The State, in creating _free schools_, is like the Turkish Bashaw's mode of making pork cheap. He first compelled the Jews to buy it at a rate fixed by himself; but the Jews had no use for it, so it was left for every one to pick up at will. Indeed, what is a school worth when a man will pay a premium to be exempt from sending his children to it? The State, boasting of its splendid Public Schools, is also like that poor fellow who wore a gold watch and boasted of it. "Where did you get it?" he was asked. "I got it as a present," he answered. Then he related how one day he met with a rich man: "I knocked him down," he said, "put my foot on his throat, and said: 'Give me your watch, or I kill you.' So he gave it to me." "Pay your taxes for the erection and support of our Public Schools," says the lord State to the poor and to the rich, "or I sell your property." What a shame! The Catholics ask no favor, but they insist on their rights. In this country, whose discoverer was a Catholic--in this country, where the principle of religious toleration was first established by a Catholic nobleman, the famous and chivalric Calvert, Earl of Baltimore--in this country, whose people are largely indebted for their freedom to the armed coöperation and generous aid of Catholic France--in this country, whose constitutional freedom has been struck down by the malevolent Puritanism _which in one breath declares that Catholics are opposed to education, and in the next insists that they shall be deprived of the means necessary for its maintenance_--in this country, I say, we Catholics are entitled to equal rights, and to a fair share, to a just apportionment of the annual amount raised by taxation for the support of our charitable and educational institutions. We ask only what is fair, what is just, what is right; and we base our demand upon principle, and not upon the ground of favors granted or received. If the State taxes us, as a religious and Christian people, for the education of our children, it must give us a Christian education. If it cannot, or will not do that, it must cease to tax us, and leave the education of our children to ourselves. If the Christian gives to Cæsar what belongs to Cæsar, he has a right to demand of Cæsar that he allow him to give to God what belongs to God.