The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1867-12-31 00:00:00

WHAT THB WANT,_ AND HOW

THEY MEAN TO GET FT.

The New Pork ?ridge of December 13 published the
following declaration of Fenian principles by tho re-
presentative. of the brotherhood in congress adembled :
Cleveland. Ohio: Sept. 7, 1867.
The national character of every people, and the prin.
eiples which govern their action, become of vital import
when the community is pissed, a. it were, on trial be-
fore n the
to hwio.rltil.T.bem‘kni,nd
humidity stronger end more durable than the dlfinh
alynd"winhPaier,icgdevwehloicphin.g""hthe
dosiderstions of interest, should always he directed in
favour of right and justice, sod against wrong and in-
iquity in every form. Head, when an oppreved
nationality endeavour by revolution to asdrt their Maims
to the God-given boon of liberty, it in both expedient
and in entire secordance with the usages of society
that they should Ode on reeved the reasons that impel
theta to resort to snoh means, the objects in view, and
the principles on which they rely to demonstrate tbe
Justine of their sense.
It has been the misfortune of the people of Ireland
that their oppremore have transmitted to the world
nearly all that it has received concerning our history
and character. The victims of a relentless and long'
continued persecution, we have been represented by oar
tyrants in the light best calculated to sal:relieve their own
,
interests, end to amen the illegality of their usurped
authority over, people who, though cut down by armed
force, and for 700 years trodden under foot by en un-
scrupulous power, bad never creased to struggle for
their rights, have never for MI instant surrendered their
dein% to that independence which is the true life of a
nation, is slavery, whether voluntary or accepted, Is
its virtual death. Gur history has been falsified, our
sots have been misocrosteued, our motives and "enti-
meets have been misrepresented by the agents of the
power which his profited by our misery nod enslave-
ment, until s large proportion of our fellow men,
viewing um through this distorted medium, 1.11.Ve 031120
to reseed us, as a race, as not only incapable of self-
government, but "ritually unfit to be intruded with the
management of our own affairs. To remove an ides so
erroneous, and to correct an impression no unjust to a
people who hive long and generously sacrificed in the
Gaud of liberty, the congress of the Fenian Brother-
hood, who in this generation represent the nationalists
of Ireland, and embody their aspirations for the free-
dom of their native land, make this declaration of the
principles by which our organisstion is actuated and
guided ; and we dk our fellow-men at large, and per-
tiaularly the friends of freedom everywhere, to rasped
our bonoar ea truthful and liberty-loving men, and to
judge us, not by the miarepreeentations of our enemies,
but by the principles we profess and the ads by which
we prove our edherenos to them.
We believe and declare that freedom—the right to
"life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness"—is
inherent in every creature made in the image and
likeness of God, and that, however individuals, by
crime or violations of the laws passed for the main-
douses and well being of society, may forfeit coy
portion of those rights, the enslavement of a hoed.
generous people, either by foreign power or domestic
tyranny, cannot, under any cirournstanees, be jdtified.
The Grid of nature, in placing between the English and
Irish nations, not only the distinctions marked by
differences of national chardter, but also natural
barriers, which—in spite of special legislation designed
to obliterate the nationality of Ireland—have kept
them sepnrale and distinct as peoples, has written on
imperishable record the claims of our country to inde-
pendent national existence, and made earth end sea the
witnesses to the inviolability of our charter of freedom.
&yen had an• generation of our rec• proved recreant,
and voluntarily agreed to surrender our rights as men,
the limits fixed to human existence, and the utter
inability of man to legislate for anything appertaining
to himself beyond this mortal sphere, are the dal and
testimony set by the Almighty Creator or each of his
creatures, to dark them through all time, that the
inalienable sad indefeasible rights imparted with their
being mast come down to them unisminsbed or noon-
pninid by the follies or the crimes of their predeceseore.
But the title of oar people upon thin point is clear sod
impeachable. Tit. rush over 20 successive generations
they hove never ceased. to protest and struggle against
the plunder of our national rights. From age to age
the legacy of patriotic dint ham been transmitted from
sire to son, and the dungeon, the scaffold, and the
battle-5d4 have proved the fidelity with which the
snored trust has been did:Merged. The Irish people of
to-day are still the custodians of that great trust ;
od, in their noes% the Fenian Brotherhood has been
i,
remised te derai end. with th to et e esseng
achieve, what so hoary of our race have attempted
fore the liberation of our country from the
domination of England. We demand it in the name of
every man of the Irish blood throughout the whole
earth ; and we desire to aeoonsplish it solely for the
benefit of every Iri.hman, without distinction of creed,
or olds, or political idea. We claim the land of our
fathers for the benefit of the people ehnee birthright it
i., who love it with a filial affection, and who, by the
eternal decree of their Maker, have earned, in the
sweat 1 their brows, the riht to live upon, to possess,
and to enjoy it. We seek injury to no man ; our
quarrel is not with any class, but with the Government
which has robbed and murdered our people, and with
those who sustain it in its tyranny and usurprition. If on
our onward march to liberty any such oppose us,
arrayed under the flag of the oppressor—which has been
the symbol of slavery in Ireland, and Is the ensign of
the enemy of liLerty everywhere—on their beads, not
ours, bis the consequences, We ask only justice for
morseled and our kindred; and the vindication of that
Priasiple requires that en alien power shall no longer
be permitted, undisturbed, to devour our substance,
while those who produce it by their toil wither and
pine in bondage, wbirsh at ease destroys their bodies
and debasers their seals. Our motto is, "Ireland—free
end independent," for their own people first, sad the.,
whoa her free will and adieu are untrammeled and
unquestioned, for the freedom, the elevation, and the
happiness of humanity, the world over. In the
language of our executive, "Faction we abhor;
sectionafinm we scorn." We seek all the rights that,
as men, belong to us, sad we seek them for the whole
of oar people • we wake no reservation, we tolerate no
distinction that would divide the trke children of
Ireland.

--
We-IM.° been amused of irreligion, and of seeking to
undermine thom great and moral principles which,
reminding men that their first duty is to their Creator,
underlie and preserve the whole framework of society.
The accusation is untrue and unjust The genius of
the Irish people is essentially religious: their history
Ii a record of enduring faith ; of constancy under
preselection; of the noblest sacrificed cheerfully made in
the sastainment of religion and morality; of tolerance
and charity in the hoar of triumph; and the whole of
our organisation proves that, in this respect, too,
it truly represent, and words with the etsareeter of
our race. Religion—the pure and reverential homage
which man offers to his Maher—we regard as a Mt& •
meat too gamed to be mixed up with the strife of
earthly interests, and we leave it, untouched, between
the conscience of the individual and Him to whom
the tribute is due. Content with the discharge
of the second great duty that devolves on man,
we do not ask of our brother at what altar he worships,
satisfied when he honestly serves Os country, and
iog to his own seise of right the obligations which he
atom can discharge.
Representing the power whieh 15.000,000 of the
Irish people, scattered between the old world and the
new, mast necessarily exercise, if they he true to their
country, we have adopted the alternative of revolution,
because the al to which our kindred are subjected
is become too galling for human endorse**, too degrad-
ing to be submitted to unresistingly by beings endowed
with the attributes of men. Our rights, the possession
of our native soil, are kept from us by fore., by the
power which grained both with armed bands. By force
and arms alone can they be restored to an in their
original Integrity; and by force and sksmOh of our ,
own arms we propose to win them book. The task of
their recovery bWs to us in the first place; and by
our efforts to consolidate and organise our people, we
but record our acceptame of the duty, and our deter-
minatioo to acquit ourselves of it like true men sod
faithful children of our country. Our came is a just
and holy one; it is the struggle of our right agslint
wrong, of freedom against oppression. It is not alone
the same of • natiort striving for its own independence;
1 it is the effort of enslaved humanity to ernangrpaar,
itself from the thraldom and debasement of feudal
tyranny.
The elmatiou of a down-trodden people is • benefit
conferred upon the whole Wilily of nations; and of
none nsight this be said 19080 truly than of Ireland.
which, from her pcwition and reeourees, is capable, if
0008 free, not alone of rendering her own population
happy and prosperous, but of diffusing by example and
iefirtenoe, the spirit of indepondmos throughout the
world, wherever her scattered children are to be found.
As • people, we have ever loved liberty, and
struggled for its attainment; as a people, we are in
favour of liberty to-day, oat in the ungenerous
mine of those who would monopolies it, blessings, to
the exclusion of their fellow men—but liberty lie
univeraal as the beoilleence of the Deity, of which it
is the emanation; as impartial as Bis justice, which
commands that we shall do unto others as we would be
done by. Save this, we desire moth's, for our race or
our country. And, as we hare counneseed this strands,
dete realised to worm 101 l until Reaveto end the pow. r
of our own rlght ors shall have crowned our efforts with
sucems, we ask the lovers of liberty everywhere to existed
to our mime the aid and sympathy which it should
receive from those who profess to be the friend'
of human freedom. We ask them to regard as fairly.
and to judge es, not by the standard of opieime of
any individual, ISUL by our own conduit, end the
official ask and policy of our own elected representa.
three, who ars the only legitimist. exponents of our
sentiment. and principles. And when the hoar to
stroli• shall have arrived, end we eer our fades once
more toward the foe—determined to do or die in the
final effort—in the name of the God of Jostle., whose
inspiration and we invoke for our Cause; for
the sake of our solta=umanity. the advancement of
which we seek ; and by the memory of our martyred
dead, who perished that others might live as frames,
we ask that the greed wishes of all liberty-loving men,
sod especially the aid and intimate of the great
ainagigoo owes, shall be east on the side of liberty.
50 ',swag. is We sinkilai to ',Wit In now osommit
onnahroo. "ma Roos, our torbaset. and nentell