The Madisonian. [volume] (Washington City [i.e. Washington, D.C.]) 1837-1845, 1845-01-31

sovereign authority may be precipitated TO the earth
by the strong hand of armies and fleets, the legitimate
forms OF pre-existing government may disappear De-
fore the scepre of the conqueror the general people,
amidst the carnage of lost battle field, the rum and
desoaton of their houses and lands the diseases and
famine Of protracted war, and the thousand cruetes
perpetral ed upon a conquered soil by brutal soldery
may humbly sue for peace, but the solemn laws OF
nature, the voice Of reason, and the argument OF
right and the eternal principles of God all declare that
usurpation, tyranny, and he monstrous honors of
extermnating wars, cannot destroy the sovereign
strength of nations hfe, which Almighty Power
alone give, and the same Almighty Power alone
take away. The will of a nation may be oppress-
ed and denied utterance; il may be apparently lost
when he conqueror standing the door Of the capitol
surrounded by his followers, by fraud compshes or
by force demands the registry of edcts which SUIT his
purposes. The forms Of sovereign existence may be
thus temporarily sacrificed by the unwilling act of peo-
pie most interested in their preservation. But humans
y, civilization, Christianity, and reason equally assert
that such act not binding even upon the person
who commits II, much less upon the long succession
oil their posterty, whose ndeteasible rights, not de-
rived from man, but from God, cannot destroyed,
however impaired, by the fraud or force of the OPP
pressor. The sovereign will OF nation may be put,
by irresistible circumstances, into allegiance 1t may
exist for long period of time in the body oil the
tlon as insenslby the Promehean fire in the bo-
som OF the cold and fnty rock, but let the kindred
steel be applied of a successful effort to achieve in-
dependence, and the nation again stands forth, re-
splendan with no new form attribute Of sovereign
ty but reassertng its old and uDextingushable pow
Of national lte presents itself to the world, with
the dignity and right acquired from nature and God,
through ages STAMPED upon its brow These this
Association conceves, the doctrines of all humane
men; they are, at least the doctrines of all men who
are truly republican in spirit If on tomorrow the
dismembered fragments of unhappy Poland, torn
asunder by the "unhallowed" hands of the ruthless
nt her INV luoOa ImD
event be again united, and Poland were to proclaim
herself an independent natoH her right 10 do so, not
arising from that act of proclamation, but from the
lndesructibe character of sovereign life could not
be questioned. 1t would not be the Poland of to-day,
but the Poland of . thousand years past. These, we
assert are the first among the cardinal principles OF
the laws OF nations, and they apply with sngularIy
convincing force 10 the case of Ireland.
Thus the Association contends that when Ireland
presents herself to the American people for the sup
port which their moral influence may give her in her
movement for Independence, that she occupies in re-
ference to her oppressor, the British Government
precisely the same position maintained towards that
government by the American Colonies just before
the Revolutionary war, with the powerful additional
TACT that she Is OF right sovereign Power. In TINS
view if she chooses to dispense with supreme exec
utlve power, and to pay allegiance to the British
crown, she does not choose TO be denied any more
tnan the American colonies did supreme legislative
Department She chooses that her revenues shall
be raised and that her trade shall be conducted in
way most conducive to her interests and that her taxes
shall be laid and collected in a mode least burden
some to her people Every people admitted to be an
integral portion of the States whether recognised as
such by actual condescension and favor in which
their situation at the time gave them voice by
their own original or subsequent consent, have
right to demand thus much of every government
But this Association begs leave to examine briefly
into the history OF Ireland to discover If possible at
what period her rights of sovereignty have been lost
About the latter part of the twelfth century England
made the first important effort towards the conquest
OF Ireland, conquest marked at every sep by no
voluntary submission on the part of any portion OF
her people, but the most desperate resistance, anc
conducted amidst all the horrors Of the faggot and
the sword. For four hundred years, with short
spaces of breathing time, this spirit of conquest was
both insidousy aud vehemently prosecuted, but the
first quarter OF the seventeenth century had arrived
before the English power had ma stored even moety
OF tue Irish territory. At this time in the reign Of
James lst the statute Of 1919 $50 called passed
by the English Parliament act Of favor towards
the Irish, by which the Irish, previously regarded as
enemies Qheir country never recognised by any pub
lie integral portion Of the British Empire }
were then regarded as slaves. This IS the PLAIN
meaning Of that statute although almost every pro.
mise made to Ireland, and almost every advantage
pretended to be conferred her under that statute
were shamelessly violated. For the following eighty
years the conclusion of which brings TO the end of
the 18th century, whether during the reign of the
House Of Stewart, or during the protectorate OF
Cromwell did Ireland by word or deed, nor did the
English perform any act TO destroy the individuality
of Ireland as a nation. The Irish people on the
trary still retained some of the ferns, least which
a sovereign power has alone the right to exercise
They still possessed their Independent Legislature
And when James the second Of England was driven
from his throne by that people, and William Of Orange
invested with the sceptre Of royal authority, the
dehroned King fled TO Ireland, and the Irish rallied
around him the Irish Hing, and raised armies and
fought many bloody battles in his cause Among
others they fought the great battle in which William
Ill driven with defeat and disgrace from before
Limerick and which led to the ratification of the
Tenn treaty of Limerick, that may well be regarded
as an instrument not ordinary IN is provisions and
INTENT but of acred compact between the nations Of
Ireland and of England. After the treaty of Lime
rick had been ratified the Irish laid down their arms
and the nobility, gentry aud Commonaty Of Ireland
retired TO their homes IN peace But again was Ire
land doomed to be persecuted by The treachery OF
the British Government. For until the close OF the
18th century, for more than hundred years, IL seems
that the successive English administrations Wed with
each other IN oursgng adlcle alter article OF
solemn treaty stpulations and in endeayorng to de-
base the Irish character.
To accomplish this they refused all means Of educa.
lion to the larger portion of the people, and by the
most iniqutous system of brides, favors and indul
gencles, and OF the most cruel treatment, by turns
both Of Catholic and Protestant they endeavored 10
onent civil broils and deep rooted party preudces.
After having actually striyen with their own " red
right hands" to extermlpae the Irish people by fire
and sword, frightened from that course at last by
their monsrocities, it appears now to have been
their policy 10 divide and conquer" TO sow the BIT
ter seeds Of intestine euds with the well considered
hope that Rel gious and political fanatcism and re-
yenge united, might effect the result OF so dsuning
Ireland that her people might never again consolidate
into nation, with one purpose OF Independent &C.
ton.
The year 1898 witnessed the close Of Wolf Tones
struggle and although he was defeated in that enter
prise so honorable to his character and glorious to
bis name this Association assert it fact that not
even an English historian will deny, that large ma
orty Of the Irish with this dlstngu shed man,
through all his movements, in spirit and principle
The first year of the nineteenth century was made
rkabe for the contamination Of the act of Union
BY fraud, by bribery and by blood, the independent