DANIEL Q'CONNELL 
 
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 LEE & SHBPARD, Publishers . . Boston.
 
 DANIEL O'CONNELL 
 
 THE IRISH PATRIOT 
 
 BY 
 
 WEXDELL PHILLIPS 
 
 BOSTON 
 LEE AND SHEPARD, PUBLISHERS 
 
 NEW YORK 
 CHAELES T. DILLIXGHAM 
 
 1884
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1884, 
 BY LEE AND SHEPARD. 
 
 All rights reserved.
 
 STACK 
 ANNEX 
 
 DA 
 
 DANIEL O'CONNELL. 
 
 \ HUNDRED years ago to-day Daniel O'Connell was 
 J.\. born. The Irish race, wherever scattered over the 
 globe, assembles to-night to pay fitting tribute to his 
 memory, one of the most eloquent men, one of the 
 most devoted patriots, and the most successful states- 
 man, which that race has given to history. We of 
 other races may well join you in that tribute, since 
 the cause of constitutional government owes more to 
 O'Connell than to any other political leader of the last 
 two centuries. The English-speaking race, to find his 
 equal among its statesmen, must pass by Chatham and 
 Walpole, and go back to Oliver Cromwell, or the able 
 men who held up the throne of Queen Elizabeth. If to 
 put the civil and social elements of your clay into suc- 
 cessful action, and plant the seeds of continued strength 
 and progress for coming times, if this is to be a states- 
 man, then most emphatically was O'Connell one. To 
 exert this control, and secure this progress, while and 
 because ample means lie ready for use under your hand, 
 does not rob Walpole and Colbert, Chatham and Rich- 
 elieu, of their title to be considered statesmen. To do 
 it, as Martin Luther did, when one must ingeniously 
 discover or invent his tools, and while the mightiest 
 forces that influence human affairs are arrayed against 
 him, that is what ranks O'Connell with the few mas- 
 
 3
 
 4 DANIEL O'CONNELL. 
 
 terly statesmen the English-speaking race has ever had. 
 When Napoleon's soldiers bore the negro chief Tous- 
 saint L'Ouverture into exile, he said, pointing back to 
 San Domingo, " You think you have rooted up the tree 
 of liberty, but I am only a branch. I have planted the 
 tree itself so deep that ages will never root it up." 
 And whatever may be said of the social or industrial 
 condition of Hayti during the last seventy years, its 
 nationality has never been successfully assailed. 
 
 O'Connell is the only Irishman who can say as much 
 of Ireland. From the peace of Utrecht, 1713, till the 
 fall of Napoleon, Great Britain was the leading state 
 in Europe ; while Ireland, a comparatively insignificant 
 island, lay at its feet. She weighed next to nothing in 
 the scale of British politics. The Continent pitied, and 
 England despised her. O'Connell found her a mass of 
 quarrelling races and sects, divided, dispirited, broken- 
 hearted, and servile. He made her a nation, whose first 
 word broke in pieces the iron obstinacy of Wellington, 
 tossed Peel from the cabinet, and gave the government 
 to the Whigs ; whose colossal figure, like the helmet in 
 Walpole's romance, has filled the political sky ever 
 since ; whose generous aid thrown into the scale of the 
 three great British reforms, the ballot, the corn-laws, 
 and slavery, secured their success; a nation whose 
 continual discontent has dragged Great Britain down 
 to be a second-rate power on the chess-board of Europe. 
 I know other causes have helped in producing this re- 
 sult, but the nationality which O'Connell created has 
 been the main cause of this change in England's im- 
 portance. Dean Swift, Molyneux, and Henry Flood 
 thrust Ireland for a moment into the arena of British 
 politics, a sturdy suppliant clamoring for justice ; and 
 Grattan held her there an equal, and, as he thought, a 
 nation, for a few years. But the unscrupulous hand of
 
 DANIEL O CONNELL. 5 
 
 William Pitt brushed away in an hour all Grattan's 
 works. Well might he say of the Irish Parliament 
 which he brought to life, " I sat by its cradle, I fol- 
 lowed its hearse ; " since after that infamous union, 
 which Byron called a " union of the shark with its 
 prey," Ireland sank back, plundered and helpless. 
 O'Connell lifted her to a fixed and permanent place in 
 English affairs, no suppliant, but a conqueror dic- 
 tating her terms. 
 
 HOW TO JUDGE OF o'CONNELI/S WORK. 
 
 This is the proper stand-point from which to look at 
 O'Connell's work. This is the consideration that ranks 
 him, not with founders of states, like Alexander, Csesar, 
 Bismarck, Napoleon, and William the Silent, but with 
 men who, without arms, by force of reason, have revo- 
 lutionized their times, with Luther, Jefferson, Maz- 
 zini, Samuel Adams, Garrison, and Franklin. I know 
 some men will sneer at this claim, those who have 
 never looked at him except through the spectacles of 
 English critics, who despised him as an Irishman and a 
 Catholic, until they came to hate him as a conqueror. 
 As Grattan said of Kirwan, "The curse of Swift was 
 upon him, to have been born an Irishman and a man of 
 genius, and to have used his gifts for his country's 
 good." Mark what measure of success attended the 
 able men who preceded him, in circumstances as favor- 
 able as his, perhaps even better ; then measure him by 
 comparison. 
 
 THE MEASURE OF HIS SUCCESS. 
 
 An island soaked with the blood of countless rebel- 
 lions, oppression such as would turn cowards into 
 heroes, a race whose disciplined valor had been proved 
 on almost every battle-field in Europe, and whose reck-
 
 6 DANIEL O'CONNELL. 
 
 less daring lifted it, any time, in arms against England, 
 with hope or without what inspired them ? Devo- 
 tion, eloquence, and patriotism seldom paralleled in 
 history. Who led them ? Dean Sivift, according to 
 Addison "the greatest genius of his age," called by 
 Pope "the incomparable," a man fertile in resources, 
 of stubborn courage, and tireless energy, master of an 
 English style unequalled, perhaps, for its purpose then 
 or since, a man who had twice faced England in her 
 angriest mood, and by that masterly pen subdued her 
 to his will ; Henry Flood, eloquent even for an Irish- 
 man, and sagacious as he was eloquent, the eclipse of 
 that brilliant life one of the saddest pictures in Irish 
 biography ; Grattan, with all the courage, and more 
 than the eloquence, of his race, a statesman's eye quick 
 to see every advantage, boundless devotion, unspotted 
 integrity, recognized as an equal by the world's leaders, 
 and welcomed by Fox to the House of Commons as the 
 " Demosthenes of Ireland ; " Emmet in the field, Sheri- 
 dan in the senate, Curran at the bar , and, above all, 
 Edmund Burke, whose name makes eulogy superfluous, 
 more than Cicero in the senate, almost Plato in the 
 academy. All these gave their lives to Ireland; and 
 when the present century opened, where was she? 
 Sold like a slave in the market-place by her perjured 
 master, William Pitt. It was then that O'Connell 
 flung himself into the struggle, gave fifty years to the 
 service of his country; and where is she to-day? Not 
 only redeemed, but her independence put beyond doubt 
 or peril. Grattan and his predecessors could get no 
 guaranties for what rights they gained. In that saga- 
 cious, watchful, and almost omnipotent public opinion, 
 which O'Connell created, is an all-sufficient guaranty 
 of Ireland's future. Look at her ! almost every shackle 
 has fallen from her limbs : all that human wisdom has
 
 DANIEL O COXNELL. 7 
 
 as yet devised to remedy the evils of bigotry and misrule 
 has been done. O'Connell found Ireland a "hissing 
 and a byword " in Edinburgh arid London. He made 
 her the pivot of British politics : she rules them, directly 
 or indirectly, with as absolute a sway as the slave-ques- 
 tion did the United States from 1850 to 1865. Look into 
 Earl Russell's book, and the history of the Reform Bill 
 of 1832, and see with how much truth it may be claimed 
 that O'Connell and his fellows gave Englishmen the 
 ballot under that act. It is by no means certain that 
 the corn-laws could have been abolished without their 
 aid. In the anti-slavery struggle O'Connell stands, in 
 influence and ability, equal with the best. I know the 
 credit all those measures do to English leaders ; but, in 
 my opinion, the next generation will test the states- 
 manship of Peel, Palmerston, Russell, and Gladstone, 
 almost entirely by their conduct of the Irish question. 
 All trie laurels they have hitherto won in that field are 
 rooted in ideas which Grattan and O'Connell urged on 
 reluctant hearers for half a century. Why do Bismarck 
 and Alexander look with such contemptuous indiffer- 
 ence on every attempt of England to mingle in Euro- 
 pean affairs ? Because they know they have but to lift 
 a finger, and Ireland stabs her in the back. Where was 
 the statesmanship of English leaders when they allowed 
 such an evil to grow so formidable ? This is Ireland 
 to-day. What was she when O'Connell undertook her 
 cause ? The saddest of Irish poets has described her. 
 
 " O Ireland ! my country, the hour of thy pride arid thy splendor 
 
 hath passed ; 
 And the chain that was spurned in thy moments of power hangs 
 
 heavy around thee at last. 
 There are marks in the fate of each clime, there are turns in the 
 
 fortunes of men ; 
 But the changes of realms, or the chances of time, shall never 
 
 restore thee again.
 
 8 DANIEL O'CONNELL. 
 
 Thou art chained to the wheel of the foe by links which a world 
 
 cannot sever : 
 With thy tyrant through storm and through calm thou shalt go, 
 
 and thy sentence is bondage forever. 
 Thou art doomed for the thankless to toil, thou art left for the 
 
 proud to disdain ; 
 And the blood of thy sons and the wealth of thy soil shall be 
 
 lavished and lavished in vain. 
 
 Thy riches with taunts shall be taken, thy valor with coldness be 
 paid; 
 
 And of millions who see thee thus sunk and forsaken, not one 
 shall stand forth in thine aid. 
 
 In the nations thy place is left void ; thou art lost in the list of 
 the free ; 
 
 Even realms by the plague and the earthquake destroyed may re- 
 vive, but no hope is for thee." 
 
 It was a community impoverished by five centuries of 
 oppression, four millions of Catholics robbed of every 
 acre of their native land : it was an island torn by race- 
 hatred and religious bigotry, her priests indifferent, and 
 her nobles hopeless or traitors. The wiliest of her 
 enemies, a Protestant Irishman, ruled the British sen- 
 ate ; the sternest of her tyrants, a Protestant Irishman, 
 led the armies of Europe. Puritan hate, which had 
 grown blinder and more bitter since the days of Crom- 
 well, gave them weapons. Ireland herself lay bound in 
 the iron links of a code which Montesquieu said could 
 have been " made only by devils, and should be regis- 
 tered only in hell." Her millions were beyond the 
 reach of the great reform engine of modern times, since 
 they could neither read nor write. 
 
 In this mass of ignorance, weakness, and quarrel, one 
 keen eye saw hidden the elements of union and strength. 
 With rarest skill he called them forth, and marshalled 
 them into rank. Then this one man, without birth, 
 wealth, or office, in a land ruled by birth, wealth, and
 
 DANIEL O'CONNELL. 9 
 
 office, moulded from those unsuspected elements a 
 power, which, over-awing king, senate, and people, 
 wrote his single will on the statute-book of the most 
 obstinate nation in Europe. Safely to emancipate the 
 Irish Catholics, and, in spite of Saxon, Protestant hate, 
 to lift all Ireland to the level of British citizenship, 
 this was the problem which statesmanship and patriot- 
 ism had been seeking for two centuries to solve. For 
 this, blood had been poured out like water. On this, 
 the genius of Swift, the learning of Molyneux, and the 
 eloquence of Bushe, Grattan, and Burke, had been 
 wasted. English leaders ever since Fox had studied 
 this problem anxiously. They saw that the safety of the 
 empire was compromised. At one or two critical mo- 
 ments in the reign of George III., one signal from an 
 Irish leader would have snapped the chain that bound 
 Ireland to his throne. His ministers recognized it ; and 
 they tried every expedient, exhausted every device, 
 dared every peril, kept oaths or broke them, in order to 
 succeed. All failed ; and not. only failed, but acknowl- 
 edged they could see no way in which success could 
 ever be achieved. 
 
 O'Conriell achieved it. Out of this darkness he 
 called forth light. Out of this most abject, weak, and 
 pitiable of kingdoms he made a poiver ; and, dying, he 
 left in Parliament a spectre, which, unless appeased, 
 pushes Whig and Tory ministers alike from their stools. 
 
 O'CONNELL NOT A DEMAGOGUE. 
 
 But Brougham says he was a demagogue. Fie on 
 Wellington, Derb} r , Peel, Palmerston, Liverpool, Rus- 
 sell, and Brougham, to be fooled and ruled by a dema- 
 gogue ! What must they, the subjects, be, if O'Connell, 
 their king, be only a bigot and a demagogue ? A dema- 
 gogue rides the storm : he has never really the ability
 
 10 DANIEL O'CONXELL. 
 
 to create one. He uses it narrowly, ignorantly, and for 
 selfish ends. If not crushed by the force, which, with- 
 out his will, has flung him into power, he leads it with 
 ridiculous miscalculation against some insurmountable 
 obstacle that scatters it forever. Dying, he leaves no 
 mark on the elements with which he has been mixed. 
 Robespierre will serve for an illustration. It took 
 O'Connell thirty years of patient and sagacious labor 
 to mould elements whose existence no man, however 
 wise, had ever discerned before. He used them unself- 
 ishly, only to break the yoke of his race. Nearly fifty 
 years have passed since his triumph, but his impress 
 still stands forth clear and sharp on the empire's policy. 
 Ireland is wholly indebted to him for her political 
 education. Responsibility educates: he lifted her to 
 broader responsibilities. Her possession of power makes 
 it the keen interest of other classes to see she is well 
 informed. He associated her with all the reform-move- 
 ments of Great Britain. This is the education of affairs, 
 broader, deeper, and more real than what school or col- 
 lege can give. This and power, his gifts, are the lever 
 which lifts her to every other right and privilege. How 
 much England owes him we can never know ; since how 
 great a danger and curse Ireland would have been to 
 the empire had she continued the cancer Pitt and 
 Castlereagh left her is a chapter of history which, for- 
 tunately, can never be written. No demagogue ever 
 walked through the streets of Dublin as O'Connell and 
 Grattan did more than once, hooted and mobbed because 
 they opposed themselves to the mad purpose of the 
 people, and crushed it by a stern resistance. No dema- 
 gogue would have offered himself to a race like the 
 Irish as the apostle of peace, pledging himself to the 
 British government, that, in the long agitation before 
 him, with brave millions behind him spoiling for a fight, 
 he would never draw a sword.
 
 DANIEL O'CONNELL. 11 
 
 I have purposely dwelt long on this view, because 
 the extent and the far-reaching effects of O'ConneH's 
 work, without regard to the motives which inspired 
 him, or the methods he used, have never been fully 
 recognized. 
 
 Briefly stated, he did what the ablest and bravest of 
 his forerunners had tried to do, and failed. He created 
 a public opinion, and unity of purpose (no matter what 
 be now the dispute about methods), which made Ire- 
 land a nation ; he gave her British citizenship, and a 
 place in the imperial Parliament ; he gave her a press 
 and a public : with these tools her destiny is in her own 
 hands. When the abolitionists got for the negro schools 
 and the vote, they settled the slave-question ; for they 
 planted the sure seeds of civil equality. O'Connell did 
 this for Ireland, this which no Irishman before had 
 ever dreamed of attempting. Swift and Molyneux 
 were able. Grattan, Bushe, Saurin, Burro wes, Plunket, 
 Curran, Burke, were eloquent. Throughout the Island 
 courage was a drug : they gained now one point, and 
 now another ; but, after all, they left the helm of Ire- 
 land's destiny in foreign and hostile hands. O'Connell 
 was brave, sagacious, eloquent : but, more than all, he 
 was a statesman ; for he gave to Ireland's own keeping 
 the key of her future. As Lord Bacon marches down 
 the centuries, he may lay one hand on the telegraph, 
 and the other on the steam-engine, and say, " These are 
 mine, for I taught you how to study nature." In a 
 similar sense, as shackle after shackle falls from Irish 
 limbs, O'Connell may say, " This victory is mine ; for I 
 taught you the method, and I gave you the arms." 
 
 SUCCESS ACHIEVED BY BLOODLESS MEASURES. 
 
 I have hitherto been speaking of his ability and suc- 
 cess: by and by we will look at his character, motives,
 
 12 DANIEL O'COXNELL. 
 
 and methods. This unique ability, even his enemies 
 have been forced to confess. Harriet Martineau, in her 
 incomparable history of the " Thirty Years' Peace," has, 
 with Tory hate, misconstrued every action of O'Connell, 
 and invented a bad motive for each one. But even she 
 confesses that " he rose in power, influence, and noto- 
 riety to an eminence such as no other individual citizen 
 has attained in modern times " in Great Britain. And 
 one of his by no means partial biographers has well 
 said, 
 
 "Any man who turns over the magazines and newspapers of 
 that period will easily perceive how grandly O'Connell's figure 
 dominated in politics, how completely he had dispelled the indif- 
 ference that had so long prevailed on Irish questions, how clearly 
 his agitation stands forth as the great fact of the time. . . . The 
 truth is, his position, so far from being a common one, is absolutely 
 unique iu history. We may search in vain through the records of 
 the past for any man, who without the effusion of a drop of blood, 
 or the advantages of office or rank, succeeded in governing a people 
 so absolutely and so long, and in creating so entirely the elements 
 of his power. . . . There was no rival to his supremacy, there was 
 no restriction to his authority. He played with the enthusiasm he 
 had aroused, with the negligent ease of a master : he governed the 
 complicated organization he had created, with a sagacity that never 
 failed. lie made himself the focus of the attention of other lands, 
 and the centre around which the rising intellect of his own revolved. 
 He had transformed the whole social system of Ireland ; almost 
 reversed the relative positions of Protestants and Catholics ; re- 
 modelled by his influence the representative, ecclesiastical, and 
 educational institutions, and created a public opinion that surpassed 
 the wildest dreams of his predecessors. Can we wonder at the 
 proud exultation with which he exclaimed, ' Grattan sat by the 
 cradle of his country, and followed her hearse: it was left for me 
 to sound the resurrection trumpet, and to show she was not dead, 
 but sleeping'? " 
 
 But the method by which he achieved his success is 
 perhaps more remarkable than even the success itself.
 
 DANIEL O'CONNELL. 13 
 
 An Irish poet, one of his bitterest assailants thirty years 
 ago, lias laid a chaplet of atonement on his altar, and 
 one verse runs, 
 
 " O great world-leader of a mighty age ! 
 Praise unto thee let all the people give. 
 By thy great name of LIBERATOR live 
 In golden letters upon history's page ; 
 And this thy epitaph while time shall be, 
 He found his country chained, but left her free." 
 
 O'CONNELL AS AN AGITATOR, AND THE POWER OF 
 AGITATION. 
 
 It is natural that Ireland should remember him as 
 her liberator. But, strange as it may seem to you, I 
 think Europe and America will remember him by a 
 higher title. I said in opening, that the cause of con- 
 stitutional government is more indebted to O'Connell 
 than to any other political leader of the last two cen- 
 turies. What I mean is, that he invented the great 
 method of constitutional agitation. Agitator is a title 
 which will last longer, which suggests a broader and 
 more permanent influence, and entitles him to the 
 gratitude of far more millions, than the name Ireland 
 loves to give him. The " first great agitator " is his 
 proudest title to gratitude and fame. Agitation is the 
 method that puts the school by the side of the ballot- 
 box. The Fremont canvass was the nation's best 
 school. Agitation prevents rebellion, keeps the peace, 
 and secures progress. Every step she gains is gained 
 forever. Muskets are the weapons of animals : agita- 
 tion is the atmosphere of brains. The old Hindoo saw, 
 in his dream, the human race led out to its various 
 fortunes. First, men were in chains which went back 
 to an iron hand ; then he saw them led by threads from 
 the brain, which went upward to an unseen hand. The
 
 14 DANIEL O'CONNELL. 
 
 first was despotism, iron, and ruling by force. The last 
 was civilization, ruling by ideas. 
 
 Agitation is an old word with a new meaning. Sir 
 Robert Peel, the first English leader who felt he was 
 its tool, defined it to be " the marshalling of the con- 
 science of a nation to mould its laws." O'Connell was 
 the first to show and use its power, to lay down its 
 principles, to analyze its elements, and mark out its 
 metes and bounds. It is voluntary, public, and above- 
 board, no oath-bound secret societies like those of 
 old time in Ireland, and of the Continent to-day. Its 
 means are reason and argument, no appeal to arms. 
 Wait patiently for the slow growth of public opinion. 
 The Frenchman is angry with his government : he 
 throws up barricades, and shots his guns to the lips. 
 A week's fury drags the nation ahead a hand-breadth : 
 re-action lets it settle half-way back again. As Lord 
 Chesterfield said, a hundred years ago, " You French- 
 men erect barricades, but never any" barriers." An 
 Englishman is dissatisfied with public affairs. He 
 brings his charges, offers his proof, waits for prejudice 
 to relax, for public opinion to inform itself. Then 
 every step taken is taken forever: an abuse once 
 removed never re-appears in history. Where did he 
 learn this method? Practically speaking, from O'Con- 
 uell. It was he who planted its corner-stone, argu- 
 ment, no violence ; no political change is uortli a drop of 
 human Hood. His other motto was, "Tell the whole 
 truth;" no concealing half of one's convictions to make 
 the other half more acceptable ; no denial of one truth 
 to gain hearing for another ; no compromise ; or, as he 
 phrased it, "Nothing is politically right which is morally 
 wrong." 
 
 Above all, plant yourself on the millions. The sym- 
 pathy of every human being, no matter how ignorant
 
 DANIEL O'CONNELL. 15 
 
 or how humble, adds weight to public opinion. At the 
 outset of his career the clergy turned a deaf ear to his 
 appeal. They had seen their flocks led up to useless 
 slaughter for centuries, and counselled submission. 
 The nobility repudiated him : they were either traitors 
 or hopeless. Protestants had touched their Ultima 
 Thule with Grattan, and seemed settling down in 
 despair. English Catholics advised waiting till the 
 tyrant grew merciful. O'Connell, left alone, said, " I 
 will forge these four millions of Irish hearts into a 
 thunderbolt, which shall suffice to dash this depotism 
 to pieces." And he did it. Living under an aristo- 
 cratic government, himself of the higher class, he an- 
 ticipated Lincoln's wisdom, and framed his movements 
 " for the people, of the people, and by the people." It 
 is a singular fact, that, the freer a nation becomes, the 
 more utterly democratic the form of its institutions, 
 this outside agitation, this pressure of public opinion to 
 direct political action, becomes more and more neces- 
 sary. The general judgment is, that the freest possible 
 government produces the freest possible men and wo- 
 men, the most individual, the least servile to the 
 judgment of others. But a moment's reflection will 
 show any man that this is an unreasonable expectation, 
 and that, on the contrary, entire equality and freedom 
 in political forms almost inevitably tend to make the 
 individual subside into the mass, and lose his identity 
 in the general whole. Suppose we stood in England 
 to-night. There is the nobility, and here is the church. 
 There is the trading-class, and here is the literary. A 
 broad gulf separates the four ; and provided a member 
 of either can conciliate his own section, he can afford, 
 in a very large measure, to despise the judgment of the 
 other three. He has, to some extent, a refuge and a 
 breakwater against the tyranny of what we call public
 
 16 DANIEL O'CONNELL. 
 
 opinion. But in a country like ours, of absolute demo- 
 cratic equality, public opinion is not only omnipotent, 
 it is omnipresent. There is no refuge from its tyranny ; 
 there is no hiding from its reach; and the result is, 
 that if you take the old Greek lantern, and go about to 
 seek among a hundred, you will find not one single 
 American who really has not, or who does not fancy at 
 least that he has, something to gain or lose in his ambi- 
 tion, his social life, or his business, from the good 
 opinion and the votes of those about him. And the 
 consequence is, that, instead of being a mass of indi- 
 viduals, each one fearlessly blurting out his own con- 
 victions, as a nation, compared with other nations, we 
 are a mass of cowards. More than all other people, 
 we are afraid of each other. 
 
 If you were a caucus to-night, Democratic or Repub- 
 lican, and I were your orator, none of you could get 
 beyond the necessary and timid limitations of party. 
 You not only would not demand, you would not allow 
 me to utter, one word of what you really thought, and 
 what I thought. You would demand of me and my 
 value as a caucus speaker would depend entirely on the 
 adroitness and the vigilance with which I met the de- 
 mand that I should not utter one single word which 
 would compromise the vote of next week. That is 
 politics; so with the press. Seemingly independent, 
 and sometimes really so, the press can afford only to 
 mount the cresting wave, not go beyond it. The editor 
 might as well shoot his reader with a bullet as with a 
 new idea. He must hit the exact line of the opinion of 
 the day. I am not finding fault with him : I am only 
 describing him. Some three years ago I took to one of 
 the freest of the Boston journals a letter, and by appro- 
 priate consideration induced its editor to print it. And 
 as we glanced along its contents, and came to the con-
 
 DANIEL O'CONNELL. 17 
 
 eluding statement, he said, "Couldn't you omit that?" 
 I said, " No : I wrote it for that ; it is the gist of the 
 statement." "Well," said he, "it is true : there is not 
 a boy in the streets that does not know it is true ; but I 
 wish you could omit it." 
 
 I insisted ; and the next morning, fairly and justly, 
 he printed the whole. Side by side he put an article 
 of his own, in which he said, " We copy in the next 
 column an article from Mr. Phillips, and we only regret 
 the absurd and unfounded statement with which he 
 concludes it." He had kept his promise by printing 
 the article : he saved his reputation by printing the 
 comment. And that, again, is the inevitable, the essen- 
 tial limitation of the press in a republican community. 
 Our institutions, floating unanchored on the shifting 
 surface of popular opinion, cannot afford to hold back, 
 or to draw forward, a hated question, and compel a re- 
 luctant public to look at it and to consider it. Hence, 
 as you see at once, the moment a large issue, twenty 
 years ahead of its age, presents itself to the considera- 
 tion of an empire or of a republic, just in proportion to 
 the freedom of its institutions is the necessity of a plat- 
 form outside of the press, of politics, and of its church, 
 whereon stand men with no candidate to elect, with no 
 plan to carry, with no reputation to stake, with no 
 object but the truth, no purpose but to tear the ques- 
 tion open and let the light through it. So much in 
 explanation of a word infinitely hated, agitation and 
 agitators, but an element which the progress of mod- 
 ern government has developed more and more every 
 day. 
 
 The great invention we trace in its twilight and 
 seed to the days of the Long Parliament. Defoe and 
 L'Estrange, later down, were the first prominent Eng- 
 lishmen to fling pamphlets at the House of Commons.
 
 18 DANIEL O'CONNELL. 
 
 Swift ruled England by pamphlets. Wilberforce sum- 
 moned the Church, and sought the alliance of influential 
 classes. But O'Connell first showed a profound faith 
 in the human tongue. He descried afar off the coming 
 omnipotence of the press. He called the millions to 
 his side, appreciated the infinite weight of the simple 
 human heart and conscience, and grafted democracy 
 into the British Empire. The later abolitionists, Bux- 
 ton, Sturge, and Thompson, borrowed his method. 
 Cobden flung it in the face of the almost omnipotent 
 landholders of England, and broke the Tory party for- 
 ever. They only haunt upper air now in the stolen 
 garments of the Whigs. The English administration 
 recognizes this new partner in the government, and 
 waits to be moved on. Garrison brought the new 
 weapon to our shores. The only wholly useful and 
 thoroughly defensible war Christendom has seen in this 
 century, the greatest civil and social change the English 
 race ever saw. are the result. 
 
 This great servant and weapon, peace and constitu- 
 tional government owe to O'Connell. Who has given 
 progress a greater boon ? What single agent has done 
 as much to bless and improve the world for the last 
 fifty years? 
 
 THE PLAINNESS OP HIS SPEECH. 
 
 O'Connell has been charged with coarse, violent, and 
 intemperate language. The criticism is of little im- 
 portance. Stupor and palsy never understand life. 
 White-livered indifference is alwa} r s disgusted and an- 
 noyed by earnest conviction. Protestants criticised 
 Luther in the same way. It took three centuries to 
 carry us far off enough to appreciate his colossal pro- 
 portions. It is a hundred years to-day since O'Connell 
 was born. It will take another hundred to put us at
 
 DANIEL O'CONNELL. 19 
 
 such an angle as will enable us correctly to measure 
 nis stature. Premising that it would be folly to find 
 fault with a man struggling for life because his at- 
 titudes were ungraceful, remembering the Scythian 
 king's answer to Alexander, criticising his strange 
 weapon, " If you knew how precious freedom was, 
 you would defend it even with axes," we must see 
 that O'ConnelTs own explanation is evidently sincere 
 and true. He found the Irish heart so cowed, and 
 Englishmen so arrogant, that he saw it needed an .inde- 
 pendence verging on insolence, a defiance that touched 
 extremest limits, to breathe self-respect into his own 
 race, teach the aggressor manners, and sober him into 
 respectful attention. It was the same with us aboli- 
 tionists. Webster had taught the North the 'bated 
 breath and crouching of a slave. It needed with us an 
 attitude of independence that was almost insolent, it 
 needed that we should exhaust even the Saxon vocabu- 
 lary of scorn, to fitly utter the righteous and haughty 
 contempt that honest men had for man-stealers. Only 
 in that way could we wake the North to self-respect, or 
 teach the South that at length she had met her equal, 
 if not her master. On a broad canvas, meant for the 
 public square, the tiny lines of a Dutch interior would 
 be invisible. In no other circumstances was the French 
 maxim, "You can never make a revolution with rose- 
 water," more profoundly true. The world has hardly 
 yet learned how deep a philosophy lies hid in Ham- 
 let's, 
 
 " Nay, an thou'lt mouth, 
 I'll rant as well as thou." 
 
 O'Connell has been charged with insincerity in urging 
 repeal, and those who defended his sincerity have leaned 
 toward allowing that it proved his lack of common 
 sense. I think both critics mistaken. His earliest
 
 20 DANIEL O'CONNELL. 
 
 speeches point to repeal as his ultimate object : indeed, 
 he valued emancipation largely as a means to that end. 
 No fair view of his whole life will leave the slight- 
 est ground to doubt his sincerity. As for the reason- 
 ableness and necessity of the measure, I think every 
 year proves them. Considering O'Connell's position, 
 I wholly sympathize in his profound and unshaken 
 loyalty to the empire. Its share in the British empire 
 makes Ireland's strength and importance. Standing 
 alone among the vast and massive sovereignties of 
 Europe, she would be weak, insignificant, and helpless. 
 Were I an Irishman I should cling to the empire. 
 
 Fifty or sixty years hence, when scorn of race has 
 vanished, and bigotry is lessened, it may be possible 
 for Ireland to be safe and free while holding the posi- 
 tion to England that Scotland does. But during this 
 generation and the next, O'Connell was wise in claim- 
 ing that Ireland's rights would never be safe without 
 "home rule." A substantial repeal of the union should 
 be every Irishman's earnest aim. Were I their adviser, 
 I should constantly repeat what Grattan said in 1810, 
 " The best advice, gentlemen, I can give on all occa- 
 sions is, ' Keep knocking at the union.' " 
 
 HIS PATIENCE THE MOST REMARKABLE OF ALL HIS 
 
 GIFTS. 
 
 We imagine an Irishman to be only a zealot on fire. 
 We fancy Irish spirit and eloquence to be only blind, 
 reckless, headlong enthusiasm. But, in truth, Grattan 
 was the soberest leader of his day; holding scrupu- 
 lously back the disorderly elements, which fretted 
 under his curb. There was one hour, at least, when 
 a word from him would have lighted a democratic re- 
 volt throughout the empire. And the most remarkable
 
 DANIEL O'CONNELL. 21 
 
 of O'Connell's gifts was neither his eloquence nor his 
 sagacity: it was his patience, "patience, all the pas- 
 sion of great souls ; " the tireless patience, which, from 
 1800 to 1820, went from town to town, little aided by 
 the press, to plant the seeds of an intelligent and 
 united, as well as hot patriotism. Then, after many 
 years and long toil, waiting for rivals to be just, for 
 prejudice to wear out, and for narrowness to grow wise, 
 using British folly and oppression as his wand, he 
 moulded the enthusiasm of the most excitable of races, 
 the just and inevitable indignation of four millions of 
 Catholics, the hate of plundered poverty, priest, noble, 
 and peasant, into one fierce, though harmonious mass. 
 He held it in careful check, with sober moderation, 
 watching every opportunity, attracting ally after ally, 
 never forfeiting any possible friendship, allowing no 
 provocation to stir him to any thing that would not 
 help his cause, compelling each hottest and most igno- 
 rant of his followers to remember that "he who com- 
 mits a crime helps the enemy." At last, when the hour 
 struck, this power was made to achieve justice for itself, 
 and put him in London, him, this despised Irishman, 
 this hated Catholic, this mere demagogue and man of 
 words, him, to hold the Tory party in one hand, and 
 the Whig party in the other ; all this without shedding 
 a drop of blood, or disturbing for a moment the peace of 
 the empire. While O'Connell held Ireland in his hand, 
 her people were more orderly, law-abiding, and peaceful 
 than for a century before, or during any year since. 
 The strength of this marvellous control passes compre- 
 hension. Out West I met an Irishman whose father 
 held him up to see O'Connell address the two hundred 
 thousand men at Tara, literally to see, not to hear 
 him. I said, " But you could not all hear even his 
 voice." "Oh, no, sir! Only about thirty thousand
 
 22 DANIEL O'CONNELL. 
 
 could hear him, but we all kept as still and silent as if 
 we did" With magnanimous frankness O'Connell once 
 said, " I never could have held those monster meetings 
 without a crime, without disorder, tumult, or quarrel, 
 except for Father Mathew's aid." Any man can build 
 a furnace, and turn water into steam, yes, if careless, 
 make it rend his dwelling in pieces. Genius builds the 
 locomotive, harnesses this terrible power in iron traces, 
 holds it with master-hand in useful limits, and gives it 
 to the peaceable service of man. The Irish people were 
 O'Connell's locomotive, sagacious patience and modera- 
 tion the genius that built it, Parliament and justice the 
 station he reached. 
 
 HIS RECORD BEOAD AND BRAVE. 
 
 Every one who has studied O'Connell's life sees his 
 marked likeness to Luther, the unity of both their 
 lives; their wit; the same massive strength, even if 
 coarse-grained ; the ease with which each reached the 
 masses, the power with which they wielded them ; 
 the same unrivalled eloquence, fit for any audience; 
 the same instinct of genius that led them constantly 
 to acts, which, as Voltaire said, " Foolish men call rash, 
 but wisdom sees to be brave ; " the same broad success. 
 But O'Connell had one great element which Luther 
 lacked, the universality of his sympathy; the far- 
 reaching sagacity which discerned truth afar off, just 
 struggling above the horizon ; the loyal, brave, and 
 frank spirit which acknowledged and served it ; the 
 profound and rare faith which believed that " the whole 
 of truth can never do harm to the whole of virtue." 
 From the serene height of intellect and judgment to 
 which God's gifts had lifted him, he saw clearly that 
 no one right was ever in the way of another, that 
 injustice harms the wrong-doer even more than the
 
 DANIEL O'CONNELL. 23 
 
 victim, that whoever puts a chain on another fastens it 
 also on himself. Serenely confident that the truth is 
 always safe, and justice always expedient, he saw that 
 intolerance is only want of faith. He who stifles free 
 discussion, secretly doubts whether what he professes 
 to believe is really true. Coleridge says, " See how 
 triumphant in debate and notion O'Cohnell is ! Why ? 
 Because he asserts a broad principle, acts up to it, rests 
 his body on it, and has faith in it." 
 
 Co-worker with Father Mathew; champion of the 
 Dissenters ; advocating the substantial principles of 
 the Charter, though not a Chartist; foe of the corn- 
 laws ; battling against slavery, whether in India or the 
 Carolinas ; the great democrat who in Europe seventy 
 years ago called the people to his side ; starting a move- 
 ment of the people, for the people, by the people, 
 show me another record as broad and brave as this in 
 the European history of our century. Where is the 
 English statesman, where the Irish leader, who can 
 claim one ? No wonder every Englishman hated and 
 feared him ! He wounded their prejudices at every 
 point. Whig and Tory, timid Liberal, narrow Dis- 
 senter, bitter Radical all feared and hated this broad, 
 brave soul, who dared to follow Truth wherever he saw 
 her, whose toleration was as broad as human nature, 
 and his sympathy as boundless as the sea. 
 
 THE FKIEND OF THE COLORED SLAVE. 
 
 To show you that he never took a leaf from -our 
 American gospel of compromise ; that he never filed 
 his tongue to silence on one truth, fancying so to help 
 another ; that he never sacrificed any race to save even 
 Ireland, let me compare him with Kossuth, whose 
 only merits were his eloquence and his patriotism. 
 When Kossuth was in Faneuil Hall, lie exclaimed,
 
 24 DANIEL O'CONNELL. 
 
 " Here is a flag without a stain, a nation without a 
 crime ! " We abolitionists appealed to him, " O elo- 
 quent son of the Magyar, come to break chains ! have 
 you no word, no pulse-beat, for four millions of negroes 
 bending under a yoke ten times heavier than that of 
 Hungary ? " He answered, " I would forget anybody, 
 I would praise any thing, to help Hungary." 
 
 O'Connell never said* any thing like that. When I 
 was in Naples, I asked Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton, a 
 Tory, " Is O'Connell an honest man ? " " As honest 
 a man as ever breathed," said he, and then told me 
 this story. " When, in 1830, O'Connell entered Par- 
 liament, the anti-slavery cause was so weak that it had 
 only Lushington and myself to speak for it; and we 
 agreed, that when he spoke I should cheer him, and 
 when I spoke he should cheer me ; and these were the 
 only cheers we ever got. O'Connell came, with one 
 Irish member to support him. A large number of 
 members [I think Buxton said twenty -seven], whom 
 we called the West-India interest, the Bristol party, 
 the slave-party, went to him, saying, ' O'Connell, at 
 last you are in the House, with one helper. If you 
 will never go down to Freemasons' Hall with Buxton 
 and Brougham, here are twenty-seven votes for you on 
 every Irish question. If 3-011 work with those aboli- 
 tionists, count us always against you.' " 
 
 It was a terrible temptation. How many a so-called 
 statesman would have yielded ! O'Connell said, " Gen- 
 tlemen, God knows I speak for the saddest people the 
 sun sees ; but may my right hand forget its cunning, 
 and my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, if, to 
 save Ireland, even Ireland, I forget the negro one 
 single hour ! " " From that day," said Buxton, " Lush- 
 ington and I never went into the lobby that O'Connell* 
 did not follow us."
 
 DANIEL O'CONNELL. 25 
 
 And right in this connection, let me read the follow- 
 ing despatch : 
 
 CINCINNATI, O., Aug. 6. 
 WENDELL PHILLIPS, BOSTON. 
 
 The national conference of colored newspaper-men to the 
 O'Connell Celebration, greeting: 
 
 Resolved, That it is befitting a convention of colored men 
 assembled on the centennial anniversary of the birth of the lib- 
 erator of Ireland and friend of humanity, Daniel O'Connell, to 
 recall with gratitude his eloquent and effective pleas for the free- 
 dom of our race ; and we earnestly commend his example to our 
 countrymen. 
 
 J. C. JACKSON", Secretary. 
 PETER H. CLAEK, President. 
 GEORGE T. RUBY. 
 LEWIS D. EASTOX. 
 
 HIS RELIGIOUS TOLERATION. 
 
 Learn of him, friends, the hardest lesson we ever 
 have set us, that of toleration. The foremost Catholic 
 of his age, the most stalwart champion of the Church, 
 he was also broadly and sincerely tolerant of every 
 faith. His toleration had no limit, and no qualification. 
 
 I scorn and scout the word "toleration." It is an 
 insolent term. No man, properly speaking, tolerates 
 another. I do not tolerate a Catholic, neither does he 
 tolerate me. We are equal, and acknowledge each 
 other's right : that is the correct statement. 
 
 That every man should be allowed freely to worship 
 God according to his conscience, that no man's civil 
 rights should be affected by his religious creed, were 
 both cardinal principles of O'Connell. He had no fear 
 that any doctrine of his faith could be endangered by 
 the freest possible discussion. Learn of him, also, sym- 
 pathy with every race, and every form of oppression. 
 No matter who was the sufferer, or what the form of
 
 26 DANIEL O'CONNELL. 
 
 the injustice, starving Yorkshire peasant, imprisoned 
 Chartist, persecuted Protestant, or negro slave ; no 
 matter of what right, personal or civil, the victim had 
 been robbed ; no matter what religious pretext or polit- 
 ical juggle alleged " necessity "as an excuse for his 
 oppression; no matter with what solemnities he had 
 been devoted on the altar of slavery, the moment 
 O'Connell saw him, the altar and the God sank together 
 in the dust, the victim was acknowledged a man and a 
 brother, equal in all rights, and entitled to all the aid 
 the great Irishman could give him. 
 
 O'CONNELL AS AN ORATOR. 
 
 I have no time to speak of his marvellous success at 
 the bar ; of that profound skill in the law which ena- 
 bled him to conduct such an agitation, always on the 
 verge of illegality and violence, without once subject- 
 ing himself or his followers to legal penalty, an agi- 
 tation under a code of which Brougham said, "No 
 Catholic could lift his hand under it without breaking 
 the law." I have no time to speak of his still more 
 remarkable success in the House of Commons. Of 
 Flood's failure there, Grattan had said, "He was an 
 oak of the forest, too old and too great to be trans- 
 planted at fifty." Grattan's own success there was 
 but moderate. The power O'Connell wielded against 
 varied, bitter, and unscrupulous opposition was marvel- 
 lous. I have no time to speak of his personal inde- 
 pendence, his deliberate courage, moral and physical, 
 his unspotted private character, his unfailing hope, the 
 versatility of his talent, his power of tireless work, 
 his ingenuity and boundless resource, his matchless 
 self-possession in every emergency, his ready and inex- 
 haustible wit. But any reference to O'Connell that 
 omitted his eloquence would be painting Wellington in
 
 DANIEL O'CONNELL. 27 
 
 the House of Lords without mention of Torres Vedras 
 or Waterloo. 
 
 Broadly considered, his eloquence has never been 
 equalled in modern times, certainly not in English 
 speech. Do you think I am partial? I will vouch 
 John Randolph of Roanoke, the Virginia slaveholder, 
 who hated an Irishman almost as much as he hated a 
 Yankee, himself an orator of no mean level. Hearing 
 O'Connell, he exclaimed, " This is the man, these are 
 the lips, the most eloquent that speak English in my 
 day." I think he was right. I remember the solem- 
 nity of Webster, the grace of Everett, the rhetoric of 
 Choate ; I know the eloquence that lay hid in the iron 
 logic of Calhoun ; I have melted beneath the magnet- 
 ism of Sergeant S. Prentiss of Mississippi, who wielded 
 a power few men ever had. It has been my fortune 
 to sit at the feet of the great speakers of {he English 
 tongue on the other side of the ocean. But I think 
 all of them together never surpassed, and no one of 
 them evpr equalled, O'Connell. Nature intended him 
 for our Demosthenes. Never since the great Greek has 
 she sent forth any one so lavishly gifted for his word 
 as a tribune of the people. In the first place, he had 
 a magnificent presence, impressive in bearing, massive 
 like that of Jupiter. Webster himself hardly outdid 
 him in the majesty of his proportions. To be sure, he 
 had not Webster's craggy face, and precipice of brow, 
 nor his e\~es glowing like anthracite coal ; nor had he 
 the lion roar of Mirabeau. But his presence filled the 
 eye. A small O'Connell would hardly have been an 
 O'Connell at all. These physical advantages are half 
 the battle. I remember Russell Lowell telling us that 
 Mr. Webster came home from Washington at the time 
 the Whig party thought of dissolution a year or two 
 before his death, and went down to Faneuil Hall to
 
 28 DANIEL O'CONNELL. 
 
 protest ; drawing himself up to his loftiest proportion, 
 his brow clothed with thunder, before the listening 
 thousands, he said, "Well, gentlemen, I am a Whig, 
 a Massachusetts Whig, a Faneuil-hall Whig, a revolu- 
 tionary Whig, a constitutional Whig. If you break 
 the Whig party, sir, where am I to go ? " And says 
 Lowell, " We held our breath, thinking where he could 
 go. If he had been five feet three, we should have 
 said, ' Who cares where you go ? " So it was with 
 O'Connell. There was something majestic in his pres- 
 ence before he spoke ; and he added to it what Web- 
 ster had not, what Clay might have lent, grace. 
 Lithe as a boy at seventy, everj^ attitude a picture, 
 every gesture a grace, he was still all nature : nothing 
 but nature seemed to speak all over him. Then he 
 had a voice that covered the gamut. The majesty of 
 his indignation, fitly uttered in tones of superhuman 
 power, made him able to " indict " a nation, in spite 
 of Burke's protest. 
 
 I heard him once say, " I send my voice across the 
 Atlantic, careering like the thunder-storm against the 
 breeze, to tell the slaveholder of the Carolinas that 
 God's thunderbolts are hot, and to remind the bondman 
 that the dawn of his redemption is already breaking." 
 You seemed to hear the tones come echoing back to 
 London from the Rocky Mountains. Then, with the 
 slightest possible Irish brogue, he would tell a story, 
 while all Exeter Hall shook with laughter. The next 
 moment, tears in his voice like a Scotch song, five 
 thousand men wept. And all the while no effort. He 
 seemed only breathing, 
 
 " As effortless as woodland nooks 
 Send violets up, and paint them blue." 
 
 We used to say of Webster, " This is a great effort;"
 
 DANIEL O'CONXELL. 29 
 
 of Everett, " It is a beautiful effort ; " but you never 
 used the word "effort" in speaking of O'Connell. It 
 provoked you that he would not make an effort. And 
 this wonderful power, it was not a thunder-storm : he 
 flanked you with his wit, he surprised you out of your- 
 self; you were conquered before you knew it. His 
 marvellous voice, its almost incredible power and sweet- 
 ness, Bulwer has well described : 
 
 " Once to my sight that giant form was given, 
 AValled by wide air, and roofed by boundless heaven. 
 Beneath his feet the human ocean lay, 
 And wave on wave rolled into space away. 
 Methought no clarion could have sent its sound 
 Even to the centre of ihe hosts around ; 
 And, as I thought, rose the sonorous swell, 
 As from some church-tower swings the silvery bell. 
 Aloft and clear, from airy tide to tide 
 It glided, easy as a bird may glide. 
 Even to the verge of that vast audience sent, 
 It played with each wild passion as it went : 
 Now stirred the uproar, now the murmur stilled, 
 And sobs or laughter answered as it willed." 
 
 Webster could awe a senate, Everett could charm a 
 college, and Choate cheat a jury ; Clay could mag- 
 netize the million, and Corwin lead them captive. 
 O'Connell was Clay, Corwin, Choate, Everett, and 
 Webster in one. Before the courts, logic ; at the bar 
 of the senate, unanswerable and dignified ; on the plat- 
 form, grace, wit, and pathos ; before the masses, a whole 
 man. Carlyle says, " He is God's own anointed king 
 whose single word melts all wills into his." This 
 describes O'Connell. Emerson says, " There is no true 
 eloquence, unless there is a man behind the speech." 
 Daniel O'Connell was listened to because all England 
 and all Ireland knew that there was a man behind the 
 speech, one who could be neither bought, bullied, nor
 
 30 DANIEL O'CONNELL. 
 
 cheated. He held the masses free but willing subjects 
 in his hand. 
 
 HIS COURAGE. 
 
 He owed this power to the courage that met every 
 new question frankly, and concealed none of his con- 
 victions; to an entireness of devotion that made the 
 people feel he was all their own ; to a masterly brain 
 that made them sure they were always safe in his hands. 
 Behind them were ages of bloodshed : every rising had 
 ended at the scaffold ; even Grattan brought them to 
 1798. O'Connell said, "Follow me: put your feet 
 where mine have trod, and a sheriff shall never lay 
 hand on your shoulder." And the great lawyer kept 
 his pledge. 
 
 This unmatched, long-continued power almost passes 
 belief. You can only appreciate it by comparison. Let 
 me carry you back to the mob-year of 1835, in this 
 country, when the abolitionists were hunted, when the 
 streets roared with riot ; when from Boston to Balti- 
 more, from St. Louis to Philadelphia, a mob took pos- 
 session of every city ; when private houses were invaded 
 and public halls were burned, press after press was 
 thrown into the river, and Lovejoy baptized freedom 
 with his blood. You remember it. Respectable jour- 
 nals warned the mob that they were playing into the 
 hands of the abolitionists. Webster and Clay and the 
 staff of Whig statesmen told the people that the truth 
 floated farther on the shouts of the mob than the most 
 eloquent lips could carry it. But law-abiding, Protest- 
 ant, educated America could not be held back. Neither 
 Whig chiefs nor respectable journals could keep these 
 people quiet. Go to England. When the Reform Bill 
 of 1831 was thrown out from the House of Lords, the 
 people were tumultuous ; and Melbourne and Grey,
 
 DANIEL O'CONNELL. 31 
 
 Russell and Brougham, Lansdowne, Holland, and 
 Macaulay, the Whig chiefs, cried out, "Don't violate 
 the law : 3-011 help the Tories ! Riots put back the 
 bill." But quiet, sober John Bull, law-abiding, could 
 not do without it. Birmingham was three days in the 
 hands of a mob. Castles were burned. Wellington 
 ordered the Scotch Greys to rough-grind their swords 
 as at Waterloo. This was the Whig aristocracy of 
 England. O'Connell had neither office nor title. Be- 
 hind him were three million people, steeped in utter 
 wretchedness, sore with the oppression of centuries, 
 ignored by statute. 
 
 For thirty restless and turbulent j-ears he stood in 
 front of them, and said, " Remember, he that commits 
 a crime 'helps the enemy." And during that long and 
 fearful struggle, I do not remember one of his followers 
 ever being convicted of a political offence, arid during 
 this period crimes of violence were very rare. There is 
 no such record in our history. Neither in classic nor 
 in modern times can the man be produced who held a 
 million of people in his right hand so passive. It was 
 due to the consistency and unity of a character that 
 had hardly a flaw. I do not forget your soldiers, ora- 
 tors, or poets, any of your leaders. But when I con- 
 sider O'Connell's personal disinterestedness, his rare, 
 brave fidelity to every cause his principles covered, no 
 matter how unpopular, or how embarrassing to his 
 main purpose, that clear, far-reaching vision, and 
 true heart, which, on most moral and political ques- 
 tions, set him so much ahead of his times ; his elo- 
 quence, almost equally effective in the courts, in the 
 senate, and before the masses ; that sagacity which set 
 at naught the malignant vigilance of the whole imperial 
 bar, watching thirty years for a misstep ; when I re- 
 member that he invented his tools, and then measure
 
 32 DANIEL O'CONNELL. 
 
 his limited means with his vast success, bearing in mind 
 its nature ; when I see the sobriety and moderation 
 with which he used his measureless power, and the 
 lofty, generous purpose of his whole life, I am ready 
 to affirm that he was, all things considered, the greatest 
 man the Irish race ever produced.
 
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