V

CONDEMNS GOVERNMENT BY THE PEOPLE

The outstanding achievement of the modern world is the evolution of the people. Two and a half centuries were required after the Reformation delivered its mighty broadside against the absolutism of the dark papal centuries to push the ecclesiastical emancipation of the world sufficiently to start the movement for civil emancipation.

Vindication of religious rights of the people led inevitably to vindication of civil rights. Liberty of conscience brought liberty of government. Both have been purchased at the price of blood and treasure in war and carnage extending through more than four hundred years.

The Thirty Years' War, the American and French Revolutions and the recent World War stand out conspicuously among the devastating struggles that finally freed the world from the despotism of emperors and kings and partially shattered the despotism of popes and sultans.

At the beginning of the American Revolution the Declaration of Independence sounded the keynote of modern civilization in the ringing avowal that "all men are created equal; and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; and that to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among men, DERIVING THEIR JUST POWERS FROM THE CONSENT OF THE GOVERNED."

When the smoke of battle had cleared away and the colonies had won independence, delegates commissioned by the people assembled in Philadelphia and wrote the Constitution of the United States. That the immortal document sprang from the sovereignty of the people appears from its preamble, which says:

"WE, THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

Scarcely had the requisite number of states ratified our Constitution to make it operative when "Representatives of the French people," inspired by that great document, in their National Assembly uttered the famous Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, in 1789. That declaration breathes the spirit of our own Declaration of Independence but sets forth civil and religious rights more specifically and in greater detail. Its third clause reads as follows:

"The source of all sovereignty is essentially in the nation; nobody, no individual can exercise authority that does not proceed from it in plain terms."—History of French Public Law, Brissaud, page 543."

The state papers so produced in the last quarter of the eighteenth century in connection with the birth of the American and French republics ushered in a new epoch in the march of liberty. Their declaration that civil authority is vested exclusively in the people has thrilled and transformed every highly civilized nation. It has swept from Europe and the New World nearly every vestige of autocratic power except that of the Pope.

It has spread over the islands of the sea and is now leavening the people and institutions of China and Japan. It has changed fundamentally the spirit and trend of history. Henceforth the annals of the world will record the aspirations, purposes and activities of the people rather than the wars and intrigue of popes, emperors and kings.

But the canon law of the Papacy traverses and contradicts every principle of the doctrine which so blesses mankind with liberty and justice. Papal influence has repeatedly overturned those principles in France and in so doing has again and again drenched the soil of that impulsive nation with blood. Roman hatred of popular sovereignty was voiced by Pope Leo XIII in his encyclical letter Immortale Dei of November 1, 1885, in these bitter words:

"The sovereignty of the people, however, and this without any deference to God, is held to reside in the multitude; which is doubtless a doctrine exceedingly well calculated to flatter and to inflame many passions, but which lacks all reasonable proof, and all power of insuring public safety and preserving public order. Indeed from the prevalence of this teaching, things have come to such a pass that many hold as an axiom of civil jurisprudence that seditions may be rightfully fostered. For the opinion prevails that princes are nothing more than delegates chosen to carry out the will of the people; whence it necessarily follows that all things are as changeable as the will of the people, so that risk of public disturbance is ever hanging over our heads."—Great Encyclical Letters, page 123."

Contrast the foregoing declaration from the supreme legislative authority of the Pontifical throne with Lincoln's immortal epigram of "government of the people, by the, people, for the people." Measure it by the doctrine of the Declaration of Independence that it is the duty of the people to alter or abolish any government that becomes destructive of human rights. Contrast it with the preamble of our Federal Constitution. Compare it with the ringing French Declaration of the Rights of Man.

But Leo XIII has stated in the foregoing utterance the essence of the canon law of human rights. That is the root and kernel of all papal legislation touching the subject. In language equally strong and unequivocal Pope Pius IX, immediate predecessor of Leo XIII declared in his allocution Maxima Quidem of June 9, 1862, that the State is not the source of civil rights and he reiterated briefly the same declaration in Clause 39 of his Syllabus of Errors of December 8, 1864. —Dogmatic Canons and Decrees, published in 1912 with Imprimatur of the late Cardinal Farley, page 197.

In his encyclical Humanum Genus of April 20, 1884, against Freemasons, Pope Leo XIII stated the climax of his anathema against that craft in his charge that they "lay down the doctrine that all men have the same right, and are in every respect of equal and like condition; that each one is naturally free; that no one has the right to command another; that it is an act of violence to require men to obey any authority other than that which is obtained from themselves."—Great Encyclical Letters, page 96.

The prelates then enthroned in the United States assembled in the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore a few mouths after Leo XIII issued the foregoing encyclical and they reiterated much of its substance in a pastoral letter signed by the late James Gibbons, afterwards a cardinal, who presided as special representative of the Pope for that purpose in order to give the council's proceedings the authority of canon law. But their denunciation of Masonry designed for American consumption prudently and cunningly omitted the specific indictment last quoted from the Pope.

As previously stated in this treatise, the papal government itself vests absolutely no authority in the people. Only the Pope is clothed with original authority and power. All other prelates and functionaries derive their status and prerogatives solely from him; and in his election the people have no voice. The Pope creates the cardinals and the cardinals elect the Pope.

So are two opposite and rival systems of civil government now striving for mastery of the world. The one is incarnate in the Pope; the other in the great democracies of Western Europe and America. The one advocates government by alleged divine right; the other, by consent of the governed. The one is essentially despotic and oppressive; the other liberal and beneficent. The one keeps the people ignorant and destitute to facilitate their plunder and exploitation; the other favors public education, freedom of thought and expression and enlightened public opinion.