DANIEL O'CONNELL 1775-1847 The great Irish agitator was born in Cahirciveen, County Kerry, Ireland, on August 6, 1775; his death took place when he had reached his seventy-third year, at Genoa, on the coast of Italy. His parents destined him for the priesthood, and sent him to the Jesuits' college at St. Omer for instruction; but after he had finished his course, he announced that he preferred the law of man to the priesthood as a profession. To the Middle Temple therefore he went, and after duly completing his terms there, was admitted to the Irish bar in 1798, at which date it had been just opened to the Catholics. He had great powers as an advocate, and his skill and versatility in conducting defences before the Crown courts caused him sometimes to be charged with inconsistencies. But his extraordinary merits could not be obscured; and in 1831 he received his silk gown. Long before this, however, he had become famous elsewhere than in forensic matters. He was not satisfied to be the foremost advocate of the Irish bar; it was not long before he had won the reputation of being also the leader of the Irish Catholics in the political field. He was resolved to obtain for his countrymen admission to all the rights of other British subjects; and he was chiefly instrumental in forwarding the results obtained by the Catholic Board and the Catholic Association. All this was not accomplished without animated personal collisions; and he was challenged for having applied the epithet of "beggarly corporation to the corporation of Dublin, which opposed the Catholic claims. He met his antagonist, and killed him. He was subsequently challenged by Mr. Peel, at the time when the latter was Secretary for Ireland; but two attempts to fight a duel were frustrated by the authorities. The repeal of the union and the removal of Catholic disabilities were the two measures to the securing of which he devoted his main energies. Before the relief bill was passed he had expressed the opinion that it was possible for him to sit in Parliament; and he had accordingly been elected to the seat for County Clare; but he made no attempt to take his seat until after the bill had been passed. He was then required to take the usual oaths of allegiance, supremacy, and abjuration; and when he claimed the benefit of the bill, it was decided that he was not entitled to the advantage of its provisions; and he was not permitted to sit. But upon being re-elected, the prohibition was removed. In 1831 he was elected to sit for Kerry; in the same year he was arrested for sedition, or the suspicion of it, together with several others, but the prosecution came to nothing, and all were released. In 1841 he headed the repeal agitation, and during the two following years he promoted vast mass-meetings; in 1843 he was again arrested; but in 1844 the sentence which had been passed upon him was reversed. O'Connell's natural manner of speaking, in accordance with his nature and temperament, was bold and aggressive; but he could at will adopt the most suave and cautious methods. In short, he was a master of the oratorical and rhetorical arts; and his indomitable courage and persistence rendered him a most formidable parliamentary debater. The speech "On the Rights of Catholics" is a good example of his oratory in the cause to which he devoted the greatest efforts of his life. I ON THE RIGHTS OF CATHOLICS Delivered at a meeting in Dublin, February 23, 1814 WISH to submit to the meeting a resolution, calling on the different counties and cities in Ireland to petition for unqualified emancipation. It is a resolution which has been already and frequently adopted; when we have persevered in our petitions, even at periods when we despaired of success; and it becomes a pleasing duty to present it, now that the symptoms of the times seem so powerfully to promise an approaching relief. Indeed, as long as truth or justice can be supposed to influence man; as long as man is admitted to be under the control of reason; so long must it be prudent and wise to procure discussions on the sufferings and the rights of the people of Ireland. Truth proclaims the treacherous iniquity which has deprived us of our chartered liberty; truth destroys the flimsy pretext under which this iniquity is continued; truth exposes our merits and our sufferings; whilst reason and justice combine to demonstrate our right-the right of every human being to freedom of conscience-a right without which every honest man must feel that to him, individually, the protection of government is a mockery, and the restriction of penal law a sacrilege. Truth, reason, and justice are our advocates; and even in England let me tell you that those powerful advocates have some authority. They are, it is true, more frequently resisted there than in most other countries; but yet they have some sway among the English at all times. Passion may confound and prejudice darken the English understanding; and interested passion and hired prejudice have been successfully employed against us at former periods; but the present season appears singularly well calculated to aid the progress of our cause, and to advance the attainment of our important objects. I do not make the assertion lightly. I speak after deliberate investigation, and from solemn conviction, my clear opinion that we shall, during the present session of Parliament, obtain a portion, at least, if not the entire, of our emancipation. We cannot fail, unless we are disturbed in our course by those who graciously style themselves our friends, or are betrayed by the treacherous machinations of part of our own body. Yes, everything, except false friendship and domestic treachery, forebodes success. The cause of man is in its great advance. Humanity has been rescued from much of its thraldom. In the states of Europe, where the iron despotism of the feudal system so long classed men into two speciesthe hereditary masters and the perpetual slaves; when rank supplied the place of merit, and to be humbly born operated as a perpetual exclusion-in many parts of Europe man is reassuming his natural station, and artificial distinctions have vanished before the force of truth and the necessities of governors. France has a representative government; and as the unjust privileges of the clergy and nobility are abolished; as she is blessed with a most wise, clear, and simple code of laws; as she is almost free from debt, and emancipated from odious. prejudices, she is likely to prove an example and a light to the world. In Germany the sovereigns who formerly ruled at their free will and caprice are actually bribing the people to the support of their thrones, by giving them the blessings of liberty. It is a wise and glorious policy. The prince regent has emancipated his Catholic subjects of Hanover, and traced for them the grand outlines of a free constitution. The other states of Germany are rapidly following the example. The people, no longer destined to bear the burdens only of society, are called up to take their share in the management of their own concerns, and in the sustentation of the public dignity and happiness. In short, representative government, the only rational or just government, is proclaimed by princes as a boon to their people, and Germany is about to afford many an example of the advantages of rational liberty. Anxious as some kings appear to be in the great work of plunder and robbery, others of them are now the first heralds of freedom. ON THE SALES OF PUBLIC LANDS Delivered in answer to Mr. Webster's first speech on Mr. Foote's resolution in the Senate of the United States, on January 21, 18301 M R. PRESIDENT: When I took occasion, two days ago, to throw out some ideas with respect to the policy of the government, in relation to the public lands, nothing certainly could have been further from my thoughts than that I should have been compelled again to throw myself upon the indulgence of the Senate. Little did I expect to be called upon to meet such an argument as was yesterday urged by the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Webster]. Sir, I questioned no man's opinions; I impeached no man's motives; I charged no party, or State, or section of country, with hostility to any other, but ventured, as I thought in a becoming spirit, to put forth my own sentiments in relation to a great national question of public policy. Such was my course. The gentleman from Missouri [Mr. Benton], it is true, had charged upon the Eastern States an early and continued hostility towards the West, and referred to a number of historical facts and documents in support of that charge. Now, sir, how have these different arguments been met? The honorable gentleman from Massachusetts, after deliberating a whole night upon his course, comes into this chamber to vindicate New England; and instead of making up his issue with the gentleman from Missouri, on the charges which he had preferred, chooses to consider me as the author of those [The following is the resolution of Mr. Foote: Resolved, That the committee on public lands be instructed to inquire and report the quantity of the public lands remaining unsold within each State and Territory, and whether it be expedient to limit, for a certain period, the sales of the public lands to such lands only as have heretofore been offered for sale, and are now subject to entry at the minimum price. And, also, VOL. II.-7 97 whether the office of surveyor-general and some of the land offices may not be abolished without detriment to the public interest; or whether it be expedient to adopt measures to hasten the sales, and extend more rapidly the surveys of the public lands." Mr. Webster's answer to this speech is widely known as his famous "Reply to Hayne."EDITOR.] charges, and losing sight entirely of that gentleman, selects me as his adversary, and pours out all the vials of his mighty wrath upon my devoted head. Nor is he willing to stop there. He goes on to assail the institutions and policy of the South, and calls in question the principles and conduct of the State which I have the honor to represent. When I find a gentleman of mature age and experience of acknowledged talents, and profound sagacity, pursuing a course like this, declining the contest offered from the West, and making war upon the unoffending South, I must believe, I am bound to believe, he has some object in view which he has not ventured to disclose. Mr. President, why is this? Has the gentleman discovered in former controversies with the gentleman from Missouri that he is overmatched by that senator? And does he hope for an easy victory over a more feeble adversary? Has the gentleman's distempered fancy been disturbed by gloomy forebodings of "new alliances to be formed" at which he hinted? Has the ghost of the murdered Coalition come back, like the ghost of Banquo, to "sear the eye-balls of the gentleman," and will it not “down at his bidding"? Are dark visions of broken hopes, and honors lost forever, still floating before his heated imagination? Sir, if it be his object to thrust me between the gentleman from Missouri and himself, in order to rescue the East from the contest it has provoked with the West, he shall not be gratified. Sir, I will not be dragged into the defence of my friend from Missouri. The South shall not be forced into a conflict not its own. The gentleman from Missouri is able to fight his own battles. The gallant West needs no aid from the South to repel any attack which may be made on them from any quarter. Let the gentleman from Massachusetts controvert the facts and arguments of the gentleman from Missouri, if he can-and if he win the victory, let him wear the honors; I shall not deprive him of his laurels. The gentleman from Massachusetts, in reply to my remarks on the injurious operations of our land system on the prosperity of the West, pronounced an extravagant eulogium on the paternal care which the government had extended towards the West, to which he attributed all that was great and excellent in the present condition of the new States. The language of the gentleman on this topic fell upon my ears like the almost for |