Litchfield enquirer., 1867-03-14
A. Parallel.

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 Should the United States ever become engaged in a war with Great Britain, we should undoubtedly make an attempt to revolutionize Ireland, In, such: ease, the Protestant, rAnglo-Saxon element in that country, would certainly be hostile so5 us ;; the Celtic, Roman. Catholic population would as certainly be in our favor ; and we should probably declare universal suffrage, and the confsessi6r1 of the; property of large English land holders ass our only chance of suceess.: IL Would sanynAnerican of any party oppose such policy D asD.21. l 5.5.
 Let us now suppose that Ireland had been State in our Onion under Q govern ment similar to- that with which she was cursed at the time of her Union with Great Britain. at the beginning of the pres ent century; that under her constitution all Catholics had been disfranchised, sub- iected to severe penal laws, obliged to sup port an odious State Church; the whole DO. litical power being in tho hands of the Anglo Saxon, Protestant few, over the Celtic, Catholic many. Let us further suppose that much dissatisfaction at this state of things had arisen in other States of the Union notwithstanding that they. were themselves Protestant and Anglo-Eaxon; that in order to perpetuate their threaten ed supremacy. the ruling class in Ire land, had attempted 4 secession, and the establishment of an independent government; and that g war followed in which nearly every Irish Protestant and Anglo-Saxon fought against us, while such Catholics and gelts as had opportunity, fought for us. At the conclusion of this war, had Andrew Johnson been President of the United States, he would have en- deavored to reconstruct the Union without the consent of Congress. He would, we think, have overthrOwnith the penal laws and the State church, but wonld have left all Catholics disfranohised, restoring political power to the class which had heretofore monopolizsd it. This class would, per- haps, have SO used their. newly regainsd power that the trial of a Protestant any where in Ireland for the murder of Cath olic would have been farce. At this point any patriotic Congress would most cer- tainly have interfered ;; whereupon the Democratic party would have come forward in support of President Johnson with. the following propositions -'o 2 = .' '.s IA ~---
 "America is Anglo Saxon and Protest tant; it is lowering our race and our reli- gion to place us on equal footing with Celts and Catholics. Moreover, the popu- lation proposed to be -enfranchised is too poor and too ignorant to deserve that priv ilege But, above all, the. measures pro- posed are unconstitutiomak The war is oyer. Ireland is not a conquered province, but State in our Union and the Irish. people lately in insurrection" (meaning,o course, the Anglo Saxons and Protestants whom the law has always recognized as the Irish people) having laid down their arns,. and fully resumed their duties as citizens of the United States, there is no obstacle in the way of the harmonious working of our republican institutions, save the factious course of mutilated Congress. 2" ,Ess~e1
 To such reasoning who can doubt that the American people would reply substan- tially'as'follows: .e~5A Hs-
 "We are, it is true, Anglo Saxon and Protestant; but our faith in our race and our religion is not of the kind which fears liberty and equality. It is, also true that the population we propose to enfranchise, are, through the fault of Irish Protestant ism, poor and ignorant; but it does not seem to us that they are to be made other wise by placing them 0once morsin the power of that very class which has kept them in poverty and ignorance. '1Moreev4 CT, they are loyal and Irish Protestants are disloyal; we are therefore inclined to think them the less dangerous of the two classes. As regards the last objection we have al- ways noticed that long after the opponents of any great measure are silenced upon it's justice and expedisncy, they manage to make stand upon it's unoenstitutionalty.
 We see nothing, however, contrary to our fundamental law in the action proposed.
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