The Catholic World, Vol. 14, October 1871-March 1872: A Monthly Magazine of General Literature and ScienceVarious
Religion
The Catholic World, Vol. 14, October 1871-March 1872: A Monthly Magazine of General Literature and Science
Various
Catholic Church -- Periodicals
No, no; the press has taken only a one-sided view in calling the
prohibition of the Orange procession a violation of freedom and a
cowardly yielding to Irish or Catholic dictation. It was no such
thing. The Orangemen had no right on their side, and were entitled to
no protection. Liberty was on the other side, and its vindication and
the right of asylum required us as Americans to protect the victims of
the Orange party who had sought refuge with us from Orange insult and
outrage on our own soil. His excellency the governor of the state also
took only a hasty and a very incorrect view of the case in revoking
the very proper order of the police. We are as far as he can be from
yielding to the dictation of the mob. When a mob has collected, it
must be admitted to no parley, and the only answer to be given to its
demands is the reading of the riot act, and a whiff of grape-shot or a
shower of musket-balls. But no threats of violence should ever deter
authority from doing what is right, and, in this case, right was not
on the side of the Orangemen. Authority must be just as well as firm.
The threats of violence were wrong, but they did not put the Orangemen
in the right. Authority was bound to protect the Orangemen from actual
violence, but it was not bound to protect them in the performance of
acts which they had no moral or legal right to perform, and which it
was foreseen, if permitted, would lead to violence. One wrong is not
redressed by permitting another that must provoke it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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