of the subject,
inasmuch as it calls for a judgment upon the character and
motives of a people — a judgment to be founded upon their earli-
est public acts, with regard to others, and especially their legis-
lation for themselves, and for those who might come into
connection with them by commerce, war, social intercourse, or
political relations.

The history of the planting of the colony of Maryland, is
within the reach of all ; its events must be so familiar to most of
you, that I shall not occupy my time with even such an abstract
thereof as would, under ordinary circumstances, be deemed ne-
cessary to a proper understanding of the course of the argument.
I shall suppose you familiar with the record, and hence I shall
rarely quote, except in support of a direct assertion.

The philosophical historian, or the careful observer of events
in nations, must be often struck with the fidelity with which the
early laws of a people become the exponents of their views and
feelings. Those laws originate rather in their authors' general
train of thought, than in any particular circumstances or require-
ments of the people. They are often made to prevent difiiculties
of which the anticipation is due rather to the habits of people's
minds, than to events that really occur ; or if they are suggested

by errors or wants at home, those errors or wants spring natu-
rally from the mode of thinking common to the people.

Later laws are made to suit a state of society that is conse-
quent upon enlarged intercourse, rival efforts, and emulous
minds. They prevent or correct evils that could scarcely have
come from the simplicity of early associations, and present less
the real state of a community than a portion of the inconve-
niences and evils to which that community has been exposed by
age and enlarged association. These later laws denote the
extent of trade, the change of manners, and the necessities of a
mixed community. They seem to be a sort of estimate of what
good qualities a people ought to have, by providing punishment
for the evil qualities which they exhibit ; while the earlier enact-
ments speak the general feelings and wishes, and denote the
exact state of the community. The enactments of older society
show what effect vice or error has had upon the general morals,
Avhile the laws of a young community bear testimony to the
influences of the reliorious creed. The late enactments show the
deficiency of the moral code ; the former the suggestions of the
religious sentiment.

We have an opportunity to judge of the character of the St.
Mary colonists by their trade with the Indians, and their legisla-
tion with regard to that people whose existence and rights seem
to have been a stumbling-block to most of the colonies.

The acquisition of territory, by the various bodies of colonists,
was made by different modes ; sometimes by means that suited
the peculiar character of the purchaser, sometimes in a manner
that denoted the estimate in which the seller was held by the
purchaser. Sometimes a distribution of miserable trinkets sent
away the uninformed savage to comprehend at his leisure the
entire alienation of his fields and hunting grounds, and the utter
worthlessness of the finery which, with barbaric taste, he had
associated with the display and dignity of his seignorial rights, but
Avhich became utterly useless when he found that he had bartered
away the realities of power for the worthless insignia of condition.

Others debased the appetite of the aborigines, and then min-
istered to their morbid cravings, till the poor Avretches became
maddened with the liquid fire, and exposed themselves to the
visitations of vengeance that thinned their number and confis-
cated their possessions.

Others made treaties which they could scarcely believe — which
probably they did not hope — would be observed by the native
party to the compact, and swept the tribe with exterminating
vengeance, for the violation of agreements that had in them
neither reason nor right ; a vengeance that stretched the first
reached offenders dead upon their lordly paternal possessions,
and dragged the fugitives from their fastnesses to be sold into
foreign slavery.

Christianity was made terrible to these worshippers of the
Great Spirit, by the vindictiveness of its professors, who pun-
ished offences watli unforgiving rigor, and confounded invincible
ignorance with premeditated crime. Nay, that religion was
often made abhorrent to the savages by the haughtiness of its
teachers, who w^ould not admit of any adaptation of its adminis-
tration and influences to the nomadic taste and habits of the
lords of the soil.

One other mode of dealing with the Indians was adopted by
a portion of the early white settlers, and has been by practice,
transmitted down to the present day, not always with the same
amount of actual injury as formerly, but often with an equal
liability to abuse. The improved sense of the community, sus-
tained by the conduct of one small class of immigrants, and the
philanthropic teachings of the Quakers, prevented a portion of
the injury which might result to the Indians from a natural,
though perhaps not a legal operation of the treaty-making
customs.

The terrible inflictions which preceded some of these treaties,
and the utter deprivation which followed, must have made the
natives more apprehensive of the pen of the white man than of
the sword; and what was called a treaty by European emigrants,

must have seemed a forceful distress to the natives ; and that
which was dignified with the name of Peace, had in it certainly
more of destruction and solitude. Under these circumstances, the
Indians might well exclaim, "Auferre trucidare, rapare, falsis,
nominihus, imperium," if they had ever read Tacitus, or heard
of Agricola, "atque solitudinem faciunt pacem appellant."

In strono; and beautiful contrast with these various modes of
transferring the possessions of the nations, and of alienating
their affections, is the plan adopted by the Catholic Pilgrims of
Maryland, who acknowledged the poor Indian to be the proprietor
of the soil, and recognized in him the form of the Creator, and
the object of the sacrifice and redemption of the Saviour. They
saw and confessed him a man, and as such, Christianity as they
understood it — Humanity as they had been taught to practice
it — Paganism, indeed, as explained by the polished bondman
of Rome,* forbade that the rights, interests, and whatever else
related to those members of the human family, should be alien
to their own hearts. If they took the land of the savages, it
was not to repay them with profitless gewgaws ; not to hold by
the dead hand of unsatisfied contract, nor the red hand of vio-
lence ; not, indeed, to pay for the material and valuable posses-
sions of the aboriginal planters in the cold lessons of selfish
morality, or impracticable and repulsive forms of Christianity.

They purchased the lands, and paid for them. They offered
peace, and peaceful associations ; and they presented the most
attractive points of the Christian religion for the admiration and
confidence of the Indians, viz., peace among themselves, and
kindness and justice towards others.

Those who had left England to avoid the unjust penal statutes
of the government, and the persecuting spirit of non-conformists,
felt how attractive must be the evidences of justice, and how
conciliating the procedure that recognizes in man the dignity
and the rights of man.

* Terrence.

The Christian religion is never more exalted in the eyes of
the pagan or skeptic than when its possessors manifest their
high sense of its character and importance, by making its re-
quirements the most distinguished of all the difference between
men, and it never is more attractive than when all other distinc-
tions are merged in that difference ; all differences buried in the
effort to make it respected by the virtues of its professors, and to
have it adopted because of the gentleness and charity with
which it is presented.

The Pilgrims who came to this spot with Calvert, were of the
same countiy and of the same age as those who settled Virginia
and New England. They had grown up amid the same contests,
and had had their minds moulded, their opinions formed, in the
same circumstances as Avere those of the other contemporary
colonies. If, then, we succeed in showing that in purity of life
they excelled, in righteousness towards others they exceeded, and
in the presentation of the elements of our present form of na-
tional government they stood, if not alone, at least pre-eminent,
we may well inquire — it is our duty as Americans to inquire —
it is our privilege as religionists diligently to inquire, what were
the extent and influence of their superiority, and to what princi-
ple it is to be referred.

For myself I have, by reading and reflection, formed an
opinion on that subject ; and it is a part of the duty I assumed
for this day to express and to support that opinion.

I do not think that the colonists who came witli Calvert were
men of education (in the ordinary sense of that word) much
superior to many of the settlers of Virginia. They were cer-
tainly not of more acute intellects than the first colonists of
Plymouth or Massachusetts. They stood in the same relation
to the savages as did the other colonists, with regard to the
danger from violence or the advantages of peace. They had
the means of vitiating the physical appetites of the Indians as
abundant as others ; and could have used cunning (I say not
fraud) to become owners of the soil, and could have appealed to

the love of finery or the thirst of revenge, to limit the posses-
sions of the natives or diminish their number. But they did not
resort to these modes, which distinguished the conduct of some
other colonists ; and their forbearance was not the consequence
of impaired appetite for possession, or a deficiency of means to
enforce a wrong. In all these circumstances, in all their ante-
cedents, these settlers stood on the same ground of power, the
same strength of desire, the same means of appreciation, as did
the English immigrants to other colonies of this country. The
difference in conduct was great ; it was eminently distinguishing.
Whence did it come ?

The only difference in the circumstances of the colonists of
Maryland, and those of Virginia and New England, the only
operative difference was in their religious creed, and the educa-
tional influences immediately and necessarily resulting therefrom,
combined with the painful experience to which that creed had ex-
posed them, and the lofty motives of purity and justice which the
Christian religion supplies to all its followers, at all times, but
which it suggests with great cogency when it also exposes them
to the persecution of a tyrant king, or a thoughtless infuriate
^populace.

There is scarcely a more beautiful page in history, sacred or
profane, than that which records the dealings of Leonard Calvert
and his followers with the aborigines, who tilled the soil on which
we stand. He landed not as a proprietor, but as a visitor. He
addressed the native chief, not as one who comes to conquer, but
as one who came to purchase. His manners were not those
which offended first, and then irritated to hostilities. They
awakened caution, but they conciliated esteem and secured
confidence.

When the intrigue of an enemy in disguise provoked a portion
of the savages to a war, the followers of Calvert made it a duty
of the colonists to restore lands acquired by conquest, and made
it a penal offence to kidnap or sell a friendly Indian, and a high
misdemeanor to supply them with intoxicating liquor. Surely in

these arrangements, not only is there manifested the true spirit
of Christianity, with the fruits of charity and justice, but we
must find in them something which appeals to our approval more
than does the conduct of some of the other colonists ; and I
may as well add, that the difference in the conduct of Calvert
and that of the Governors of the other colonies, was noticed at
the time ; and an old contemporary writer says, "Justice Pop-
ham and Sir George Calvert agreed not more unanimously in
the public design of planting, than they differed in the private
way of it. The first was for extirpating heathens ; the second
for converting them. He sent away the lewdest ; this the sober-
est people. The one was for present profit ; the other for rea-
sonable expectation. The first set up a common stock, out of
which the people should be provided by proportions. The
second left every one to provide for himself."

This is not the time nor the place to pursue at length a com-
parison between the different modes of colonizing, adopted by
men of different objects.

Where entire dominancy and sudden profits are expected, the
utter destruction of the conquered race is the policy of the
victor. Wherever Christianizing and humanizing our fellow-
being are the leading motives, there patient endurance, and the
delay of the fruition of hopes and the reward of labors, are the
duties and the compensation of the conquering or dominant race.

Favor to the original inhabitants, works a diminution of spoils ;
and the exercise of Christian graces and the presentation of
Christian example, ensure the postponement, if not the destruc-
tion, of the largest expectation of the conquerors.

Strike down the pagan Indian by tribes and nations, and do
you not open the way for the Christian white man ? Spare the
miserable idolater because he may have a soul, and, like the
good Las Casas, you hinder if not defeat the end of conquest.
Civilization seeks the extension of her arts by the destruction of
her opponents, and the distribution of her professed followers.
Christianity seeks extent, not so much by the cultivation of the

field as the purification of the heart ; and she often delays the
gratification of cupidity in newly-acquired territory, by a post-
ponement of the advantages of trade to the benefits of salvation,
and, amidst the eagerness of the white man for profit and
power, she pauses to recognise the claims of the red man to life
and immortality. The colonist leader leans upon the charter or
treaty that grants the possession of flood and field to him and
his fellow-colonists, and he must secure it. The Christian mis-
sionary considers the redemption of his Saviour as wrought for
all, and he regards it as his duty to apply it. The one certainly
promotes business and populates a colony ; the other secures sal-
vation and peoples heaven.

Two other important views of the subject enter into the plan
of this discourse. First, the connection of the form and admin-
istration of the early colonial government of Maryland with the
democratic theory of our national government, and the great
provisions of our Constitution.

And secondly, and especially those negative provisions which
always concern the rights of a people whose theory is that of
self-government, and these are eminently worthy of notice,
because those negative provisions are not what the government
may do — not the establishment and definition of the duties of
that government towards itself and towards other nations, but
they are the restrictions upon the power of government, the
true distinction between the privileges of the government and
the inalienable rights of the citizen ; not even how much the
government ought to protect and defend, but a clear statement
of those reserved points, which it would be an outrage by the
government upon the people, to oppose ; which it would be an
insult by the government to the people to attempt to protect.

There are personal rights so sacred to every man, that even
the form of protection seems an outrage. There are things too
sanctified in their character or uses, for protection or defence —
so blended with the character of one government as to be inope-
rative or ofiensive in another, and yet above all assault from
3

abroad, as they are above all defence at home — as the Jewish
ark brought disease and disasters to the Philistines who dared
assault it, and death to the Hebrews Avho reached forth in its
support. That sanctity belongs to religious creeds in our
country, and is fully recognised in the Constitution, in the first
place by withholding from the government the right to apply
any religious test to candidates for office, and thus are the pro-
fessors of any single creed saved from the outrage of direct pro-
scription. And in the second place, it is provided for in that
sacred instrument, that no legislation shall be had by which indi-
viduals of any creed shall be specially favored, nor any form of
worship established or prescribed.

While we admire the beautiful theory of the government which
thus manifests itself in the fundamental law of the nation, we
may, without inquiring into the neglect or violation of these
principles and provisions, look back and find in the theory and
practice of the first colonial government of Maryland, the only
precedents for such provisions — precedents, I mean, not merely
in the idle declamation, not merely in pompous assertion, Uto-
pian schemes — but precedents which rest on the plan, and ample
fulfillment of that plan, by men who knew that the theory which
they promulged was unfashionable ; who knew that while the
opposite plans of government were excluding them from the
protection and political benefits of all the other colonies, their
own plan was exposing them to the imminent risk of persecution
and disfranchisement in their own colony.

It is to be remarked of the history of the colonies of which
our Union Avas formed, that almost every one claims to have
owed its existence to persecution at home, and almost every one
made intolerance a leading feature of its own government. And
it is still more remarkable that not one of those colonies was
formed by immigrants who had left their country on account of
the intolerance of Roman Catholics. Nor is this all : while
almost every colony owes its existence to religious intolerance,
none but Maryland, the only Catholic colony of them all,

attempted to practice religious liberty. Slie proclaimed universal
liberty to every sect and division of sect that professed a belief
in Jesus Christ ; and knowing that France had contributed to the
amount of our colonial population, by the violence of a Catholic
government against its Protestant subjects, she, following out the
principle upon which was established her colonial government,
opened her heart and her fields also to their ingress ; and, as the
peculiarity of their position might make them doubtful of their wel-
come, she passed a special law, inviting Huguenots to come and
enjoy in the colony of Maryland the freedom to worship God,
wliicli had been denied to them in France. (a.)

At the present moment, when it is the object of political pro-
scriptionists to conceal or deny the existence or practice of vir-
tues in members of the Catholic church, we hear it gravely
asserted that the tolerance, the Christian liberty that distin-
guished the laws and government of the Maryland colony, was
due to the respect which those colonists and the noble proprie-
tary owed to the feelings and wishes of the Protestant monarch
of England. If such an explanation of the motives of the various
colonies, with regard to tolerance or intolerance, be admitted, it
will prove too much. It may, indeed, deprive the Catholics of
some portion of the credit for voluntary tolerance claimed in
their behalf, but it makes it fairly inferable that the Protestant
government made it not only a sine qua 7ion that Catholics
should not disturb Protestants, but that Protestants should per-
secute Catholics, as some of the Protestant colonies enacted
laws against sects differing from the dominant religious party,
and most of them, even when a little charitable to Protestants
of different views, fixed their canons against Roman Catholics ;
and some of the children of persecution themselves assigned as
a reason for intolerance, the special hostility of the British
government to the Papists, and the necessity of accommodating
themselves and their laws to the wishes of the king and the home
government.

The Catholic colony then, according to a certain class of com-

mentators, was charitable and tolerant out of fear of the king,
while the Protestant colonies were intolerant and persecuting
from love of the king. I admit of neither. I demand that each
colony be judged by its own acts, Avithout any reference to the
imaginary wishes of the parent government ; and I do this the
more earnestly, because I know that whenever it suits the pur-
poses of certain writers, they Will make the state of the British
government and the British king, during the early part of the
seventeenth century, the means and the motive for conduct
exactly opposite to that imputed to the respective Catholic and
Protestant colonies. It is just to all parties to allow to each
that amount of credit for motives which is fairly deducible from
their acts ; and if, in a period of much religious intolerance, a
colony hedges itself about with edicts of the most persecuting
character, and inflicts penalties, pains and death on those whose
views of Christian requirements difi"er from those of the majority,
it is but just to suppose that they left the parent country with
no disrelish for intolerance in itself, but only as it afiected their
non-conformity, especially Avhen the intolerance is practised by
those who are opposed to the parent government, and scarcely
in some places with a tolerance of the established creed of that
government, when it makes it criminal to profess a creed not in
accordance with the platform of those who constitute the ma-
jority, and would be the whole ; and it is no less fair to believe
that a colony which, leaving an intolerant country, gives freedom
to religious creeds, and makes it criminal to interfere with the
difierences of men's belief; nay, that not only admits to equality
all that are within its borders, but invites to itself, as to an asy-
lum for the oppressed, the sufferers in other colonies. It is fair,
I say, to conclude that such a colony has in itself a better
appreciation of human rights and Christian freedom, than exists
amongst its intolerant neighbors. And I shall not, I hope, be
considered as departing from the proprieties of these exercises,
if I ask to present the facts of the tolerance or intolerance of
the colonies in another light.

It is a favorite mode of attack with some writers of all recent
times, and especially with certain demagogues of the present
day, and in our own country, to seize upon the facts of history,
and deduce therefrom arguments against the Catholic creed
which these facts in no way sustain — which they scarcely sug-
gest. The intolerance of certain governments of Europe, in
which the Catholic religion is a part of the State, is made an
argument against that religion, as if Catholicity leaned upon the
State for support, and required intolerance for its maintenance ;
though equal intolerance, exercised by a Protestant government
connected with a State religion, is passed over without comment,
or as if supplying no argument against the requirements of that
creed.

Denying, as we of the Catholic church must deny, and as I
do now deny, that there is aught of political intolerance in the
creed of the Catholic church, and asserting, as I do assert, that
political man, and not the religious creed, is responsible for the
evils done in the name of the Catholic faith, I look to no com-
bination of Church and State to sustain my assertion in behalf
of Catholicity, and I appeal to no such destructive or deterio-
rating association to prove that Protestantism has been bellicose
and intolerant.

The colonies, whence sprang the States that constitute this
nation, afford admirable means of judging of the character of the
religious creeds transplanted to this soil, as no necessity was laid
upon any colony to enact laws intolerant of religious sects ; no
commands of the parent government fixed the religious creed of
any association, or rendered necessary the observance of pre-
scribed forms and ceremonies. The Avhole were in a remarkable
degree independent, and therefore each may well be supposed to
act upon the impulses or suggestions most naturally springing
from its religious principles, without regard to considerations of
State or of municipal benefits. Nothing can be more evident,
than that the emigrants who left England to establish these colo-
nies, (the more needy adventurer, the money-loving, and the

involuntary immigrants excepted,) made it a part of their plan to
divest tlieir new government of all that seemed to them oppres-
sive in its character and disagreeable in its operations at home ;
to place themselves where neither proscription nor habit rendered
necessary a countenance of customs and laws that operate un-
equally, or that seemed, by a change of circumstances, to have
outlived the necessities of the time in which they originated, or
the character of the age that rendered them appropriate or
tolerable.

It does not appear that all had definite views of all that would
result from their new arrangements, or that they fully antici-
pated the harvest that was to be gathered from their planting.
But great changes certainly were contemplated by the leading
minds — important corrections of painful abuses. The tyranny
of the few over the rights of the many, was to have a remedy in
the political association in Plymouth(B.) ; and no one can doubt
that Lord Baltimore fore-ordained the religious tolerance that
distinguished his colonists, and planned for careful observation
the scheme of justice, kindness and equality, with which his
people dealt with the Indians. What, then, is the course adopted
by the leaders of various colonies with regard to this recurrence
to first principles — this divesting themselves of the conventional-
isms of ages, under social and political circumstances that need
have no operation on this side of the Atlantic ? — where each re-
ligious creed was allowed to present itself and its suggestions
without the intervention of political influences, and to stand forth
unaffected by any concessions to temporal power or the influences
of persecution or favoritism. I invite the cui'ious in history, I
invite the searcher after truth, to investigate tliis subject, and to
see what was the effect of the divers creeds upon the different
colonies, that they may determine which colony (regarded as a
political body and an exponent of certain views or forms of gov-
ernment) manifested a practice which involved not merely the
greatest good of the greatest number, but which invited the
greatest portion af its members to direct action in all legislation

that concerned the whole, and which colony, as the professor and
exponent of a particular religious creed, manifested the most of
Christian charity — the most of forbearance to others ; which
allowed the exercise of the largest liberty to all, without making
the possession or profession of any portion of the various creeds
(which even at that day distinguished the Christian world) a
claim for special favor, or a bar to domestic quiet, social equality,
and political preferment.

It appears to me that this is a view of the subject that ought
to be taken ; and as we seek for truth, and for truth only, we
ought not to neglect the suggestion which the facts of the history
of such a remarkable juncture present. I need not tell this au-
dience again, what were the statutes and ordinances of the East-
ern colonies, with regard to those who professed religious opinions
at variance with the creed of the dominant sect. History fur-
nishes the record, and there are none to deny or doubt its cor-
rectness. And while quakerism, ana-baptism, antinomianism,
unitarianism, or any other ism than that which was the distinctive
ism of the majority, was made the cause of imprisonment, stripes,
banishment, and death in one colony, it is a lamentable truth
that the colony formed by the persecuted, the whipped, and the
banished, excepted from the operation of its enforced toleration,
the religious denomination that included the largest part of
Christendom ; nay, levelled its canons of intolerance and pro-
hibition against that Christian denomination which, of all those
gathered in this New World, had, by special enactment, pro-
claimed equality to all other sects, and which gave laws, indeed,
to almost the only colony in which the persecuted persecutors
could have had a resting-place out of their own narrow confines.
Aye, Rhode Island, the child of persecution, persecuted. The
little colony whose inhabitants were driven together by the sound
of the whip and the threats of the rope, menaced other Chris-
tians with banishment, and other modes of persecution ; and
if it did not banish, it was because by its threats it precluded
admission to those who, by entering the colony, would have

become obnoxious to the penalties of her uncharitable sta-
tutes.

It seems, then, as if the spirit of intolerance was a part of the
creed that influenced some of the colonies ; and, without going
into details, we may say that just in proportion as religion was
made prominent in some of the colonies, did the hostility to those
of other sects manifest itself in the laws and customs of the
people. And whatever exception Pennsylvania may have formed
to the evidence of general hatred of denomination for denomi-
nation, it is evident that the mild, sagacious, and philanthropic
founder and proprietary of that colony yielded up to fear and
expediency what others sacrificed with a hearty good will ; and
his dread of the effects of Mass Houses in his colony, upon
public sentiment at home, almost overcame his resolve and his
desire to practice tolerance in America.

"While the colonies in general were manifesting this settled
hostility against those who refused to conform to the religious
creed of the majority, and especially against the Roman Catho-
lics, Lord Baltimore's colony took possession of the grant on the
Chesapeake, and commenced the work of government. Free
from the trammels of foreign influences, unfettered by any laws
of conformity, and as yet without the vexations of inconvenient
customs, he had no bad precedents to embarrass him ; he had no
favorites to reward, and no enemies to defeat or punish. The
people who followed his brother understood the object of their
mission, and had received lessons of political wrongs and religious
persecutions, to makB them in love with tolerance ; and they pos-
sessed too much of the spirit of Christianity to deny to others
what they coveted for themselves.

The world has seen in other colonies the effect of dominant
sectaries, yielding themselves up to the suggestions of their
creeds, and it was evident nothing had been gained by making
any sect the repository of power. It was therefore evidently
the intention of Lord Baltimore to give a new feature to coloni-
zation, by allowing his own creed to suggest the treatment to

others, and to make Catholicity, untrammeled by State depen-
dence, the exponent of religious rites and the minister of politi-
cal equality. Hence the Protestant historian* is enabled to say,
" with a policy the wisdom of Avhich was the more remarkable,
as it was far in advance of the age, (that is, because it was not
derived from the spirit of the age, but from the spirit of the
gospel,) Lord Baltimore laid the foundation of his province on
the broad basis of freedom in religion and security to property.
Christianity, as a part of the old common law of England, was
estabhshed by the proprietary, without allowing any pre-emi-
nence to any particular form of its exhibition."

How truly Christian, as we all understand Christianity, as we
hear it cited around us, every day, are the views thus imputed to
Lord Baltimore thus entering into and influencing all his plans
for the colonial government. But I know it may be said, nay,
it will be said that the professions of a founder of a colony may
be truly admirable, while the experience of his colonists may be
very different from the hopes which those professions warranted.
That the real intentions, indeed, of the founder and proprietor
may be neglected by his secular officers, and the administration
of affairs be in entire opposition to his plans. Such, it may be
supposed, was the case in some of the colonies. Such, it is cer-
tain was not the case in Maryland, while the religion of which
the founder and most of the colonists were professors, was
allowed its operation in the legislation of the inchoate state. And
with a view of securing and perpetuating that freedom of con-
science for which he labored, Cecil Calvert prescribed for the
Governor of his province from 1636 onward the following oath
of office : —

" I will not, by myself or any other, directly or indirectly,
trouble, or molest, or discountenance any person professing to
believe in Jesus Christ, for, or in respect to, religion ; I will make

* Chalmers, as quoted by Hawkes.

no difference of persons in conferring offices, favors or rewards,
for, or in respect of, religion, but merely as they shall be found
faithful and well deserving, and endued with moral virtues and
abilities ; my aim shall be public unity ; and if any person or
officer shall molest any person professing to believe in Jesus
Christ, on account of his religion, I will protect the person
molested and punish the offender."

Surely the spirit of entire equality never did a more perfect
work, than that proposed by Lord Baltimore, and carried out by
his colonists. Persecuted at home ; oppressed with legal disa-
bilities, and still more embarrassed with the annoying antagonism
of a dominant party, and the irritating hostility of numerous
sectaries, agreeing only in that hostility, those colonists mani-
fested a spirit of Christian kindness that does infinite credit to
the creed which they professed. And if subsequent observation
enables some to say that it was the true mode of perpetuating
the colony, by securing immigration to the oppressed and suffer-
ing of other creeds, it may be said in reply that the dictates of
Christianity are always the most expedient in a full experiment ;
and we have advanced in our argument, if we show a perfect
consistency in the practice of those elements and the dictates of
Christianity, and make apparent the coincidence of their creed
with their beautiful practice.

I have felt called on to present the action of the early colonist
of Maryland, with regard to religious liberty, in a strong con-
trast with the facts which liistory presents in its record of the
proceedings of other colonies, not because it is agreeable to throw
a shadow over the glory of the settlers of other portions of this
country, or that under ordinary circumstances, such comparisons
are expedient. It would be more agreeable to dwell on the
sterHng virtues of other colonists, and they had stern and sterl-
ing virtues, and to give them credit for a subsequent adoption of
that practice which distinguished the Pilgrim Fathers of St.
Mary's. But we do not, and we ought not to conceal from our-
selves, or attempt to deny to others that we celebrate in the land-

ing of these Pilgrims — the advent of men of a certain creed — and
that the circmnstances of the people of the various colonies at
that time render it easy to compare the character of the motives
bj which each community was influenced, and to judge of the
nature and propriety of the leading principle of all, by the eifects
which that principle wrought upon the conduct, wishes and legis-
lation of the several bodies. And, let me add, that the circum-
stances of the present times, fully justify the inquiry. Nay
more, those circumstances render such an inquiry, and such a
comparison, a solemn duty to ourselves and our creed, and we
may regard this celebration as one of providential occurrence,
supplying the opportunity and the means of a deserved and tri-
umphant vindication. Not for the triumph, hut for the vindica-
tion.

In the particular instance of religious tolerance, the comparison
is presented, not by the records of men of the creed of the early
colonists of St. Mary's, not by men, who from education, asso-
ciation or interest could be supposed to lean towards that
unfriended creed. The history of all those events is from writers
who are strongly hostile to the creed which Lord Baltimore had
adopted, and in one instance it is presented by a historian*
whose life is dedicated to the promulgation of the doctrines of
another church. His work does honor to himself and his prin-
ciples, and appeals to the judgment against the prejudices of the
ignorant and the erring.

If the peculiar characteristics of the early institutions of the
colony are found pervading, in a superior degree, the theory of
om- national government, and the broad and expansive liberality
of the colonial legislature is, more than the legislation or practice
of any other colony, reflected in the constitutional provisions of
our general government, it may not be an extravagant presump-
tion to conclude that those institutions, and especially that libe-

* Dr. Hawkes, historian of the Episcopal Church in Maryland and Virginia.

rality, had much to do with the formation and cultivation of a
state of feeling which led to the declaration and achievement of
national independence.

I have no time now to trace up these effects to their natural
causes, nor to seize upon the admitted circumstances of the
Maryland colony, and follow them doAvn with their constantly
augmenting effects, until they connect themselves (as causes with
results) with the movements of the colonies towards a redress of
wrongs, and then with those events which led to our existence as a
nation, and the moulding of the government and the adoption of
the constitution in a form so truly democratic in its theory.

It is the opinion of many British writers who have access to
American anti-revolutionary documents, that it was the fixed
and well arranged purpose of the American colonists, at an early
day to become independent of the parent government. I do not
possess the means of arriving at such a conclusion ; but, to me it
is rather evident that the democratic character of the colonial
governments, the various degrees of freedom recognised under
them, and the habits of self-reliance inculcated and formed, were
certain to lead to that independence, which may therefore be
regarded as the inevitable result of peculiar circumstances, rather
than the accomplishment of any preconcerted plan. Surely it is
more to the lasting honor of our ancestors of the early colonies,
that the national independence and national character were
rather the natural results of practical virtues, of liberal princi-
ples, adopted for the sake of their liberality, and of a lofty esti-
mation of human rights, than the effect of any idea of rebellion
first, and victory afterwards. Both produce a nation, but each
proceeds from a separate class of motives, and each, when suc-
cessful, is productive of different national characteristics.

I do not now deny that our ancestors very early entertained
an idea of separation from the mother country, but still I doubt
it. It is not quite consistent with all their professions. Our
independence was the inevitable result of early circumstances,
and a state of feelings and a mode of action almost necessarily

resulting from such circumstances ; and, with that view, I think
it easy to see how the spirit of the Pilgrims of St. Mary's
county worked, not only to produce that great result, hut also
how it co-operated to mould the features of that result to the
particular form they presented in 1776 and 1778, and how they
have led to the amelioration of much which, though at that time
it was consistent with the general feeling of the public, subse-
quently required an accommodation to the advances in public
sentiment. We must never overlook the important fact, that
though truth is immutable in its character, it is altogether pro-
gressive in its influences. And good principles operate not always
to the extent of their goodness, so much as to the capabilities
and power of their subject, and different co-efficients express
that power under different circumstances. He who saw "men
as trees walking," was using the full measure of his perception,
and the fullness of the grace that had wrought the miracle, as
much as he was when he became enabled to direct his vision to a
proper estimate of forms and distances. It was not the principle,
it was not the power restoring the sight, that was deficient, it was
the weakness of the unprepared organ that was unable to accom-
modate itself to the blessing, that was in itself unable to grasp
the full measure of the gift, but had from its own imperfection
to await the result of that principle which had begun its ope-
ration.

So while I see, and we all acknowledge an immense difference
between the administration of Republican governments now and
that of the early colony of Maryland, we yet can see the close
relation which the former, as a result, bears to the latter as a
cause ; and we as readily discover, not merely how much these
beneficial changes of modern times are dependent on the im-
provement of circumstances, but we also see how much that
improvement is due to the character of the early government.

The charter granted to Lord Baltimore differed essentially
from those held by other proprietaries. It conveyed a power
not usually granted ; and instead of giving Maryland a mere

colonial existence, it conferred on it the character and dignity of
a palatinate. Starting at once with that long step in advance,
it had the lead of other colonies in the essential property of in-
dependence ; and it cannot be doubted, that during the time the
colony was governed by the dynasty which founded it, it mani-
fested the benefits of that incipient independence.

In the next place, while an unusual degree of independence
was secured to the province as a whole, the character of the
government was, to an unusual degree, essentially and purely
democratic. The legislative power was in an assembly in which
was present the majesty of the people, not by a fiction of govern-
ment or laws, but in very deed. The people of the province
were assembled in person to accept, and subsequently to enact
their own laws, and to try the experiment of self-government ;
and when the good spirit of the new government had so conci-
liated the Indians as to produce a multiplication, and call for a
dispersion of the colonists, and thus to render inconvenient a
personal attendance of the people in the grand Wittenagemote
of the young nation, a representative character was given to the
legislature, but with such a careful regard to the great principles
of democracy, which lay at the foundation of all, that it was
permitted to individuals who did not choose to depend upon rep-
resentatives, to come themselves and present their own views,
and advocate their own measures.

Here was evidence of a deeply-seated reverence for the great
principles of self-government, the sovereignty of the people ; and
whatever changes may have occurred in the forms and measures
of government, we cannot doubt that this leading characteristic
of repubhcanism was always operative to prevent much of evil,
and in the end to produce much good by reproducing itself. I
am aAvare that there was an earnest wish on the part of
the Lord Proprietary to continue to originate all laws which
should be submitted to the legislature of his colony. This
was the practice of European national legislation at the time,
and the theory now. (It is, I think, slowly growing into prac-

tice in our own Government). It raised a momentary difficulty
between the legislature and the proprietary ; but the principle of
liberty which he had planted in his colony, and with his colony,
was too potent for that remnant of royalty, and Lord Baltimore
felt how operative, how progressive are the principles of human
rights, when freed from the trammels of proscription, and unre-
strained by hereditary prejudices. He learned to view the ques-
tion of government in the light in which he had himself placed
it, and he gracefully yielded to that influence which he had
so essentially promoted, without being able to anticipate its
operation. Here is a species of territorial sovereignty of which
we hear so much in these days.

How beautiful ! how republican is all this ! How sternly true
were the disciples of democracy in Maryland to the great lessons
which they had worked out ; and how gracefully, nobly yielding
was the proprietary in England to the circumstances which his
own principles, means, and labors had produced. Perhaps he
had not thought of that consequence of his ideas of human rights
and his efforts for their establishment. Human greatness does
not consist in foreseeing all events or in discerning in the future
the full effects of the correct principles which are put into opera-
tion. The great man is not he who knows all the good which
his measures may produce ; it is rather he who yields to the
results which the operation of his good principles by good mea-
sures makes evident ; and it seems to me that the beautiful spirit
of freedom and equality which influenced the founders of this
colony is discernable — is to be seen at work — in the establishment
of our national government, that the unyielding spirit of right
manifested by the colonial legislators, was reproduced in the
steady, stern demand of the rebellious colonies in the later days,
and that the graceful relinquishment of power by the noble pro-
prietary was the illustrious example that was lost on the sovereign
of Great Britain, but which was found in the concessions of
rights, feelings, and interests that distinguished the different
colonies when they made themselves "one out of many."

. I have already more than once called your attention to the
close resemblance of the provisions of the Constitution of our
country to the great principles of religious equality that distin-
guished the early action of this colony. If there is one thing
that specially distinguishes our National Government from that
of every other country on earth, it is that pervading principle of
toleration and religious equality which is proclaimed in the Con-
stitution, not as a simple assertion, but as a memorial of perpe-
tuity ; and if there was one thing more than another which
distinguished the colony of Maryland from all the other colonies
of the country, it was that entire religious equality before the
State, before the court, before the people.

If our country claims a pre-eminence over other nations in
the mode of treating barbarian conquests, it is in the treaties
which she makes with, and the largesses she bestows upon, the
Indians, and that superiority is usually conceded by those who
know the circumstances of the conqueror and the conquered.
How pre-eminent in the history of colonial dealings with the
aborigines, is the merciful conduct of the colonists of Maryland,
who, though unrestrained by religious scruples on the subject of
war, and powerful in means offensive and defensive, so Hved
with the red lords of the soil, so commended themselves and
their interests to those true owners, that the spirit of brotherly
affection was as operative between the two races as among the
individuals of the favored caste. I will not say that to the
spirit of justice and charity Avhich animated the colonists of
Lord Baltimore, is the nation indebted for the credit she claims
for the good which was done, and the evils forborne, towards the
various tribes of Indians that are brought under our national
limits ; but this I may say, without incurring the charge of as-
sumption, that if the nation had needed an example of righteous
dealing with the red men, she would have found it in the early
dealing of that colony.

I feel thus authorized to say, that the early colony of Mary-
land presented to the government of the United States the best

example of republican simplicity in its form and action of gov-
ernment ; that it afforded the loftiest example of religious toler-
ance and equality that was ever presented, and the first that
was presented in this country ; and that in the treatment of the
Indians its conduct was that of surpassing righteousness. And
as these were constantly and heartily practised in that period, it
is fairly deducible that the founders of the government of this
nation were largely and effectively influenced by these examples,
and hence to these examples in their effect on the minds of others
do we owe in part the recognition and the security by constitu-
tional provisions of some the rights dearest to us as men, as pa-
triots, as christians, and some of the practices of those national
virtues which concern us as philanthropists.

To the early colony of Maryland is our government indebted
for the development of some of the best principles that distin-
guish our institutions and do honor to their operation, and that
colony owed these principles and her determination and ability to
give them practice, to that pure and undefiled religion which the
the colonists brought with them from the persecutions and the
more dangerous favors in Europe, to establish its altars here, and to
proclaim "life and immortality" to its professors, and unbounded
love and unrestrained equality to all Avho should profess a belief
in its divine founder. Honor and fame to the self-sacrificing Pil-
grims who thus came to the new world to give full operation to
the pure principles of Christianity I Honor and reverence to the
venerable and reverend "Fathers" who led the Pilgrims, who
erected an altar, lighted its incense and offered its victim ; who
poured back the light of truth upon their faithful followers, and
sent forward its rays to the eye of the astonished pagan ; who
made the work of conquest honorable to the conqueror and ac-
ceptable to the conquered ; Avho showed their confidence in their
own creed by recommending full indulgence to the creed of others !
Honor to the venerable Fathers who recommended their religion
by active benevolence, and invited the red man to the adoption
of the Christian faith by the beauty of the white man's practice.
4

Our orators and our poets have lauded the motives and cele-
brated the perseverance of the Pilgrim Fathers of St. Mary's.
They have noted the perils of the sea which they incurred in the
little vessels when they left their homes in Englajid to cross the
Atlantic in the months of winter, and the historians have care-
fully portrayed the terrors of the storms encountered, and the
dangers from the merciless foes that infested the seas at that
time. All of us have heard of the sufferings of those fathers, of
the sympathy manifested by those of the tempest-tossed Ark —
for those on board the defenceless Dove. All of us have read of
the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers on a neighboring island, and
how, true to their faith, they celebrated its holy mysteries of the
altar, and erected as a memorial of that faith and as a token of
their hopes, a simple cross in imitation of the " world's redeem-
ing wood." Beside this, w^e follow these Pilgrim Fathers up-
ward on the Potomac and backward again to the sanctified spot
on which we now celebrate their landing, and commemorate the
virtues which they imparted and cherished.

Graham, a writer of great purity of motive, says, mistaking
here and there some of the minor facts, "the first band of emi-
grants consisting of about two hundred gentlemen of considerable
rank and fortune, with a number of inferior adherents, in a ves-
sel called the Dove and Ark sailed from England under the com-
mand of Leonard Calvert, and reached the coast of Maryland in
the beginning of the following year."

Hawkes speaks of the arrival of these " two hundred gentle-
men of rank and fortune," of their faithful and Christian-like
commencement of the province which they came to found.

Chalmers, another historian, speaks of the immigration of the
fathers of this State, and lauds their character and their conduct.
Wherever we find a record of the settlement of Maryland, we
meet with accounts of proceedings which do honor to the " few
hundred gentlemen of the first character," who came in the Ark
and Dove, or who succeeded, in places and duties, those distin-
guished men, but no one has paused to tell of the Pilgrim

Mothers. Great dangers Avere encountered by those gentlemen
in crossing the Atlantic in a small vessel, but was there exemp-
tion from danger and from suffering for the women ? Was there
nothing in the crow^ded state of those small vessels to make
almost unavoidable great physical sufferings to "well-born and
well-educated ladies ?" and to shock female delicacy even more
than deprivation could injure and tempest and pirates affright ?
In the organization of the domestic circle when they had arrived,
and in its extension, was nothing due to woman ? When the
altar was reared in its fragile temple,* was there no female there
to give to it the beauty of holiness ? none to gather around the
simple sanctuary as woman once clung around the cross on Cal-
vary, to make more impressive the august sacrifice ?

When Tayac, the King, bowed his head to baptism, he, of
course, owed his conviction to the instruction of the reverend
teachers ; but when his queen came to the sacred font, had she
not been invited by the gentle precepts and attractive examples
of the female pilgrims ? Or, if the argument of the priest or the
example of the husband was alone operative upon the wife, who
taught their princess daughter to profess the creed, receive the
sacraments and illustrate the doctrines of Christianity ? That
was alone, the office of woman ; nameless, fameless, perhaps, but
ever the missionary of benevolence, piety and purity.

The holy religion of those pilgrims, which in its first proclama-
tion had released woman from the degradation of pagan condition,
made her the co-worker in the great mission of domestic and
social piety ; endowed her with all the dignity of recognized co-
operation in the office Of Christianity ; and, though sparing her
the burthen of sacramental labors, yet honoring her with the
passive distinction of the baptism of sorrow in herself, and the
commission to lead up others to all the blessings that follow vir-
tue, and all the dignity that is conferred by religion.

Why, then, have we no record of the sufferings endured in

* The Indian Wio;w:uii.

themselves, and lessened in others by the women who commenced
the work of regenerating the colony ? They were there, else
whence the gentle sentiments that pervaded all the public acts
and social business intercourse of the Fathers. They were there,
and though we knew them not by their names nor by the special
mention of their usefulness, yet, we discover their influence in
the growth, the piety and the constant peace of the early colony.
We find woman there in all her sex's fullest dignity, by the per-
petuation of the names of those who first landed. She was there
in all her sex's gentleness, to mould the manners and direct the
conduct of those whose courage has given fame to Maryland, and
whose genius has augmented her scientific and literary character.
She was there in all her sex's holiest influences, to prepare the
messengers and ministers of love and philanthropy for the duties
of the convent cell, and the sacrifices and devotion of the pesti-
lential hospital. She was there in all her sex's loftiest office, to
fill the sanctuary with the dispensers of the august mysteries of
our faith, and to prepare them to wear the mitre and the crozier
with dignity and grace, and to deserve the Tiary by their learn-
ing, their piety, and their devotion.

Why, then, is woman in such a commemoration unrecognised ?
While leaders and teachers, warriors and philanthropists of the
other sex are celebrated, why are women, their companions in
dangers and triumphs, unnoticed ? I cannot tell, unless their
modesty forbade them to chronicle their own worth, and an un-
worthy motive lead the historians to make prominent only the
names and deeds of the fathers. Special and extraordinary acts
we know are those which strike the public mind, and obtain a
place in general history ; while continual usefulness so connects
itself with the daily experience of man as to become unnoticed
by its benefits. Woman is ahvays in the discharge of that mis-
sion. Man, at best, is only "instant in season." Man's office
is like the offering of the laity of Israel, which was yearly, only,
but generous ; woman's is like the sacrifice of the Christian
Church, daily, small indeed, but precious, clear and pure.

Yes ! woman was here in all lier sex's sweetest offices to per-
petuate lier own virtues in her own sex, to insure innocency,
purity and loveliness to the virgin, dignity and grace to the ma-
tron, and benignity and charity in the aged, to mould them to all
the perfection of the female character, and make this portion of
the colony, dedicated in its name to the Mother of God, redolent
with all the odors that exhale from her purity, her piety, and
her grace.

If not by special act, if not by the record of extraordinary en-
durance, if not by commemorated courage or embalmed affection,
are the names of these Pilgrim Mothers of St. Mary's to find a
place in the history and commemoration of the foundation of
Maryland, yet we cannot fail to recognise in all the graces that
enrich the State, and all the virtues that have gone forth hence
to bless other portions of our Union, the emanations from avo-
man's peculiar excellence, and the exercise of her peculiar virtues.
Virtues, such as these, demand from the philanthropist, the pa-
triot, and the Christian, the most grateful recognition ; especially
do they appeal to us who celebrate them here where they were
so beneficially developed ; but their best celebration and their
perfect reward, are alone in Heaven.

Gentlemen of the Philodemic Society : — Though the task
which I assumed may not have been accomplished, yet the time
for its completion has passed, and it will be permitted to me only
to close my address with that special reference to the occasion
which the festivity would seem to demand, and to your society,
which, holding the commemoration of events, keeps alive their
remembrance, and thus commends to practice these Christian
virtues which are the glory of the Pilgrim Fathers of Maryland.
Your association is the arcMtriclanos of this commemorative mar-
riage feast of truth and piety. Let our zeal for religion, and
our love for truth, and our affections for our fellow men show
that the great author of truth has been invited, and that the im-
maculate mother of purity is here in our remembrance.

The ground on which we stand is holy ; the foot prints of the

good are on its sands, and its soil is enriched with the ashes from
the sanctified thurible. The line which sweeps round this limited
horizon, includes a space whence history draws her most attrac-
tive record, and presents scenes where indeed the purity of the
motive and the beneficence of the act seem to invest the genius of
history with the spirit of inspiration, and enable us to find be-
neath the simplicity of secular narrative the means of spiritual
instruction.

Grateful to the heart of every visitor here, must be the hospi-
tality that makes our celebration a double festivity. This is the
land of bountiful hospitality. The characteristics of the earliest
settlers were domestic, social, and municipal hospitality ; and
whatever change may have come over the creed or character of
the country, the direct inheritance of hospitality is unbroken.
Fields are here as of old, improved by culture, and streams made
ministrant to trade. Faith and freedom, the boast of the Pilgrim
fathers, are yet the attributes of the sons ; and piety and beauty,
which made lustrous the cabin-chambers of the Pilgrim mothers,
now give charms to the stately mansions of their lovely descen-
dants ; and all that was the special and peculiar attribute of the
Pilgrims of St. Mary's city, has become the general possession,
the principle and practice of the people of the Commonwealth.

Nor are we unmindful of the distinction conferred on this
day's celebration, by the participation therein of the Ex-chief
Magistrate and a portion of the judicial and other ofiicers of
the Commonwealth. The successor of the Calvert honors him-
self and his co-celebrants when he does honor to his great prede-
cessor. The representatives of the popular sentiment thus
express sympathy with the dogma of no communion, the rules of
no association, the politics of no individual ; but they who hold
place by the voice of the people, appropriately commemorate the
sacrifices and the virtues that gave value and potency to the
people's voice. Nor can the functionaries of this or any State
more magnify their office, more satisfactorily pledge themselves
to an equal administration of the laws, than by presenting them-

selves among tliose who honor the declaration and establishment
of those great Republican principles, civil and political equality,
the right to the pursuit of happiness, and, without diminishing or
jeoparding thereby any other right, the glorious right indispensa-
ble to our form of government, "freedom to worship God."

Beautifully appropriate to the circumstances of the objects
celebrated, are the character and condition of those who main-
tain the celebration. Men of condition, of learning and character
directed and formed the civilization of Maryland. Most meet is
it then that the halls of classical learning should supply the
guardians of the annual festival, and since the "Fathers" of a
learned and laboring religious order, were the companions and
guides of the great exodus, meet is it that the influence of that
order should be felt, and the presence of its members enjoyed in
the solemnities that commemorate the entry into the promised
land.

Since woman shared in the dangers and in the glories of the
enterprise, woman is appropriately a part of the memorial which
this day presents ; not by her presence to give attraction to the
celebration of man's achievements, but to be the representative
of the principles and sex that gave order and ornament to the
early colony, like the caryatides of palatial architecture, to
support and beautify the edifice.

Eminently appropriate, also, is the presence of those of various
creeds in this celebration which, though it is sustained by the
professors of that faith which was held by the founder of Mary-
land and most of his colonists, is intended as a commemoration
of social and political virtues which are universal in their cha-
racter, and may be and have been, practiced by men of all creeds.
God forbid that in celebrating the beautiful example of Christian
virtues of those who are of our own faith, we should do injustice
to the merits of those who profess a difierent faith. God forbid
that in pursuing a comparison which we think results in favor of
our own creed, we should presume that others who profess a faith
in Jesus Christ, are unmindful of the works which should illus-

trate that faith. Rather, while we meet the spirit of unfriendli-
ness towards ourselves that pervades the social atmosphere at
the present time, and seek by comparison and example to avoid
a reproach that is cast upon us, and enlighten the careless and
forgetful upon the facts of history, let us so manifest our re-
ligion that we shall win the love of those who have looked coldly
on us, and regain the confidence of those who have doubted.
The viper has come from the fire, indeed, which we helped to
kindle for general benefit, and it has fastened upon our hand.
But let us show the power of innocence, by casting the reptile,
not upon those who expect our injury, but back into the fire, that
it may perish in the flame whence it issued.

If we complain of the spirit of hostility that is abroad, let us
ask if it be worse than that which scattered the sectaries of
various creeds, and compelled those of our own faith to seek
refuge in tliis asylum. Do we need an example of duty in the
present emergency ? Look back upon the conduct of the founder
of this colony, who, amid scenes of violence against himself and
his, calmly put in operation his plan of Christian benevolence ;
and while segments of parties pursued each other with implacable
hatred, he manifested the beauty of his own principle by opening
to those mutual opponents his own colony as a refuge from each
other's antagonism. He could not have been unmindful of the
dangers which such a course rendered probable, nor have failed
to foresee the very political evils which ensued ; but where right
and danger are the only alternatives, the good man has no hesi-
tancy in his choice.

The piety, the forbearance, the enlarged views of right that
distinguished the plans of the founders of Maryland, and which
are illustrated in the practice of the earliest colonists, are no less
our duties than they were theirs ; and oh ! how much more easily
practised are all those virtues now, since the pathway is desig-
nated by their foot-prints, and enlightened by their example.
And the celebration of this day would be imperfect, would lack
the spirit which would make it acceptable to God and honorable

to us, if it recalled a single virtue of our Catholic Fathers,
merely to gratify the pride of their successors, or if it selected a
single error of their separated contemporaries, only to generate
a feeling of unkindness in the present generation.

Here on this chosen spot — here on this sanctified ground —
here let there be prevalent no sentiment but that of love to God
and love to our fellow man. Here, where the red man received
the Pilgrim fathers with tokens of friendship and favor, and
where men of other creeds welcome us to-day to our celebration,
here may the spirit of Calvert pervade all of those who com-
memorate his virtues and his triumphs ; and may the spirit of
God animate all, of every name and every creed.

NOTES.

Note — Page S-l.

The terms "toleration" and "tolerance" are used in the course of these
remarks, to express the freedom of public worship authorized in the colony of
Maryland. And ■wherever there exists in a gOTCrnment legal or constitutional
right to interfere with that freedom, such a word as " tolerance" may be tole-
rated. Tolerance has its degrees. A religious creed may be only so far tolerated
as to allow its profes&ors the privilege of worshipping in private, as the Chris-
tians were sometimes tolerated in Pagan Rome. A creed may be tolerated so as
to allow the professors the right of public worship, but not admitting them to
political equality, as it was recently in England. Europe even now presents the
various phases of toleration which advancing civilization has secured, and the
remains of that intolerance which not even the nineteenth century, with all its
boasted light, has been able, so far, to remove. Sweden and Tuscany are in-
stances of the abuse of the religious by the civil power. But Avherever in
Europe there is any religious intolerance by the State, it is sustained by the
Constitution (written or unwritten) of the country. It is, indeed, none the
better for that authority, but it is not generally a violation of law or compact.
In this country, the word "tolerance" is not applicable to the religious freedom
which is the right of the citizen, because here perfect, entire equality is pledged
to every citizen ; and the government of the country not only has no inherent
right to legislate for or against any religious denomination or member of any
religious denomination, on account of a creed, but such legislation, or any
such preference or hostility, is positively prohibited by the Constitution of the
United States. It is hence no argument against a Protestant in this country,
that in England a Protestant government persecuted Catholics and Non-conform-
ists— that in Sweden the Protestant government is intolerant ; nor is it to be

urged against American Catholics, that in Tuscany the Catholic government is
equally intolerant.

No American Protestant holds himself accountable for the religious intolerance
of his brother Protestants abroad, and no American Catholic is answerable for
the misrule of a Catholic government in Eui-ope. Abroad, governments are gene-
rally Protestant or Catholic ; in the United States, the government is by design,
by constitutional prohibition, neither one nor the other, it is neither a division of
the one nor a shade of the other. No denomination, no combination of sects,
has any right here to pretend to tolerate any other denomination or sect. Per-
fect freedom, perfect equality, is the right of all. It was pledged in the
National Constitution, before any State accepted that Constitution, and then
became part of the compact of National Union. It is a principle, not a measure
of our Government. There is no limitation, no degrees. The Constitution
is full, clear, and explicit ; and the man or set of men who would establish a
degree of liberty to any one regarded as a citizen — who would deprive any man
or set of men of one single social or political right, the right to vote or to be voted
for, the right to elect or the right to be elected — who would close the ballot-box
or the door of ofBce to a man, on account of his religious creed, seeks a violation
of the fxmdamental law of the land, and is at heart a traitor.

Equality, then, and not toleration, is the proper term to express the regard of
the Constitution of our country for religious denominations.

(A.) Note — Page 35,

Slaryland seems to have taken the lead iii the work of naturalization. For
example : —

The removal of the Dutch from Cape Henlopen, induced many of the planters
to unite themselves to the colony of Maryland, into which they were readily ad-
mitted; and, in the year 1660, the Maryland Assembly enacted, in favor of
them and of certain French refugees, the first law ever passed by any provincial
legislature for the naturalization of aliens. Many similar laws were enacted in
every subsequent session, till the British Revolution ; and, during the intervening
period, great numbers of foreigners transported themselves to the province, and
became completely incorporated with its other inhabitants. — Bacon's Letters,
Oldmixon, Chalmers, S^c. *

(B.) Note— Ptf^e 88.

The Pilgrims of Plymouth, previously to the landiug, drew up aud signed the
following principles or compact : —

"In the name of God, Amen. We, wh»se names are underwritten, the loyal
subjects of our dread Sovereign Lord King James, by the Grace of God, of
Great Britain, France and Ireland, King, Defender of the Faith, and having
undertaken, for the glory of God and advancement of the Cliristian faith, and
honor of our King and country, a voyage, to plant the first colony in the north-
ern parts of Virginia, do, by these presents, solemnly and mutually, in the pre-
sence of God and of one another, covenant and combine ourselves together into
a civil body politic, for our better ordering and presei-vation and furtherance of
the ends aforesaid, and by notice hereof, to enact, constitute and form such just
and equal laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions and ofiBces, from time to time, as
shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general good of the colony,
unto vrhich we promise all due submission and obedience. In witness whereof,
we have hereunto subscribed our names, at Cape Cod, the 11th November, in the
year of the reign of our Sovereign Lord, King James, and the 54th A. D. 1620."

This was signed by the male Pilgrims, and it goes to bind all by the will of
the majority, that of course was necessary in civil aifairs ; but Lord Baltimore's
views differed from those of the Plymouth Pilgrims. They thought only of the
majority, which generally can take care of itself; he provided for the minority,
which is too often left to suffer, without means of redress. And it will be found
in general, that just in proportion as a government tends towards a popular
character — that is, in proportion as it is democratic — are the rights of the
minority guarded by the fundamental laws.

Note — Page 39.

Though Roger Williams allowed a kind of qualified tolerance, with regard to
Roman Catholics, yet in 1GG4, at the first Assembly under the charter of Rhode
Island, it was ordained that all men of competent estates and of civil conversa-
tion, Roman Catholics excepted, shall be admitted freemen or chosen colonial
of&cers. — Chalmers, Douglass, Holmes, ^-c.

Note — Page 46.

It was not until the assembling of the third Legislature of Maryland, (1639,)
that we see the principle of representation introduced into the Constitution of
the province ; writs of election were issued, and the delegates were called Bur-
gesses. " But," say the writers, "though the election of representatives was
thus introduced for the convenience of the people, they were not restricted to
this mode of exercising their legislatorial rights ; for, by a very singular pro-
vision, it was ordained that all freemen declining to vote at the election for Bur-
gesses, should be entitled to assume a personal share in the deliberations of the
Assembly." It docs not appear that there was any compensation out of the
public treasury for those who represented others or those who represented them-
selves. It is not necessary to notice the want of compensation, with the fact
that the legislative body was not numerous ; but it is a fact, that so limited was
the number, that ihe several branches of the Legislature were appointed to meet
in one chamber at the same time.

LIBRftRY OF CONGRESS

0 014 368 138 5

Internet Archive Audio

Featured

Top

Images

Featured

Top

Software

Featured

Top

Books

Featured

Top

Video

Featured

Top

Mobile Apps

Browser Extensions

Archive-It Subscription

Save Page Now

Full text of "Civil and religious equality : an oration delivered at the fourth commemoration of the landing of the pilgrims at Maryland ..."

See other formats