ts officers, and oversight of its doctrines. For such a union none of
us plead. To such a union we are all of us opposed."
Let us accept this definition, and see what it proves. Here it is
plainly declared that "the selection by the nation of one church" as the
recipient of its favor is the union of church and State. In the
quotations that precede this it is just as plainly declared that the
different denominations are one church. Therefore, according to their
own words, when this nation selects this one church, and by
Constitutional amendment espouses her to itself as the especial
object of its favor, that will be the union of church and State.
But let us examine the point which is doubtless intended in this
last quotation, and see whether they fare any better. In the phrase
"the selection by the nation of one church," the meaning is, no doubt,
that the selection by the nation, for instance, of the Methodist, or the
Baptist, or the Reformed Presbyterian Church, as the object of its
favor, would be the union of church and State. But if this would be the
union of church and State, how is it that the other would not be? If the
selection by the nation of one church is union of church and State, we
should like to know how the difficulty is in the least relieved by the
selection of a dozen or fifty as one. Will some one of the National
Reform advocates point out the distinction and draw the line of
demarkation?
Once more: In one of the foregoing quotations from the
Statesman, the Methodists, Presbyterians, and the Reformed
Presbyterians are said to be but ""different divisions of Immanuel's
army,"–the Methodists, the cavalry; the Presbyterians, the infantry;
and the Reformed Presbyterians, the artillery, in "one united phalanx"
in the one army. Now in the Declaration of Independence our fathers
charged that the king of Great Britain had affected "to render the
military independent of; and superior to, the civil power." What a great
pity it is that George III. did not have for his advisers some of these
National Reform statesman(?)! If he only could have had these, he
could have shown to a "candid world" that this charge of his American
colonies was altogether false, and foreign to the subject of their
grievances. With the assistance of these profound statesman, he
could have projected into the controversy this magnificent and most
conclusive disclaimer: "We re-affirm" that the establishment of our
military forces in America, instead of tending in the least degree
toward making the military superior to the civil power, will afford the
fullest security against such a corrupting establishment, and form the
strongest safeguard of the liberties of all citizens. But what we mean
by making the military superior to the civil power is the selection by
the king of one division of the army, the artillery, for instance, and
making that the depository and the expositor of the king's will. For
such a superiority no one pleads. To such a superiority all of us are
opposed. For the king to thus select and favor one division of the
army would indeed be to make the military superior to the civil power;
but for him to so select the whole army together–cavalry, infantry, and
artillery–would not tend "in the least degree" to make the military
superior to the civil power.
Now these National Reform advocates, as well as all others, know
perfectly that for the king of Great Britain to have offered to the
American colonies such an excuse as that for his military occupancy
here, would have been only to make himself supremely ridiculous i
