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 much alarm throughout the country. It was seen that the former, being under the temporal and spiritual domination of their priests, and through them under an Italian prince, were exerting a most baneful influence upon the republican institutions of the States. Already in two or more States the Romanists had organised themselves to interfere with the management of the public schools. This alarm paved the way for the rapid extension of the new party, which first made its appearance before men's eyes with a secret organization and enormous political machinery. Its success was unprecedented. Favoured by the secresy of the ballot, it succeeded in placing its nominees in all the responsible offices in several of the States. Other parties appeared paralysed, and men yielded before a mysterious power of whose real strength they were in complete ignorance. The avowed objects of the Know-nothings were to establish new naturalization laws, prohibiting any from acquiring the franchise without a residence of twenty-one years in the States—to procure the exclusion of Romanists from all public offices—to restore the working of the constitution to its original purity—and to guarantee to the nation religious freedom, a free Bible, and free schools; in fact, to secure to Americans the right which they are in danger of ceasing to possess—namely, that of governing themselves.

The objects avowed in the preliminary address were high and holy; they stirred the patriotism of those who writhed under the tyranny of an heterogeneous majority, while the mystery of nocturnal meetings, and a secret