THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE: OR, THE CONTEST BETWEEN CHRISTIANITY AND POLITICAL ROMANISM. BY ANNA ELLA CARROLL, OF MARYLAND. "The name of AMERICA must always exalt the just pride of patriotism." WASHINGTON's Farewell Address. NEW YORK AND AUBURN: MILLER, ORTON & MULLIGAN. NEW YORK: 25 PARK ROW.-AUBURN : 107 GENESEE ST. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year One Thousand Eight Hundred and Fifty-six, by FREDERICK S. WINSTON, In the Clerk s Office of the District Court for the Southern District of New York. E. O. JENKINS, Printer and Stereotyper, No. 26 FRANKFORT STREET. PREFACE. "O, say! does the Star-Spangled Banner yot wave, JK2341 A7 1856 WHAT a burst of life and principle does the very name of America introduce!-bubbling with ever-springing sap, and glorying in the fact that her anatomy is before us. The land for which generation after generation have spent their substance, their energy, and their virtue-which contains the bones of their dead, who died for it-their savings and their nourishment. And when influences deep, palpable, and universal, are striving with marked celerity to arrest her chief work, it is not wonderful she should feel it. Glorious movement, what heart shall not respond to it? The hand that guides this light is a Divine one—it is none other than the hand of God. America has done, and is doing, the world's work, in establishing the only true principles of liberty the world has ever known. If she is thus important to universal man, how much more so to America? Alone with her blood she has watered the tree that she planted; and it has flourished because of its closeness to the root from which it sprouted. Our lives, our country, our homes, our hearts-this sympathy and love constitute the genius, the wealth, and the strength of America. M316741 (8) She will never be pardoned for the exhibition of this sparkling liberty, which attempts to give the world freedom. She started incorruptible virtue, and must be For Americans the first country with blood-stained energy, and solid and constant as the globe. must be America-tbe second, America-all, America! Our first and last motto is, Hope! The balanced moment has come, and in the language of expiring faith, let us call out for light, more light, Lord. We are sustaining the greatest weight ever laid on human life. And who that has caught but the feeblest ray of this liberty is nounce it? willing to re The American spirit must imbue the American sentiment, and the goal should be fixed before the starting-point is taken, by all who press American soil. To give life and durability, which shall implant, by education, the country in the heart of the child, is the means at America's command for her salvation. And America, to be saved thus, must be saved in her infancy. Before the child increases and enlarges, it must exist. This is the inspiration of the American mind; and believing God had raised this independent Nation upon which to foster his own glorious Truth, let man from his birth recognize Him in his own beloved country. Who by origin and adoption is in her-is of her-is enshrined in her, must live and die in her. America has a mission to teach the world, in her language, her history, and her laws. Her great heart and soul were found in a feeble body, which gave it independence-it was the instinct, the inspiration, the energy, which made the heroes of our liberties. No mere formulas, religious or political, can bind America-we can, without spade, or mattock, or pick, lay her bare to her foundations—and, alive, or concealed in the coffins or charnel-houses, and in the bones of the dead, faithfulness to the Constitution and laws, which seal our liberties, may be found inscribed. The brave deeds of our fathers speak to us-the thought of freedom is in their blood. The power of sacrifice was the spirit which carried them to triumph; and all that concrete living spirit yet survives. No Gordian knot, consecrated by absurdity did they fear to discuss; no problems of political sages escaped their logic. It was the heroism of inspiration which led them to love our country; and American patriotism would survive were it engulfed in the bosom of despotism-the soul of America and Americans is an instinct which can never perish. For the first time I appear before the public. As a woman, I shrink with timidity and distrust. I have no affiliations with any principles which place her in a sphere at variance with that refined delicacy to which she is assigned by Nature. I have no aspirations to extend her influence or position. And from the Press, the accomplished and enlightened Editorial Corps of the country, who are assured I have no political, religious, or personal animosities to resent, I bespeak kindness, generosity, courtesy, and forbearance. In my friends, who are distinguished by associations with all parties, and sects, and creeds, I have all confidence that, however much they may differ, they will neither resent nor grow cold. Connected as I am with those holding the Roman Catholic as well as Protestant faith, who came to this land to enjoy fortune and not to seek it; alike imbued with the spirit and instinct of Liberty, which led them to take refuge under our Institutions, which they assisted to perpetuate-it would not be consonant with reason or taste to arraign them!—and though myself a Protestant, communing, in the faith of Protestants, with our common Redeemer, I honor that paternal ancestry, of which I in common descended, with the amiable, distinguished, and worthy Archbishop who bore my name, the first in the United States, and one of the heroic signers of our Independence, of which abundant proof is at hand. Yet it is not with my family relations, Protestant or Catholic, with which the public feel interest or concern; but only in the merits or importance of the subjects discussed. And when I reflect upon America's great end and errand, and see the necessity of passing through the domain |