LETTERS

TO

REV. HENRY M. DEXTER.

AND TO

REV. LEONARD BACON, D. D.

BY JOEL PARKER.

CAMBRIDGE:

PRINTED BY H. O. HOUGHTON.

MEMORANDUM. A letter, addressed "To the People of Massachusetts," in the course of the canvass for the election of State officers, in October last, contained these paragraphs, to wit:

"A few days after the People's Convention in Faneuil Hall, the Reverend H. M. Dexter delivered one of what is called the Fraternity Lectures. These lectures call together the more eager and ultra of the fanatics of Massachusetts. Senators and Representatives attend. I pray you to mark the name 'Fraternity,' and then to recall, or, if the circumstances are not fresh in your memory, to read some account of the atrocities committed under the name of 'Fraternity' in the French Revolution. The reverend gentleman, I believe, is one of that class of 'all-sufficient, selfsufficient, insufficient' clergymen, who not only think that they know more of Constitutional law than William Pinkney and Daniel Webster ever did, but who also evince a strong belief that they know more than God does that they could create a better world than He has made and could govern the present one, bad as it is, better than He does; and they, of course, affiliate with those who want 'an antislavery Bible, and an anti-slavery God.'

"I need hardly say that I respect and reverence the clergyman who gives evidence that he duly appreciates the high and holy nature of his mission. And I do not deny to him the right, at the proper time and in the proper manner, of discussing important political principles. But when a clergyman assumes to know more of Constitutional law than those who have spent their lives in the investigation of its principles, he is apt to exhibit himself as an unmitigated ass; and when he makes a political prostitute of himself, pandering to the lusts of a political party, he is entitled to no greater respect than other persons who disregard their duties. Hardly so much, as the iniquity he commits may be more extensively pernicious.

"On the occasion of this Fraternity lecture, The Daily Advertiser' reports that the reverend gentleman 'spoke of the People's party in terms of contempt,' and said, 'The end of the People's party would be a rope's end, as it would of all who strove to thwart the onward march of liberty.' Perhaps His Reverence will begin to think that this was a mere jest of his; but such jests in revolutionary times are apt by and by to smack very much of earnest. It might be regarded as an ebullition of the spleen of a fanatic, were it not that it has been followed up by other significant utterances from higher quarters."

Mr. Dexter thereupon addressed a letter to the writer, in "The Congregationalist," to which the first letter in this collection is a reply. The others have followed for the reasons indicated in them.

Although some portion of the contents is of temporary interest only, the discussions respecting the Constitutional Relations of the States and the United States, and the powers of the President, are not of that character; and the importance of these topics may serve to justify a compliance with the wishes which have been expressed, that the letters should be published in their present form. They appeared originally in "The Boston Post."

CAMBRIDGE, February 20th, 1863.

LETTERS.

TO THE REV. HENRY M. DEXTER,

Editor of The Congregationalist, Pastor of the Berkley Street Church, Fraternity Lecturer, &c., &c.

No. 1.

SIR,I am in the receipt of that compound mixture of political piety and partisan politics, "The Congregationalist" of the 7th instant, containing your letter to me, dated on the 3d.

If you entertain a supposition that my reference to you, in the letter which I lately addressed "to the People of Massachusetts," was written in "hasty wrath," or indicated any "loss of temper," I beg of you to disabuse your mind of that idea with all possible expedition. You may rest assured that all which was there said was a deliberate, well-considered utterance, of the propriety of which I was then fully persuaded, and have not since entertained a particle of doubt; and I am too old to give any hope that I shall live . to repent..

I designed to strike at an offence which has been committed too often, and at an evil which has existed too long without any sufficient rebuke; and that you presented yourself as a representative of the offenders to receive the blow, you may thank your Fraternity lecture.

The offence to which I refer is that committed by a certain class of clergymen who assume, in their public discourses and writings, not only to settle, ex cathedra, questions of Constitutional law, as if they were the final expounders of the construction of the Constitution, but who have the superlative impudence which leads them to sneer