In a letter to Justice John McLean of the U.S. Supreme Court dated 11 January 1855, Detroit judge Ross Wilkins expressed hope that "secret jesuitism in America might be triumphantly met by a secret American movement." You know that for the last quarter of a century political traders and gamesters have so manufactured public opinion, & so directed party organization, that our Union has been endangered, & bad men elevated to place & power, contrary to the true sentiment of the People And there seemed to be no hope for us. Both parties courted what was called the foreign vote, & the highest aspirants of the Senate, to ensure success, strove which could pay more homage to a foreign Prince, whose eccle siastical subjects, constituted so large a portion of this imperium in imperio. The Papal Power at Rome, apprised fully of this state of things, gave...