rical Society: "Higher than all titles and badges of honor,
and more exalted than royal nobility is the imperishable distinction which
the passage of this broad and liberal Act won for Maryland, and for the
members of that never-to-be-forgotten session, and sacred forever be the
hallowed spot which gave it birth."(313)

What shall I say of the prominent part that was taken by distinguished
representatives of the Catholic Church in the cause of our American
Independence? What shall I say of Charles Carroll of Carrollton, who, at
the risk of sacrificing his rich estates, signed the Declaration of
Independence; of Rev. John Carroll, afterward the first Archbishop of
Baltimore, who, with his cousin Charles Carroll and Benjamin Franklin, was
sent by Congress to Canada to secure the co-operation of the people of
that province in the struggle for liberty; of Kosciusko, Lafayette,
Pulaski, Barry and a host of other Catholic heroes who labored so
effectually in the same glorious cause? American patriots without number
the Church has nursed in her bosom; a traitor, never.

The Father of his Country was not unmindful of these services. Shortly
after his election to the Presidency, replying(314) to an address of his
Catholic fellow-citizens, he uses the following language: "I presume that
your fellow-citizens will not forget the patriotic part which you took in
the accomplishment of their revolution, and the establishment of their
government; or the important assistance they received from a nation in
which the Roman Catholic faith is professed."

And the Catholics of our generation have nobly emulated the patriotism and
the spirit of toleration exhibited by their ancestors. They can neither be
accused of disloyalty nor of intolerance to their dissenting brethren. In
more than one instance of our nation's history our churches have been
desecrated and burned to the ground; our convents have been invaded and
destroyed; our clergy have been exposed to insult and violence. These
injuries have been inflicted on us by incendiary mobs animated by hatred
of Catholicism. Yet, in spite of these provocations, our Catholic
citizens, though wielding an immense numerical influence in the localities
where they suffered, have never retaliated. It is in a spirit of just
pride that we can affirm that hitherto in the United States no Protestant
house of worship or educational institution has been destroyed, nor
violence offered to a Protestant minist