MICROFILMED 1986

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA - BERKELEY
GENERAL LIBRARY
BERKELEY, CA 94720

COOPERATIVE PRESERVATION MICROFILMING PROJECT
THE RESEARCH LIBRARIES GROUP, INC.

Funded by

THE NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES
THE ANDREW W. MELLON FOUNDATION

Reproductions may not be made without permission.

 
 

 

 
 

THE PRINTING MASTER FROM
WHICH THIS REPRODUCTION WAS
MADE IS HELD BY THE MAIN LIBRARY

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
BERKELEY, CA 94720
FOR ADDITIONAL REPRODUCTION
REQUEST MASTER NEGATIVE

NUMBER 90 - O45

   
 

AUTHOR: Tobin, John J:

TITLE: Ewlogium on Daniel O Connell...

PLACE: dan Francisco

DATE: [$715 VOLUME $5: /0
Feo .
CALL cg. MASTER 86

 
 

 

F860
C2
v.S5:10

Tobin, John J
Eulogium on Daniel O'Connell, delivered by John J. Tob,

at the centenary, August 6th, 1875, Platt's Hall, San Francisco.
San Francisco, Bonnard & Daly, Book and Job Printers, 1875.
32 p. 23cm. [Pamphlets on California biography, v. 5,

no.10)
 

FILMED AND PROCESSED BY |
LIBRARY PHOTOGRAPHIC SERVICE
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
BERKELEY, CA 94720

sosno. 8/6 1/1/50
DATE 3 8/6

REDUCTION RATIO 8

DOCUMENT —
~ SOURCE BANCROFT LIBRARY |

 
 

ls Wize fl25
ro
woe [122

we

Oo

i

ha
bee,

fli

lis lle.

NO
On

MICROCOPY RESOLUTION TEST CHART
NATIONAL BUREAU OF STANDARDS
STANDARD REFERENCE MATERIAL 1010a
(ANSI and ISO TEST CHART No. 2)

INCHE

LULL COE ET
HES | V i I | pe ! l ' 3 3 | y 4 v | =) ih | ! 1

   
 

METRIC 1 2 6 8 9 10 1 12 13 14 15

 
 

 

 

Retake of Preceding Frame
) Sion a SRN
¥ Rt 2 :

ing Frame

 

—O
D
O
O
Se
a
——
O
O
-—r
O
af
D
a4

 
EULOGIUM

ON

DANIEL L O'CONNELL

DELIVERED BY

JOHN J. TOBIN,

AT THE

CENTENARY, AUGUST 6th, 1875.

PLATT'S HALL, SAN FRANCISCO.

Under the Auspices of the Knights of St. Patriek.

SAN FRANCISCO:
Bonnard & Daly, Book and Job Printers, 536 Clay Street.
1875.

 

 
Ladies and Gentlemen and Brother Knights of St.
Putrick:

We have assembled this evening to celebrate the
centenary of Daniel O'Connell, one of Ireland’s greatest,
noblest, purest sons, whose praises we have learned to
lisp from our earliest childhood, and whose fame and
renown shall still be held, generation after generation,
in grateful remembrance, as it is at this day wherever
the blessings of Civil and Religious Freedom are appre-
ciated or enjoyed. All over these United States, in the
Canadas, in far distant Australia, in remote India, In
every part of the civilized world this centenary is being
celebrated with extraordinary honors. The heart of
old Ireland throbs to its centre, and with her wonted
hospitality she has, with open arms, extended invitations
to distinguished citizens of almost every land to join
with her in person in doing honor to the memory of
the great liberator.

Political and sectarian differences are forgotten for
the time being, and moral and physical force advocates,
orthodox and dissenting expounders, unite in paying:
homage to the great champion of civil and religious
freedom.

In order to appreciate thoroughly the character of
any public man and to estimate his worth, it is neces-

sary to view his surroundings, to understand the condi-

tion of the social and political affairs in which he took

a part, the society in which he moved, the passions,

prejudices and spirit of the age in which he lived. We
1

 

 
2

shall see, by so doing, how Daniel O'Connell, from the
time he first saw the light near Cahircineen, County
Kerry, Ireland, one hundred years ago, struggled on,
day after day, year after year, up to his last hour, in
casting off link after link of the social and political
chain which six hundred years of British policy had
bound around every limb and muscle of his country,
until at last, obliged by Nature's stern behest, to rest
from his labors, he left the fetters, though broken and
disjointed, still dangling round the fair form of Erin.

We shall see how, in this long, eventful struggle for
liberty, O'Connell never bent the knee suppliantly;
never begged for that as a favor which he knew he
should demand as « right; but was ever the bold, fear-
less champion of his own and his countrymen’s claims
for justice.

If we were to judge of the merits of a government by
its professions, England would certainly carry off the
palm from the nations of the earth for tolerance, libe-
rality, justice, and all the other moral political virtues.
But when we apply the test of comparison between
practicing and preaching, England must descend from
her moral high stool and take a back seat. At the
very period of O'Connell's birth, England, that raised
her hand in holy horror at the so-called atrocities per-
petrated during our late Civil War, was giving lessons
in civilized warfare by letting loose the wild Indian
with tomahawk and scalping knife upon her rebellious
children, the American colonists—a lesson which she
~ has improved upon since by blowing Sepoys in India
from the mouths of her cannon. Thank God, the lesson

0
J

was given to apt pupils, who, if they did not retaliate
in kind, “bettered the instruction” by driving the
teacher out of doors.

Again, England, so solicitous about the prevention of
slavery, and so morally interested in the internal affairs
of Austria, Italy, Turkey, and other Kuropean coun-
tries, was ruling seven-eighths of her subjects in Ireland
with an iron rod, subjecting them to the operations of
the so-called Penal Code, a set of laws disgraceful to
the statute books of any civilized nation. By a strange
fiction of law, the very existence of a Catholic in Ireland
was not recognized, although the professors of that creed
comprised the great bulk of the population. Debarred
from embracing almost every profession their religion and
its ministers proscribed, the Catholics had no more voice
in their government—national, provincial or municipal
—than the uncivilized Indian on our prairies. Not
only that, but they were deprived of the means of
being educated, unless received from what the people
considered a tainted source, and in homoepathic doses
prescribed by government, Catholic teachers being prohi-
bited from discharging their functions undeg heavy
penalties. *

Remote from the public thoroughfare, in some shel-
tered nook by the hedge or roadside, the poor children
of Catholic Ireland, were obliged, by stealth, to seek
that knowledge which a paternal government would
have dealt out with an unstinted hand. Whilst Ger-
many forced education upon her children, those of Ire-
land had to steal it. Catholics could hold land only on
very short tenures, and could not own a horse of greater

 
4

value than five pounds. Robbed of all their Church
property, they could discharge the duties of their reli-
gion only by the connivance of the government.

It is difficult for a native American citizen of the
present day to comprehend that such a state of affairs
could have existed under a high-toned, “ moral” gov-
ernment such a short time ago. Yet there are plenty
of living witnesses to the facts. One of the greatest, if
not the very greatest of privileges which we enjoy in this
clorious republic, is that of religious freedom; and in no
part of their work did its founders display greater wis-
dom than in that clause of the Constitution guarantee-
ing the same. Here, Christian, Jew, Infidel, Heathen,
Mormon can worship, or not worship God, as he pleases,
without thereby incurring any civil or political disabili-
ties whatsoever, and without being compelled by law to
contribute to the support of a church in whose doctrines
he does not helieve.

Religious dissensions and divisions and discussions
are the most embittered—and the theme is one I dislike
to enter upon, did not the nature of my subject com-
pel me to do =o.

It was under the benign operation of such laws that
O'Connell was obliged to seek that education in France
which he and his co-religionists were deprived of at
home. Well did he profit by his instructions. The

soil was good and only required cultivation. His giant
intellect grasped knowledge with the avidity with which
the parched throat slakes its thirst at the gurgling
spring, and, on his return home, he was well prepared
to enter upon that glorious career where his cultivated

d

genius had ample scope for the display of its extraordi-
nary powers. One of the first Catholics, under a late
so-called concession, permitted to become a member of
the Bar, he had scarcely donned the gown in 1798, when
he saw his country bought, sold and betrayed by the
miserable crew of base, alien hirelings, who, by the Sys-
tem of aristocratic patronage and government support,
held seats in the Irish Parliament. O'Connell groaned
in spirit at the indignities heaped upon his Catholic fel-
low-countrymen, and his soul yearned to hurl back the
‘stigma sought to be cast upon Irishmen in consequence
of the disgraceful manner in which the Union was car-
ried in 1800.

But, first let us glance at his career as a lawyer.
O'Connell at the bar was surrounded by obstacles and
barriers. On every side he beheld enemies who looked
upon him as an upstart—an intruder. Not only had he
not the “ear of the Court;” not only was he frowned
upon by judges and snubbed by the officers of the Crown,
but he was ostracised from the social and professional
gatherings of his Protestant brother members of th
Bar.

Yet, notwithstanding, he fought his way manfully,
giving back taunt for taunt, with compound interest,
pouring forth in resistless torrents his withering sar-
casm upon the heads of judge and pleader alike, when-
ever by insult or by wrong they outraged the principles
of right or justice, or attempted to do so.

Seeing that he was not to be either bullied or cajoled
into subjection, and that they were not a match for him
in the intellectual arena, the salaried legal officials of

 
6

the government yielded with as good a grace as the cir-
cumstances would permit. O'Connell was allowed to
pursue the even tenor of his way, none caring to try
the temper of his “ Derrynane” blade. It was the tri-
umph of genius and pluck over narrow-minded bigotry,
prejudice and poltroonery.

From the day on which he held his first brief to that
upon which, at the call of his country, he retired from the
practice of his profession, his success was unprecedented.
At the Bar he proved himself a profound lawyer, an able
advocate, an invincible opponent, a skilful dissector of
evidence. He possessed remarkable reasoning powers,
was ever ready at reply and retort, and overflowed with
an inexhaustible fund of humor, ridicule and sarcasm.

Having a thorough insight into the character of his
countrymen—their virtues as well as their weaknesses
—he was invincible as a cross-examiner. Nothing
could be concealed from his penetrating glance, and no
simulation of innocence or ignorance could withstand
his skill in eliciting the testimony he required from the
witness on the stand. In very intricate cases, where
legal quibbles, quiddits and technicalities come into
play, O'Connell, by some cunning device or adroit in-
vention, often worked miracles for his clients. In this
branch of his profession he was a Brobdignag, striding
over the floundering, periwigged Liliputians of the legal
fraternity, and also magician enough to mystify even
the Philadelphia Bar, whose acumen has obtained a
world-wide celebrity.

His legal triumphs are legion in number. ¢ Think
of his speech for John Magee,” writes John Mitchel,

 

 

“ the most powerful forensic achievement since before
Demosthenes ;” and this is but one of hundreds upon
which a similar eulogium could be passed. Honors and
emoluments were heaped upon him; riches, dignities
and titles were waiting on his call, when laudable am-
bition yielded to still more laudable patriotism, and
O'Connell laid on the shrine of his country’s liberties
the golden fruit so temptingly abundant, so easily
grasped. *‘ The iron had entered into his soul.”

He felt humiliated by the arrogance and assumption
of the ignorant upstarts who filled the greater number
of offices in the country, from Constable to Lord Chan-
cellor, the only qualification required being adhesion to
the Church, as by law established, whilst, at the same
time, he saw thousands of his countrymen, possessing
all the mental, moral and physical qualifications neces-
sary to fill such offices with honor and dignity, barred
out, simply on the ground of their religion.

O’Connell resolved to break down the barriers raised
by bigotry and fanaticism, to hem in the just and
righteous aspirations of an intelligent people.

Their emancipation became the engrossing thought
of his mind, and youthful visions of the judicial ermine
and lordly robes were banished from his memory as
idle dreams. A time came when the glittering reality
was spurned with as great sincerity as the shadow now.

With O'Connell to resolve was to act. Never did a
Napoleon or a Wellington, a Moltke or a McMahon
plan a military campaign with more circumspection,
with more attention to details than did O'Connell
his war of moral force upon the entrenchments of

 

 
 

  

the enemy. It cost him many years of incessant
labor to accomplish his purpose of establishing an or-
ganization which would embrace the entire country—
thoroughly disciplined—obedient to the word of com-
mand—nhaving but one soul or motive power, and that
power himself. To create a party,” says Lacordaire,
“is a masterpiece of skill and energy ; still, the chief of
a party is nothing in comparison with the man who is
the moral chief of an entire nation, and who rules it
without armies, police or tribunals, without any other
resources than his genius and patriotism.” This O’Con-
nell succeeded in doing. The Catholic Association was
a kingdom within a kingdom, or rather a republic with-
in a despotic oligarchy—the former one of love, the
other that of fear—one ruled by the pen, the other by
the sword. He was the lawgiver of the 19th century.
Israel had her Moses, Greece her Lycurgus, Rome her
Justinian, France her Charlemagne, England her Ed-
ward, and Ireland had her O'Connell.

He demanded tribute to support the expenses of his
government, and the people willingly paid it. He es-
tablished tribunals of justice wherever the magistrates
were deprived of their commissions for preferring God
to Mammon, and the people bowed to their decisions.
He commanded the people to come here, to go there, to

leave their homes and assemble at monster meetings,

and, often though hungry and foot-sore, they obeyed
his mandates.

The government naturally, by the instinct of self-
preservation, dreaded this new Republic, and deter-
mined upon its suppression. Law after law was passed

   

9

 

for that purpose, but the Ministers found it a many-
headed Hydra, one head being no sooner cut off than
another appeared, until, they, like Macbeth, when the
ghosts of Banquo’s descendants appeared hefore him,
cried out, “ What! will the line stretch out to the crack
of doom? T’ll see no more. Let this pernicious hour
stand, aye, accursed in the calendar.”

O'Connell had often boasted that he could drive a
coach and six through any Act of Parliament, and in
this, his wonderful power of devising expedients in
perilous cases, so often displayed at the Bar, was admi-
rably shown. No sooner was the Body, of which he
was the head and heart, suppressed under the one
name, than it instantly appeared under another, dressed
strictly in the costume prescribed by Court etiquette.

The discipline and efficiency of the Catholic “Associa-
tion,” by which the organization was then known, was
soon to be tested. The gage of battle had been flung
down at the feet of the existing government, and now
the lists were to be entered. :

Mr. Vesey Fitzgerald, representative in Parliament
for the County Clare, having lately been made Presi-
dent of the Board of Trade, and a member of the King’s
Cabinet, was obliged to seek re-election to the House of
Commons, according to the custom then, as now, estab-
lished. The Association determined to fight the gov-
ernment in the person of one of its Ministers; and,
accordingly, put forward its commander-chief, O’Con-
nell himself, as a candidate in oppostion to Fitzgerald.
The whole country was filled with joyous surprise at
the announcement; whilst the government and sup-

2

 
10

porters of the Established Church stood aghast at the
audacity of this brazen papist. It was the days of
chivalry over again. It was Right against Might, and
God defend the bravest. The United States of America,
that had contributed so liberally to the success of the
movement, looked on with interest, and France, that

already had given the good example to England in reli-

gious toleration, watched closely the issue of the con-
test.

No Catholic could take the necessary oaths before
being admitted to his seat in Parliament without being
guilty of apostasy. O'Connell proclaimed that he could
enter the House without subscribing to such an infamy
on strictly constitutional grounds. ;

Hence the struggle and the interest taken in its re-
sults. The Duke of Wellington, as head of the govern-
ment, had pledged himself that “no papist should set
his foot in a Protestant Legislature,” and the Dake of
York, heir presumptive to throne, had sworn in the
Honse of Lords, «So help him God he would never
vield to the demands of the Catholics.’

Fitzgerald was a liberal and popular landlord, and he
had, besides, the Patronage and support of the govern-
ment at his back. The majority of the landlords who
had favored the emancipation of the Catholics, having
been accustomed to act in the re of patrons, ad. deserv-
ing of homage on that score, looked upon this bold step

of the Catholic Association and its leader, with extreme
disfavor, and, in consequence, threw all their weight
and influence in the scale against O'Connell. But, talk
of checking the lightning in its path when the thunder

11

rolls above, or the winds when the storm is raging, as
speak of curbing the passions of a people let loose after
generations of subjection, by the talismanic touch of an
inspired leader. O'Connell, having first sent forward
his trusty lieutenants, Tom Steele, O'Gorman Mahon,
and “ Honest’ Jack Lawless, as skirmishers before the
battle, soon followed and immediately threw himself,
with all the ardor of his fiery soul, into the heat of the
canvass. He was ubiquitous. Morning, noon and night
his rich, orotund voice could be heard dealing sledge
hammer blows upon the illusory promises and deceptive
arguments of his opponents.

His oft-repeated appeal, ¢ Hereditary bondsmen,
know ye not, who would be free, themselves must strike
the blow,” was not made in vain to the men of Clare ;
and, though they knew by sad experience the penalty
of opposing their landlords, yet voted for the ¢ Man of
the People,” electing him by a glorious majority. Once
more it was the green above the red.” Green boughs
strewed the path of the conqueror; green Hags floated
over his head ; green ribbons adorned the bonnets of
the women and the hats of the men, and the medal of
the Liberator dangled from the breasts of both young
and old, rich and poor, priest and peasant. Vesey Fitz-
gerald, the Government “hack,” with his supporters,
disappeared from the scene in sullen discomfiture, rout-
ed, “horse, foot and dragoon.” Well may O'Connell,
good humoredly, exclaim from the hustings, “ Boys,
where’s Vesey Fitzgerald ? Och hone, ¢ Vasy,” but its
me that’s dull without you. Righi, mavourneen, righi,
and send the bell after him. Here's the cry for you:

 
«Stolen or strayed,
Lost or mislaid,
The President of the Board of Trade.’”

In addressing an Irish aggregate meeting O'Connell
was unapproachable, and in this especial regard shone
a star of the first magnitude—by his brilliancy forcing
all lesser lights to hide their diminished heads.

The resounding cheer, the boisterous, side-splitting
laugh, the heartfelt groan, the sorrowful tear, the re-
vengeful yell, and the joyous shout were all ready at
his bidding. His eloquence, wit, pathos, humor, and,
above all, his sincerity, were the “open Sesame” to the
hearts of the people he so dearly loved. No wonder he
triumphed in Clare. His return to Dublin was one
grand ovation. The enemy was demoralized by so un-
expected a defeat; and a demoniacal yell of rage
against “O'Connell, the Pope and the Devil” was raised
by the Orange factions of the North and the bigots of
Great Britain.

« Let the galled jad: wince, our withers are unwrung.”

The long, dark, dreary night of bitter and unrelent-
ing persecution is nearly passed, and the dawn is begin-
ning to appear. ‘ England,” says the great Dr. New-
man, “that seems to act towards all other nations with
her eyes open, in her dealings with Ireland seems to be
“blind.” Blind indeed to her own true interests, in the
lust of her might and power, in thus crushing toearth every

aspiration for Liberty in her sister isle—* sowing the

wind of enmity, that she may reap the whirlwind,”
when, some day, the long pent up feelings of the Irishman
will find expression in the style of Spartacus: ¢ Oh,

 

13

England, England, thou hast been a tender nurse to
me, thou hast given to that poor, gentle, timid shepherd
lad that knew no harsher tone than the flute-note, mus-
cles of iron and a heart of flint, and he shall pay thee
back, until the lordly Shannon is red as frothing wine
with the blood of his oppressors.” O'Connell, backed
by his formidable organization, opened the eyes of Eng-
land this time. The ministers saw the folly, the injus-
tice, and, above all, the dunger of contending against
the just demands of seven millions of people, united as
one man, to be permitted to worship God as ‘their con-
sciences dictated, without thereby incurring civil disa-
bilities. At last, on the 13th of April, 1829, Catholic
Emancipation was proclaimed, and Daniel O'Connell,
after a labor of more than a quarter of a century, won
the first great prize he sought for. Wellington made
no scruple ‘to urge its necessity, “in order to prevent
civil war,” and the last of the fools, called George,” as
Thackeray calls him, “flung down, in rage, the pen
with which he signed his approval of the Act.” Was
ever, I ask, any act of justice, or * concession,” granted
by the British Government that was «not wrung from
her through fear of consequences in case of refusal?
Would the celebrated Stamp Act” have been re-
pealed but for the determined stand taken by the
American colonists ? Would Free Trade in Ireland have
been conceded in 1782 unless for the significant words,
« Free Trade, or else ,” placed around the guns
of the Irish Volunteers ? Would the collection of tithes,
for the support of the Church of England ministry in
Ireland, have been stopped but for the massacres of

 
14

Newtownbarry and Rathcormack ? Would that ¢ incu-
ba ¢¢ S k .
bus,” the “establishment” itself, be so quickly knocked
on the head but for those gentle Fenian reminders at
Chester, London, Manchester, and other places, which
taught John Bull that, in the words of Moore :
“ Though they know the strife is vain,

Though they know the riven chain

Snaps, but to enter in the heart

Of him who rends its links apart,

Yet dare the issue—blessed to be

. Even for one single moment free,
And die in pangs of liberty.”

The eyes of the people of Ireland turned in gratitude
towards their liberator, and fervent prayers for his hap-
piness and prosperity ascended to the throne of Grace
from many an overflowing heart.

“Challenge your recollection,” says Lacordaire;
“ Search history from that first and famous edict which
granted to the Christians liberty of conscience, and see
if there are to be found many such acts, comparable, by
the extent of their effects, with that of Catholic Faic
pation.” ‘Each time that this people, advancing in
their existence and their liberty, shall recall to memory
the aspect of the man who studied the secret of their

ways, they will ever find inscribed the name of O’Con-
nell.” “But the accomplishment of Emancipation did
not affect Ireland alone, it embraced in its extent the
whole British Empire; that is to say, besides Ireland
England, Scotland, those islands, those continents oh
which England had once established her religious intol-
erance and her laws.”

“ Thus were delivered from the yoke of persecution

a hundred millions of men, the shores of twenty seas,
and even the seas themselves. The vessels of England
henceforth sail under the flag of Liberty of Conscience,
and those innumerable people whose shores they plough
with their prows, can no longer separate, in their ideas,
the power, the civilization and the liberty of the soul.
Have I not sufficiently proved to you,” he continues,
“that it was not rash boldness which prompted me to
name O'Connell in connection with the names of Moses,
Cyrus, of Judas Maccabeus, of Constantine, of Charle-
magne, who all ruled with the sovereign authority,
whilst O'Connell had only the authority of a simple
citizen and the sovereignty of his genius.”

What an eulogium from a Frenchman !

That O'Connell and the leaders of the Catholic Asso-
ciation, in this great and successful agitation, were not
actuated by mere selfish motives, looking solely to the
disenthrallment of their own Church, and not caring for
the bondage of others, ix evidenced by the fact that they
earnestly co-operated with dissenting Protestants in
having their disabilities removed, long before Catholic
emancipation was granted. The language of O'Connell
himself shows the motives by which they were actuated.
«I do declare most solemnly,” said he, “that I would feel

equal, if not stronger, repugnance to the interference of
a Catholic with the Protestant Church, than that I have
expressed and do feel to any Protestant interference
with ours. So help me God, I would, if their case was
ours, not only feel for the Protestant, no matter what
his denomination, but I would fight for him and cheer-
fully sacrifice my life in defence of the great principle

 

 
16

for which I have ever contended—the principle of uni-
versal and complete religious liberty.”” That my audi-
ence may clearly understand what O'Connell meant by
religious liberty, I will quote a paragraph taken from the
newspaper which I hold in my hand—7%e Freeman's
Journal of Dublin. The date of the paper is Tuesday,
September 21, 1841, and the words were taken by a
short-hand writer as he uttered them at a public meeting
held the previous day. ¢ Religious liberty,” said he

« consisted in men faithfully observing and living up to
that form of belief which they believed was best, with-
out interfering with others as to the religion which they
chose to adopt—in a word, to leave that sacred cause be-
tween man and his Creator, without any human being dar_
ing impiously to interfere.” That is what I call good,
sound American doctrine. Again I quote, from the same
speech: “I never yet made the slightest distinction

between party and party—Protestant, Orangeman and

Catholic are all alike to me. Let all join for the rights

of the common country of all, and, when the struggle
shall be over, why then, we can well afford to laugh and

be merry with each other over past differences.”

There is not much Ultramontanism about such lan-
guage, whatever that word means.

Hence it was that outside the Church, “as by law es-
tablished,” whose members were feeding sumptuously on
government fare, the great body of non-conformists
sympathized with the Catholics in their struggle and re-
joiced at their success. Daniel O'Connell was now in
his 54th year, and one would reasonably expect that,
satisfied with the laurels he had gained, he would retire

17 \ NI

to peaceful shades and enjoy the autumn of life un-
disturbed by public cares. But no, he had vowed to
devote his whole life to the service of his country, and
he was determined to die in harness. The scene of the
contest is changed to a higher sphere. This time “the
war is carried into Africa.” The Lion is bearded in
his den. O'Connell goes to London, and, presenting
himself before the British House of Commons, demands
his seat as the duly elected representative of the County
Clare. All eyes are turned towards the great agitator.
His name had long been in the mouths of the multitude,
and his action and speeches had been duly chronicled
in the press of the country. Staid and prosy Tories ex-
pected to see some ferocious being of the ¢ Tartar” type.
Bigoted, narrow-minded members of Exeter Hall shud-
dered at the thought of seeing a genuine Jesuit in dis-
guise in their midst, when, lo! there stands before them
a man noble in form, commanding in stature, with pure,
open, smiling countenance, one on whom, indeed,
« Every God did seem to set his seal to give the world
assurance of a man.” The clerk of the House advances
and presents to him the oaths necessary to be taken be-
fore being admitted to his seat.

Taking them in his hand, and carefully reading them
over, he sees that in one he swears to acknowledge the
king as head of his Church, and, in another, that the
Mass, at which he assisted daily, was an act of idolatry.
Raising his head and looking around on the august as-
sembly before him, whilst a look of scorn settled upon
his manly countenance, he lifted up his voice, until the old
oaken roof rung again with the echo, saying: Part of

3

 
18

it I believe to be untrue, the rest I know to be false” —
then flung the paper contemptuously from him.

Not a Demosthenes exposing the designs of Philip on
the liberties of Greece—not a Cicero denouncing Cataline
for conspiring against the liberties of Rome—-not a Burke
impeaching Warren Hastings, in the English House of
Lords, for the high crimes he had committed in India,
was a more imposing sight than O'Connell trampling on
the Inferna Charta of British bigotry in the very face of
its authors. ;

Checked, for the time being, through the petty mal-
evolence of Sir Robert Peel and his associates, he soon
returned—re-elected for the County Clare—and, this
time, was admitted without being required to subscribe
to the infamous test oaths. He was alone amid eight
hundred; yet, when O'Connell sat down in the British
House of Commons, seven millions of people sat there
with him. He was their spokesman and advocate, and
for nearly twenty years he fought their battles against
fearful odds without ever flinching. Though supported,
a short time afterwards, by a few noble spirts, of his
own caste, he saw the futility of the struggle against
such fearful odds, and remained at home—an example
which it would be well for the present Irish-members to
follow; a course which Tipperary, lately, has repeatedly
endorsed.

From his first essay in Parliament his success as a
legislator was undoubted. Carrying to the House the
same bold, daring spirit of independence, which had
characterized him heretofore, he never fawned or cringed
to power; on the contrary, he assailed the Treasury bench,

 

19

and corruption trembled before him; he impugned the
pretensions of the Church Establishment, and bigotry
stood abashed; he denounced injustice and ermined law
dispensers cowered beneath his glance. Combing the
Doric substantiability, both in person and in rhetoric, of a
Webster, with the Corinthian floridness in style of a
Clay, he united to both the modern Gothic incisive elo.
quence of a Calhoun—dissecting, laying bare, branding.
But that which especially seemed to concentysie all
the powers of his vast intellect, was the withering power
of his invective. God help the unfortunates who were
so rash as to draw upon their backs this terrible lash—
the marks of the stripes ever remained.
From Disraeli, whom he styled “ the lineal dowendant
of the impenitent thief,” down to Biddy Moriarty, the
vender of walking sticks, whom he described as “the eon:
victed perpendicular in petticoats, trembling with guilt
down to the extremities of her corollaries,” all had cause,
by an euphonious addition to their names, to remember
O'Connell. Many aristocratic aspirants, in this respect,
had no necessity to consult the College of Heralds for de-
vices or mottoes with which to grace their escutcheon.
O'Connell, then, in Parliament, was respected for his great
talents, and feared for his power and influence. In the act
of emancipation, lately passed, a clause had been ser
ed depriving the forty-shilling freeholders of the Jo
chise, thus robbing O'Connell of the support of the grea
bulk of the rural population. This was a terrible blow
to the Cause of Liberty, and he foresaw that, soon again,
landlord influence would be supreme, and Irish repres-
entation in Parliament ¢a mockery, a delusion and a

”»
nare.

 
Again, he startled the country, by “a new depart-
ure.” “Repeal of the Union,” “Ireland for the Irish”
rang upon the air. The whole country is once more in
commotion. From Donegal to Cork, from Galway to
Dublin, Repeal associations are established aroused by
the magic eloquence of the Liberator, who is again in the
midst of his people.

Monster meetings were held in the various provinces,
at which hundreds of thousands of enthusiastic, eager
Repealers assembled, dressed out in the insignia of their
trade, and decked with national emblems and Repeal
medals. Beautiful banners were carried before each
body, and green flags flung their folds to the breeze, and
bands of music played national airs, and—but, stop !
here comes the Liberator himself, on his triumphal cha-
riot, (which is picturesquely adorned,) smiling and bow-
ing his acknowledgments to the assembled multitude,
““and when they saw his chariot but appear, have they
not raised a universal shout which made the Tiber trem-
ble beneath its banks to hear the replication of their -
sounds made in his concave shores.”

See him on the hill of Tara, surrounded by four hun-
dred thousand of his countrymen—their wives, and
daughters, and sweethearts, the sun shining on his broad,
intellectual, ladghing countenance, and his light blue eye
sparkling with joy at the glorious sight before him.
What a picture! No wonder he was called the “ un-
crowned monarch of Ireland,” for he had gained the
willing allegiance of the hearts of his countrymen. In-
spired not only by the enthusiasm of the multitude,
but by the entrancing beauty of the landscape, so green

in verdure, so lovely in hill and dale, in lake and in
mountain, so teeming with the productions of Nature,
he pours forth his heart in words: “Oh, my friends,”
he says, “it is a country worth fighting for; it is a
country worth dying for. I will see prosperity again
throughout your land—the busy hum of the shuttle,
and the tinkling of the smithy shall be heard again. I
will see prosperity in all its gradations spreading through
a happy, contented, religious land.” “I will hear the
hymn of a happy people go forth, at sunrise, to God, in
praise of his mercies, and I will see the evening sun
set down amongst the uplifted hands of a religious and
free population.” ¢ Every blessing that man can bestow,
and religion confer upon the faithful heart, shall spread
throughout the land.” ¢ Stand by me, join with me. I
will say, be obedient to me—and Ireland shall be free.”

During this exciting agitation for Repeal, when so
many thousands of people assembled together filled
with enthusiasm, and earnest in their cause, order,
sobriety and good behavior reigned supreme. For this,
great credit is due to Father Mathew—the Apostle of
Temperance—who taught Irishmen that the first
chains to be broken are those which bind us to our pas-
sions, and that political freedom is valueless, so long as
we are slaves to our vices.

The Repeal meetings were not only peaceful, but
O'Connell relied solely on peaceful agitation for success,
and deprecated any attempt at force, except in’ the
moral order. He constantly inculcated this doctrine of
moral force, as he termed it, upon the people, telling
them that he who commits a crime gives [strength to

 
22

the enemy ;” and again, that “ he considered the great-
est of all sublunary blessings too dearly purchased at
the expense of a single drop of human blood.” He
acted strictly according to this theory, for the Govern-
ment were on his track with the keen scent of the
blood-hound; his every movement, by day or by night,
closely watched ; his letters opened at the Post Office ;
every word he uttered taken down by expert steno-
graphers, in order to discover some plausible pretext for
Treason against him. O'Connell was too able a lawyer,
and too wily a politician, to be caught napping. Of the
merits or demerits of O'Connell's views in regard to
moral, versus physical force, this is not the time or oc-
casion on which to speak, though, unfortunately, it
afterwards proved the rock on which this grand organ-
ization was dashed to pieces.

In the meantime O’Connell had been elected first
Catholic Lord Mayor of Dublin, and the Orangemen of
the city gnashed their teeth in rage when they saw him
driving in state through the streets of the city, clothed
in his robes of office. ** Desecrating (they said) a Pro-
testant pavement with the tramping of Popish horses.”
Thank God such hell-begotten bigotry is gradually, but
surely, disappearing from Ireland, thanks to the over-
throw of that anomaly known as the Established
Church—¢ of all the institutions existing in the world,”
says Lord Macauley, the most absurd.” To the de-
funct establishment, the words of Moore, in Llala
Rookh, may aptly be applied :

« So shall they build me altars in their zeal,
Where knaves shall minister, and fools shall kneel,
Where Faith may mutter o’er her mystic spell
Written in Blood—and Bigotry may swell
The sail he spreads for Heaven, with blasts from Hell.”

23

The more these bigots chafed and fretted, like a bull
maddened by the flare of a red cloth, the more fre-
quently did O’Connell flash the green before their eyes
and dare them to the combat. Who could count the
number of assemblies at which O'Connell had spoken or
presided, the public letters he had written, the petitions
he had dictated, the newspaper articles he had com-
posed, and the vast area of facts and figures he had
congregated during his public life of half a century ?

At length the Repeal movement became so well or-
ganized and disciplined, and assumed such gigantic pro-
portions, its leaders day by day becoming more clamor-
ous for their rights, and the great mass of the people
growing menacingly restive from hope deferred, that
the government became seriously alarmed and deter-
mined at the first favorable opportunity to bring mat-
ters to an issue.

Accordingly, O'Connell, together with eight of his
most prominent supporters, was arrested and held to

bail for “conspiracy and other misdemeanors.” Of

course, when the trial came off, they were found guilty,
as the English government has a happy knack of paek-
ing juries—a reserved right, of course, which, together
with the suspension of the habeas corpus, form the real
Palladium of the British Constitution—at least in Ire-
land. In the speech which he delivered in his own de-
fence, O'Connell said: “I care not what punishment
it may bring down, I glory in what I have done; I
boast of what I did; I am ready to defend all I have
succeeded in accomplishing.”

On the 30th of May, 1844, the conspirators,” as

 
24

they were legally dubbed, were sentenced to imprison-
ment in the Richmond Penitentiary—a sentence after-
wards reversed by the House of Lords, before which an
appeal was taken. There was great rejoicing in Dublin
at their release, and the ex-prisoners were escorted
through the streets by an immense multitude. When
passing that beautiful and classical structure, the Irish
Parliament House, O'Connell, standing erect in his car-
riage, pointed with his finger to the portico, and turn-
ing slowly around, gazed into the faces of the people
without uttering a word. Again and again he used the
same significant gesture, whilst the cheers of the people
seemed to shake the city. It was Moses ‘on the
Mount,” pointing out the Land of Promise to the worn-
out, complaining Israelites. Never, at any period of
his life, did O'Connell hold the people so completely in
his hand. Rich and poor, clergy and laity were at no
time so determinedly united; but, alas, that giant frame,
broken down by incessant toil and recent imprisonment,
was soon to yield to insidious disease. Deprived for so
long a time of the invigorating air of his mountain
home, where he loved: to ramble with his dogs, listening
to the roar of the Atlantic as it beat on the rocks of his
native Iverah, his robust constitution was undermined
before he realized the fact. That grand organization of
which he was so justly proud, deprived of the magic of his
presence, was soon divided within itself—a sight which
aggravated a thousand-fold O'Connell's physical ail-
ments. Add to this the terrible famine of ’46 and ’47,
when Death stalked in its most revolting garb unmo-
lested through the land, decimating the population and

25

leaving misery and ruin in its trail. Bowed down with
grief and sorrow, and succumbing gradually to fatal dis-
ease, by the advice of his physicians he leaves his na-
tive country—the land he loved so well, for which he had
made such sacrifices, for whose welfare he had strug-
gled so valiantly—and wends his way towards Rome.

He was only able to reach Genoa, and there, on the
15th of May, 1847, he yielded up his spirit into the
hands of its Creator, to whom he had consecrated it, be-
queathing his heart to Rome, and his body to Ireland.

¢“ The Liberator—the father of his country,” cries out
the Nution, “is dead ; every man, woman and child
deplores his loss.” Grief for his death was universal
All Ireland went into mourning. Very appropriately
the words of Halleck, in his ode to Marco Bozaris, may
be inscribed to O'Connell :

¢ O'Connell! with the storied brave

Erin nurtured in her glory’s time

Rest thee; there is no prouder grave
Even in her own proud clime.

We tell thy doom without a sigh ;
For thou art Freedom’s now, and Fame’s—
One of the few, the immortal names

That were not born to die.”

How well O'Connell was prepared for his last end, the
inner, the unwritten history of his life alone can tell.

We have passed in review the career of Daniel O’Con-
nell at the Bar, on the Hustings, in Parliament, and at
Monster Meetings. We have seen the marvelous
powers he displayed as a lawyer, statesman, and leader
of the people; but, greater still, and on a higher and nobler
level than in any of these characters, does he appear

4

 
26

in that of a Christian. Tt is the crowning, confirming
consummation of the entire man. In the midst of his
interminable labors, he never once forgot the duties
imposed upon him by the precepts of his Church, and
his whole life was one continued act of devotion to that
religion for whose freedom of worship he had so zeal-
ously and successfully fought.

Again, I quote his words from the Freeman's Journal
of 1841: “For my own part, I never lay down my
head on my pillow without reflecting what I can do on
the morrow, and I never wake in the morning without
asking myself what I can do for my country during the
day.” ‘Every man who works, whether he wins or
fails, will have the consolation of knowing that he used
every exertion for his fatherland—and with the hope
of making her better than he found her.”

“In that brawny frame,” says John Mitchel, there
dwelt tenderness and pity soft as woman’s. During
the famine, he labored to the last on the Relief Com-
mittees of Dublin, and thought every hour lost unless
employed in rescuing some of the doomed.”

From another paper of the time which I hold—the
Morning Register—I quote his words: “For the com-
fort of the poor, all the exertions of my future life, and
all the feelings of my soul shall be directed. Their
comfort and prosperity shall be my sole aim.” “They
are now placed under a ban, and no man possessing
the common feelings of Christianity or of patriotism
but must look upon it as his first duty to ameliorate the

condition of the poorer classes.” Noble words! gene-
rous heart, !

 

Here, then, was the great source of his inspiration,
here was the secret spring from which he drew his «
strength to face undaunted his numerous foes.

It was meet and becoming then for the hierarchy and
clergy of the Universal Church to honor the memory of
so worthy a son, to whom she may apply the words of

Ecclesiastes : : :
« He took care of his nation, and delivered it from

destruction. He prevailed to enlarge the city, and ob-
tained glory in his conversation with the people. He
shone in his days as a morning star in the midst of a
cloud, and as the moon at the full. And about him
was a ring of his brethren. And as a cedar on Mount
Libanus, and as branches of palm trees, they stood
round about him, and all the sons of Aaron in his

glory.”

In taking in the life of O'Connell as a whole, we
shall, first of all, be struck by the invincible sincerity
of the man. In every act of his fifty years of public
life he was thoroughly in earnest. No matter on whose
shoulders the scourge descended, friend or foe, native or
foreigner, Catholic or Protestant, it was all the same to
O'Connell ; right was right, and wrong was wrong ;
and he would proclaim the same, ‘though hell itself
should gape, and bid him hold his peace.” Self-inte-
rest, the good of the organization, policy, expediency,
and such motives, were trampled under foot by this no-
ble-minded hero. * There is in the heart of an honest
man,” says Lacordaire, “who speaks, and, in speaking
for all, seems to speak against himself ; there is, I say,

 
  
 

  
 
  
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
  
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
  
 
  
 
   
  
 
 
  

 

an all-powerful superiority, logical and moral, which
infallibly produces a reciprocal feeling.”

O’Connell’s ideas of right and justice were not
« cribbed, cabined and confined” to any locality or
mere temporary issue, but were world-wide, everlasting.
Like his great countryman and predecessor, Edmund

Burke, whose eloquent appeals were heard in the Com-

mons of England, not only in favor of the oppressed at
home, but also in favor of the American colonists strug-
gling for liberty in the West, and for mercy towards the
Hindoo in the far East ; so with O'Connell, his denuncia-
tion of the system of slavery in America surpassed, in
eloquent bitterness, the most brilliant tirade of a Garri-
son or a Philips. It was not consistent with his high
standard of Right to advocate Liberty at home and
connive at slavery abroad. He went so far as to indig-
nantly return subscriptions forwarded to the Associa-
tion from the slave States, telling them they wanted it
much more at home.

Oh, No! In O'Connell's sense of Freedom, he would
not even confine the feathered songster in a gilded
prison ? but if confined, would open its cage, and let it
soar to Liberty. Shall then his labors, his hopes, his
aspirations, his fervent prayers for the Civil and Politi-
cal Freedom of the Irish People go for naught? Oh,
God forbid! ¢ Though Erin,” said Henry Grattan,
“lies cold and still in her tomb, yet the spirit of life is

on her lips, and the glow of beauty is on her cheek.”

Hope still remains. Amid the terrible bloody ordeals
through which Ireland has passed during the last seven
centuries, her people never despaired. No power under

  

   

29

Heaven could or can crush out her spirit of Nationality.
That spirit exists to-day as vigorous, as full of vitality,
as in the days when the red-handed O’Neil paid his
respects to Queen Bess at the point of an Irish pike, or,
as when the brave women of Limerick, fighting by
the side of their brothers and their husbands, drove
hack the Hessians from their walls. The Irish exile,
educated at home in the school of a Grattan, an Em-
met, an O'Connell, carries everywhere with him his love
of Freedom, and his hatred of oppression ; and in the
darkest hour of his country’s woe, as in his own direst
distress, buoyed up by that philosophy, not of this
world, but which came down to him from a St. Patrick,
and which he learned at his mother’s knee :

“ he still on Hope relies,
And every pang that rends his heart
Bids expectation rise.
Hope, like the glimmering taper’s light,
Illumines and cheers his way ;
And still, as darker grows the night,

Emits a brighter ray.”

 

No matter under what sky the flag of Freedom floats,
nor in what strange tongue its war cries may resound,
nor in what desperate cause its sword is drawn, nor
how dark the utter night of its sorrow and its over-
throw, it is Fredom still, and will linger in Ireland and
cling to the hearts of Irishmen as long as the shamrock
looks up to its Creator from the green of its meadows,
and the eternal ocean, as a sentinel guards, and engirdles
the beautiful Isle. Here, in this great Republic, we
breathe Liberty as if it were the very air; we gaze upon
it as upon the sky, glorious with the dawn and brilliant

 
30

with the stars of the night; we feel it as the breath of the
winds that drive through our Golden Gate ; we believe
in it as one of the attributes of God; and we would
fight for it as for our altars and our firesides. That is
the spirit of Freedom which incites the nation to great
projects, which makes her competent to achieve great
ends. “It was the spread of democratic principles,”
said Daniel O'Connell, ¢ that made America the great
and powerful nation she was; and if those principles
had not triumphed she would still be a miserable, piti-
ful and pelting province of England, instead of being
one of the first nations of the earth.” Greece, in her
days of freedom, withstood the countless hosts of
Xerxes; and, at Thermopylae, Leonidas and his brave
three hundred showed the world what brave men can
do who dared be free: “Go, traveller, and tell Sparta
that we have died in obedience to her laws.”

The republic of Venice rose from a mere village on
the Adriatic to be the mistress of surrounding nations
for centuries—her argosies loaded with the produce of
nations—her merchant princes the envy of the world.
Switzerland, to-day, alone and unaided, sits embosomed
in the Alps, contented, happy, and, in the language of
Sheridan Knowles, “free as their mountain torrents
that leap their rocks and plough their valleys without
asking leave, or as their peaks, that wear their caps of
snow in the very presence of the regal sun.” = The
Spirit of Freedom it is which has touched, as if with
the wand of a Prospero,” the barren sand-hills
around us, and transformed them into the beautiful
City of San Francisco. The same spirit built an iron

31

highway across the bleak and lofty Sierras, binding in
bonds of commerce the Pacific to the Atlantic.
Mounting higher and higher, winding round and round,
over yawning chasms, by the edge of frightful preci-
pices, through tunnels of the hardest granite, the loco-
motive pants and snorts, like the chafing race-horse,
dragging along its huge burthen, frightening the wild
beast from his lair, and scattering in its wake the seeds
of civilization—peopling the mountain and the wilder-
ness.

The Spirit of Freedom—the spread of democratic
principles—it is which has made the United States the
great and prosperous nation she is to-day—the admira-
tion of her own children—the wonder of the world.
Her wide rivers floating upon their bosoms the com-
merce of an inland world ; her harbors white with the
sails of nations; her numerous cities grand in architec-
ture and noisy with the din of traffic ; her mines, won-
derful in variety, sparkling in the untold richness of
their ores; a long line of unbroken States, that have
expanded from ocean to ocean, affording a home and a
refuge to the oppressed of every land. The Spirit of
Freedom nerves the arm of the Pioneer in hewing
down the trees of the forest; treading on soil where
no man trod before ; rousing the reptile from masses
of decaying branches, and clearing the ground for the
plough of the husbandman. This Spirit strengthens
the hardy settler on our vast, monotonous, uninviting
prairies, in his lonely, wearisome task of reclaiming the
arid, parched-up earth, until it becomes ready to re-
ceive the yellow seed, and bring forth fruit a hundred

 
32

fold. Why is it that the Spirit of Freedom works such
wonders ? It is because a man can enjoy, without hin-
drance or molestation, under the segis of the Republic,
the fruits of his labors; can hold in perpetuity the
land to which he acquires a clear title; can walk
abroad, in his poverty as in wealth, the peer of any ;
can worship God as he pleases, and tremble not at the
nod of those in office or power. Experiencing then, as
we do, the blessings of a free government, let us not
forget those that are now struggling for their liberties in
other lands; especially let us not forget the land of
O’Connell—dear old Ireland.

His charity was universal: let ours be so likewise.
Patriotism is practical. Loud-mouthed vaunting is no
index to the feelings within. From the life of him who
has been the subject of my discourse this evening we can

learn principles which, if carried out, would generate a
new state of society in Ireland. True patriotism then
first operates within our own domestic circle—social af-
fections are expanded—enmities are cast aside—petty
sectarianism and political bias are eschewed—and our
whole duties discharged in a manner becoming the noble

name of Freeman.

« Courage,” then—¢ Nothing can withstand
Long, a wronged, undaunted land,
If the hearts within her be
True unto themselves and thee,
Thou freed giant, Liberty !
Courage! Hope, howe’er he fly
For a time, can never die.
Courage, therefore, brother men !
Courage! To the fight again!

 
 

"END
"OF TITLE