The popular masses of Europe have only displayed their first, but, as yet, imperfect efforts to assert their political rights. It is the reflex action of the great principle we have successfully, thus far, practised. And will not the powers who have conquered the masses then thus far, use every effort to destroy this experiment of ours and perpetuate thereby their own existence? If we continue to succeed, our lesson to the world is the death-knell of monarchy and imperial power. Foreign powers and priestly powers are making this effort. And if we are doomed to fail, it will be by the DISUNION their emissaries here endeavor to produce. With us, again, is religious influence exerted. Servitude is recognised and practised in the south. But the clergy of the north have commenced a fanatical crusade against it. We should guard well against these influences, foreign and domestic, now operating against us. As a part of the history of the times, it may be proper to give the rise and progress of the so-called order of "Know-Nothings." The plan of the organization was conceived by a gentleman of the city of New York, who, in 1849, prepared and embodied into a system, a plan for uniting the American {114} sentiment of the American people throughout the United States. It was meant as a combined resistance, on the part of the native American population, to foreign and papal influence in this country. The progress of the plan was so slow in its development, that at the end of two years, the number of members uniting in the organization did not exceed thirty. In 1852 the plan was examined by a few gentlemen connected with the Order of United Americans, another secret and American organization, but not directly political or partisan in its aims and objects. A society was formed, and forty-three members signed their names to it, and from that small beginning was formed a body of native Americans which, in a year or two after, exceeded, in the state of New York alone, two hundred thousand members. This state organization soon extended its ramifications all over the country, and is now known as the American party. It has held three national conventions, one in Philadelphia, one at New York, and one in Louisville, and is now no more of a secret party than either of the two great parties opposed to it: the national conventions having abolished all secret meetings, and the state conventions or councils having generally concurred in this abolition of all oaths and all forms of obligation but those of personal honor and mutual good faith.