Louis-Joseph Papineau

“ Ireland has currently more chances of salute than ever, because she does not have secret societies. Her hatred is as highly avowed as it is properly organized.
Don't you feel that eventually one will murmur in the ear of one another among you: "Eh what, you are twenty thousand Irish people here, and you considered that not one among you deserved the honour to chair your meeting; you have ruled that a foreigner should be installed above you all, when the question is not of a social interest as important for all our mixed populations, but of a special national interest for you." ”

“ Nothing would be more compromising for an honest man than to be praised, often and highly, by rascals. Nothing would tend to more quickly ruin a reputation of political integrity, of devotion to the cause of justice, freedom and the rights of the people, than to deserve a word of praise, to get a second compliment from The Transcript, or any other section of the Tory press of Lower Canada, such as it has been on the whole, since the first page of The Mercury to the last lucubration of The Courier. ”

“ Throughout Christendom, from religious Rome to philosophical Paris, autocratic Russia to the democratic United States, rises a universal cry of love and pity for Ireland, wrapped in her shroud of plague and famine, woven and sewn around it by aristocratic hands. ”

“ My own opinion is that active and judicious ministries, inside which "several Irish members" and "of Irish extraction", should give themselves the honour to prove that their heart is not made of ice for the anguishes of their country; to give themselves the honour not to choke your patriotic fervour. If they can be excused not to be there in person, they must at least encourage their friends to attend your meeting, to prepare the resolutions with you, so that, while not exceeding the limits of the law, you may go as far it permits, as did their very devoted partisans in Quebec City. ”

“ Do not say that the conviction, in front of a legally sworn jury, such as we have not yet seen in the country, of the use of corruption methods in an election, should forever disqualify the convicted culprit, of his rights as voter and eligible, and of the aptitude to fill any public function of honour and profit. Do not insinuate that it would be desirable that the administration be working more and especially be less expensive, it is against the intention of those who gave us the responsible government and against the interest of those who exert it ”

“ Though you must, in this occasion, hold an Irish meeting, you will add importance to it, if you call upon, among all the origins of which our society is composed, to the men who are human, devoted to the cause of progress, to the respect of justice, the hatred of oppression, and if you ask them to assist you. ”

“ Here is one who is not in the government and who takes part in the secrecies of a government as mysterious as ours! No, you are wrong. It is not an established fact which he reveals you; it is a clever assumption to which he arrived according to a rather plausible calculation of probability, that the quietude of rest and the wisdom of silence are as pleasant to the Canadian ministry as the din of Ireland is annoying to it, and to Lord Russell too. I repeat you, go to the source of all these reports. See your representatives. ”

“ Tyranny has been so exorbitant against your deplorable fatherland, made as joyful and beautiful by the good doings of the Providence as it has been obscured by the misdeeds of your governors, that she developed, among the generality of your kind, virtues which are native to you and vices which the foreign dominator gave birth to. ”

“ There was not a single man in such a numerous assembly, to which assisted envoys of all the Roman colonies, ambassadors of all the parts of the globe where the Greek and Latin civilization, or even ours, had penetrated, who was not sensitive to this sentiment of the heart, to this cry of nature. How is it then that the whole of the Canadian Tory press believes that the duty and honesty of the British government require that it only expresses contempt and animosity for this Ireland, whose oppression produced a Golgotha too narrow to hide in its entrails the corpses that famine feeds it ”

“ The mercantile government of the Indies had its Christian dignitaries assist the holocausts of the widows, burned alive with the corpses of their husbands; same for the processions of Juggernaut where, by the hundreds, fanatics are each year crushed under the wheels of the cart carrying an idol much more avid of human blood than ever was that which is honoured by the African ferocity. ”

“ The interest of the Stanley, Palmerston, Blake and others of their caste and their temperament, is to drive out of their vast Irish fields those whom they made poor and who can no longer pay them. The more the vessel which carries them is encumbered, the more the field and the heart of the mauvais riche is alleviated, and the more the income is increased. They cannot enforce, do they inform us officially, their law which would tend to prevent the congestion. They "do not want" to have it enforced. They obtain profit and pleasure from it being eluded. ”

“ In Montreal, I am but a simple citizen who timidly takes part to the deliberations, when its representatives disdain to do it. One so often said to my fellow-citizens, in speech as in writing, that I was a changed man, that I have become a paragon of devotion to the government against which I had fought all my life ”

“ There was nothing criminal in your masonry, when they spoke; I conclude that there is nothing criminal now that they are keeping silent. It is not you who changed; it is them who are changed, or who are not changed ”

“ If, to my surprise, he refuses, even that would not constitution a sufficient reason for you to give me the honour of choosing me as chairman, neither of your association nor of your meeting. Believe a sincere friend of the good cause in which you are engaged, a friend who has gained some experience of men and business, of those of your country in particular. ”

“ Before my return and since my return, one so high proclaimed to my country that one should be careful not to elect a man whose principles were so unknown, floating and changeable as mine, unless one had him state his political profession of faith ”

“ We have the seat of the responsible government there. We have statesmen, politicians as deep as the abyss and men as mute as grave stones, who choke all measures which were born in Quebec City. Why do they do it? They did not tell me their secrets. I do not have enough perspicacity to guess them. It is necessary that you know if they like it that you have the public meeting you are planning.
Delegation: We have reasons to think that they would be happy if we did not have it. We asked Mr. Drummond, chairman of our association for the recall of the act of Union of Ireland, and Mr. ”

“ Skilful operators, they will have given light to the unhappy ones who were groping in a thick darkness. They could disillusion us, we could reveal them truths they are unaware of. It is only by comparing our doctrines that we can determine which one is the just and true doxy, ours or theirs. ”

“ They were placing you in a position of legitimate self-defence. Nevertheless, the ball and the sword are blind instruments which could as well reach your innocent chests as the culprit chests of your adversaries. ”