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have been driven by the odious eighth article from their ranks,
they (this Chameleon party) may, on that account, make an era-
sure of the article from the paper, and attempt to blot out the blot
upon the history of the country. (Would that the principle could
be erased from their hearts !) But they are not prepared for that
here yet—their necessities are not yet sufficiently pressing in
Maryland, to force upon reluctant bigotry that measure of poli-
cy. The American Party of the Philadelphia Platform, whole
and entire, is still the creed and boast here; but the time will
come and that soon, when the paper will be erased. How many
such an erasure will deceive, will remain to be seen.

But let us now hear Mr. Smith, another of these "Simon
Pures" and a member from Alabama, whose speech in Baltimore
will long be remembered by that people, and who in the course of
his reply to Mr. Eustis, said: This brought him to the fundamen-
tal principle of the American party. It was not religious, but
political. He denounced Roman Catholics because spiritually,
temporally and politically, they owed allegiance to the Pope,
above the Constitution of the United States, and at the proper
time he would adduce the highest authorities to sustain him in
the position he had assumed. And here he would say to the gen-
tleman from Louisiana, that if the Catholics of that State were
not Roman Catholics, they did not come under the ban of the
American Party."

Here we have the full measure of the true spirit of the far-famed
eighth article. The honorable gentleman first imputes a slander,
and then, under cover of that slander, places the Catholic com-
munity under the ban of the American Party. But one more
instance.                                                                               

Mr. Flournoy, the defeated candidate and organ of the Ameri-
can Party, at the late Gubernatorial election in Virginia, published
a letter in which he announced the principle of proscription, and
stood upon it throughout the canvass.

Here, in this Legislature, some avowed members of that Party
tell us they are altogether averse to all kinds of religious proscrip-
tion—and anon papers are presented, coming from known mem-
bers of the party, assailing with slander and calumny, and vile
detraction, harmless, pure, innocent and helpless females of the
Catholic Church; and they are received by a party vote. If after
seeing all this, and considering it, any one can tell what is the
American Party, he must be gifted with powers of discrimination
much beyond those of ordinary men :—and if the fate which be-
fell the laborers on the tower of Babel, does not attend this con-
fusion of names, purposes and principles, the laws of nature
must have been reversed, and similar causes have ceased to pro-
duce similar effects.