influence, and the reception given to Father Matthew and Louis Kossuth by Congress, compared with the treatment received by some of our best and greatest citizens who had equal claims to public respect. This is forcibly stated in a letter written lately by ex-Senator Clemens, of Alabama, as follows:

In the summer of 1849, Father Matthew, an Irish Priest, who had acquired a great celebrity as Temperance lecturer, paid a visit to the United States. He came to Washington and a resolution was at once introduced to allow him the privilege of the floor of the Senate. This was opposed by Mr. Calhoun on the ground that it was lowering the dignity of the Senate and cheapening its honors. By myself and others, upon the further ground that he had, while in Ireland, indulged in denunciations of slavery, and taken part with the abolitionists against the South, which I considered an unwarrantable intermeddling with matters that in no way concerned him. Notwithstanding these objections, the resolution passed by a decided majority, and Father Matthew took his seat upon the floor of the Senate. Not long afterwards, Gen. Pillow, who bore upon his person the marks of honorable wounds, recently received in the service of the Republic, visited Washington, and found, to his mortification, no doubt, that the place which had been occupied by a Catholic Priest, was inaccessible to him, a native born American, and late Major General in the wars of his country. Nor was he alone a sufferer. Every officer who served in the Mexican war, not a member of Congress, or an existing State Legislature, was in like manner excluded, with, perhaps, the single exception of Gen. Scott, who had received a special vote of thanks during the war of 1812, which of itself entitled him to admission. It will not do to tell me that respect for the cause of temperance produced this astonishing result. The Congress of the United States are not remarkable as disciples of temperance, and that very day there were perhaps not six members of the Senate who did not drink wine at dinner, or brandy before it.

The Irish vote was the controlling cause the desire to conciliate that large body of naturalized citizens who looked up to Father Matthew as a superior being. It was this which gave to the foreigner and the Catholic an importance above and beyond that of the soldiery whose blood had been poured out like water on the plains of Mexico. It was this which induced the Senate to forget what it had been-to throw aside the severe diginity which had so elevated them in the minds of men, and to exchange the character of Roman sages for that of servile sycophants. There was a time when that high body was composed of sterner stuff. There was a time when such a proposition would have been treated with the scorn it deserved. But that was before the Irish Exodus. Now, if we venture to question foreign merit it must be done with "bated breath." If we venture to deny any foreign demand, however imperious, we are threatened with political annihilation, and yet I am told we are in no danger from foreign influence. When the Senate of the United States has bent before the storm, where are we to look for that public virtue which is sturdy enough to resist it?

The other case to which I allude was still more outrageous. L. Kossuth had been actively engaged in exciting a revolution in Hungary, but when the hour of trial came he shrunk from the danger he had evoked, and flying across the frontier, took refuge beneath the Crescent of the Turk. An immense amount of sympathy was at once manufactured for him, and our government, not to be behind the public expectation, dispatched a vessel of war to bring him to our shores. Of course this was done under the specious name of sympathy for struggling freedom. But if there had been no

German votes in the United States, I am very much inclined to the opinion that sympathy would have expended itself in some less costly manner. But, not satisfied with bringing him here, both branches of Congress passed a resolution inviting him to Washington. He came in all the pomp which surrounds the Monarchs of the old world— armed guards paraded before his door to keep off the vulgar populace. And we who 'would not have tolerated such conduct for one hour in the President of the Republic, not only submitted to it on the part of this foreign mendicant, but actually invited him within the bar of the Senate. He entered with all his guards about him. The clank of foreign sabres awaked the echos in the vestibule of the Senate, and an eager crowd of Republicans looked on with wondering admiration at the pageant. If the dead are permitted to witness events upon earth, what must have been the feelings of the stern Fathers of the Republic when they saw the velvet uniforms of a foreign body-guard within the sacred precincts of the Senate! Let us suppose them gathered about the immortal Washington, as they were wont to gather in the days that tried men's souls, gazing in sorrow and silence upon the disgraceful spectacle. There is Warren, Greene, Sumpter, Marion, Lee, Shelby, Williams, Wayne and a hundred others of the mighty dead. They remember that it was German cannon which thinned their ranks at Mud Fort and Red Bank. They remember that German shouts rang over the field of Brandywine. They remember that German bayonets were dimmed with patriot blood at Monmouth. They remember Chad's ford, and Chew's house, and many another field, where they met the hired mercenaries that England's gold had brought across the Atlantic to fasten manacles upon a people who had never injured them; and remembering this, they turn to each other with the mournful inquiry, "Are these our sons? Are the traditions of the revolution already forgotten?" Ah! shade of departed Patriots, there is an engine of power in our land of which in your day you did not dream! There are a few hundred thousand German voters among us, and every Demagogue who aspires to the Presidency, and all the satellites that glimmer about him are vieing with each other in base concessions to German pride and German feeling. But the picture is a sickening one, and I turn from it. God knows it was bitter enough at the time, and I have no wish to dwel upon it anew.

Not satisfied with the honors heaped upon Kossuth, Congress determined to extend to him more "material aid." Mr. Seward discovered that he was the nation's guest, and introduced a bill assuming his expenses as a national debt. The account turned out to be somewhat extravagant. This plain republican martyr to liberty only lived at the rate of $500 per day. Consuming in the twenty-four hours Champagne and Burgundy which cost more than it would take to feed a respectable family in North Alabama for a twelvemonth. At that very moment there were bills upon the Calendar of the House for the relief of destitute widows and orphans, whose husbands had died in defence of the country, which Congress has not had time to attend to even to this day. Not so with Kossuth-he drank his wine—eat his pates de fois grae, and Congress instantly footed the bill. Do you ask the reason? I answer, widows and children had no votes. The foreigners who were to be conciliated by adulation of Kossuth had many. Others will say it was not Kossuth, but his cause-that he had been battling for freedom, and they wished to mark their appreciation of his efforts. As a tribute to the spirit of Liberty it might have been well enough if we had not been so lamentably deficient in paying that tribute to our own citizens. When General Jackson had driven the British army from New Orleans, and rescued the country from one of the most terrible dangers with which it was ever threatened, he was arrested in the very hour of his triumph and heavily fined for the rigorous discharge of his duty; and yet Congress permitted more

than a quarter of a century to roll away without acknowledging the wrong, or attempting to repair it. He was a Native American-there was no foreign sympathy in his behalf-no foreign votes to conciliate. When General Houston returned to the United States with the laurels of San Jacinto fresh upon his brow, bringing an empire in his hands to lay at our feet, no Congressional invitations celebrated his arrival. No bills were passed to pay his expenses. He was a Native American, and nothing was to be gained by laudations of his chivalry or his patriotism. When General Scott had concluded one of the most wonderful campaigns ever recorded in history, he was recalled almost in disgrace, and his army, which he had found untrained militia and converted into veteran heroes, was transferred to one of his subordinates. Yet Congress offered no word of sympathy, applied no balm to the wounded feelings of the matchless soldier. He was a Native American, and the voice of condolence was mute. Had General Shields received similar treatment, a howl would have been raised from one end of the continent to the other, and half the tongues in Congress would have grown weary lamenting his wrongs.

With these facts before me, and all know them to be facts, I must be pardoned for maintaining that there is danger from foreign influence, and the sooner it is boldly met the better.

Another cause of trouble consists in foreign born citizens keeping alive, by social and military organizations, their national habits, feelings and prejudices, to the prejudice of our own nationality. In a speech made in the U. S. Senate, on the 25th of January, 1855, James Cooper, Senator from Pennsylvania, referred to this fact, and condemned the practice as follows:

I desire to advert briefly to another mischief, not wholly, but, nevertheless, to some extent, the result of admitting into the country the idle and turbulent spirits sent hither in order to relieve their own governments of their dangerous presence. I refer, Mr. President, to the practice now prevalent in the larger cities, of organizing volunteer companies and battalions composed wholly of foreigners, bearing foreign names, wearing foreign uniforms, and parading under foreign colors. In New York, Boston, and elsewhere, you hear of German Yagers, French Chasseurs, Irish Greens, Swiss Guards, &c.; and I am informed that in the first named city there is a brigade composed entirely of Irishmen, and called the Irish brigade. Now, sir, this is all wrong, and would be tolerated by no other government on the face of the earth.

When, by the liberal character of our institutions, and the blessings and advantages which our laws confer, the subjects of other governments were invited to our shores, it was never intended they should enter into separate organizations, civil or military, or cultivate an esprit du corps among themselves, calculated to leave them foreigners in feeling and in habits, though dwelling in our midst, and owing allegiance to our laws. Naturalized foreigners should renounce all allegiance to their former governments, both in substance and in form, and identify themselves with the country of their adoption in the most unreserved manner. Let them, if they please, unite with our volunteer and militia organizations for the purpose of acquiring a knowledge of the use of arms; but let them beware of forming separate organizations, by which jealousy may be excited, and doubts of their attachment to their adopted country, and its people, created. Such organizations of naturalized citizens, officered by foreigners in strange dress, and mustering under strange flags, will never be tolerated by the mass of the American people.

Their own banner-the glorious stars and stripes-borne over their own and their fathers' heads, both by land and sea, on many a bloody day, is, with them, a holy emblem -holy as the Ark of the Covenant to the Israelites of old, and associated with memories that consecrate it in every American heart. No heraldic blazonry, no matter how ancient, no matter who may have borne it, or over what fields of deathless renown it may have floated in triumph, can ever be compared, in our eyes, with the simple "stars and stripes." To raise another is to destroy the idea of the unity which it represents, to intimate a doubt of the perpetuity of that unity, and manifest a preference that is repulsive to every feeling of our hearts. Foreigners, therefore, who have renounced their allegiance to kings, and made themselves sharers with us in the heritage of liberty and all its concomitant advantages and blessings, should cast behind them the insignia of tyranny, and rally with their native brethren in hearty accord, under the banner of freedom-the starry flag of the republic. If they be Americans in heart, it will cost them nothing to organize, and if need be to fight and die beneath its folds. This flag has waved over the heads of heroes; and though it was ridiculed but a few years since, as a piece of "striped bunting," it now floats in every sea, in proud equality with the tri-color of France and the St. George of England; its shadow affording protection to those who have a right to claim it, in every quarter of the globe. Why, then, should naturalized citizens apparently repudiate it by raising another? And why, above all, organize separately when duty and sound policy alike urge them to make their fellowship with us perfect by unity of action in every possible case? If they have brought with them feelings of attachment to their native land, let them cherish them in their hearts, for such feelings are amiable and exist in every generous bosom. No one will find fault with them for indulging in memories which carry them back to the homes of their childhood; and no one will complain, even if they should confess that there are things and places dear to their hearts in the land they have left. All we ask of them is, that, having been received as brethren, they should conduct themselves as such, and not as rivals or enemies.

It may be alleged, Mr. President, that these people are none the less attached to our institutions because they have formed military associations, with a view to qualify themselves to defend and uphold them. I do not charge them with a want of devotion to our institutions. I have only complained that they have formed separate organizations; that they have not, as both policy and safety require, associated with them native born citizens; that these separate organizations are calculated to excite jealousy; and that between these foreign organizations and similar native organizations there is danger of collision, and of such a character as is frightful to contemplate. If, instead of being formed of foreigners alone, these companies and battalions had been composed of something like equal proportions of natives and foreigners, the danger that is to be apprehended would cease to exist, or exist only in a modified form. From these organizations there is nothing to be gained, even by those who compose them. On the contrary, the suspicion and jealousy which they excite operates to their disadvantage. And here, Mr. President, allow me to say, that while I have not questioned the patriotism of the mass of those who compose these military organizations, I think there is reason to believe that many of the individuals belonging to them are desperate characters, who would not greatly deplore such a collision as is not improbable in the present excited state of the public mind. The great mass of their own countrymen-those who come here, in good faith, to seek a livelihood and a home, are seldom found connected with these associations as members. Engaged in subduing the wilderness of the far West, or pursuing their avocations in the cities and towns, they have neither time nor disposition to

unite with them. But too generally, if the testimony on the subject is to be believed, they are composed of the idle and dissolute, of those who, fond of the excitement of military shows, have no fixed purpose in view, while the number of the substantial men of business, whose thrift would be a guarantee for the preservation of order, is compara. tively small. Under these circumstances, it is time that steps were taken to correct the evil.

The violence which has characterized the conduct of foreigners at the polls on election day, especially in our cities and towns, and eagerness displayed by them, especially the Irish Catholics, for office, wherever the side they took has been successful, and the success which attended their applications to the exclusion of native born citizens, is another cause of the feeling that now exists against them. Thus a late analysis of the Police of the city of New York, published in the journals of that city, shows that on a recent investigation made under the order of the city authorities, it was found that of 1149 men, composing the police force of the city, 718 only (or less than half) are natives of the United States; and of the foreigners, 305 are Irish. It is furthermore stated, that 39 of the police now in active service have been tenants of a State prison— but whether as convicts or political offenders does not appear. Fourteen of the men declined answering the inquiries on the two points referred to, but whether this circumstance is to be construed to their praise or their prejudice it is not our province to say. That our policemen should be above all reproach is not more clear than that they should be thoroughly conversant with, and intelligently attached to, the laws and institutions of the country.

So the conduct of the present national administration; the appointment of Judge Campbell as Postmaster General; the number of foreigners sent as ministers abroad; the undue proportion of foreigners appointed to minor offices to the exclusion of native born applicants; and the proscription from office of all those who had any connection or were supposed to sympathize with the American movement;-all united to give form and direction to the strong and universal sentiment and feeling of opposition to foreign influence, which the other causes enumerated had already created. The feeling was abroad, and it was but necessary to have an exhibition of partiality for foreigners manifested like that by the Pierce administration, to start, as it did, the cry of America for Americans.