Jesus saith unto them, Did ye never read in the scriptures, The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner: this is the Lord's doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes?
Therefore say I unto you, The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof. (Matthew 21:42,43)

Another parable put he forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man which sowed good seed in his field:
But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way.
But when the blade was sprung up, and brought forth fruit, then appeared the tares also.
So the servants of the householder came and said unto him, Sir, didst not thou sow good seed in thy field? from whence then hath it tares?
He said unto them, An enemy hath done this. The servants said unto him, Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up?
But he said, Nay; lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them.
Let both grow together until the harvest: and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them: but gather the wheat into my barn. (Matthew 13:24-30)

“At what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, and to pull down, and to destroy it;
If that nation, against whom I have pronounced, turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto them.
And at what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant it;
If it do evil in my sight, that it obey not my voice, then I will repent of the good, wherewith I said I would benefit them.”(Jer. 18:7-10).

“God will have men and nations governed; and they must be governed by one of the two instruments—AN OPEN BIBLE, with its hallowed influences, or A STANDING ARMY WITH BRISTLING BAYONETS. One is the product of God's wisdom, the other, of man's folly; and that nation or people that dare discard, or will not yield to the moral power of the one, must submit to the brute force of the other. Herein do we discover the secret of our ability to govern ourselves. Just so long, and no longer, than we preserve the open Bible in our schools, shall we be capable of self-government.”(Right of the Bible in Our Public Schools, 1859, p. 280)

“Almost all the civil liberty now enjoyed in the world owes its origin to the principals of the Christian religion. Men began to understand their natural rights, as soon as the reformation from popery began to dawn in the sixteenth century; and civil liberty has been gradually advancing and improving, as genuine Christianity has prevailed. By the principles of the Christian religion we are not to understand the decisions of ecclesiastical councils, for these are the opinions of mere men; nor are we to suppose that religion to be any particular church established by law, with numerous dignitaries, living in stately palaces, arrayed in gorgeous attire, and rioting in luxury and wealth, squeezed from the scanty earnings of the labouring poor; nor is it a religion which consists in a round of forms, and in pompous rites and ceremonies. No; the religion which has introduced civil liberty, is the religion of Christ and his apostles, which enjoins humility, piety, and benevolence; which acknowledges in every person a brother, or a sister, and a citizen with equal rights. This is genuine Christianity, and to this we owe our free constitutions of government.” (History of the United States, 1832, pp. 273,274)

“[L]et us cling with a holy zeal to the Bible, and the Bible only, as the religion of Protestants. Let us proclaim, with Milton, that 'Neither traditions, nor councils, nor canons of any visible Church, much less edicts of any civil magistrate, or civil session, but the Scripture only, can be the final judge or rule in matters of religion, and that only in the conscience of every Christian to himself.'”(The Miscellaneous Writings of Joseph Story, 1835, p. 68)

   “by another act the dominion of Canada is to be so extended, modeled, and governed, as that by being disunited from us, detached from our interests, by civil as well as religious prejudices, that by their numbers swelling with Catholic emigrants from Europe, and by their devotion to Administration, so friendly to their religion, they might become formidable to us, and on occasion, be fit instruments in the hands of power, to reduce the ancient free Protestant Colonies, to the same state of slavery with themselves.”
   “Nor can we suppress our astonishment, that a British Parliament should ever consent to establish in that country a religion that has deluged your Island in blood, and dispersed impiety, bigotry, persecution, murder, and rebellion, through every part of the world.”(Journals of the Continental Congress, Vol. 1, 1904, pp. 87,88) (The London Magazine, 1774, p. 631).

“...that many of our best civil and social institutions, and the most important to be preserved in a free and civilized state, are founded upon the Christian religion, or upheld and strengthened by its observance; that the whole purpose and policy of the law assume that we are a nation of Christians, and while toleration is the principle in religious matters, the laws are to recognize the existence of that system of faith, and our institutions are to be based on that assumption ; that those who are in fact Christians have a right to be protected by law against wanton interference with the free and undisturbed practice of their religion and against malicious attacks upon its source or authority, calculated and intended to affront and wound them ; and that the prevalence of a sound morality among the people is essential to the preservation of their liberties and the permanence of their institutions, and to the success and prosperity of government, and the morality which is to be fostered and encouraged by the state is Christian morality, and not such as might exist in the supposititious "state of nature" or in a pagan country.”(Handbook of American Constitutional Law, 1910, p. 528).

“My learned friend, has referred with propriety to one of the commandments of the Decalogue; but there is another, a first commandment, and that is a precept of religion, and it is in subordination to this that the moral precepts of the Decalogue are proclaimed. This first great commandment teaches man that there is one, and only one, great First Cause, one, and only one, proper object of human worship. This is the great, the ever fresh, the overflowing fountain of all revealed truth; without it, human life is a desert, of no known termination on any side, but shut in on all sides by a dark and impenetrable horizon. Without the light of this truth, man knows nothing of his origin, and nothing of his end. And when the Decalogue was delivered to the Jews, with this great announcement and command at its head, what said the inspired law-giver? that it should be kept from children? that it should be reserved as a communication fit only for mature age? Far, far otherwise. ‘And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thy heart. AND THOU SHALT TEACH THEM DILIGENTLY UNTO THY CHILDREN; and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.’”(Right of the Bible in Our Public Schools, 1859, pp. 244, 245, 246).

“The duties which you owe directly to God are entire, unwavering faith in his promises, reverence of his character, and frequent prayer and worship. Unbelief is a great sin, and so is profaneness, irreverence, contempt of his character and laws, neglect of prayer and of worship, public and private. All worship of images and saints, is an abomination to God; it is idolatry, which is strictly forbidden in the Bible;” (History of the United States, Noah Webster, 1832, p. 299)

“That man in his natural state is greatly influenced by his fellow-creatures and the forms of emotion which are amongst them, is doubtless true, even when it concerns what he considers his eternal welfare. How else would the wonderfully varied and superstitious forms of belief have obtained in the world? What carries the Mormons into the desert, surrounded by trouble and the enmity of those around them? What sustains a spiritual dominion like the Papacy, aided by the nations around it, to proclaim the name of Christ whilst it contradicts His Word—refuses it (the record of the Spirit) to the people—and crushes out with all intolerance the simple obedience of the truth?” (The Life and Letters of Faraday, Vol. 2, 1870, pp. 431,432)

“The socialism and infidelity of other lands, and especially the Jesuitism which has aroused the enmity of governments, and of the people of all countries and whatever faith, are crowding to our shores. The members of the Society now muster in our republic, boasting of their numbers, their schools, their colleges, their wealth and their power. Their avowed principles and aims are in direct hostility to the supremacy of our constitution and laws, to the independence of the State, to its right to establish public schools, to the validity of our marriages, to the free circulation of the Bible, to liberty of speech and press, of conscience and education.” (The Great Conspiracy Against Our American Public Schools, 1890, p. 257)

“A preliminary and significant step in the war upon our common-school system was taken a few years since, when it was complained of by some Roman Catholic ecclesiastics connected with the mission to America as being sectarian in its character, for the reason that there was allowed the reading of passages from the Holy Scriptures in a version deemed by their church as erroneous and heretical.” (Denominational Schools, 1890, p. 47)
“The latest judicial decision in regard to the Bible in the public schools is that of Judge Bennett, of Wisconsin, in the case of Weiss vs. School Board of Edgerton. The action was brought by Roman Catholic parents for a peremptory writ of mandamus directing the board to cause the reading of King James's version of the Bible in the public schools to be discontinued. The reading was not compulsory, nor the plaintiffs' children required to be present at the reading. The exclusion was demanded on the ground that the reading was 'sectarian instruction,' and an unconstitutional interference with the rights of conscience.” (Ibid, p. 49)

“The great body of those who seek to drive the Bible out of our schools will not be satisfied after they have driven it out, but will insist on breaking our common-school system into sectarian fragments. . . . Hence, if we give up the Bible, we only weaken our common-school system, . . . while we fail to conciliate its enemies and only excite them to new and inadmissible exactions.” (Ibid, p. 48)

“In 1840 the Catholics, led by Archbishop Hughes, again took the field. They did not come seeking charities, but by one fell stroke to sweep our school system from the board. They did not complain of oppression, nor of being deprived of any rights enjoyed by others, but demanded at the outset, what they claim as theirs, of the school-fund. They found fault with certain reading-books, in general, with the free use of the Bible, in particular.”
“As a compromise the Bible was banished from the leading public schools of the city. Everything that could be done to place all upon a common level was performed. But this, instead of satisfying the exacting spirits who had demanded the change, was made, by a most glaring inconsistency, the occasion of a new and more plausible attack. The schools were denounced as 'Anti-christian, heathen, and godless.'” (The Roman Catholic Element in American History, 1857, pp. 247, 248) (See also Appendix, DESTINY OF PUBLIC SCHOOLS)

“This band of foreign priestly conspirators, with no sympathy for the American government or its system of education, are secretly plotting for the destruction of both! They have been watching with untiring vigilance every phase of our system, and they have seen that the public schools were the nurseries of American ideas, of American freedom, of American progress, and that a large number of children born of Roman Catholic parents, who were educated in these schools, were thoroughly Americanized by them. Therefore, by the advice and co-operation of the Pope, they have resolved to take possession of our schools, to Romanize them, or to ruin them.” (The great conspiracy against our American public schools, Richard Harcourt, 1890, pp. 33, 34)

“Surely American Protestants, freemen, have discernment enough to discover beneath them the cloven foot of this subtle foreign heresy, and will not wait for a more extensive, disastrous, and overwhelming political interference, ere they assume the attitude of watchfulness and defence. They will see that Popery is now, what it has ever been, a system of the darkest political intrigue and despotism, cloaking itself, to avoid attack, under the sacred name of religion. They will be deeply impressed with the truth, that Popery is a political as well as a religious system; that in this respect it differs totally from all other sects, from all other forms of religion in the country. Popery imbodies in itself THE CLOSEST UNION OF CHURCH AND STATE.” (Foreign Conspiracy Against the Liberties of the United States, Samuel F. B. Morse, 1852, pp. 94, 95)

“It is no false alarm. Our liberties are in danger.... We must shake off our lethargy, and like the giant awaking from his sleep, snap these shackles asunder. We are attacked in vulnerable points by foreign enemies to all liberty.” (Ibid, p. 103)
“The life of our institutions....lies in the culture of the human mind and heart, of the reason and conscience; it is bound up in principles which must be taught by father to son, from generation to generation, with care, with toil, with sacrifice.— Hide the Bible for fifty years... and let our children be under the guidance of men whose first exercise upon the youthful mind is to teach that lesson of old school sophistry which distorts it forever, and binds it through life in bonds of error to the dictation of a man— a man whom, in the same exercise of distorted reason, he is persuaded to believe infallible; let these Jesuit doctors take the place of our Protestant instructors, and where will be the political institutions of the country? Fifty years would amply suffice to give the victory to the despotic principle, and realize the most sanguine wishes of the tyrants of Europe.
The first thing to be done to secure safety, is to open our eyes at once to the reality and the extent of the danger. We must not walk on blindly, crying 'all's well.' The enemy is in all our borders. He has spread himself through all the land. The ramifications of this foreign plot are everywhere visible to all who will open their eyes.” (Ibid, p. 104)

“If Popery in this country is professing friendship to general knowledge, it is a feigned alliance. If it pretends to be in favor of educating the poor, it is a false pretence, it is only temporizing; it is conforming for the present, from policy, to the spirit of Protestantism around it, that it may forge its chains with less suspicion.” (Ibid, p. 106)
“Popery...is the tyranny that hopes to escape detection, by assuming the name, and adopting the language of Democracy. It is this tyranny that is courted and favored at political elections by our politicians of all parties, because it has the advantage of a despotic organization. How much longer are the feelings of the religious community to be scandalized, and their moral sense outraged, by the bare-faced bargainings for Catholic and infidel votes? Have the religious community no remedy against such outrage? If they have not, if there is not a single point on which they can act together, if the religious denominations of various names can have no understanding on matters of this kind, if they have no common bond to unite them in repelling common enemies, then let us boast no more of religious liberty.” (Ibid, pp. 109, 110)

“The exposure I am now making of the foreign designs upon our liberties, may possibly be mistaken for an attack on the Religion of the Catholics; yet I have not meddled with the conscience of any Catholic; if he honestly believes the doctrine of Transubstantiation, or that by doing penance he will prepare himself for heaven, or in the existence of Purgatory, or in the efficacy of the prayers and masses of priests to free the souls of his relatives from its flames, or that it is right to worship the Virgin Mary, or to pray to Saints, or keep holy days, or to refrain from meat at certain times, or to go on pilgrimages, or in the virtue of relics, or that none but Catholics can be saved, or many other points; however wrong I may and do think him to be, it is foreign from the design of these chapters to speak against them. But when he proclaims to the world that all power, temporal as well as spiritual, exists in the Pope, (denying, of course, the fundamental doctrine of republicanism;) that liberty of conscience is a 'raving' and 'most pestilential error;' that 'he execrates and detests the liberty of the press;'... he has then blended with his creed political tenets that vitally affect the very existence of our government, and no association with religious belief shall shield them from observation and rebuke.” (Ibid, pp. 79, 80)

“The Institution of Masonry was introduced into the British Colonies of North America more than a hundred years ago. It went on slowly at first, but from the time of the Revolution it spread more rapidly, until in the first quarter of the present century it had succeeded in winding itself through all the departments of the body politic in the United States, and in claiming the sanction of many of the country's most distinguished men.... Masonry was exercising its influence in the sacred desk, in the legislative hall, and on the bench of justice;” (Letters on The Masonic Institution, 1847, p. 5)

“From the moment of the adoption of a penal law, deemed strong enough to meet the most serious of the evils complained of, the apprehension of further danger from Masonry began to subside. At this day, the subject has ceased to be talked of. The attention of men has been gradually diverted to other things, until at last it may be said, that few persons are aware of the fact, provided it be not especially forced upon their notice, that not only Freemasonry continues to exist, but also that other associations partaking of its secret nature, if not of its unjustifiable obligations, not merely live, but greatly flourish in the midst of them.” (Ibid, pp. 3,4)

“It is now a little more than five years since the true character of Freemasonry, as existing in this Union, was disclosed to the public eye. It first exploded by the catastrophe of one of the deepest tragedies that ever was enacted upon the scene of human being, exploded by a complication of nine or ten of the most atrocious crimes that ever were conceived in human hearts or committed by human hands; crimes committed not by men in the stations of life to which ignorance is a snare, intemperance a stimulant, or indigence a temptation ; not by men under the instigations of malice or revenge ; but by men in the educated classes of society; men who had been instructed in the duties of Christians and citizens; men above the pressure of want; men, in other respects and independent of their secret and mystical ties to this Institution, of fair and respectable lives ; men enjoying the confidence of their fellow-citizens and holding offices of trust committed to them by that confidence.
   “We see these men, not in the solitary depravity of a single heart, but after repeated consultation in Lodges and Chapters, combined, and, for the commission of more than one of the crimes, abusing the sacred authority of the law, with which they had been invested for the furtherance and execution of justice, to the commission of swindling, slander, theft, false imprisonment, man stealing, treachery, arson, transportation of a citizen beyond the limits of his country, and, to close the catalogue, foul and midnight murder.” (Ibid, pp. 42, 43)

“Soon after entering the army I was made a Mason. In addition to the motives, which usually actuate young men, I was induced to become a candidate for admission into the society, by the assurance that the brotherly love which pervaded it and the duties imposed on its members, might be of great to me in the vicissitudes of fortune to which a soldier was exposed. After the army was disbanded, I found the order in high estimation, and every gentleman I saw in this part of Virginia was a member. I followed the crowd for a time without attaching any importance to its object, or giving myself the trouble to inquire why others did. It soon lost its attraction, and though there are several Lodges in the city of Richmond, I have not been in one of them for more than forty years, except once, on an invitation to accompany General La Fayette, nor have I been a member of one of them for more than thirty. It was impossible not to perceive the useless pageantry of the whole exhibition. My friend, Mr. Story, has communicated my opinions to you truly. I thought it, however, a harmless plaything, which would live its hour and pass away, until the murder or abstraction of Morgan was brought before the public; — that atrocious crime, and I had almost said, the still more atrocious suppression of the testimony concerning it, demonstrated the abuse, of which the oaths prescribed by the order were susceptible, and convinced me that the institution ought to be abandoned, as one capable of producing much evil,...” (The Political and Economic Doctrines of John Marshall, John E. Oster, 1914, p. 98)

“The very idea of the power, and right of the people to establish government, presupposes the duty of every individual to obey the established government. All obstructions to the execution of the laws, all combinations and associations, under whatever plausible character, with the real design to direct, control, counteract, or awe the regular deliberation and action of the constituted authorities, are destructive of this fundamental principle and of fatal tendency.... they are likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people, and to usurp for themselves the reins of government;” (September 1796) (Washington's Farewell Address To The People of The United States, 1900, pp. 17,18,19)

“O most Glorious God, in Jesus Christ my merciful and loving father, I acknowledge and confess my guilt, in the weak and imperfect performance of the duties of this day. I have called on thee for pardon and forgiveness of sins, but so coldly and carelessly, that my prayers are become my sin and stand in need of pardon.... remit my transgressions, negligences & ignorances, and cover them all with the absolute obedience of thy dear Son, that those sacrifices which I have offered may be accepted by thee, in and for the sacrifice of Jesus Christ offered upon the cross for me;” (George Washington, the Christian, 1919, pp. 25,26)

“Popery is a system where science and ignorance, refinement and barbarism, wisdom and stupidity, taste and animalism, mistaken zeal and malignant enmity, may sanctimoniously pour out their virulence against the Gospel, and cry Hosanna, while they go forth to shed the blood and to wear out the patience of the saints. And though by revolutions it has been shaken, and compelled by motives of policy to cease a little from blood, not a principle of this system has been abandoned. All the wiles of ages past are put in requisition now to heal the fatal wounds which the beast has received, and to render the system still more powerful and terrific. The leaven is in secret and in open operation in this country ; and the quick action of the beast to the touch of the spear shows that he is neither dead nor asleep. And, considering the civilization, and wealth, and science, which the system comprehends, it is from popery, no doubt, that the Gospel is destined to experience the last and most determined resistance,— popery, as sustained by and sustaining despotic governments.” (Beecher's Works., Vol. II., Lyman Beecher, D.D., 1852, pp. 418, 419)

“It will be a Service unto the Church of great Consequence, to carry the Gospel into those Parts of the World, and Raise a Bulwark against the Kingdom of Antichrist, which the Jesuites labour to Rear up in all Parts of the World.” (Ibid. p. 17) (Religion and Education in America, 1840, p. 392)

“The average Christian student of American History is unaware of how close Leo's [Pope Leo's] predecessor [Pope Pius IX] came to dissolving the Union [the United States of America] during the Civil War years. For a sobering insight as to how the Vatican can interfere with foreign governments, consider the chaos incited by a single letter sent by Pius IX to Jefferson Davis in 1863. Responding to correspondence from Davis, dated 23rd September, 1863, the Pope's reply was formally addressed, ‘To Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate States of America, Richmond.’ This subtle salutation gave the Confederacy a badly needed vote of confidence from ‘His Holiness.’ What followed next is quite unnerving. Whereas the desertion rates of the Northern Armies showed 16 percent for Germans, 0.5 percent for native Americans, 0.7 percent for all others, the Irish figures sky-rocketed to 72 percent! ... The above figures indicate that out of every 10,000 Irish enlistees – almost all Catholics – there were over 33 times as many desertions as among all the other groups put together. The point to be made here is not only the historical one – that the Vatican intervened in the agonies of the American Civil War – but that, in a different context and in a different way, it can do the same in today's conflicts, be they military or political. And even more so in the future.” (Final Authority, Dr. W.P. Grady, 1993, pp. 225,226) (See also America Or Rome, Which? 1895, p. 88)

“Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea [of the equality of races]; its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery—subordination to the superior race—is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.... It is, indeed, in conformity with the ordinance of the Creator.” (Alexander H. Stephens in Public and Private, 1866, pp. 721, 723).

“Romanism encouraged the South because the corner-stone of the Southern Confederacy rested upon human slavery. How the colored people of the South or the North can forget this and unite with the Roman Catholic church is a mystery. It is the theory of Rome that the toilers should be kept in ignorance. Gentlemen for the palace and serf's for the field, is the spirit of Romanism, incarnated in every despotic government where its power is supreme. Louis Napoleon, the ally of Pius IX, expected to build up in Mexico a Roman Catholic kingdom, and unite it with the Southern States, and so establish a Latin Empire in the new world.” (Washington In The Lap of Rome, 1888, p. 122)

“But I think of all the Christian denominations in the United States, the Catholics are the last that southern people should join in attempting to put under the ban of civil proscription. For as a church they have never warred against us or our peculiar institutions. No man can say as much of New England Baptists, Presbyterians, or Methodists; the long roll of abolition petitions with which Congress has been so much excited and agitated for years past, come not from the Catholics; their pulpits at the north are not desecrated every Sabbath with anathemas against slavery. And of the three thousand New England clergymen who sent the anti-Nebraska memorial to the Senate last year, not one was a Catholic, as I have been informed and believe.” (Alexander H. Stephens in Public and Private, 1866, p. 464)

“This civil war seems to be nothing but a political affair to those who do not see, as I do, the secret springs of that terrible drama. But it is more a religious than a civil war. It is Rome who wants to rule and degrade the North, as she has ruled and degraded the South, from the very day of its discovery. There are only very few of the Southern leaders who are not more or less under the influence of the Jesuits through their wives, family relations, and their friends.”
“if the American people could learn what I know of the fierce hatred of the generality of the priests of Rome against our institutions, our schools, our most sacred rights, and our so dearly bought liberties, they would drive them away to-morrow, from among us, or they would shoot them as traitors.” (Fifty Years in the Church of Rome, Charles Chiniquy, 1886, pp. 696, 697)

“In the original draft of the Declaration of Independence, the slave trade is denounced as piratical warfare. These denunciations were struck out of the Declaration of Independence in compliance to South Carolina and Georgia, who had never attempted to restrain the importation of slaves, and who, on the contrary, wished to continue it. -- Writings of Thos. Jefferson.
“In the South Carolina Convention, Judge Pendleton observed that only three states, Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina, allowed the importation of negroes. Their reason for so doing was that during the last war they lost vast numbers of them, which loss they wished to supply.
“It was notorious that the postponement of immediate abolition (of the slave trade) was indispensable to secure the adoption of the Constitution. It was a necessary sacrifice to the prejudices and interests of a portion of the Southern States. -- 3d Story Com. Con. 1828, 1829.” (History of The Plots and Crimes of The Great Conspiracy to Overthrow Liberty in America, pp. 8, 9)

“A disgust towards this inhuman traffic appeared very early in the colonies;...In Massachusetts, in 1645, a law was made, 'prohibiting the buying and selling of slaves, except those taken in lawful war, or reduced to servitude by their crimes.' In 1703, the same colony imposed a heavy duty on every negro imported, and in a subsequent law on the subject, they called the practice, 'the unnatural and unaccountable custom of enslaving mankind.' In Virginia, as early as 1699, attempts were made to repress the importation of slaves, by heavy duties....In 1778, Virginia abolished the traffic by law; Connecticut, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts prohibited it before the year 1789. The continental congress passed a resolution against the purchase of slaves, imported from Africa, and exhorted the colonies to abandon the trade altogether.” (A History of The United States of America, C. Goodrich, 1833 p. 358)

“I deem it my duty, on this occasion, to suggest, that the land is not yet wholly free from the contamination of a traffic, at which every feeling of humanity must revolt—I mean the African slave trade. Neither public sentiment, nor the law, has yet been able entirely to put an end to this odious and abominable trade. At the moment when God, in his mercy, has blessed the world with a universal peace, there is reason to fear, that, to the disgrace of the Christian name and character, new efforts are making for the extension of this trade, by subjects and citizens of Christian states, in whose hearts no sentiment of justice inhabits, and over whom neither the fear of God nor the fear of man exercises a control. In the sight of our law, the African slave trader is a pirate and a felon; and in the sight of Heaven, an offender far beyond the ordinary depth of human guilt. There is no brighter part of our history, than that which records the measures which have been adopted by the government, at an early day, and at different times since, for the suppression of this traffic; and I would call upon all the true sons of New-England, to cooperate with the laws of man, and the justice of Heaven.” (The American First Class Book, 1826, p. 184)

“I say, because I feel, that in continuing this trade you are guilty of an offence beyond your power to atone for; and by your indulgence to the planters, thousands of human beings are to be consigned to misery.” (The American Preceptor, 1816, p. 85)

“Many persons of great talents and virtue, have made several fruitless attempts to obtain an act for the abolition of this trade. Men interested in its continuance have hitherto frustrated these generous designs: but we may rely upon the goodness of that Divine Providence, who cares for all creatures, that the day will come, when their rights will be considered: and there is great reason to hope, from the light already cast upon the subject, that the rising generation will prefer justice and mercy, to interest and policy; and will free themselves from the odium we at present suffer, of treating our fellow-creatures in a manner unworthy of them, and of ourselves.” (The New Instructor, 1803, p. 127)

“I HAVE hitherto confined myself to the consideration, of slavery as it exists among ourselves, and of that unjust domination which is exercised over the Africans and their descendants, who are already in our country. It is with regret and indignation which I am unable to express, that I call your attention to the conduct of some among us, who, instead of diminishing, strive to increase the evil in question.” (The Columbian Orator, 1816, p. 293)

    From the beginning and at all times in principle, the church adhered to the censorship. . . .
    When the church, after the era of persecution, was given greater liberty, a censorship of books appears more plainly. . . .
    The religious disruption of Germany had not yet begun when Rome took precautionary measures by insisting on a preventive censorship of all printed works. . . .
    During the Lateran Council, Leo X promulgated, 3 May, 1515, the bull Inter sollicitudines. This is the first papal censorial decree given for the entire church which was universally accepted. . . .
    Leo X issued the bull Exsurge Domine [June 15, 1520], by which all writings of Luther, even future ones, were forbidden under pain of excommunication. . . .
    Pius X issued in 1905 orders regarding the printing and publication of liturgical chants and melodies, and In the encyclical letter Pascendi dominici gregis (8 Sept., 1907) most urgently enjoined on all the prohibition and censorship of books. . . .
    It is, of course, absolutely Impossible for both the Pope and the Congregation of the Index to watch over the press of all countries in order to suppress at once each and every pernicious writing. . . . The Pope, of course, has the right of censorship for the entire church. (The Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. III, 1913, “Censorship of Books”, pp. 519-527)

“The Council instituted the index of prohibited books, which is the fourth article in the machinery of resistance.... The idea of drawing up a comprehensive list of all that no man should read commended itself to the zeal of Caraffa, having been suggested to him by Della Casa, who had published such a list at Venice.... A congregation was appointed to examine new publications, to issue decrees against them as required, and to make out catalogues from time to time of works so condemned. Besides this, censures were also pronounced by the Pope himself, the Inquisition, the Master of the Sacred Palace, and the Secretary of the Index, separately. In this way an attempt was made to control what people read, committing to oblivion the works of Protestant scholars, and of such men as Machiavelli, and correcting offensive texts, especially historians. Several such corrected editions were published at the time, and many things were reprinted with large omissions.” (Lectures on Modern History, ed. John Neville Figgis and Reginald Vere Laurence, London: Macmillan, 1906, pp. 119, 120)

“One of the principal means which the Jesuits employed against the Reformation was the school.... Their tact in handling youth gave them a religious influence over the developing minds under their care which was almost sure to result in loyalty to the Roman Catholic Church.... Especially did they strive to win the sons of the noble families, because among them were the seats of political influence. In every possible way it was undertaken to outdo the Protestant schools and universities in the educational field.... The same method in another form led them to seek everywhere positions as fathers confessor, especially among the nobility and the wealthy classes, thereby not only molding religious opinion, but gaining great political influence.” (History of the Christian Church, John Fletcher Hurst, George Park Fisher, Vol.2, 1900, p. 547).

“The present depressed state of Popery, both in England, and on the continent [North America], is no proof that its leading principles [propagation of pagan doctrines, persecution of Protestant Christians] have been abandoned. By means of various revolutions, its power has been shaken, and, from motives of policy, it has been compelled to cease from blood [murder, burning people at the stake]; but, in the language of a distinguished divine of our own country, ‘not a principle of the system has been abandoned. All the wiles of ages are put in requisition now... to render the system still more powerful [influential]...’* “Within a short period, the attention of the Pope of Rome has been directed to North America, and systematic efforts are now making, under his immediate patronage, and at his expense, to introduce and establish this corrupt system, in various parts of our land.” “The question presents itself to the American people: ‘Shall this system find encouragement, in the land of the pilgrims?’ We fear not, indeed, that Popery can ever greatly flourish on the American soil.... Yet, while the friends of truth should not be needlessly alarmed, neither should they sleep. A holy vigilance should guard well the approaches of an enemy, whose triumphs here would be the ruin of that fair fabric, which cost our fathers so much toil to erect..... It is only necessary that the volume [Foxe's Book Of Martyrs] should be carefully and candidly read, to convince [any one], that the papal system is not that harmless, innocent thing, which some would represent. We wish not, indeed, that the papists should be persecuted; we would say, protect them in their private capacity, wherever they exist in the land; but beware of so encouraging them, as to bring the American people, under their temporal and spiritual domination.... A Church, which pretends to be infallible, will always seek the destruction of those, who dissent from it;” (Charles A. Goodrich, Book Of Martyrs, Hartford, Connecticut, 1830, pp. 3,4. *Dr. Beecher's Missionary Sermon).

   “The Inquisition is peculiarly the weapon and peculiarly the work of the popes. It stands out from all those things in which they co-operated, followed or assented as the distinctive feature of papal Rome. It was set up, renewed and perfected by a long series of acts emanating from the supreme authority in the Church. No other institution, no doctrine, no ceremony is so distinctly the individual creation of the papacy, except the dispensing power. It is the principal thing with which the papacy is identified, and by which it must be judged.
   The principal of the Inquisition is the Pope's sovereign power over life and death. Whosoever disobeys him should be tried and tortured and burnt. If that cannot be done, formalities may be dispensed with, and the culprit may be killed like an outlaw.
   That is to say, the principal of the Inquisition is murderous, and a man's opinion of the papacy is regulated and determined by his opinion of religious assassination.” (Letters to Mary Gladstone by Lord Acton, 1904, pp. 185, 186)

“(in Spain, Portugal, &c.) an ecclesiastical court of the church of Rome, erected for the putting a stop to Heresy, and the punishment of Heretics. The rise and progress of this court seems to have been as follows.
Some have observed that before the conversion of the emperor Constantine the Great, none but the bishops examined into doctrines and punished Heresy with excommunication; but after the emperors became Christians, they ordered that such as has been convicted of Heresy and excommunicated, should be banished and their effects confiscated; this practice was continued till about the year 800 after Christ, when the power of the western bishops enlarged to the authority citing persons to their courts, and to convict and punish them by penances or imprisonment.
This continued till the XIIth century, when Heresy, as it was then called, being much increased by the Albigenses and Waldenses, pope Gregory the IXth in the year 1229 in a council held at Thoulouss, established new constitutions, committing the whole management of them to the bishops; but afterwards he thinking that the bishops were too indulgent, he committed the direction of this inquisition to the Dominicans, who for their cruelty were banished from Thoulouss by the inhabitants.
And so this court was never firmly established in France; but was received by Italy, except the kingdom of Naples, and in Spain and Portugal and the countries depending.
This court or tribunal takes cognizance of Heresy, Judaism, Mahometanism, Sodomy and Polygamy; and the people of those countries so very much dread it, that parents deliver up their children, and husbands their wives to the officers, without so much as daring to murmur in the least.
In Portugal they erect a theatre capable of containing 3000 persons, on which they place a very rich alter; having seats fixed on each side of it, in the form of an amphitheatre, where the criminals are placed, and over against them there is a high chair, to which they are singly called by one of the inquisitors, to hear their crimes and condemnation.
The prisoners know their doom by the clothes they wear that day, for those who wear their own clothes are discharged, upon paying a fine: they that have a Santo Benito, or a strait yellow coat without sleeves, charged with a St. Andrew's cross, have their lives spared, but their effects forfeited to the royal chamber, and to pay the expenses of the inquisition: they that have flames of red serge sewed on their Santo Benito without any cross, are convicted of having been pardoned before, and threatened to be burnt, if ever they relapse again; but those which besides these have their own pictures round their Santo Benito, with figures of devils, are condemned to die.
The persons charged with or suspected of Heresy, are shut up in dismal dungeons, and there confined for several months, till they accuse themselves, being never let to know their accusers, or confronted by witnesses; their friends go into mourning for them as if dead, and dare not either solicit their pardon or come near them, and are often forced to fly their country for fear of being sent to the inquisition likewise.
Several other countries besides those above mentioned, have had inquisitions; but they have been laid down, by reason of the extraordinary severity and cruelty used in the punishment of those called offenders.
The power of the inquisition is also very much curbed in the republick of Venice, where it seems rather to be a political instrument to preserve the state than the church.
In the Indies it is severe to extravagancy, for those there must be the oaths of seven witnesses to condemn a person, yet slaves and children are allowed to be witnesses against him, and the person is tortured till he accuses himself, the slightest expression against the church or office of inquisition, which they call by the name of the holy office, is sufficient.
(The New Universal Etymological English Dictionary, Nathan Bailey, London, 1756).

“Again, if we pass to America, we see that Popery is not making such progress as its abettors pretend. For example, the State of Maryland was settled by Papists. Florida was the same. Louisiana, Arkansas, and Missouri were all Papal in their first European occupants, for they were French. The history of Canada as a French colony is well known. The State of Texas was thoroughly Popish. The same is true of California; and when to these and similar facts we add the consideration, that hundreds of thousands of Irish and other Romanists have been pouring into America, we might have expected that the Romish apostasy would have been wholly, ascendant,—suppressing truth, and fostering error, as it is the essential nature of the Papacy to do.
" But what is the fact?
"In Maryland, once utterly Popish, there are at this day only 65 Papal Churches to about 800 Protestant places of worship.
"In Florida there are 152 Churches, and only five of them Popish.
"In Louisiana there are 278 places of worship, but only 55 are the Pope's.
"In Texas there are 164 Churches, but only 13 of them are Popish.
"In a word, the recent census of America, like our own, has exposed the pretences of Popery, and proved that the system is repelled by myriads. In the entire country, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, Rome has only 1112 churches, accommodating 821,000 hearers, which is not one-eleventh part of the number of Methodist churches alone; scarcely one-eighth of the Baptists, and not one-fourth of the Presbyterians.
"Moreover, American politicians, like some of our own, begin to detect the danger of Papal friendship.”
(The Home and Foreign Record of The Free Church of Scotland, Vol. 4, Edinburgh, 1854, Committee on Popery, p. 302).

“How Rome crept into Washington has been described. Stealthily, slowly, meekly, but surely, she came; and she came to stay. Long before the Revolution Rome was here. Washington saw her, and warned against her insidious influence. She came among us in poverty of spirit and in the ashes of humiliation..... and soon American Protestants placed their children in their hands for safe-keeping; helped them build their churches and public institutions because of their avowed purpose to enjoy our free institutions.” (Washington in the lap of Rome, Justin D. Fulton, 1888, p. 101)
“Religious toleration has given welcome to a Jesuit priesthood that is making a religion without God and a state without liberty. They denounce the public schools, curse the Bible, murder history, and maim and mutilate literature. They teach American children, that all the founders of this Republic were Papists; that Washington, the father of his country, died a Roman Catholic.” (Ibid, p. 102)
“The federal compact, formed by the New England colonies in 1643, to resist the Indians, was the first Union made by the Anglo-Saxon upon our soil, and prepared the way for their Declaration of Rights later on. Jesuitism fought liberty amid its birth-throes.... Difficulties like mountains towered in the path of the Fathers. A spirit of opposition and discord pervaded their councils.... Romanists were then, as now, opposed to the upgoing structure. The Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union between the thirteen original States were not ratified until 1781, because the Roman Catholics of Maryland opposed and refused to unite; so steadfast has ever been the opposition of the Romish priesthood to our liberty.” (Ibid, p. 104)

“Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between Church and State.” (The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Vol. VIII, 1854, p. 113)

“Do not Catholics of the present day use the bonds of religious union to effect political objects in other countries? Did not the Pope interfere in Poland in the late revolution, and, through the priests, command submission to the tyranny of the Czar? At the moment I am writing, are not monks and priests leaders in the field of battle in Spain; in Portugal? Is not the Pope encouraging the troops of Don Miguel, and exciting priests and people to arms in a civil contest? Has Popery abandoned its everbusy meddling in the politics of the countries where it obtains foothold?
Will it be said, that however officious in the old countries, yet here, by some strange metamorphosis, Popery has changed its character, and is modified by our institutions; that here it is surely religious, seeking only the religious welfare of the people—that it does not meddle with the state? It is not true that Popery meddles not with the politics of the country. The cloven foot has already shown itself.” (Foreign Conspiracy Against the Liberties of the United States, Samuel F. B. Morse, pp. 92, 93)

“I readily concede that there has been, and are now, many true patriots among this sect, many estimable men of sound political views, sincere in supporting the democratic institutions of the country; but making the most ample allowance, they are but exceptions to the rule. The sect, as a sect, is still justly chargeable with the tendency of its acknowledged principles. If a Roman Catholic in the United Slates is a Democratic Republican, he is so in spite of, and in opposition to, the system of his church, and not in accordance with it. To the truth of this fact, the arguments of Schlegel, a Catholic, and the profoundest investigator of the subject in the present age, are unanswerably conclusive. From their principles of passive obedience, and the denial of the right of private judgment alone, Roman Catholics, as a sect, must be ignorant and willing slaves to the schemes of any despotic ecclesiastic that a foreign power may see fit to send to this country to rule over them. The secret plans, the real designs of the Jesuits may be confined to few bosoms, it is by no means necessary that the mass of the sect should have any knowledge of the plot, for from the nature of their system they may be blind instruments of the few.” (Foreign Conspiracy Against the Liberties of the United States, Samuel F. B. Morse, p. 18)

“Does the secular press take care of our religious liberty? Is there a secular journal that has even hinted to its readers the existence of this double conspiracy? The most dangerous politico-religious sect that ever existed ; a sect that has been notorious for ages for throwing governments into confusion, is politically at work in our own country, under the immediate auspices of the most despotic power of Europe, interested politically and vitally in the destruction of our free institutions, and is any alarm manifested by the secular press? No! they are altogether silent on this subject.” (Ibid, p. 111)

“Has Popery so cloaked itself in sacredness, has this political engine of foreign despotism so sanctified its very name, that our press is awe-struck at its movements, and cries sacrilege if its political claims to our reception be in the slightest degree disputed? Whence come all the sorrows and regrets about controversy, and lamentations and whinings about intolerance, because freemen are jealous of the meddling of foreigners in our concerns? Is this discussion of the political principles of Popery really ill-timed and gratuitous? Who has provoked it? What! shall foreign powers combine together, secretly and openly send their money and their agents, to spread a great political and religious system over the country; a system notorious for enslaving, impoverishing, and degrading the people; shall they build their means of attack within our borders, and American freemen be rebuked into silence, when they venture to examine the character of this foreign enterprise, and to question the purely benevolent nature of their imperial majesties' love for our souls? It is a subject of deep interest indeed, to the community, to know how far our press is inoculated with this no-controversy spirit; this truly papal spirit; this emphatically anti-American spirit.” (Ibid, pp. 24,25)

“Is our press indeed in awe of Popish bishops? Does it fear to touch the civil character of Popery, for fear of giving offence to Popish bishops? Truth has nothing to fear from the severest scrutiny. It is error that loves mystery; that seeks concealment; that shrouds itself in secrecy, and cries out persecution! Yes, persecution, forsooth, if any one attempts to drag it into the light.” (Ibid, p. 26)

     “How did we get to such a misunderstanding — that we follow the Constitution as the law unless and until a federal judge issues an order contrary to the law by which we are bound? The unwillingness of judges to follow the Constitution according to its express meaning and clear interpretation is precisely the problem in our government today.”
     “The Constitution signifies to the world that the United States is to be governed by the rule of law, not of man. It leaves no doubt on this point by declaring—as Constitution Corner reminds us—that '[t]his Constitution... shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby.'
     “The long and short of it is that our written Constitution—this nation's fixed, fundamental law—is synonymous with the rule of law. Enumeration of the powers of the federal government in the Constitution shows that those powers are 'few and defined,' as Madison stated, holding the government accountable to the people, who can point to the written Constitution for proof of government abuses of power.”
     “...the rule of law in this country is the United States Constitution, not the courts. This means that if the Constitution says one thing and a federal court says something else, a federal or state official who is sworn to support the Constitution must follow the Constitution. To do otherwise is to disregard the rule of law. (So Help Me God, Roy S. Moore, 2005, p. 212,213,214,216)

     “In Cooper v. Aaron in 1958, the United States Supreme Court boldly but erroneously claimed for the first time that Marbury [v. Madison] stood for the proposition that 'the federal judiciary is supreme in the exposition of the law of the Constitution.' From that point forward, the federal courts have presumed that their rulings were equivalent to the Constitution—whatever federal judges say is 'the supreme law of the land.' For the most part, lawyers and laymen throughout the country have accepted this as the truth.
     But what Chief Justice Marshall actually said in the Marbury case could not be further from the Supreme Court's self-serving characterization. Marshall stated that 'it is apparent, that the framers of the Constitution contemplated that instrument as a rule for the government of courts, as well as the Legislature. Why otherwise does it direct judges to take an oath to support it?...How immoral to impose it [the oath] on them [judges], if they were to be used as the instrument, and the knowing instrument, for violating what they swear to support!'
     In other words, the Constitution is the rule of law for the courts just as much as it is for Congress and the state legislatures. Judges cannot be above the Constitution that they are sworn to support. As Chief Justice Marshall noted, all judges take an oath to the Constitution, not to the Supreme Court.” (So Help Me God, Roy S. Moore, 2005, p. 215)

“This original and supreme will [the written constitution] organizes the government, and assigns to different departments their respective powers.” “To what purpose are powers limited and to what purpose is that limitation committed to writing, if these limits may at any time be passed by those intended to be restrained? The distinction between a government with limited and unlimited powers is abolished if those limits do not confine the persons on whom they are imposed....”(John Marshall: Complete Constitutional Decisions, 1903, p. 32)

“It is also not entirely unworthy of observation that, in declaring what shall be the supreme law of the land, the Constitution itself is first mentioned, and not the laws of the United States generally.... Thus, the particular phraseology of the Constitution of the United States confirms and strengthens the principle, supposed to be essential to all written Constitutions, that a law repugnant to the Constitution is void, and that courts, as well as other departments, are bound by that instrument.”(Ibid, pp. 36,37)

“The police power is an attribute of government fundamentally necessary to the public safety, but so easily perverted as to be extremely dangerous to the rights and the liberty of the citizen. Even when properly defined and limited, it is so far-reaching in its importance and so paramount in its sway, even as against guarantied private rights, that its enlargement, by continual loose applications of the term to cases where it is neither needed nor appropriate, is a serious menace to personal freedom.”(Handbook of American Constitutional Law, 3rd ed., 1910, p. 390)

“The people of these United States are the rightful masters of both congresses and courts, not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution.”(Political Debates Between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas, 1894 p. 315)

“That no civil rulers are to be obeyed when they enjoin things that are inconsistent with the commands of God.... All commands running counter to the declared will of the supreme legislator of heaven and earth, are null and void: And therefore disobedience to them is a duty, not a crime.”(A Discourse Concerning Unlimited Submission and Non-Resistance to the Higher Powers, Jonathan Mayhew, 1750, pp. 37, 38)

“From whence it follows, that as soon as the prince sets himself up above law, he loses the king in the tyrant: he does to all intents and purposes, unking himself, by acting out of, and beyond, that sphere which the constitution allows him to move in. And in such cases, he has no more right to be obeyed, than any inferior officer who acts beyond his commission.”(Ibid, pp. 45)

“Mary possessed few qualities either estimable or amiable.... amidst the complication of vices which entered into her composition, obstinacy; bigotry, violence, cruelty,... multitudes, of all conditions, ages and sexes, were committed to the flames.... [for refusing] to subscribe to the doctrines of the papal supremacy, and the real presence.” (The American Preceptor, 1837, pp. 33,34)

“The words of the LORD are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times. Thou shalt keep them, O LORD, thou [God] shalt preserve them [the words of the Lord] from this generation for ever.” (Psalms 12:6,7).

“I also will choose their delusions, and will bring their fears upon them; because when I called, none did answer; when I spake, they did not hear: but they did evil before mine eyes, and chose that in which I delighted not.” “I will do these things unto thee, because thou hast gone a whoring after the heathen, and because thou art polluted with their idols.” “for the spirit of whoredoms hath caused them to err, and they have gone a whoring from under their God.” ( Isa. 66:4; Ezk. 23:30; Hos. 4:12)