Carroll Free Press

COMMENTS ON THE ABOVE

Professional engagements in Court, which is still in session in this town, prevents us from taking that notice of the communication of Mr. Dempster which we might, under different circumstances, have done. Add to that, we are not to be drawn into a controversy with him through the medium of this paper or otherwise. Our editorial article headed "CHURCH AND STATE," it seems, provoked the communication of Mr. Dempster. The statement which we gave of the trial, we, of the Rev. Edward Smith for an assault and battery at Pittsburgh, he says, "are almost entirely false." He says it is "absurd and ridiculous" to "suppose, &c.;" and then goes on to give the statement, among which the following facts are stated.

1. That Miller's first offence was voting for a slaveholder.
2. That he should be reproved for it, and if he did not show signs of humiliation and promise amendment he should not be continued in the church, &c.
3. That he did not promise, &c., and was expelled.

Now if Mr. Dempster, by a system of special pleading, can find any one so stupid as to believe that any thing other than voting for a slaveholder caused the expulsion of Miller from the church, we are grossly mistaken, and in this we take his own assertion, and it is both "absurd and ridiculous" for him to attempt to escape the conclusion. The expulsion for voting was the point to which we took exception.

Whether Mr. Smith caught Miller by the hair in mistake or purposely, when he was engaged in a personal rencontre with him, is a matter of no consequence, or whether his coat was off or on; though Mr. Dempster is careful not to deny that his coat was off. Our informant, on which we relied, is A. W. Loomis, Esq., of Pittsburgh, he was in the city, (and we think present) at the time of the trial. Mr. Dempster was at Leesburg, in this county, and of course, has to rely on the information of others for the statements by him made. Others, who have seen the reported proceedings of the case, say that our statement is correct in substance; and we may add that Dempster fully sustains the main allegation that a man must answer a clerical functionary and "his followers" for the vote he gives. If this is not putting "Church and State" together we don't know what is.

Mr. Dempster's last remark deserves a passing notice. His cavil about our "ignorance of his principles," comes with an ill grace from a man who placed Henry Clay and the Whig party precisely on the same platform with James K. Polk and the Democratic party, on the Texas question. We would as soon undertake to convert an Atheist by quoting Scripture as convince Mr. Dempster of either the truth or falsity of any proposition that stands in the way of his wild enthusiastic notions.

We are now done with this matter. We have given the letter of Mr. Dempster as requested, and if his defence is not "absurd and ridiculous" in the extreme, we are mistaken. Nay, more, we claim that it sustains us. With the reasoning of Mr. Dempster about "sin," "immorality," &c., we have nothing to do. We leave him where we find him—he has an undoubted right to think and act as he pleases, and we the same.

But we do hope that the final result of the Texan annexation question by Congress, has convinced Mr. Dempster that his charges upon Henry Clay and the Whig party, before the last election, if not sufficient to make his course appear both "absurd and ridiculous," will have, at least, convinced him that he is not only a fallible being, and as liable to err as his neighbors.