Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 38.djvu/391

Rh of the first Good Friday and the Saviour's injunction to the disciple who used his sword: "Put up thy sword in its place; for all that take the sword shall perish by the sword." After eighteen and a quarter centuries we had another Pilate, Stanton was the Plerod, Seward the Caiphas and Scott the centurion.

Lincoln died April 15, 1865, and on April 15, 1861, he, by proclamation, declared a "Rebellion," which, by this act, immediately plunged the country into fratricidal war.

Contrasting Washington and Lincoln, supernatural powers seemingly of antipodal purposes ruled and directed these two types of men, and it only needs to contrast their minds and methods, not in fancy, but in fact, and their final ends. Lincoln had the relation to 'Washington such as a demon of wrong has to an apostle of right.

Lincoln's assassin having been a product of his period, so, likewise, were the assassins of Garfield and McKinley. However we may deplore those acts, we can with equal horror condemn the political environs and crimes characteristic of the times. But, I have digressed.

The alliance with France was essential to the success of the colonists, and was certified and cemented by several fortuitous causes, viz: First, the inherited hatred of France against England and Puritan perfidy and agression. Second, The sovereign patriotism and valor of the Americans. Third, John Paul Jones's victories. Fourth, The statecraft of Franklin and the examples of Lafayette, Pulaski and other foreigners. Fifth, The effective good offices of John Carroll, the Catholic Vicar Apostlic of America at Baltimore, and, through him, the Archbishop of Paris. We know, historically, that the Catholic King of France was largely influenced by the highest Catholic dignitary, and probably at the crucial point for America.

No unprejudiced American citizen needs to be assured that the Catholic hierarchy stands always for truth and righteousness. Pope Pius IX, recognized the Confederate States. General Early thereupon remarked that his title to infallibility was secure. Upon the downfall of the Confederacy, and while other European potentates were hedging and squirming to hide the aid to the Confederacy that they had winked at, this same holy