for all political offices 2d degree members of this order, providing it be necessary for the American interest; that if it may be done legally, you will, when elected to any office remove all foreigners, aliens or Roman Catholics from office, and that you will in no case appoint such to office. All this you promise and declare on your honor as Americans to sustain and abide by without any hesitation or mental reservation whatever. So help you God, and keep you steadfast! [Each will answer, "I do."]

President.-Brother Marshal: You will now present the brothers to the Instructor for final instruction in this degree of the order.

Marshal.-Brother Instructor: By direction of our worthy President, I present these brothers before you that you may instruct them in the secrets and mysteries of the second degree of the order.

Instructor.-Brothers: In this degree we have an entering-sign and counter-sign. At the outer door proceed the same as in the first degree. At the inner door you will make too distinct raps and proceed as in the first degree, giving the second degree pass-word, which is seventy-six, instead of that of the first degree. If found to be correct, you will then be admitted, and proceed to the centre of the floor, giving the counter-sign, which is made thus: POSITION.-Place the left hand upon the right breast, the right hand extended towards the flag of our country, which should be suspended over the platform of the President. When recognized, you will quietly take your

seat.

Brothers, you are now duly initiated into this, the second degree of the order. Renewing the congratulations which we extended to you upon your admission to the first degree, we admonish you by every tie that may move you as patriots to aid us in our efforts to restore the political institutions of our country to their original purity. Begin with the youth of our land. Refresh their minds with the history of our country, the glorious battles and the brilliant acts of patriotism, which is our common inheritance. Point them to the wise sages and the profound statesmen who founded our government. Instil into their bosoms an ardent love for the Union. Above all else, keep alive in their hearts the memory, the maxims and the deathless example of our illustrious Washington.

Brothers, recalling to your minds the solemn obligations which you have severally taken in this and the first degree, I now pronounce you entitled to all the privileges of membership in this organization, and the President— who ALONE is entitled to communicate it,—will inform you of the name of the order.

President.-Brothers: You are members in full fellowship of The Supreme Order of the Star Spangled Banner.

KNOW-NOTHINGISM AN ALIAS OF FEDERALISM.

No charge was more powerfully urged, or made a deeper impression upon the popular mind in Virginia, during the canvass we are delineating, than that the Know-Nothing party was but a new form of the old protean party of Federalists. We shall not undertake to run over the proofs that were adduced in support of this charge. But the identity of the Know-Nothing doctrines, of religious intolerance and proscription of foreigners, with the leading tenets of the original Federal party, is so striking and palpable, that we insert here from the Richmond Examiner of February 20, 1855, repub

lished from its issue of September 12, 1854, that journal's remarks on this subject:

.

THE PATERNITY OF KNOW-NOTHINGISM-A POLITICAL CHRONICLE.The Democratic party of this country was first built up by Jefferson and Madison, for the purpose of crushing the Federal or Native American party, of which John Adams was the official head. Native Americanism, in whatever name or under whatever disguise it appears, is no recent thing in this country. It is a hoary and oft punished abomination of the Federal party. Opposition to the foreigner, cruel, intolerant, and lawless, has, at intervals, characterized that party ever since 1787. It is true that the Federal party had no formal existence at that time; but the men who, a few years afterwards, became the leaders of the Federal party manifested their hostility to foreign born citizens, during the deliberations of the Convention. which framed the Constitution of the United States. The men who shaped and penned the odious alien law, sought to engraft "Nativeism" upon the organic law of the country.

The Madison Papers establish the fact that the leading Federal members. of the Convention of 1787, sought every opportunity for excluding the foreigners from the most valued rights of citizenship. Upon the subject of naturalization, a majority of the subsequent leaders of this party were in favor of a prohibitory period of twenty-one years. Governeur Morris, afterwards the Corypheus of Federalism, was the leader of the party hostile to all foreigners seeking a refuge in America; whilst James Madison was the leader of the noble party which proclaimed in the Convention-and that in the broadest sense-the doctrines of equal rights and untrammeled religious and civil liberty, to native and foreign born citizens. That great Virginian, whose principles now form the basis of those of the Democratic party, was thus early enlisted, by all the sympathies of his generous heart, in defence of the poverty-stricken, the oppressed, the persecuted and unfortunate of every clime. The unexampled growth and prosperity of this republic illustrates the wisdom and sagacity of those noble sympathies. He recognized and proclaimed that America was forever to be the home of the victims of European despotism, religious and political, and the Constitution stands as the "Ark and Covenant" of the solemn pledges of our forefathers. The great principles of republicanism taught Jefferson, Madison and Washington the propriety and wise policy of extending to respectable foreign emigrants that protection and those privileges which would bind them by the ties of gratitude and affection to the land of their adoption. This they considered better than having in our midst a class of discontented, restless persons, destitute of all those political privileges which constitute the pride of an American citizen. Evidences of this spirit of Catholic humanity, as well as of statesmanlike sagacity, are everywhere to be found in the debates of the Convention of 1787. Thus, in the Madison Papers, page 1300:

"Mr. Madison wished to maintain the character of liberality which had been professed in all the constitutions and publications of America. He wished to invite foreigners of merit and republican principles among us. That part of America which had encouraged them most, had advanced most rapidly in population, agriculture and the arts."

Contrast this noble and benevolent language with that of a leading Federalist, who, with all the stupidity and bigotry of his party, opposed the protection of all foreign born citizens.

Mr. Morris said, Madison Papers, page 1277:

"As to the citizens of the world (emigrants) he did not wish to see them in our councils. He would not trust them. The men who shake off their attachments to their mother country can never love another."

This is language with which none but a Federalist, disgusted with republicanism, could have insulted a convention of patriots and heroes, who were fresh from battle fields, where the great struggle was to "shake off" an unnatural and oppressive mother country. And in this extract we have the sum and substance of that senseless and brutal hostility which the Federal party practiced, under all its names and disguises, from 1787 to 1855. The mere fact of emigration, not the vices of the emigrant, is the crime. The oaths of naturalization and allegiance violate the old English and Federal doctrine of "once a subject, always a subject." If the emigrant has been driven away by the unjust, cruel laws, or lawlessness-as the case may be of the mother country; if he has been imprisoned, pillaged, and denied the right of worshiping his God in his own way, by the same mother country, it is still a crime for him, in another and more congenial land, to make that oath of allegiance which a heart overwhelming with gratitude dictates. In reply to Mr. Morris' denunciation of foreign citizens, Mr. Madison said:

"He thought any restriction, however, in the Constitution unnecessary and improper; unnecessary because the National Legislature is to have the right of regulating naturalization * -improper because it will give a tincture of illiberality to the Constitution; because it will put it out of the power of the National Legislature, even by special acts of naturalization, to confer upon meritorious strangers the full rank of citizenship; and because it will discourage the most desirable class of people from emigrating to the United States. Should the proposed Constitution have the intended effect of giving stability and reputation to our government, great numbers of respectable Europeans, MEN WHO LOVED LIBERTY, and wished to partake of its blessings, would be ready to transfer their fortunes hither."-Madison Papers, page 1278.

The leaders of the Federal party who labored to convert every foreign emigrant into a sort of Helot, and endeavored to perpetuate his degradation by registering in the organic laws of the United States the act of outlawry, were not disheartened by their defeat in the Convention of 1787. The journals and debates of the first and second Congress after the adoption and ratification of the Federal Constitution, prove that when the naturalization laws were under consideration and discussion, there were attempts made by those who at a subsequent period supported John Adams, to deny all emigrants the privilege of becoming citizens for twenty years after their arrival in this country. Thus, again, did the men who afterwards aided Jefferson and Madison in crushing the alien and sedition laws, prevent the Federal party from inflicting a grievous wrong upon the foreigners who had sought this country to enjoy religious and political liberty. From the baptismal font of the Constitution of the United States to the present day, the Democratic party has never deserted or disregarded the rights of the respectable foreign born citizen.

But the intense hatred of the Federal party to all foreign born citizens triumphed for a brief period during the administration of John Adams. The opposition to foreign born citizens of the United States, manifested by a few leading Federalists during Washington's administration, became the settled policy of that party in 1796. Laws were passed during the administration of John Adams for the oppression and punishment of foreign emigrants. To reach and crush these unhappy people, the Constitution was violated by the passage of the Alien and Sedition Laws. The only object of the law against aliens, and the principal object of the Sedition Law, was to deny resident aliens and foreign born citizens the rights of native born Americans. These laws were aimed especially against German, French, Scotch, Irish and English emigrants. They were genuine native American laws for the persecution of

foreign born citizens. The Alien law enabled the President to arrest a man not only without trial, not only without conviction, not only without certain information, but upon mere suspicion; and when arrested, to send him from the country or cast him into prison. It denied the right of trial by jury, the privilege of habeas corpus-in a word, the privileges of trial which we extend to the vilest negro. The other law-that against sedition-was intended to close the mouths of the people, to prevent free discussion, to muzzle the press, to check the constituent from commenting upon the acts of his representatives, and to render the President sacred by penal enactments. The humblest mechanic, or editor, who should express in print his opinion of the President or any member of Congress, charging them with faithlessness in the discharge of their duties, was liable under the Sedition law, to imprisonment and a fine of two thousand dollars. Each single soul within the compass of this Union, native or foreign born, great or small, rich or poor, who uttered, whispered, or declared anything containing a charge against the President, was subject to the penalties of this abominable law.

We have said that both the Alien and the Sedition laws were intended for the oppression of foreign born citizens. The Alien law was intended to bear upon none others than foreigners; the Sedition law, as Adams well knew, would operate expressly against that class. During the administration of John Adams, the brilliant and most uncompromising opponents of his unconstitutional measures, were the political refugees from other countries. These men having suffered from the oppression of monarchical laws at home, were naturally the advocates of a republican form of government. They believed with Thomas Jefferson, in his letter to Mazzei, that under the blighting influence of Federalism,

"In the place of that noble love of liberty and republican government which carried us through the war, an Anglican monarchical and aristocratic party had sprung up, whose avowed object is to draw over us the substance, as they have already done the powers, of the British government."

And another authority informs us that:

"There were then two hundred papers published in the United States; one hundred and seventy-eight were in favor of the Federal administration; about twenty-two were opposed to the measures then adopted, and a greater portion of these were in the hands of foreigners."-Williams' Administration of John Adams, p. 133.

This affords a clue to the secret reasons which governed the Federal party in passing the Sedition law. It was to crush these twenty-two independent presses to put down all opposition to the monarchical and unconstitutional proceedings of the Executive and a corrupt legislature. The first prosecu tions under this act were of four editors, three of whom were foreigners. The treatment of Callender, Cooper, Lyon and Holt, furnish the best commentary upon the Sedition law. Peters, Iredell, Addison, and Chase, were the judicial blood-hounds let loose upon these foreign born Democratic editors. Mr. Lyon, an intelligent Englishman, in a Democratic paper, called "The Time-Piece," spoke of "the ridiculous pomp, idle parade, and selfish avarice" of John Adams.-(Wood's Suppressed History of Adams' Administration, page 164.)-He was arrested, tried and convicted by a packed jury, and Judge Iredell, after commenting upon the heinous crime of ridiculing the President, passed sentence:

"That you be imprisoned four months for the costs of this trial, and fined one thousand dollars."-Wharton's State Trials of the U. S., page 337. "This unfortunate man was then conducted out of court and thrown into a dungeon six feet square, where he was left to starve during a rigorous winter."-Wood's Suppressed History, page 156.

We might multiply, if it was necessary, the cases of cruel prosecution and

persecution practiced by the Federal judges and Federal officers upon our foreign born citizens during the administration of Adams. They were hunted by official blood-hounds, remorseless as Mohawks, convicted by packed juries, and sentenced by judges as corrupt as Jeffries.

These were the blessings, this the protection afforded to foreign born citizens by the Federal Whig administration of John Adams. All the power, all the influence of that administration, were directed against the foreigners who sought refuge in this country after the revolution-for they were Democrats. They took grounds for Thomas Jefferson, and against the Federal party, and they were hunted down for this crime, as if they had been beasts of prey, and unworthy of the protection which the negro now enjoys.

They were torn from their homes at the discretion of the President, and the social rights of freemen, open accusation, habeas corpus, and trial by jury, denied. They were incarcerated if they dared to arraign a public officer for political misdeeds.

The Native American party of the days of John Adams was more respectable, both in numbers and measures, than any that has since existed. It had for its leaders nearly all the educated aristocratic members of that Federal party which, during George Washington's eight years' administration, was omnipotent in the United States. It had the prestige of education, wealth, talent, position, office, and members. It is idle to suppose that any subsequent organization of Native Americans, under any name or disguise, will ever equal in strength or influence the Native American organization of 1796. The first had for its executive head a patriot of the revolution, John Adams; the last has for its head the drunken senator in Congress of one of the smallest states in the Union. So odious did Native Americanism become in 1800, that the Democratic party, formally organized only two years before-led on by two great Virginians-crushed the party that originated the Alien and Sedition laws, and elevated Jefferson to the Presidency. The present Democratic party was formed for the purpose of repealing the Alien and Sedition laws. "Justice to the oppressed foreigners, was the cry of the Democratic

masses who rallied to the resolutions of 1798-'99. Those resolutions the national Democratic party unanimously endorsed at Baltimore in 1852.

The Old Dominion, God bless her, ever true to the Constitution, was first to raise the battle-cry in defence of persecuted foreigners, who were every where falling victims to the Alien and Sedition laws.

The Virginia resolutions of '98 and '99, and the report of James Madison in their vindication, prove this. The following constitutes the fourth of the series:

"That the General Assembly doth particularly protest against the palpable and alarming infractions of the Constitution in the two late cases of the Alien and Sedition acts, passed at the late session of Congress; the first of which exercises a power delegated to the Federal government, and which, by uniting legislative and judicial powers to those of the Executive, utterly subverts the general principle of a free government as well as the particular organization and positive provisions of the Federal Constitution; and the other of which acts exercises a power not delegated by the Constitution; a power which, more than any other, ought to excite unusual alarm, because it is leveled against that right of freely examining public measures and character, which has ever been justly deemed the only effectual guardian of every other right."

The 8th of the series is not less emphatic. Speaks of the Alien and Sedition laws as

"Acts which assume to create, define, and punish crimes, other than those enumerated in the Constitution, are altogether void and of no force, and that the power to create, define and punish such other crimes, is reserved,