O'Connell

“ The Association might be broken up by the conflict with O'Connell, or it might endure a worse fate if it became despicable by suppressing convictions of public duty at his dictation. With these fears were mixed the recollection of the generous forbearance from blame and the promptitude to praise which marked his own relations to O'Connell, and the painful contrast with these sentiments presented by the scene he had just witnessed. He shed tears from the strong passion of a strong man. ”

“ O'Connell was all for the poor. See what he did at Saint Patrick's Island—he cast out every bad thing and every whole thing, to England and to America and to every part. He fought it well for every whole body. ”

“ On the whole, O'Connell exceeded my expectations. His exterior is attractive, and the expression of intelligent good-humour, united with determination and prudence, which marks his countenance, is extremely winning. He has perhaps more of persuasiveness than of large and lofty eloquence; and one frequently perceives too much design and manner in his words. Nevertheless, it is impossible not to follow his powerful arguments with interest, to view the martial dignity of his carriage without pleasure, or to refrain from laughing at his wit.... ”

“ It is this thorough identification with the national spirit, with the religion which the persecution of centuries had made inseparable from it, that makes O’Connell without equal or second among the great men who nobly contended for their country’s freedom at the end of the last and beginning of the present century. He stands alone, gifted with a power to which neither the highest intellect nor the most brilliant oratory could otherwise obtain. ”

“ O'Connell was far too sharp-sighted—far too intelligent and clever a man to make so grave a mistake as this. By the sheer force of his genius he exercised for many years of his life a most powerful influence on English politics. ”

“ In that age, under those skies, Daniel O’Connell was born.
One hundred years have passed. Rises now the Genius of the Irish race in America to celebrate the centennial anniversary of that glorious birth, to invoke in tones that peal across the waves—the memory of that illustrious and beloved name. A majestic, youthful presence, daughter of Erin, robed in white and with a garland of green upon her brow, comes with her sisters to lay a wreath upon the tomb of the Liberator of his country. Non omnis moriar, wrote the Latin poet:
“I shall not wholly die. ”

“ As a perfectly unpretending stranger I cannot in the least degree understand why they seem disposed to do me so much honour.” “Was not your father the Prince of ——?” said O’Connell. “Oh no,” replied I; “my father was indeed a nobleman of rather an older date, but very far from being so celebrated.” “You must forgive us then,” said O’Connell incredulously; “for to tell you the truth, you are believed to be a natural son of Napoleon, whose partiality to your supposed mother was well known.” ”

“ If Science still, in not unholy walls, Sets its high chair, and dares unchartered halls, And still ascending, ever heavenward soars, While capped Exclusion slowly opes it doors, It is his breath that speeds the spreading tide, It is his hand the long-locked door throws wide. Where'er we turn the same effect we find-- O'Connell's voice still speaks his country's mind. ”

“ O'Connell's letters in the second decade of the present century show that by that time he had been created a baron, and attained the rank of general in the Austrian army. He had married and had a daughter, as much trouble appears to have been taken to establish the ‘sixteen quarterings’ required to qualify her for an appointment about the imperial court. O'Connell died in Vienna, early in 1830, in his ninety-second year, leaving his property to a kinsman, Geoffrey O'Connell of Cork. ”

“ But it is the special claim of O’Connell to the eternal gratitude of that native Irish race to which he belonged, that he, first of all, after that bondage of centuries, taught them to lift up their heads to the level of freemen. Had his work stopped at Emancipation, had his claim to fame and a place in the national memory been included solely in the noble title of Liberator, enough had been done by one man for humanity and his own renown. ”

“ I forgot to mention to you that I have met O’Connell again here. I heard him speak at the meetings of the Catholic Association, the present Irish Parliament, which I visited to-day for the second time. I was received, as a well-disposed foreigner, with applause, and O’Connell immediately made room for me between himself and Lord C——. The room is not very large, and as dirty as the English House of Commons. Here too every man keeps his hat on, except while he is speaking: here too are good and bad orators ”

“ O'Connell be brought up for judgement.' It was very strange, and everybody looked amazed. He has been a very curious man all his life, and he is as strange as ever now, in the sort of make-believe with which he tries to delude himself and others. Whilst all indicates the decay of his powers, and his own consciousness of it, he assumes an air and language as if he was the same man, and ready to act his old part on any stage and at any time. ”

“ O'Connell's agitating tour in the North of England and in Scotland was in effect a crusade against the Lords. In a speech which he addressed to an immense assemblage of the working classes of Manchester, he said, if there were only one House of Parliament, a majority of that House, perhaps a faction, might become the rulers of the entire nation. He was, therefore, for two Houses, but they should be honest and competent. Why should a man be a legislator because his father was one? It was as reasonable to expect that a man would be a good tailor on the hereditary principle. ”

“ O'Connell of course shows himself complete master of the figure which he had danced so frequently one of the most shifty, unstable men of his day, he can scarcely be called a politician, for like all agitators, the person he really sought to serve was himself alone. He chopped and changed just as it suited his purpose, and is properly introduced by the artist amongst the most adroit and vigorous of the political double shufflers.
The Duke of Wellington and Sir Robert Peel find themselves vis-à-vis, in allusion to their conduct with reference to Catholic Emancipation. ”

“ O'Connell might shut them out from a public career during his lifetime, or for ever, and in my own case he might destroy a journal which conferred a large influence and a liberal income. The motives which induced us to disregard these dangers may reasonably be presumed not to have been unworthy ones. We had been accustomed from boyhood to love and reverence O'Connell, and we recoiled from a conflict with him as generous boys recoil from a dispute with their father. ”

“ O’Connell wisely deprecated rebellion and bloodshed. “He who commits a crime adds strength to the enemy,” was his favorite motto. Through a whole generation, with wonderful skill, he kept the public mind at the highest pitch of political excitement, yet restrained it from violence. But with all his power the old chief began to lose control of the enthusiastic Young Ireland party and, confident that the government must soon yield to the impassioned appeal from a whole nation, he allowed himself in his speeches to outrun his sober judgment. ”

“ Shepard, Boston, publishers.
BY WENDELL PHILLIPS Broadly considered, O'Connell's eloquence has never been equaled 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 the English tongue in my day!" I think he was right. I remember the solemnity of Webster, the grace of Everett, the rhetoric of Choate ”

“ In England, and in Ireland too, the influence of O'Connell was on the wane, and with the dispersion of the multitudes that flocked on that Sunday morning in October, 1843, to listen to the Liberator on the plains of Clontarf, the peaceful policy which he advocated received its death blow. Over O'Connell himself, and some of the most outspoken of his associates, a State prosecution was impending; and the arm of the government was already stretched out to crush the agitation whose object they detested, and whose strength they had begun to fear. ”

“ I have seen O'Connell. He is really ill, and supposes himself to be gradually breaking up. He attends to politics no more than is absolutely necessary, and spends every vacant moment in prayer and spiritual reading. ”

“ Such men as Disraeli and Bulwer Lytton have borne enthusiastic tribute to the magic of that voice, and have declared it to be unrivalled in the political eloquence of the time. O'Connell made his voice heard at many great public meetings in England and in Scotland, as well as in Ireland, and his political views had, indeed, much in common with those of English and Scottish advanced Liberals. ”

“ I therefore took leave of the family this morning, with the sincerest thanks for the friendly welcome they had given me. O’Connell himself escorted me to the boundaries of his demesne, mounted on a large and handsome gray horse, on which he looked more military than ever. The rugged way is bare of all vegetation, but affords many sublime views, sometimes inland, sometimes to the sea, studded with rocks and islands, some of which rise completely isolated out of the water like high-peaked mountains. ”

“ Met O’Connell at dinner yesterday at William Ponsonby’s. The only Irish (agitators) were he and O’Gorman Mahon; ——, he said, was too great a blackguard, and he would not invite him. O’Connell arrived from Ireland that day; [203] O’CONNELL AT DINNER. there is nothing remarkable in his manner, appearance, or conversation, but he seems lively, well bred, and at his ease. ”

“ But it soon appeared that O'Connell was this time in earnest. ‘My struggle has begun,’ he wrote on 25 May 1840, ‘and I will terminate it only in death or Repeal.’ The circle of agitation gradually widened. In October he addressed a large meeting on the subject at Cork. He was enthusiastically received, and on entering the city the people, in their desire to do him honour, attempted to take the horses from his carriage. ‘No! No! No!’ he exclaimed, ‘I never will let men do the business of horses if I can help it. ”

“ The character and services of O'Connell have never been fully appreciated in this country. Engrossed in our own peculiar interests, and in the plenitude of our self-esteem; believing that "we are the people, and that wisdom will perish with us," that all patriotism and liberality of feeling are confined to our own territory, we have not followed the untitled Barrister of Derrynane Abbey, step by step, through the development of one of the noblest experiments ever made for the cause of liberty and the welfare of man. ”

“ O’Connell wrote to the electors on behalf of Mr. Raphael; and, on the 10th of June, Mr. O’Connell received through his son, likewise a member of parliament, the first sum of £1,000. On the 21st he was returned; and, Mr. O’Connell, apparently in the prospect of a petition, wrote thus to his protégé:—“I am glad to tell you our prospects of success are, I do believe, quite conclusive. If only one liberal is to be returned, you are to be the man. ”

“ In truth, the import of Emancipation was so exaggerated, and its history so warped, that even now at a distance of more than twenty years, both the act and the actors are so misunderstood that it requires no little daring to approach a question involving the sensibilities, prejudices and passions of an entire generation.
A truer appreciation might have given Mr. O'Connell a different and higher destiny. Not alone the boundless exultation of the Catholic but the mortified pride of the baffled Protestant also stamped its influence on his fortunes, prospects and career. ”

“ Surely, surely if merit had fair play, if splendid talents, if indefatigable industry, if great research, if unsullied principle, if a heart full of the finest affections, if a mind matured in every manly accomplishment—in short, if every noble public quality, mellowed and reflected in the pure mirror of domestic virtue, could entitle a subject to distinction in a state, Mr. O'Connell should be distinguished; but it is his crime to be a Catholic and his curse to be an Irishman. ”

“ Ministers were defeated by sixteen on Stanley’s motion about Irish Registration. [2] O’Connell made a most blackguard speech, alluding with wretched ribaldry to the deathbed of Stanley’s mother-in-law, from which he had come to urge his motion, out of deference to those whom he had brought up for it. One of the worst of those disgraceful and stupid brutalities, which will obliterate (if possible) the fame of the great things O’Connell has done in the course of his career. What will Government do upon this? It is impossible for anything to be more embarrassing. ”

“ Is it in human nature, we demand, that hereafter the same enthusiasm should continue available for Mr O'Connell's service, after the transient reaction of spitefulness to the Government shall have subsided, which gave buoyancy to his ancient treason? The chair of a proconsul, the saddle of a pasha—these are golden baits; yet these are below the throne and diadem of a sovereign prince. ”