that political state of things to which he belonged. At other times
Catholics have taken the side of aristocracy from a spirit of religion.

But no sooner is the priesthood entirely separated from the government,
as is the case in the United States, than is found that no class of men
are more naturally disposed than the Catholics to transfuse the doctrine
of the equality of conditions into the political world. If, then, the
Catholic citizens of the United States are not forcibly led by the
nature of their tenets to adopt democratic and republican principles,
at least they are not necessarily opposed to them; and their social
position, as well as their limited number, obliges them to adopt these
opinions. Most of the Catholics are poor, and they have no chance of
taking a part in the government unless it be open to all the citizens.
They constitute a minority, and all rights must be respected in order
to insure to them the free exercise of their own privileges. These two
causes induce them, unconsciously, to adopt political doctrines,
which they would perhaps support with less zeal if they were rich and
preponderant.

The Catholic clergy of the United States has never attempted to oppose
this political tendency, but it seeks rather to justify its results. The
priests in America have divided the intellectual world into two parts:
in the one they place the doctrines of revealed religion, which command
their assent; in the other they leave those truths which they believe to
have been freely left open to the researches of political inquiry.
Thus the Catholics of the United States are at the same time the most
faithful believers and the most zealous citizens.

It may be asserted that in the United States no religious doctrine
displays the slightest hostility to democratic and republican
institutions. The clergy of all the different sects hold the same
language, their opinions are consonant to the laws, and the human
intellect flows onwards in one sole current.

I happened to be staying in one of the largest towns in the Union, when
I was invited to attend a public meeting which had been called for the
purpose of assisting the Poles, and of sending them supplies of arms and
money. I found two or three thousand persons collected in a vast hall
which had been prepared to receive them. In a short time a priest in
his ecclesiastical robes advanced to the front of the hustings: the
spectators rose, and stood uncovered, whilst he