The Portland daily press., 1873-01-04
Daniel O,COnnell.

The subject of Wendell Phillips lecture in the
Army & Navy course last evening, was Daniel
OConnell, the great Irish Agitator. Mr.. Phil
lips said that the relations of England with
ireland were very grave. Prussia with her rigid
military system is dragging US back into feud
alism. France and England have sunk to Sec
ond-rate powers. In the late Franco Prussian
war where was England, the country of public
opinion? Eight years ago the speaker was
hissed in Cooper Institute for saying that Eng
laud had become second-rate power. To-day
it is evident. Her commercial character sets
her back and she don't dare to trust her own
masses. Their sour chagrin, their scarcely
concealed discomfort, their ominous muttsrings
appall her. Ireland, mad with seven centuries
of oppression, bides her time. England is
bound over to keep the peace. She submitted
to see Denmark robbed of her history, and in
suited in the face of Europe. Two years ago
Bismarck slapped her in the face. The first
shot she dares to fire in revenge for these in
suits will be the signal for Ireland to stab her
in the back. The poisoned chalice she has been
holding to Ireland's lips. God has handed to
her own. Her condition is the same as ours in
regard to the South. The two great Saxon
nations have this fear in common. For this
reason Froude came to us, thinking we might
understand, from our situation, that the Irish
difficulty was inevitable. Froude tries to be
impartial, bu it is impossible for any English
man, as 1t is for any American, to judge an
other nation fairly The very tones that come
from their llps are full of infinite, Though un
conscious, scorn Mr. Froude, in the course Of
five eloquent and beautiful lectures, found no
Irishman to praise. If there be disputed
point in history, he chooses the story that
blackens Ireland. He is inconsistent with him
self. In 1903 he represents Ireland's popula-
ton IS SOC, 900. In 1641 it treblss. 4 In 1850 he
reduces it to 900, ,000. He represents Ireland as
sending one out of every four inhabitants to
battle with the English. Why, France in her
with Prussia sent but one out of
fifty. But these odd people of Ireland send
one out of four. If this were true it ought to
have spiked every gun and silenced every critic
ever brought against them. In these latter
days Ireland has conquered England, has
brought her to the bar of the. civilized world,
has chained her to the bull ring. Froude has
said that whom nations sin they, are pardoned.
1t is true. The wickedness o. one generation
is the weakness of another. The blackness and
infamy of the English policy toward Ireland is
bearing frui:. The speaker then gave a view
of thefnfamous Irish code, based on the Eng
lish idea that the. land will rule, by which for
three hundred years it was a capital offence to
educate an Irshnan, by which Irishmen were
debarred from the halls Of justice and the
marts of trade, a code so strict that Lord |
Brougham said the wit of the English bar had |
been SO perfect that no 1rishman could lift q |
hand without committing a crime. A Lord
Chancellor of England had said that according |
to the law no Irishman had right to breathe, |
and Montesquieu denounced it as code formed |
by the Devil, written in blood, and deserving |
only of record in hell. This was the code |
against which, according to Mr.. Froude, the |
Irish were in constants rebellion. 3 Thank God |
for it. They would have been race of SPAN
els had they done otherwise than REBEL
Mr. Phillips then described o. 'Connell as the |
inventor of agitation; that agitation which is |
not an appeal to the bullet, but which shapes |
thought into law. the preliminary to all change,
he salt of constitutional government. O'Con-
lell was the man who massed 1000, 900 of peo-
Die into thunderbolt and hurled-it at England;
he man who took as his motto the principle |
hat nothing morally wrong is politically |
light; the man who set on foot the most extern
i've, costly and thorough agitation recorded in |
history; the man who united the personal pres
nee of Webster with the magnetism of Clay, |
md the brain of Sam. Adams; the man, the
'cean of whose philanthropy knew no shore.
His career was traced from the rebellion of I
L79S. when English soldiers tossed babes from
bayonet to bayonet, and Peel added to the al
ready infamous code the old curfew law inten-
sified, up to the time when the proudest nation
in Europe, with the Iron Duke at its head,
surrendered to the eloquent Irishman. The
sketch of O'Connell was eloquent vivid and
picturesque, and worthy the tongue of the
chief of American orators. |