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

"But are there no inconveniences to be thrown into the scale
against the advantage expected from a multiplication of numbers
by the importation of foreigners? It is for the happiness of
those united in society to harmonize, as much as possible, in
matters which they must of necessity transact together. Civil
government being the sole object of forming societies, its
administration must be conducted by common consent. Every
species of government has specific principles. Ours, perhaps,
are more peculiar than those of any other in the universe. It
is a composition of the freest principles of the English
constitution, with others derived from natural right and
natural reason. To these nothing can be more opposed than the
maxims of absolute monarchs. Yet _from such we are to expect
the greatest number of immigrants_. They will bring with them
the _principles of the government they leave, imbibed in early
youth_: or, if able to throw them off, it will be in exchange
for an _unbounded licentiousness, passing, as is usual, from
one extreme to another. It would be a miracle were they to stop
precisely at the point of temperate liberty_. These principles,
with their language, they will transmit to their children. In
proportion with their numbers, they will share with us the
legislation. They will infuse into it their spirit, warp and
bias its directions, and render it a heterogeneous, incoherent,
distracted mass. _I may appeal to experience during the present
contest for a verification of these conjectures._ But if they
be not certain in event, are they not possible? are they not
probable? Is it not safer to wait with patience twenty-seven
years and three months longer for the attainment of every
degree of population desired or expected? May not our
government be more homogeneous, more peaceable, more durable?"

Again, Mr. JEFFERSON, whi